Now I must apologize for an even longer delay in the trip report! However, I do still intend to finish the report as I set out to do for anyone who is interested 
There's nothing like holiday vacation to catch-up on your to-do list!
Our second full day at Disney we spent at Epcot. The morning was definitely not what we had hoped for. This was an EMH morning and so we got up bright and early and arrived at the Epcot bus station by 6:40 AM. However, we waited and waited and no Epcot buses came! Forty-five minutes, four Magic Kingdom buses, three HS buses, two AK buses, and two calls to the front desk later, an Epcot bus finally arrived. This was very annoying, as our rope drop plan had relied on us getting to the park early! The rest of rope drop was somewhat of a blur- we ran (or “walked excitedly”) to the park entrance and they were just starting to check bags at security and let guests into the turnstiles (this was around 7:40). We managed to find a short security line and get to the front of the rope (toward the right/ Soarin) and ended up being on the first Soarin flight of the day despite our morning delay! We were excited to be on the top flight, so we wouldn’t see any feet dangling down above us (which is slightly less magical). Soarin is one of our very favorite Disney rides so our day was off to a great start! We were off the ride by about 8:20 AM, and were ready for our first ride ever on the new Test Track! We were in line at Test Track by 8:30 AM, and the standby wait was posted at 30 minutes. We decided to just wait in the standby line and ride together rather than going single rider, partly because we wanted to get the full-design experience on our first ride. I had read a lot of mixed reviews about the new Test Track, but I have to say, we both really enjoyed it! Despite our very limited knowledge about cars, we had a lot of fun building our own, and it was really cool to see how our cars performed on each part of the test. The design process also killed some time in line. The line was a little shorter than posted (took about 20-25 minutes), and we were off TT and entering the Mission: Space line at 9:03 (according to the pictures on my phone). We have always gone on MS Green, since we’ve worried that the orange would be a little too intense with the spinning and pressure (I did try the orange later in the trip though- stay posted)! We both enjoyed our tame green experience with essentially no wait and crossed over to the seas pavilion. We were there by 9:25, and got in line for the first Turtle Talk performance of the day at 9:40. Even though we are both adults now, we still think this show is absolutely adorable, and enjoy catching it once per trip. As a side note, despite some disagreement among DISers about the value of EMH at Epcot, I would highly recommend them. Within an hour and fifteen minutes, we rode Soarin, Test Track, and MS, and were back over at the Seas pavilion just after the park would have normally opened. The park didn’t seem particularly crowded to us later in the day either (probably in part because Epcot is such a large park), but even if the crowds were slightly larger, it didn’t matter to us because we already rode all of the headliners!
Anyways back to the Seas: After another very cute Turtle Talk performance, we took a quick spin on the Nemo ride, where there was no line at all. We walked right onto this, and were off just after 10. We headed back to the land pavilion, where there was still no wait at Living with the Land at 10:08. We really enjoy this relaxing boat ride, and seeing all the produce grown right in the land pavilion! We then used our first fp+ at Soarin around 10:30, where we skipped a 70-80 minute wait. So fun to walk right back on to our favorite Epcot ride! We had a Figment fp+ scheduled for 11:05, and killed a few minutes beforehand by sampling beverages at Club Cool. We had never done this before, but really enjoyed a stop over! Some of the drinks were very tasty, while others tasted kind of like antibiotics or a cough syrup. Refreshed from our drink sampling, we headed over to Figment, where the line was posted at 25 minutes at 11:00! This is a ride where we never remembered a wait at before fp+, and that quite frankly isn’t worth waiting more than a few minutes for, so we were glad we had the fp. We were on and off in a little more than five minutes, and headed back over the Seas pavilion for our 11:35 Coral Reef reservation. It is a tradition for us to have lunch at the Coral Reef on our first Epcot day, and we usually really enjoy this. I don’t eat fish, so it may seem like an odd choice for me, but they usually have at least one good vegetarian option, and mom really loves the fish here. We got a great seat up in the elevated seating area, and had an awesome view of the tank. Usually we are seated closer to the tank, but it was really cool to see back and up more, to get a better overall view of the fish and shark swimming. This was our view from our seat:
I got the veggie chick’n breast dish with black rice and pine nuts, which I liked alright, but was extremely acidic tasting. Here is a picture:
My mom got a fish dish which I think she liked also, but wasn’t necessarily wowed by.
We both had the pomegranate lemonade which seems to be a universal Disney staple, and we both enjoyed, despite the blatant artificial flavoring of it. For dessert, we ordered a chocolate wave and a panna cotta, which were both delicious and rich. Taste-wise, we both preferred the chocolate wave, which was complemented very well by the raspberry sorbet. However, I think I ended up eating more of the panna cotta, since it was a lighter dessert and I was getting really full!
Lunch went really quickly since were seated right away and arrived right at opening, so we were heading out about 50 minutes later. We were out a little earlier than anticipated and it wasn’t time for our next fp+ yet, so we stopped into MouseGears for my mom to get a visor- it was another hot and sunny day (low 90’s). We had fastpasses for Spaceship Earth at 12:45, but these didn’t seem to save us a whole lot of time. The fastpass line was very backed up when we arrived at 12:50, while the standby line wasn’t terrible (about 25 minutes). We had a very bizarre experience on our first Spaceship Earth ride- we were playing around with the interactive component when we first got on the ride where it asks you to give information about yourself, where you are from, etc. In doing this, we must have somehow accidentally selected that we spoke Spanish (either that or our car was already set to Spanish) because the entire narrative was in Spanish and we could understand a word! Not only that, but my speaker was broken entirely, so I could only hear bits of Spanish coming out from my mom’s speaker! This definitely took away from the enjoyment in the moment, but was also kind of funny in retrospect. After getting off the ride, my mom told the operator that my speaker was broken and hers was in Spanish, and they let us ride again right away without waiting in line, which was very nice. Needless to say, we appreciated the ride more in English! The interactive part at the end of the ride was hilarious where our screen made up stories about us based on the information that we had entered. We were now slightly behind schedule due to the unexpected second ride on SE, but headed over to the Universe of Energy to ride the Ellen ride just after 1:30, arriving at 1:40. My mom loves Ellen DeGeneres, so this is a must-do for us each time we go, even though it was super long (about 45 minutes). It was very nice to sit in the air conditioning for 45 minutes though, and I ended up taking a quick power nap on this ride (blasphemy to the Ellen fans- I know). We then headed back over to Test Track and got into the SR line, now that we had already gotten the full experience. The SR line took about 15 minutes around 2:25- 2:30ish (skipping over the optional abbreviated design section), which wasn’t bad at all, considering that standby was well over an hour. We enjoyed our second ride on Test Track, and were then ready to tackle the World Showcase! We were there during the Flower and Garden festival, so the park was particularly beautiful during our visit, and we stopped several times to admire the topiaries and flowers. We were over in Mexico by about 2:50, and were wandering inside the crowded Mexican “market”. We took a ride on the Gran Fiesta, which is by no means a must-see, but we enjoy riding every once in a while. There was no wait at all, and my favorite part is riding in the boat past the giant volcano! We then started exploring the world showcase- there’s currently not much to see in Norway, but we saw the little museum in the China Pavilion and Reflections of China, wandered around the Germany pavilion and inside the shop. This isn’t cliché or touristy at all:
We then headed back to China for the 4:00 showing of the Dragon Acrobats. It was still brutally hot out at this time (thank goodness for the chilly pads we bought for this trip!) and I felt horribly for the performers, many of whom were in long sleeves! We really enjoyed the show, but it was very sad at one point, because one female acrobat made one small mistake when she was balancing glasses on herself and looked extremely upset afterwards/ started to cry. It was hard to watch because she was so talented, and must have so many successful performances every week! Here are a couple of pictures of the performance:
We then continued to make our way around the world showcase, stopping in Italy briefly to watch some of the Sergio show, which we did not enjoy at all. It was very cheesy and unimpressive compared to the Dragon Acrobat performance! We stopped for some Makidori (a flavored ice snack) in the Japanese pavilion, which was delicious, and I would highly recommend it! The orange flavor was particularly good.
We then headed back to the American pavilion for The Great American Adventure show, which neither of us had ever seen before, since it is such a long show and difficult to time correctly when meandering around the World Showcase. We both enjoyed the reflection on American history, but it isn’t necessarily something that we are dying to go back to see again. It is pleasant enough to watch if you are there at the right time and have a spare 30 minutes, however. We saw the 5:15 show, and were out around 5:45. Our original plan was to see a Matsuriza performance at 6:00 PM, but it started pouring just after the American Adventure show, and so the 6:00 PM performance was cancelled. Instead, we took shelter inside of the Japanese anime exhibit, which we had also never seen before. I am not a big anime fan, but still enjoyed taking a quick walk around (especially to escape the rain!). We then took some time to explore the Morocco pavilion and watched Impressions de France, excited for the opportunity to sit down again in air conditioning. We grabbed some hard cider in the UK pavilion, and watched some of the 7:00 PM performance in the UK gardens, which was very pleasant. Around 7:30, we headed over to Le Boulangerie Patisserie, where we had an absolutely delicious meal. I would rate this meal as hands down one of the best of our trip, and we ate at a lot of popular table service meals! I got a brie and apple sandwich which was delicious, and my mom got a quiche which was also exceptional. We both got mousse desserts, partly because they seemed a little lighter and we had eaten a lot today. However, I was kicking myself a bit for the yogurt/fruit cup I got, which was quite average, when this place has so many exceptional pastries. Don’t make that mistake when you visit!
We lounged inside the dining area for awhile, since unfortunately, it had begun to rain again. When we left around 7:45, we decided to just find a place to watch Illuminations, rather than trying to squeeze anything in beforehand. We found a really nice spot where we could sit down and had an unobstructed view of the fireworks right in front of the France pavilion. It was a long wait until showtime, but we were grateful to have such good seats when it finally started! The rain held off for a bit too, which was fortunate. Rather than fighting the masses on the way to the bus stop, we decided to be sneaky and walk over to the boardwalk, and take a taxi from there. This was really a pleasant and relaxing way to end the day, and really worth the $12 or so. Illuminations ended at 9:12 and we were back at our resort by 9:35, to give you a sense of how quick this option really was! We went right to sleep, since we had to get up early again the next day for an action-packed EMH morning at HS.
There's nothing like holiday vacation to catch-up on your to-do list!Our second full day at Disney we spent at Epcot. The morning was definitely not what we had hoped for. This was an EMH morning and so we got up bright and early and arrived at the Epcot bus station by 6:40 AM. However, we waited and waited and no Epcot buses came! Forty-five minutes, four Magic Kingdom buses, three HS buses, two AK buses, and two calls to the front desk later, an Epcot bus finally arrived. This was very annoying, as our rope drop plan had relied on us getting to the park early! The rest of rope drop was somewhat of a blur- we ran (or “walked excitedly”) to the park entrance and they were just starting to check bags at security and let guests into the turnstiles (this was around 7:40). We managed to find a short security line and get to the front of the rope (toward the right/ Soarin) and ended up being on the first Soarin flight of the day despite our morning delay! We were excited to be on the top flight, so we wouldn’t see any feet dangling down above us (which is slightly less magical). Soarin is one of our very favorite Disney rides so our day was off to a great start! We were off the ride by about 8:20 AM, and were ready for our first ride ever on the new Test Track! We were in line at Test Track by 8:30 AM, and the standby wait was posted at 30 minutes. We decided to just wait in the standby line and ride together rather than going single rider, partly because we wanted to get the full-design experience on our first ride. I had read a lot of mixed reviews about the new Test Track, but I have to say, we both really enjoyed it! Despite our very limited knowledge about cars, we had a lot of fun building our own, and it was really cool to see how our cars performed on each part of the test. The design process also killed some time in line. The line was a little shorter than posted (took about 20-25 minutes), and we were off TT and entering the Mission: Space line at 9:03 (according to the pictures on my phone). We have always gone on MS Green, since we’ve worried that the orange would be a little too intense with the spinning and pressure (I did try the orange later in the trip though- stay posted)! We both enjoyed our tame green experience with essentially no wait and crossed over to the seas pavilion. We were there by 9:25, and got in line for the first Turtle Talk performance of the day at 9:40. Even though we are both adults now, we still think this show is absolutely adorable, and enjoy catching it once per trip. As a side note, despite some disagreement among DISers about the value of EMH at Epcot, I would highly recommend them. Within an hour and fifteen minutes, we rode Soarin, Test Track, and MS, and were back over at the Seas pavilion just after the park would have normally opened. The park didn’t seem particularly crowded to us later in the day either (probably in part because Epcot is such a large park), but even if the crowds were slightly larger, it didn’t matter to us because we already rode all of the headliners!
Anyways back to the Seas: After another very cute Turtle Talk performance, we took a quick spin on the Nemo ride, where there was no line at all. We walked right onto this, and were off just after 10. We headed back to the land pavilion, where there was still no wait at Living with the Land at 10:08. We really enjoy this relaxing boat ride, and seeing all the produce grown right in the land pavilion! We then used our first fp+ at Soarin around 10:30, where we skipped a 70-80 minute wait. So fun to walk right back on to our favorite Epcot ride! We had a Figment fp+ scheduled for 11:05, and killed a few minutes beforehand by sampling beverages at Club Cool. We had never done this before, but really enjoyed a stop over! Some of the drinks were very tasty, while others tasted kind of like antibiotics or a cough syrup. Refreshed from our drink sampling, we headed over to Figment, where the line was posted at 25 minutes at 11:00! This is a ride where we never remembered a wait at before fp+, and that quite frankly isn’t worth waiting more than a few minutes for, so we were glad we had the fp. We were on and off in a little more than five minutes, and headed back over the Seas pavilion for our 11:35 Coral Reef reservation. It is a tradition for us to have lunch at the Coral Reef on our first Epcot day, and we usually really enjoy this. I don’t eat fish, so it may seem like an odd choice for me, but they usually have at least one good vegetarian option, and mom really loves the fish here. We got a great seat up in the elevated seating area, and had an awesome view of the tank. Usually we are seated closer to the tank, but it was really cool to see back and up more, to get a better overall view of the fish and shark swimming. This was our view from our seat:
I got the veggie chick’n breast dish with black rice and pine nuts, which I liked alright, but was extremely acidic tasting. Here is a picture:
My mom got a fish dish which I think she liked also, but wasn’t necessarily wowed by.
We both had the pomegranate lemonade which seems to be a universal Disney staple, and we both enjoyed, despite the blatant artificial flavoring of it. For dessert, we ordered a chocolate wave and a panna cotta, which were both delicious and rich. Taste-wise, we both preferred the chocolate wave, which was complemented very well by the raspberry sorbet. However, I think I ended up eating more of the panna cotta, since it was a lighter dessert and I was getting really full!
Lunch went really quickly since were seated right away and arrived right at opening, so we were heading out about 50 minutes later. We were out a little earlier than anticipated and it wasn’t time for our next fp+ yet, so we stopped into MouseGears for my mom to get a visor- it was another hot and sunny day (low 90’s). We had fastpasses for Spaceship Earth at 12:45, but these didn’t seem to save us a whole lot of time. The fastpass line was very backed up when we arrived at 12:50, while the standby line wasn’t terrible (about 25 minutes). We had a very bizarre experience on our first Spaceship Earth ride- we were playing around with the interactive component when we first got on the ride where it asks you to give information about yourself, where you are from, etc. In doing this, we must have somehow accidentally selected that we spoke Spanish (either that or our car was already set to Spanish) because the entire narrative was in Spanish and we could understand a word! Not only that, but my speaker was broken entirely, so I could only hear bits of Spanish coming out from my mom’s speaker! This definitely took away from the enjoyment in the moment, but was also kind of funny in retrospect. After getting off the ride, my mom told the operator that my speaker was broken and hers was in Spanish, and they let us ride again right away without waiting in line, which was very nice. Needless to say, we appreciated the ride more in English! The interactive part at the end of the ride was hilarious where our screen made up stories about us based on the information that we had entered. We were now slightly behind schedule due to the unexpected second ride on SE, but headed over to the Universe of Energy to ride the Ellen ride just after 1:30, arriving at 1:40. My mom loves Ellen DeGeneres, so this is a must-do for us each time we go, even though it was super long (about 45 minutes). It was very nice to sit in the air conditioning for 45 minutes though, and I ended up taking a quick power nap on this ride (blasphemy to the Ellen fans- I know). We then headed back over to Test Track and got into the SR line, now that we had already gotten the full experience. The SR line took about 15 minutes around 2:25- 2:30ish (skipping over the optional abbreviated design section), which wasn’t bad at all, considering that standby was well over an hour. We enjoyed our second ride on Test Track, and were then ready to tackle the World Showcase! We were there during the Flower and Garden festival, so the park was particularly beautiful during our visit, and we stopped several times to admire the topiaries and flowers. We were over in Mexico by about 2:50, and were wandering inside the crowded Mexican “market”. We took a ride on the Gran Fiesta, which is by no means a must-see, but we enjoy riding every once in a while. There was no wait at all, and my favorite part is riding in the boat past the giant volcano! We then started exploring the world showcase- there’s currently not much to see in Norway, but we saw the little museum in the China Pavilion and Reflections of China, wandered around the Germany pavilion and inside the shop. This isn’t cliché or touristy at all:
We then headed back to China for the 4:00 showing of the Dragon Acrobats. It was still brutally hot out at this time (thank goodness for the chilly pads we bought for this trip!) and I felt horribly for the performers, many of whom were in long sleeves! We really enjoyed the show, but it was very sad at one point, because one female acrobat made one small mistake when she was balancing glasses on herself and looked extremely upset afterwards/ started to cry. It was hard to watch because she was so talented, and must have so many successful performances every week! Here are a couple of pictures of the performance:
We then continued to make our way around the world showcase, stopping in Italy briefly to watch some of the Sergio show, which we did not enjoy at all. It was very cheesy and unimpressive compared to the Dragon Acrobat performance! We stopped for some Makidori (a flavored ice snack) in the Japanese pavilion, which was delicious, and I would highly recommend it! The orange flavor was particularly good.
We then headed back to the American pavilion for The Great American Adventure show, which neither of us had ever seen before, since it is such a long show and difficult to time correctly when meandering around the World Showcase. We both enjoyed the reflection on American history, but it isn’t necessarily something that we are dying to go back to see again. It is pleasant enough to watch if you are there at the right time and have a spare 30 minutes, however. We saw the 5:15 show, and were out around 5:45. Our original plan was to see a Matsuriza performance at 6:00 PM, but it started pouring just after the American Adventure show, and so the 6:00 PM performance was cancelled. Instead, we took shelter inside of the Japanese anime exhibit, which we had also never seen before. I am not a big anime fan, but still enjoyed taking a quick walk around (especially to escape the rain!). We then took some time to explore the Morocco pavilion and watched Impressions de France, excited for the opportunity to sit down again in air conditioning. We grabbed some hard cider in the UK pavilion, and watched some of the 7:00 PM performance in the UK gardens, which was very pleasant. Around 7:30, we headed over to Le Boulangerie Patisserie, where we had an absolutely delicious meal. I would rate this meal as hands down one of the best of our trip, and we ate at a lot of popular table service meals! I got a brie and apple sandwich which was delicious, and my mom got a quiche which was also exceptional. We both got mousse desserts, partly because they seemed a little lighter and we had eaten a lot today. However, I was kicking myself a bit for the yogurt/fruit cup I got, which was quite average, when this place has so many exceptional pastries. Don’t make that mistake when you visit!
We lounged inside the dining area for awhile, since unfortunately, it had begun to rain again. When we left around 7:45, we decided to just find a place to watch Illuminations, rather than trying to squeeze anything in beforehand. We found a really nice spot where we could sit down and had an unobstructed view of the fireworks right in front of the France pavilion. It was a long wait until showtime, but we were grateful to have such good seats when it finally started! The rain held off for a bit too, which was fortunate. Rather than fighting the masses on the way to the bus stop, we decided to be sneaky and walk over to the boardwalk, and take a taxi from there. This was really a pleasant and relaxing way to end the day, and really worth the $12 or so. Illuminations ended at 9:12 and we were back at our resort by 9:35, to give you a sense of how quick this option really was! We went right to sleep, since we had to get up early again the next day for an action-packed EMH morning at HS.
