Thanks for all the complements on my photos! I'm surprised myself with how well some of them turned out.
And now without further ado...
Day 4:
The weather today started cloudy, but at least it was still warm. It was also the day for EPCOT, what has probably become my favourite park, although I really enjoyed the Magic Kingdom this trip as well. We got there about 30 minutes before opening time thanks to a bus waiting for us as Pop Century! It happens so rarely to walk out and have the bus right there that it was a big deal
Approaching the geodesic sphere I noticed an odd colouring on the top. It looked really dirty, almost burned. It was cloudy but it wasn't just a shadow from the clouds. I don't know what it was, but maybe a good rain will clean it up a bit. It's slightly visible at the very top of this picture, but looked worse in person.
Our first stop was Test Track since we didn't have fastpasses for it. I like the new queue, although with the short wait time I didn't take the time to check things out in detail. The design your own car aspect was pretty cool too and I liked that it gets loaded with you into the ride vehicle. I went for max power and said screw efficiency
This was the result
The opening descent is a bit boring now that there are no blocks to test suspension, and I didn't really understand what used to be the antilock brake test until it was over and then I noticed the rain indicating that it was suppose to be testing for handling in bad weather. My car was coming in last in everything, but I was hopeful for the power test. We raced around the building getting to 64.9 mph then, as we reentered the building, passed the screen that used to give the thermal image. It was blank! The power test results weren't shown. So I don't know how my car fared against it's actual key design parameter.
We crossed from the technical to the environmental side of the park and towards The Land. We had fastpasses for Soarin' but the standby line said it was only 20 minutes, so we got in line with the intent of riding twice. Well the 20 mins was a bit of an understatement. It took about 40 and I had to change the times on our fastpasses to the next hour. Perhaps there's no good reason for it, but I really like Soarin'. I like the airfoils and lights of the queue, the simple idea behind the ride engineering, the subtle nuances of the flight motion, the variation in scenes, the smells, who can forget the smells (I don't remember smelling the pine to the same extent before, and the orange was great as always), and I LOVE the music! Goldsmith outdid himself, even if a few of the bars sound borrowed from the Deep Space 9 theme
I tried the touring plans website for this trip and spent many pre trip hours reordering things to fit it all in. Unfortunately the delay right off the bat at Soarin' put us behind. But it didn't seem to work out too badly overall. We moved onto The Seas and took the trip with Nemo. There's a few things that always amaze me about the slickness of Disney's ability to move people (aside from the inevitable, dump you into a gift shop), and here it was the process for loading a wheelchair onto the ride car. They slowed down the moving belt, popped open the special car and pulled out the centre section. A ramp unfolded onto the belt, and the wheelchair was expertly backed aboard. The interior of the section that pulled out then swivelled so the person was facing forward and the whole section slide back in line with the regular seat for the guest accompanying the young man. So smooth! It manually locked into place so no worries about anything coming loose and the whole process was done without anything actually stopping. I was impressed.
We had fastpasses for Turtle Talk with Crush but the time wasn't right, and I sort of wanted to save them in case we wanted to switch them out for something else later. The standby line was about 20 mins so we did that (this time it actually meant the 20 mins). I'd never been to see Crush before and took some pictures of the sharks in the preshow area human holding tank.
The show itself was cute. I liked how the kids were all told to sit on the green something (sea weed maybe? I can't recall) but not on the orange coral (which was an orange line around the area). I'm guessing this might be used as a known point if any image capture and processing is done to allow Crush to "see" them. The premise of us being studied by Crush was fun too.
We walked onto Spaceship Earth, the best way to ride! It's another of my all time favourites, from the entrance mural (which is suppose to have a hidden Mickey I can never find...hints anyone?) to the planetarium peak. Now if only the Jeremy Irons narration returned. I think I may have experienced the Cronkite version but was too young to remember it. Although I'll admit that I didn't know about the Phoenician contribution to the alphabet before Judi Dench, but I'll always remember that "all roads led to Rome". This is one of the few pictures I was able to capture inside. I really wanted one of the Earth but it always came out fuzzy, so the philosopher will have to do.
We were still sort of following the plan, so went back to The Land for Living with the Land and lunch. This little guy was a cute reminder of home.
I totally want this tree! I'm a huge peanut butter fan! If I was in elementary school these days I don't know how I'd survive without being able to take peanut butter sandwiches.
And a not so hidden Mickey
Before heading to World Showcase, we stopped for a visit with Figment at Journey into Imagination. We also checked out Captain EO. I hadn't set foot in that theatre since I was freaked out by the "mice" running by my feet in Honey I Shrunk the Audience years ago. Knowing that EO was from an earlier time I was fairly confident nothing like that would be involved. The part I enjoyed most was the preshow that showed some behind the scenes footage of how the movie was made. The actual show itself was just too weird for me. A ragtag crew of species end up on this planet with a Borg queen like ruler where after being sentenced to death they break into song that changes everything? Really? This was popular? Maybe it was an 80's thing and something Michael Jackson fans liked but I didn't get it.
From there things got better, O Canada! My home and native land...
This made me giggle. One tree in the middle of a lovely garden that remembers the real season and is leafless.
I never noticed the fence before, so cute!
Alas, it seems they don't have BeaverTails.
We walked past the UK. The entertainment group wasn't playing the day we were there, which was unfortunate. I've browsed though the shops before, so other than enjoying a quick stroll by the gardens we didn't stay long.
For the first time, I didn't just take a look at France from a distance. I wanted to see the movie and explore a bit. The young, good looking Frenchman who was introducing the movie taught the guests some French. He started with "Bonjour" and "baguette", words that people had heard before. The general blank stares and "what?" looks he got after he quickly said "joyeaux anniversaire" were pretty funny and he had to go back over it slowly. He also prefaced that the movie was pretty old and not exactly indicative of current French life. We was right, it was dated, but that doesn't take away from the lovely scenes and great music by Ravel, Saint-Saens, and Debussy. This is a window they have in the lobby waiting area. I don't remember where it's from unfortunately.
I didn't end up exploring France, because we were aiming to hear Voices of Liberty. They have such a beautiful sound. We got there in time for the last song
The American Adventure is well done, and as usual, there's always something new to notice at Disney. I didn't know/remember that Alexander Graham Bell is in it! During the montage of famous American's I was thinking that a few might not make the cut if it was redone today, ie: Lance Armstrong.
It was dinner time, and this is one meal that I'd been planning since before we left. My tastes have expanded the last few years thanks to the Egyptian owner of the company I work for. He's been kind enough to treat us on occasion to some middle eastern cuisine. So when I was pouring over all things Disney in planning this trip and found the Tangierine Cafe, with a veggie platter that had items I now recognized, that was the one place I wanted to eat. We'd also never explored Morocco before, so another first. I even caught it at the magic hour for light.
I was so excited (ok, and hungry too), that I never took a picture of my delicious meal.
It was a lot of food and I shared it around, even though it's not exactly my parents tastes. The couscous salad was especially tasty.
Afterwards we walked around the market place area. It really expands back there with rooms that were pretty empty and held impressive mosaics.
Had Aladdin and Jasmine been there I would have gotten my picture with a Prince by marriage, but maybe it was their dinner hour too.
We found the trains in Germany, although they were hard to see in the dark. But we also found the Werther's Bakery. They were giving out caramel corn samples, yum, and we watched as a baker expertly dipped strawberries in chocolate and drizzled caramel over them.
Next door in China we watched the acrobats. That was a first too, although not the one I was really planning on. I haven't seen the movie in China either and we'd just missed the show. We weren't planning on staying around for another 20 mins, but then the acrobats arrived. Alas, all pictures of the amazing feats of strength, balance and flexibility were horribly fuzzy. After the acrobats we decided to move on instead of checking to see if there was another movie showing.
Ah, Norway, the reason I went to see Frozen the weekend before I left
We rode Maelstrom with no wait, after squeezing past the mass of people in the courtyard. It was prime dinner time so the Princess character dining was in full swing and the line to meet Elsa and Anna was huge! I peeked in a window, but that was it. I did go inside the Stave Church for the first time. I was expecting it to be a lot larger. But it was blissfully quiet and deserted after the crowds from outside, and I liked the rustic wood smell. The exhibits about Norway as they applied to Frozen were good too.
Trading the cold for the warm, we headed to Mexico, where we walked right onto the Gran Fiesta Tour (I think that's the name now, although it doesn't have the same romance that El Rio del Tiempo evoked). Even with Donald I still like the journey, the opening float past the restaurant and the finale with the fireworks bursting in fiberoptic glory are my favourite parts.
We staked out a spot at the railing for Illuminations on the Future World side of the lake. Maybe not a first, but I don't remember the last time we watched from that side. I took a quick trip to Club Cool for some Brazilian Kuat! (my favourite of the choices) and captured Spaceship Earth in its evening light attire.
Back by the lake I played with some camera settings, trying to get a decent picture of the buildings across the lake. It didn't work very well, but the preshow music to Illuminations made up for it. Love that flute battle!
We ended up with a really nice view of the fireworks,
and the floating Earth, which had me pleasantly surprised. I wasn't sure where it went around the islands.
I like this one for its scope with the American pavilion lit up, the lasers visible in the smoke, and the size of the fading fireworks.
One final image as I conclude Day 4. The pictures I took after the globe opened didn't turn out very well, but this one with the smoke and the bright spots looks exactly like a nebula in outer space (ignore the flame and the buildings in the background
).
I love planetariums and space stuff, but
this picture of the Eagle Nebula is sooo over used. Yes, it's pretty, but there must be so many more out there surely they could switch it up a bit. Anyhow, no stars are being born in the EPCOT fireworks, but it reminded me of stellar nurseries none the less.
One more day to come.
That is too bad you missed seeing the whole show. Glad you were able to see the fireworks. Nice photos of that! 
That is a great photo inside Spaceship Earth!!
