Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Disney Days 4&5: EPCOT

If I don't start lumping some days together, the odds of me making it through this entire vacation are bound to wither away. Besides... Epcot is not my favourite park. The first day we were there, I actually took very few photos. So it should be easy to summarize. On our first morning, we went to Akershus for their Storybook Dining breakfast with the princesses. Great cold buffet (though I stayed away from the herring and capers - they weren't doing it for me at 8 a.m.) and hot plated breakfast.

I'm having a hard time now remembering what we even did. We visited a few attractions in Future World, which is my least favourite side of the park. They pipe in that cheesy 'futuristic music' soundtrack that I'm sure has remained unchanged since 1986. The kids loved Innoventions though, and I convinced Liam to ride Soarin'! with me, a hang glider simulator that was the one new attraction I was looking forward to. He had a few moments when he clutched my hand, but overall he enjoyed it and went on to ride it again with Chad the next day. We also spent a lot of time on the Nemo ride, and we went to see Turtle Talk with Crush, which was surprisingly good. And we hung around the aquarium for a bit.Lunch was at a favourite, Teppan Edo. The kids got a big kick out of having the food prepared right at the table in front of us. And Mallory is always up for rice and noodles.We were back at the hotel each afternoon for swimming, colouring, and an attempt at a nap for Mallory. Our first night's dinner was at Coral Reef which is cool because one whole wall is a giant fish tank. Plenty of entertainment for the kids. We'd heard reports of food quality here suffering lately, but we both thought it was excellent. This was my appetizer -a Shrimp and Lobster Cake with some sort of thai dressing. On our second day, we picked up a quick to-go breakfast and Chad and Liam jumped right in line to go on Soarin'! again. (The attraction can have waits of up to 2 hours, but if you time things right, you can get through the queue in 10-15 minutes.) Then we spent a bit of time around the World Showcase. We had fish and chips for lunch one day in England... now I'm thinking perhaps I have my first and second days mixed up? I would have to check my notes.Back to the hotel for more swimming and a break before dinner. Right before dinner, Liam and Chad rode Test Track, which I think scared Liam half to death, but he says he would do it again. Dinner that night was at Chip and Dale's Harvest Dinner Buffet at the Garden Grill. It's served family-style and includes a lot of food grown in the greenhouses on the premises (it's in The Land building)... and again, it was excellent - much better than I anticipated. The real highlight though was that this character meal featured Pluto, who is (for whatever reason) Liam's favourite. He was so excited. He brought a little stuffed Pluto from home and carried it through the park to show the Pluto character, who pretended to weep with joy. And that just made Liam's day. This photo is one that the Photopass photographer took on our way out of the park. Lovely, cooperative children, right? Thus the need to do a new family portrait on the weekend!Next up: Day 6: Hollywood Studios. I'll have to refer back to my notes before posting that one... otherwise it will just be a whole lot of "I don't remember."P.S. I know it looks like we have barely changed our clothes in these photos. That's because we packed light and did a load of wash half way through the trip!

1 comments:

Dana said...

Enjoying reading more of the details of your trip.