jjpenguin
<font color=red>A penguin with mouse ears & wooden
- Joined
- Sep 26, 1999
- Messages
- 3,308
Up at a pretty normal time today, the plan called on going back to MGM to do some stuff we had missed, maybe get some rides done as yesterday was all StarWars all the time. Now doing the same park 2 days running is not my style, so we also have to go to another park and as we're at the Boardwalk Epcot is the park of choice.
Unlike a lot of people Epcot is our least favourite park, it has certain attractions that are great fun, and when we're at WDW off season we spend a lot of our evenings there as it's open the latest, but although I keep meaning to take in some more of the entertainment and finally go to the last couple of films we've not yet done there are always things we prefer doing instead. Will it be any better this time....??
Well....no, and yes. I start off on a bit of a bad foot with Epcot, or more to the point, with the Fountainview bakery: 1) I had forgotten that the dining plan does nog add desert to breakfast anymore - which I could have lived with, in fact I would have willingly spent a snack coupon on one of the yummy pastries there but... 2) they didn't have the breakfast pockets, which are very filling flaky pastries with egg & bacon in them: this is what I wanted, and I couldn't get one!! Not a good start to the day I'm afraid....
After our 'substitute' breakfast we walked up to the front of the park as we wouldn't really be coming in that way to see the Donald & Daisy topiary
and from there we went to see Minnie's Butterfly Garden which was nicely done, but a bit small. I had to laugh at someone who was asking where all the caterpillars had gone as there was a bush full of them just near his feet
Next up was a resounding YES for Epcot! Turtle Talk with Crush, we loved it dude! It is so well done and funny and charming and just awesome dude!! (can you tell we loved it)
The Living Seas is being rehabbed but we still had a look at the Manatees which you can now also see in the water from below - maybe this isn't new but I can only remember peering through the lettuce floating on the surface of the tank - followed by a quick stroll round the aquarium where we saw some divers in the tank, and when we took a better look we saw that they were moving the sea turtle to a separate tank. It took 4 divers! That was a unique thing to see.
From there we went over for our walk around the World Showcase to see the stuff for the Flower and Garden Festival:
Beauty & The Beast
I got some ideas for our own garden in Norway as they had a lovely woodsy area which would fit in well with our garden. Without the oversize garden gnome though..
In China we browsed the HK Disneyland exhibit which was very interesting - and nice and cool, which was good as it was getting very hot by now. In Germany we found the (not so) hidden Mickey in the train set up and I tried my hand at being a topiary...
As usual we breezed past Italy and America and ran into Goofy, who was looking for someone to play with, we also spotted Mickey and Max with almost nobody around, if we had been in the mood we could have has some great character one-on-one time. But we weren't so on to Japan. There was an interesting "sound garden" where water flowed through various pipes and made drums and bells sound, but it was too hot to watch for long so I persuaded DH to have a quick look in the shop... This time I had said that I wouldn't buy any of the beautiful china so te make sure this happened I just didn't look in that part of the shop!! I did succumb to some magnets & paperclips in the shape of penguins (what else did you expect)!
I think the time difference was getting to us.. we were getting hot & bothered, so we decided to breeze through the rest of WS and go back to the pool to cool off. The main pool was pretty full so we went to the quiet pool, which was also fairly full and lukewarm, but still refreshing! We lazed around for a couple of hours, and after that it was back off to MGM for the late afternoon.
DH still wanted to do the stunt show, but the last show was just about to start so we hopped into the backlot tour instead and got to see a bit of the stunt show from the other side. We had a row to ourselves in the tram so I could get a good pic of our visit to Catastrophe Canyon:
After that we looked for a snack before joining the Hyperspace Hoopla again, we had wanted to try the place near the Backlot Tour, but that was closing so we went across to the Star Wars area and shared a grilled sandwich there while watching the young Padawans going through their training. The HH was fun again and slightly different to yesterday's.
After this we decided to leave MGM and go to DTD for some dinner.
DH had the great idea of going to Old Key West and taking a boat from there, probably prompted by the fact that an OKW bus was just pulling up So that's what we did.. it was good to be "home" again (we are DVC owners at OKW) and we enjoyed looking around the new slide and pool area. Somehow although we have stayed at OKW we have never been to the main pool, it looked very nice and is definitely on the list for next time!!
Our plans changed yet again as we were in the boat to DD as we decided to check out Saratoga Springs for dinner. We had a very nice meal there with freshly mad flatbread & salad followed by a very yummy cheesecake. DH kept on saying he was so full, but it was so good, and managed to eat it all. I decided to quit while I was ahead and left some for Mrs Manners
As we were now completely stuffed and tired we just took the boat to DD and went straight to the busstop for the bus to the Boardwalk.
When we got into the room we had a surprise:
A lovely card & balloons from Cinderella & Prince Charming for our anniversary. It took some thinking as I was half asleep, but then I remembered that while I was making my ADR's somehow I was very confused and thought it was our anniversary on 21st May. Only later did I realise I was a month early...!! Wishful thinking... or Great expectations ?!?!
Final thoughts: Epcot... can still take it or leave it.. but Crush is a Winner!!
Tomorrow - A long wait.... and a long day..
Unlike a lot of people Epcot is our least favourite park, it has certain attractions that are great fun, and when we're at WDW off season we spend a lot of our evenings there as it's open the latest, but although I keep meaning to take in some more of the entertainment and finally go to the last couple of films we've not yet done there are always things we prefer doing instead. Will it be any better this time....??
Well....no, and yes. I start off on a bit of a bad foot with Epcot, or more to the point, with the Fountainview bakery: 1) I had forgotten that the dining plan does nog add desert to breakfast anymore - which I could have lived with, in fact I would have willingly spent a snack coupon on one of the yummy pastries there but... 2) they didn't have the breakfast pockets, which are very filling flaky pastries with egg & bacon in them: this is what I wanted, and I couldn't get one!! Not a good start to the day I'm afraid....
After our 'substitute' breakfast we walked up to the front of the park as we wouldn't really be coming in that way to see the Donald & Daisy topiary
and from there we went to see Minnie's Butterfly Garden which was nicely done, but a bit small. I had to laugh at someone who was asking where all the caterpillars had gone as there was a bush full of them just near his feet
Next up was a resounding YES for Epcot! Turtle Talk with Crush, we loved it dude! It is so well done and funny and charming and just awesome dude!! (can you tell we loved it)
The Living Seas is being rehabbed but we still had a look at the Manatees which you can now also see in the water from below - maybe this isn't new but I can only remember peering through the lettuce floating on the surface of the tank - followed by a quick stroll round the aquarium where we saw some divers in the tank, and when we took a better look we saw that they were moving the sea turtle to a separate tank. It took 4 divers! That was a unique thing to see.
From there we went over for our walk around the World Showcase to see the stuff for the Flower and Garden Festival:
Beauty & The Beast
I got some ideas for our own garden in Norway as they had a lovely woodsy area which would fit in well with our garden. Without the oversize garden gnome though..
In China we browsed the HK Disneyland exhibit which was very interesting - and nice and cool, which was good as it was getting very hot by now. In Germany we found the (not so) hidden Mickey in the train set up and I tried my hand at being a topiary...
As usual we breezed past Italy and America and ran into Goofy, who was looking for someone to play with, we also spotted Mickey and Max with almost nobody around, if we had been in the mood we could have has some great character one-on-one time. But we weren't so on to Japan. There was an interesting "sound garden" where water flowed through various pipes and made drums and bells sound, but it was too hot to watch for long so I persuaded DH to have a quick look in the shop... This time I had said that I wouldn't buy any of the beautiful china so te make sure this happened I just didn't look in that part of the shop!! I did succumb to some magnets & paperclips in the shape of penguins (what else did you expect)!
I think the time difference was getting to us.. we were getting hot & bothered, so we decided to breeze through the rest of WS and go back to the pool to cool off. The main pool was pretty full so we went to the quiet pool, which was also fairly full and lukewarm, but still refreshing! We lazed around for a couple of hours, and after that it was back off to MGM for the late afternoon.
DH still wanted to do the stunt show, but the last show was just about to start so we hopped into the backlot tour instead and got to see a bit of the stunt show from the other side. We had a row to ourselves in the tram so I could get a good pic of our visit to Catastrophe Canyon:
After that we looked for a snack before joining the Hyperspace Hoopla again, we had wanted to try the place near the Backlot Tour, but that was closing so we went across to the Star Wars area and shared a grilled sandwich there while watching the young Padawans going through their training. The HH was fun again and slightly different to yesterday's.
After this we decided to leave MGM and go to DTD for some dinner.
DH had the great idea of going to Old Key West and taking a boat from there, probably prompted by the fact that an OKW bus was just pulling up
So that's what we did.. it was good to be "home" again (we are DVC owners at OKW) and we enjoyed looking around the new slide and pool area. Somehow although we have stayed at OKW we have never been to the main pool, it looked very nice and is definitely on the list for next time!!Our plans changed yet again as we were in the boat to DD as we decided to check out Saratoga Springs for dinner. We had a very nice meal there with freshly mad flatbread & salad followed by a very yummy cheesecake. DH kept on saying he was so full, but it was so good, and managed to eat it all. I decided to quit while I was ahead and left some for Mrs Manners
As we were now completely stuffed and tired we just took the boat to DD and went straight to the busstop for the bus to the Boardwalk.
When we got into the room we had a surprise:
A lovely card & balloons from Cinderella & Prince Charming for our anniversary. It took some thinking as I was half asleep, but then I remembered that while I was making my ADR's somehow I was very confused and thought it was our anniversary on 21st May. Only later did I realise I was a month early...!! Wishful thinking... or Great expectations ?!?!
Final thoughts: Epcot... can still take it or leave it.. but Crush is a Winner!!
Tomorrow - A long wait.... and a long day..
Lovely piccies as well 
