With its bright colors and fairy-tale stories, The Magic Kingdom was designed to bring out the child in all of us. Epcot, on the other hand, seems to have been designed for a more adult sensibility. Here education is just as important as entertainment, and the simple pleasures of a basic ride like Dumbo have been replaced by more complex and informative attractions.

In Epcot, table service restaurants almost outnumber the fast food joints, and shopping still means more than picking out a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Here some attractions deal with important issues like our dwindling energy supply, how to feed a growing population, and even where babies come from. Clearly, this ain't Fantasyland.

That is not to say that there's nothing here that will appeal to a toddler. The fish in The Living Seas, the dinosaurs in The Universe of Energy, the live entertainment in world showcase; all are popular with kids. But be aware that young children may prefer to take Epcot in smaller doses, since there aren't as many ways to release their excess energy here, which may lead to restlessness and boredom.

And children aren't the only ones who may, at first, be intimidated by the sheer scale of the place. Epcot is HUGE. You could take all of the areas in The Magic Kingdom that are accessible on foot and splash them down in just the World Showcase lagoon. (The World Showcase Promenade, around the lagoon, is 1.3 miles around. The Walt Disney World Railroad, which encircles the Magic Kingdom and encompasses large areas you can't reach on foot, like The Rivers of America, is only 1.5 miles around.) So be ready to walk, and be sure to wear good, comfortable shoes.

Epcot is really two parks in one, with a shape like an hourglass or figure "8". The lower half of the glass is Future World, with the funnel shaped Entrance plaza feeding into two concentric circles: the two inner half circles of Innoventions, and the outer half circles of large, subject oriented pavilions. The upper half of the hour glass is World Showcase, with its individual "countries" arranged in a roughly circular pattern around the World Showcase Lagoon.

The Entrance Plaza

The parking lot trams, monorail from the TTC, and resort busses all bring guests to The Entrance Plaza, Epcot's version of Main Street's Town Square, but without the quaintness (for information on getting to Epcot, as well as the automatic turnstile system, see this previous feature, Getting There, Getting In. Most of Epcot's basic services are here but, like all of Epcot, they're rather spread out.