It's a monsoon!
For our first morning on property, we decided to head to Epcot. Specifically, the bakery in France. Mmmmm.
We boarded the bus to Epcot and headed off.
By the time we got off the bus at Epcot, we had to acquiesce to the inevitable…it was raining. We got off the bus and donned our ponchos. We knew it was coming as we had checked out the weather report.
We walked right up to the turnstiles and waited for opening. (Can we still call them turnstiles?) And it was selfie time!
We kinda got Spaceship Earth in there!
They ended up just letting people in early. We were in the park by 8:45. Early open was kind of wasted on us since the bakery in France does not open until 9 am. We walked back and they had a rope up at the bridge over to France. Luckily, the gift shop down the hill at the back entrance was open, so we ended browsing around in there to kill time.
They finally took down the rope and off we went. As usual, we were the only ones in there. I swear this place is such a hidden gem for early morning breakfasts. But then again, I guess not everyone is rope dropping the France bakery!
Everything always looks so amazing here, but I was on a mission. I saw someone else talk about a bacon cheese bread pinwheel thing and it looked amazing. Nigel decided on a quiche, and we couldn't be there without getting something sweet as well, so we added on a Frangipane. It's a pastry with an almond paste filling.
Ta da!
I also got a latte and Nigel just got regular coffee.
We shared everything and everything was Amazing! I’ve never had a bad item there. And with it being so empty, it’s a nice place to relax and enjoy food. If it hadn’t been raining, we may have ventured to an outside table, but it was still nice.
A few other people filtered in, but it was mostly just us for the first hour.
After breakfast, we started meandering over toward Test Track. It was still raining steadily so I doubted that it would be running, but we figured we’d check it out. We were early for our FP at 10:35, but it definitely wasn't happening. There were about a dozen CMs hanging out to tell people that it wasn't running. Mostly, the CMs were just hanging out chatting with each other.
Since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to hit up Innoventions and check out the new Colortopia exhibit.
It was a cute little exhibit. Nothing earth-shattering, but I think it’s a good addition and in the spirit of Epcot Center, if you will.
Look, I have a rainbow shadow!
Lots of people had ducked in here to escape the rain, but it wasn't too crowded. Most people lined up for Sum of All Thrills, that queue was packed!
On the wall, there were a bunch of multi-colored wheels, like below:
When you pressed a button, the wheel spins and as the exhibit explained, your eyes automatically combine the colors into one solid color and you can’t see the two separate colors anymore. You can kind of seeing the one wheel spinning in the pic, but the pic won't capture what it is actually doing as it is some weird trick between the brain and eyes to make you see one solid color. It was pretty cool.
We also did the room where you get a magic paintbrush that you can change to reflect different colors, and then you paint a mural, electronically I guess for lack of a better word. Not using any actual paint.
Here was our section of the mural. They will email a copy to you, just stop at the computer to request it before you leave.
After Colortopia, we decided to check the wait time for Spaceship Earth. I was afraid it would be packed since it was raining, but to my shock, it was basically a walk-on.
Well, that came out blurry. After thanking the Phoenicians, it was coming up on 11 am. So, I thought we’d head to World Showcase, maybe see if we could “open” La Cava since I’ve seen them do that on Twitter, pick people to open and take a picture.
We headed off to World Showcase when suddenly…monsoon! Seriously, the rain at that point decided to pour down in buckets along with sweeping winds to make a poncho basically pointless.
We made it as far as the gift shop on the lake when we had to take shelter. I took video and tried to grab a screenshot, but I’m not sure the pic can accurately reflect the sweeping rains.
The shop was full of Star Wars merch, so we had fun checking that out.
It died down a very little, so we decided to make the dash for Mexico. There were a couple families there, but it was mostly empty. Looked over at La Cava, only to find out it doesn't open till Noon! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Well, on to the next best thing.
We were actually really excited to ride because they had put in the new animatronics for the 3 Caballeros, so we wanted to check that out.
They were awesome! I’m really glad they decided to put them in, such a nice touch for the ride.
After our ride, we browsed around Mexico while I looked up on my phone what was actually open food/drink-wise in the World Showcase. Tutto Gusto opened at 11:30! Excellent! Off for some Italian snacking.
Thankfully, the monsoon had passed and it was a more reasonable rain to walk through. We headed down to Italy, the very nice CM at the door gave bags to stuff our ponchos in.
We grabbed a table and decided to take the tour.
Yes, the grand tour of wines!
We also got one of the appetizer plates. Mozzarella cheese, breadsticks, crostini, eggplant caponata and salami.
We really enjoyed the wine flight. We have always enjoyed stopping in Tutto Gusto. It’s a little pricey even with TiW, so we don't stop here a lot but I do enjoy it when we do.
Next up, what will the weather be like once we leave??