11/17/2014
We thought we'd kick off our Orlando trip with a nice, relaxing day at Epcot. Compared to the other parks, it has the least amount of rides and activities to do. I don't mean that in a bad way, just saying that Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios has a lot more offerings.
I bought the Disney World and Universal Studios tickets online thru UndercoverTourist.com (an official retailer of the theme parks) cuz they’re cheaper than going through Disney and Universal. While we were in Normandy, France way, way, way back when, Angel got up at 5am in the morning to reserve FastPasses for Disney. Yeah, time difference sucks.
Disney allows you to reserve your FastPass choices 30 days in advance. And no joking, you really need to do it. Disney Resort guests get 60 days in advance, which meant that by the time we went in to reserve, a lot of the stuff we wanted to do was already gone.
Meeting Anna and Elsa was the most popular FastPass by far. I hear the lines
to meet them can reach 6 hours long. It’s not something we’d normally do, but
hell, if we got a FastPass, why not? Well, they were long gone by the time we
tried to reserve. :T Ah well.
Immediately after we got ready this morning, we went down to the hotel lobby to cancel the "free" breakfast (*cough cough* timeshare spiel) and get our $20 back (there was a $20 refundable cancellation fee). Baby felt bad the whole last night about the $20 and how we got suckered into signing up for the breakfast. Poor baby! So I wanted to remedy it as soon as possible, and accomplished all this before 8am. We hopped on the free hotel shuttle, which drops you off right in front of Epcot.
We rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends first because it's one of their most popular rides. Through real live aquariums, you see a projected Nemo and his friends popping up every so often on the ride.
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| Nemo & clownfish |
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| Baby cuttlefish--aren't they cute?! |
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| Hidden Mickey! |
This prehistoric creature was bumping his way rather clumsily along the aquarium floor:
Oh, and let's not forget the seagulls:
Inside the famous Epcot glass dome is a ride called "Living with the Land". It's a slow moving boat ride similar to Small World, and you journey thru the giant glass dome (essentially greenhouse) to see where a lot of the produce that Disney restaurants use is grown. They're using innovative, sustainable ways to grow crops, like vertical growing systems, soil-less environments, etc. They even farm fish and crocodile here.
TestTracks is a cool ride where you get to design your own car and see how your car performs thru a variety of tests. I told Angel let's design the most garish car imaginable and this is what we came up with:
Then I look around me and see that other people have managed to design more hideous cars than us. Guess we lost that one. :T In our row of 10 people, our car performed the fastest in terms of power and speed, but was the least eco-friendly. Oops.
The weather was going great until around 3pm. It first started as a sprinkle, then a drizzle, then a downright pour. We hadn't planned to go into each of the country showcases to see the movies on each country, as the movies are kinda long. But the rain was becoming unbearable, and this was a way to pass the time and stay dry. The movies looked like they were filmed in the late '80s/early '90s, so if you're into that sorta thing...
Because of the incessant rain, the French acrobat act was canceled, as they usually perform outdoors. The Chinese acrobats took their act inside, so we were able to catch their performance.
The China showcase had replicas of the Xian terra cotta warriors:
Angel and I were debating the whole afternoon about the terra cotta warriors. She thought all their heads had been chopped off, and I thought they were all intact. Guess we were both kinda right. Not all the warriors survived the archaeology digs intact, but at least nobody consciously took a bulldozer to them!
People online raved about the School Bread in the Epcot Norway showcase, so Angel wanted to try one:
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| School Bread |
It's a bun stuffed with custard, topped with fondant and toasted coconut, and a dollop of custard. For some reason, I thought it was eaten hot, and I was quite excited by the prospect, as the rain had turned the temperature shivering cold. Alas, the bread's meant to be eaten cold. >.<
It was kinda doughy, and didn't have that much custard inside. So it was a "meh" for both of us. I was more excited about the sandwich Angel had made for our dinner.
As we were leaving the Japan exhibit, Angel's umbrella broke.
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| Angel, holding her broken umbrella |
Not an hour later, mine broke as well. Argh! So we didn't stay for the fireworks, preferring to get back to the hotel and take nice long showers instead.
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| Me, holding up my broken umbrella |
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