We went to Epcot twice on our recently completed trip--all day on April 7th, then afternoon til close on April 9th. As usual, we had an excellent time. Helps that this is my favorite park.
On April 7th, we arrived at 9:30 for a 10:00am opening in hopes of proving a rumor that I read on these pages correct--that Epcot has Spaceship Earth up and running before official opening time. It's true! Damned true! (pardon my Kurt Angle reference--of course, you have to be a WWF fan to know what the hell I'm even referring to).
It was sooooo nice to get this ride out of the way before 10:00. No lines, too. From there it was off to the left side of the "big golf ball" to see what Test Track lines were like. At 10:05, while we were standing there, the stand-by line went from a 30 minute to a 40 minute wait. We opted for Fast Passes and instead rode Body Wars (fun but kinda gross), played a bit in Fitness Fairgrounds, then went next door to Universe of Energy (what the kids in my party coined the "Bill Nye The Science Guy Dinosaur Ride"). I hadn't been on this since the new show was installed. What a nice change! I always found the old show kind of dry and too scientific (always felt like I was in my high school physics class), and the new show ends up being fun and educational.
Hey, when a 7 year old walks out rehashing where energy comes from as well as spending the day cracking Ellen's jokes, I'd call the ride a hit.
Test Track was fun. Kinda miss World of Motion, though. Again, it was a first time for us. We riders from California were a bit dubious of this ride since Disneyland attempted a semi-clone of this one in the very short lived Rocket Rods (they could never get the thing to run w/o breaking down and it was insulted by a dear friend of mine as "Driving on the L.A. freeways is more exciting than that ride.") Test Track kicks butt over Rocket Rods--the inside test stuff is fun, so is the pre-show.
Lunch was a PS at the Coral Reef. This was our only Living Seas stop. Our waiter maintained that the LS ride portion is still closed down (but he wasn't sure if it had been removed). We saw enough fishies, the sea turtle, sharks, rays, and a diver even put on a nice show. Food was very tasty. Mahi was the big hit. Kind of pricey, even compared to other WDW sit-down restaurants.
The Land was next. All I can say is "dated" and "kind of boring." It amazes me that they have done nothing to spice up "Living With The Land." I know some people love this attraction, and the greenhouse stuff is kinda neat, but is it really worthy of the lines it draws? We did this one Fast Pass--thank God!
And is it me, or do the boats remind anyone else of the boats in "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory?" Just need the Oompa-Loompas. Hey, now that would spice the ride up, Oompa-Loompas and the room where the geese lay the golden eggs.
Food Rocks' only good distinction is that it got Disney anamatronic shows out of the 1940's and '50's and into more modern music. Despite the rock-oriented modernization, even my sixtyish in-laws knew the tunes being punned. As cute as this show should be, we all really hated the Chuck E. Cheese-like animatronics. Really sad--most of the mouths barely moved. With great anamatronics in SSE and American Adventure, why skimp so wildly on this one? Some times I just don't get the Disney corporation.
To further exemplify, we saw Cranium Command on our second day and everyone in our party loved it. And what is that show really? One nicely done animatronic boy, a so-so animatronic robot, and a bunch of comedic filmed clips. And yet this show is 100 times more satisfying. And it isn't for lack of a decent script--both CC and FR! were pretty darned good as written. It's all in the details of their executions.
But I digress--After a small stop-over in the Imagination pavillion for 3-D movie (always a fun one!) we headed into WS via Canada.
Almost by accident, we stumbled upon the Kidcot Stations--my only rag on Epcot was that they didn't really tell us where these stations would be. Didn't they used to be outside or something? Canada's was in a china/curio shop--not the kind of items you want around hyper little kids. The masks they were giving out were cool, though.
Saw the Holy Grail Show in U.K. (funny--helped that the guys picked from the audience were hamming it up). Saw the Living Statues (nice fun but kind of eerie, aren't they?) Saw the Japanese Drum show (my sis-in-law's favorite).
Tapestry of Dreams was cancelled on 4/7 with an announcement at about 5 minutes prior to parade time. We had a bit of a breeze on 4/7. We ended up seeing the parade on 4/9. Fantastic parade! I'm really digging the large puppetry floats. AK's parade and Lion King Show had them, too. I can see why they wouldn't want any wind blowing, though. The parade CM's arms must ache enough.
With an extra half-hour without our parade on 4/7, we ended up getting all the way to Italy and happened upon the Masquerade. Funny how they didn't list it as a performance on the event calendar for the day. This was a cool show--my personal fave among the street shows. Very magical in feel, but with a European flavor. Definately worth stumbling upon.
We ended 4/7 touring with a dinner in Morocco at Restaurant Marrakesh. The sit-down restaurant was excellent, considered by even the kids as one of the best things we did. I have no idea how we got four kids to eat cous-cous but they ate it and loved it. The belly dancer show was kind of short but it helped that the dancer was a real babe-and- a-half (at least from a distance--she never really got close to our table). If you've ever pondered going to this restaurant, go. It's great! Food is not too exotic, just exotic enough, and very tasty. And the dining room is beautiful.
On our return trip, aside from the parade and Cranium Command, I was overjoyed to finally ride Maelstrom. I've been to Epcot twice before--once when they were building Norway, the once when Maelstrom was closed for rehab. And I was really sweating it out on this trip. Turns out, another website--WDWIG.com--claimed it was to be closed during the week of the 7th for another rehab! I'm so glad they kept it open. Nice ride. Loved the backwards stuff. Not too scary (none of the kids flinched at all). In fact, my almost four year old nephew commented that it was "too short," which is the common complaint about this ride, isn't it? Hey, it was short, but sweet. Definately something I'd ride again.
We ended our vacation eating Mexican at the Cantina De San Angel (the outside walk-up--good food for a walk-up) and ended up with a table that gave us a nice view of Illuminations. Nice show. One question, though--is there actually a good place to see/make out the images on the spinning globe in the center of the lagoon? I could tell there were faces and such but couldn't make out who and/or what they really were.
Last note--and this one goes out to so many of you who post your favorites on this site. We went to Restaurant Marrakesh after reading positive posts on this site about its food. AND we had a lovely dessert during Illuminations by getting pastries from the shop in Norway, and I swear I wouldn't have ever known about this place AND that their sweets are beyond kick- if it wasn't for all your positive posts. So thank you to those who chimed in about this somewhat hidden gem of a bakery. It really and literally made the end of our vacation sweet.:sohappy:
On April 7th, we arrived at 9:30 for a 10:00am opening in hopes of proving a rumor that I read on these pages correct--that Epcot has Spaceship Earth up and running before official opening time. It's true! Damned true! (pardon my Kurt Angle reference--of course, you have to be a WWF fan to know what the hell I'm even referring to).
It was sooooo nice to get this ride out of the way before 10:00. No lines, too. From there it was off to the left side of the "big golf ball" to see what Test Track lines were like. At 10:05, while we were standing there, the stand-by line went from a 30 minute to a 40 minute wait. We opted for Fast Passes and instead rode Body Wars (fun but kinda gross), played a bit in Fitness Fairgrounds, then went next door to Universe of Energy (what the kids in my party coined the "Bill Nye The Science Guy Dinosaur Ride"). I hadn't been on this since the new show was installed. What a nice change! I always found the old show kind of dry and too scientific (always felt like I was in my high school physics class), and the new show ends up being fun and educational.
Hey, when a 7 year old walks out rehashing where energy comes from as well as spending the day cracking Ellen's jokes, I'd call the ride a hit.
Test Track was fun. Kinda miss World of Motion, though. Again, it was a first time for us. We riders from California were a bit dubious of this ride since Disneyland attempted a semi-clone of this one in the very short lived Rocket Rods (they could never get the thing to run w/o breaking down and it was insulted by a dear friend of mine as "Driving on the L.A. freeways is more exciting than that ride.") Test Track kicks butt over Rocket Rods--the inside test stuff is fun, so is the pre-show.
Lunch was a PS at the Coral Reef. This was our only Living Seas stop. Our waiter maintained that the LS ride portion is still closed down (but he wasn't sure if it had been removed). We saw enough fishies, the sea turtle, sharks, rays, and a diver even put on a nice show. Food was very tasty. Mahi was the big hit. Kind of pricey, even compared to other WDW sit-down restaurants.
The Land was next. All I can say is "dated" and "kind of boring." It amazes me that they have done nothing to spice up "Living With The Land." I know some people love this attraction, and the greenhouse stuff is kinda neat, but is it really worthy of the lines it draws? We did this one Fast Pass--thank God!
And is it me, or do the boats remind anyone else of the boats in "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory?" Just need the Oompa-Loompas. Hey, now that would spice the ride up, Oompa-Loompas and the room where the geese lay the golden eggs.
Food Rocks' only good distinction is that it got Disney anamatronic shows out of the 1940's and '50's and into more modern music. Despite the rock-oriented modernization, even my sixtyish in-laws knew the tunes being punned. As cute as this show should be, we all really hated the Chuck E. Cheese-like animatronics. Really sad--most of the mouths barely moved. With great anamatronics in SSE and American Adventure, why skimp so wildly on this one? Some times I just don't get the Disney corporation.
To further exemplify, we saw Cranium Command on our second day and everyone in our party loved it. And what is that show really? One nicely done animatronic boy, a so-so animatronic robot, and a bunch of comedic filmed clips. And yet this show is 100 times more satisfying. And it isn't for lack of a decent script--both CC and FR! were pretty darned good as written. It's all in the details of their executions.
But I digress--After a small stop-over in the Imagination pavillion for 3-D movie (always a fun one!) we headed into WS via Canada.
Almost by accident, we stumbled upon the Kidcot Stations--my only rag on Epcot was that they didn't really tell us where these stations would be. Didn't they used to be outside or something? Canada's was in a china/curio shop--not the kind of items you want around hyper little kids. The masks they were giving out were cool, though.
Saw the Holy Grail Show in U.K. (funny--helped that the guys picked from the audience were hamming it up). Saw the Living Statues (nice fun but kind of eerie, aren't they?) Saw the Japanese Drum show (my sis-in-law's favorite).
Tapestry of Dreams was cancelled on 4/7 with an announcement at about 5 minutes prior to parade time. We had a bit of a breeze on 4/7. We ended up seeing the parade on 4/9. Fantastic parade! I'm really digging the large puppetry floats. AK's parade and Lion King Show had them, too. I can see why they wouldn't want any wind blowing, though. The parade CM's arms must ache enough.
With an extra half-hour without our parade on 4/7, we ended up getting all the way to Italy and happened upon the Masquerade. Funny how they didn't list it as a performance on the event calendar for the day. This was a cool show--my personal fave among the street shows. Very magical in feel, but with a European flavor. Definately worth stumbling upon.
We ended 4/7 touring with a dinner in Morocco at Restaurant Marrakesh. The sit-down restaurant was excellent, considered by even the kids as one of the best things we did. I have no idea how we got four kids to eat cous-cous but they ate it and loved it. The belly dancer show was kind of short but it helped that the dancer was a real babe-and- a-half (at least from a distance--she never really got close to our table). If you've ever pondered going to this restaurant, go. It's great! Food is not too exotic, just exotic enough, and very tasty. And the dining room is beautiful.
On our return trip, aside from the parade and Cranium Command, I was overjoyed to finally ride Maelstrom. I've been to Epcot twice before--once when they were building Norway, the once when Maelstrom was closed for rehab. And I was really sweating it out on this trip. Turns out, another website--WDWIG.com--claimed it was to be closed during the week of the 7th for another rehab! I'm so glad they kept it open. Nice ride. Loved the backwards stuff. Not too scary (none of the kids flinched at all). In fact, my almost four year old nephew commented that it was "too short," which is the common complaint about this ride, isn't it? Hey, it was short, but sweet. Definately something I'd ride again.
We ended our vacation eating Mexican at the Cantina De San Angel (the outside walk-up--good food for a walk-up) and ended up with a table that gave us a nice view of Illuminations. Nice show. One question, though--is there actually a good place to see/make out the images on the spinning globe in the center of the lagoon? I could tell there were faces and such but couldn't make out who and/or what they really were.
Last note--and this one goes out to so many of you who post your favorites on this site. We went to Restaurant Marrakesh after reading positive posts on this site about its food. AND we had a lovely dessert during Illuminations by getting pastries from the shop in Norway, and I swear I wouldn't have ever known about this place AND that their sweets are beyond kick- if it wasn't for all your positive posts. So thank you to those who chimed in about this somewhat hidden gem of a bakery. It really and literally made the end of our vacation sweet.:sohappy:
