Friday August 15
Epcot
I was going to start things off by linking to an actual in the wild sighting of
the same unfortunate hotel abbreviation I mentioned in an earlier post, but it looks like they edited the thread title.
Oh bother, Ill get to the good part, our evening at Epcot.
It was around 5:30 when we headed to the lobby, sidestepping drunk convention goers along the way KIDDING! We never had a single issue with any Dolphin conventioneers, drunk or otherwise. I guess the upside to the Swolphin having this dodgy reputation is that these resorts often have good deals and last minute availability.
As soon as we set foot outside into the fragrant, humid evening and saw the manicured grounds we both said something to the effect of, this is so vacation-y!
I know it sounds silly, but though my sister and I have both traveled a fair amount, and have stayed at some pretty nice hotels, we have never visited an actual vacation resort. It felt really good to be on a proper vacation!
We decided to walk to Epcot following the path along the Yacht and Beach Clubs.
After not much time at all we were at Epcots International Gateway! This had been our favorite park as teens/tweens and it was hard to believe we were actually at this place we had dreamed of visiting again.
I used the Unofficial Guide to put together an unofficial touring plan for the night. I knew we wouldnt hit everything on the list, but I figured it would help us make the most of our time. The plan had us starting at Mexico, so we decided to stroll through the countries and just soak in the atmosphere before we started trying to check off all the sights we wanted to see.
Our first stop was in Japan. We split a melon kaki-gori, a treat my sister had somehow never tried while she lived in Japan, and kept walking around the World Showcase Lagoon. It didnt take us long to get to Mexico, where we both realized we were starving. We backtracked rather aimlessly while foraging for food and settled on Moroccos Tangierine Café (it took me until typing the name just now to figure out why it is spelled that way). I had the Vegetarian Platter and my sister had the Lamb Shawarma Sandwich. You could tell the guy at the counter totally didnt want to be there, and my sister said something to me like, thats not very Disney, which cracked us both up for some reason. The food was pretty good. I think I had the better of the two meals but, truth be told, Id had an almost identical dinner the night before from a local Middle Eastern restaurant. I love tabouleh and hummus.
After dinner we sauntered back to Mexico, where we entered the pyramid to ride Gran Fiesta. It made me remember how cool I thought the San Angel restaurant was when I was a kid. I havent heard very good things about their food, but I think Id still like to try it sometime.
We got in our fiesta boat and the smell of the water really brought back Disney memories. It was a cute ride. There was a bit of a boat traffic jam, which resulted in some drama with a stupid teenage boy who thought he was being cute by pretending to climb out of the boat. Oh well. At least we started off our trip by riding on an attraction with a bit of that old Disney magic.
In Norway, we grabbed fastpasses for Maelstrom and each bought a Carlsberg in honor of our Danish ancestors. I had every intention of being an organized commando, but as we were both exhausted we took things pretty easy that night, and just sipped our beer as we enjoyed the park.
Somewhere along the way, we used our fastpasses and rode
Maelstrom.
Soon it was getting dark and we started talking about finding a spot to watch Illuminations.
My sister was less than thrilled with the notion because she had all of two hours of sleep the night before, but she gave in because she knew I was really excited about it. We found a spot where she could slump down and rest against a wall until the show started. I emailed my boyfriend to let him know about our day and replied back to a friend who had commented on one of the Dolphin photos I had uploaded from my phone.
Then the show began!
I had warned her that I might get choked up during the show, but when the vocal version of We Go On started I was more amused than overwhelmed by emotion. It reminded us both of Christian contemporary music in a really funny way (sorry to those that love that song).
Over the top vocals aside, Illuminations was amazing, and a perfect way to end our first night at Walt Disney World. We headed out of the park and walked back to the resort via the Boardwalk. We caught a second wind and browsed at one of the shops, but soon found ourselves back at the hotel.
We turned on the TV and got caught up on the Olympics and then I took this shot from our balcony. It had been a perfect first day.
yellow
Someday I'll get to stay in a resort within walking distance to a park!!
