Our First Orlando Trip! Day Two- Epcot and an emergency dentist!

[dreamisawish]

If you want to read about our first day at universal and island you'll find it here!

And the index for our trip is here!

We started today a bit later then planned once again, but where out of the hotel and in our first uber disney bound of the trip by 9:30am.

This was because Emily’s jaw, which had been hurting a bit the day before, had swollen up over night and was now causing her a lot of pain. She called her dentist back in the UK and he confirmed what we knew- her wisdom tooth was coming up and the gum around it had become infected. We went down to the reception to enquire about a dentist, but they didn’t know of any. In the end the dibb and google had the answers and we got a dentist appointment for 6pm that day.

And with that we continued with our morning.

Emily loves boats, which was great because I’d already planned to try and use as many boats as we could on this trip. I wanted to be able to see some resorts so I could scope out what hotels I’d like to stay at in the future- if my purse allows. So today we headed to Beach Club to get the boat to Epcot.

The security guard at the front of Beach Club loved this explanation for why we wanted access in our uber! He seemed unsure of what we were saying “but why not go straight to epcot? the boat takes ages!” but we said we wanted to see the hotel and I suppose two harmless young woman didn’t seem like we were pulling the wool over his eyes too much as he let us in.

We loved beach club. It was just absolutely gorgeous. A man was there at the entrance to open our uber door for us, and when we got into the lobby we asked a cast member how to get to the boats and she walked us the whole way there! While we walked she told us about all the other boats you could get on property and about the things we should try and do. She also told us a lot about the resort, it was like a personal guided tour, and a great first experience on disney property. When she left us on the pier both Emily and I turned to look back at the hotel and it was clear we were both in love.

Once we were on the boat and we realised how short a walk it is from Beach Club along the canal we felt a bit silly, but we still got a boat ride in so we didn’t really regret it too much.

Epcot wasn’t too busy, and we started by walking clockwise around world showcase to Canada and got some poutine, and then headed back anti clockwise - is this a bad thing? I know a lot of people think you have to do clockwise.

Our poutine!

At France Emily had a Frosé Ironically we had been laughing at how expensive they are before we went, but once we were out there in the 28 degree heat suddenly it didn’t seem like too bad a deal. I don’t drink, and I did find it a bit difficult to see how many amazing alcoholic drinks there are around world showcase. I’d love to see some more slushie non-alcoholic drinks or some mocktail versions.

This photo is from Pinterest, but Emily had gobbled hers down faster then I could take a picture

We also were visiting within the Festival of the Arts and it was really nice to have a look around at all the artist booths.

We stopped in Morocco for a photo!

When we got to Italy we stopped for Gelato, which was really lovely. We saw a bit of a street performance, and then I got a notification to say our fast pass for Frozen Ever After had been cancelled as the ride was down. This was disappointing but we decided to use it on test track instead, which we had also wanted to go on.

Our gelato from Italy!

Walking further around the showcase we got to Norway and Frozen was open again! This is when I made a very big mistake…

So frozen was saying 25 minutes, and as someone who has never been in the queue for this ride before I could’t really judge it. Test Track was currently at 85 minutes. We decided to keep the free fast pass and wait for frozen in order to use the FP on Test Track later.

I wish I could tell myself what a horrible idea this was. We ended up waiting 90 minutes. We did get an apology, but it seemed to us that they were hardly moving the standby queue at all. We stood in the little ‘shop’ at the end of the queue for 40 minutes of this wait, us and only 8 other people. Every time they did take someone from standby it was only two or three people a go.

This was a real shame as Emily summed it up just before we finally boarded the ride “the thing is, I already know however good this ride is, it isn’t worth an hour and a half wait”. Unfortunately though I liked the ride, I agreed.

We were still smiling on the drop though! Thats us in the first row!

This wasn’t a great start to disney for us. We almost missed our next fast pass, which was for mission space, and we ended up making it 2 minutes before the 15 minute allowance period ended.

I have arthritis and it was always the plan to judge when we got out there whether I would actually need the DAS at all, but after this experience we decided we would go and ask for one at guest services after we used our next FP. Standing for 90 minutes in nearly the same place had done some damage to my knee.

Our next FP was spaceship Earth. I really loved this ride, as I had known I would.

We quickly went on test track using our unused free fast pass, and then went on living with the land as it was a 5 minute wait. It was at this point of the day I realised we would never have made it to fireworks anyway. It was 4:30 and we were both out of it.

At least we loved test track!

My theory now is that the first day we went on so many thrill rides that the adrenaline kept us going until the end of the day, whereas epcot lulled us into a sleepy zombie like state. It’s a shame, but at the end of the day Epcot wasn’t totally our cup of tea. I liked the rides we did, but I feel we probably would have used the time better in another park, or maybe we should have allocated epcot a half day (sorry to all you epcot lovers! this isn’t what I thought I’d think of epcot at all. I think our experience on frozen ever after really didn’t start the day well for us). Or possibly just a day later in the holiday when we weren’t as jet lagged, because those quiet rides with no thrill was really what did us in.

Another factor was that we both left epcot in a bit of pain- Emily with her jaw and me with my leg- so we weren’t the happiest because of that. Maybe we should give Epcot a better chance in the future.

Before we left we went to Guest Services and asked for a DAS. It was issued straight away. It was ironic because I hadn’t wanted to go and ask for one unless I felt it was necessary because I thought waiting for a long time at guest services and maybe being turned away would take a huge chunk out of our day- when in reality it took less then 7 minutes in and out.

We did leave the park happy to have it, and looking forward to our next day with the DAS with the knowledge we would never have to wait in a 90 minute queue again.

I had been a bit sad that morning that Emily’s dentist appointment meant we would miss Illuminations, but in all honesty we would never have made it to 9pm, we were both dead on our feet.

We got an uber to this 24 HR dentist on i-drive. The shadiest medical facility I have ever entered in my life, it was above a hairdresser and besides a gun shop, and the whole office was in one room with a office divider between the waiting room and the dentist chair. He opened Emily’s mouth and then said $300 for a prescription for antibiotics. We got it and left, even though it was pricey. Emily’s travel insurance did cover it, and we just wanted it sorted.

We ended up going to Walmart to pick up the prescription, and whilst we were there we bought some totally unnecessary snacks... we just really wanted to know what a cookie stuffed with a brownie would taste like. The answer: very good! We spent most of the 20 minutes waiting for the prescription to be filled browsing the many times of oreos and poptarts!

After picking up the prescription at a walmart we went back to the hotel and ordered a pizza- we hadn’t eaten since the poutine at 11am that day! In all the craziness we had just forgotten. I don’t think either of us realised how hungry we were until the pizza came and we gobbled it down and then headed to bed.

The cabana bay pizza was great, but I've lost our photo of it- here's one from online.

We had magic kingdom the next day and I was buzzing, I was so excited!

After all the running around Epcot we had managed to go the whole day without buying one single piece of merchandise! I didn’t know such a thing would be possible for me in Disney.

So that was our day in Epcot! Looking back at it now I loved our time around the world showcase, just meandering, which probably means the part I most disliked about the day was the rush we spent trying to get to FPs after the Frozen fiasco. I think next time I will probably give up fast passes if it means we have a better time because we aren't stressed and in a hurry- but all in hindsight!

Emily and I had a conversation in the uber on the way back today which was - if we aren't enjoying something, thats fine, we should go and do something else. We shouldn't push through just to feel we've 'ticked' things off the list. I knew at the end of the day we would have been happier re-doing day one, which wasn't a great feeling. After this we talked more honestly about what we were enjoying and what we weren't- though Disney didn't let us down again!

[mick]

A bit of a mixed day with the waiting for Frozen and sore mouth and legs plus I’m sure jet lag

Joan

[Cinderella]

Glad you managed to get the tooth sorted 👍

[dreamisawish]

Originally Posted by mick

A bit of a mixed day with the waiting for Frozen and sore mouth and legs plus I’m sure jet lag

Joan

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I hope I didn't make it sound worse then it was! I was definitely entranced by Epcot and its atmosphere, and a bad day at disney the same as a good day anywhere else! No such thing as a bad disney day

[dreamisawish]

Originally Posted by Cinderella

Glad you managed to get the tooth sorted 👍

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We were so happy to have it dealt with so we could continue with the holiday! At the time it felt like we were worried about it for ages, and in reality we literally had an appointment on the day it started hurting! Shows how when you are worried time slows down.

[Palm trees]

I'm glad you got the tooth problem sorted quickly. I hope you get to try Epcot again and enjoy it more.

[flo-tinka]

90 minute wait is too long for sure
Glad u got the tooth sorted though and overall had a good day
Beach Club is my dream stay too

[summersun]

hope the pain eased up x

[dreamisawish]

Originally Posted by Palm trees

I'm glad you got the tooth problem sorted quickly. I hope you get to try Epcot again and enjoy it more.

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I'm already planning for Epcot for my next trip, and if it ends up being a solo trip I'm sure I'll love walking around and exploring myself. I actually did love Living with the Land, I really love plants and agriculture, but I could feel Emily lagging and when you are aware the person you are with isn't feeling it, you start to not 'feel' it too!

Anyway, I'm there for giving epcot a second shot!

[dreamisawish]

Originally Posted by flo-tinka

90 minute wait is too long for sure
Glad u got the tooth sorted though and overall had a good day
Beach Club is my dream stay too

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I have great admiration for people who can do those long waits but its not for me! How do people do the 3 hr waits for FOP?

One day I'll be staying at the beach club... one day.