Day 5: Epcot (Wednesday June 2, 2021)
Park Hours: 11am-10pm
Working Title: Hate Me Today
For much of my Disney fandom, this was my favorite park. And to this day, SSE is my favorite park icon. However, it’s in the Hollywood Studios circa 2017 Disney Springs circa 2014 phase. It’s a construction zone play acting as a theme park. I literally had to stop myself after apologizing to my brother and saying, “no, it’s usually awesome”.
I wanted the feels from walking in by SSE, and taking the skyliner in through the world showcase wouldn’t offer that. To say nothing of the additional walking required to beat the crowds to Soarin. So, we walked to Art of Animation and were at the bus stop for Epcot by 8:45am. We loaded up and were at the tapstile by 10:05am. We were let through by 10:20am and headed straight for Soarin. We were amongst the first 10 or so people in line which helped. Soarin is an all time favorite of ours, but we haven’t been able to ride it since... 2013. Our big 2016 trip it was down for the refurb/change. And it must’ve been too long a wait because we didn’t do it is 2017. To get the obvious out of the way, yes the Eiffel Tower appeared to have a bit of a curve. Yes the Taj Mahal was bad cgi. But I love it still.
From there, I thought it would be cool to try Test Track. I’ve never ridden it before- coward- but I thought I was ready, and my wife and kids assured me there experience with it were tame. We walk up and the line was a monster. So we go to Norway to give Frozen a whirl... and the line was back to China. We got in line for what turned out to be a 50 minute wait. It was good, but the plexi really impacts rides like this. Overall, probably not worth it. Well, outside of the discovery that bras are now outerwear.
We snacked at the different F&G stands for lunch. Wins for this trip included Toasted Pretzel Bread topped with Black Forest Ham and Melted Gruyère Cheese from Bauernmarkt. The picture doesn’t do it justice tasted great. But, like most things at these types of events, could’ve been a larger portion for the price.
https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2021-epcot-flower-and-garden-festival-bauernmarkt-farmers-market/
the other winner was Citrus-braised Crispy Pork Belly with Kumquat and Carrot from the Citrus Blossom. I forgot to get a picture, but you can’t go wrong with pork belly.
Day 5
Soarin
Frozen
American Adventure
Journey
Pixar shorts
SSE
Seas
Soarin
Test track
Mission Space
Dinner was at returning favorite Via Napoli. We got a full Mezzo Metro (too lazy to check spelling) with half Quattro and the other half picante. That, along with an app of calamari should’ve been enough but we had to order another large pepperoni pizza. We love this place. We’ve eaten here every trip since 2012.
All in all, I’d rate the day a 7.5. It would’ve been lower if not for what happened on our second soarin ride. The line moved well, and near the end of the wait, the couple in front stepped aside and let us by because the man’s brother and family were catching up. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, we moved up. Up a head, we are in line still and the brother must’ve finally caught up because he was so loud it started to get a little annoying. He kept calling out his kids names and it sounded like the list was as long as my arm. I was cracking jokes about him, to my kids. He sounded like Albert Brooks (Marlin from Finding Nemo) and I joked that his kids had reindeer names. Well, a couple of minutes later and we are in the holding area just before we are seated and my middle child said, “hey, he kinda looks like that singer you like”. I turn around and see a dude- loud, so it’s the one I’ve been talking about- wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt. I was about to call him out, to my daughter, with something along the lines of, “your dad doesn’t listen to anyone who has that much hamburger meat hanging out”, when it hit me. That isn’t hair, those are tattoos. And, as I looked up more I blurted out, “omg that Justin Furstenfeld”! Now, a lot of people will have no clue who that is. A few might know if I said he’s the lead singer to Blue October. But many would still not know. But I am a Blue October fan, and have been for about 13 years. I told my family to leave him alone as he was there with his family and didn’t need to be bothered.
He, and his group were sat one row to our left. I kept sneaking glances and my middle child kept laughing because she said I was acting like a creeper and what would I do if he was looking as I looked over. Anyway, the ride ends and we are directed to exit to the left... which is where he is. Someone, probably Madison, asked if I was going to say something. I am a wallflower, but I’m also a father. Both of those joined together and I said, “nope, he’s with his family”. As the words were escaping my mouth, to my horror, my brother walks up to him. Justin thought he was coming up to ask him to quiet down, because dude is loud. My brother said no, and he didn’t mean to interrupt but he wanted to say we were huge fans. Justin immediately, and without prompting, grabbed my brother and then my wife and hugged and thanked them. He then called his brother over, a member of the band, and told him that they were fans. All together, maybe a 20 second interaction, but so amazingly cool. And no, as a coward, I didn’t introduce myself.
I’m including a picture of Maddy wearing her Loki ears. No BS, for the trip, between cast members commenting on the ears, and guests asking where she got them, she had to get over a dozen comments on the ears.
