By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp

When your best friend from middle school wants to take you to “The Happiest Place on Earth,” you say yes. I visited Walt Disney World once when I was 6 years old and remember very little about the trip. Disney’s Pop Century Resort handed me — at 48 years old — a “1st time” button at check-in and I pinned it to my “Coco”-inspired ball cap. After all, I had gone to Magic Kingdom as a kid. This trip we were EPCOT-bound with “Park Hopper” tickets in hand so we could explore.

EPCOT’s International Flower and Garden Festival is what got me there. Tara knows me well enough to know that anything involving gardens sounds like heaven. I may have even choked up a bit when we first laid eyes on the “Encanto” topiaries. She hooked me with flowers knowing her love for the Disney experience would be infectious. It was. And since I’ve seen almost every Disney cartoon made since “Snow White,” it was an easy sell.

By noon, I had fallen in love with Orange Bird and a new set of “ears” accompanied my “Coco” hat. By the end of the night’s EPCOT Forever fireworks show, tears streamed down my face.

Walt Disney’s original vision for an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (yes, that’s what EPCOT stands for) did not come to fruition. Disney had hoped to create a community of tomorrow that would never be complete. An actual city. He wanted a place that would always be introducing and testing new materials and new systems. Always existing in a state of becoming and operating as an exciting, living blueprint of tomorrow. He died before his vision was complete, so instead, EPCOT became a Disney World theme park — one that held onto some of its original purpose.

My friend and tour guide, who happens to work in education, referred to Disney World as the eternal preschool experience and after a three-day immersion, I’d have to agree. But I also see how Walt Disney’s vision and this eternal preschool vibe intersect. Everyone greeted us with “Hi, friends!” and left us with “Have a magical day!”

Groups attending together did so in matching T-shirts just like my son’s summer camp requires for field trips. Mickey ears in hundreds of variations were everywhere, worn by young and old (us included). And park speakers encouraged parents many times “to take their children by the hand,” making sure everyone was safe and accounted for. I smiled until my cheeks hurt.

The throughline of it all was hope and a clear sense of belonging. It feels embedded in everything we did. You belong. Whoever you are and from wherever you came, the happiest place on earth is here for you. EPCOT also emphasized that community is made for you, by you. Tara accurately predicted it would speak to my soul.

EPCOT rides and every interaction kept its focus on our world’s incredible diversity and humanity’s potential growth with a clear understanding of our place in time. It was all served in the spirit of learning and with an optimistic outlook, just like any good preschool would have it. And what’s preschool without a bestie? The buddy system is always good practice, and this trip wasn’t any different.