We recently did Kim Possible’s World Showcase Adventure at Epcot. It’s a terrific new attraction for returning visitors, but we have mixed feelings about it for first time visitors.
The attraction is hard to describe, but at the simplest level it’s a series of scavenger hunts at various pavilions at the World Showcase.
You can have fun completing just one hunt at one pavilion, or do them all. The hunts are enabled by an adapted cell phone (or “Kimmunicator”) which you can pick up at many sites in the World Showcase–see photo for one of the carts from which you can pick them up.
The hunts are enhanced by being developed as a story where Kim and her team help you save the world by completing the activities of the scavenger hunt–which the attraction calls a “mission.” It’s also more than just finding stuff–Epcot does stuff back to you in return!!
If you complete all of the missions at all of the pavilions, there’s also a grand finale reward.
It’s a hoot, we had a ball, and it was the talk of the buses both to and from Epcot.
It’s also a conceptual tour de force, as a mash-up of the Epcot World Showcase physical environment with the Kim Possible plot and characters, all enabled by…an adapted cell phone that Disney provides!
My issue with the attraction for first time visitors who may not ever return (the target audience of this site) is that while it happens in the World Showcase, it isn’t really of the World Showcase.
While playing the Adventure, you won’t be seeing the shows, doing the rides, enjoying the architecture, seeing the films, or exploring the shopping of the pavilions. It’s sorta like seeing a Shakespeare play solely to do a scavenger hunt of unusual words.
Of course, that’s also why it’s such a great attraction for repeat visitors.
Kids on average just aren’t that keen on the World Showcase, and the Kim Possible Adventure gives them a great new thing to do while their parents (in theory) are enjoying the rest of what the pavilions have to offer!
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