Travels in Orlando Part 5

[Sue F]

Travels in Orlando Part 5
The Travellers: Me (Sue) - Planner, mine of information and enforcer of time schedules
Jorge - DH & big kid
Rebecca - DD aged 6 and world class chatterbox
The Rookies: Eileen - My Mum. Disabled ECV driver and biggest kid of them all.
John - My Dad - Disney convert.
Pat - Jorge’s Mum - not into Disney but wants to get a tan.

Day 8 Epcot
Woke to sunny skies at last and with a communal sigh of relief we make an early start to Epcot. We arrive at 9.30am and are very proud of ourselves for getting there so early. We then have to wait for the gates to future world to open at 10am! Once inside Jorge is dispatched for Test Track FP which came back at 11.15am. We kill the hour in Innoventions. I’m not sure if it was Innoventions East or West as we only realised that there were two on the way out! The hour passes quickly and we are soon on our way over to Test Track. Jorge, Dad, Rebecca and I queue for about 10 minutes before boarding our car and starting the tests. Half way round we enter the dark tunnel and everything stops. Literally <img src="http://www.purple-paw.com/~disneybb/iB_html/non-cgi/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':0'> We sit in the dark for 5 minutes wondering if it’s part of the ride. Testing the cars resistance to darkness and non movement perhaps? An announcement comes out of the gloom “We are experiencing technical difficulties, please remain seated”. So there you go then, we just had to sit there. 5 very long minutes later we get going again and speed out onto the track. At least the doors opened!!

By this time its gone 12 and we start making our way over to the Land area for our PS at the Garden Grill at 12.40pm. Arriving just in time and we are seated immediately. What a lovely restaurant - it rotates slowly so you don’t feel that you are moving at all but when you look up the view has changed completely. Plenty of attention from the characters: Mickey, Pluto, Chip & Dale. Rebecca adds their autographs to her collection and they make a fuss of Mum with her broken arm and write ‘get well soon’ on her autograph book - yes, she has one too <img src="http://www.purple-paw.com/~disneybb/iB_html/non-cgi/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':roll'> The food is good although we have to attract the waitress’ attention and ask for more.

After a good lunch it’s over to the Living Seas to check out life ‘under the sea’ As we exit the ‘Hydrolator’ Lifts which transport you to ‘the bottom of the sea’ I say to Rebecca “Oooh Becky, we are underneath the sea now” to which she replies “Wow Mum, they even have a shop under the Sea” She was dead impressed!! The whole area is fascinating and we spend over an hour looking at the Manatees, Dolphins and Giant Turtles.

By this time it’s 3pm and we make our way around the World Showcase. They are giving away masks to the kids which are blank and which they then take to each country to get something added and a stamp. In truth it becomes a bit of a bind as the whole experience turns into a hunt for the ‘kidcot’ desks and we quickly start running out of time. Mum and Dad really enjoy this part of the day although they find England a bit ‘twee’ and Dad refuses to pay $6.95 for a pint of Tetleys. We stop in America to take in the show and wish we hadn’t bothered. Technically it’s amazing with animatronics showing the history of America but the overwhelming partiotism started to grate on us after a while. By the time we make it to Mexico it is 5.40 and Dad wants to do The Universe of Energy. Mum and Jorge stake out the places in the disabled section for the 6.30 ‘Tapestry of Nations’ Parade while Dad, Rebecca and I race over to ‘Energy’ We enter the theatre and sit on the floor. A minute later up pops ‘Ellen’ on the large screen. Dad has no idea who she is so the humor of the thing is totally lost on him. He perks up a bit when we go through to the moving cars and go past the dinosaurs to see how energy was made. By the time we come out it is 6.25 pm and we have been told by a CM that the parade starts from Mexico where Jorge and Mum are waiting so we have to run to make it. As it turns out the parade starts in Canada at the other end of the countries so we have plenty of time and we could have had that necessary bathroom stop too!! We all enjoy the parade although it is very long and a bit repetitive.

After Epcot we drive over to Downtown Disney and vist my favourite place in the world. Ghirardellis for the most enormous and delicious ice cream sundaes . A bit of window shopping and then we head back to the villa, exhausted.

Looking forward to MGM tomorrow <img src="http://www.purple-paw.com/~disneybb/iB_html/non-cgi/non-cgi/emoticons/sleeping.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':zzz'>

[BevS97]

glad to hear it's finally stopped raining.  Epcot is one of my favorite parks, although I also can't bring myself to pay $6.95 for a pint of Tetleys - there were people sitting near us drinking a yard of ale and they were $12!

sounds like a nice day

Bev

[Carole]

Sounds like a full day. No wonder you were exhausted.
We really enjoyed the Garden grill. I just loved that bread.

[ANGEL]

another wonderful day Sue! . I love EPCOT, especially WS... Mexico is my favourite place .

[Guest]

EPCOT does it for rme too, but I love Tapestry of Dreams!!

Everyone is having a great holiday!

[AlisonB]

I don't know how, but we managed to miss Tapestry of Dreams despite going to Epcot at least 3 times on our holiday last year!!

Our girls loved Kidcot too!

[Guest]

I thought the England part was awful. It seemed like we lived in the middle ages to me.

Frances x

[BONZO]

EPCOT - our favourite park IMHO - we just love it.

I also got stuck on Test Track and thought I'd seen faster traffic speeds on the M25 in rushhour! - LOL