On Friday, March 11th we visited Epcot and had a great day!
We woke up pretty early since we had to drive from Cocoa Beach to Orlando. I didn't mind as I got to see another amazing beach sunrise! I didn't have time to venture down to the sand but enjoyed it from our room while I was packing and getting ready for the day. We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hotel, had an uneventful drive to Orlando, dropped off Dave and Margie's car at our next resort and soon we were cruising under the sign into Disney World!
We're here!
And we're at Epcot!
Here are our plans for the day:
I included a screen shot of the touring plans data mostly for myself. Epcot was originally forecasted as a 6/10 for crowd levels on this day but they ended up saying it was more like a 3/10 for crowds. I agreed- it never felt too crowded to us and we experienced low waits.
Here is our plan for the day:
I typed this up in the notes app on my phone and then set it as my lock screen so I could refer to it throughout the day without having to open up my phone and go into different apps. I thought it was a really smart tip!
We had arrived to the park right at 9 and it did take a bit to get through bag check and stand in line to get our tickets scanned. I would have ideally liked to get there a bit earlier but sometimes it is hard to stay on schedule with a group. Luckily our plans stayed right on track so it was not a big deal.
Our first stop of the day was to meet the man himself at Character Spot!
Mickey!
I thought this was a great meet and greet and would definitely be worth using a fast pass for as it was our longest wait of the day at about 15 minutes. I didn't originally schedule one since we did it first-I'm sure if we had been a bit earlier we would have avoided even that short wait. I think Michael was being a little shy meeting the characters but I enjoyed it for sure! You can also meet Baymax across the way from the Character Spot but Michael decided he didn't want to meet him today.
After meeting Mickey we headed straight out to the Land pavilion.
Baby Pineapple!
The Land is where Soarin' is at but it was down for refurbishment during our visit. Usually this pavilion is swamped with people trying to get on the popular ride and so it was weird to see it basically empty (it was also early in the day). I wanted to ride Living with the Land as I had never done it before on my two previous trips to Epcot. It is a boat ride that takes you through the greenhouses at the pavilion.
It was a walk on and we liked it!
Up next was Journey Into Imagination at the Imagination Pavilion-another ride I had never done on my previous trips. Some people say it is underrated and we enjoyed it. We had only visited the Imagination Pavilion before to see the "Honey I shrunk the Audience" show which has been gone for a long time now. Michael enjoyed the Figment ride because they talked about the five senses- something he had learned about in school earlier this year.
They had a neat area after the ride with some interactive games you could play. They were all music related like this one you jumped from square to square to make different sounds- I loved it!
Do you spot the backwards waterfall? Michael said he knew was it was called, "a fall up!"
After Imagination we headed to The Seas, believe it or not, another thing I had not experienced on previous trips (do you get my theme here?). The Nemo ride was super cute and it was no wait also.
We used our first FastPass for Turtle Talk although it was probably not really needed. It does guarantee you to get into the next show playing and it is a small theater so if it was busier I could see how this would cut down on your wait times. It was a cute show!
Of course after we met Crush, we went upstairs to the observation deck to see real sea turtles! They were beautiful and I had never seen one before! The tanks also had dolphins, rays and lots of other sea life (Michael was not really into it so we just did a breeze by).
And then we got eaten by a shark! Not once, but twice!
After the Seas, we headed down to use our next FastPass at SpaceShip Earth. There was a bit of a line here so our fastpass did save us some time.
I had ridden this before but did not have a super clear memory of it and so I was surprised at how much I liked it! I loved the animatronics and when it opens up into a big night sky. Michael was very excited about it and couldn't believe we were in the "big ball!". The ending was cute where it showed you your future. Here is mine and Michaels:
And Scott's:
We had a bit of time before our next FastPass so we came around the other side of Spaceship Earth to take some photos.
Yay, Epcot!
We were right by Club Cool so we popped in for a bit to take a break from the heat and get something cool to drink.
Michael thought it was awesome- he loved the strawberry Fanta pop that he called "blood pop". I enjoyed it as well as the ginger pop from Brazil (?? I could be making that up but I did taste several). Club Cool seemed to be more popular than it was when we visited here 10 years ago but it is still a nice place to pop in for a bit. Did I mention all the samples are FREE?
Up next was our FastPass at Test Track:
This ride had the longest waits in the whole park and so this was a well used FastPass. I wish we could have done it twice because Michael loved it. He kept calling it "Scrap Mechanic" because of the way he built his test car (I think it must have reminded him of an app or game he has played on ipad before).
Michael and Scott designed a car together and here was Margie and I's car:
Yes, it was pink. Dave designed one as well and his was a huge, non-efficient monster truck.
Here we go!
Test Track was super fun and different from when we were here last. I think it was Michael's favorite ride of the day! It was definitely fast (look at my hair)!
Afterwards we looked at the cars and played some more games with our designed cars and I got this sweet pin for free just for asking the Chevy representative for more information on a cool new suburban.
Have you seen the movie Tomorrowland? It looks just like the pin from the movie!
After Test Track, we headed over to Mexico for our lunch at San Angel Inn. I tried to get a photo of Michael in front of the pyramids but this was kind of a busy traffic way as you can see:
So we headed over to the side- much better! He is holding up his new toy he bought at Test Track, a little matchbox car version of the ride vehicle!
Mexico was another Pavilion I had never been in. I don't actually think I knew you could go in the pyramid? So I was excited to have an excuse to go in and enjoy a nice lunch in the dark and cool interior. The restaurant overlooks the pyramid and volcano inside and it is a nice break from the outdoors.
I enjoyed some tacos and a delicious margarita. Michael enjoyed the chips and salsa and ate both mine and his servings of the Spanish rice that came with our meals.
Since we were already in Mexico, I wanted to do the Gran Fiesta Tour since I had (ding, ding you guessed it!) never done it before. Michael was too scared (he didn't like the volcano) so he stayed back with Grandma and Grandpa while Scott and I enjoyed the nice boat right through Mexican culture.
It was cute!
We found Michael mesmerized by this glass blower using mini tools to make little glass jewelry charms at shop in the pavilion. It was cool to watch her for a bit and she would stop what she was doing to show Michael how far she'd got.
Up next was the China Pavilion. It is a big pavilion and we enjoyed exploring- I loved the dragon topiary, it even had red flowers in its mouth for fire!
Inside was a miniature version of the Terra Cotta Army that they discovered in China about 30 years ago. It was neat because Dave and Margie had seen the real ones on their trip to China a few years ago. They had a lot of information on it and it was neat to read about it and then hear Dave and Margie's experience. We also stuck around for the China movie in the 360 theater- pretty cool! It did make me want to visit China and it was again neat to check the video against my inlaw's experience on their trip.
As we were coming out they had the Chinese acrobats performing! Very neat!
The gardens around the pavilion were so beautiful. On my previous trips to Epcot I never realized that you could go back into the countries and explore. I'm glad we took the time to do so in China.
There's me!
After China, we wandered over to Germany in search of ice cream and then we decided to head out of the park for a bit to go check in to our next resort. It was about 3:00 and the heat was getting to us a bit. We hoofed it back to the entrance, checked in to our next resort (Star Island Resort ), swam for a bit, got showered up and then headed back to Epcot in time for our 7:30 dinner reservation at Via Napoli. I had originally planned on not taking a break this day which is why I scheduled dinner deep in the World Showcase so it was a bit to hike all the way back there but it is what it is.
Via Napoli is a casual pizza restaurant in the Italy pavilion. Their speciality is wood fired pizzas (made by their pizza ovens Stromboli, Vesuvio and Etna) and that is exactly what we enjoyed.
It was delicious and we were hungry! Via Napoli is a great sit down restaurant and a very good value.
It was very close to 9:00 when we were done eating so we staked out a spot for Illuminations right outside Italy by the water. I had hoped we had a bit more time to wander before shops closed but we just didn't have it.
It was nice to see the whole show of Illuminations beginning to end. I know I have seen bits and pieces of it before but not so much that I can remember. It was awesome! We had a great view of the whole lagoon and a good spot where not a lot of people were crowding us.
I loved it. It was neat to see the fireworks shooting off from all the countries and seeing them light up one after the other. Of course the music was awesome as well!
After the fireworks, I wanted to hang back a bit and walk through some countries we missed earlier so we weren't in a bottle neck with the crowds all leaving at the same time. It was really a nice walk back to the entrance of the park.
We checked out Japan and window shopped in the department store (Pokemon!).
We explored the streets of Morocco- definitely a different feeling at night than in the daytime!
And peeked into France and the UK before heading out. There are so many fun restaurants and places to shop in the whole world showcase- I was sad we didn't get to more of them but really there is no way we could have done it in one day even without a break. Hopefully we can hit some of them again in the future.
Michael loved that Spaceship Earth changed color at night! It is such a fun icon to Epcot.
I had to take one more photo of it before we called it a day!
Tomorrow we get up bright and early for our day at Magic Kingdom! Thanks for visiting!
