Disney Day 5 - EPCOT

When I was nine, EPCOT was my favorite.  I was a geeky kid who was fascinated by all the futuristic technology and the prospect of a tech-enhanced society.  I loved the People Mover and the Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom, and EPCOT was a full park extension of those kinds of concepts.  It has evolved over time, as was its purpose to continue to innovate a couple steps ahead of society, and while I can't say it has that same sort of bright-eyed utopian feel anymore, it's still a really fun park.  I knew it would be a day full of extremes--from the best rides to potentially the most boring ones--and I knew we'd need some patience from Carter to get through the World Showcase since it houses only two major rides, but I was cautiously hopeful for a good day.  But by about noon I felt like the wheels had totally fallen off and we were a broken-down mess.

I didn't buy Genie+ that morning because I had looked at wait times the previous day and most rides weren't that bad.  I figured we could see how the day went and if we needed it we could buy it later since most of what I had seen about times when Genie+ would run out had not been the case for this trip, so there wasn't much that needed to be set up immediately.  I did, however, get Carter and me in the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind Virtual Queue right at 7am.  That ride has no standby line--just a virtual queue that calls groups in over the course of the day.  I got in immediately at 7am when the clock flipped and still ended up in a boarding group estimated around 2:15pm.  Sigh.

Every morning it seemed like Jacob got ready progressively slower.  It was harder to get him out of bed, and everything he did took forever.  We got going later than I would have liked, but thankfully EPCOT was a short ride from our resort and we got there a half hour after general admission opened (resort guests are a half hour earlier, so we could have been there an hour earlier).  I always get a little charge of electricity just seeing the Spaceship Earth ball.  It's just so visually striking from every angle.

When we got there, our first priority was to go to Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, which is generally a longer line.  The wait was about 20 minutes when we got into the park and I figured that would be fine.  Only...I screwed up when I was checking maps and somehow mixed up in my mind where we were going.  I instead sent us in the direction of Norway (home of the equally popular Frozen ride) rather than France.  By the time I realized what I had done, France was directly across the lake from us so either direction would be a long walk.  My feet were really a mess by this point from previous days of abuse, and it was already so hot.  I was crushed.  We walked along anyway and by the time we got there the wait was up to 30 minutes.  Still not bad compared to most times of day, but a bit of a bummer.  In retrospect I should have bought Genie+ right then and there but likely the time was too far out anyway so we just waited.  Complicating matters was that Frozen was already having problems and spent most of the morning shut down, so I basically gave up any hope of riding that one because I figured it would be a mess once it did open.

Remy's Ratatouille Adventure was cute.  We watched the movie a few weeks ago in preparation for the ride since we hadn't seen it in years.  I'm glad we did! 

I loved the lighted (and periodically animated) Gusteau's sign inside the queue.  It definitely made it feel like you stepped into the movie. 

The ride itself used that same "skating car" technology a few other rides had and combined it with 3-D effects.  You were a rat in the restaurant, running through the kitchen and storage room and under a food cart (complete with giant spinning wheels to our sides) within the dining room.  There was one simulated drop and some slightly disorienting movements that I don't think we were expecting.  Craig ended up a bit swimmy after but figures some of it was still the heat.  Overall we enjoyed it, though.

Outside the ride you could see that EPCOT Skyliner station I mentioned in my last post.  It has an EPCOT entrance adjacent but is mostly only accessible to nearby resort guests and Skyliner riders.  I still really wanted to find time to ride it.  I figured the view from there had to be great!
  

Canada was a high priority for us so we made our way through England, stopping for a photo op and some shopping...

...and finally arrived in Canada.  We have good shopping memories from the store there.  Craig and I bought a cute Christmas moose candle holder there on our first visit, and Jacob bought the coolest giant stuffed bear puppet there on our last visit, one of the last survivors still on or around his bed.  It's just a cute store, though not too much different from any souvenir store in Niagara Falls, but the plethora of moose brought back a lot of memories of our old collection.  There was even a children's book we definitely would have bought a few years ago.  I found these fun Mickey ears there--with crossed hockey sticks on the bow and hockey pucks as the ears.  They are slightly painful and way overpriced, however, so I did not buy them, but I had to model them for my teenage self that wanted to be Canadian!

I always forget that Canada has a nice woodsy waterfall section in the back, and the garden on the way back out was particularly pretty.

As we worked our way back through the other countries we quickly passed on our way to France, we eagerly anticipated the Dole Whip stand somewhere in the middle.  Just as we got there, we got the notification that Carter's and my boarding group got called for Guardians of the Galaxy--two hours early.  We had to report within an hour.  But I was SO hot and desperate for that Dole Whip.  I figured I could eat mine by the time we walked back there but wasn't so sure about Carter.  So we opted to have him wait and we'd get him something on the way back.  Mine was delicious and very refreshing!

I wasn't really sure what to expect from the Guardians ride.  I'm not sure I've ever seen the full movie.  But I had heard it was awesome and that there was a backward feature (which my Boomerang lover Carter was excited for), so I figured we had to do it just to find out!  The virtual queue did not work quite like a Lightning Lane.  There was a line out the door when we got there!  It moved reasonably fast but it was long.  Once we got inside, at least there was A/C, but it wrapped around the circular room and continued on from there.  They at least had some interesting things to watch, from a ceiling projection...

...to a model of the community, to uniform displays and a super cute video where Chris Pratt, the movie actor, talks in character about visiting EPCOT as a kid and loving it, and wanting to go back to go on Horizons, see the dinosaurs at Universe of Energy, and hear the Veggie-Fruit-Fruit song.  I realized immediately that he listed off all attractions that no longer exist!  Horizons was my favorite ride when I was nine, the Universe of Energy was in the building that now houses Guardians, and Veggie-Fruit-Fruit was a song in the old Kitchen Kabaret show at The Land, which was also an old favorite of mine.  That made me laugh in the midst of a long wait.  But finally we got to the "pre-show", which was again a series of rooms to get us in ride mode and up the theming.

The ride was probably the most fun ride I've ever done.  I was smiling ear to ear the entire time.  The backward launch initially was fun, but then the car turned around and we were on this amazing swooping dark ride with stars everywhere and really fun music in the background.  I guess the songs rotate, but we got "September" from Earth, Wind and Fire, which is one of my favorites.  The ride just flew and swirled and the turning of the car just enhanced each movement, so you really did feel like you were hurtling through space.  You can look up POVs on YouTube but they're all a bit shaky despite the ride being smooth as silk.  It was just SO fun!  I so wish we could have done it again but between the cost (it would have been $17 each) and the way the rest of the day went, it just didn't work out.  But man, we had a blast, and it will be first on my list if we ever go back. 

Craig and Jacob had waited out our ride in Germany, so Carter and I had to walk there to meet them.  On the way there, I saw that Frozen was back open and Genie+ was up to after 4pm, which I figured would be on the later end of the guys' tolerance for the day, so I bought it as we walked and booked our spot.  I figured we could fill in the rest of the time prior with other stuff and I'd still be able to book another ride in between after two hours.

We wandered back through a few of the countries looking for a bathroom.  I got this picture in China.

Finally we got to Germany.  We bought a giant pretzel and started trying to figure out where Jacob could get some food.  I was honestly a little annoyed they didn't take care of that while they were waiting, since they probably had close to an hour to research or find something he could have, particularly if it would be in a different spot than where we might eat.  I did almost find a souvenir for myself in a shop in Germany.  There was a really pretty blown glass Christmas ornament--a clear ball with an assortment of color patterns on the ball and clear Mickey ears.  It was more than I wanted to spend for an ornament but I had been encouraged by my friend Heather to remember to spoil myself so I really considered getting it.  I then realized I could probably display it all year to justify the cost, but even still, I was scared to have it all day in the park and then various circumstances prevented me getting back there to buy it later so it didn't work out.  I was hoping it would be in the Christmas store at Disney Springs, but no luck.  Definitely on my list if we ever get back!

We continued to walk and consider our options, but by this point Jacob was miserable.  No luck in Italy either.

We had bought a refillable popcorn bucket on our first day ($2.25 refills) which helped take the edge off, but we stopped under a tree in the American section to figure things out in the shade.  We were snacking on the pretzel and Jacob had the popcorn, and we realized we had an ibis fearlessly stalking us!  We weren't sure if it wanted the pretzel or the popcorn more, but there were a couple pieces of popcorn that ended up on the ground and it eagerly snapped those up.  I had to stop the buys from encouraging it with more!

We finally figured out there was a burger Jacob could get at the American restaurant, and Craig said he would take him there to eat.  I decided Carter and I would walk ahead and do Imagination since it was a short wait and probably not something they'd be into anyway.  We were still on the hunt for a bathroom as we wandered past a bunch of countries.   

Someday I'll get the ball centered!

Cool view from Morocco--that is real sky!

Carter was a trooper when he posed for this one.  We still couldn't find a bathroom so he was frustrated, but the fountain was so pretty and he even smiled for me!

He volunteered for this one in Canada!

We finally got a bathroom and arrived at Imagination.  Carter remarked later in the day the oddity that this fountain goes up rather than down!

The ride itself is a different one from the one that made me fall in love with Figment back in the day, but it's still cute.  I was just happy to show Carter Figment since I picked him out a stuffed one as a souvenir on our last trip!  I don't think he appreciated the silly scene on the ride where Figment farted (thank goodness I couldn't smell), but I was happy we got to do it.  Carter tried out a couple of the tech activities after the ride, but it's funny how those have gone from being futuristic to being a bit basic in this era of omnipresent technology.  

Outside the building, Jacob and Craig caught up to us and we tracked down one of my favorite things--the jumping fountains.  I thought they were so cool when I was a kid, and it was fun sharing them with my kids!  And it was so hot they could afford to be fearless!

We moved on as a family to The Land, home of Soarin', which was one of my favorite rides when we went 14 years ago and I couldn't ride to many things.  I loved the feeling of soaring above beautiful landscapes and getting a little of the sensations I couldn't get on more active rides because I was pregnant.  Somehow we missed it last time--probably a combo of the rain and a long line--so I was determined to ride it this time.  I tried to snap a couple pics on the ride and happened to get this one, which I later realized depicts an area of EPCOT that no longer exists.  That fountain and the area in front of it is now gone and fully under construction for a new Moana-themed walk-through water feature.  That was sort of a cool area and it was a little bit of a bummer to realize it was gone now and fully enclosed in construction walls.  We got to see a little bit of it from above when we took the monorail through that area the previous day.

Much to my family's dismay, I'm sure, I made them go on the Living with the Land boat ride.  Yes, it's a little slow and maybe a little boring, but I think the greenhouses are so neat.  I think one time we saw Mickey-molded produce here, but I like how they tell you what foods the crops are used for throughout the parks.  And a giant Mickey head topiary was fun, too.

We next headed over to The Seas.  We probably shouldn't have bothered with the ride part, but it's cute.  I always love all the aquariums there.  The manatees amaze me.  There was one with a badly mangled tail, and we got to see them snacking on heads of lettuce from both above and below.

The smaller tanks always have some interesting and somewhat creepy creatures.  I don't even know what this one was, but it was spooky!

Thank you to this sea turtle for posing so perfectly in the Mickey head!  The next picture I took of the same spot accidentally caught a stingray passing through, but it blocked the turtle and I thought the turtle was cooler to see alone!

After we finished looking at the fish, it was time to head back to Norway for Frozen Ever After.  While the boys probably weren't that excited, we were interested in riding it.  It was essentially like Pirates of the Caribbean except with Frozen--a dark boat ride with one decent drop that gives you a tiny splash.  I snapped a quick picture of Elsa.  Her face was projected to animate it.

Overall it was a cute ride and backwards section and drop were a nice surprise.  Even Jacob admitted it was worth doing!  When we came out, it had just started pouring and thundering.  As we plotted our next steps, I took a picture of Carter with this troll (?).  Craig took my picture with him on our first trip, and I have a picture of Craig and Jacob with it from our last trip.  Carter got to join the club this time!

At that point, Craig and Jacob were once again out of things to do and with the rain, they were ready to go.  It was up to Carter and me to hit up the rest of the rides and try to make it to fireworks!  The rain was pretty crazy but we braved it over to Mission: Space and crossed our fingers the rain would stop by the time we came out.  This was a ride I somehow missed out on during previous visits.  I don't think I could ride it pregnant, and then I think it was a rain victim last time because we never got to explore this section.  We had the choice to ride the green mission--an orbit of Earth--or the orange mission--a Mars landing.  Orange has a bunch of warnings on it because it's a much more extreme experience.  We, of course, chose that one!  Thank goodness for Genie+ because the wait was way longer on that mission.
  

It was quite the ride.  After a couple intro sequences, we loaded into a space capsule with two other people and we each had a role.  Once again, our buttons would light up as we needed to press them, although this one had an audio prompt as well.  The G-forces on lift-off were extreme!  We were on our backs and could barely move our arms.  They put us into a "deep sleep mode" to quickly ride out the long trip to Mars, and then we were roused and had to land the ship.  Not surprisingly, they added some drama with was an emergency landing but all ended well.  We played around a bit with some no-longer-futuristic game kiosks afterward and then decided to run over to Spaceship Earth since Test Track was still not running due to the rain.     

I hadn't been on Spaceship Earth in a while.  I think Craig and I rode it, but I can't remember.  It's definitely an older style ride with the old school historical displays, but we liked it and the video at the end that we created through lifestyle choice questions and photos of our heads was pretty cute.  

When we walked out, the rain had slowed significantly, and I suddenly heard a noise: Test Track was running!  EPCOT is tricky because the World Showcase is almost entirely outdoors but all the rides are basically indoors--although Test Track is the one (partial) exception.  Part of our strategy that day had been to do as much of the World Showcase as possible first, before the inevitable rain came.  We missed a few countries last time because we got there later and the second half of the day ended up being a washout.  We basically ran past a bunch of countries through soaking rain, and I didn't want that to happen this time.  We got through everything this time, although briefly because much of it was when Jacob was tired and hungry.  I thought we'd be good to go after that, but forgot that part of Test Track is outside and therefore closes when it rains.  Because it's partially outside, you can hear it running as the car speeds around the outdoor track.  When I heard it running I got excited that we could check that one off the list, because it's yet another I didn't ride it while pregnant and missed due to the rain last time.  Even better, when we got over there, the ride wasn't actually open yet but a small line of hopefuls had formed.  We probably only had about 50 people ahead of us, so I figured that it was a smart gamble to stand there for a bit and see if it opened.  At least we were undercover so any lingering rain wasn't an issue.  Sure enough, after maybe 10 minutes they took the covers off the scanners and removed the chains.  We were in!  

We had to create our own vehicle through a series of choices on a computer.  We had a computer game like that when I was a kid and I could never quite get the hang of the best options.  This was likely no exception.  We did what we could and then loaded into a vehicle that went through a series of "tests".  We were in the SIM car, but after each performance test, it would display how the cars of everyone in our vehicle would rate in comparison.  The finale was going outside onto the track that runs around the building and getting up to 64.9 mph!  In the end our car wasn't half bad, but I wished I knew what other people did better!

After we finished up there, Carter asked to go on Mission: Space again.  We decided to do the green mission, not only to see what was different but also because it was a five-minute wait!  The green mission had a couple intense moments, but everything was much tamer.  I actually liked the ride itself better because the gentle float above Earth in orbit was really beautiful and relaxing compared to the asteroid belt we flew through to Mars.  But the other was obviously a lot more fun!

By this point Carter was getting hungry again (as was I) and I was desperately hoping to charge my phone and maybe get some band-aids for my worsening and now unprotected blisters.  All the moleskin I had used on them fell off in the rain so things were getting really sore, and I think the way I had to walk was also starting to cause a problem in my right calf.  I was a mess, and Carter wasn't much better since his slides gave him some blisters, too.  But first aid would have been more of a walk so I decided to push through the pain and try for the phone thing first.  In retrospect maybe I could have done both there, but oh, well.  It turned out the options I read about online were just regular outlets that could be accessed, rather than a charging station.  I had a cord but not the plug, so that wouldn't work.  I was nervous about my phone dying before I could ever get firework or ball pictures in the dark, and it was making me crazy.  Between taking pictures and using the energy-sucking Disney app, even leaving the phone on low battery mode all day was barely enough.  

The first charging attempt was at The Seas and I figured while we were there and killing time until fireworks, we might as well do Turtle Talk with Crush to avoid the rain and get some cool air.  Carter actually seemed to get a kick out of it.  The Australian turtle from Finding Nemo comes on the screen and actually interacts with people in the audience, right down to mentioning shirt (or shell, as he says it) and hair colors, and answering questions on the spot.  The voice is SO good and he ad libs so well.  Carter didn't really remember the character from the movie because it's been a while, but he did giggle a lot!

Next we went back to The Land because they had a quick service restaurant there and we figured we could grab food.  Unfortunately, it was closed by this point, which was a pretty crushing blow.  As we were trying to figure out next steps, I realized we had done the standby line for Soarin' before and still had a Lightning Lane to use.  We could do it immediately and were still killing time, so we rode it again!  It's such a pleasant, lovely ride.  

When we came out, it was thunderstorming pretty badly again, so we just waited it out for a while under cover, until it seemed to slow to a sprinkle.  We ventured out looking for food and a spot to watch the fireworks show, but we had a hard time finding something we wanted, and then Carter had to go to the bathroom.  It was around that time that they made the announcement that due to inclement weather the show was postponed.  I don't know where a postponement was on our Magic Kingdom night, but whatever!  Oddly, while it was thundering a lot, it wasn't raining at all.  And it actually didn't rain for the rest of the night, so I'm not sure what they were ultimately waiting for, unless radar shifted unexpectedly.  It's not like people were seeking shelter out of the lightning anyway, so they might as well have just done it and gotten it over with!  

We checked our closest stop, Mexico, for a bathroom but they didn't have one.  But since we had more time to kill, I asked Carter if he wanted to do the Three Caballeros boat ride, which I had never done, since there was no wait.  He was fine with it, so we did it!  It was the same sort of dark boat ride as everything else--no drop this time--but it had some cute video sequences like Donald Duck cliff diving in Acapulco or the Aztec pyramid stairs running like an escalator and then flattening out, causing him to slide down.  The end section was so pretty--colorful banners and LED fireworks in the ceiling.

We wandered a bit more past there and found a bathroom but it seemed like food was mostly a lost cause, as was my chance to get the Christmas ornament I wanted in Germany, since it was now past 9pm and things were closing.  Sigh.  I decided we'd just stop in the store closer to the park entrance (which HAD to still be open for people to buy those last-minute souvenirs) and get ourselves some snacks.  Then we could finish it off with one of the Wawa pretzels we still had back at the resort.  Not ideal but better than nothing.  It would be late anyway so we probably didn't need anything heavy.  

We waited around for a few minutes, but when the third postponement announcement came over, I mostly gave up and we started walking to the front of the park.  I figured that pictures of the ball were more important to me than fireworks and I wanted to do that before my phone died.  We went into the store, where Carter picked out a waffle cone chocolate bar and I picked a chocolate dipped Mickey head rice krispie treat.  We wandered for souvenirs a bit (no luck), paid, and headed out.  Of course, it was at that point I heard what sounded like the show, and sure enough, it was on!  

I honestly didn't want to walk all the way back, but we went up to the monorail track just before the walkway forked to the two sides of the World Showcase.  We stood there for a while to get an idea of the show, which had some projection effects on these round structures on the lake.  I snapped a couple pictures but it wasn't really exciting me, so I decided it was time to go.  I figured we could avoid the massive crush of people on the bus back to the resort right after the show let out, and I could get my ball pictures in the meantime.    

The only problem with my grand plan was that the ball was dark during the show.  However, when we got to the front side, it actually was lit--but they recently added these LED points of light to the indents all over the ball and I wanted to get a full picture of those!  

The best I could do previously in the night to capture those without another agonizing walk was this video:

I was happy that the uplights were on, at least, and the little "stars" that the points of light were creating (they twinkled every few seconds) were still really pretty.  I assumed the ball would go back to normal after the show, so I decided we'd sit on the edge of the fountain near it, wait for that to happen, snap a few pictures once it did, and run for the bus before the crowd got to us, which would at least guarantee us a much-needed seat.  

Waiting...it was still gorgeous.

Finally, I suddenly noticed some of the points at the very bottom changing color and coming back on.  They worked their way up the ball until it looked like this: 

Even Carter was impressed and agreed it was totally worth the wait!  After snapping a few pictures from different angles, we started working our way out.  But every few steps I'd turn back around and the view was gorgeous in a different way!

I wished it would have changed color a bit as we sat there like it was in the video previously, but how could I really complain about this?!

A bus was waiting for us and when we got on it was empty.  And despite hearing what we thought was a fireworks finale, the crowd never came.  Decent groups trickled out but no one made it to our bus.  We sat there for about 10 minutes and then the driver took off with only us!  Even better, he asked us which stop we were going to and went right there, rather than having to go through a few other stops elsewhere in the resort first.  It worked out so well.

When we got back, I made sure to finally snap a picture of King Bob, the lizard who lived near our door and greeted us every single night.  One night he had a twitching cockroach in his mouth, which may have been the one we found discarded outside the door the next morning.  Ewww.  A couple times he had a friend with him, and no matter what he'd always scurry into the trim when we arrived.

It was an extremely long day but once again Carter and I rocked it!  I was really happy with all we accomplished, but I was pretty depleted and unsure how I'd manage the one last day.  My phone wasn't any better--it was at 1% when I finally plugged it back in!  Whew.  And this was my Apple Watch when I finally took it off.  It was a lot, but it was awesome.  

I just had to get my feet (and the rest of us) through one more day.  That was as much of a relief as it was still daunting, but at the same time it was sad that we only had one more park and one more day to go.  How did the week go so fast?