T
TSI_Fan
Guest
Saturday 07/28/2001
...after a mere 5 hours of sleep, it was up bright and early for EPCOT!! Plans had been made for me, TvT, NancyIL, and buggin' to do EPCOT in the morning and then to make our way back to the pool party later in the afternoon. Well..........TvT checked out that morning and would meet us at EPCOT at 10a. I got ready and headed down to NancyIL's room and proceeded to wait....and wait.....and wait..........and wait........and....yeah, more of that, until she was ready.
So we take the Friendship boat over to EPCOT (after waiting at the Yacht and Beach and Boardwalk docks ) via the International Gateway and headed DIRECTLY to Test Track. We had some time before meeting up with Tony so we grabbed fastpasses since it was already a hellish wait (ugh!). We figured we would do Spaceship Earth first and then Test Track. On the way to Spaceship Earth we met up with...you know who..TvT! We told him we had fastpasses for Test Track and he recommended that we just go ahead and ride the singles line. He gets a FP also (for 10 minutes after our beginning window) and we all head into the singles line. We get split up into 2 cars. TvT and NancyIL get on right away, I board the 3rd car back.
Test track is lots of fun, but once you get into the speed test and the car starts cruising at 65+ mph, the ride turns into a lot of fun. Unless you're one of those sunday drivers, you can't help but smile as your car is tearing up the straightaway and crusing around the banked turn above the queue. Yes folks, this ride is AWESOME! I buy a collector pin because I loved the ride so much (I bought a RnR pin at MGM yesterday for the very same reason).
After TestTrack we head over to Wonders of Life and see "Crannium Command" which is really cute..I still like it eventhough it's definatly dated. We also do Universe of Energy (okay, so that's the old name for it), which I was really impressed with. The ride has come a LONG way from what it used to be....Ellen (DeGeneres) is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fun ride. One little side comment was that they are still using the dinosaurs from the original ride. Kind of like hanging on to some remains of the old ride..it just made me think "oh, there's those dinosaurs...again". Same cars from the old ride too...those HUGE football-field size cattle cars.
It was time for our FP for Test Track, so we rode it again...even better the second time!! I could tell where they re-used some of the old track area and Tony pointed out where it seemed like they also re-used parts of the old queue, too. Great ride....outstanding ride...and overall..a fun ride!
We were getting hungry and NancyIL really wanted to eat at Japan for lunch. It wasn't quite 11a yet so World Showcase wasn't open. We decided to kill some time waiting under some shade in the smoking area over by the boat launch to Japan when all of a sudden a bus comes driving down the walkway carrying tons of characters. I snapped a picture of Pooh as he was walking towards his meet and greet spot.
We cruise over to Japan only to find out they start serving at 11:30. Nancy was royally disappointed. Me? I headed back to American Adventure to chow down on a burger with Tony. (Nancy had a chicken ceaser salad...in the US pavillion! the nerve. nothing but good ol' american burgers for us guys!!)
I snapped some pictures of several pavillions before Tony had to depart. In no particular order we have:
Canada
France
Morocco
Japan
A view of Spaceship Earth from across that lake that I just forgot the name of.
Tony parts from us to do some things around his house, but we'll see him again....um....sunday for Drink Around the World. Nancy and I go back to ride Spaceship Earth, look through Innoventions, and we head over to Ice Station Cool. I had her warn me about which drink was the icky one so I could be prepared. Well...I tried them all anyways, I forgot which ones I liked the most..oh, the one from Germany I did enjoy, and the one from China, also. I tried a little bit of the Italian one (code word: Beverly) just to sample it. It wasn't THAT bad, but it does leave a bad aftertaste. A CM asked me if I tried the Beverly yet. Knowing what he wanted to see, I poured me a full cup of it and downed it right in front of him without making a face. When he asked me what I thought I smacked my lips a couple times, looked at him and said "it could use a little work" I wandered around and tried to see if people would try to trick me into sampling it some more but to no avail.
We come back to the Dolphin and head over to the pool to see if the pool party is still going on. Nope..it's done. We say hi to buggin (Amber) and her mom as we head out there. I didn't mention anything about why she wasn't at EPCOT or why she didn't call one of us because, frankly, I didn't want to hear it. Ya know..whatever, doesn't bother me. I didn't let it ruin my day. I did snap a picture of BambiTamby (Tamby) and NHAnn (Ann) at the pool..both were okay with having their picture taken in a bathsuit unlike SOME people (hint hint, Poohlovr).
Nancy and I head back to our respective rooms and meet everyone in the lobby to head out to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner and cruise. If you thought 50s Prime Time was bad, you haven't seen anything until you dine at Whispering Canyon. Ugh! Audience Participation to the MAX!! Down-home backwoods southern-twang servers guide you through a dining experience, and I do mean experience. I was cringing in terror because I didn't want a repeat of the MGM lunch experience, so I basically went along with whatever group events there were. One enjoyable event was taking our napkins and twirling them over our heads, whooping and hollering as the kids ride around the dining room on wooden horses. That was fun. There was another "event" so to speak where if a table didn't have ketchup, the server for that table would LOUDLY announce that a certain person there didn't have ketchup and if anyone had some ketchup to spare to bring it to that table. Well, this proceeds into having about 5-6 people walking over with their bottle of ketchup and placing it on that person's table. LOL. That was a riot!! Not to mention they call all the guys "Cowboy". I didn't hear what they called the ladies.
Oh, a little dirt here. The Whispering Canyon has this signature alcoholic drink, and they serve it in a yard (yes, 3-feet of this drink). It's basically a TALL glass. Pandy decides to have one, as does Glo. Now, Glo is teeny tiny, but SOMEHOW manages to down 2 of these drinks! Don't ask me how she did it..... I sat with NancyIL, Pandy and her 2 kids, Glo and her daughters, and poppins50, her DH and their DD. They're a cute couple (IMHO).
After a wonderful dinner we head down to the docks for the fireworks cruise. After some miscommunication we get everything straightened out. We load onto our pontoon boats and head over to Ft. Wilderness to watch the Electrical Water Pagent parade, which I haven't seen in YEARS!!! Brought back lots of memories. Soundtrack changed a bit, but it was VERY enjoyable. Also saw the MK fireworks. We cruised over to Seven Seas Lagoon from the Ft. Wilderness / Wilderness Lodge area and sat in the middle of the lake and watched the fireworks as other boats and the MK Ferry passed us from a distance. OUTSTANDING VIEW!! I rode with Pandy and her 2 DS, poppins50 + DH + DD, and Glo + her 3 DDs. (also really cute). I had a great time. I made it a point to turn off my flash to take pics of the water pagent, unfortunatly the motion of the ocean caused all my pics to be blurry so I have no pics of that to show you.
We cruised around the resorts from the lake and headed back to Wilderness Lodge and eventually back to the Dolphin (by the way, we drove over to this one..busses would have taken waaaay too long).
We head back to our rooms and I lounge on the balcony for a little bit before heading to bed. Tomorrow is PS at Cindy's for Princess Breakfast and MK. Yippee!!
...after a mere 5 hours of sleep, it was up bright and early for EPCOT!! Plans had been made for me, TvT, NancyIL, and buggin' to do EPCOT in the morning and then to make our way back to the pool party later in the afternoon. Well..........TvT checked out that morning and would meet us at EPCOT at 10a. I got ready and headed down to NancyIL's room and proceeded to wait....and wait.....and wait..........and wait........and....yeah, more of that, until she was ready.
So we take the Friendship boat over to EPCOT (after waiting at the Yacht and Beach and Boardwalk docks
) via the International Gateway and headed DIRECTLY to Test Track. We had some time before meeting up with Tony so we grabbed fastpasses since it was already a hellish wait (ugh!). We figured we would do Spaceship Earth first and then Test Track. On the way to Spaceship Earth we met up with...you know who..TvT! We told him we had fastpasses for Test Track and he recommended that we just go ahead and ride the singles line. He gets a FP also (for 10 minutes after our beginning window) and we all head into the singles line. We get split up into 2 cars. TvT and NancyIL get on right away, I board the 3rd car back. Test track is lots of fun, but once you get into the speed test and the car starts cruising at 65+ mph, the ride turns into a lot of fun. Unless you're one of those sunday drivers, you can't help but smile as your car is tearing up the straightaway and crusing around the banked turn above the queue. Yes folks, this ride is AWESOME! I buy a collector pin because I loved the ride so much (I bought a RnR pin at MGM yesterday for the very same reason).
After TestTrack we head over to Wonders of Life and see "Crannium Command" which is really cute..I still like it eventhough it's definatly dated. We also do Universe of Energy (okay, so that's the old name for it), which I was really impressed with. The ride has come a LONG way from what it used to be....Ellen (DeGeneres) is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fun ride. One little side comment was that they are still using the dinosaurs from the original ride. Kind of like hanging on to some remains of the old ride..it just made me think "oh, there's those dinosaurs...again". Same cars from the old ride too...those HUGE football-field size cattle cars. It was time for our FP for Test Track, so we rode it again...even better the second time!!
I could tell where they re-used some of the old track area and Tony pointed out where it seemed like they also re-used parts of the old queue, too. Great ride....outstanding ride...and overall..a fun ride! We were getting hungry and NancyIL really wanted to eat at Japan for lunch.
It wasn't quite 11a yet so World Showcase wasn't open. We decided to kill some time waiting under some shade in the smoking area over by the boat launch to Japan when all of a sudden a bus comes driving down the walkway carrying tons of characters. I snapped a picture of Pooh as he was walking towards his meet and greet spot.
We cruise over to Japan only to find out they start serving at 11:30. Nancy was royally disappointed. Me? I headed back to American Adventure to chow down on a burger with Tony. (Nancy had a chicken ceaser salad...in the US pavillion! the nerve. nothing but good ol' american burgers for us guys!!)
I snapped some pictures of several pavillions before Tony had to depart. In no particular order we have:
Canada
France
Morocco
Japan
A view of Spaceship Earth from across that lake that I just forgot the name of.
Tony parts from us to do some things around his house, but we'll see him again....um....sunday for Drink Around the World. Nancy and I go back to ride Spaceship Earth, look through Innoventions, and we head over to Ice Station Cool. I had her warn me about which drink was the icky one so I could be prepared. Well...I tried them all anyways, I forgot which ones I liked the most..oh, the one from Germany I did enjoy, and the one from China, also. I tried a little bit of the Italian one (code word: Beverly) just to sample it. It wasn't THAT bad, but it does leave a bad aftertaste. A CM asked me if I tried the Beverly yet. Knowing what he wanted to see, I poured me a full cup of it and downed it right in front of him without making a face. When he asked me what I thought I smacked my lips a couple times, looked at him and said "it could use a little work"
I wandered around and tried to see if people would try to trick me into sampling it some more but to no avail.We come back to the Dolphin and head over to the pool to see if the pool party is still going on. Nope..it's done. We say hi to buggin (Amber) and her mom as we head out there. I didn't mention anything about why she wasn't at EPCOT or why she didn't call one of us because, frankly, I didn't want to hear it. Ya know..whatever, doesn't bother me. I didn't let it ruin my day. I did snap a picture of BambiTamby (Tamby) and NHAnn (Ann) at the pool..both were okay with having their picture taken in a bathsuit unlike SOME people (hint hint, Poohlovr).
Nancy and I head back to our respective rooms and meet everyone in the lobby to head out to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner and cruise. If you thought 50s Prime Time was bad, you haven't seen anything until you dine at Whispering Canyon. Ugh! Audience Participation to the MAX!! Down-home backwoods southern-twang servers guide you through a dining experience, and I do mean experience. I was cringing in terror because I didn't want a repeat of the MGM lunch experience, so I basically went along with whatever group events there were. One enjoyable event was taking our napkins and twirling them over our heads, whooping and hollering as the kids ride around the dining room on wooden horses. That was fun. There was another "event" so to speak where if a table didn't have ketchup, the server for that table would LOUDLY announce that a certain person there didn't have ketchup and if anyone had some ketchup to spare to bring it to that table. Well, this proceeds into having about 5-6 people walking over with their bottle of ketchup and placing it on that person's table. LOL. That was a riot!!
Not to mention they call all the guys "Cowboy". I didn't hear what they called the ladies.Oh, a little dirt here. The Whispering Canyon has this signature alcoholic drink, and they serve it in a yard (yes, 3-feet of this drink). It's basically a TALL glass. Pandy decides to have one, as does Glo. Now, Glo is teeny tiny, but SOMEHOW manages to down 2 of these drinks! Don't ask me how she did it..... I sat with NancyIL, Pandy and her 2 kids, Glo and her daughters, and poppins50, her DH and their DD. They're a cute couple (IMHO).
After a wonderful dinner we head down to the docks for the fireworks cruise. After some miscommunication we get everything straightened out. We load onto our pontoon boats and head over to Ft. Wilderness to watch the Electrical Water Pagent parade, which I haven't seen in YEARS!!! Brought back lots of memories. Soundtrack changed a bit, but it was VERY enjoyable. Also saw the MK fireworks. We cruised over to Seven Seas Lagoon from the Ft. Wilderness / Wilderness Lodge area and sat in the middle of the lake and watched the fireworks as other boats and the MK Ferry passed us from a distance. OUTSTANDING VIEW!! I rode with Pandy and her 2 DS, poppins50 + DH + DD, and Glo + her 3 DDs. (also really cute). I had a great time. I made it a point to turn off my flash to take pics of the water pagent, unfortunatly the motion of the ocean caused all my pics to be blurry so I have no pics of that to show you.
We cruised around the resorts from the lake and headed back to Wilderness Lodge and eventually back to the Dolphin (by the way, we drove over to this one..busses would have taken waaaay too long).We head back to our rooms and I lounge on the balcony for a little bit before heading to bed. Tomorrow is PS at Cindy's for Princess Breakfast and MK. Yippee!!
