We are staying at a villa within about a 15 minute drive to the main gates. I have stayed on property and loved it, but I really, really like this villa. For an extended stay, I think 400-700 square feet would get me a little claustrophobic pretty quickly!
If you are going to be making a Disney trip, I would highly recommend Heavenly Holiday Homes http://www.heavenlyholidayhomes.com/. Their service is exceptional and so far (from booking, to checking in, to our first days here) I have nothing but good things to say about the home and our rental agent!
On Sunday, we spent our first of eight Disney days at Epcot. We were originally going to begin at AK, but when I read about Test Track being open for its last day on Sunday, we decided to do Epcot since TT is one of DD and DH favorite rides. Indeed, the first thing the CM at the ticket booth told us after we purchased our tickets is that we should be sure to ride TT because Sunday was its LAST day!!
The weather was absolutely wonderful, with temps running around the 75 degree mark
. It was quite windy, however.When we arrived SE was pretty jammed up, so we decided to try it later and went directly to TT and FP'ed it. The wait for The Seas with Nemo was short so we did that first. We pretty much walked onto it.
By the time we were done The Seas, Spaceship Earth had cleared out and we rode that. That was a BLAST.
The interactive portion of the ride is a lot of fun and if it can make a teenager laugh, it's gotta be doing something right! 
Some of the ride is the same as I remember from 2006, but some things have changed, most notably the scenes of the "first computer" which apparently is neither Steven Jobs nor Wozniak. For those of you who are interested, here is an interesting story http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/ ... 8/01/epcotAfter SE, we headed over to Mission Space, which had virtually no wait, and did the Green, Less Intense flight training. Lots of fun. Since the Orange mission eats adults and we had no desire to be sick the rest of the day, we don't do Orange.
After Mission Space we were within our FP time for TT, so we rode that. Excellent ride. We would have FP'ed it again but windows were running in the late eve times and we didn't want it to interfere with Illuminations.
Next we headed for the Land. Stand by times for Soarin were crazy long so we FP'ed and did Living with the Land. I did not miss the live tour guide and the narration was quite good. Had a snack in Seasons food court and went to check out Universe of Energy. No wait time, so we walked right in and saw UoE. Nothing has changed about that since 2006 that I can discern.
Next we did some shopping at MouseGear. Didn't buy anything, but MouseGear is a great store, so we always do some pre-shopping and pick up what we really want on our second Epcot Day. We always buy a "year" mug to commemorate our trip but were disappointed to learn that this years mug is not microwaveable.
It's probably not enough to make us not buy it, but a disappointment, nonetheless.We headed to the Cooling Station to sample Coke products from around the World and then, fully charged with caffeine, we did Journey into Imagination with Figment. Never been one of my favorites since they changed the "host" to Eric Idle, but we wanted to make sure DD saw all the major attractions so we did it.
Our final attraction of the day was Soarin. I absolutely love Soarin', more so every time I ride it! It is one of the few simulator-type rides that I can do without getting sick!
After Soarin' we wanted to have dinner (and there was no food back at the house yet so this was kind of a necessity). We had hoped to eat at La Cantina De San Angel, but it was packed, most likely with folks wanting to "eat" and catch Illuminations with a great viewing spot
. So, despite our plan to do Future World on Epcot Day 1 and not head over to World Showcase until Epcot Day 2, we ended up in World Showcase at the American Adventure's Liberty Inn for burgers, dogs, and Mac and Cheese for DD. It was a good, basic meal, even better when you're starving! We found a reasonable location across from Italy to see Illuminations. It is a very close call which is my personal favorite: Illuminations or Fantasmic. <guys can tune out here> Fantasmic doesn't start the waterworks for me like Illuminations does, but Fantasmic has a childish, fantasy quality to it that Illuminations does not. <guys can tune back in now>. With that, our first Disney day was at an end.
Day 4 of the GOO (Disney Day 2) was spent at Blizzard Beach. The past several times we have visited, we have done so when Blizzard Beach was being refurbished, so we had not seen BB in quite awhile. BB does not have nearly the number of slides and attractions that Typhoon Lagoon does, so we thought, being still rather exhausted from a 12 hour Epcot day, that we would do BB first. It was a beautiful weather day and we virtually had the park to ourselves. I have never been to a Disney water park when it was this uncrowded. Other than very brief waits for Downhill Double Dipper and Summit Plummit, everything else was walk-right-on. The family raft ride, Teamboat Springs, is my favorite here. I am not much of a slide fan. I can't do anything that requires lying on the stomach to slide because I dislocated my shoulder a number of years ago and am terrified of doing it again. That means that Toboggan Racers and Snow Stormers are out for me. I did do Runoff Rapids with DD but am not fond of the 150+ steps to get to it! It is a GREAT ride though. We had a counter service meal at LottaWattaLodge. DH and I shared a stacked club sandwich and fries, which was excellent and the three of us shared a ridiculously priced container of "cheesecake" with virtually no crust and no topping at all. At a price of over three dollars, I can't recommend the cheesecake.
BB closed at 5, not 6, so we were a little disappointed at that. But we had plenty of lazy river and wave pool time, so in general, we had a wonderful day. In general, unless something disastrous really happens, my motto is, "It's Disney, I'm not complaining!"
For the next three days, DH will be working, DD will be doing school and I will be attending to our real estate business, so there won't be much to report. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday will all be park days, so I will report on those NEXT Tuesday.
I know I can!
). We wasted about 30 minutes but eventually got to see it...it's one of my favorites. About the time we came out we had a HUGE thunderstorm with pouring rain. We managed to make it back to our locker before the big downpour and got our ponchos. I could tell everyone's energy was flagging so I grabbed a Coke and some overpriced Character Gummies. The combination of caffeine and sugar improved everyone's disposition. We waited out the worst of the storm and resumed touring.
. Then we watched Matsuriza, which is always a fantastic performance and my DH's favorite in Epcot. By that time, it was time to head for The Garden Grille for our first character meal. It was OUTSTANDING. Our waitress was wonderful, her service impeccable. We had roast turkey and dressing, sirloin served over mashed potatoes and a beautiful fish served over fresh vegetables. DD also got to have drumsticks and mac and cheese (which was phenomenal). Our second serving of sirloin was way too rare for me and even for my husband. So we just mentioned to our waitress that for our next serving we would like to have cooked a little longer. Not 5 minutes after, the CHEF shows up at our table with an order of VERY nicely done sirloin. Impressive! 
