duckyislost
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2008
- Messages
- 319
Day 3, Part 2: DMIL arrives, POR pool, EPCOT, and a little MK too.
Way back in the pre-trip report I mentioned that my DMIL was going to be driving out from Tampa to stay with us for one night. Because we wanted to do EMH at the MK this day we would not be there to meet her. I was worried she wouldn’t have a parking permit so I went to the front desk to have one left for her and let them know she was staying with us. (By the way, this should have triggered a $15 charge on our room bill, but when we checked out it wasn’t on there. A little extra magic?) She apparently got turned around on the Disney roads a few times, but made it to POR finally. Somehow the front desk never gave her the parking permit I had left for her, but they did tell her which lot was near our building. When we got off the bus at the North Depot, there she was! I had gotten a parking permit when we first checked in, so no worries.
We headed to Riverside Mill for lunch and then to Old Man Island for a swim. We looked for a bin of life vests at the POR pool and didn’t find any so we went over to the boat rental docks and started fishing through the bins there. A CM steered us to the little boat rental building to get a life vest for DS. Apparently the vests on the docks are only for use on the river, they have separate ones for the pools which makes sense. We had to show our room card and got DS a life vest that he could use for the rest of our stay. Sweet!
DS and DMIL playing in the kiddie pool.
My boys.
I seized this opportunity to have an adult beverage by the pool. I present to you the pina colava, a little glass of heaven on a hot day! Yummy! DH had the Ultimate Long Island Iced Tea which was also good.
Our It’s a Small World moment. While we were at the pool bar we heard the unmistakable Boston accent of the guy in line ahead of us. My DH started talking with him and it turns out that he lives a few streets away from us! Spooky!
After the pool we got cleaned up and hopped a bus to Epcot. Yay! A different park! Yay, finally going to make use of that parkhopper option! Photopass pictures below. I was impressed that the photog got the monorail in the shot too. Nice.
A close up of me and DH I did on the Photopass site.
We looked at the ride time board and quickly realized we had no shot at doing TT or Soarin that night. No fastpasses left and the waits were 70 min for TT and a “why even bother to post it” 120 minutes for Soarin’. So we headed to The Living Seas.
MINE!
DS was in a cooperative mood so we got some pics with the statues out front.
Lucky fin!
I liked the Nemo update to the ride here. If I remember correctly there was a film before, the torturous “hydrolater” bubble elevators and the ride was kinda boring. DS loves Nemo so he really got into it. I like the part at the end where they project the fish images into the real aquarium, cool. There was really no line to get on this and nobody waiting for Turtle Talk with Crush either, so we did that next.
There is probably a hidden Mickey somewhere in those bubbles, it didn't even occur to me to look while we were there.
Had to take a pic of these rays that are in the Turtle Talk waiting area. If I ever redo my bathroom I want those iridescent turquoise tiles! They are so pretty!
Turtle Talk, WOW, this one just blew us away. What a cool experience. I have no idea how they do it with the correct voice and part of me just doesn’t want to know. Keep it magical. I’ve seen clips of it from the vacation planning DVD where Crush is doing different things than what we saw, so it looks like the show varies too. I love how crush talks to the kids "focus little dudes". My DS totally bought into it and was a little upset that he didn’t get to ask Crush a question. He wanted to ask “What do you eat?”
After Turtle Talk we took some pictures in the shark area.
When we left the Seas it was sprinkling a little and we were hungry so we headed over to The Land pavillion for dinner. I have always liked the food court at the Land for all its non-grease options. I don’t recall what everyone had, but I had salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and it was great.
As I mentioned above the Soarin’ line was ridiculous and by this time the Living with the Land boat ride was closed so we headed out. I did get one pressed quarter up by the Garden Grill, Mickey and friends on a Soarin’ hang glider. FW was closing at 7pm on this night and we were getting close to that so we decided to head over to the MK since it was open until 11pm. Again, yay for the parkhopper option!
We walked over the sparkle sidewalks on the way out. How cool is that?! even the ground you walk on is magical….
My DS calls this the Ball of Epcot.
We hopped the monorail and saw some spectacular lightning in the distance on the way.
Sorry, but my pathetic camera couldn’t handle it. Our grand plan was to ride Space Mountain since we had DMIL to watch DS. Well, no dice. No fast passes left and the line was halfway out to Astro Orbiter. We took a ride on the people mover which DS was just fine with. It’s really pretty cool at night. By this time there was light rain too, so it kept us dry for a while. Yours truly left the ponchos that I had so thoughtfully shopped for before the trip, in our room. We managed to get to Pooh’s adventures and Small World with minimal lines before calling it a night. A little damp, but satisfied.
Next up: Rope drop at Epcot.
Way back in the pre-trip report I mentioned that my DMIL was going to be driving out from Tampa to stay with us for one night. Because we wanted to do EMH at the MK this day we would not be there to meet her. I was worried she wouldn’t have a parking permit so I went to the front desk to have one left for her and let them know she was staying with us. (By the way, this should have triggered a $15 charge on our room bill, but when we checked out it wasn’t on there. A little extra magic?) She apparently got turned around on the Disney roads a few times, but made it to POR finally. Somehow the front desk never gave her the parking permit I had left for her, but they did tell her which lot was near our building. When we got off the bus at the North Depot, there she was! I had gotten a parking permit when we first checked in, so no worries.
We headed to Riverside Mill for lunch and then to Old Man Island for a swim. We looked for a bin of life vests at the POR pool and didn’t find any so we went over to the boat rental docks and started fishing through the bins there. A CM steered us to the little boat rental building to get a life vest for DS. Apparently the vests on the docks are only for use on the river, they have separate ones for the pools which makes sense. We had to show our room card and got DS a life vest that he could use for the rest of our stay. Sweet!
DS and DMIL playing in the kiddie pool.
My boys.
I seized this opportunity to have an adult beverage by the pool. I present to you the pina colava, a little glass of heaven on a hot day! Yummy! DH had the Ultimate Long Island Iced Tea which was also good.
Our It’s a Small World moment. While we were at the pool bar we heard the unmistakable Boston accent of the guy in line ahead of us. My DH started talking with him and it turns out that he lives a few streets away from us! Spooky!
After the pool we got cleaned up and hopped a bus to Epcot. Yay! A different park! Yay, finally going to make use of that parkhopper option! Photopass pictures below. I was impressed that the photog got the monorail in the shot too. Nice.
A close up of me and DH I did on the Photopass site.
We looked at the ride time board and quickly realized we had no shot at doing TT or Soarin that night. No fastpasses left and the waits were 70 min for TT and a “why even bother to post it” 120 minutes for Soarin’. So we headed to The Living Seas.
MINE!
DS was in a cooperative mood so we got some pics with the statues out front.
Lucky fin!
I liked the Nemo update to the ride here. If I remember correctly there was a film before, the torturous “hydrolater” bubble elevators and the ride was kinda boring. DS loves Nemo so he really got into it. I like the part at the end where they project the fish images into the real aquarium, cool. There was really no line to get on this and nobody waiting for Turtle Talk with Crush either, so we did that next.
There is probably a hidden Mickey somewhere in those bubbles, it didn't even occur to me to look while we were there.
Had to take a pic of these rays that are in the Turtle Talk waiting area. If I ever redo my bathroom I want those iridescent turquoise tiles! They are so pretty!
Turtle Talk, WOW, this one just blew us away. What a cool experience. I have no idea how they do it with the correct voice and part of me just doesn’t want to know. Keep it magical. I’ve seen clips of it from the vacation planning DVD where Crush is doing different things than what we saw, so it looks like the show varies too. I love how crush talks to the kids "focus little dudes". My DS totally bought into it and was a little upset that he didn’t get to ask Crush a question. He wanted to ask “What do you eat?”
After Turtle Talk we took some pictures in the shark area.
When we left the Seas it was sprinkling a little and we were hungry so we headed over to The Land pavillion for dinner. I have always liked the food court at the Land for all its non-grease options. I don’t recall what everyone had, but I had salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and it was great.
As I mentioned above the Soarin’ line was ridiculous and by this time the Living with the Land boat ride was closed so we headed out. I did get one pressed quarter up by the Garden Grill, Mickey and friends on a Soarin’ hang glider. FW was closing at 7pm on this night and we were getting close to that so we decided to head over to the MK since it was open until 11pm. Again, yay for the parkhopper option!
We walked over the sparkle sidewalks on the way out. How cool is that?! even the ground you walk on is magical….
My DS calls this the Ball of Epcot.
We hopped the monorail and saw some spectacular lightning in the distance on the way.
Sorry, but my pathetic camera couldn’t handle it. Our grand plan was to ride Space Mountain since we had DMIL to watch DS. Well, no dice. No fast passes left and the line was halfway out to Astro Orbiter. We took a ride on the people mover which DS was just fine with. It’s really pretty cool at night. By this time there was light rain too, so it kept us dry for a while. Yours truly left the ponchos that I had so thoughtfully shopped for before the trip, in our room. We managed to get to Pooh’s adventures and Small World with minimal lines before calling it a night. A little damp, but satisfied.
Next up: Rope drop at Epcot.
Great pics and insight - subscribing and hanging on for more updates. 
Love the CM cheer parade for Soarin' - how awesome that must have been. 
