Christmas, New Year's and a birthday = 10 Days of Magic

So I'm finally getting around to writing this trip report after having been home for almost a month. I think the main reason I've been putting it off for so long is because we've been having some nice weather up here in the New York area and writing about our trip to Disney will make me wish for nicer weather and that we were still down there. Maybe another reason for putting it off is that we know we're probably not going down there for another year or two since we've got a lot going on this year (I'm becoming an uncle in a couple weeks and my brother and his wife live in California, so a good amount of the vacation budget is being allocated to those visits. Hey, I'll take my first niece over a trip to Disney, plus in a few years I'll be able to go out that way and take her to Disneyland).

Anyway, enough of that stuff no one cares about, if you hadn't read the trip report Alex (Lexi, my girlfriend) wrote before we went down there then here it is. If you don't want to read it that's fine, here's a quick rundown. We were in WDW for the Food and Wine Festival in early October 2010. We discussed going around the same time as soon as we got back from that trip (which there is a short TR for floating around this site somewhere) but Alex said she wanted to go down for Christmas, "Christmas time, yeah that's fine" I would agree, but no. She wanted Christmas day, New Year's and her birthday (January 2), so we booked that the day after Thanksgiving 2010. Waiting thirteen months just to leave for your trip is a nightmare that I'm sure some of you have experienced. The only reason I say it's a nightmare is because WHO WANTS TO WAIT THIRTEEN MONTHS TO GO TO DISNEY AFTER YOU'VE BOOKED THE TRIP! Anyway, multiple ADR changes and one hotel switch later it was finally Christmas Eve.

Day One - Packing, Flying, Checking In and Magic Kingdom

Alex and I couldn't be more different when it comes to packing, so after we each finished our respective families' Christmas Eve gatherings and we exchanged our gifts to one another (I got her a Nook Tablet which I ended up using more on the trip than her, I love crossword puzzles sue me) I sat patiently on the bed with my bags (having been packed for four days) while Alex figured out what she needed to pack and then finally stuff things into her suitcase and carry-ons (yeah carry-ons because the airline industry hasn't figured out that most women are smart enough to use their 'personal' bag as another carry-on, usually one that's larger than their actual carry-on mini-suitcase). Needless to say she was successful and both of our bags were surprisingly under weight (we thought they'd be closer to 50lbs, they were nearer 30), who'd have thunk it?

Did I mention that she finished packing at about 1.30am Christmas morning? Our flight was at 6am. We had to be at the airport by 4:30 (honestly if you think you need to be there two hours prior for a domestic flight something in your head is off, and don't tell me that it's because of how crazy the airport gets because our flight was leaving out of JFK). That's all well and good, I can operate on very low levels of sleep and when Alex gets excited for something I'm surprised she sleeps at all, she makes up for it big time the next few mornings, and this was Disney World, our trip that was thirteen months in the making. Our Christmas, New Year's and her birthday that we'd been looking forward to since each of those events the previous year, we could have stayed up all night and still had the energy for our first day in the parks. We didn't though, we got about three hours each and Alex slept the entire plane ride down, me not so much. I can't sleep on planes because I have a fear of flying, despite how much I do it (or am willing to do it).

We don't have any pictures of us waiting to board the plane or sitting on the plane or even of the plane. Our very first picture of our vacation is this somewhat blurry beaut:

We were staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort so we were on our way to the Magical Express Bus. I think the best part about flying in on Christmas day is that absolutely no one was on any of the lines of the ME and our bus had only six other people on it (in total, not groups). We had a great bus driver as well, we told us some fun stories, pointed out all the alligators he could see and even slowed down so we could get this picture:

Curious that the picture we got while we were in a moving vehicle is less blurry than the picture we took while standing still. This may be a trend for the trip.

Once we arrived at the hotel we thanked our driver very much AND TIPPED HIM (I know there seems to be some debate over whether or not to do this but you should, especially if he handles any of your bags, tells you stories or does anything nice, like drive you from the airport to your resort). Upon entering the Custom House we were in awe of the place, it was much bigger than the pictures we'd seen made it out to be, and the Christmas decorations were the icing on the cake. We were thrilled to find out that our room was ready considering it was 9:30am by the time all was said and done.

A Christmas decoration:

We headed to our room, which luckily was about a ten minute walk from the Custom House to put our carry-on luggage down. We hadn't checked the weather before we left New York so we were pretty surprised by the humidity that morning, as it had rained earlier, and the fact that it was about 85 degrees. We took it in stride though seeing as how we were staying on

in room number

We were lucky enough to have a corner room (I think "lucky enough" is the proper term even though our blinds were closed shut the entire trip, we hate when people walk by and look in the room, it's creepy and we don't handle creepiness well) that was only about a five minute walk to the nearest bus stop. We lucked out with the buses, we felt, since our stop was the last before exiting the resort for MK and AK, and there were only four more stops after us before exiting for Epcot and MGM (I'm calling it MGM this entire trip report so if you're going to complain stop reading now, we spend a lot of time there), if I'm remembering correctly any way. Also, our room was close enough to the next bus stop that after all the long days/nights in the parks we could get off at the first stop in the resort (Martinique, I believe) and walk back, depending where we were coming from. If Martinique wasn't the first stop than Barbados was the third. Granted, yes, we're young (enough, mid-20's) but after spending countless hours walking around the parks there's no way we want to walk or be on a bus any longer than we have to be. I digress.

After sitting around the room and enjoying the AC for a little while and debating whether or not to wait for our checked luggage (it got there very quickly when we stayed at AS Movies last time) we decided enough was enough because we didn't want to risk waiting in the room for two hours (or more, as I've read in some TRs), plus it's not like we could go for a dip in the quiet or main pool since our bathing suits (henceforth to be referred to as 'trunks') were in our luggage. So we got off our butts

(me being fancy on my butt) and headed to the bus stop for our ride over to the Magic Kingdom. A moment we had waited for for a long time (I could say thirteen months hundreds of times in this TR but it's annoying even me thinking about it).

We finally arrived at the Magic Kingdom after a quick fifteen minutes bus ride that felt like an hour since we hadn't been there in so long. After walking from the drop off point to the entrance we realized maybe we made a huge mistake. Once we got past bag check though (where I almost picked up a stroller and threw that a woman kept pushing into our ankles, if I'm not moving up and you're behind me, you're not moving up) we just had to find the right line to get in to get into the park and so Disney could have our biometric signatures. We got on the shortest line that had only one big group (about ten people) in front of us. Well this was absolutely the worst line we could've picked, not one of the people in the group spoke english and they all had something with their ticket where every other person had to go to the ticket counter which left every person after that arguing with the other. This took about twenty minutes but once past that we were in! We did it!

Here's our first view from inside any of the parks:

Not quite the Castle but we loved the ornaments on the tree, we would later get more photos of those as our time progressed but for now we were just excited to be in the park. Even more excited when we saw this:

There's really no comparison for seeing the Castle for the first time on your trip. As we walked down Main Street and it got closer and closer (we were actually towards the end, front depending on how you like it when we took that picture because the wreaths hanging from the buildings on Main St would've been in the way otherwise) the excitement grew and grew. It was either excitement or hunger since we hadn't really eaten anything except maybe half a bag of chips on the plane and those weren't very yummy any way. So we headed over to Pecos Bill's for our first meal of the trip, we loved this place so much the last time we went that we couldn't wait to get back there and here's what we ordered:

Two deluxe cheeseburgers (I had been debating this for a long time, I should've gone with the taco bowl since I love tacos). That one in the back with the superfluous amount of onions is mine, I love onions. As much as I wanted to love this burger I just couldn't, just as last year the bun seemed stale and unfortunately the one major thing I noticed this time around was that the burger patty tasted overwhelmingly like it was a frozen patty (obviously it is, but it's a huge bummer when you can tell it's been frozen). At least the fries and cheese sauce were outstanding as they usually are. I can't fault Pecos Bill's too much though given the fact that it was around 12:30pm on Christmas Day and the place was absolutely mobbed, I guess I was just upset that that was my first foray into dining at Disney World this trip. I felt horrible for the staff working their though as it seemed no one knew where to walk, where to order or where to eat. The worst of it was that no one knew of any order to getting the fixins from the fixins bar. It's simple, start at the where the toppings are and work your way towards the middle where the napkins are. Easy, both sides of the fixins bar are the same. No rocket science there.

After Pecos Bills we decided that since we were close to Pirates we may as well take a spin. I never thought that this would be our first ride of the trip, we're more inclined to head towards Tomorrowland, but it's how things worked out this time around:

Look at those clouds, nice. Beautiful weather once we got over the humidity on this day. We still love this ride, although for me ever since they geared it towards the film it's just not the same. I think it's because Johnny Depp bothers me, the unpatriotic bum. Anyway, I've filled my picture quota for the post, there is much more to come. I hope you like the pictures posted here because Alex bought herself a new camera before we took this trip and we took well over 1,500 photos (I won't post nearly that many). There will be more plenty more trip report to come, although the NHL All-Star game has priority today.

 

[ArtieJim]

Photopass Day 1

I'm going to take a break from writing this until tomorrow but want to post the photopass pictures that we exceptionally like from the first four days. After I get those four days up I'll post the photopass pictures at the end of each days' report. Alex and I got ordered the cd before we left which was on sale and allowed us to get every single photo pass picture that was taken of us so these are just our tops.

Day one, unfortunately we didn't get any we really liked during the day:

Silly faces:

These next two were taken at the Wishes Dessert Party:

Finally we wanted to get one on our way out once Main Street had settled down a bit:

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 Photopass

This is my favorite from that day:

And then, that tree again. Can't avoid it:

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 photopass...

Look who decided to pop in!

The photopass photographer here had us kiss but kept telling us to hold it until we started laughing and that's when he took this. It's one of my favorites from the entire trip:

The Osborne Lights were incredible, as I mentioned previously:

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 4 Photopass...

They gave us a little present at the tree, little did we know...

My sweatshirt and that angle make me look like I have a baby in my belly:

Oh wait, yes I did.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 5...

It's taken me way too long to continue this TR, so sorry about that, but here I go.

Ah yes, day five, our much anticipated day that we had set aside to drink around the world. That's right, we were going for it. Here we are, nice and happy and sober.

And here's a nice little seasonal topiary for you:

We appreciate the effort of this Disney but they're incredibly ugly. At least they made this sign seem like it fits the bill of Future World:

We knew we'd need a nice big meal before we started drinking today so we made sure to have our things together and at exactly the six month mark we made our reservation at none other than:

Yes sir! We'd been looking forward to this since before we came here the last time and were unable to get an ADR. We had a 12:30 reservation today and got to the park a good hour or so earlier since AK had been so crowded the day before and we didn't want to take any chances showing up late for our ADR (as you can see in the first photo of the post I didn't really get too dressed up, but that flannel shirt was the only button down I saw in Le Cellier, also don't they have lumberjacks that wear that stuff up in Canada?).

We put our names in at the desk beyond the desk (two check in desks seems a bit much) and took some photos of the grounds before our name was called:

We could have just hung around here all day, Moosehead is my favorite beer in the park any way, so I'd have been set. We had much bigger plans for the day though. First and foremost however was to fill up so we weren't acting stupid after one pavilion.

 

[ArtieJim]

After waiting only about five minutes or so our names were called and we were lead in past the dessert table (which I didn't take a picture of because every one does and it's not like I was eating all those desserts) to our table, a nice little two seater in the corner of the Nova Scotia section. Just my luck, of the three provinces I've ever been to in Canada (Ontario, Novia Scotia and New Brunswick) we get seated in an area of a tiny restaurant that represents one of them. Do they really have spaces for all ten provinces (what about the three territories? I'm on your side Canada, I love your beers and hockey is the only sport I'll really watch, wanna hang out)? Alex and I were actually quite surprised by the size, or lack there of, of Le Cellier. I guess the smaller the restaurant the better the food? I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's another light fixture Alex liked.

We didn't take too many pictures inside (other than that above and the few to follow) since it was so dark, it was crowded and it was such a small area. This our key to this world though, the only one that matter at the moment:

Just as all the other table service restaurants we had booked this trip the menu wasn't really necessary as we'd been looking at them online for six months prior and already knew what we were going to be ordering. Hey, look, bread!

It was ok, it must have been a lot better before they redid the menu and made it an evening signature the way every one would always rave about it. In the end I boiled it down to the fact that "it's bread" and I'm not getting worked up over how good it is or isn't. Alex had been waiting for the filet with mushroom risotto so she ordered that while I had my heart set on the prix fixe menu. I was torn between the cheese soup and the sausage and polenta however so I got both, just ordered the soup off the regular menu.

Here is the spicy chicken and chipotle sausage:

The sausage was halved and what looks like only one whole (or one half) sausage was actually exactly what I parenthesized, one half of the sausage. Alex and I were starving (she doesn't like sausage however so she was working on the bread until her food showed) and I ate one of the halves before either of us remembered, "hey lets take a look at this so we can torture ourselves with pictures of good food later in our lives." I had to regarnish the skillet to make it seem as though all was normal. There you go, an unnecessary story, but a curious one at that. The sausage was great, I loved the amount of heat it brought. As I've mentioned in previous posts on this TR, I love spicy food, this had just enough to make you remember it after you finished the meal. The polenta was a nice compliment to said spice, a good way to cool down your tongue as well if you didn't like the heat. I had never had polenta before in my life but if they mostly taste like this I'm down for that.

I also talked Alex into ordering a side of poutine as well since we'd been on the fence about it with the logic that "we're going to be drinking all day, we need to eat as much as we can now," that usually works.

In short these were awfully disappointing. I know they redid the menu and all that (I already mentioned it in this very post) but I mean, seriously? Just look at that picture. If any one lives in New Jersey, or has even been to a diner in the state, you can get better disco fries at any of the countless diners.

Here's the cheddar cheese soup, I fell in love with this when I got it at the Food and Wine Festival last trip.

Another somewhat pointless story, the only reason I ever ordered this last time was because we would walk past the Canadian cart and I would yell, "HOT CHEESE SOUP!" which is from one of my favorite scenes in Beerfest (I highly suggest checking it out if you've missed it). Eventually I gave in ordered a small cup of it and it was great. This batch tasted like it had one too many bottles of beer in the mix, but it was outstanding none the less.

I also ordered this to start my day and wash down my meal:

I always feel a bit... unsatisfied I guess one could say when I order a beer and it comes with one of these glasses that I'm "supposed to drink it out of." I understand it aerates the beer and lets all the true flavors come through and that it helps it roll onto your tongue so you can fully appreciate all of them (lets not forget it helps you take in the full aromas of the beer) but I mean, it's a beer. I'm not ordering a glass of Domaine Romanee-Conti (mostly because I'd never waste so much money on wine, also because it's wine), I don't need to get all crazy with beer tasting. I do smell the beers because different beers do have different aromatic qualities that I like to check out before I drink it and I do like to savor the first sip of beer before I really dive in to it, but still... maybe I do need more of these glasses. To hell with it, I'd rather just go from a bottle, I can make better hand gestures when I'm talking and holding a bottle than when I'm holding that thing (that goes for you too Stella Artois!) Jesus, should I even review the beer at this point?

La Fin du Monde is brewed by Unibroue up in the province of Quebec (where they don't speak English), I think Unibroue has gone the way of most breweries whose names meant something and are now owned by a larger company that mass produces crap but people continue to buy. Fin du Monde, despite its name, did not bring any form of an apocalypse along with its purchase although its 9% ABV will certainly make it seem that way if you try and have a six-packs worth (so, six). It had a nice cloudiness to it with a golden color that screams "DRINK ME" to any fan of unfiltered beers. Taking full use of my glass I took a sniff and you could really smell the hops, this is enough to turn most people off but I feel that a good hops flavor is a nice touch here and again. Drinking this was nice, it's the type of beer I'd love to enjoy on a spring day (where I come from anyway) while sitting outside in the sun where it's not too hot. There's a blend of flavors in there that is hard to pinpoint, slightly orangey (not even close to a Blue Moon orange flavor though) and something else (further research proved it to be coriander) but that marriage of flavors is pushed aside by the hops, but not in an aggressive way. The way the flavors work together makes it easy to drink one of these, although even with the higher ABV, I don't think I'd be able to handle more than three at a time. I suggest it if you have a chance.

After a review of one beer that's way too long our entrees had finally arrived! This is what we'd been waiting for, here's Alex's mushroom filet mignon:

Maybe get a smaller dish to put that on. She loved it, hard to say much else about it. She said next time she'd probably do without the risotto. This is by no means a statement against the risotto, she just would have preferred fries or something (she's like that). She enjoyed the risotto but I think it filled her up more than she would have liked it to given its consistency. Full or not, she was able to eat the entire filet (how could one not when it's that size), she couldn't get over how tender it was and the truffle butter was outstanding as well. She couldn't get enough of this, needless to say, should we go back, we still won't have to look at a menu.

Having gone with the prix fixe and not really in the mood for steak at one in the afternoon I ordered the burger (which I was more excited about than any of the steaks any way).

Le Cellier House Burger is, for lack of a less nerdy word, a masterpiece. First of all, just look at that thing. Look at it good. This isn't some dainty little burger with great toppings that burger is thick. The only thing I asked to not have on it were the mushrooms, simply because I don't like them, I'm not sure where they would have put them however. When you get barbecue sauce (let alone maple flavored) on top of a burger that has cheddar cheese you already have a winner on your hands. I can make one of those on the grill at home and be happy with what I've done, what Le Cellier has done is realized they had some extra bacon that they didn't put into the batch of cheddar cheese soup and thrown it on top of the bacon and just as they were about to send it out they saw an order of onion strings that was made by mistake so they figure, "why not?" This was the best burger I had while we were there (I had like four or five, I love burgers). A lot of times when I order a burger I worry about what the bun will be like (I should say every time), but when I finally bit into this burger after figuring out how to pick it up without making a mess I was blown away. There was nothing wrong with the bun, and since I can only really complain about a bun that's a plus it's just there so my hands don't get dirty and it wasn't stale, but all the flavors of everything together - outstanding. Rave about the steaks all you want, I'm ordering this burger every time I go to Le Cellier.

Finally, my dessert, maple creme brulee:

Last time we were in the World we were on the dining plan so we had desserts included but every where we would go I would get creme brulee (every where that had it). This trip I decided that since we're not on the DDP and we don't even really like desserts much (Alex eats Oreos and I eat Chips Ahoy! when we're home) there was no need for me to eat all these creme brulees, but it was part of the prix fixe. If you like creme brulee (which I do) and you like maple (also do) then you'll certainly like this. It wasn't too heavy on the maple flavor but it added a much needed other taste to the creme brulee.

All in all, our meal at Le Cellier gets an A-, only demerit is that damn poutine. Nothing we can do about that though, I also think we ordered too much other food to truly enjoy it (because I will eat disco fries any day of the week). Next time I'm in real Canada (probably when I go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, again) I'll just get some real poutine.

 

[ArtieJim]

After our delicious meal we wanted to walk around the pavilion before really diving into the day's misadventures. Unfortunately, having gotten so wrapped up in the F&W last year we didn't really explore anything. We made damn sure to explore everything today.

Is this supposed to be that hotel up in Ottawa?

Because Alex is about to check in:

I like archways and blue water, so this was right up my alley:

Totem:

It looks like they took the antlers off the smallest moose in Canada for this:

These next two pictures are basically the same, but guess who's trip report this is? Mine and Alex's! So we can put in whatever pictures we please:

We saw a CM go into this building and never come out. What goes on in there?

Turrets are my favorite piece of architecture on a building or house that has one. Thanks Victorian Era!

They build this great building and I can't even go in. They should put something fun in here:

 

[ArtieJim]

Alex told me to get in here and look out, so I picked up the phone and did just that:

She said I did it wrong and I should have done it like this:

I don't know, maybe I went the Clark Kent route, he never hung out of a phone booth like that. I wonder what he would do in modern times since phone booths don't exist any more...

Thank you photopass guy for taking this, I was mostly interested in the maple leaves on the fence though:

We stopped to listen to this for a bit, they always sound good:

Before we left I had been excited to see Santa at the different pavilions but it seemed like I wasn't going to get that chance (as noted from the American Experience shots earlier):

It seems when I uploaded my pictures to photo bucket they were jumbled a bit, so here are four pictures that have nothing to do with the WS!

Those are from our walk over to Canada. Next up, England! And the largest Guinness I had drank to date!

 

[ArtieJim]

We quickly entered England (or the United Kingdom, whatever they're calling although it is uniquely English) and our first stop was none other than:

That's right we went to:

I was determined to collect the full set (unfortunately only four) of pavilion beer mugs. No better place to start, with no better beer in the world:

That's one tall Guinness. The bartender apologized for the shamrock, he said it wasn't as good as he'd hoped because the mouth of the mug is smaller than that of a pint glass. He should have just apologized for putting a shamrock on top of my Guinness. I'm Irish, I have a shamrock tattoo, I don't need one on top of my Guinness (ever). This Guinness was delicious though, so I was happy.

Alex ordered a Stella, which didn't come with one of those silly glasses which was a relief.

I tried my best to get her to order a Harp, but she wasn't having it. This was one of those rare times when she wasn't drinking a Bud Light on this trip which was nice to see. I'm pretty sure that's an imperial pint up there, which is a plus as well, any one know for sure? It'd seem a bit out of character for WDW to put all this work into Epcot and then not have imperial pints at the Rose & Crown.

Nice taps and a nice pint of Guinness next to them:

Glass on top above the bar:

Nice door.

Here's the bar from the front door with Alex asking for a 'to-go' cup, which she got:

It started getting busy just as we decided to leave so we went out the back door where we got this picture, unfortunately she wasn't in at the time:

It was time to explore England...

 

[ArtieJim]

And explore we did, starting here:

We enjoyed these shops, nothing super special though but it was fun to go through. Nice decor:

And then there were these little fellows:

Here are some more facades:

And here are some flowers:

 

[ArtieJim]

We caught a little of this act before we headed to our next destination.

They sounded great, so that was good. I was expecting a crappy band to be playing, but it was nice to hear how good they actually were.

Here's us at our favorite place to get a photopass picture in Epcot (possibly all of WDW):

We decided to grab a seat down by the water in France before exploring that pavilion, here I am, grabbing a seat:

And here's Alex with the Eiffel Tower:

I like water mills, here's one:

Any one know exactly what the point of this spider is? Why is it a spider?

 

[ArtieJim]

Bonjour Remy!

Alex got another Grey Goose Lemon Slush and I got a Kronenbourg, since that's the only beer they have in France.

The Kronenbourg was surprising, to me any way. I was expecting more of a full bodied German style beer but I should have known otherwise since I don't think Germany and France have ever gotten along so why would they brew their beers in similar fashion. It wasn't too bad though, tasted like a better Budweiser.

I made Alex take a picture of as many of these of I could point out, I probably mentioned that already though.

This looks fun, although I think I'm a bit too tall for it"

Any one speak French?

I certainly don't:

Oh, I get it.

Diamond goose? I'm pretty sure that's what this is.

 

[ArtieJim]

The vines of France, can't beat it:

Well this isn't too hard to translate:

We did not go in here to see the show, mostly because they didn't allow beverages inside. I actually I think that's the only reason, oh and the circle vision gives Alex really bad headaches, and if we were drinking around the world she was going to have one in the morning so no need to make her get one this afternoon.

Here's is a little French village, it was like we were actually there, only we were in Florida.

I think the main difference between real France and Epcot France is that the people in real France know how to speak English for the most part but choose not to speak it because, why would they? It's France, duh. The people in Epcot France should know how to speak English since a lot of them are from America but they don't know how. You grow up speaking a language, you should know how to form sentences. That's all I'm saying.

Does this weird any one else out?

They seem to be having a great time:

Now, here's a treat, kind of. We caught that guy we does the chair thing, you know what I'm saying, so here are nine pictures of him doing exactly that spread over two posts. Enjoy!

 

[ArtieJim]

And there it is. We watched him for a good fifteen minutes or so but I really had to use the bathroom and the closest one to France is actually in Morocco. Why not put one in each pavilion? That's just my thinking. So after fifteen or so minutes of that guy doing his thing we moved on.

To this African beauty:

Upon arrive I promptly found the bathroom, but more important to my day, I found one of these:

That Casa Lager was not a bad beer, not that any were particularly bad. I think I had a good amount of beers I didn't like last trip so I knew what not to drink today. It too seemed like a Bud of sorts, a little heavier and fuller and a much better flavor. So I guess it really didn't seem like a Bud at all. I suggest it.

No magic carpet shooting around here, good thing, I didn't want my head taken off:

We liked the entrance to this place quite a bit:

 

[ArtieJim]

Here are some light fixtures, I think Alex and I agreed that these wear the most fun to look at:

And here's a less crowded shot of the entrance to Jasmine's home:

And a fountain in front of that with an Alex in front of the fountain:

More lights!

Here's one of the few pictures we have together on this trip:

 

[ArtieJim]

Now this is a cool lamp, it would go well in my harem room:

The inside of the shop in Morocco was awesome, knowing that this is the closest I will ever get to any type of Morocco we took it for what it was worth:

Here's another fountain with no water in it. I bet it'd be even nicer if it worked!

Why don't they work? It boggles the mind, cold weather? We had a nice couple ask us if we'd take a picture of them in front of this fountain so we obliged, they returned the favor:

Now, here are some doors! I don't know why I liked the doors so much around the world showcase, but here you go:

Nice shadow work there, I like whatever's going on with this building:

I appreciate WDW appealing to adults as well as children and everyone in between, but this is a bit much:

Alex couldn't stop laughing when we saw this. There are too many jokes I could make about this, so I won't make any.

 

[ArtieJim]

After that large surprise we ducked into another place and Alex went for a carpet ride... or she was just sitting on a dog bed, I'm not sure:

Either I'm getting shorter or the world around me is getting taller but it was not easy to get a picture of this shop without any heads in it:

As I mentioned in my day two post (when I wrote it like a month ago) we spotted a hidden Mickey here:

I wasn't lying. Also, we were lucky enough to catch these guys:

They sounded fun, I wouldn't have minded listening for a bit, a lot of people must have felt the same because they had some crowd. Fifty percent of their greatness comes from their name:

Having seen all there was to see in Morocco we continued on to beautiful Japan:

We spent a good amount of time here the first time through Epcot but that was primarily just sitting and eating and watching the drummers. We really got into it today and made sure we checked out all their was to see inside Japan, but not before getting this shot:

Japan has such cool architecture, it's pretty awesome that I don't have to go to the other side of the world to see it:

Before we got too into it though we stopped to grab ourselves another round:

The beer selection here is pretty typical Japanese beer you can find any where, at least as far as I've seen. If I remember correctly it was just Asahi, Kirin, Kirin Light and Sapporo. I'm a big Sapporo fan and have had Kirin and Asahi (eh) so I decided to go with the Kirin Light, why not? Well, actually it's because I didn't want to drink something I've had before. Can't say this was really anything special, your typical light beer. Alex got that colorful thing up there, a Tokyo Sunset. Let me tell you something, that thing was delicious. Here's what's in it as copied from another site "coconut rum, peach schnapps, banana liqueur and pineapple juice. It just so happens that I love rum, peaches and bananas, pineapple juice is pretty great too. This was one of the best drinks I had all day. Good call by Alex ordering this one, bad call by me not ordering it, although I think I had half of it.

 

[ArtieJim]

After getting our drinks it was time to check out some stuff, we saw this Christmas tree but we couldn't get a great picture of it since there was a little garden in front of it, so here's the best we could do:

We made our way into the shop they have in Japan and had a pretty hard time pulling ourselves from that place without buying anything, but it's probably a good idea we didn't because then I'd be stuck with this hat:

Which would be a bit unnecessary. Also, I'm a big fan of watches and clocks and wouldn't be too bothered if I owned this:

And this little guy was giving me a dirty look, so I gave him one right back:

Nice purse, right? Thanks. Here's an eave and some brick. Nice stuff they have in Japan. The only spirited beats I know are bottles of booze, but hey, every one's culture is different:

Nice little map showing us where different brands of sake are from around Japan, I'll have to make myself a print out of this for reference if I ever make it to real Japan:

Here's the little rock garden they had inside the exhibit hall:

And here's a little story that goes along with it. Alex and I went in here because, lets face it, the Japanese have some crazy art and culture which is really fun to explore, we see the rock garden and those are always nice to look at because of the crazy amount of detail people put in to maintaining them. Not only were there rocks in this rock garden but also a child whose parents decided it would be ok for him to go in there and start throwing rocks around. I don't have any kids, but at what point do you realize you're failing as a parent? It's too bad this guy wasn't real, he would've ripped their faces off:

Because here is what he does:

He wasn't doing such a great job protecting that rock garden.

 

[ArtieJim]

Here's something nice to look at:

More lights! Don't get too close to this one with a flame:

Once again, I can't get enough of Spaceship Earth. This kid looks like Ultimate Warrior, Jr. Don't mess with him:

This about marked the end of Japan for the day so we decided to head toward Italy and just take a quick stop at the American Adventure, I was on a mission for Sam Adams Brick Red that is on all the menus I see. Guess what? WDW hasn't had Brick Red for over a year. There went that idea, so I just grabbed a seasonal and Alex got some chicken fingers:

The season was winter.

We didn't waste too much time over here so we headed over to Italy because, well, Alex wanted more prosecco. I'm not a big fan of Moretti and I had that Sam Adams so I abstained from Italian booze and took some pictures instead:

Lamp posts!

I'm a big fan of this giant thing, I don't know what it actually is supposed to be but I know of seen pictures of the real one, pretty spot on:

The sky was looking really nice as the sun was going down, although the nicer part of the sky is towards MGM away from SSE:

 

[mamamouse]

This is one of the best reports I've read I love all the pictures,they're so different from what I normally take pics of so it's nice to see things a little differently.The little stories you tell make it fun too,looking forward to reading more,thanks for posting