Spaceship Earth Wand or No Wand

[Amy]

As for the wand, was the "EPCOT" and "2000" composed of tons of blinking lights?

Here's a link to an interesting article...http://www.yesterland.com/icontower.html It mentioned that there were 250,000 shimmering metallic eye-catchers used to spell “Epcot” The nighttime photo shows how it was lit up...

[MadEye]

There's an idea, they can move all those things and put them somewhere...maybe in River Country since that is collecting dust bunnies...

Alas that can't happen. The wand is scrap metal in the dump somwhere... Would be freaky looking though.

No way any of it ended up at Mouse Surplus?

Unless someone there was dumb enough to buy some twisted, dent and unrecognizable scrap metal, I doubt it. Maybe a few of the red, reflective things from 2000 and Epcot but I doubt it.

BTW. How big does everyone here think the star at the top of the wand was. I can tell you it was huge. They were taking it down while I was in Monorails and the top of the star was higher than the top of the Monorails while on the Epcot beam. A lot higer.

[boilerbabe]

Gosh, looking back at my photos, I don't see any with the 2000 sign! I just have some with the wand saying "Epcot". Guess I didn't like it even then, I just didn't know it yet!

It's o.k. Amy if you and your mom have your pics. on the "tombstones" how could you have known what they had in store for the entrance to Epcot?! DH and I thought about doing it briefly b/c all of the pavers were taken. I was so sad. But, we decided not to do the picture in the end.

[Amy]

BTW. How big does everyone here think the star at the top of the wand was. I can tell you it was huge. They were taking it down while I was in Monorails and the top of the star was higher than the top of the Monorails while on the Epcot beam. A lot higer.

Well, the article I found with the pictures said the largest letter in EPCOT was 36' tall and the star looks a little smaller, so I would guess the star was about 30' tall maybe?

[Len90]

Wow thanks for posting that refresher article Amy. I needed to be reminded of that hideous thing and all of its components. I do remember that it was the only theme park structure to have a blinking red airplane light above it. It was "cleverly" placed as the blinking light on top of the shimmering star. I have yet to understand why Disney invested so much money in that hand. It was never a great idea in the first place.

[Amy]

Wow thanks for posting that refresher article Amy. I needed to be reminded of that hideous thing and all of its components. I do remember that it was the only theme park structure to have a blinking red airplane light above it. It was "cleverly" placed as the blinking light on top of the shimmering star. I have yet to understand why Disney invested so much money in that hand. It was never a great idea in the first place.

I agree! It must have been something that looked really good on paper and they thought, "Why not?!" Or maybe...they got a government grant to put up the most hideous structure they could ever imagine and pass it off as a "great addition" to EPCOT?

[greendoor678]

I thought the wand was ok but l'm glad it has been removed. In fact, I don't know if I would have noticed that it was missing without reading this!

[wdwparksgal]

Sigh. I loved the wand... and when it was the millennium the year "2000" sign. The Epcot sign was awfully nice and sparkly, too, but it was really special when the sign was the year 2000. Spaceship Earth just looks..... bare, to me, without the wand. I have some good pictures of the wand from different angles, which I am thankful for, but it seems that the ball would look less like a golf-ball and have more interest with Mickey's hand and the sign. At night, it was spectacular. The lights sparkled and was a real eye-catcher. It is missed.

[dwellsbct]

I am glad the wand is gone!!! I put it right up there with the "Pepto Bismol Castle" That was ugly too!!! ( remember that??? UGH!!!!)

[northernmousefan2007]

I like having the wand up and I like having it down. I like it when I go and there are lots of things for me to find that are different then last time I visited, no matter how good, bad, or ugly. I wish they could put it back up for a month and take it back down to really get us talking.

[Len90]

I am glad the wand is gone!!! I put it right up there with the "Pepto Bismol Castle" That was ugly too!!! ( remember that??? UGH!!!!)

Ahh yes the 25th anniversary castle. I would have liked it if they would have painted it silver, but that would have been a bit bright in the Florida sun.

As for the hand, I looked back at some of my pictures and remembered why I hated the hand so much. I would always cut part of it off since I would center the middle point of the ball. The second thing is that the hand would abruptly stop and was really traumatizing to see as you made your way out of FW.

[northernmousefan2007]

good news! no wand on google earth anymore!

[Len90]

good news! no wand on google earth anymore!

It only took them a couple of years to change that. At least they do eventually update their images.

[Amy]

I am glad the wand is gone!!! I put it right up there with the "Pepto Bismol Castle" That was ugly too!!! ( remember that??? UGH!!!!)

That was pretty bright but I do have a really good photo of it. I'm glad they didn't keep it though...

[northernmousefan2007]

What about the stars they put on spaceship earth around where the wand is, does anybody love or hate those?