Now that I got the not-so-great end of Day 5 out of the way, we can move on to more fun!
Day 6: All New Epcot!
We didn't set an alarm this morning, and woke up around 8AM or so. We moseyed on over to the Ceremonial House for breakfast at Captain Cook's. I had a Mickey waffle and Ben got the breakfast combo platter. It was quick and yummy and we got some coffees to take with us back to our room.
We stopped in the gift shop so I could look for flip flops. I had ended up bring my Crocs (super comfy except for matching ridiculous blisters on the tops of my feet. Thank goodness for mole skin!), some sandals (were not giving enough support and left my feet aching), and sneakers (too warm for socks and sneakers!) I had been wearing so much mole skin that the skin on my feet was irritated and I wanted to give them a break. I didn't really find anything that was better than my sandals, so we gave up. At least today should be a pretty easy-on-the feet kinda day.
On the way out, we passed by the DVC kiosk and the very nice CM saw our pins and asked us if we had received our phone call from Mickey and Minnie yet. He handed us the phone, and we listened to Minnie be really excited for us and Mickey be really excited about wedding cake. It was actually really cute and one of the few nice things we saw from the whole 'What will you celebrate' shenanigans.
Of course the DVC guy had to ask us if this was our first trip, and when he learned that we had been before
and had a trip already planned for next year, he asked if we knew about DVC. Then he said we'd get a $100 gift card just for doing the tour. That's all Ben had to hear, we agreed that we'd do a tour later in the week just for that money (we were racking up the room charges for tips and OOP meals like no one's business. And today was gonna get worse...)
We continued back to our room to drop off our mugs and then headed on to the TTC. I know I said it before, but Tahiti was an awesome location!
It wasn't long at all until we made it to Epcot
It was a little after 10 by the time we made it to the park, and we wandered over to Test Track as it was the one ride we didn't get on the other day we were here. Unfortunately, the ride was down so it was off to our next destination- the Land to sign up for a Behind the Seeds tour.
As we walked up to the desk, the 11:15 tour was just getting ready to leave. We were behind another couple and chatted a little to a CM standing nearby and didn't immediately get to the register. So when we got up to the counter, they had magically changed the next tour time. It was a little frustrating to
just miss a tour, but we signed up for the noon and headed out to find something else to do.
It was really hot, and we didn't walk too far before ducking into the AC bliss of Innoventions. I finally got to do what I had wanted to the other day:
We made what we thought would be a super fun coaster and we named it the most awesome thing ever: the Infinite Eagle
When it finally was time to ride, Ben got into an awkward disagreement with the CM because he didn't want to put his stuff in the locker they provide. She was pretty passionate about the unreliability of buttons on pockets (though did say that zippers would be ok
), so Ben finally gave in. I have
no idea why he didn't just go along with her right away, but it was actually kinda funny. The ride itself was not fun. It didn't feel like a roller coaster, just like we were in a harness that moved. We obviously are not good at designing virtual rides.
Once we got off, we had a very short window to get our butts back to the Land. We ran over there and were the last people to show up... I think the rest of our tour was giving us dirty looks, but that may have been my guilty conscience.
We had a small group (I think just 3 other couples) and a very nice tour guide named Clayton.
Here is Clayton talking about stuff in the greenhouses.
Ben got to release some ladybugs.
I didn't know that they grew cucumbers into Mickeys, too!
We got a very good view of the lettuce HM.
Those fish were
nuts... every tour feeds them and when they see people walk by they start flipping out! They may have been Tilapia... I obviously did a crappy job of retaining anything I learned on this tour.
Except for one thing: I had always wondered about the alligators in the Aquaculture section. Naively, I kinda assumed they must be released somewhere and I thought that was weird cause alligators are already a problem in Florida. Silly Joyce, those guys are shipped here from a farm to grow a little in these tanks before going back for slaughter. These ones would be heading back soon. No one else on out tour was surprised by this, and when I accidentally thought aloud, "awww, that's sad', I got a few weird looks from my tour mates (some of whom were locals and all of whom apparently have eaten alligator).
I was happy to move back on to the plants... I think I'll save animal related tours for the AK from now on!
Clayton took a picture for us in the tropical greenhouse.
This was our very first taste of a WDW tour and I think it is safe to say it won't be our last! It was a lot of fun, and really neat to see everything from another perspective. But it was
hot in there, and I left in a big sweaty mess. The only thing to do was to sneak into Club Cool and get some soda samples.
The best part of this was that Ben picked Beverly as his very first to try. I wasn't prepared for that, so I don't have a picture. I don't really like any of the sodas, but I tried a teeny bit of them all.
We were finally a bit cooler, and could brave the heat enough to dash to the next closest AC... back to Innoventions for yet
another Epcot first!
on TSM??? holy cow! The ride is fun...but TWO HOURS?
You are the queen of perseverance now! I would never have made it.
I havent been in forever, and now im actually really looking forward to checking it out next month! I had forgotten much about it - until you posted that it was your 'Must Do'.
Sorry about the ruined surprise-- that's definitely something worth getting annoyed over! That seems like such a silly rule. I feel like they should have warned you before if you couldn't get alcohol delivered.
