"Our TR - Now with 100 % less POFQ!" - Nov 10th-20th(3/5-Last Day & Final Thoughts!)

[skier_pete]

Well, it was up with the usual morning routine, alarm off at 6:45 AM, and out the door by 8:00 AM. We had food we brought from home and a jug of milk from the food court. It was another beautiful day, though today was a bit warmer, probably low ‘80s, but humidity still wasn’t too bad. We got to Epcot with several minutes to spare. They have completely eliminated rope drop at Epcot, so now they just start letting people through the gates. It’s kind of disappointing really, as I kind of like the rope drop ceremonies, though Epcot’s was fairly minor, they did have the Fab 5 come out, and if you were right on the rope you got a quick high five.

We have a pretty consistent opening pattern at Epcot, which is that we head first thing to the character connection. For having a daughter that mostly wants nothing to do with meeting characters she LOVES meeting the Fab 5 here. Don’t ask me why that is, but she does. She also insisted on bringing “her” Mickey Mouse to pose with the characters. Donald wasn’t so happy about this.

Second on the agenda is Nemo, but not before getting a Fastpass for Soarin’. So while I went to get those, the family took some pictures in front of Nemo:

It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years since the Nemo ride opened, and we were one of the first ever to ride it during the soft opening. I didn’t think much of the ride the first time we did it, but it really does have it’s charms as a traditional Disney dark ride. We then spent a good hour wandering around the aquarium.

We also went and saw Turtle Crush, which we hadn’t seen the last few trips, but thought my DM would enjoy it. Of course we got the traditional “Eaten By Bruce” pictures. There was literally NO-ONE in the Pavillion for the first 30 minutes or so, so we had plenty of time for pictures.

We also check out the aquarium of course, looking for that movable hidden Mickey that’s always in the main tank:

I started pushing for us to move on, I really wanted to get to World Showcase as close to 11 AM as we could, because I KNOW how long you can spend there. The only other thing we wanted to do prior to that is Soarin’. We used our FP and I don’t have any pictures to show of it. DM was nervous about it, but she really, really loved Soarin’. DD put up a stink about riding it, but we got her on it the one time. I really like this ride a lot, even though it triggers my “fear of heights over water” phobia big time. And DW gets motion sick, so she spends ½ the ride with her eyes closed. We all had a pleasant flight – but also once per trip is enough.

Next up - Bring on the food, Bring on the wine! (and beer!)

 

[Moodyzblu]

Great pictures and update !

I never do rope drop anywhere so not sure what it's all about .. but from what I've read they seem to be doing away with any kind of production to it ? (with the exception of MK). Wonder why ?

I love Soarin' (although I suffered a bout of vertigo last spring and had a hard time enjoying most rides) .. I still managed it twice last year. The second time on we got the top row !! Talk about feeling dizzy .. I didn't dare look anywhere but the screen !

I like Nemo too .. that song gets stuck in my head .. until we hit Figment .. then it's a whole OTHER song that gets stuck.

 

[skier_pete]

Great pictures and update !

I never do rope drop anywhere so not sure what it's all about .. but from what I've read they seem to be doing away with any kind of production to it ? (with the exception of MK). Wonder why ?

I love Soarin' (although I suffered a bout of vertigo last spring and had a hard time enjoying most rides) .. I still managed it twice last year. The second time on we got the top row !! Talk about feeling dizzy .. I didn't dare look anywhere but the screen !

I like Nemo too .. that song gets stuck in my head .. until we hit Figment .. then it's a whole OTHER song that gets stuck.

"In the Biiggg Bluueeee Worllddd...."

vs

"Immaaaaggginaaaatiion!"

Yeah, I agree - that 2nd one gets stuck in your head. DW complains about "one little spark". DD and I will sing it just to annoy her.

And I especially hate being on one of the end seats on Soarin'. One of the first time's we ever rode it, we were in the top row, and I was thinking "Oh we're probably not that high" and I looked over the edge....Holy Poo! It's a good 20 feet down to the concrete, and further to the bottom of the screen.

We DID notice the rope drop show at DHS was also gone, and I heard rumor that they pulled the rope drop show at DAK as well. Probably cost cutting measure, but disappointing as its a neat little extra. Not something that would get me too worked up as long as they keep the MK show.

 

[Chicago Mo]

im here!!! going back to catch up!

 

[FosterA]

Great family photos Pete! I especially love the magic ones. That one cracks me up in AK where your DM is doing the lion paw thing. It's almost like she's thinking "what in the world are we doing this for" You and your wife do awesome magic photos though, you've got good acting chops!

Ok, that's it....I'm beginning to wonder if I even went to Epcot now. How come I never saw the big shark head anywhere?

 

[skier_pete]

im here!!! going back to catch up!

Join in, I will try and update at least weekly if I can.

Great family photos Pete! I especially love the magic ones. That one cracks me up in AK where your DM is doing the lion paw thing. It's almost like she's thinking "what in the world are we doing this for" You and your wife do awesome magic photos though, you've got good acting chops!

Ok, that's it....I'm beginning to wonder if I even went to Epcot now. How come I never saw the big shark head anywhere?

Yeah, DM didn't quite get into that one. The Magic shots are all about selling it. You can't go too over the top in those cases - you are interacting with a cartoon after all. Big and broad is the way to go.

From last year:

The big "Bruce" shark is in the Shark-room which is near the exit to the Seas, kind of opposite from the Turtle Talk show. The "Shark Mouth" picture has become quite a family tradition:

 

[Chicago Mo]

LOVE the TR.. LOVE the pictures!!!! i have to ask about the purple cat?!?!?

 

[skier_pete]

LOVE the TR.. LOVE the pictures!!!! i have to ask about the purple cat?!?!?

Oh...you will have to keep reading through at least day 5 if you want to hear about the Purple Cat! Though on day 3 I did have a Pint of "Abita Purple Haze"!

 

[PrincessInOz]

that's a great morning and fab PP pictures!


Settling in for the next installment....food porn!

 

[skier_pete]

that's a great morning and fab PP pictures!


Settling in for the next installment....food porn!

Oh...I'm going to have to disappoint you there...for some reason, I didn't take pictures of the Food at Food & Wine! What's wrong with me...I just don't know what I was thinking! There's a few food pictures in there..but not many. So sorry! Please don't stop reading!

 

[FosterA]

HA! love it, you guys have the most exciting magic shots I've ever seen What a fun family

 

[skier_pete]

HA! love it, you guys have the most exciting magic shots I've ever seen What a fun family

THough as I look back, it mostly involves me gaping a lot!

 

[skier_pete]

Next up, it was time to head into World Showcase. Now, unfortunately I somehow neglected to take ANY pictures of the food we ate. I don’t know why. We did fill out the little passbook, and DW noted everything we tried. I was debating about typing out every little detail of all the things we ate, but without pictures I think it could get a little boring, so I am going to mention a few things as we go.

Here’s the gist of my opinion about the food and wine festival – if you can get over the fact that the amount of money you are going to spend is a bit ridiculous, it’s a really good. Everything we tried ranged somewhere between really good and absolutely yummy. Most foods seemed to run between $2.50 and about $5. In our case, we instituted a policy of if the price was greater than $3.50, we used a snack credit, and if it was less, we charged it to the room. When all was said and done – we charged $75 to the room, and used another $113 in Dining Credits. This didn’t include a couple of drinks DM had, as well as DW bought one or two things with cash. So, overall we spent about $200 on food and drinks for the day. That said, we were pretty filled up by the end of it.

DD first HAD to have a pretzel. We then headed over to the Canada area, where we all tried something from the “Greece” booth. I also had to have a beer, so I grabbed one at the entrance to world showcase, and we started heading towards Mexico. We stopped at each booth, and one or the other of us tried something from most of them. There were about 10 booths between Canada and Mexico alone. When we got to Mexico, DD really wanted to color a Duffy bear, so we went inside.

It’s become a tradition the last few trips for me to let her pick out a small wood animal carving from the carvers here in Mexico. Here’s a picture of the three she now has at home – the one from this year was the Cat.

DM and DW went in to wander around the “marketplace”, while I sat to watch DD. I remember at this stage already starting to feel a bit wound down. I don’t know if everyone gets this, but there always seems to be at least one day on every Disney vacation where you just kind of “hit a wall” in terms of being tired. Today was mine. We really hadn’t done that much by this stage – it was probably around 12:30 PM – but I really just wanted to sit and relax. I’ll get back to more on this later. After some coloring, it was time to ride the “Rio Del Tempo” or whatever it’s called nowadays. I for one really like the makeover with the 3 Caballeros. I usually don’t argue when people complain about “liking the old one better” on rides – but in this case your just nuts. The old one was merely a giant advertisement for Mexico Tourism. The new one is much the same, but with a whimsical story of Jose Carioca and Panchito. In fact, I just picked up “Saludos Amigos”/”3 Caballeros” for DD for Christmas (shhh---don’t tell her). I suspect these are not great movies, as they come from the Disney “lean years” in the 1940s when they were packaging shorts together to make feature length movies, but I am curious to see them.

Back to the story at hand, we headed over to Norway after we picked up our Kimmunicator and DW and DM got some Swedish Meatballs. One of DD favorite things is the Kim Possible adventures in World Showcase, and I would even admit they are kind of neat in small doses. You get a Kimmunicator which sends you around each country, solving simple puzzles and performing tasks. (In the case of Norway – we even had to go up to a CM to get a clue.) DD and I did this, while DM and DW shopped in the “Puffin” and apparently also went on Maelstrom while I wasn’t looking. (DD didn’t want to ride, and I simply didn’t care that much, so was OK with that.)

What I did get once our “mission” was done was something I had never tried but had heard about on the DIS…schoolbread. I’ll be honest, the look didn’t appeal to me that much, as I am not a big fan of coconut (and how do they have coconuts in Norway anyways).

But let me tell you something…this thing was really really good. The coconut was not very strong…and the dollop of custard on top was also laced throughout. It was sort of like a large custard donut, the dough was very soft and fresh-tasting, and the custard was delicious, sweet but not overwhelmingly so. There was enough to share, so I gave a few bites to DW and DM.

Next we continued on to China:

Though I didn’t try anything to eat there, DW did have some sort of Pork/noodle dish that was surprisingly spicy. We did the KP mission here as well, though I handed it off early on to DW and let her do it with DD while DM and I did the 360 Movie. This movie is OK – I actually prefer the France one because mostly it means you can sit down. By this point, I was really feeling tired and a bit hot. It was warmer again today, not really bad, but probably low ‘80s, and I am not sure if it was all the food, but I really just wanted to sit. DD saw a marionette Dalmatian that she really wanted so we let her use her money to buy that. She kept wanting to play with it all day, and it kept getting tangled.

Continued in Next Post.

 

[skier_pete]

We moved onto Germany next.

I couldn’t resist getting a beer, and also got a sausage on a pretzel roll for DD and myself. The crowds had been building all day, and it was now sort of crowded. Not really bad, and in fact not as bad as when we had done F&W last year on a Sunday. We explored Germany a bit, and again did the KP mission here…the last one of the day. We also couldn’t miss out on treats at Karamel Kuchen…though how I managed to miss out on any pictures here I just don’t know. I’ll cheat and use one from last year.

We then moved on to Italy, but not before looking over the miniature trains in Germany.

I really just wanted to sit a bit, so I took DD over to the coloring station and let her color for a while as I sat there. I took a few pictures and watched Sergio – the juggling clown, from a distance.

At this point, I sort of didn’t know where DM and DW were for a while, and I tried to call DW and she didn’t answer (she doesn’t answer her phone probably 80% of the time) so called DM and eventually found them again. It was about 4:30 PM at this point, I know this because the “Ziti Sisters” came out, another comedy act in Italy. DW decided she wanted to see it. I stood there somewhat unenthusiastically, and eventually went to sit with DM and DD.

I had really wanted to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at 5:45 PM, and we had a dinner ADR at 6:30 PM at Restaurant Marrekesh, but I was feeling so full I had no interest in eating. I kept proposing changes to our plans at this stage, and in a very uncharacteristic move on my part – I could not for the life of me decide what we should do. I think it was a bit of a combination of being tired, finally hitting the “relax” button from the stress of leaving on vacation, a few beers, and the heat. Fortunately, DW took charge and decided we would go and get a seat for the BBVD show, and everyone that wanted food could go and get some. We would cancel the ADR at Marrakesh. The good thing about doing this is that we had one more TS meal scheduled than we had available Dining Credits, so canceling this meal allowed us to have lunch at ‘50s Prime Time later in the week on the dining plan. Having decided a plan, we could all get food as appropriate for further eating.

It was at this point we were able to get the single greatest Snack Credit value in all of WDW – the “Lobster Roll”. It costs $7.50 if you pay for it, and while it’s a decent bit of lobster, not really worth that. However, the fact that it is still only a single snack credit makes it a great deal. DW and I both had one, and DM had TWO. (I still didn’t get a picture – dummy!) Meanwhile, we got a chicken nugget meal for DD, and we sat and waited for the BBVD show to start. I got another beer (Sam Adams winter – yummy,yummy!)

I really enjoyed this show, and I think the rest of the family did too. As a story, when DD was little (like small enough I could pick her up and swing her around) I used to put on BBVD and we would dance around the living room, and I would “swing dance” her, in other words, swing her around in a circle, and up into the air. For whatever reason, DD at the time called this music “bat music”…we never figured out exactly why that was, but I always thought maybe we called it “fast music” once and she got “fast” and “bat” confused – remember she was only a toddler! She hardly remembers this, but remembered the songs and she was hopping around quite a bit. In the meantime, the sun started to set, and cooling off and the rest put me in a much better state of mind for the rest of the evening.

So, the nice thing about not having dinner is now we could take our time getting out of Epcot. We weren’t staying for Illuminations (that is Day 4) so we made our way around WS the rest of the way. We really didn’t stop in any of the countries, except DW and DM did try a few more bites to eat on the way out. (I’d had quite a bit by this point, and was not feeling hungry in the least.) We ended up using I think around 20 of our 36 snack credits today. We stopped in France for some Crème Brule for DW and DM, and decided to get our picture taken by the fountain:

I trimmed these to remove DD. She didn’t want to be part of the picture, but she also sat pouting in the background:

However, when I pulled out my camera to take her picture, it was a big hit:

On the way up, we passed the Christmas tree. Much of the decorations of Epcot were already up, but there were none of the special Christmas shows going on while we were there:

We also let DD pick up a light sword. She had bought one of these a few years back, but hers at home had partially broke. The Photopass person took one of her with her sword first:

Then one of the lot of us, except for DW who had stopped in a store and was going to catch up with us later. The Photopass girl was funny, she was complaining to us about how Disney puts up all the Christmas decorations so early, and they completely ignore Thanksgiving. She says she doesn’t care, instead of saying “Merry Christmas” she’s going to say to people “Happy Thanksgiving” and “What are you Thankful for?” We knew we were thankful to be able to be at Disney! She really wasn’t doing this in a gruff way, but more in a playful way, so it really was sort of fun:

DD always likes to play on the light pads outside of Spaceship Earth, but today it didn’t last very long. On the way out, it still wasn’t super late yet (probably 7 PM at this stage) so I asked her if she wanted to ride Spaceship earth? She said “Yes” so we went on this.

My DM didn’t remember this story, but when I was a kid the first time we went to Epcot on 1983 we had gotten on SSE, and my step-dad and I told my mom that when it got to the top it turned into a roller coaster going really fast back down. Of course, that wasn’t true! In fact it moves so slow, we could get pictures of everyone before the ride started.

After it was done – we headed out for the bus. It had been a long day. I had been really nervous about DD walking today, and while she was a bit whiny, she did pretty well – remember, first trip without her carriage/stroller. I didn’t do so well, but by evening I had recovered.

Day 3:
Characters Met: 5
Future World Attractions: 4 (Character Spot, The Seas, Soarin’, SSE)
World Showcase Countries: 5 (Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy)
Waits of > 5 minutes: 1 (Soarin w/ FP was still about 10 minutes.)

Since I forgot to do this for Day 2:
Characters Met: 1
Rides/Attractions seen: 8
Waits of > 5 minutes: 0

Totals (3 days):
Characters Met: 6
Rides/Attractions seen: 34
Waits of > 5 minutes: 1

Tomorrow is our all-important “down” day, which really isn’t quite a “down” day at all. But the question remains, how did we do?

 

[Chicago Mo]

I see the BLUE cat you got from Mexico!! IT'S NOT PURPLE?!? I can't WAIT!!!!

 

[solana131]

Okay, one thing I have been wondering....
I don't remember Spaceship Earth from when I was little. I remember the big ball and all, but didn't realize there was a ride in there until I joined the DIS. It looks fun and I want to try it, but my question is...is it good for a 5 year old? It looks kinda boring?? Should hubby and I do it the night we have off (parents watching little one so we can do WS and Illuminations)??

 

[Moodyzblu]

Okay, one thing I have been wondering....
I don't remember Spaceship Earth from when I was little. I remember the big ball and all, but didn't realize there was a ride in there until I joined the DIS. It looks fun and I want to try it, but my question is...is it good for a 5 year old? It looks kinda boring?? Should hubby and I do it the night we have off (parents watching little one so we can do WS and Illuminations)??

My boys are 7 and it's one of their favorite rides and has been for years !

 

[solana131]

My boys are 7 and it's one of their favorite rides and has been for years !

Good to know...thanks

 

[skier_pete]

Okay, one thing I have been wondering....
I don't remember Spaceship Earth from when I was little. I remember the big ball and all, but didn't realize there was a ride in there until I joined the DIS. It looks fun and I want to try it, but my question is...is it good for a 5 year old? It looks kinda boring?? Should hubby and I do it the night we have off (parents watching little one so we can do WS and Illuminations)??

It's one of the few "original" rides at WS - slow moving and dark, but unless I 5-year old was very scared of the dark, I think there is enough stuff to see to keep them interested. Make sure your child sits up straight for the picture they take at the beginning. They scan everyone's face and at the end you use the touch screens to make a video using your faces, every child gets a kick out of that. (You can also e-mail the video to your home in the exit area.) There are some neat interactive games that at 5 our DD was already playing, though not very sucessfully.

 

[skier_pete]

I see the BLUE cat you got from Mexico!! IT'S NOT PURPLE?!? I can't WAIT!!!!

Nope - still not PURPLE CAT! Just gotta wait until day 5!