Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Disney - Day Five

Man, my feet hurt. I haven't done this much walking since the Walk for Mankind when I was 12. But Disney World waits for no man, sore feet or not, so we woke up bright and early once again, strapped on our tennis shoes and marched off for combat against the epic Epcot theme park. I herded my little soldiers off to the bus stop and we began another awesome day here in beautiful Orlando.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet has been the weather. Or maybe the lack of it. Since we arrived last Friday it's been consistently sunny, clear, windless and about 88 degrees every single day. The only exception so far was yesterday afternoon when we had clouds for a few hours in the afternoon. So I have to say it's been incredibly nice for our days at Disney.

Today was Epcot day for the Lanza family and I decided it was best to keep my expectations in check. There aren't a lot of rides in the traditional sense at this park but it seemed like there was a ton of stuff to see, so I was excited and hopeful there would be enough to keep the kids entertained. My first impressions after leaving the bus and seeing that gigantic shining golf ball was "Cool!" We hopped on the Spaceship Earth ride right off the bat and had a great time with the interactive portions of the event, especially the part where the photoshopped mine and Cori's head onto futuristic outfits for everyone in the entire place to see. Very fun indeed! The ride also emailed us a copy of all this entertainment so we'll have some virtual memories to savor as well. That seemed to be the overall theme for Epcot: interactivity. Pretty much everything we did today we were also able to take a part in either during or after the ride, which we all found very fun. Cam had a blast after the Seas with Nemo and Friends and the Journey into Imagination rides. There was a really cute light activated music room and Bean was sprinting around making the floor light up and playing music.

One really entertaining event, at least for me, was the Captain EO 3D movie. It wasn't necessarily even good, but I got a kick out of it for sure. It was the original 3D sci-fi flavored movie with Michael Jackson from 1986. I have no idea if it's been playing continuously in Epcot since then but they gave this movie a lot of hype and build-up before you're ushred into the 3D theater to watch a 20 minute flick with Thriller style dancing, little to no plot and sub-Star Wars special effects. All the same, I thought it was awesome. Cori was less than impressed and I'm not sure Cam watched more than five minutes of it. Dang spoiled 21st century kids. When I was their age this thing would have been a blockbuster! 3D without red and blue glasses? That was like the future man!

My personal highlight of the day was not Captain EO, but Epcot Character Spot. Basically a big room with all the main Disney characters set up at photo stations for the kids, this proved to be a regular laugh riot with Camryn on hand. To start off, we'd been in line for about two minutes before she made best friends with the mother and 18 year old daughter standing behind us. We were all on first name basis by the time we even saw Mickey, we wished Abigail (the daughter) a happy birthday, and they even hung around to watch Cam get her pictures taken with the characters. Yes, it was that entertaining. We were able to spend quality time with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Goofy. All were sucked into the inescapable vortex of Cam's charisma and ended up holding up the line of crying and impatient children so they could talk to her. She squeezed their noses, complimented their eyelashes, high-fived, hugged and even danced with all of them. Cori and I were in stitches, along with our new best friends, and I was almost sad to see the end of the photo line.

We had planned on attempting the World Showcase today but by the time we hit Canada it was after 5:30 and we were running out of steam. We reversed course, had a quick dinner at a nice Mexican spot and made our way out of the park. Oh, before we left the restaurant Cam had made two more new best friends, an elderly couple here from Texas with family in Colorado. Yes, they revealed all of this to a three year old while I pretty much just stood there and shook my head. They were enjoying her company so much they ended up being late to meet their own grandchildren. Again, just shaking my head.

Overall I found Epcot to be the most beautiful and well planned of the parks we've seen so far. Everything was flowering or covered in foliage, with spectacular fountains and waterways everywhere. It was very visually appealing all around, I really enjoyed just looking about and being surprised by the details and beauty at every turn. Plus the futuristic and technological slant was very well done even for being slightly dated. If I had to rate it, I'd give it four out of five unicorns.

Bean fell asleep on the bus ride home again, so we spent some time in the room then hit the pool for a very quick dip after she woke up. We're now winding down and preparing for a big day at Sea World tomorrow. I also think we'll go back to Epcot on Saturday to finish the World Showcase and maybe have a nice dinner there. I may have to hire a booking agent to handle all of Cam's appearance requests by the time we leave here.

G'night!

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