Saturday, May 5th: EPCOT, the ending (finally!!)
After the Seas, we meandered a bit as we made our way over to Test Track. Our Fastpass time hadn’t quite rolled around just yet (though it was getting close), so there was no need to rush. As you may have guessed, that kind of pace is my favorite way to enjoy a theme park…..especially during the Flower & Garden Festival, when we really could ‘stop and smell the flowers’!
The on-and-off drizzly rain had played havoc with Test Track’s ability to function, and as we approached to scan for our Fastpasses, we noted that the standby time was posted at a whopping 120 minutes
: literally the only crazy standby times we had seen all day long. We were eternally grateful for T’s advance planning and willingness to secure Fastpasses for the three of us, as there’s no way we would have waited that long for ANY ride.
I was starting to feel a bit icky at this point in the day
…..I was starting to get a bit of a pesky headache…..but I chocked it up to a case of nerves. Perhaps I was a bit more anxious about “stretching my boundaries” than I had originally thought?
At any rate, we scanned our passes and headed inside to take our place in the mercifully short Fastpass line.
We had no longer taken our places in the final holding area before entering the design room when we heard the announcement that no one wants to hear: Test Track had stopped running temporarily due to inclement weather
. We were offered the choice of staying in our current spot to wait it out the delay, or leaving to enjoy the other attractions in the park. Quite a few folks beat a path to the door….perhaps they had been waiting in that 2-hour standby queue and this was the final straw?....but after a short discussion, we opted to stay put. The rain had not been persistent throughout the afternoon, so hopefully the current delay would be short lived. Lucky for us, T had come prepared for such minor inconveniences, and we ended up playing a hilarious game of Heads Up! on her cell phone that ended up making the otherwise annoying delay seem like no time at all [note to self: I really do have to get that app!!!
]. I would estimate we had to wait maybe 20-30 minutes before the announcement was made that Test Track was back up and running
.
No chickening out now!
The doors opened and we were ushered into the design room to create our dream racing car. I really do feel like I owe Steve and
@chiamarie an apology here: I thought this was just a fun diversion to help pass time in the line
. I had literally NO idea that the vehicle design played any role at all in the actual ride experience. I’m such an idiot!! Since this was my first time riding, those dear souls let me do all the designing, and let’s just say I wasn’t exactly aiming for functionality
. By the time we were done, we had the prettiest hot pink sports car with a few ‘muscular’ touches (picked by Steve and T!) and ….. some floral decals.
I seriously had no idea that vehicle design counted. Honest!!
I was a both nervous and excited as we hopped in the second row of the ride vehicle. T took off her Mickey ears so I figured it was prudent for me to do the same. Boarding was quick so by the time our bags were safely stowed and our ears and sunglasses were removed, we were on our way…...and my heart (or maybe it was my head?) was actually pounding a little.
Completely honesty here: this ride was super fun
. Oh, how I wish I had given it a try long before now.
It was nothing like what I expected. I have no idea, really, what it was that I did expect, but this wasn’t it! My heart dropped a little when I realized that my crazy pink car was actually being graded against the car designed by the occupants of the front row, but Steve and T were graciously forgiving and were both just worried about me having a good time so my moment of personal horror passed quickly. Our car won the first challenge, the other car won the second. Then we were flying down the track at a ridiculous speed and I was just grateful that I had taken off my Mickey ears! As it turned out, my hot pink floral bedecked sports car had more power than I gave her credit for, and we ended up beating our bright yellow competitor when the final scores were calculated. Not only did I live to tell the story (and thoroughly enjoyed the ride experience), but we also won!
My hair was a hot mess as we exited the building, and the pesky headache that had been plaguing me pre-ride was now starting to get quite bothersome. After putting ourselves back together with the help of a mirror in a nearby ladies room, we stopped and picked up bottles of water from one of the beverage kiosks so I could take a couple of Gravol. Between the water (Steve suspected I might be a bit dehyrdrated) and the medication, hopefully it would stop my headache in its path
.
We were strolling around after Test Track and musing about what to do next when we happened to be within sight distance of the Character Spot. I had to look twice at the standby time, which I think was listed at 15 minutes. Could that really be true? When we visited during the same time period the year prior, we had been a bit saddened that the wait times for the characters never dipped below an hour…..so a 15 minute standby was a real surprise. If our previous experiences of the day were any indication, wait times would be even less than posted…..so when T asked what we wanted to do next, it was an easy answer.
Steve wasn’t quite as keen, but hey. I just rode Test Track. This was my reward
.
That 15 minute posted wait time turned out to be
maybe 5. We literally had to wait behind one family, and that’s it. We couldn’t have time that any better if we had tried.
Mickey, Minnie and Goofy were all in the house, so we enjoyed some time with all of them. We divided and conquered for photo purposes, with T going first (and us capturing pics for her on her phone) and then trading places.
My day was made
.
The only sour apple in the barrel was that bloody headache, which continued to worsen as our character meets went on. By the time we finished up with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy, it was morphing into a full-blown migraine…..complete with trademark nausea.
I was so annoyed with myself
.
Migraines are just a part of my life, so its not surprising when one takes hold. As a brain tumor survivor (20 years this December), its just something I have learned to live with, and thankfully I don’t get them super often. Sometimes a change in the weather can spark one (the moist, humid air may have been a contributor). It may have been that I really didn’t drink enough over the course of the day. It really doesn’t matter, because it completely ground our day at the parks to a sharp halt as I continued to feel worse with every passing second.
I needed two more Gravol, and then to lay in a quiet, cool, dark room until it passed. There was really nothing more that would help.
While we had hoped to stay right through to park closing so we could catch Illuminations, we ended up giving T our sincerest thanks for an amazing day and packing it in just before 6 pm. Thanks to some shockingly low Saturday crowds (the ongoing threat of rain must have been just enough to keep many of the locals from visiting the park), we had packed an incredible amount of fun into our 8.5 hours at Epcot. And how tremendous to have shared all that joy and awesomeness with such a wonderful friend
.
We bid adieu in the parking lot. I was feeling so nauseated by the time we reached the car that I was sure I’d lose the contents of my stomach on the way back to the Vistana, but thankfully I made it without incident. Steve helped me ease my way into the bed, brought me two more Gravols and a glass of water, closed the curtains, and shut the door to give me the silence and darkness my head was screaming for.
I awoke a few hours later to my phone ringing.
Gravol is great for migraines and nausea but can make me woefully fuzzy-headed, so it took me a bit to get my bearings. Seeing it was Morgan, our pet nanny, I thought it was important to take her call……if she’s calling rather than texting with her nightly check-in, something still had to be amiss
.
The house was STILL without power, and apparently the ice maker in our fridge had thawed and leaked all over our kitchen floor. Thankfully we have ceramic tile (so there was no damage to the floor itself), but she wanted us to know that she feared all of the food in our fridge was going to be spoiled. The power had now been out since the storm rolled through more than 30 hours prior, and she wanted to know if we wanted her to check and see if the neighbors were also still without electricity. We were grateful for her offer, and agreed that it might be smart to have her look into things more. This was quite unusual and getting very concerning.
She called back a short time later to report that our neighbors were very helpful with an update: 8 houses on our side of the street had been impacted by the heavy but brief thunderstorm that rolled through on the Friday afternoon of our departure. A series of trees fell on the power lines 4 doors down from us, and Detroit Energy had apparently indicated that the repairs would not be made until sometime on Monday. While it was discouraging and maddening…..not only would we lose the contents of our refrigerator, but also all of the meat and other items that we had amassed in our freezer….there was little we could do more than 1000 miles away. At least we knew the source of the problem. I could feel that Morgan hated to be the bearer of bad news, and I assured her that as long as the cats were good, not to worry about the power outage for one single second. She promptly texted me some photos of their furry faces which reassured me that they were no worse the wear, power or no power.
It was past 9 pm at this point so I dragged myself out of bed and into the living room. I knew Steve would be half starved by now, and suggested we get some food before it got any later. My head had subsided enough that I was mobile again, so I tidied myself up and we headed out in search of dinner. We opted to not venture too far from the Vistana in the event that the migraine came roaring back without much warning.
Steve picked Smokey Bones. I have only one photo from the whole experience, and it was my meal: pulled pork with fries, baked beans and garlic toast.
Steve, if I recall, had a burger…..but don’t quote me on that, as I was 4 Gravol tablets in by that point and definitely not the clearest headed
. I do distinctly remember that our server was painfully awkward and odd, and the restaurant was nearly empty…….so that awkward and odd young fellow seemed to ALWAYS be at our table
. The food was really good, but I was still feeling rough enough that I couldn’t eat all mine. We ended up having them box up the balance and taking it back to the fridge in our villa.
I opted out of a soak in the hot tub, and instead had a nice hot bath in the jacuzzi tub in the master suite. It may have been the effects of the 4 Gravol, it may have been the hot bath, or it may have been the 8+ hours of walking the park at EPCOT, but I was asleep in 2 minutes or less
.
Coming up: Sunday Fun-Day at SeaWorld, complete with an unexpected surprise and a Dismeet!
.
)
.
. Maybe it was our accents all along that gave us away! 
.
