Spaceship Earth

The weather has turned wet. It’s been cloudy all morning, threatening rain, but a steady sprinkle has finally begun. Fortunately only a small portion of the Spaceship Earth queue is outside the protective “umbrella” of the giant sphere, and before long we are unaffected by the rain.

The queue winds us back and forth, closer and closer, until finally we are pointed up and into Spaceship Earth.

One great thing about this queue is that what you see is what you get. There’s no additional wait inside the building. Once you step into Spaceship Earth, you’re at the loading area!

We step onto the circular moving sidewalk and into our ride vehicles. Brandon and I are together for this one.

As we began our ascent into the sphere, we’re told to look at ourselves in an overhead monitor we pass, and our pictures are taken “for use later” in the attraction.

I don’t have the pre-renovation attraction memorized so I can’t spot all of the changes, but our ride through human history and innovation does indeed look fresh and new. Dame Judy Dench does a very good job as the new narrator. The music, however, is forgettable. It doesn’t have the majesty, especially in the conclusion of the ride, that the previous soundtrack did.

At the early scene where cavemen surround a mastodon, the ride comes to a stop. We’re left staring at the fur-clad dudes threatening to spear the giant beast for several minutes, interrupted frequently by an announcement informing us that the ride has stopped temporarily. Thanks for that.

I don’t know how long we are stopped, but it’s long enough that we eventually start yelling at the cavemen just to kill the stupid mastodon already, instead of just standing around making threats.

That’s the only pause in the ride, thankfully.

Our pictures from the front end of the ride do show up later. In the descent part of the ride, color touch screens come to life in our car, asking us a few questions about ourselves. It then displays a short cartoon about what our preferences may look like in the future. It’s kind of cheesy, but one cool effect is that the cartoon figures have our heads, from the pictures that were taken. (Except mine, for some reason.)

This end cartoon is okay, but not really in character with the first part of the attraction. (And not nearly as cool as that awesome former music with Jeremy Irons’ smooth voice talking inspiringly about the future.)

Siemens, the corporate sponsor, has turned the exit area into a pretty cool technology playground. There are several hands-on games. Each showcases Siemens’ products in some way, of course, but they’re still fun.

The place is packed, but Brandon does manage to get a turn at a spy car driving simulator, where the spy car of the future manages to elude the bad guy using a lot of gadgetry Siemens is working on, such as laser windshield wipers, autodrive technology, and collision avoidance.

Brandon manages a “Super Driver” rating on his first try and smiles at me expectantly. I can tell he thinks this means I’ll be more enthusiastic about his getting a driver’s license in a few years.

Sure, kid. Just as soon as they install the autodrive and collision avoidance on our cars.