Saturday morning was a bit hectic. I had to get up early to get Carter and me set up for our virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy at 7am. In retrospect, I should have bought Genie+ right off the bat as well, but we'll get to why that was a mistake later. The other complication that morning was that we had to completely pack up to have our bags moved over to Saratoga Springs around 10am. That meant packing up everything, running the dishwasher, sorting through our remaining food and fridge items, and having it all ready to go when we left. Carter and I got out the door a little before 9am. I'm happy I remembered to take a picture of our villa on the way out. We were in the upstairs one to the left of the palm tree and stairs, tucked in there where the one porch light is just visible around the corner. Looks lovely, doesn't it?
While we were starting to explore EPCOT, Jacob finally got his waffles:
The boys opted not to go to EPCOT because there wasn't as much there that they enjoyed, and preferred to use that day as an extra resort day. They split the rest of the day between Disney Springs and our new resort, giving us a couple previews over the course of the day--including a picture of a snake they saw on the sidewalk!
Carter and I got to EPCOT and as usual, I couldn't go by Spaceship Earth without taking a million pictures. The way the light bounces off the angles is so amazing, day and night.
Our first stop was Club Cool. We had missed this last time, and I discovered after our trip that you can get free samples of Coke products from other countries...including one completely awful one. I had clued Carter in that I had a surprise for him here, but didn't tell him what. I figured going early would help us avoid the crowds, and we had a fountain all to ourselves. We worked our way from right to left.
We loved the Sprite Cucumber from Russia, and Country Club from the Dominican Republic was really good, too. Carter didn't like the Sour Plum Tea one from China. Then we got to the end...it was time for Beverly. Beverly is an aperitif from Italy. It is super bitter, and it's a tradition for parents to trick their kids with it. At the last minute I had a change of heart and figured we'd suffer together, though he had no idea what to expect.
We wanted to ride Test Track next door, but the line was too long. I really should have just bought Genie+ at that point, but I didn't...and by the time I wanted to, most of the good rides were done and had no slots left. Next time, note to self: just get Genie+ first thing and be done with it.
We checked out the store, which was home to Jacob's giant, beloved bear from 10 years ago. The store selection was a little disappointing this time, actually, not that we could have fit the adorable mountie stuffed animals in our luggage anyway. I decided we should try something different and do the 360 Circle Vision movie. I thought Carter might like the round screen (it's like one step short of IMAX or the amusement park dome films from 30+ years ago--you almost feel like you're moving) and figured he would recognize a few things between Niagara Falls and Toronto. We actually had a lot of fun talking about the various places in the movie, from the cities that Craig has traveled to, to stadiums that Carter is aware of from video games, to the places we've been. And there was a cameo from the 2019 NBA Champion Raptors, which was extra cool! And at the end they played the song that I remembered from the Disney World soundtrack, probably from the original version of the movie, which made me smile.
It was a nice way to remember our fun chat in line to have them in our picture.
At that point we decided to bite the bullet and ride Test Track despite a 50 minute wait. We hopped in line and it moved nicely, and then all of a sudden we just didn't move for about 10 minutes. There had been announcements while we waited about possible weather in the area, and this is one of the first things to close when there's rain. It was extra annoying because for once there wasn't a high chance for rain, and yet the moment we got in this line, all of a sudden there was imminent rain?! Ugh. Once they announced an official delay (though I'm not sure if it was weather or something else, because we continued to hear the cars on the test track outside), some people did get out of line, but unfortunately not many of the people in front of us. Fortunately it didn't last long, and we moved again a few minutes later. I was still worried about weather hitting before we got to the front of the line, but fortunately all went well. We designed our car and once again felt rushed to get it done on time. And we still don't know what works best! We always feel like we need about two more minutes to do it justice.
Our car actually didn't perform quite as well as last year's, but we had a fun ride and I was thankful to get that one done.
We were hungry again so we worked our way back through Mexico and got ourselves some churros! They were so good!
I decided we should make it a goal to get a good picture in every country, something different than before. This was Norway.
Sadly the line for the Frozen ride never really went down, so we ended up having to skip it. That was a bummer as it's a cute ride and I would have liked to do it again, but my Genie+ lesson has officially been learned!
We moved around the corner and I got this shot.
I was also intrigued by this mostly black clownfish!
We saw the usual creepy eels and devil rays and sharks. I always love looking at the tanks. I wish we would have had a little more time for Turtle Talk with Crush, but we had a few more things to do. On our way back around to grab some dinner, I snuck this picture of the new Moana Journey of Water exhibit. You could just get glimpses through the fake shrubbery walls they had up. You could see some of the water features and little bits like this. Days after we got home I started seeing lots of videos from annual passholders getting their previews.
It was starting to get dark outside, and I was eager to get a bunch of pictures of the lighted ball. This little bit of uplighting they had looked so pretty.
I think it was around this time that we rode Spaceship Earth. It's not the most exciting ride, but we enjoyed watching our little on-ride video of our vision of the future based on a quiz we took. I don't think we ever got our emailed version, unfortunately. Carter and I each took a turn on the car driving game at the exit, too. We decided at that point that we needed to eat some dinner. We only snacked all day, and while I think we were mostly over the big meals by this point, we wanted something more than a snack. We opted to get pizza since two slices came in an order and it looked like one would be enough for each of us. It was really good and definitely hit the spot, as did the endless refills of pop. I tried not to spend a lot on drinks during the trip, but I really wanted one for that meal, and it was perfect. Unfortunately, the timing of dinner meant we missed any possible sunset shots, but we did come out to this!
And this...
... and this.
We moved around the ball as they put on a light show, and I couldn't stop taking shots. This was a fun one, with the old EPCOT logo.
We had mostly only seen the light show from a distance last year because we were doing other things, which meant I mostly only got pictures of one color scheme after the fireworks, so I wanted to make sure I got my fill this year. I did...though I could have sat there all night.
We brought our drinks around to another spot farther away to get a different view, and found a bench right across from Moana, which looked really pretty lit up.
I also caught this sort of artsy shot of the Monorail passing above our heads.
We ended up walking back over to the big souvenir shop because Carter was still looking for something. We wandered around for a few minutes and could hear the fireworks starting. He quickly settled on a Star Wars toy that was pretty cool--a spaceship with Luke and Yoda that was surprisingly reasonable--and we quickly paid and headed back outside to get a glimpse of the show.
We wandered back out front before it was over to get a few more pictures before we had to leave. If you look close on this one you can see the ball lights reflecting off the blue.
We walked out to the same color palette I caught a ton of pictures of last year, so I didn't belabor it. I caught a few and we headed out.
Despite our best efforts, we ended up on a super full bus and had to stand, but at least we didn't have to wait for another one. It felt so odd that for the first time ever we were not on an Old Key West bus--we were on our way back to Saratoga Springs! It was a little weird going back to a resort and not knowing where we were going, but I was interested to see our new digs for the night. And since our last day was a little shorter, I'll leave you in suspense and save that for the last post!
Our first stop was Club Cool. We had missed this last time, and I discovered after our trip that you can get free samples of Coke products from other countries...including one completely awful one. I had clued Carter in that I had a surprise for him here, but didn't tell him what. I figured going early would help us avoid the crowds, and we had a fountain all to ourselves. We worked our way from right to left.
We loved the Sprite Cucumber from Russia, and Country Club from the Dominican Republic was really good, too. Carter didn't like the Sour Plum Tea one from China. Then we got to the end...it was time for Beverly. Beverly is an aperitif from Italy. It is super bitter, and it's a tradition for parents to trick their kids with it. At the last minute I had a change of heart and figured we'd suffer together, though he had no idea what to expect.
We were endlessly amused by how bad it was. Even with my taste issues I could tell it was really, really bad. Carter kept burping it back up, even though we tried to chase it with some of the better flavors.
Our first ride stop was Mission Space. We did the crazy G-force orange mission first, which was so intense, maybe even more so after a bunch of bubbly beverages. We played some of the games at the end and then went right back around and walked right on the green mission. I do love the more chill float above earth in that one, but orange is definitely more exciting. I still wish there was a way to skip all the pre-ride stuff once you've already done it.
On the way out of the ride, we found this funny Chewbacca backpack in the store. We didn't buy it, but considering Craig's big Chewy find on this trip, we thought it was fun!
We wanted to ride Test Track next door, but the line was too long. I really should have just bought Genie+ at that point, but I didn't...and by the time I wanted to, most of the good rides were done and had no slots left. Next time, note to self: just get Genie+ first thing and be done with it.
We wandered back around and headed toward the pavilions on the other side of the park. One more pic (or five) as we passed by.
When we headed toward the Journey into Imagination pavilion, we saw Pooh!
Inside, I finally got a good picture of Figment! With all the movement on the ride, it's hard to not have blurred ones.
We played with some of the activities after the ride and made our own Figment, one of the few emailable things we actually did get. I was a bit bummed that the upward fountains outside weren't on this time. But I still caught a nice picture anyway.
As usual, we had some fun with the jumping fountains! The sun had emerged after an overcast morning so Carter took it as a chance to cool off and let himself get a couple direct hits!
We decided it was time to start working our way through the World Showcase, although we knew we'd probably get called for Guardians of the Galaxy before we got too far, much like last year. We started in Canada, where the Chateau Frontenac-style building is under refurbishment. I had seen that was happening a while back but I was hoping it would be done by now. Oh well. Yay for another different picture...ha.
When we headed toward the Journey into Imagination pavilion, we saw Pooh!
Inside, I finally got a good picture of Figment! With all the movement on the ride, it's hard to not have blurred ones.
We played with some of the activities after the ride and made our own Figment, one of the few emailable things we actually did get. I was a bit bummed that the upward fountains outside weren't on this time. But I still caught a nice picture anyway.
As usual, we had some fun with the jumping fountains! The sun had emerged after an overcast morning so Carter took it as a chance to cool off and let himself get a couple direct hits!
We decided it was time to start working our way through the World Showcase, although we knew we'd probably get called for Guardians of the Galaxy before we got too far, much like last year. We started in Canada, where the Chateau Frontenac-style building is under refurbishment. I had seen that was happening a while back but I was hoping it would be done by now. Oh well. Yay for another different picture...ha.
We checked out the store, which was home to Jacob's giant, beloved bear from 10 years ago. The store selection was a little disappointing this time, actually, not that we could have fit the adorable mountie stuffed animals in our luggage anyway. I decided we should try something different and do the 360 Circle Vision movie. I thought Carter might like the round screen (it's like one step short of IMAX or the amusement park dome films from 30+ years ago--you almost feel like you're moving) and figured he would recognize a few things between Niagara Falls and Toronto. We actually had a lot of fun talking about the various places in the movie, from the cities that Craig has traveled to, to stadiums that Carter is aware of from video games, to the places we've been. And there was a cameo from the 2019 NBA Champion Raptors, which was extra cool! And at the end they played the song that I remembered from the Disney World soundtrack, probably from the original version of the movie, which made me smile.
Next it was on to England and it was Carter's turn to get pictures in the phone booth.
He also liked taking a picture with this guard, and also had one where he was making faces at the guard to "distract" him!
Then it was time for France and Ratatouille. Once again, this would have been a good time to buy Genie+, but I didn't. Even still, we only waited about 45 minutes or so, most of it air conditioned, which I think was similar to last year.
We love the ride and didn't have to worry about it making Craig or Jacob dizzy this time! It's so cute.
He also liked taking a picture with this guard, and also had one where he was making faces at the guard to "distract" him!
Then it was time for France and Ratatouille. Once again, this would have been a good time to buy Genie+, but I didn't. Even still, we only waited about 45 minutes or so, most of it air conditioned, which I think was similar to last year.
We love the ride and didn't have to worry about it making Craig or Jacob dizzy this time! It's so cute.
We walked through Japan and saw the drum show...
...and then got to Germany where we bought a giant pretzel to share. I was hoping to make up for my miss last year by finally buying the blown glass Mickey ornament at the Christmas store in Germany, but alas...they only had ones with Santa hats and I wanted one of the generic colored ones so I could display it all year. That was a bummer, but at least I didn't have to worry about getting it through the park or home in one piece.
It was around that time that we got our Guardians virtual queue call, so we rushed through all of the other countries as we ate and headed right to the ride. We were pleasantly surprised that the indoor line was considerably shorter than it was last year. We got to skip a couple full sections that we previously had to wait in. About 15 minutes into the wait, the older guy behind us asked if we had ridden the ride before. We said yes, and that we loved it. It turned out he was a Philadelphia native who moved to Florida, lives an hour away by the beach, and has an annual pass. He said that he will often take a meeting in the car, come to a park, ride a couple things, and go home. That particular day he brought his significant other with him, as she had never ridden Guardians and he said she needed to! We had a really nice chat with them as we found out he went to the same college as my dad and therefore had some knowledge of Western New York, and when I told him about our sports connections we talked about hockey, lacrosse, and baseball. We had a really nice chat until we got to the two parts near the end of the queue where you're in big rooms and it's easy to get separated. I lost track of them once we got into the final line where they send you off to the trains, but by some miracle, not only did we end up on the same ride, but we were also in the same car--and the front one no less! Earlier in the line he asked Carter if he wanted to know where the on-ride camera was so he could do something silly, and Carter declined, but he said he'd do something funny for us. We had also talked about the best song to get on the ride--we had "September" last year, which he said was one of the best but he barely gets it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to try one of the other ones or just add to my love of "September" from last year, so it was a big moment near the start of the ride when the music started. And sure enough, it was "September" again! The ride was just as awesome as we remembered it. It just makes you smile so much! And this time I knew who the characters were and how it worked with the storyline of the original movie. It was so great! I wished there would have been Lightning Lanes available by that point because I probably would have bought them on the spot. This was our on ride photo:
It was a nice way to remember our fun chat in line to have them in our picture.
At that point we decided to bite the bullet and ride Test Track despite a 50 minute wait. We hopped in line and it moved nicely, and then all of a sudden we just didn't move for about 10 minutes. There had been announcements while we waited about possible weather in the area, and this is one of the first things to close when there's rain. It was extra annoying because for once there wasn't a high chance for rain, and yet the moment we got in this line, all of a sudden there was imminent rain?! Ugh. Once they announced an official delay (though I'm not sure if it was weather or something else, because we continued to hear the cars on the test track outside), some people did get out of line, but unfortunately not many of the people in front of us. Fortunately it didn't last long, and we moved again a few minutes later. I was still worried about weather hitting before we got to the front of the line, but fortunately all went well. We designed our car and once again felt rushed to get it done on time. And we still don't know what works best! We always feel like we need about two more minutes to do it justice.
Our car actually didn't perform quite as well as last year's, but we had a fun ride and I was thankful to get that one done.
We were hungry again so we worked our way back through Mexico and got ourselves some churros! They were so good!
I decided we should make it a goal to get a good picture in every country, something different than before. This was Norway.
Sadly the line for the Frozen ride never really went down, so we ended up having to skip it. That was a bummer as it's a cute ride and I would have liked to do it again, but my Genie+ lesson has officially been learned!
Next up was China...
We wandered through the shop there, grabbed lemonade slushies at the Outpost after that, and constantly kept an eye out for a bunch of little Remy (the rat from Ratatouille) statues that were scattered around the countries. Apparently it's some sort of scavenger hunt, maybe for the Food and Wine Festival. We didn't find them all, but we did see a bunch.
We took this picture in Germany...
...and this one in Italy.
I finally did a better job getting the ball in the center in Japan.
This was in the Japanese garden. If you zoom in, guess who's in the background?
We briefly heard the Baha Men do "Who Let the Dogs Out" as they were performing live near the American area, and then moved on to Morocco. Since I had been taking so many pictures of Carter, I had him take one of me near this beautiful fountain.
We worked our way back through the other countries we'd already been through and popped ourselves back out closer to The Land. We grabbed this picture on the way, and I just thought it was cute how Carter was mimicking Groot!
And I wanted my picture with Figment, my favorite from way back!
And of course, the final picture in our Disney 100 series!
We headed to The Land to ride Soarin', which was delightful as always. I will always be grateful to that ride for being my one adrenaline rush from the trip where I was pregnant and couldn't ride any of the good rides! I suggested we ride the Livin' with the Land boat ride just to give our feet a little more rest. I know it's not the most exciting thing, but I do like seeing all of the crops, like these weird things--I think they're melons?
Next up was The Seas. Of course we needed a picture in the shark's mouth!
I always love seeing what's in all the tanks. This was a creepy but cool lionfish.
I loved this pink fish with the pink coral in the background. The pattern on the fish was so cool.
The manatee top viewing was closed and this might have been the first time I hadn't seen them getting fed. This one was just hanging out on the bottom, which was also something I don't remember seeing.
The dolphins were pretty active in the big tank. Imagine our surprise when this happened. The guy next to us was pretty shocked, too!
We wandered through the shop there, grabbed lemonade slushies at the Outpost after that, and constantly kept an eye out for a bunch of little Remy (the rat from Ratatouille) statues that were scattered around the countries. Apparently it's some sort of scavenger hunt, maybe for the Food and Wine Festival. We didn't find them all, but we did see a bunch.
We took this picture in Germany...
...and this one in Italy.
I finally did a better job getting the ball in the center in Japan.
This was in the Japanese garden. If you zoom in, guess who's in the background?
We briefly heard the Baha Men do "Who Let the Dogs Out" as they were performing live near the American area, and then moved on to Morocco. Since I had been taking so many pictures of Carter, I had him take one of me near this beautiful fountain.
We worked our way back through the other countries we'd already been through and popped ourselves back out closer to The Land. We grabbed this picture on the way, and I just thought it was cute how Carter was mimicking Groot!
And I wanted my picture with Figment, my favorite from way back!
And of course, the final picture in our Disney 100 series!
We headed to The Land to ride Soarin', which was delightful as always. I will always be grateful to that ride for being my one adrenaline rush from the trip where I was pregnant and couldn't ride any of the good rides! I suggested we ride the Livin' with the Land boat ride just to give our feet a little more rest. I know it's not the most exciting thing, but I do like seeing all of the crops, like these weird things--I think they're melons?
Next up was The Seas. Of course we needed a picture in the shark's mouth!
I always love seeing what's in all the tanks. This was a creepy but cool lionfish.
I loved this pink fish with the pink coral in the background. The pattern on the fish was so cool.
The manatee top viewing was closed and this might have been the first time I hadn't seen them getting fed. This one was just hanging out on the bottom, which was also something I don't remember seeing.
The dolphins were pretty active in the big tank. Imagine our surprise when this happened. The guy next to us was pretty shocked, too!
We moved around the corner and I got this shot.
I was also intrigued by this mostly black clownfish!
We saw the usual creepy eels and devil rays and sharks. I always love looking at the tanks. I wish we would have had a little more time for Turtle Talk with Crush, but we had a few more things to do. On our way back around to grab some dinner, I snuck this picture of the new Moana Journey of Water exhibit. You could just get glimpses through the fake shrubbery walls they had up. You could see some of the water features and little bits like this. Days after we got home I started seeing lots of videos from annual passholders getting their previews.
It was starting to get dark outside, and I was eager to get a bunch of pictures of the lighted ball. This little bit of uplighting they had looked so pretty.
I think it was around this time that we rode Spaceship Earth. It's not the most exciting ride, but we enjoyed watching our little on-ride video of our vision of the future based on a quiz we took. I don't think we ever got our emailed version, unfortunately. Carter and I each took a turn on the car driving game at the exit, too. We decided at that point that we needed to eat some dinner. We only snacked all day, and while I think we were mostly over the big meals by this point, we wanted something more than a snack. We opted to get pizza since two slices came in an order and it looked like one would be enough for each of us. It was really good and definitely hit the spot, as did the endless refills of pop. I tried not to spend a lot on drinks during the trip, but I really wanted one for that meal, and it was perfect. Unfortunately, the timing of dinner meant we missed any possible sunset shots, but we did come out to this!
And this...
... and this.
We moved around the ball as they put on a light show, and I couldn't stop taking shots. This was a fun one, with the old EPCOT logo.
We brought our drinks around to another spot farther away to get a different view, and found a bench right across from Moana, which looked really pretty lit up.
I also caught this sort of artsy shot of the Monorail passing above our heads.
This one ended up being a screen shot off my phone because I loved this color palette and how it sparkled, but only accidentally caught it for half a second at the start of a video I didn't mean to take, and it ended too quickly in real life for me to get a photo.
It was such a pleasant evening to just relax on the bench to kill time until fireworks. I took the opportunity to change into my sandals as we sat, because I've decided my feet must swell by the end of the day and my sneakers get uncomfortable. The sandals were great, but either way I was ready to wrap up the night. I think we did somehow save ourselves five miles off last year's EPCOT day, but I still doubled my Move goal and ended up with a perfect week of closing all three rings on my watch every day we were there! One more video before we walked:
We wandered back out front before it was over to get a few more pictures before we had to leave. If you look close on this one you can see the ball lights reflecting off the blue.
We walked out to the same color palette I caught a ton of pictures of last year, so I didn't belabor it. I caught a few and we headed out.
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