Silver Anniversary Trip, Day 10

[spencem]

Tuesday, January 21st, Animal Kingdom and EPCOT

We had some FastPasses booked this morning at Animal Kingdom and lunch at Tiffins, then tonight there were Extra Magic Hours at EPCOT and so we planned to head there after our afternoon nap to watch the new fireworks show and take advantage of the extra hours. Our first FastPass was for Flight of Passage at 10am, so we headed out of French Quarter about 9:30. There were no navigational errors this morning and so we were at the park just 15 minutes later.


It was another beautifully clear morning, if rather cold again.

We found very few people at security and so stopped to have some pictures taken at the photo frame outside the park before walking around the ticket booths and finding huge queues to actually enter the park.


Told you it was cold.


I liked the contrast of the pink flowering tree and the green Tree of Life against the brilliant blue sky.

Once in the park we headed for Pandora where Brian got a return time for the river ride before our trip up the floating mountains. We had a bit of time to kill before our FastPass window opened so I took a few pictures and a restroom break was taken ahead of our long trek.


Is it just me that sees the crouching figure in shape of the mountains?


There are some fantastic details around.


The aquatic life is interesting, some of it defends itself with jets of water, not good on a cold day.

We got lucky on Flight of Passage and got sent to the middle of the middle row of seats on the second level. The ride is fantastic for any seat, but even better from the middle of the middle of the middle.

It was seriously cold this morning and when we came off the ride we were more than ready for some hot drinks while we waited for our return time at Na’vi River to roll around so we went into the Satu’li canteen in search of tea and coffee.


The locals have taken the place over and added their own touches to the décor.

Once our return time came around we took the walk through the middle of Pandora over to the river where happily the shaman was back from her holiday to sing to Sandra and Brian in person. We all enjoyed this gentle ride through the Pandoran night, there is so much detail that you’ll see new things every time you ride.

We spoke when we came off about our next FastPass, on the other side of the park at Everest and decided than since only Sandra and I would ride that rather than make the long trip there and then back to our lunch appointment at Tiffins we’d cancel the FastPass in favour of Tough to be a Bug since we would all go in there and we could get that for just a short time later.

While we waited for our time we had some pictures taken in front of the Tree of Life and went shopping in the large shops on Discovery Island. Julia apparently needed a new woolly hat as the one she’d worn last night was too tight. I was also on the look out for tee shirts as normal plus a replacement mug for my Grumpy one that was rather faded. we found Julia a hat and me a mug, but none of the shirts took my eye. Julia put her new hat on, but we sent the mug back to our hotel.


It must have warmed up a bit, I’ve taken my woollen hat and gloves off.

Shopping done we entered the line for Tough to be a Bug and took a slow stroll around the Tree of Life marvelling at all of the animal carvings on the roots and trunk.


So many to spot.


Some animals are more obvious than others.


Sandra’s favourites.


Just so much detail.


The back side of the tree.

I’d not seen the show since our 2006 trip and really enjoyed it. Most of the show I’d forgotten, but I remembered not to lean back when the spiders appeared and to pick my feet up at the end, although to be honest I’m not sure how well the air jets would work through jeans.

We did look for some of the animals in their pens around the base of the tree on the way out of the show, but it was far too cold for the likes of the giant tortoise to be out and about. We made our way over and got checked into Tiffins for our lunchtime ADR. Other than the very impressive map carving the lobby is quite plain in a high-end modern style, but the dining rooms have some amazing decoration in them.


Not every cast member likes their picture taking.


I think the restaurant pre-dates Rivers of Light, but you can see the influence one had on the other.


The butterfly collection is impressive.

Service was top notch again, even to the point that our server pointed out that Julia’s selection of the hanger steak from the special lunchtime menu wasn’t the best value for two dining plan credits. I ordered the Tamarind-braised short rib, which was delicious. Julia also enjoyed her cremated steak. I also had the Kungaloosh Ale, while Julia stuck to her normal hot tea.


The short rib.


Julia’s hanger steak looking a bit lost on the plate.

For deserts I had a trio which no longer appears to be on the menu while Julia went for the Halo-Halo, mainly for the condensed milk ice cream. She didn’t go for all the flavours on her plate, which meant I got to try them out.


I’m not sure what all these were now, but they were very good.


I got to try the purple and the red, both of which were very good.

We all really enjoyed our meal in Tiffins, the food was excellent, the service attentive and the décor lovely. It was just a shame that on such a cold day they still had the air conditioning set to super freeze, it did rather take something away for the meal to have to eat with our coats still on.

Our last FastPass of the day was for Dinosaur, not a ride Julia enjoys at the best of times, let alone after a meal. She did walk the queue with us, to use up her last FastPass of the initial 3 so we could book another for Epcot later.


On the way over we passed Donald walking the other way.


Not a bad ride frontage in a very tacky area of the park.


Everybody Look Left, Everybody Look Right. That song has always confused me.

I’ve not ridden Dinosaur for a few years as neither Julia nor Edward like it and while I did enjoy it I couldn’t help thinking how much a better use of the ride system Indiana Jones is over in Disneyland. I think it is just a bit too dark in Dinosaur and the ride that little bit too rough to let you appreciate everything going on around you.

We were done with the park now and so headed out, pausing as ever for some more Photopass pictures on the way.


It really was cold despite the bright sunshine, my gloves had gone back on.


I just couldn’t be doing with bending for a kiss after my large lunch.


Despite the cold the ant eater was out and about patrolling his territory on the path back to the park exit.

Today we didn’t head straight back to our hotel. Instead we turned right out of the park and then down Sherberth Road to the 192 and the Target superstore by Orange Lakes. If we had realised then that the new Walmart had been built at the Old Lake Wilson Road junction of the 192 we might have gone there. We only needed a few bits from Target, but I did need another pair of jeans as I’d only brought one pair with me and it was forecast to stay cold for a few more days yet. We didn’t take long with our shopping and were soon back inside the Disney bubble.


We’d been trying to photograph the resort entrance ever since we checked in, today we managed it. The plastic sheet on the ground is protecting the flowers from the frost!

We were rather late with our nap today, getting back to the hotel about 5:15 and heading back out to Epcot just before 7pm.


Another park entrance plaza being rebuilt.

If you’ve read any of my other trip reports then you’ll know Epcot is not mine or Julia’s favourite park by quite some way. We normally talk of ‘the barren baking concrete plains of Epcot’, well tonight it was very much ‘the frozen barren plains of Epcot’. The air temperature was probably a couple of degrees above freezing, but there was what Brian referred to as a ‘lazy wind’, lazy as in it couldn’t be bothered to go around you and so just cut right through you.


Bundled up against the cold.

We took refuge from the wind by using our FastPass to bypass all of 4 people at Spaceship Earth.


Julia was glad she’d made the effort to use her third FastPass earlier to get past this standby line.

We thought we’d try our luck getting a return time for Soarin’ before getting something to eat. We’d originally been going to have a graze around the festival booths, but it was so cold that we shelved that idea in favour of eating somewhere inside.


Somehow even this picture makes me feel cold.

Brian got us a return time and since there was no queue we took a trip on Living with the Land. Every year we say we are going to do the walking tour through these greenhouses and every year we somehow fail to. This year we came closest, but there was no one at the booth to book with when we came back off the ride.

Sunshine Seasons was closing up, despite the park being open for Extra Magic Hours tonight. I think everyone got a snack of some sort and I got a portion of their Mongolian Beef that was really good. By the time we’d eaten we couldn’t delay in the warm any longer if we wanted a decent view of the fireworks and so made our way up to the lagoon. I was heading for our normal spot on the bridge between England and France, but Sandra had other ideas and called us back to the disabled spot by Port of Entry. This doesn’t have a bad view, but there is the boat jetty directly in front of you, also there are not many speakers here and so it can be, as it was tonight, difficult to hear the show if it’s windy.


The view across the lagoon, with the jetty cropped out.

Just to add to the ambience there was a small speed boat tide up in front of us with its engine running, giving that lovely waft of two stroke petrol every now and again as the breeze shifted. Luckily, we didn’t have long to wait and soon enough the show started.


Things started well enough, except my favourite narration about being gathered around the fire has gone.


There are some nice touches, like this circle of candles.


Or this spiral sequence.


The kites are ‘interesting’, even if some of the illuminated tails are already broken.


They are better on fire, but the show soundtrack isn’t enough to get over the loud jet skis towing them.


There’s far too much of this sort of thing, one firework at a time, like your local scout’s display.


Show finale, yep that’s all you’re getting.

Epcot Forever is not a great firework show and I’m not really sure what it is for. I guess I don’t understand why it is there between the stunning Illuminations and the future Harmonious. From what I’ve seen there are no elements of Illuminations being reused for Harmonious, but I guess there must be for them to have this obvious stop gap in place. I’d say if you are in WDW while it is on then go and see it, but if your trip is planned for later in the year then don’t worry that you’ve missed it at all.

Show over we headed for the first warm indoor attraction we could think of, Figment. Here for reasons none of us could figure they were making you queue outside the building to check your bands to confirm you were a resort guest. We all agreed that if we’d been that cast member we would have set up inside the doors and out of the wind.


Journey into the warm more like.

We all enjoyed Figment, but that area at the end of the ride really needs some love and maintenance. It was somewhere around here that Sandra came up with her master plan to get us on Rise of the Resistance. She figured that the biting cold would keep people away from Hollywood Studios in the morning like it was keeping them out of Epcot tonight and so we should change our plans to go and try our luck tomorrow morning instead of the planned Saturday. We all agreed with her and said we would just use our Soarin’ return time tonight and then head back since we would need to be up at 5am tomorrow. To be honest I don’t think we’d have stayed much longer in any case as it was so cold, we certainly wouldn’t have been exposing ourselves to the wind around World Showcase to get on Frozen, we were already frozen enough thanks.

We took our trip on Soarin’ once again marvelling at the bent Eiffel Tower and CGI wildlife and then headed out of the park. We might have stayed to see the new film in the Land Pavilion theatre, but the need for at least some sleep was stronger. We did take pity on a shivering photographer by the park exit and gave her something to do for a few minutes.


Trying to keep warm.

We were back in our nice warm hotel rooms about half ten, ahead of that 5am alarm call in the morning.


Back to the index.

[mick]

You got a lot done to day but the weather looked really cold ❄️❄️


Joan

[spencem]

Originally Posted by mick

You got a lot done to day but the weather looked really cold ❄️❄️


Joan

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Yes we got a lot done that day, but that night at Epcot was the coldest I'd been at Disney.

[prettymiarose]

Ooo cold day! We visited in January once but even then I don’t remember being that cold! I’ve never been to figment since I was a child! I just remember a big rainbow and Figment being frightening! Do they still have the jumping water pads at Epcot? We used to love these as kids. Best Epcot visit we had was a few years ago. Our parents were with us & my mum watched our daughter so me, hubby, my son & my dad could have an evening out. We watched boyz to men, drank beer & rode rides you really shouldn’t after a few beers! Especially mission space! Great night though you holding Julia photo is so cute I met my hubby at 16 & we are now at 25 years together!

[spencem]

Originally Posted by prettymiarose

Ooo cold day! We visited in January once but even then I don’t remember being that cold! I’ve never been to figment since I was a child! I just remember a big rainbow and Figment being frightening! Do they still have the jumping water pads at Epcot? We used to love these as kids. Best Epcot visit we had was a few years ago. Our parents were with us & my mum watched our daughter so me, hubby, my son & my dad could have an evening out. We watched boyz to men, drank beer & rode rides you really shouldn’t after a few beers! Especially mission space! Great night though you holding Julia photo is so cute I met my hubby at 16 & we are now at 25 years together!

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I think the jumping fountains are still there. I agree the park is better without kids. Julia and I met at senior school, but haven't been together ever since, we reconnected at 22.