| Watch the on-ride POV |
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| Statistics | |||||||||||||||
| Manufactured | 1981 | ||||||||||||||
| Designer / calculations | WED Enterprises | ||||||||||||||
| Capacity | 30 boats seating 20 guests each | ||||||||||||||
| Hourly capacity | 2100 riders per hour | ||||||||||||||
| Animatronics | 16 | ||||||||||||||
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Living with The Land is a Boat Ride located at Epcot in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. The ride is a gentle boat cruise about agricultural innovations and future ways to grow greenery and crops. Although the pavilion it is in, The Land, has gone through many changes, the ride itself has only seen a couple of changes from sponsor changes. The ride opened on September 28, 1982, for the park's soft opening.
History
After Epcot was converted from a city into a park concept in the early 1970s, one of the main ideas for the park was to add a pavilion based on agriculture and crops, and nature in general. As the years progressed, the design of the pavilion changed from a small pavilion with an abstract glass structure, a giant pavilion with a giant boat ride and glass structure, and eventually landing to a big pavilion, with a small abstract glass structure on top, a rotating restaurant, and a health-focus show, and a boat ride about agriculture for the final design.
Kraft was the company ultimate chosen to not only sponsor but fund and maintain the pavilion and everything inside. Construction broke ground in early 1981, with large amounts of steel used for the glass structures, and other portions of the rides and buildings were filled in with a mix of steel and concrete.
The pavilion, along with the boat ride, then known as Listen to The Land, opened on September 28, 1982, for a public preview of the park. The ride would open with the park on October 1, 1982, as the only pavilion open at Future World East, as Journey into Imagination wasn't ready yet, and the upcoming Seas pavilion still needed development. At opening, the pavilion featured 2 restaurants, 2 shows, and 1 ride. The ride would start with a couple dark ride scenes, and transition into a dark tunnel with films, and then outdoors which showcase new and modern ways to grow agriculture and crops. After this segment, the boats go into another dark section with more films and re-enter the station.
For nearly 11 years, the pavilion, and ride, would go mostly unchanged, aside from updates and information updates in the pavilion and ride. In 1993, the 10-year sponsorship deal with Kraft expired, and in not even a year, Nestlé would step in as the pavilion's sponsor. They completely recolored the inside of the building, changed some of the shows, and inside the boat ride, the first 2 scenes were changed, going from being inside a growing seed, now inside a swamp with massive thunderstorms, with several crocodiles inside. There was also a massive refurbishment of the buffalo and cabin scene of the ride. The ride's theme song was removed, and the ride was renamed to Living with The Land.
After this, the pavilion would continue to remain unchanged, until October 10, 2003, when Epcot announced the pavilion would be getting its own version of the Soarin' ride system inside The Land pavilion. This was announced after a refurbishment that cosmetically changed the inside of the building again, turned off the fountain, and, by January 1, 2004, the Food Rocks show, previously the Kitchen Kabaret, was closed permanently to be replace by Soarin' Over California, which opened in May 2005. 2006 would see the removal of cast member narrating the ride, and now a pre-recorded voice would guide the attraction. Once Nestlé would decline its sponsorship in 2009, the pavilion and boat ride would remain mostly unchanged. Soarin' Over California would be changed to Soarin' Around the World in June 2016. The boat ride and pavilion still operate at the park as is.
Images
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The building's entrance sign and facade
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