Too bad Seth didn't consult one of the dozens of official and unofficial guides to Disney World before embarking on this post-Baudrillardian quest. I'm no Disney-apologist, but there's plenty to do in Epcot besides corporate titillation. Mission: Space, while claustrophobic (to me), offers some of the excitement missing from "The Land," and Test Track and Body Wars are both recommended. Not to mention that generally the most praised exhibit (ride? installation?) in Epcot is the flight simulator, Soarin', which I found to be exhilarating.

All that said - it would really be criminal if Seth took his five days at Disneyworld and didn't actually get a chance to observe the simulacra in full affect. Disney has been condemned for many things (at times, the condemnation itself seems tiring and if Seth intends to include lines like "...I discover that it's a vague, aimless snooze," he better make his own criticisms more than just a "vague, aimless snooze") and new condemnations should ideally be insightful - or at least new.

Disney as zeitgeist has had more deconstructions than a Milton text -- Slate should offer something more substantive than the Arcades project revisited... or at least something more entertaining.

That's what I thought, too--he left out (or just completely missed!) all the best parts of Epcot.

I'm not a Disney freak, but my family tends to take a trip there about once a decade, and my Dad invariably has a conference there every third year or so, and he and my mother will take a grandchild or two along with them. So we're not novices, but we're not at the level of blind adulation.

So a few things jumped to mind:

• Did Mr. Stevenson (a man whose articles I usually enjoy reading) do no research at all on how to plan his day out? The Birnbaum WDW Without Kids book would have immediately steered him towards things he might have found interesting.
  
• Why did he skip the rides that I'm pretty convinced were installed to improve/broaden the Epcot experience?
  
• If Mr. Stevenson is staying "deep" on campus, why did he drive to Epcot?
• Did he not take advantage of his hotel's concierge to tip him off onto the better attractions?
  

All of this says to me the Slate editors assigned him this job, so he let someone else do the planning and is just along for the ride as it were. If he were going to other countries, instead of just the World Pavilion (and of course it's nothing like going to Europe, Asia or Africa, *duh*), would he have done no research of his own? Or is he so determined not to enjoy himself that he's just wandering aimlessly?

Because that's pointless - when you plan a Disney vacation, it's like planning a military campaign - getting reservations for meals, figuring out what rides to hit when, scheduling breaks so you can use "Extra Magic Hours". If you plan wisely, there's lots of fun to be had, even for adults on their own. But you do have to put some preparation into your time there to get the most out of it. You don't have to be scheduled to the minute, but you should have a rough idea of what you want to do before you step foot into the park.

My family doesn't go to Disney for the breath-taking, unique experience. We go for the incredible customer service (which he already seems to have glossed over), the variety of things to do (we aren't attached at the hip as a family unit 24/7), and the nice hotels. The rides and attractions are fun, but mostly we go because if you have the funds to go to one of the nicer on-campus hotels, you pretty much have a vacation that's got something for everyone...even the terminally grouchy...

gee wiz what's a Baudrillardian

I second all your comments, Chasmosaur. As Mr. Stevenson points out, Disney World is twice the size of Manhattan. It seems to me that if Mr. Stevenson were touring Manhattan in a similar manner, he would have walked along the edge of Central Park only to complain that it wasn't Yellowstone. He wouldn't have seen the Statue of Liberty or the museums, having never done the necessary research to know the sights to see.

I've visited WDW twice as an adult without kids present; I'm no Disney-phile. I do remember feeling like it was more commercialized and corporate than it felt in my youth. A quick conversation with my parents confirmed, however, that it had just as much corporate branding when I was there as a kid and teen. WDW just incorporates it relatively artfully into the experience, versus the blatant advertising found at other theme parks. Thus, as a child, I didn't notice it at all. As an adult (with cynical adult eyes), it was noticeable. Still, I'd have the GM Test Track at WDW over the GM random assorted car display found at my local theme park any day.

You all bring up good points, but maybe you haven't been reading Slate very long? If he had actually enjoyed his visit to Epcot, it would have violated all principles of the Slate "formula" for writing an article.

See Slate's bread & butter is to take any subject- religion, politics, pop culture... and put either a humorous or cynical spin on the subject matter. It doesn't have to be well-researched, well-written, or any of the qualities you'd look for with other news providers. It just has to have an eye-catching headline, followed by a few pages of cynical author opinion.

Given the above, the main reason I chose to read the article is because I expected a good lampooning of the Disney experience. I agree with the rest of you that he didn't put maximum effort into writing this review of Epcot, and therefore, the lampooning didn't come across as very witty or original. Maybe he was tired, who knows?

I think for future installments he should shy away from belittling frazzled moms and fussy children, and focus more on the actual Disney product/experience. These articles could actually benefit someone if he bothers to put more effort into the exercise.

I have to agree with everyone else here. I count three major flaws with this guys approach to this:

a) Ditch the car. Why did you rent it anyways? Take the boat or trams to anywhere in the park.

b) Didn't stay for the fireworks. IMHO its the only decent bit about Epcot

c) There are actually rides at epcot. Some of them pretty darn good.

And I am going to add one more for good measure.

d) Did you eat anywhere at epcot? No comment on the food?

By all accounts he spent maybe two or three hours at epcot based on his article. Did Slate pay for a full day of this? I hope not.

Body Wars (and the entire Wonders of Life pavilion) have been indefinitely closed due to aging, expense, and lack of sponsorship. Supposedly, Body Wars does open during peak periods, but in the dozens of times I've been at EPCOT over the past ten years, I've never caught it open.

Not to nitpick, but Soarin is not the flight simulator ride. You mean Mission Space. Don't do this if you geta bit wonky with motion sickness. It'll get ya...

steve44122:

gee wiz what's a Baudrillardian

Jean Baudrillard was a French culture theorist most famous for his work on the concept of the simulacra. He also had a soft spot for Disney. Check out this essay by him: <link>

Even when he's making trite observations, he's making them in clever ways. I find him a blast to read.

Its a portmanteau of "Simulacrum" and "Jean Baudrillard" (a promiment semioticist). The person who posted it is trying to impress us with his lexicon of ostentatious erudition.

I, too, can do $3 words.

You know B-Man, you're right. I think I was just startled to see relatively sloppy reporting from Seth Stevenson (who does put a fair amount of thought into his "Ad Critic" series) that I forgot this was how Slate approached things ;)

Thanks of the benefit of the doubt, Cranky1000, that I may have been comparing very specific writing on the topic of Disney with Seth's article, and not trying to impress anyone with a "lexicon of ostentatious erudition." I even posted a link to an essay by Baudrillard on the topic of Disney, so people can compare for themselves. Sorry you feel so insecure about yourself, though, that anything you need to look up in Wikipedia must be someone showing off.

Blah blah blah French cynicism of American exceptionalism.

Going to Baudrillard is so... standard that it just misses the cultural hypocrisy of it all. Its not like people in Europe don't enjoy a bit of roller coaster escapism. Have you ever been to the Asterix theme park? It's a blast!

I thought the original reply "what the heck is a Baudrillian" was dead on. What the heck indeed?

To be a bit more honest, I'm being unfair to direct my ire at you, landlubbar, the whole choice of Seth Stevenson to go to Disney is just a ridiculous choice by Slate that shows their obvious intellectual bias towards this type of phony hermeneutics. I can practically hear the Seth's college sophmore year book report-style essay:

"So the parallels between the shopping mall, television, and superhighways are many with the realm of the gaze, prevalance of glass, and illusion of uninterrupted flow. And that's what I did on my post-modern summer vacation, the end."

Gah! Stevenson:

1) Can't you think a thought that hasn't been thought already by someone smarter, more interesting (and Frencher) than you?

2) Your doofy itinerary requires you to admit that your dreadful lack of planning for this trip is not academic purity, but pure laziness.

3) Use more $3 words. I dare you! Here are some that work well for Disney: Anthropomorphization, Experientialism, Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (I admit that this word does not apply, I deliberately used Wikipedia to find a long word, just so you have the smug satisfaction of being right, lumbarrubadub. )

Going to Disney without advanced planning compares to, I don't know...attending a sporting event without knowing the rules? ordering an invasion of another country without being sure of the objective?

Disney needs planning, especially now that they have a meal package, which basically means all of the table service places are booked 6 months in advance. At the very least, have a strategy for moving through the parks (my favorite: cut to the left upon entering - most people are right-handed and will therefore head in that direction).

I did not go to WDW until I was in college, and have gone nearly a dozen times since then, with significant other, with parents, siblings, and finally with children. It's never a bad trip, and the park's constancy allows for points of reference.

Take a little time to plan the park, and you'll have a much better time inside it, rather than being forced to cut down all the tourists.