Well, it's certainly going to be a challenge making this review entertaining.

Living With The Land

Intro: Opened in 1982 as “Listen to the Land,” “Living with the Land” is a boat ride through the greenhouses of the Land pavilion. For reasons I’ve never been able to understand, the line at this ride has always been long. It gets even longer at mealtime when the pavilion becomes inundated with guests due to the fact that there are no other decent places to eat anywhere in Future World. Those guests are lucky, however, because they get to eat some of the many vegetables grown in the pavilion…or so I’ve been told.

Queue: Long winding line inside the massive atrium of the pavilion. Well within ear (and nose) shot of the food court so if you didn’t eat yet, you’ll be hungry, and if you did eat and are really full, you’ll want to vomit. The lines are made a little shorter these days by the addition of Fastpass and the huge e-ticket attraction Soarin’ opening on the other side of the pavilion…probably not in that order.

Preshow: Who needs a preshow when you’ve got a packed food court within your eyesight? Seriously, the people watching in parts of this line is tremendous. Ever wonder how many licks it takes before a Mickey ice cream bar gets all over a six year old?

Ride: Ahh yes, there is the matter of this ride to discuss. We ride in boats (yes, boats are used in the ride at “The Land,” har har) out of the docks and into a rainforest. The reason we are here is because a violent storm is approaching. Storms, we learn, are not violent to nature. That should make the people of New Orleans feel better. Water is trapped in the soil and nutrients are extracted. If you think this ride sounds boring already, it’s because I forgot to mention the loud thunder in the distance and cool mist doubling as rain. It’s kind of like what happens every fifteen minutes at the Rainforest Café, only without the overpriced mediocre food. We continue through the rainforest, passing by some waterfalls in the process, before entering…the desert!

The sound of thunder has been replaced by the sound of swirling wind. Something tells me that dust storms don’t deliver the kind of nutrients to the soil that the thunderstorm did. See and you thought I wasn’t paying attention before. Anyway, the narrator says something that I don’t care about and we move into the American prairie. The prairie is apparently just a desert that was lucky enough to have some water and nutrients penetrate the surface. Prairie dogs scamper around (they’re audio animatronics, so they don’t scamper, really, as much as they look around from one bolted down position) and some buffalo stand around. “Even the hooves of the mighty buffalo helped produce the rich soil that would one day become home to the American farm” says the narrator. It is so sad that I actually stole that line and wrote it on an essay exam for a class on the American West. Dr. Conover, if you’re reading this, don’t fail me.

The biggest force to affect the land has been humans, we are told. We often fail to realize the impact of farming. The Republican Party is a prime example of that. We move past a farm house and out of the animatronic scene and into a room with some video screens displaying, first, bad farming methods of the early twentieth century and, later, examples of new farming methods in deserts and such. This leads us to the “Systematic Agriculture Production & Research Center” and is the cue for our live, in boat, guide to stand up and begin speaking. Now it’s kind of like the Jungle Cruise only without the bad jokes (except from me, of course.)

We enter a tunnel into the actual greenhouses. I can’t help but wonder just how “real” everything here is. For starters, there does not seem to be that much growing. If this greenhouse really stocks Epcot restaurants with food daily, I don’t know where they are getting it from. Those must be magic tomatoes or something. More likely, this is a “show” greenhouse for the ride and the “real” greenhouse is in another section of the pavilion or just altogether non-existent. That’s all just skepticism by me though.

I should note that they usually rotate the crops, so they may not appear in the order that the do in my home movie. For what it’s worth, this video was taken in late December. We pass by cacao and sweet potatoes, which grow together as one of Epcot’s innovative farming techniques. Next we see rice, which is being grown on terraces along with peanuts. Why? Because peanuts give the rice nitrogen. Duh. We pass by some bananas on our way into a room with some fish tanks. Many of the fish being “grown” at the Land are used in Epcot restaurants, alongside the vegetables. And I always thought the fish came from the Living Seas.

Next we enter the “temperate greenhouse.” The narrator explains the concept of hydroponics, which involves growing plants without soil. This will help grow plants in the desert and assist in feeding the world’s population. The first plant we pass by is cotton. Hold on a second. How is cotton supposed to help feed the world? Next we see the “string garden” of vertically growing strawberries and cucumbers. Next there is lettuce, growing on Styrofoam boards that are floating on a bed of nutrients. No, I’m not making that up. Disease resident eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes assist wasps with pest control. I don’t understand how because we are never actually told. Squash, growing with its roots in the air, is located outside the “biotechnology lab” where NASA is developing plants to be used in space travel as well as crops with disease resistant genes.

Finally we enter another tunnel for the conclusion of the ride. We learn that crops must be handled with care for their journey from field to table. Final words encourage us to truly be “living with the land.”

Trivia: Look up during the rainforest and desert scenes. That bright light in the sky is not heaven but a glimpse of the “Sunshine Seasons” revolving restaurant which occasionally revolves around to give diners a glimpse of the ride. Well, maybe it’s heaven if you really like the hot fudge sundae.

Thoughts: I need to be careful about my use of words like “boring” when I talk about this show. Many different types of people visit Epcot on a daily basis. Many of them embrace the idea of a park where we can learn while being entertained. For some people, agriculture is a passion. Many great American citizens toil on farms for a living so that we can feast on the foods we love. Others find small gardens to be a rewarding hobby and enjoy planting things like tomatoes outside of their very own homes. For them, this ride might be considered one of the best at Epcot. For the rest of us, who do not care about farming, this ride is a boring 13 minute affair that can easily be skipped in favor of something with more inherent entertainment value.

I should point out that there is plenty of potential for education. If you really want to learn about the farming techniques, take the greenhouse tour that is offered. It costs extra but it will be well worth the time if you are interested in agriculture and what the scientists are doing at the pavilion.

Jokes about boredom aside, the ride is actually a fairly well presented introduction to the work being done at The Land. It’s not glamorous; it’s certainly not cute or funny. It is a boat ride about farming. Read that last sentence again. If it sounds boring to you, so will the ride.

Overall Rating: ***