Epcot: The Return (Day 12)

Quick Summary.

Got up at nearly lunchtime, grab a quick coffee and headed to Epcot. Kicked off with Spaceship Earth, then two mum & dad hadn’t done before Soarin’ & Test Track. Apart from some rain in the early afternoon, it was really hot! Never did World Showcase and headed home at early evening to get changed and go for dinner. Parents took the kids for dinner and me and Ann hit a steakhouse for some nice food. Beach day tomorrow, weather permitting :)

Back To The Future!

Yes we went back to Epcot, mainly because my mum and dad hadn’t been yet but I also wanted another shot of Test Track. Afternoon start which meant no alarms :) Missed breakfast time though so my dad got some Krispy Kreme donuts and fruit before we set off, though I was still full from last nights dinner so I settled for coffee. Patrick stayed with my parents last night (the kids take turns each night) and he read his new book, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul from start to finish. If I could read the way he does Id probably do it a lot more.

Get to Epcot and they are handing out leaflets with the newly imposed selfie stick ban, dangerous and annoying apparently, and although I had one in my bag I’ve only even used it once the whole holiday. My wrist strap seems to do me just fine (after working out a few teething problems). At bag search they queried my tripod in my bag (which I’ve yet to use) but I don’t think you can really use a tripod effectively to take group selfies and once they realised that we were go to go.

Straight to Test Track when we arrive but its shut down due to prevailing thunderstorms so we head back to do Spaceship Earth and even although I was on this last week, I still find it a fascinating story on how we have progressed. Circle of Life and Living with the Land over the other side of the park were up next in quick succession, quite the information overload about conservation and ecology and something Grace probably didn’t quite grasp (though she did like the cute little monkeys showing on the Circle of Life video :)

Next was Soarin’, which my mum and dad hadn’t been on before so would be quite good to see what they thought. Patrick Warburton introduces the ride, but anytime I see or hear him I just think of him as Joe Swanson from Family Guy. PETER GRIFFIN! YEAH! Anyway, Joe, I mean Patrick took us through our in-flight briefing, we got in our seats and buckled in. Now every time we go on something new, as well as Grace asking the usual questions such as ‘Does this go down?’, 'Does this go fast?’ - my mum isn’t too good with roller-coasters or fast rides so we always get asked similar types of questions. Soarin’ is just a simulator but it does take you up a little height to begin with and the initial reactions from my mum were priceless. As soon as we got up and running she was fine though. The smells you get from some of the scenes on the attraction, from flying through pine scented valleys to rich orange groves, are amazing - it really adds a level of sensory perception. I do wish they would just have one scene lasting the entirety of the ride though instead of tying to fit all the vistas in, I think it would make it a better experience. Mum and dad though it was great when we finally landed :)

Quick snack (though a really expensive snack - just because it was in the shape of mickey mouse), then on to The Sea with Nemo & Friends. A gentle ride that mixes the animation of Nemo characters with real life sea-life. Then we seen some dolphins and other fish, including Dory and little Fabio, I mean Nemo in the aquarium ;) They also had sharks, but we didn’t really get to see any up close :(

Hot! Damn Hot! Hotter than Hot!

Even though it had been raining earlier it was scorching hot for the rest of the afternoon, so we entered The Universe Of Energy next, another informational, albeit quite a funny one with Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye. Huge moving theater taking you through all things energy and where the originated from. Pretty cool, though it was pretty cool in the huge moving theater so I was happy.

Contemplating doing the World Showcase but everyone was pretty fatigued and it was hitting around 6pm so decided just to do Test Track before calling it a day. Gracie teamed up with me and Ann for this one, Patrick with my dad, and Robert with my mum. We had to improve on our last design which was a super cool hot red plasma fueled beast, but as we had Grace behind the design helm what did we get instead? A purple roaster with multi-coloured graffiti decals. Awesome! :)

Hmmm, at least I fine tuned it a little to get a good balanced spec. Now on to the test track, we did OK, winning three categories out of four for ours (though we weren’t bundled together with the rest of them). At the very last test, the power test where it accelerates very quickly, Grace commented that 'Granny’s not going to like this one’. LOL! Turns out she though it was good and we were narrowly beaten by Patrick car design though slightly overtook Robert. Final scores were PG - 216, GG - 212 and RG - 209. Better than last time last week, but Patrick does like to gloat and he wouldn’t let us forget that he won in a hurry (doesn’t get that from me, honest :P)

All the noms…

Dinner tonight and my mum and dad offered to take the kids so me and Ann could go grab a nice dinner and some drinks together. Hadn’t really had any sort of steak yet so I really wanted to go to a steakhouse. We decided to walk even though Ann was insistent on taking the car, but I persuaded her otherwise as it was a nice night (you know that is didn’t stay that way though and that I didn’t hear the end of it either). So left the rest of the family and headed to Outback Steakhouse (was going to be Longhorns but that was a little further away as we were hungry). After a Blooming Onion (like onion rings but an actual onion), baked potato, 10oz steak, grilled prawns, a blue cheese & pecan side salad as well as a mojito and a pint and a half of beer I was pretty stuffed (again). No dessert tonight! As dinner progressed we noticed it getting windier and a lot wetter outside, at which point I told Ann that I told her we should have taken the car - I really do need to work on my comic timing, don’t I? :) Walked home which was about a mile or so, in the pouring rain and accompanying Thunder. I did manage to find a liquor store which had loads of good stuff in it (including the new JD Fire) so every cloud and all that! :)

It was supposed to be Daytona Beach tomorrow but Ann and the kids were watching Dolphin Tale earlier tonight - a real life tale about a dolphin and at the end of the film it tells us that the dolphin comes from Clearwater. Looks like we might be changing our plans now.