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...

Disney Adventure - Day 5

Character Breakfast and Epcot. Another of the "two coldest days Orlando has seen in the last five years." We feel so honored.

We started our morning at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort with the most expensive breakfast I think we have ever eaten. But, hey, we saw and visited with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, AND Goofy... and we got a really good breakfast to boot. So, it was worth it. You only live once, right? I think we got a lot of really good pictures. I'll let you know when we get back. :-)

From there, we drove to Epcot. And then left Epcot because the gate attendant neglected to tell us we had to follow the GREEN line today to get to the super duper AAA Diamond parking lot. Silly us. We followed the BLUE line because that's the color we had to follow yesterday at Animal Kingdom. So we had to exit the park and loop back around. This was easier said than done, but we made it. We have discovered that the signage is more than adequate when you're going INTO any area of Disney; however, once you're leaving, you're kind of on your own unless you're looking for one of the highways in the area. So anyway, we got back in, followed the GREEN line, and parked right up close. Woo hoo!

We oohed and aahed over the big silver golf ball that is Spaceship Earth as we walked in and went straight there to ride it. It was closed. Try back this afternoon... it should be open then. Great start.

So we proceeded to Innoventions. This was very cool and we spent quite a while in there. We did a game where we were split into teams and had to go through "the world's most dangerous house" looking for fire hazards and identifying them before they actually started fires. J-Mav and I were on the winning team. :-) Then the boys were able to take a picture of themselves in front of a firetruck and put some "stickers" on it and email it to the grandparents. The next thing allowed the boys to put themselves into a video game. Also very cool. They were recorded running, jumping, and doing a "victory dance" and then they went to a kiosk to play a game in which they were the stars. Very cool. We were able to email ourselves the link so they can play at home. Then Hubby and I got to take a spin on a Segway. It was very fun, and surprisingly easy.

We moved on to The Seas with Nemo and Friends. J-Mav whined through the entire thing because it was mostly dark. That made it scary. Sigh. After that ride, we went to Turtle Talk with Crush. This was Hubby's and my favorite thing of the day. It was really amazing they way they did it. Crush (the turtle from Finding Nemo) was on a big screen (like a movie). All the kids were in the front of the theatre sitting on the floor. All the adults were in the back on benches. Crush interacted with the kids. He asked them questions and then they could ask him questions. And he had facial expressions. Somehow there was a human hooked up to the image, and the turtle was taking on the real-time expressions. It was a live show and Crush would respond real-time to things going on in the audience. It was very well done.

From there we went to another amazing ride called The Land. We all enjoyed it. We rode through amazing greenhouses and fish farms. I'm not sure if they use the stuff they grow in the parks, but I know some of it was being grown for research purposes. We also saw pumpkins being shaped into Mickey heads as they were growing, and a Jackfruit tree!

We saw a few more things that J-Mav declared scary because they were partially or totally in the dark. We dragged him on anyway. We got shrunk in Honey, I Shrunk the Audience... another 3-D adventure that neither of the kids wore the glasses for. And we tried to go on the Test Track. Not really sure what this is because it was closed when we tried to go on it. Bummer.

We headed back to Spaceship Earth, but it was, once again (still?) closed. We were told it'd be opening in about a half hour. So we checked out the other half of the Innoventions area, where we played a game around recycling that was actually quite fun. When we got back to Spaceship Earth, it was actually open. We basically walked right on. It's been completely refurbished since the last time I rode it (which was 1989, so that's not surprising). Completely different cars. No Walter Kronkike narrating. And when you come down the long decline backwards at the end, you actually view a personalized future on a TV screen in your car, rather than looking at things on the walls outside your car. We all enjoyed it, though. Keeper Boy said that was one of his favorite things.

By this time, it was about 7pm and Future World was closing. The World Showcase, however, stays open until 9pm, so we headed over there. We discovered there aren't any of the street performers or anything out at night... or there weren't tonight. So we basically just walked around and went into each country's shop(s) if we needed to warm up. We rode the rides in Norway and Mexico, and when we came out of Mexico it was about time for the IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth show. So we watched an amazing fireworks/laser/water show. This was Keeper Boy's other favorite part of the day. After it was done, we made our way out to the car and headed back to the condo (stopping first at the McDonald's drive-through... nothing like eating a bunch of grease at 10pm!).

I think we'd like to go back to Epcot and do the World Showcase in the daytime. So we will keep that on our to-do list. Because of the lack of wanting to RIDE anything on the boys' parts, we may not need an entire day at Hollywood Studios. So maybe we'll go back to Epcot tomorrow morning and then to Hollywood Studios. Or maybe we'll just sleep in a little tomorrow and then go to Hollywood Studios and hit World Showcase at Epcot another day before we go. I think we'll play it by ear.

Whatever we do tomorrow, we're hoping to be a little warmer...