Today, Vavo and Vavu stayed home with the kids for a rest day while Maria, Andrew, Jake and Laura went to Epcot. We took off bright and early, and made it to the park pretty close to opening.
The first thing we did was head straight over to Test Track. Laura and Jake went on it the other day and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to go on it again with them. The ride was really good. It zooms you around, and the fresh air felt really nice, because it was quite warm outside in the morning and afternoon.
The first thing we did was head straight over to Test Track. Laura and Jake went on it the other day and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to go on it again with them. The ride was really good. It zooms you around, and the fresh air felt really nice, because it was quite warm outside in the morning and afternoon.
Entering Test Track
Our next stop was Mission: Space. This is a new ride that wasn’t there when Drew and Maria were there on their honeymoon back in 2003. The corporate sponsor for Mission:Space is Hewlett-Packard (HP). Since Jake works for HP, we got to go with him and Laura into a special lounge just for HP employees. It was really nice. There were free sodas and specialty coffee drinks, there was a free photo printer to print family photos from your trip, there were interactive games and also a special entrance into the ride with no wait in line. The ride was really great – very well done. It’s a simulator, with a screen that comes down right in front of your face. You play the role of an astronaut doing one of the many crew jobs aboard a spaceship. Your mission is to Mars. There are two choices for your ride experience: green or orange. Green is a more mild version of the original ride (orange). We did green!
Entering Mission:Space area
Entering Mission:Space area
Entering the HP Suite
Entering the RideBy the time we left Mission:Space, we were ready to go into the World Showcase area and start looking for lunch. We had a tour scheduled at 1pm, and wanted to eat early. It was really hot outside, and the sun was shining right down on us. Maria was wilting in the heat. Drew ran and bought her a spray bottle with a fan attached. It was really sweet of him, and it helped a lot.
We were there right at 11am when the World Showcase area of the park opens. We headed to China for lunch. When we went inside the restaurant, we were informed that the sit-down food places open at 12. This wasn’t good for us, because we had to be back up at the park entrance by 1:15. We decided to try a quick service food location and went into Yakatori House in Japan. But the selection was poor, and the food being served didn’t look all that appealing. So we kept walking. We also looked at the Tangerine Cafe in Morocco, but it was the same problem: minimal selection.
By the time we ended up in France, it was already almost noon. So we just decided to eat a sit-down meal at Les Chefs de France. The food was SOOOOOOOO good. Maria had the “French Menu”, a sampling of different French Cuisine. Everyone tried something different. But we all enjoyed the food.
We were there right at 11am when the World Showcase area of the park opens. We headed to China for lunch. When we went inside the restaurant, we were informed that the sit-down food places open at 12. This wasn’t good for us, because we had to be back up at the park entrance by 1:15. We decided to try a quick service food location and went into Yakatori House in Japan. But the selection was poor, and the food being served didn’t look all that appealing. So we kept walking. We also looked at the Tangerine Cafe in Morocco, but it was the same problem: minimal selection.
By the time we ended up in France, it was already almost noon. So we just decided to eat a sit-down meal at Les Chefs de France. The food was SOOOOOOOO good. Maria had the “French Menu”, a sampling of different French Cuisine. Everyone tried something different. But we all enjoyed the food.
Les Chefs de FranceEven though we hurried through lunch, we still had to haul butt to the front of the park so we wouldn’t miss our tour. We rushed through the rest of the lands and back through Future World to get to the front in time. We arrived at exactly 1:16. Close call!
The tour we did was called “Yuletide Fantasy”. It’s an overview of the Christmas Traditions and decorations at the Disney parks. It was neat, because at the beginning of the tour, the tour guide gave us each a little headset, and she was on a little microphone, so we could hear everything she said. It was much better than trying to run along behind her to try to hear what she was saying. We boarded a tour bus and it drove us through the backstage area to the back of the World Showcase, into the Germany Pavilion. We began with a tour around some of the worlds in Epcot, learning about different traditions. One really neat one was the New Year’s information about Japan. An important New Year symbol and good luck charm for Japanese is the Daruma doll, which has no pupils in its eyes. The custom is to make a wishand paint in the left eye. If your wish comes true before the end of the year, you paint in the other eye.
We then checked out some Chanukah and Kwanzaa displays in the America Pavilion, before getting back on the tour bus to travel to Disney MGM Studios.
Earpiece to hear the Tour Guide
Our Tour Guide showing us the Daruma DollDisney MGM Studios has a large Christmas light display known as the “Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights”. The display is named after a man with the last name Osborne from Arkansas who donated to collection to Disney. He used to decorate his house every year, adding more and more displays every season, until eventually his neighbors sued him and he was forced by the courts to remove the displays. The neighbors complained about all of the traffic created by the public coming to see his collection. Disney approached him after the final verdict to see if he would be interested in displaying his collection in one of their parks. So he was glad to do that, and he and his family get to come turn on the lights every year. They also get lodging in the Grand Floridian (the most expensive Disney hotel) during the Christmas season, and add one small item to the collection each year, to symbolize significant events in their family. There is one special item that the tour guide pointed out to us, and that was a black cat mounted to a water tower. Turns out, one of the Osborne’s halloween decorations accidentally got mixed in with the Christmas decor when the items were first shipped to Disney. The first year that Disney did the display, the Osborne’s saw the cat and said, “this doesn’t belong here”! But since it was already up, they have just continued to use it every year, and the team installing the show moves it every year into a new spot, and it’s kind of a fun game to find the cat hidden amongst the Christmas decor every season.
The next stop on our tour was the Grand Floridian, where we went to see the life-size gingerbread house. The guide told us that every 30 seconds, one of the two chimneys spouts out a little puff of gingerbread-scented smoke. We thought that was a pretty neat little tidbit. We got gingerbread cookies made by Chef Eric, the head chef for the Gingerbread House, when we got back on the bus. Yum!
Next, we headed over to a special employee-only area known as “Holiday Services”. This is where the team who plans all of the decorations for all of the Disney properties (all the hotels, all 4 DisneyWorld theme parks, the water parks, golf courses, vacation club facilities, and Disney Cruise Line ships) work year-round planning for decorating during Christmastime. Christmas is the only holiday that Disney decorates for. They do host a party during the fall called Mickey’s-not-so-scary Halloween party, but that’s only in the Magic Kingdom. There isn’t Halloween decor anywhere else in DisneyWorld. The building was a huge warehouse, where they store all of the trees (they’ve been using artificial trees since the late 1990’s), wreaths, ornaments, everything you can imagine associated with holiday decor. It’s HUGE! The ornaments are categorized by color and cataloged in a computer system, so that they can locate the whereabouts of any particular ornament in that vast warehouse space.
Our final stop on the tour was the Magic Kingdom, to view their Christmas tree, which is the tallest tree in all of Disneyworld, at 70 feet. There was a crew there taking down equipment from earlier in the day, when filming was taking place for the Walt DisneyWorld Christmas Day Parade. The crew had to move the tree from the center of Main Street over to a spot by the Castle, because the cameras needed a straight shot of Main Street, looking at Cinderella Castle. They will move the tree back after Sunday, when filming is complete.
The bus took us back to Epcot, and we got a special limited edition Yuletide Fantasy pin for being on the tour. That was neat. We went back into the park to grab a snack and figure out how we would spend our evening.
We stopped at Station Cool to try sodas from around the world. We tried Watermelon soda from Japan, Apple soda from Mexico, and Laura took a swig of one soda and immediately spit it back out! When we looked at the sign next to that soda, it read, “this bitter tasting soda...”, we all got a kick out of that. Well, all of us except Laura. :-)
We decided we needed a snack, so we grabbed some pastries in the French Pavilion. They were delicious. Andrew and Laura had pastries piped with rum cream filling. Maria had a lemon tart, and Jake had chocolate mousse. We took our snacks with us to go get a seat for the Candlelight Processional. When we got there, there was a HUGE line. So we got in line and ate our snacks and waited until the seating opened for the next show. While we were in line, Maria noticed the couple behind us were honeymooners she we had seen earlier in the day. She said, “hey, you guys are the bride and groom” (they weren’t wearing their wedding ears anymore). They told us they had taken off their ears for a ride and never put them back on. We hung out and chatted with them until it was time to go into the show. We took their picture for them, cuz they had just been taking pictures of each other.
Our final stop on the tour was the Magic Kingdom, to view their Christmas tree, which is the tallest tree in all of Disneyworld, at 70 feet. There was a crew there taking down equipment from earlier in the day, when filming was taking place for the Walt DisneyWorld Christmas Day Parade. The crew had to move the tree from the center of Main Street over to a spot by the Castle, because the cameras needed a straight shot of Main Street, looking at Cinderella Castle. They will move the tree back after Sunday, when filming is complete.
The bus took us back to Epcot, and we got a special limited edition Yuletide Fantasy pin for being on the tour. That was neat. We went back into the park to grab a snack and figure out how we would spend our evening.
We stopped at Station Cool to try sodas from around the world. We tried Watermelon soda from Japan, Apple soda from Mexico, and Laura took a swig of one soda and immediately spit it back out! When we looked at the sign next to that soda, it read, “this bitter tasting soda...”, we all got a kick out of that. Well, all of us except Laura. :-)
We decided we needed a snack, so we grabbed some pastries in the French Pavilion. They were delicious. Andrew and Laura had pastries piped with rum cream filling. Maria had a lemon tart, and Jake had chocolate mousse. We took our snacks with us to go get a seat for the Candlelight Processional. When we got there, there was a HUGE line. So we got in line and ate our snacks and waited until the seating opened for the next show. While we were in line, Maria noticed the couple behind us were honeymooners she we had seen earlier in the day. She said, “hey, you guys are the bride and groom” (they weren’t wearing their wedding ears anymore). They told us they had taken off their ears for a ride and never put them back on. We hung out and chatted with them until it was time to go into the show. We took their picture for them, cuz they had just been taking pictures of each other.
The Candlelight Processional was EXCELLENT. It was a huge orchestra and choir singing Christmas songs along with a narration of the story of Christmas. The guest narrator that night was Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser, M.D., How I Met Your Mother). Maria said she could watch that show every single night and not get tired of it. There’s nothing like hearing Christmas Songs from a huge choir. It gives you goosebumps!
Candlelight Christmas Processional
Neil Patrick Harris at the Podium, narrating the story of ChristmasAfter the show, we went over to the Rose & Crown Pub and Dining Room, where we had reservations for dinner. We sat at a table on the water so that we could watch the Illuminations: Reflections of Earth fireworks show from our table. On our way to the restaurant, we ran into one of the ladies that Laura and Maria scrapbook with. Joan and her husband Craig were traveling with their children – it was their last night in the parks. They were at the tail end of their vacation. Sometimes it really is a Small World After All!
Dinner at the Rose and Crown was great, and the view of the fireworks was wonderful. It was a really nice evening, and a good way to relax after all of the walking we had been doing all day.
Rose & Crown Pub and Dining Room
Our view of Illuminations
Epcot at NightWe made one last stop before going home, and that was the World of Disney in Downtown Disney’s Marketplace. We didn’t want Jake and Laura to miss it, because it’s the largest Disney store in the world. We spent the rest of the evening shopping in there. Again, we were among the last few people to trickle out after closing. The store closed at midnight, and we were still in there shopping!
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The best part of day 18 was the Candlelight Processional, the lovely dinner at the Rose & Crown, the yummy lunch at Les Chefs de France, seeing the Holiday Services center on our tour.
The worst part of day 18 was the heat, the humidity and the sun.
What we learned on day 18 was Maria needs shorts here, read the descriptions of soda before you drink it, “Glowtini’s” look really cool at night.
The weather on day 18 was really hot in the day, overcast and hot in the late afternoon, raining during the late evening.
Our character sightings on day 18 included Sleeping Beauty, Pere Noel, Neil Patrick Harris, Santa Claus, Snow White, LaBefana (Italy’s Christmas Figure), Marie (female cat from the Aristocats).
The crowd level on day 18 was light. But it got more crowded in the late evening, after the other parks were closed and Epcot remained open.
1 comment:
Aw! You got to see NPH! haha! That's cool!
That's really weird that you saw your friend! It IS a Small World! :)
I wanna go on that tour now, and see the Halloween cat. That sounds like a fun tour!
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