Disney vacation – day 4
We decided on day 4 to get up an hour later than normal and skip rope drop for EPCOT. We were both pretty tired, but luckily my ankle was doing a bit better. EPCOT does have 2 rides that are very popular, but we figured we had all day to get a fast pass for one and wait in line for the other, so our tiredness won out. Our ride to EPCOT was pretty nice thanks to our driver, Hector, who really liked to chat with people. When we got on the bus, he noticed our buttons and asked me how long we’d been married and then on the bus ride, he proceeded to congratulate us (with everyone else on the bus), joke around about how 2 years isn’t a lot (though we’ve technically been together almost 9 years now, but he didn’t ask that!), and give us advice on marriage (just say, “Yes, dear”).
When we got there, there was a pretty big line to get through the bag check at the entrance, but soon we were in and headed off towards Soarin’, Chris’s favorite ride at Disney World. The line wasn’t too bad, so we just got in the standby line. I really like this ride, too. I love the feeling of flying and the scents they pump in for certain scenes. And the music is really pretty. After Soarin’, we went over to Test Track, the other popular ride, which also didn’t have too long of a line, so again, we got in the standby line. It was a bit longer than it looked, but the wait wasn’t too bad. Next, we were off to the Figment ride, which I don’t remember at all, if I’ve been on it. It was kinda cute, though I almost lost my sunglasses near the end in the jet of air. That wouldn’t have been good. After a quick walk through Innoventions, just to see that it’s still not geared towards us at all, we had lunch at Seasons, which is in the Land. This was the best counter service lunch option we found at all of Disney World. There are so many choices from salads and sandwiches to Asian food and grilled salmon. And the desserts! Oh, the desserts. There’s so many. Great use of our CS credits for this lunch. We both had plates of Asian food (different types of chicken, beef, vegetables, rice, and noodles) and Chris had pan au chocolat for desert and I had a rice crispy brick (it was huge). Yes, I know, a rice crispy treat probably sounds pretty dull, and if you’d seen the dessert selection, you’d probably think I was crazy for choosing it over all the other delicious choices, but Disney rice crispy treats are really good and I just had to have it. I’ll try something else next time I go.
For a break, we had originally (like, before the trip) talked about going and hanging out at the Beach Club where Chris has stayed in the past. It’s within walking distance of the World Showcase and would allow us to not have to waste time on taking the bus home and back, but we seemed to forget about that once we were at Disney World. I’m not sure it would’ve been enough anyway, since we both ended up taking a nap back at the hotel.
After the break, we were back at EPCOT, ready to finish perusing the countries in the World Showcase. We had an early (4:45 pm) dinner at Restaurant Marrakesh in Morocco, which is one of the furthest places from the EPCOT entrance, but we got there on time. It was really pretty inside and the entertainment was cool – there were 2 guys who sang and played drum/bongo things and a belly dancer. We both had couscous (his with lamb shanks that just fell of the bone, it was so tender and mine with really tasty vegetables) for dinner and for dessert, I had Moroccan baklava while Chris had bastilla. My baklava was pretty good; tasted like baklava, only with pistachios in it, but Chris’s bastilla was amazingly good. It’s layers of crispy filo covered with vanilla cream sauce and toasted almonds that is just so tasty. So, all in all, another restaurant we’d never tried before that we’d definitely go back to.
Kind of a dark picture of the inside of Restaurant Marrakesh
Both of us in Restaurant Marrakesh
Chris in a telephone booth in England. He said it was really hot inside.
Us waiting for the fireworks. I look a bit quasi-modoish in this picture.
After dinner, we went back to Norway to ride Maelstrom, which Chris hates, but I think is kinda cute. So, in reward for his sacrifice, he got a Grey Goose Lemon Citron Slush in France (and I got a Grand Marnier Orange Slush). They were both really good and quite refreshing. After finishing up Canada and England, we decided to stake out a spot for the Illuminations fireworks. An hour and a half ahead of time. Ugh, it was a long wait. We watched a bunch of spiders make webs in the bushes. Gross. Finally, we got to see the fireworks though. As I might have said before, I’m not quite as big a fan of the EPCOT fireworks as I am of the Magic Kingdom fireworks, but it was still a good show. I could just do without the middle bit with the music, fountains, and pictures on the globe that takes forever to get to the center of the lake and open up. The finale is pretty good though, really bright and explodey!
After a quick stop in MouseGears, the big EPCOT shop, we headed back to the hotel to call it a night. I was pretty sad that it was our last full day at the parks. Up next, day 5: a bit of this and that to end the trip.
Disney Vacation – Day 3
We woke up day 3 pretty tired, but showers and cereal breakfast woke us up fairly well. Since today was our only MGM (DHS) day, we knew we needed to get there at rope drop since there’s a few rides that are pretty popular. Our bus ride was uneventful and got us there on time. After watching the little pre-rope drop show, they let us in and we power walked to Toy Story Mania since it’s actually probably the most popular ride in the park right now since it’s the newest and everyone can ride it. We got there with a bunch of other people and noticed that the fast pass machines had a line! After getting our fast passes (I think for around 10:30 am), I took this picture to show the line just to get fast passes:
So, really, if you want to ride this, and don’t want to wait in at least an hour standby line, get there at rope drop. I’ve heard fast passes completely run out around 11 am. And since we’ve never been there at night (we usually go to EPCOT or Magic Kingdom for dinner/parade/fireworks, though I’ve never seen Fantasmic, so maybe next time we’ll actually try it), I’d certainly hate to get a fast pass at 10:30 am for near closing time. Anyway, after getting our fast pass for TSM, we power walked over to Rockin’ Rollercoaster, another ride that gets a big line quickly. We only waited about 10-15 minutes and then we were on it! I love Rock n’ Roller Coaster. It’s one of those 0-60 in 3 seconds roller coasters with loops, so it’s probably the most extreme ride at Disney World and it’s a lot of fun. Chris always does his silly face (not just the silly smile, it’s more of a not-quite-all-there look) for the camera, but I just can’t keep a straight face during the take-off. I do love looking at the picture though – often his face makes me laugh until I cry. Next, we went to Tower of Terror, which is another of my favorites. I just love the theme and all the details in the atmosphere of the line and ride. Plus, the ride itself is fun of course! I think I need to try this one at night – it would be nice to not have that sudden bright daylight in your eyes at the top of the ride. It always makes my eyes tear up, which makes me look like I hated the ride and cried the whole time! I’m not 100% sure where the picture is taken in this ride, so we sometimes make our face and sometimes don’t, since it’s kinda a pain to keep the same face during the whole ride.
Us on the road to Tower of Terror
We saw this on the way back to Toy Story Mania. It's the High School Musical parade. Chris got excited. lol
By now, it was time for our FP for Toy Story Mania, so we headed back over there. It was much better to only wait about 10 minutes compared to the hour we waited last time. There’s lots to look at in the line, but my feet were really sore last year, so it felt really long. The ride was fun (though our arms were exhausted by the end from pulling the trigger on our game gun thing) and unfortunately, Chris beat my score on this ride. *pout* Oh well. Next we did Muppets 3D and Star Tours. Some idiot tried taking pictures during Star Tours, so the ride was interrupted a few times by a cast member telling us not to take pictures. I also made a few pennies, which was nice because I had very few pennies from DHS for some reason.
For lunch, we went to the ABC Commissary, where I had a burger, fries, a drink, and chocolate mousse and Chris had curry, a drink, and chocolate mousse. It was fine, nothing special, but definitely not bad. After lunch, we went on the Great Movie ride, which I hadn’t been on in a while and we saw the Cowboy scene (I remembered the Mobster scene, but not this one, so yay!). Then, we went to the Animation Studio and saw the show and looked around at the Up research and development stuff. We also got to meet Frozone from The Incredibles. Chris likes his “Where is my super suit” line, so he was happy to meet him and get our picture taken. Frozone’s a bit of a flirt – he kissed me, lol!
Us with Frozone, right before the kiss, lol
I think I’d like to try the animation class next time we go. I really like to draw, so I think it would be a lot of fun to learn to draw a Disney character. It was getting kinda late though, so we decided to skip it this time in favor of a short break back at the hotel. Unfortunately, this bus ride home was shared with POR and we were the last stop (the bus driver drove right past the entrance to POFQ, why not just stop!!??), so we had to sit through 4 stops before getting back to our hotel. So we had a bit of a shorter break today, but even I napped whereas I usually just write in my journal or relax or whatever. I was really tired.
Finally we were off to EPCOT! We had decided that today would be World Showcase day, but Spaceship Earth had a typical short line, and it’s right at the front of the park, so we rode that first. I love the new ending, where you get to input your choices into a little computer in your car and see your version of the future. It’s so cute.And of course, we did our silly faces:
A scene from our future (sorry for the angle, it was hard to get a picture of it)
Next, we stopped at Club Cool, the drink station with samples of foreign drinks. We’ve tried them before, but it’s fun to go back and try them again and see other people’s reactions to some of the bad ones. I won’t give away which one is the really bad one, in case anyone reading hasn’t gone yet – you’ll just have to figure it out yourself (and then turn around and see who was waiting to see your reaction to it!), but here’s a picture of Chris’s reaction:
We also watched as the father of a family grabbed a cup of the really bad soda and guzzled it down quickly. After his reaction, he noticed us staring with our mouths open (we couldn’t believe he gulped it down!) and laughed and asked why we didn’t warn him, lol.
Finally, it was time for World Showcase. We had a late dinner, so we had plenty of time to mosey through the countries, which I love to do. We started with Mexico, the first country on the left. We decided to get churros and drinks (a margarita for Chris and a sprite for me – I didn’t feel like a margarita) at the outdoor CS restaurant. I love churros. Mmm, so good. We sat and enjoyed our snack, while looking at birds and the World Showcase all around us. Before dinner, we managed to tour all the countries except England, Canada, and Morocco, so we figured we’d fit them in the next day, which was a full EPCOT day. We got a huge bag of candy in Japan (I love their candy! Pocky, Pucca, several sorts of gummies and hard candies and chocolate, yum). The big store in Japan is always a lot of fun. We also got to see Miyuki, the woman who makes candy by hand. She made a few different candies for people as we watched. It was pretty cool, they’re so ornate. Unfortunately, around the point of Africa (which isn’t very far into World Showcase, maybe a quarter of the way through (also, why is Africa a stop here? First off, World Showcase has individual countries, not continents. Second, all of Africa only gets a small stand and not a full location with buildings and stuff?? Third, doesn’t Animal Kingdom kind of take care of Africa? Why not put Greece there instead! Ok, too many parentheses here, time to end it)), my ankle really started to hurt, so I sort of gimped around slowly from that point on for the rest of the night. It was ok, though, I still enjoyed the World Showcase. 
Chris with the troll in Norway, notice the enthusiasm.
Around 8 we decided to head back to the Seas, where dinner was (Coral Reef). Once we got there, we had a little time to spare before our 8:50 pm dinner reservation, so we rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends, which was kinda dumb. It was a little clam shell that you ride while looking at screens of video with a little story about finding Nemo, who has again gone missing. I think they could’ve made it a lot better if it wasn’t just a series of videos. But, I guess kids probably like it, so whatever. The ride deposited us out into the aquarium, so we looked around there briefly (we saw some surprisingly playful manatees) before looking for the exit to head over to dinner. This was our actual anniversary, so this was the one restaurant we had eaten at before together and knew we liked. We got seated right next to the tank, where we had lots of fish and sharks to look at. We even named a few that stuck around and did cute things. Miguel was a shy fish who liked to look at us stealthily, Samuel was a laid back fish who stared at us and occasionally swam backwards, and there was another unnamed fish who swam by really quickly with his mouth opening and closing rapidly as if screaming, right after a shark swam by. It was pretty funny. Our waitress, was unfortunately, the same waitress we had on the family trip last year, who was awkward, slow, and kind of annoying, but the food was good. I got salmon and butterscotch creme brulee while Chris got Ahi tuna and a chocolate wave. We also shared the Land and Sea appetizer, which is grilled shrimp with cucumber salad and barbecued beef skewer with polenta. I was a bit disappointed that they’d taken the seafood pasta (I’m not sure exactly what it was called) off the menu, since it was really, really good, but my salmon was quite tasty.
After dinner, the park was still technically open for EMH, but I was hobbling pretty bad and we were both pretty tired, so we called it a night. Next up: day 4, full EPCOT day!
