Disney Adventure - Day 8

Epcot / Downtown Disney Revisited. And look ma, no coats!!

We had a plan. We sort of stuck to it, but not the way we had intended. The plan was to head back to Epcot and visit the World Showcase so we could see some of the street performers at the different countries (and see the countries in the daylight), come home and relax for little while and let the boys swim, and then head over to Downtown Disney to do our shopping and have dinner. Didn't quite work that way, but we had a GREAT day!!

We arrived at Epcot about 10:30 this morning. It was WAY more crowded than it was on Wednesday. We ran into some characters (the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, the Evil Queen, some cat from the Aristocats, and Rafiki) and took some pictures, and then stopped by the Test Track ride and grabbed Fast Passes... our first in our now five days at the parks! Our Fast Pass time slot was 12:15 - 1:15pm (which basically means we could come back and jump in the Fast Pass line any time after 12:15. With those secured (and J-Mav already whining about not wanting to go on it because it's fast and scary), we proceeded into the World Showcase, right as it was opening at 11. We went the opposite direction this time, starting at Mexico.

Other than stopping to take pictures, we actually walked past Mexico and Norway because we'd done the rides and checked out the stores in both of those countries on Wednesday night. We explored China a bit, and Keeper Boy took more pictures. His class is studying the dynasties right now, so he'll have some cool photos to take back to school with him.

At the Outpost, we stopped to let the boys play some African drums and watch a man who was carving an elephant out of wood. And then it was on to Germany. Hubby had his picture taken with Snow White, and we stopped to watch the garden railroad that is set up outside Germany. In Italy, I comtemplated purchasing a new nativity set, but decided to pass. After Italy came The American Adventure. We decided not to stop and tour since, well, we live here. :) We did watch the end of a fife and drum performance. The boys seemed to think that was cool.

Then it was on to Japan. We wandered through a Japanese tea garden and then through the stores there. Outside Morocco, we saw Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. The boys weren't interested in visiting with them, but I was going to. However, they went on a break right as we got there. So we explored Morocco and watched a belly dancer perform! Outside France we saw Beast and Belle; however, they were going on a break when we got there, too. We poked around France and then made our way to United Kingdom (where we saw Mary Poppins) as we wanted to see a comedy show that was going to happen. Little did we know, Hubby would end up being one of the stars of the show! He was picked out of the audience to play the role of Sir Galehad (sp?). Hilarity ensued. Keeper Boy was embarassed (and he's not even a teenager yet). I took lots of pictures!!

After that, we moved along to Canada. We wandered around, looked through the stores. It took Keeper Boy a minute (or two) to figure out why there were only t-shirts for Canadian hockey teams. We saw a 360-degree movie about Canada (hosted by Martin Short) and then went back outside and saw a Canadian band perform. They were all wearing kilts. I'm not sure what that was all about. The boys both decided they would never wear a kilt...

After we were tired of listening to the band, we headed back to France to catch one more street performance. It's hard to explain what it was.... a guy who didn't talk, just blew a whistle, and another guy who was, basically, an acrobat. He stacked chairs on whine bottles (which were on a table) and climbed up them and did a handstand. I think it was four chairs, the bottom sitting on four wine bottles, which were sitting on a table. I was nervous for him, but since he does it multiple times each day, I guess he's pretty good at it!

By the time we were done watching that, it was well past our Fast Pass time for the Test Track (sponsored by GM, which you were not allowed to forget throughout or after the ride). J-Mav cried the entire way through the line (which was quite short thanks to jump-toward-the-front-of-the-line-free Fast Pass cards. While we were waiting to get in our car, we saw someone we knew from church/little league. It's a small world after all! We buckled into our car and off we went. The idea of the ride is that you're put through some of the tests that cars go through... rough roads, sudden breaking, hairpin turns, etc. At the end, you go out on the test loop... it goes around the outside of the building very fast on banked track like a race track. It was a very cool ride. We asked J-Mav at the end whether he liked it. His response: "that was NOT cool."

That completed our Disney World parks experience. We walked back out to the car. By this time, it was after 4. Our timeline had slipped significantly. But whatever. No worries. We went straight to Downtown Disney, somehow landed a great parking space in a lot that was supposed to be full, and walked straight to the T-Rex Cafe (the restaurant I wanted to eat at with J-Mav on Monday, but it was too scary). We told him he'd be fine and we were going there. He whined. But Keeper Boy did a good job of keeping him distracted and he was fine once we were inside. We were seated in the Ice Cave. Thankfully, it wasn't icy! The food was really good and we had a fun dinner.

After dinner, we walked around the stores... mostly in the big Disney store that has everything under the sun with Mickey ears on it. We visited a few other places, but the bulk of our time was spent in the one store. We all got a t-shirt, we got some gifts to bring home, we tried on silly hats, J-Mav bought a pirate toy, and I got a photo album for the gagillion pictures we took. I'm thinking I should've gotten two, but I didn't. So I'll either have to narrow our trip down to 200 pictures or less, or buy another (plain) album later.

We decided we are glad we don't have another full day in the parks tomorrow because we're tired. But man did we have a blast! We stopped at the crazy Disney McDonald's on the way home for ice cream, and got back to the condo around 9:30. Hubby took the kids down to the pool for a little while while I started packing up some stuff. Less to do tomorrow morning since checkout is 10am. We are sad to leave just as it's warming up here, and we're not looking forward to the long drive home. But cold and all, it really was a magical week! I love Disney World just as much now as did when I was a kid. And it was great to share it with the boys and see the magic through their eyes. I'm pretty sure we'll be back...