Epcot- Saturday, August 23, 2014

Maybe we'll blog later.  For now, here's some pics from today.

Today is our day for Epcot.  We drove our car there, rather than use the bus, to give ourselves a little flexibility.  We went right to Spaceship Earth after we entered.  It was the second time we've gone on the updated version of the ride.  After that, the three girls rode Mission Space.  It is an attraction that has been here for a while, but we've never gone on it.   Emma and Julie rode the "Green Team" which is supposed to be a milder experience (but even so, Julie didn't like it).  Anna went for the "Orange Team" which is a more intense simulaton of space flight.  After that, we went to the Universe of Energy where much younger versions of Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy are still part of the attraction.

By then, it was getting close to lunch tme and we ate at the Land.  Immediately after that, we had FastPasses for Soarin', which is a favorite for many of us.  We went to the Seas, where a Nemo ride takes you in to the building.  We had a FastPass for the ride, but didn't wait for it to come because the regular lines were so short.  We've ridden it before, but it's pretty new, and it's interesting how they project images of the fish from Nemo into the tanks with the real fish.  We looked at the manatees and fish inside, and Emma found a hidden Goofy in the rocks of the tanks.  After that, we went to Journey into Imagination, where once again we didn't need to wait for our FastPasses because the regular lines were negligible.  

We were then ready to make our way around the World Showcase, and started with Mexico.  We rode the boatride there, and then the boat in Norway.  Norway also had a display about how Norwegian culture is reflected in the art of the movie Frozen.  We went to the movie in China, and we all enjoyed looking through the shops there.  There was an interestng exhibit there about the terra cotta warriors of Xi'an.  We found some newts running around on the side walk there as well.  We went shopping in Germany after that, but skipped past Italy to get to dinner.

We had dinner at the American pavillion, and then went to the presentation with Ben Franklin, Mark Twain and the others.  When we coming out, we found a downpouring storm hitting the park, and the audience was stopping at the exit doors.  Luckily, it wasn't a very full house, and the storm didn't last long.  We went over to the lobby to rest.   The storm passed quickly, but left some huge deep puddles that the girls were splashing in and blew down debris from the palm trees.

We went pretty quickly through the second half of the World Showcase.  We skipped Japan.  The movie wasn't running in France.  We shopped briefly in Morocco and the UK.  (We found a lot of Doctor Who merchandise in a shop in the UK, which seemed ironic because tonight is the night that the 12th Doctor is being introduced.  We're going to miss the episode because BBC America isn't on the hotel TV.  Julie has been wearing different Doctor Who shirts this week, and she's been getting a lot of comments about them.)   We skipped the Canada movie because the Stan Rogers parts were cut from it.  However, as we left the World Showcase and crossed back to Future World, we did see a very large softshell turtle swimming in the water by one of the bridges.  We stopped an watched him for a while.

We were going to go to ride Test Track, but it was still down, apparently from the storm.  We had seen what we wanted to at Epcot, so Julie suggested that we ride the monorails for a while.  We took one to the Transportation Hub, and the rode the "Resorts" line, past the Polnesian, the Grand Floridian, and the Magic Kingdom.  We got off at the Comtemporary Resort and went through the shops there.  After that we took the monorail back to Epcot, found our car, and made our way back to our own hotel.  The girls went swimming then.  The pool is by the hotel wing themed for Fantasia, so there is a large statue of Sorcerer Mickey by the pool.  They were also showing "Lilo and Stitch" on a large screen nearby.