Can our divide over World Showcase unite us?
The Walt Disney World fandom is an interesting beast. At its heart, a Disney vacation is an inherently unserious and lighthearted pursuit. That’s what many of us love about it. When people love something, they develop a passion for its aspects. Sometimes that passion manifests itself in varying degrees of – shall we say – angst, up to and including rage. We rage ’cause we care!
But it isn’t always that way. Today I’d like to tackle a longstanding Walt Disney World debate that somehow manages to stay eternally relevant and yet upsets no one. Simultaneously the most long-running and yet most innocuous of Epcot disputes is one single question: which country do you start with when entering World Showcase?
WORLD SHOWCASE AS PERSONALITY TEST?
Do you head toward the rustic beauty of Canada’s falls and sweet scent of maple popcorn? Or do you barrel headlong toward Mexico, home of the air-conditioned pyramid and eight different ways to obtain a margarita, whether frozen or on the rocks?
Truly there is no wrong choice here. Indeed, you’ll hit every country eventually if you make a complete circuit either way. And yet we return to the question again and again.
Rather than the usual internet sound and fury, however, I don’t think anyone is invested in the answer. It’s simply a recurring amusement, with each faction a knowing part of the joke (and good friends with multiple people on the opposing team).
How rare it is to find ongoing AND polite discourse in the wilds of the world wide web today! The stakes couldn’t be lower. Thus I thought it might be frothy fun to dive a little deeper into this World Showcase directional debate. I wanted to know not only which direction people prefer, but why they prefer it. Let’s share some deliciously meaningless data, shall we?
MEXICO OR CANADA? PICK ONE & ONLY ONE
The easiest way to obtain the opinions of a cross-section of Walt Disney World denizens? Quizzing my Instagram followers, who I think we can all agree are clearly people of taste. 😉
I began by boiling the question down to its essentials, demanding that my poll-takers choose one and ONLY one. So – Mexico or Canada?
In case you can’t see the image, note that I posed the question with two caveats. The first was to assume that you have no prior commitments, as the most logical among us will head in the direction that gets us to our destination fastest. I also accounted for my International Gateway entrants, who were to answer on the assumption that they are in fact coming from World Celebration.
Enough of that; let’s talk results!
The clear answer was Mexico, with 70 votes to Canada’s 47. This is not an overwhelming majority, but for our purposes it’s a reasonably decisive, neat-n-tidy 60-40 split. Having once waded into the Mexico pavilion on a holiday weekend, this checks out. It certainly felt like everyone was going the same way I was at the same time. 😅
OKAY, BUT WHY THAT WORLD SHOWCASE WAY?
We could stop there, but I wanted more data. I posed a follow up question: regardless of whether you choose Mexico or Canada to start your World Showcase adventure, why do you make that choice?
When I tell you a solid 90% of the responses were alcohol related, I am not exaggerating. Although I will say, while most were related to selecting an alcohol to start, many were more about selecting an alcohol to not start.
Here’s a sampling from the Drinking Around the World contingent:
We start the day with margaritas so we enjoy the rest of the day
Margs, obviously
Tequila, duh
And for the defense (their motto is “never start with tequila”*):
Canada so I can make it to Mexico
If I start with a margarita I’m losing clothing by the time I get to Canada
* Although I did receive one message of “Never finish with tequila” so now I don’t know what to think
A SCANT FEW REPLIES THAT DON’T INVOLVE ALCOHOL
Of the remainder, food was the main driving factor (“maple popcorn is supreme” and “quicker to get to the pastries in France” were some pro-Canada entries), with festivals coming up where relevant. I also liked the suggestion that Imagineering might be subconsciously controlling the flow.
My favorite, though, was nostalgic: the respondent said that they headed toward Mexico because their family always headed toward Mexico first when they were a kid, and it had become a habit. Awww.
On the flip side, shoutout to the individual who said they start with Mexico’s high energy because Canada seems boring. Okay, maybe the World Showcase question does serve a LITTLE drama.
Naturally I cannot ignore the fellow runDisney aficionado who declared that they went whatever direction the course went. Fair.
WHERE ARE WE USUALLY GOING, ANYWAY?
Now, we are thorough researchers here at FROA, so I wanted to see if there might be any mitigating factors beyond just food and drinks when selecting a World Showcase direction. If, for example, a given respondent consistently heads for the Frozen ride in Norway or the Mitsukoshi store in Japan every time they visit Epcot, that will naturally lead them to choose an efficient direction with no greater consideration of the pavilions they are passing through.
Therefore my next Instagram question was: what’s the most common reason you’re heading to World Showcase in the first place?
Well, I tried. The primary reason is still alcohol. Margaritas, margaritas, margaritas! Or, alternatively, stay far away from the tequila lest your mission end before it begins. Yes, of course a handful of people are headed there for rides, but it seems mostly we search for comestibles. As one respondent eloquently put it: “draaaaanks.” Yes indeed.
DOES YOUR HANDEDNESS PREDICT YOUR WORLD SHOWCASE DIRECTION?
Because we are doing SCIENCE, I had to ask one more important question. My hypothesis: could your handedness – whether your left or right hand was dominant – be a part of the direction you prefer to head?
This may sound like nonsense, and to be fair, that’s because it largely is. But! I did apply a soupçon of thought to this one. In ballet class, you will generally do most exercises twice; once on the left and once on the right. I’m right-handed, but my dad is a lefty and I often prefer to go left myself, including in ballet class. Any chance your preferences affect whether you prefer to tackle World Showcase clockwise or counter-clockwise?
Prepare to be shocked, but… there isn’t. My poll data showed no correlation. And while my sample size was admittedly small, that sounds about right.
IT’S A SMALL WORLD SHOWCASE AFTER ALL
Whelp, I think I’ve done about all I can do here! I hope you enjoyed this silly little foray into Disney’s lowest-stakes controversy. Whether you’re a toward-Mexico diehard or toward-Canada fanatic, know that this blog is a safe space for you. At the end of the day, are we all not but Disney adults? If you prick us, do we not bleed La Cava margaritas? If you wrong us, do we not demand free Lightning Lanes to make it right?
Mind you, if you DO have something controversial to say on this vitally important topic, I’d love to hear it! At this point I’d mostly just be impressed. 😂
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!