*My First Trip to see the Mouse! TR*

[stacy87]

Day 5


Didn’t really have time for a proper breakfast this morning, so had a few biscuits that we’d bought from the food court and some water! We left for the bus stop at 8.30am, and only waited 5-10 minutes for the bus to Epcot.

On entering the park, it was quite busy, but from what I’d heard on here about Epcot being able to handle crowds better, I wasn’t too worried. Of course, I got some pics of the classic ball! lol

I wanted to do World Showcase first, so we slowly started to head there, taking in some sights on our way. We came across Captain EO – something which I had never heard of before this day, and decided since it was so quiet and we still had time before World Showcase opened, that we would do this. I’ve read recently on one of threads here that a lot of people aren’t keen on Captain EO, but I really enjoyed it! It didn’t last too long, so we were back out and on our way to the World Showcase in no time We got to the start of the World Showcase, and it was almost empty!!! I tried to practice my photography skills and get a photo across the lake to America:

We started off in Canada (when I say “in” Canada, it was more just a walk through! lol), and then onto the UK. I was getting mid-morning munchies by this point, so grabbed a choc chip cookie (absolutely delicious!!). We sat on a bench outside the Rose & Crown and ate our munchies and did some people watching. We had a little giggle at the buildings in the UK, as they aren’t the best representation! lol

We had a walk through the streets in the UK, and even though it may not be the best representation, it was still lovely!

We realised that the rest of the World Showcase wasn’t open for another half an hour, so we sat on a bench opposite France and relaxed for a bit. Charlotte thought I was nuts, but I wanted to get a picture of the bins! lol I liked the sign – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

A small crowd started to build before they dropped the rope for the rest of the World Showcase. I was on a mission to head straight to Japan once we were inside – I figured we could do the rest of the countries on our way back later. When we got to Japan, I snapped a few pics of the buildings:

The gift shop with Pick a Pearl is in here ^^ – downstairs.

I’d seen someone take this picture on one of the photography boards and loved it, so I took one of my own:

After snapping these pics, we headed straight for the gift shop, and once inside I was very happy to see that the Pick a Pearl counter was empty!

I got 3 tickets for this (one for myself, my mum and my baby cousin). I started off by choosing my oysters – I let Charlotte pick one for me, as she wasn’t doing the Pick a Pearl. We then did a Japanese greeting before opening the oysters. I loved the whole ceremony of the whole process!! My first oyster opened and I got a white pearl, which measured 7.5mm. My second oyster opened, and she told me that I was very lucky, and asked me if I could see it. I said no - I couldn’t see a thing! She took my pearl out of the oyster and showed me – it was blue!! (well a silver-blue). She said that there’s only a 5-10% chance of getting this colour of pearl, so I was well chuffed!!! I couldn’t stop smiling This pearl measured in at 7 ¼mm. My final pearl was another white one (white a slight green tone to it), which also measured in at 7.5mm. I was still smiling away as she cleaned my pearls up. I decided to have one of them set into a necklace for my baby cousin – a gift that she could appreciate when she’s a bit older! So I chose the white pearl with a green tone, and had it set in a sterling silver necklace, with the pearl hanging from the initial ‘A’. It was lovely! I think the setting cost $35, and each pearl ticket was approx. $16. Worth the money in my opinion! We then spent a heck of a long time walking through the rest of the gift shop. I could have spent all day in there! I absolutely loved everything in the shop and ended up buying lots!! I bought a few little ornaments, a keyring for my little brother, a small decorative plate, a coin purse, and a few other bits and bobs. I think Charlotte had to almost drag me out of there!

We started our way back round the World Showcase, with America up next. Charlotte grabbed an ice cream here which was huge!!! lol But it looked really nice! This was the point that my hat broke No big losses here as it was only £2 from Matalan! lol I went to a stall outside America and bought a new cap - $23!!!! Ouch! But I needed it, so I didn’t complain...too much.

Next up was Italy which had some lovely buildings too:

It did start to rain while we were here, but it didn’t get heavy so there was no need for our ponchos.

Then we were in Germany. We had a wander round the gift shop here, which had some lovely beer mugs (not sure what they’re called exactly). The designs on them were really nice. They even had some Christmas designs! Some of them were pretty expensive though – I would have got my brother one if they weren’t as expensive as that. I think I would’ve been worried about it being damaged on the trip home though.

We then headed to China, which again was just stunning!!!

We went inside the pagoda and waited to do Reflections of China – only a 15 minute wait. I snapped a few pictures inside whilst we were waiting:

Reflections of China was actually better than I thought it would be. It has really made me want to visit China! It was a 360 degree cinema experience introducing you to China – really, really good in my opinion.

We didn’t spend too much time in Norway and Mexico – really just had a look in the gift shops. We were both quite hungry at this point, so we decided to try Italy for lunch. I can’t remember what the restaurant was called in Italy, but it was lovely inside. We both chose the mozzarella, tomato & basil Panini with salad, and had a coke to drink. The meal was ok, but I thought the mozzarella was far too thick! There was just so much of it. lol But apart from that, we both enjoyed our meal. I think it cost us about $50 (including tip) in total.

After lunch, we headed back to Japan to pick up my necklace before making our way out of the park. We had decided that we would have a break before coming back later to see Future World, the rest of World Showcase and see the Illuminations show. We got back to the resort at around 3pm, dumped our bags and headed straight for the pool. The swim was lovely – very refreshing! Just what we needed to set us up for the rest of our day. I was itching to get back to the park – I was loving Epcot so far! We got back to Epcot for about 5pm. Our plan was to grab a FastPass for Test Track, but the machines weren’t working for some reason. The wait time was only 30 minutes though, so we decided to wait. We both really enjoyed this ride, but it was another ride that could have been a bit longer – more time outside would have been great!! lol

We then headed over to Mission: Space:

The wait times were 10 minutes for Green and 50 minutes for Orange, so we chose to go for Green. Charlotte gets motion sickness quite bad, so I didn’t want to chance dragging her on Orange from what I’d heard about it! It was really good! 4 people in each “shuttle”, and each person is given a position – I was the Commander! We really enjoyed this ride too! But again, thought it was going to be longer than it actually was. We’ve decided that we will go on Orange the next time we go, just to see what the difference is.

We realised we should grab something for dinner now, so that we have enough time to grab a good spot in time for Illuminations – so we had dinner at the fish & chip stand in the UK (can you see a pattern developing with my meals??? lol) It was so busy here, we really struggled to find somewhere to sit to eat our food! We finished dinner, and got a spot outside the restaurant in France in plenty of time before it got too busy. We only had about 20 minutes or so until the show was due to start. I have to say that the show was spectacular! Really amazing, I got a bit emotional at one point because I was so happy!

After the show, we headed back to the gift shop at Japan (yes again!), and Charlotte bought a few presents for family. We managed to see the rest of World Showcase that we missed this morning, before we headed for the bus back to the resort. I will say that I found World Showcase to be very badly lit at night! I could hardly see a thing! I don’t know if anyone else finds this or if it’s just me?

We eventually got back to our room at 11.05pm, and talked about how much we both loved Epcot!!! Once again, it was a park Charlotte didn’t think she would like that much, but she loved it too! Everything was much better than she thought it would be. That made me very happy

Our plan for tomorrow is to have a lie-in, a swim and head to Seaworld later in the day to catch the evening shows.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

I agree Epcot is a great park - with a big difference between the 2 'worlds' there. My DH loves the shop in Japan too - perhaps you could take him next time

 

[disney_princess_85]

I'm glad you liked Epcot, it's my favourite park.

 

[BethEJo]

What a great day at Epcot!!!

And your pics of World Showcase are fab - I loved the one of America from across the lake.

And what?!?! You can never have too much mozzarella I don't think that's ever possible...

 

[stacy87]

What a great day at Epcot!!!

And your pics of World Showcase are fab - I loved the one of America from across the lake.

And what?!?! You can never have too much mozzarella I don't think that's ever possible...

thank you! lol even Charlotte (who loves mozzarella) thought it was too much - just far too thick for us

I'm glad you liked Epcot, it's my favourite park.

Yeah we both really loved it! Was just stunning It was definitely my favourite park too

I agree Epcot is a great park - with a big difference between the 2 'worlds' there. My DH loves the shop in Japan too - perhaps you could take him next time

anytime! lol I just loved it soooooo much! If I had more spending money I would have bought soooo much more!

 

[stacy87]

Day 6

We had a lie-in this morning – sleeping until 10am, which was so nice after our early mornings! We grabbed breakfast at the food court this morning (cereal again for me). We then got back to our room and got ready for the pool! We stayed at the pool until about 1.30pm, before having lunch in the food court. We booked a Mears shuttle again, which picked us up at 3.35pm for Seaworld!

We were straight into the park today, as we were using our Flextickets, which we were pleased with. Once we were in the park, we grabbed a map and headed straight for Manta!

I was really looking forward to Manta, so was eager to get there fast! There was a tester seat outside the ride which Charlotte jumped on, and she was happy that it was ok We had to put our bags in a locker by the entrance to the ride before heading in to join the queue. The wait time was 35 minutes – not too bad I thought, considering it’s a new ride. It definitely didn’t feel like we waited 35 minutes. As we got to the front of the queue, I started getting nervous! When I seen the ride itself I was a bit like but was still looking forward to it! We got on, and my heart was racing like mad! lol It is such a strange feeling when you’re lifted up and facing right down! Once the ride had finished and we were “left hanging there”, waiting for the next ride to go so we could get off, I started to feel a little bit sick – nothing major at this point though. I just wanted to get off! lol We only waited about a minute before we stopped and were let off the ride. The minute I got off, I started to wobble around, like I was drunk! There’s a set of stairs to go down when you get off the ride, and I almost fell down those because I was feeling so dizzy. I didn’t even get a chance to go to my locker when we were outside the ride – I thought I was going to be sick! So I zoomed off to find the nearest toilet with Charlotte in tow. Thankfully I wasn’t sick, but when I was in the toilet I just couldn’t lift my head up without feeling like I was going to faint! I spent about 15 minutes in the toilet before I decided I just had to go out, or else I would be in there all day. I felt awful when I stood up – had to walk really slowly and hold on to anything! Charlotte suggested we sit down in the shade and get some water, which we did. I was still feeling awful though, so I just lay down on the bench with my hat over my face to keep it shaded, and closed my eyes. I must have lay for about 20 minutes, before Charlotte suggested we start moving again, but I just couldn’t move – I still felt really bad and couldn’t lift my head. So Charlotte decided it was time to get the first aider!! I was so embarrassed when she came round the corner with a wheelchair!! She wheeled me round to the first aid room, and I lay on the couch for about an hour before I felt that I could get up. I still didn’t feel 100%, but I decided we’d wasted enough time, so we should make the most of what time we had left in the park.

Obviously we decided not to go on any other rides!! I was a bit disappointed, but there’s no way I was risking myself feeling like that again – especially when I wasn’t 100% better anyway! I grabbed some Dippin’ Dots to help cool me down a bit – these are amazing!!! Absolutely lovely! We went over to the stingray lagoon and petted some of the rays – they were amazing! We then popped down to the dolphin encounter (to get us in the mood for Discovery Cove tomorrow!), but we had missed the feeding session. We couldn’t get close enough to the dolphins to pet them, as the place was packed! But we did go down to the underwater area, which was amazing! I thought there were only 3 dolphins when we were up at the dolphin encounter, but once you could see them underwater, there were loads! I took a video of the dolphins here if anyone wants to take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZHbqRT7INQ

(Apologies for the loss of sound on the video – I don’t have the best camera!!)

I could watch them all day long, they’re just amazing creatures. We spent ages just watching the dolphins here before we headed over to the Manatees. They don’t do much, but it was quite funny watching them eating their food!

We then managed to catch the sea lion & otter show, which I have to say, was hilarious! It’s a great show for families – kids will love it! It is so cheesy, but the animals are great

Once this show was over, we were ready to head over to the Shamu stadium for the evening show. You could tell that’s where everyone was else in the park was heading too, so we picked up our pace! lol We managed to queue up quite close to the doors, so we were quite happy with that. We each grabbed another bottle of water, before we were eventually let into the stadium. We managed to get a seat right in the middle of the stadium, and above halfway up, so they were good seats! I loved the fact that you could see Kraken and Manta in the background of the stadium. The pre-show music was great! And we loved the fact that they got clips of the audience dancing to the music – 2 guys in particular just cracked us up!! The show was amazing!!! Really great! I don’t know what it’s like in comparison to the daily show, but we both really enjoyed it, and would see it again.

After the show, we decided to slowly start heading to the exit, as we knew it would be busy if we stayed until park closing. On our way to the exit, we passed by the Reflections show, and decided to sit and watch for a while, as we still had time before the park closed. I think we watched it until about 9.45pm. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as Illuminations at Epcot, but it’s quite similar.

I only started to feel like myself again when we were outside the park waiting for our shuttle bus. I just hadn’t felt right for the majority of the day, which I was annoyed about! I know it was something that couldn’t have been expected, but I felt like I ruined the day for Charlotte too.

We were picked up at 10.30pm, and got back to our room at 11-ish. We were both really looking forward to tomorrow, and our day at Discovery Cove!!

Up next, the best day of my life!!!

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

What a day I was bad enough on EE - don't think I'll be trying Manta - looking forward to more Stacy

 

[stacy87]

Sorry for the delay in updating this!! But here goes


Day 7

We had a slight lie-in this morning – until about 9am! lol

Today was our Discovery Cove day!! We had to get a taxi today, as the shared shuttles for Discovery Cove have to be booked the day before – something we were never told. The taxi cost $26, which we didn’t think was too bad. We arrived at about noon – the setting was lovely!!!

We entered the first building at the entrance, and checked-in for the day. We had to get our pictures taken for our ID badges, which came on a lanyard that we had to carry with us at all times. We then made our way into the main part of Discovery Cove, where we found a guide who stopped us. He showed us where to get a picture taken, a picture that we would get at the end of the day – complimentary. He showed us where to go to collect our swimming gear (either a wetsuit or a vest) and our snorkels, and then where we could get changed. So we headed straight there, grabbed our gear, and got changed. We threw our clothes into a locker and figured out where to head first.

We decided to do some snorkelling, since I’ve never snorkelled before. At first, I panicked too much when I first put my head under the water. I was adamant that I was going to breathe in water! But I kept at it, and after a few minutes I was relatively comfortable breathing with the snorkel. We spent quite a while just going round the pool, which was amazing! There were all kinds of fish and mantas there. I didn’t want to get out of the water.

We then headed over to the Lazy River – which is basically just a pool! It was so nice to just take a leisurely swim through here – so relaxing!!!

After our swim in the Lazy River, we decided to try out Stingray lagoon. It was basically just a small-ish pool with lots of stingrays (the stings had been cut off, so they couldn’t hurt you). We overheard one of the trainers saying that if you stand still they will come to you. When we first entered the pool, we had to watch where we were stepping as the stingrays were everywhere!!! They ranged in sizes from very small, to pretty big! We found a spot near the middle of the pool, and stood still watching them swim. After about maybe 10 minutes, they started getting closer to us – although they weren’t quite close enough to the surface for us to stroke them. I noticed one of the trainers coming into the pool with a bucket, and realised it must be feeding time! He asked everyone in the pool to make a large circle, which we did – we had to keep spaced out from each other though, as they wanted the stingrays to have lots of space for swimming. He explained what we needed to do before handing out fish – we got 3 each. He asked us to place our hand in the water as far down as we could, and that the stingrays would come right up close to feed. I was a bit apprehensive about this, but gave it a go with my first fish. One of the big rays came up to me and I felt it on my hand, and before I knew it the fish was gone! It was like a strong vacuum suction! I didn’t wait too long before I fed my other 2 fish. At this point, the rays were almost crawling up everyone! Once all the fish was gone, we got to space out again, and once again we got a spot and stood still. The rays must have felt more comfortable at this point, as they were coming up to me and coming to the surface so that I got an opportunity to stroke them. There were so many that would come up to the surface – it was just an amazing experience! There were kids who were getting a bit grumpy because they couldn’t stroke the rays, but that was probably because they were chasing them round the pool! lol

Afterwards, we decided to grab some lunch – which was included in the price for the day. It was pretty busy, but it didn’t take us too long to get served. I had chicken fingers with fries, a tub of strawberries and some Pepsi, and grabbed a bottle of water for the rest of the day.

Charlotte decided she wanted to sit in the shade for a while, so we went to find a couple of sunbeds, and luckily we found two that were in the shade. At this point I realised that the sunbeds were facing the dolphin lagoon – you could watch the dolphin interactions. I didn’t want to watch anything, because our swim was later in the day, so I didn’t want to know what we would be doing – I wanted to keep it a surprise I wasn’t ready to sit on a sunbed doing nothing, so I decided to head back to the stingray lagoon! I must have spent about an hour with them again! Once again, they were very friendly – coming right up to me and close to the surface so that I could stroke them.

After about an hour, I realised that I had been a while, and that I should probably go find Charlotte. She was still on her sunbed, and I still wasn’t ready to sit down! lol I suggested that we go to one of the other pools and do some more snorkelling, which Charlotte agreed to. Once again, to start with I was a little bit panicky about putting my head under the water, but I got used to it again. The mantas in this pool were absolutely huge!!! It made me quite nervous, but I took off anyway! Again, the variety of fish and everything else was just amazing! We spent probably another hour snorkelling here, before we realised that it was getting close to the time of our swim. So we decided to sit on the sunbeds for a few minutes before we had our swim.

The “briefing area” was just behind us, so about 15 minutes before our swim, we walked around and took a seat in this area. About 10 minutes later, we were introduced to our dolphin trainers, who talked us through what we were going to be doing, before they led us down to the dolphin interaction pool.

We got into the pool, and they told us that we were the last group of the day, so were lucky as we would be interacting with three dolphins! We had Diego (our main dolphin), Madison and Capricorn. The dolphins were great!!! The trainers showed us how they could tell the difference between each dolphin, by the colours of them, their textures, and a few other things too. We each got to swim out into the deeper areas and be pulled along by the dolphins individually. Each family, group got their pictures taken with the dolphin, stroking their tummies, and then individually getting to give Diego a kiss

The interaction didn’t last too long, but everyone loved it! Dolphins are my favourite animals, so I was just completely taken with everything!

Once we were out the water, the trainers took us to an area where we could choose a photo package if we wanted one, and we could choose which photos we wanted. We decided to go for the biggest package (I think), which included 5 large printed photos, 2 photo keyrings and a photo CD, which cost $139. We were told we could collect them before we left the park.

After our swim, we realised the park was closing soon, so we headed back to the changing rooms and got back into our usual clothes – at this point I realised just how burnt I had gotten! I had lines just above my elbows and just above my knees from where my wetsuit ended!! It was worth it though! lol

Once we were changed, we wanted to take a look around a few of the gift shops before we left. I bought myself a Discovery Cove t-shirt and a lovely necklace – sterling silver with platinum plating. It was a dolphin circled around a pearl with a small topaz stone above the dolphin. It really is beautiful!!

We were then guided to where we could collect our photos from the day. With our package we also received a free photo frame, and 2 copies of the photo we had taken at the start of our day. Charlotte was very kind and told me to take the photo frame , which is now standing proudly in my display unit at home!

We reluctantly headed out of the park at about 7.15pm to get our taxi back to the resort – there was a taxi waiting outside for us when we got there!

We couldn’t stop talking about how brilliant our day was! I definitely think it has been the best day of my life so far! Just amazing! Charlotte said it was probably her second best day – after her wedding day of course! lol

We chose to have another quiet evening, with dinner at the resort, and another swim before an early night!

Tomorrow is our day at Busch Gardens, so we booked a shared shuttle tonight to ensure it could pick us up in the morning. We booked it for 8.35am, since we were getting the Busch Gardens shuttle at 9.15am.

Up next, a very hot day at Busch Gardens, and Charlotte’s highlight of the day – meeting someone special (to her anyway!)



P.S – apologies for the lack of photos for today – silly me didn’t think we would get to use our cameras as I assumed everything had to be packed away in lockers all day!

 

[florida sun]

Really enjoying reading your trip report and look forward to more

 

[PJB71]

What a great day you had

Loved the pic of you with the dolphin