Thursday 10th July 2015
Hello! Time for day 4 of my Disneymoon trip report - back to my beloved Epcot for the morning!
It was another early start this morning, with the alarm set for 8. Not quite as early as the last 2 days but still early for a holiday! I woke about 8, and woke to find Robert awake already. I lazed til about 8.15 then got up and got ready.
Because we were walking to the park today (bonus of staying at the Boardwalk), I didn't bother going down to the bakery for coffee; we decided just to pop in on our way. We left the room about 8.55 and picked up a wee carton of milk and coffee on the way. I managed to get a few snaps of other Boardwalk treats while I was in. I'm so annoyed now I didn't eat anything from here other than a banana, my appetite seriously let me down that first week!!
Every day I still get amazed by how hot it is at this time in the morning, we were melting while walking over towards the International Gateway entrance to Epcot. However on the plus side, it was so so nice coming in the "back entrance" where there was no crowds or queues. It was so lovely and peaceful, particularly because World Showcase isn't officially open at this point so there was pretty much nobody around for our first 15 minutes or so in the park. The one person who was around was a custodial cast member who shouted good morning to us (remember this fact for later!).
When you come in International Gateway, you enter between the UK and France and you need to head through the UK to get towards Future World. Now, if you know me from the Dibb, or through twitter or even real life, you might know that I used to work in the UK pavillion in Epcot, so this place holds some really special memories for me!
It was really weird being back! We posed for a few pics before heading straight on through to Soarin'.
We arrived at Soarin at 9.20, and it was a 30 minute wait already. We had a fast pass booked for 10.10 anyway so we figured we'd just wait for that. I'm not actually sure why we headed straight there, we should probably have gone for Test Track but maybe I was hoping to ride Soarin' twice, I can't really remember.
We decided while we were there to go on Living With the Land instead. This is a boat tour more than a ride, and I quite enjoyed it. Very informative! It was literally a walk on, we had the whole boat to ourselves!
By the time we were finished on there it was nearing our fast pass time but we were starting to get hungry so we opted for a breakfast at Sunshine seasons. We both went for the breakfast platter which was pretty tasty.
Robert wasn't too keen on the French toast that came with it, it was quite sweet and he said it had a strange texture. I enjoyed mine though. I was too full to eat the biscuit thing but Robert ate that and enjoyed it.
It was time for our fast pass after breakfast but we took a few minutes to look at the map and plan our day. We were only staying until about lunch time again.
We soon joined the queue for Soarin', noting that the standby queue was already up at 105 minutes by just after 10am! The fast pass queue was probably one of the longest we encountered, and it took about 25 minutes from joining to boarding.
Now I LOVE LOVE LOVE soarin', but I deliberately didn't say too much or big it up too much with Robert because I know a lot of people find it underwhelming and think it gets too much hype, but tbh the queue of 105 minutes gave him the impression it was something special anyway!
I loved it as always, and Robert thought it was just OK. He declared that anyone waiting any more than 40 minutes for it was crazy!
We had a wee while to wait before our next FP was up so we wandered down to the main central walkway bit of Epcot to have a look around the attractions here. Had a peek in the character spot, but it was a 40 minute wait, no way! Tbh this wouldn't actually be too bad because you generally get to meet about 3 different characters here so really isn't so bad when you get to tick 3 characters off in one go!
We decided to head into club cool to get out of the heat and try some of the drinks. If you've never been in here, it's basically an exhibit where they have soft drinks from all around the world. They have loads of wee mini cups so you get to try samples of all the drinks. We actually enjoyed most of them, I'm sure there's a watermelon-y one that I really liked.
A couple of them are a bit rank though, but I drank them anyway even though I knew this from trying them before. Just had to remind myself just how bad! I'll leave you to find out for yourself what the horrible ones are!
Robert clearly wasn't impressed with whatever one that was!
After club cool, we headed info Innoventions, where they have various games and attractions for you to play. First one we came to was a weird IBM game that had no instructions and wasn't at all clear what you were supposed to do. We played for a while, thinking eventually it would make sense but it never did so we gave up! At the end of it you could take a photo to email to yourself but we did that and they never showed up :(
Next we went to the Piggy bank game thing, it's essentially a game to learn about saving and stuff and I guess it was probably sponsored by a bank for advertising. Robert said it was childish but I thought it was quite fun :)
By this time our next fast pass slot was open, yay! We headed over to the Seas, and we spent ages pottering around looking at the giant tanks. We went into see the rescued manatees, it was amazing seeing them so close up. From underneath you could see them swimming around but if you went upstairs some of them would bob up to the surface and there was a lady there talking about them, and the rescue procedures and stuff.
We wandered around the different tanks, trying to get some decent pics of the turtles and sharks. None of the pics are great but here are a few...
And last but not least... My sting ray selfie haha!
After a while watching the sea life we went on to Turtle Talk with Crush. I've never done this before and had high hopes for it but I was so disappointed :(
My notes say "got potential but spent too long with the audience copying words". I can't really remember what I meant by this, but I think they were saying loads of the "duude" and all that from Nemo and we had to copy, but they didn't leave much time for the actual audience interaction. Would maybe go back when we have kids but for now it will be a miss for us!
After this it was over to Mission Space, and we chose the orange (intense) version. I always work this up to be something huge and so I was a bit scared going on, particularly because I'd been feeling queasy in the previous days and I didn't want this to bring it on again! It was ok though, it's a weird sensation but not really that exciting. Luckily I didn't feel sick after it!
We decided at this point to head to the mini golf at Fantasia Gardens. In my head we would be able to get a boat inside Epcot but I was obviously confused with the boats that go around the world showcase and so we had to walk to international gateway and leave the park and then get on the boat.
We got off at the Swan and Dolphin and had to go inside to ask for directions to the golf course. We soon arrived, and we realised there was 2 courses to choose from. One is like fun mini golf with obstacles and stuff, the other one the Fairways course is like real golf but on a mini scale. We went for the first one. Both are included in the Ultimate pass so we didn't have anything to pay, but we bought ourselves a wee drink to have as we went round as it was SO HOT. I thought the names we got were cute
This was a fun course, although I was pretty rubbish!
Robert's ball ended up in the reeds lol!
So that was fun, but it was really so so hot and ther was very little shade as we went round. In the end, Robert won with 61 points versus my 70, pah!
After golf we decided to head back to the resort, so we walked back and it only took about 10 minutes. We were starting to get hungry by this point so we decided to visit the kiosk on the Boardwalk, although in hindsight I really wish I'd gone to the bakery instead.
I got a foot long corndog which was tasty -
And Robert had a chilli dog with some chips.
I also fancied something sweet ( bakery, duh!) so I went and bought some twinkies from the shop on the boardwalk.
We had intended eating this then going down to the pool, but we both ended up falling asleep at about 3.30! When we woke at 5.30, the rain was just starting. The plan was to chill out for a bit and then head out to get dinner in Lake Buena Vista. Robert wanted something huge and American.
We chilled for a bit then got ready to go out, but the rain was still absolutely hammering down, with thunder and lightning going on continuously so by about 7.30 we decided to ditch our plans and just order in pizza. We ordered papa johns and it arrived about 8.30. I had to go down to the lobby and wait at the door for it. There was still loads of people coming and going in the rain - I suppose if you're only there for a few days like many Americans then you just have to stick on your poncho and get on with it!
Our pizza was huge, we ordered far too much food!
It was delicious but we barely made a dent in it! Jaws was on TV so we watched that, then some Modern Family. Robert fell asleep about 10.30 and I followed shortly after.
Highlight of the day - being back in Epcot!! Feels like home to me!
Food of the day - Papa Johns cheesy bread sticks with the garlic dip. Mmmmmm!!
Thanks so much for reading! xox
