Epcot

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We headed out to Epcot today – again, think we made a great choice! The first half of the day the park was practically empty..!! I guess everyone was sleeping in/hungover from New Year’s haha.

Daisy Duck was near the entrance, so we did photos with her first – then Stitch was dancing up a storm, so we met him too. He had fun playing with my index cards – he was waving them around and basically teasing me for having them instead of a book haha. No love Stitch :P

Mission Space had a less than 5min wait... uh, ok! We opted for the “more intense space training” – it was neat. Loved that Gary Sinise was the video host haha. The ride basically has you blast off to space and land on Mars – some quality g-forces to be felt.

For Test Track, we decided to go single rider (since it’s a 3 seater) and we waited maybe 10min. The inside portion was lacklustre, but the outside portion flying through the banked curves was epic.

The Land Pavilion was our next stop; there was a boat ride that did a kind of historical/environmental review and took us through this greenhouse with all sorts of plants/fruits and these new ways of growing veggies to try and optimize space and water usage. We also went to watch “The Circle of Life” – a video with Simba, Timon and Pumba basically saying how humans are ruining the environment, and how you can help make a difference to make things better. Soarin’ was a cool ride – it’s basically an Imax show flying over California – great landscapes to be seen!

Character Spot let us meet Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, Donald and Goofy ; I think Donald was my fav – he was hamming it up for the camera, prancing around, and threw in a kiss for good measure. Goofy was fun too though, there’s just something about him haha.

Duffy the Bear had his own gazebo up near the World Showcase – he was also a lot of fun. He started running around the gazebo, kept insisting on hugs, played with the cue cards, etc. Then after the two of us did our pictures he like chased us to have a photo with the both of us. So cute.

Tracy wanted all the characters in the World Showcase, so we kind of hopped around the world getting photos and signatures. Snow White was in Germany (since when is she German?); Donald was wearing a sombrero in Mexico (I accidentally shot an elastic at him and he acted all scared haha); Mulan was in China (she spoke all about Mushu).

We took a break for a bit to go back for rides – there was a Finding Nemo ride (help find Nemo!). It was cute outside because they had the seagulls who would just look around and every few minutes would start a chorus of “mine. Mine. Mine” haha.

But I think my fav thing today was “Talking to Crush” afterwards. All the kids sat up front on the floor while the adults sat on benches – Crush showed up to chat with us, taking questions from the kids – sooo adorable! He taught us how to speak turtle (totally, sweet, saaaahweet, dude, duuuude, etc.) We had to raise our fins in the air and also put them to our foreheads and shake in shame (Dad Turtles have experience going “duuuuude” apparently haha); he told us how he named all 65 of his kids (Squirt, Crush Jrs haah) and other fun little things. I think it was so much fun because of the facial expressions he kept making and he just quick on his feet. One of the kids was from Canada – he’s like “I Cana-don’t know where that is” hahaha. And at the end he told all the kids to say “dude”

Then it was back to characters – Mary Poppins told us about her travels by umbrella (and that she hears Canada is lovely this time of year..?) We roamed around the World Showcase for a bit after that – it’s neat seeing how the different countries are represented, even if it’s somewhat stereotyped. The Canada store made me laugh – so much mountie stuff... and they had all the hockey teams except Winnipeg and the Sens..!! I was like wtffff... not cool.

Anyway, moving on. While waiting for Aladdin and Jasmine to arrive, I went to get a drink of water and met this random guy; he was sitting on a bench near the water fountain and stopped me as I walked by, pleasantly (and enthusiastically) saying hello. “You must work here – you must be on your day off enjoying the park” I smiled back, uh no..? I’m just visiting. “Oh, really? You look like you work at Disney... and that’s a good thing!!” I’m like oh, ok haha, wasn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean. “It means you have this smile and this presence to you that just says ‘I love life’.” I just awkwardly stood there smiling hahaha. I’m like, oh... thanks!! He then went on to explain that he lives in Orlando and just loves the parks, so he comes on like a weekly basis just to people watch and he’s got pretty good at picking out the employees when they’re not working. He asked where I was from and noted it wouldn’t be that far to move if I wanted to work at Disney lol. But then he added, “I’m sure you’d miss the cold though” I laughed – I’m like, ok you say that... but like it’s true haha, I miss snow and I’ve been on vaca for like a week lol. Anyway, we chit chatted a bit more and then I went back to find Tracy – it was a really lovely encounter 😊

Aladdin was cute – not gonna lie haha. He asked where I’m from and we got to talking about university and how I’m going to be a teacher. He asked if I’d heard about the War of 1812... I’m like uh, of course lol. Then he specified some type of battle (from Morocco, where they were located) in 1812 – I’m like... no, not aware of that one. He smiled, “not much happened – like 4 camels broke their backs” – it was so random, I started laughing haha. I’m like... wait, what?! Hahaha.

Belle had to sign for herself and the Beast – apparently his paws weren’t conducive for writing 😉 She said “Bonjour” to everyone, and I debated testing to see if she could speak French, but decided against it. Nothing special about Alice, she was just nice... same with Sleeping Beauty and Marie (from the Aristocats) 😊

Back to rides again – Captain EO was ok... it was a 3D show with Michael Jakcson... yeah... it was... odd. We had some fun with Figment (the imagination dragon!!) and playing around the Innovations building – we got to star in a video game, create (and ride thru a simulator) our own roller coaster, amongst other things. We also went on the ride inside the big white dome - it's kind of a humans thru history thing, with a look into what our future could look like. Nothing crazy fancy, but it was nice.

We randomly found this great coke machine that had soda drinks from across the world – some were great and others not so much... such as the Italian drink that essentially tasted like pure alcohol. Beyond gross.

I went to grab a bratwurst at the German pavilion after that... and they tell me they’re all out... I’m like... seriously? Germany is out of bratwurst?! Fail. I got a frankfurter w/ sauerkraut instead – it was really good, but it was not bratwurst 😞

The Illuminations Show was really nice – I think the fireworks were better today than they were last night lol. It was a really pretty way to end the night 😊

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