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View Full Version : Sixty-five hours in Florida--Day 1



O'MalleytheAlleyCat
05-13-2007, 10:06 PM
Day 1: Up at 7:00 to catch a bus to EPCOT. I am not a breakfast eater (I know….it’s the most important meal of the day) and was still full from our late Cuban food last night, so we skipped eating and headed right to the park. We got there about 8:20 and were the second ones in our line. The family right in front of us got chosen to open the park for the day so we ended up being some of the very first ones through the turnstile. I will note here that there was a castmember named Eldon that was chatting things up with folks in line and he was awesome! He was funny and was great at getting to all the kids and having a good time with them. We saw him at least twice more that day in different parts of the park….he evidently got around!

Once the park was open, we made our way up to the fountain (walking past the great pirate ship topiary) we waited again to “officially” open the park and then followed the blue jacketed folks to The Land and Soarin’. We were on the first group to do this and it was great as usual. From there, we walked on to Living with the Land. Since we both grew up on Iowa farms, we always like this one a lot. After that we walked over to the desk and signed up to do the “Behind the Seeds” tour at 10:30. We had done this once before many years ago and enjoyed it very much. We were hopeful it would again be a good experience. Since we had about 45 minutes before we started the tour, we walked outside and through the rose pathway. The flowers were beautiful. We also saw Tinkerbell’s Fairy Garden which was very cute. Back in the Land, our tourguide was Kerry from Moline, Illinois (we flew out of there just yesterday!). We had about 12 people in our group, including 3 small children. There is no age limit on this tour and I think maybe there should be. I don’t believe the 3 year olds in our group got much out of the tour, and neither did their parents because they were always nervously watching the kids. Anyway, we got to see where they do some IPM (that’s integrated pest management), a lab where they grow plant cuttings and then 3 different greenhouses. These are the ones you see when on the boat ride, but you get to go right up next to the plants and the guide explains all about the different ways they are grown, etc… I would encourage anyone to take this tour as it is only one hour long and very informative. We even got to release some ladybugs into the greenhouse! We did run just a bit long on the tour and we had ADR’s for Le Cellier at 11:40, so we had to hustle right over there. Even though we were a few minutes late, we were seating within 5 minutes and had a great lunch. DH had the 5 oz. filet which he said was fabulous. I just had soup, breadsticks and a tomato stack. We shared a crème brulee sampler for dessert and left feeling very satisfied. We walked over to Test Track to check out the lines and saw more topiaries along the way. The wait at TT was 40 minutes at that point and the Fastpass return time was in 40 minutes, so we grabbed FP’s and headed over to the Universe of Energy. I love this show and missed it last summer, so wanted to be sure to get to it this time. We walked in just as the next show was starting…great timing! That Ellen is so funny and the show is a good one. After we learned about different sources of energy, we walked through Innoventions East (not much there that interested us) and then over to Innoventions West where both DH and I rode a Segway. It was fun and I know DS will be jealous. Maybe later this summer he can do it too.

We then walked over to the Living Seas and hopped on the new Nemo ride there. I was less than impressed. As a matter of fact, there isn’t anything much in the Living Seas anymore that holds my attention except for Turtle Talk with Crush. That is always a good time…that Crush is such a cool dude!! We walked through Mouseworks on our way to use our FP at TT and amazingly enough didn’t spend any money. Test Track was good as usual. As I get older, those outside curves seem to some faster and faster! We decided now to tour the countries and eat whenever we got hungry as opposed to making reservations for dinner. We started in Mexico and rode the updated boat ride. It was good (I thought the old film was very outdated) but again, did nothing to really impress me. We stopped at the bakery in Norway and DH got some lefsa. His heritage is Norwegian, so this always reminds him of his boyhood. We ducked into the little church there and learned a bit about Eric the Red and other Vikings…..and to think that I always thought Norwegians were a peaceful bunch!! We stopped in the shop at China and bought a couple of souvenirs for our kids left at home then quickly made our way to Germany for chocolate and beer. Both DH and I have German blood in our veins so we like looking around in all these shops. When we went to buy some fudge, the lovely German girl mentioned that if we bought 4 pieces, then 2 were free. Well….no need to twist our arms! We came away with 6 pieces of fudge…yum…!!! DH also grabbed a Beck’s and we sat and people watched for a while. Once we got moving again, we really walked right past Italy, USA and Morroco. I was hoping to hear the Voices of Liberty but we had missed their last show for the day. We did notice a very long line already for the 7:00 concert that night featuring Nelson. We moved on to Japan and stopped to watch the candy maker. She was amazing! We did the bulk of our gift shopping here, since DS is crazy about all Japanese stuff, Pokemon and otherwise. In France, we toured the fragrant gardens and did a bit more people watching. We were getting hungry for dinner about this time so went to England for fish and chips. We were able to score a bench and sat and ate and people watched again. When we were done, the British Invasion was just beginning to play, so we stayed for their performance. It was such a nice night and they were very good. We backtracked to France and found a spot to watch Illuminations. I sent DH to the bakery for an éclair for me and he got some crème brulee for himself. The show was inspirational and the weather was perfect. After it was done, we slowly made our way back to the entrance to catch a bus to the Pop, went home and fell into bed very tired!! Tomorrow…everything else we wanted to do all in one day!

pdrlkr
05-13-2007, 10:07 PM
Thanks for the report! :smickey:

mrsgaribaldi
05-14-2007, 12:13 AM
I like Nelson but not doing the songs of their father, doing their own songs. Thanks for sharing:thumbsup:

faline
05-14-2007, 01:50 PM
Oops! Looks like a duplicate post!