The last min bargain - Day 5 Shopping & Epcot

[RobynPrincess]

Woke up today at 9am and on looking out the window felt thoroughly deflated, it was still pouring with rain oh dear. We were a bit stuck on what to do today so we decided to go for breakfast and decide while we were there. IHOP it was We were seated right away as the place was half empty.



I decided to break the norm and have French toast, oh how wrong was I to do that?! It was covered in cinnamon nooooo oh well. Sy had a breakfast that came with pancakes, he made a better choice than me. I’m really not doing well on the food front am I? I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with me (other than being just fussy lol).



Peach melba French toast



We decided that we would take a wander round the Premium outlets as the rain looked set to stay. We went to both outlets. We didn’t really buy much as we didn’t have the funds this trip though we did get a set of 3 cooling racks for me as I didn’t have any :O don’t ask how I’ve got by till now when I do a LOT of baking. Plus they were a total bargain at $9.99 for all 3. I also got a tee in the Disney shop that I had been eyeing up last year full price at $32.95, and paid $9.99 for it patience pays sometimes Sy also got a tee from the Disney shop and I bought an outfit for my niece.

We decided we would get a drink in the food court at the outlet at the top of I Drive, I went to Chicken now as it was the one with the shortest queue, we only wanted a drink after all. I paid with a $10 and was given a couple of $ back. Erm no, I need more change than that. The guy argued that I had only given him a $5 bill, yet he had rung it through as $10 as I saw it. He refused to give me the rest of the money back at first. I argued it with him until I went into my bag to find the receipt when he immediately gave me the rest of the money back with a sly smile on his face, I didn’t even have to try and find it when he gave the money back. I would put a bet on the fact he knew all along I gave him a $10 and was trying to scam me out of the difference. Just the way he acted and gave me the money as soon as I went to look for the receipt. It made me SO cross, I was probably crosser than I should have been but imagine if they do this to all the tourists they get in, a nice little earner for them! Grrrrr! Rant over.



On the way back we stopped at Popeyes to get some take out oh how I love Popeyes. Its annoying that there wasn’t one closer to us in LBV, I would have eaten there all the time. I had chicken tenders and a biscuit Sy had a chicken PoBoy. We came back to the hotel afterward and Skyped home, it was still raining. We didn’t really want to go to a mall as it was quite depressing shopping when you cant really spend any money (I’ll be making up for it in September ) so we were at a loss as to what to do and eventually decided on Epcot, there were still things to do inside that we didn’t do yesterday. We got to the car park and sat in the car for ages, it was raining too heavily to get out and put the ponchos on! We would have been wet to the skin the moment we opened the car doors, and they were in the boot as they were still wet from the day before. In the end the rain wasn’t letting up so we sucked it up and got out. We did get pretty wet just putting them on but hey, warm rain is still better than cold rain back home I think people thought we were mad on the way in, it was like swimming against the tide, everyone was leaving as we were arriving. We decided to head to innoventions first and we did the fire safety experience. The guy was SO camp who talked us through it, he was brilliant! He told us all afterwards that the teams had the closest score he had ever seen, the only thing separating them was someone clicking on the wrong thing once. Does he say that to every group though? I dunno, never done it before – I’m not sure if we will do it again either We then made our way over to the land while the rain let up for a little bit. We have never been into the Circle of Life before so decided to give it a go. It was empty - that should have been my first warning... but sadly we waited for it to fill up (well fill up might be stretching it somewhat, get ¼ full might be a better explanation ) well it might be nice on a hot day for a rest and Ellen isn’t working



Next up, Living with the Land, such an underrated ride! Love, love, love it



And of course as we were there, we just had to ride Soarin’







I look REALLY excited in this picture hahaha

 

[RobynPrincess]

We then decided to try Coral Reef for a walk up, it’s a popular restaurant so we didn’t hold out much hope but thought we would try as people may have left cause of the rain and cancelled their booking. And success! They could fit us in, we just had to wait 30 mins. Fine by us, and in usual Disney fashion as soon as my bum touched the seat we were called that was a quick 30 minutes. We were shown to a table almost next to the tank (there was another table for 2 between us and the tank). Yay!





Our server came over to introduce himself, his name was Rad. He was a fine server but not the usual Disney service. He was just a bit nonchalant, but as I said, he was fine.

The brad was brought out, it wasn’t the same as last year, it was crusty last year but this bread was soft and tough, it almost felt like day old bread – had we not had a second basket the same I would have thought we got a dodgy batch.



I had the chicken but they had changed it from last year, its now served with tomato pasta so I asked for fries instead. When it was served the first set of fries were cold so he brought out another plate of them. Sy had the Salmon with stir fried veg – he LOVED it. He wants to go back just for them.





I was very sad to see the crème brulee had been removed from the menu, I saved room for dessert especially The chocolate wave was still there so Sy ordered that for him and I didn’t have anything but once I tasted Sy’s I kinda ended up having half... whoops he didn’t mind though, lovely hubby



Just as we ordered dessert a family of four were shown to the table next to the glass but the next row across from us. They had 2 boys who kept climbing up to the tanks and standing up there shouting, and I really mean shouting – I think they were about 6/7 and 9/10. And then would you believe, when they got back down their parents made them keep getting back up! They wanted to take more pictures of them there, even when a server asked them to get down as soon as they went away again their parents got them to climb back up. This commotion was dominating the whole restaurant. Everyone was looking at them and they just didn’t care at all. The dad was stood up taking pictures in the way of the servers, the boys were shouting the whole time ‘SHARK!’. People at other tables were all turning to one another in disbelief. It felt very much like ‘this is our holiday and we will act however we want, screw everyone else’ attitude. I was glad we were nearly done, Sy wanted to have a quiet word with the dad but I wouldn’t let him, they looked the sort that wouldn’t give 2 hoots about turning round and thumping him. It really put a dampener on the experience for us. Had this been our first visit I don’t know if we would be back, but thankfully those sort of people are in the minority and could be anywhere

We paid the bill and left sharpish, glad to be out. We decided we would quickly walk over to Test Track, and we rode it in the rain I made our car nice and girly again, much to Sy’s annoyance





By now it was getting late and nearly time for Illuminations so we got a spot with spaceship earth behind us. Wrong spot. The wind blew all of the ash over us, it was getting in our eyes all the time and actually made holes in our ponchos! Afterwards we wandered back to the car, we were pretty cold by now, we were wet and there was no sun to keep us warm. Who would have thought you could be cold in Orlando in May?! We got back to the hotel and were in bed by 1pm, the aircon went off tonight, and I had to get my fluffy socks out to warm my feet up in bed :O