Click on the photo to be taken to the first in the set of today's photos.
Another slow start to the day. This time though it was mainly because we had to relocate from the resort to the house we're renting. The big one that all 4 families will be staying at for the reunion. Right now it's still just us and grandma. Everyone else shows up Saturday night.
We made it into Epcot at about noon-ish. I am hoping this trend of getting to the parks late won't last long. Mainly because I know I won't stop opening each post with a complaint about getting to the parks late. So I'm not even going to mention it anymore. From now on, if we get in early I'm going start the post with "Wow! We got into the parks reasonably early this time." Otherwise assume we got there 20 minutes before lunch. Then we had to postpone seeing or riding anything even longer while we ate lunch.
The first ride of the day was chosen by Adam again: Spaceship Earth. This time it was one he loved and has been begging to go on it again and again. We haven't returned to it yet, but we definitely will. By the way, we also found out that Spaceship Earth runs on Windows.
No wonder it had to reboot.
The ride stopped on the descent and the interactive video did a reboot on our car. We never did get it up and running again, so our finale was really disappointing. We could see what was supposed to happen on the other cars around us though.
Then we ate lunch at the Land pavilion and grabbed Fast Passes for Soarin'. And since Living with the Land was right there we rode on that. We then went and visited the Seas pavilion while we continued to wait for our Fast Passes to mature. There's a Finding Nemo attraction there and we all had a great time seeing all the fish, dolphins, and other aquatic life. One dolphin liked to buzz the windows while we were standing there. He'd make laps around the tank, seemingly coming out of nowhere as he swooped on by. I got video of it and will post it once I finish editing it all together. (Too tired to do it tonight.)
We then rode Soarin'. It's a favorite for all of us. Had great seats too. I'm usually unlucky on that ride and get the very lower corner seating position. But this time we were smack dab in the middle. And I had the extra pleasure of sitting next to Adam while he got super excited about the whole thing.
Following Soarin' we wanted to go ride Test Track and Mission Space, but we also wanted to be sure to save some daylight for the World Showcase. Since the Test Track line was too long and the Fast Pass return was too late in the day, we decided to just ride Mission Space. And by "we" I mean me and David. None of us had ever been on it before so we weren't quite sure what to expect. I wanted to see what it was like before taking Rachel on it. And we're taking no chances with Tammie and her heart condition.
Mission Space is a flight simulation that uses a spinning "centrifuge" type ride system to simulate the G-forces of a rocket launch and deep space mission. David was all excited to just feel some extreme G-forces. They have it set up where the "Green" team doesn't spin or feel the extreme forces. But the "Orange" team gets the whole experience. Naturally, we went with Orange. I get sea sick, car sick, and just general motion sickness pretty easily. I don't have any problems with roller coasters though. But a flight simulator isn't really truly a roller coaster. And every 30 seconds they're warning you about the ride conditions and motion sickness. I started getting a little queasy just standing in line with all those warnings. The ride was incredibly fun and very realistic feeling. But afterward I did feel a little dizzy and my stomach wasn't too happy. David was whooping it up about how awesome it was, and I was doing my best not to feel too sick. I'll go on it again, and I'll take Rachel next time, but on the Green team instead. (Why isn't the sicky version called the Green team?)
After that we made our way over to the World Showcase, starting on the left with Mexico. Riding that attraction and enjoying the indoor "outdoor" street shopping. It's pretty cool and I look forward to going back and maybe eating dinner there. We continued our way around the lagoon seeing as much as we could and as time allowed. The highlights include (in order of yummiest): dinner at Oktoberfest in Germany (fun show, great food), the circlevision theater and gift shop in China (the gift shop is an attraction itself...Rachel mastered the marionette), Norway and the Maelstrom ride (the gift shop there also looks quite fun but we had to dash through it to get to dinner on time to see the show). After more gift shop browsing in other countries we saw the fireworks show and headed out.
We never did get to see or do everything we wanted, but we'll be back.
Epcot is an interesting place. You really need to spend 2 days there in order to take it all in. But at the same time it doesn't seem like there's that much to do. Future World contains most of the rides, but it really doesn't have many. It's also not very picturesque (so I don't have many pictures there). On the other hand, World Showcase is very well themed and there's something wonderful to see around every corner. Unfortunately I didn't have much daylight while we were there so not many pictures there either. There aren't many rides at all, but still a fun experience getting to have a small taste (or at least a Disneyfied look) at cultures from around the world. We all look forward to our second visit to see the things we missed the first time and to experience some things a second time.
I believe tomorrow's plan is...Hollywood Studios!
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