Day Four
The alarm goes off at 7:30 and this morning I am feeling weary.
Three days of walking is catching up with me and and I had sore feet and a few blisters. Luckily, Louise had a tons of bandaids along with her so after 3 Advil and 10 bandaids I was ready to face the day.
I had an ADR for Boma this morning but I was outvoted. Everyone just wanted to go to the lounge and actually 'eat' a breakfast without me nagging that they shouldn't eat. So that's what we did.
Again, if you take the Platinum Plan you really shouldn't stay concierge because it becomes a conflict of interest with the lounge food offerings vs. the restaurants.
Breakfast in the AKL lounge is always very good, they have bagels and breads for toasting, peanut butter, butter & cream cheese, hot oatmeals with sugars, nuts and dried fruits, muffins, croissants, danishes, fresh fruit, yogurt, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, juices, milk & chocolate milk.
The girls enjoy watching classic Disney cartoons on the lounge TV while eating breakfast. They always seem to be playing these classics, in fact this is our third stay at AKL and I think only once something else was playing on the TV.
After a relaxing breakfast that we all gave a thumbs up, we caught the bus for EPCOT and arrived about 10 minutes before opening time.
Today my plan was...
- do Future World by 1:30pm.
- have lunch at Le Cellier at 1:50pm,
- walk over to Mexico and start walking around the World Showcase
- be in the American Pavillion by 4:30pm for the Candlelight Processional at 5:00pm.
- After the CP, dinner in Italy,
- finish the rest of the WS
- see Illuminatons.
Phew!
Obviously I was getting cocky with my planning, riding high on the success of everything we accomplished at MK the day before. However, at EPCOT, as you will see, I made some tactical errors and screwed everything up.
When the park opened we headed for Soarin' - along with everyone else.
Many, many people heading the same way with the same idea, it seems. There was already a 20 minute wait for Soarin' when we arrived - and I had anticipated no wait at all. Soarin' was great though, we all loved it, a super addition to EPCOT.
After Soarin' we made our first mistake of the day by going into the Circle of Life movie thingy. The only reason we went in was because we felt sorry for the CM at the entrance, everyone was passing her by on the way to Soarin' and not one single person went into her attraction. Circle of Life took longer than I expected and time was ticking. Also, it was not as good as I remembered and a little too educational when we all just felt like having fun.
Next we were off to the Seas for Turtle Talk and Nemo. Turtle Talk was so much fun for everyone, we loved it. Again though, both had 20 minute waits that I had not anticipated - tick tock tick tock.
Spaceship Earth was next - a must do once per trip for us.
Time for our first break of the day and Mickey Ice Cream bars all round.
Here was my next mistake - Ellen's Universe of Energy - I forgot that it was a 45 minute attraction and more importantly, I forgot to get Fast Passes for Test Track before going in. Oops.
Ellen - as much as I enjoy her - took up a lot of our time and afterwards I sent the girls running over to get our FPs for Test Track. They were for between 3-4pm - which threw a wrench in my plans as I did not want to come back to Future World after our Le Cellier lunch.
Mission Space was only a 10 minutes wait on the Green Side, but 30 minutes on the Orange Side. Noel insisted she wanted to do orange, so again we lost some time here, another mistake, I should have made her go green.
We all waited in the orange line together but Louise was going Green and I joined her to check it out. Green was really good, you still get the sensation of take off and landing and I liked it just fine. Megan was a little queasy after going Orange with Noel.
I am glad there is a green option so all the ladies can enjoy Gary Sinese
By now it was almost 1:30pm, no time for Honey I Shrunk the Audience, no time for the movie in Canada, no time for innoventions, no time to stop and smell the roses. grrrr.
We arrived at LeCellier 10 minutes before our ADR and chatted with the Canadian girls at the desk. They were turning people away left, right and centre if they didn't have ADRs. No walk ups at all - so please make your ADRs to avoid disappointment.
The Le Cellier girls started doing Canadian Trivia with the guests waiting for their tables. Being from Canada we ruled at Canadian Trivia, but as soon as they became suspicious and discovered we were from Toronto. They disqualified us from playing!
I will do a dining report with some pics, but let me tell you this was a great lunch with very good service. Louise & Noel had the sirloin burger, Megan had the petite fillet, plain with fries, I had the petite fillet, maple glaze with cream cheese potatoes, for appetizers Louise and I had the shrimp cocktail and Noel and Megan had the cheddar cheese soup. Everything was delcious. For dessert I had the creme brulee, Louise and Noel had the campfire smores and Megan the chocolate mousse (moose) - we were stuffed.
Lunch was over and it was now after 3:30pm. I really wanted to get started walking around the World Showcase because we had to be over in the the American Pavillion by 4:30pm for the 5pm showing of the CP. Noel, however balked that we could not miss Test Track so we had to walk all the way back over there to use our fast passes.
By the time we finished TT (which we all loved, by the way) it was after 4pm. I was worried about seating at the Candlelight Processional and maybe not getting a seat if we were late, I was not looking forward to rushing around the World Showcase on my sore feet but then we spotted the boat and took that instead of walking, it saved us a little time. I've never taken the boat before, it came in handy for us.
The standby line for the CP was crazy, it was so long.
I thought there was no way many of those people would make it inside.
When we arrived in front of the theatre we found the dining package entrance and were let right in. There was not 4 seats together anywhere to be seen so we split up, 2 and 2. The theatre was almost full and this was before any of the stand by people had been let in.
Our narrator was Kirk Cameron and he was wonderful, Louise and I were impressed and the music & choir made us teary and happy. It was such a beautiful evening, the sun was setting and we were enjoying the CP so much. Occasionally we would look over at the girls and they looked pretty bored LOL but they both said they liked the music.
After the CP we went into the counter service area in the American Pavillion and bought some drinks.
Gingerbread House in the Counter Service Restaurant
My feet were now really, really sore, my bandaids were coming off - time for a couple of more Advil because we still had a few more hours here in the WS including our dinner in Italy at 7:30pm.
Louise wanted to do some shopping, she was especially interested in Germany (her hubby's family is German) and the UK. (coz she loves the UK) There was no way in hell I was walking to the UK at that moment so I suggested Germany.
Louise bought her hubby at beer stein for Christmas and picked up some other souveniers. We walked over to the traders area & the girls had some fun while I rested at a table.
It was getting close to our ADR time for Italy so we headed back over there.
When we arrived at the restaurant there was a big line up of guests at the podium to the patio. I don't know what I was thinking, but I got in the line and stood for about 10 minutes with it hardly moving.
Just then it dawned on me that last time I ate here we checked in
inside the restaurant not a the patio podium, duh. So I left the line and walked inside to find Louise had already figured out that I was in the wrong place. (Not bad for a Disney Newbie) She had checked us in, smart girl and after a few minutes we were shown to our table.
We all ordered the caesar salad and fettuccini and it was a great meal, they brought the fettuccini on a large platter and tossed it with sauce and cheese at the table before serving it on our individual plates. The fettucini was excellent, very rich & cheesy. We loved it. The little Italian accordian player was walking around serenading the guests and the atmosphere was fun. Thumbs up to Alfredos.
I think this was one of the rare occasions we didn't have dessert, we were all just too too full. Our lunch at Le Cellier was not that long ago and we were stuffed to the gills.
After dinner we waddled over to Japan as Louise had promised Megan she could pick an oyster pearl and have it set in a necklace. It was fun watching Megan select the perfect oyster, witness her pearl being born and then choosing a pretty silver horseshoe setting & chain.
Almost time for Illuminations and our Platinum Plan came with VIP viewing at the boat dock in Morroco. It seems everytime I have been at EPCOT for illuminations I am walking and can't see what is going on, one time we did an illuminations cruise on Breathless but it poured rain and was not very good.
This was a real treat for us, there was no one else there except one other couple. The CM's were guarding the dock with a rope and opened it to let us in after checking our name on their sheet. It was pretty cool.
The girls watching Illuminations
After Illuminations I decided there was no way I could walk to the buses from Morroco.
Plan B - walk over to the Beach Club and get a cab to AKL.
I promised to let Louise shop in the UK before leaving as I was sure the stores were still open, ooops - they weren't.
Everything in the UK was closed already and I felt really bad
Photos of a closed UK
The Beach Club is so close to the International Gateway, literally just a 3 or 4 minute walk away. We stopped to see the gingerbread & chocolate carousel in the lobby
What the heck did they do to the BC lobby, though?, we stayed here for a week in 2003 and it was so pretty, now there is this ugly pumpkin orange furniture. I was disappointed with the changes.
Luckily for my poor feet, there was a taxi right there waiting and before we knew it we were back at the beautiful AKL.
In the cab we had discovered Megan had her Pal Mickey but Noel did not.
Grrrr... last time I saw it was when I handed it back to her in Germany after a restroom stop. I think he was left behind at dinner in Italy but I never did call about him. Hopefully some nice family found Pal Mickey and gave him a good home.
I was so tired when we arrived back in the room, we had a 13 hour day at EPCOT - I was asleep 30 seconds after hitting the pillow. The kids & Louise were tired too- it was far too ambitious an itinerary and I killed everyone.
Tomorrow will be a much easier day, I have something very special planned - some VIP treatment, Disney style.
It was a very special moment.
It was hilarious and people at the other tables were laughing too. 
although we did some great things 
