Hey ho! Did you miss me? Sorry for the radio silence, but I've been on a very fun vacation with my parents! We don't take vacations very often, so I didn't want to be distracted during this one. I didn't even take my tablet with me and did very little social media. It was fun to spend quality time with them. I'm sorry my sister and nephew couldn't get away, too, but I also liked having Mom and Dad all to myself...
My dad had a conference in Orlando, so last year he put the idea in our heads that we could also spend a couple of days at Disney World before his conference. And then I thought, well, if we're going to Disney, then why not go to Universal, too, to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter?! I mean, why not?? I was put in charge of planning, since I love it so, and off I went. I got our Magic Bands, I scheduled our Fast Passes, I made our dinner reservations, I did it all! We booked this trip months ago and I can't believe it's already come and gone. Unsurprisingly, I took nearly 1000 photos during the week - it's hard to decide which ones to share.
Tuesday: My flight out wasn't too early, which was good. I got into the security line and immediately got aggravated by the woman behind me who kept pushing me (and my stuff) on the conveyer belt. I hate when people do that. Seriously. We all need to get through security, keep out of my space! Grrrr. The flight was full, naturally, aren't they always? I had to check my bag, which was also annoying, but at least the flight was easy. We had a layover in Atlanta, which was a happy coincidence since my parents' plane did, too. We met up in Atlanta and flew on to Orlando together. I think the longest lines I had to stand in the entire time I was in Florida was to get on the planes. I don't know why those lines get so long, but they do.
The plane to Orlando was much ritzier and had a tv at each seat. My mom liked that, even though she forgot to bring her earphones. She played solitaire during most of the trip. I remembered my earpods, so I watched
Wolf Hall. Very enjoyable. The trip from Atlanta to Orlando isn't very long, so we arrived in Florida easily. We took the little train over to baggage claim and then...waited. Here's a tip: if you take Disney's Magical Express and you want to have control over your bags, don't put the little yellow baggage claim ticket on your suitcase. Apparently, they take your bag before it reaches baggage claim and put it in a bus to go to your Disney hotel at a later time. They say it will take three to five hours (it took four for mine). Next time, I'll keep the yellow tag off and get my bag myself.
But otherwise, the Disney Magical Express feature is great. You go to a dedicated desk and get on a bus that will drop you at your Disney hotel. This is a free feature if you're staying at a Disney hotel. My dad hates to drive in Florida, so all the free Disney transportation is his favorite thing about the trip. We took buses and shuttles everywhere and he never had to worry about driving or parking. Thumbs up from my dad.
We stayed at the Port Orleans - French Quarter hotel. We usually stay in one of the All-Star resorts (which are the 'value' hotels), but since we only needed one room instead of a suite, I asked my parents if we could upgrade to a 'moderate' hotel and they said yes! Yay! I've always wanted to stay at the French Quarter hotel. I loved New Orleans when I was there a long time ago and thought this hotel would be fun. And it was. The theming is terrific, all wrought iron and moss. The rooms aren't huge, but they're decorated nicely. The grounds are lovely and the pool looked terrific (it was so hot and humid, it was even too hot to go outside and swim! at least it was for me.). There was a pretty good food court in the lobby area and a nice gift shop. They also had a lot of recreation every night, like camp fires and movies in the public spaces, but again. Hot. That was the theme of the trip. It was about 95 degrees with 95 percent humidity every day, which is a recipe for my not moving very far or very fast.
Our original plan was to have dinner that first night at Downtown Disney, which you can get to from the hotel by water taxi. But, when we were on the bus from the airport, it started to pour the rain, I mean seriously POUR. So we decided to just have our dinner in the food court. I got a fried chicken sandwich, which was very tasty, but they serve it on a whole grain bun. I have an allergy, so I asked for a different bun. They gave me the gluten-free bun, which was my only other choice. YUCK. Thank heavens I'm not gluten-free. That bun was nasty. So I ate my fried chicken all by itself. But since we finished our meal with a dish of delicious beignets, who cares about what came before?? Mom and I decided to stay in the lobby area and watch the US Open tennis match between the Williams sisters. We went into Scat Cat's Club, a small bar opposite the food court. We each had a very tasty non-alcoholic beverage called a Nojito (instead of a mojito), which had lime juice, agave nectar, mint and club soda. It was really delicious and refreshing, a perfect drink on a hot night. It was a good first night at Disney. Tomorrow: Epcot!
Wednesday: My mom is an early riser, so she likes to get up and get breakfast while I try to ease into my day. She grabbed some food for my dad and me which we ate before taking the complimentary shuttle bus from our hotel to Epcot. My family loves Epcot. There's always so much to see and the last time we were at Disney World, when my nephew was seven, we didn't get to experience Epcot as much as we would've liked. So we decided to spend our entire first day there. I wore my new Mickey Mouse/NYC t-shirt and off we went. There weren't very many people on our bus, which was nice, and the trip was only about fifteen minutes to get there. We got there and went towards the main gate - suddenly, a lady taps me on the shoulder and says "tag." I said "what?", thinking she wanted to play tag or something. She pointed at the front of my shirt and said "tag." I looked down and saw that I hadn't taken the store tag off my new shirt. Duh. That was a goofball moment. But I wonder why neither my mom or dad had noticed the tag either! Hmmmmm...
When you enter Epcot, the first thing you see is the enormous geosphere and the Spaceship Earth ride. Since it was already very hot and humid, we decided to head inside and do the Spaceship Earth ride to cool off. The ride is fun, with Judi Dench narrating a soundtrack about how the earth's technology has evolved over the years. You see lots of the Disney audio-animatronic characters throughout, as people throughout time. My favorite spot was the Renaissance, with gorgeous art and choir music surrounding me. At an early point in the ride, there was a camera that took a photo of each person in every car. At the end of the ride, there's an interactive part where you choose what you want your future to look like, then you see a little video that is supposed to have your photo in it. I guess my picture didn't turn out, since I had a cartoon figure in mine. I could see my parents' video and it had their pictures in it. It looked cute, so it was a bit of a bummer I couldn't giggle over one of my own photos. Oh well.
We spent a leisurely day over in Future World, one of the two sections of Epcot. We went to Club Cool, where they serve free Coca Cola drinks from around the world (our favorite was from Greece, it tasted like a fizzy pineapple soda). We did a little shopping and wandered around the attractions. There were a couple of ride closings, which was a drag, but we did do the The Seas with Nemo and Friends ride and enjoyed looking at all the live sea creatures in the Coral Reefs; we saw Captain EO, the 3D movie that Michael Jackson made for Disney in the 80s (I'm pretty sure I saw it at Disneyland a million years ago, but I didn't remember much of it); and we rode Test Track. Test Track was very fun - you design what you want your car to look like and then you ride in a simulation that supposedly puts your car design through its paces. The ride in the car itself was a lot of fun, too. At one point, your car is going over 60 miles per hour! That's pretty fast (and it was nice to feel some wind on that hot day). Dad got to sit in a new Chevy Camaro, which was great, and we did other cool car-related things.
Before heading off to World Showcase, we wanted to ride the monorail. We've always loved that there's a monorail and you can ride a quick roundtrip from Epcot to Magic Kingdom in a few minutes. It seemed a fun way to get out of the heat for a bit. Unfortunately, the monorail ride threw out of my head the one thing I wanted to accomplish at Epcot: there was a free 5 X 7 photo opportunity for people using the Disney Visa card, which my mother was using. I thought I had planned our entire Epcot visit around our free photo, but because it was so hot, my brain got fried and I...forgot. So there are no photos of me with Mickey Mouse from this trip. That is a serious bummer. But we did enjoy the monorail.
After the monorail, we headed over to the World Showcase to check out all the countries and also to have dinner. We started in Mexico, both because it's the first country, but also because it has an indoor boat ride, the Gran Fiesta Tour with the Three Caballeros. In the air conditioning. That was a very good thing, because Epcot is enormous and it got really hot walking between attractions. I tried to get some photos during the fireworks section of the ride, which I'll put below.
Next to Mexico is Norway, which is almost completely under construction at the moment because they're building new attractions featuring
Frozen. But the little church was open, so we went in, hoping for some a/c. It was mainly filled with
Frozen trivia, so we walked back out. We were looking for some shade when we heard/saw some commotion in front of us. Cast members were passing out free bottles of ice cold water, which was amazing, and gently moving people out of the area. We didn't think anything of it until later when we heard sirens. My mom said she thought they were inside Epcot, but I couldn't imagine it. Imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail alert that there was a fire inside the construction area of Norway! I have to commend the Disney cast members for keeping everyone calm and moving people along. There was no alarm, no stampede, just free water. It was quite commendable. But surprising!
(OK, let's speed this up, this is getting a little long...) After Norway is China, which is an enormous pavilion. We went inside, both for a/c and to enjoy the
Reflections of China film. It was lovely and I want to go to China, stat. We then skedaddled over to Italy to have dinner at Via Napoli - we generally don't eat sit-down meals when we're at Disney, but I wanted to try this restaurant because I love Neapolitan pizza. Via Napoli is very pleasant, wide open and airy, with three enormous wood-burning ovens for quick pizza cooking. Apparently, the chefs actually studied at Da Michele in Naples to get their pizza as authentic as possible. They use San Marzano tomatoes for the sauce, flour they've imported from southern Italy, and water that comes from springs that duplicate the mineral content in Italian water. The result is delicious pizza, pretty darn close to as delicious as the pizza I had in Naples. My parents enjoyed it, too. The individual sized margherita pizza was plenty big enough for the three of us. We also got their family salad option, which my dad especially liked. I was going to get dessert there, but we decided to get some pastries in France. I mean, might as well enjoy all that the World Showcase has to offer.
I shopped in Morocco, got some tea in the UK, and shared a napoleon with my dad in France. I also forced my parents to watch the movie in France,
Impressions de France. The a/c convinced them, but they also enjoyed talking with a gent sitting next to us who commented on my mom's new t-shirt. My parents are much friendlier than I am. All in all, it was a wonderful day at Epcot, though hot as blazes. We did our best to alternate between walking in sun and shade and hiding out in the a/c. Our feet were tired, but boy did we sleep like logs that night! Next up: Disney Hollywood Studios, Cirque du Soleil and anything else I can fit into a post...
No comments:
Post a Comment