Monday, Epcot

Monday we also got an early start and were at Epcot before 9am. The first thing we rode was a roller coaster called Test Track. Kyler wanted to know if it would be scary, and of course we told him no. Turns out that it was the family favorite of the day! There were basically no lines in any of the parks we went to, which was fantastic.

We followed the touring plans from The Unofficial Guide to Disney World, which we got from the library. It is a fantastic book, and the plans worked really well for us.

The next thing we headed off for was Mission Space:Ride to Mars. It was a simulator ride and each rider had a "job" to do. We were prompted to push buttons during the mission. It was OK, and Kyler loved pushing his button. Ilea loved it a lot. She loves all the roller coasters, and didn't have a problem with ANY of the rides the whole trip.

The next ride was The Land. It was an easy boat ride for about 20 min, which went behind the scenes of Disney's plant research. It was really interesting. They had a 9 lb lemon, and were shaping pumpkins to have Mickey Ears, growing plants without soil (spraying the roots with nutrients ), and very low soil production. It was really neat and interesting. After that was the ride Soarin', which is the same as Soarin' over California in Disney's California Adventure. It was really well done, and we enjoyed it, but were on the lowest seats.

Next was Touring the Seas with Nemo, which started with a slow track ride into a huge aquarium. They had a neat effect, where they projected the cartoon characters from Nemo onto the glass wall that separates you from the fish, so it looks like the characters are in the tank with the fish. It was interesting, with other fun displays and also some real manatees. The kids liked everything there.

Then another 3D movie, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and this one didn't go so well. It was based on Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and was supposed to be funny. But about 1/2 way into it a cat gets loose, and seems to jump out at you, and then it morphs into a tiger. Kyler went hysterical, and I had to pull him out, over people in the row, out of the dark theater, with him crying all the time, "I DON'T LIKE THIS ANYMORE!" We sat outside until Kipp and Ilea came out. The last thing we went to in the Future World half of Epcot was the Innovations Pavilion. It was ok (they had a Segway demo, where you could actually ride them, but the line was too long, and the kids couldn't go). We ate lunch in there because it was air conditioned. We wanted to go, but we ate in front of this Fire Safety building demo, and the kids BEGGED us to be able to go through it. We waited for them, and they assured us it was worth it.

After lunch we did one more ride in Future World, the Universe of Energy with Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye. It was a long, dark ride (45 min), with a movie in the middle, and some scenes you rolled past (yes, of course there were dinosaurs, but I wisely covered Kyler's eyes before he could get scared). We were learning to ask about the ride before we got on....

After that we headed over to the World Showcase. It was fairly hot, and we went quickly through some of the countries. Mexico was first, then Norway, which had a ride in it. It was called Maelstrom, and was basically a river float ride. Kyler really loved it for some reason. He loved seeing the vikings fight, and the troll was cool. Ilea enjoyed it too. Next was China, Germany, Italy, America, and Japan. We went back to America for a show called American Adventure. It was about 1/2 hour, animatronic, hosted by Ben Franklin and Mark Twain. I enjoyed it, and thought it was great for the kids, who don't see anything patriotic much these days. Also, before the show started they had 9 acapella singers, dressed in period clothes, in the rotunda where we were waiting, and they were fantastic. As we were leaving the show a lady in the next row said loudly "if I wanted to see something patriotic, I would have gone to Philadelphia!" I couldn't believe it. The kids liked the show. We continued around the world to Morocco, France, United Kingdom and Canada.

Kyler loved all the characters he saw, and wasn't intimidated, even by the big ones (like Baloo the bear). Ilea preferred to stay with us and watch. But we saw Mary Poppins, and there wasn't a very long line for her, only one or two. Ilea mustered up her courage and went to talk to her with Kyler. Mary Poppins asked Ilea and Kyler both their names, if they were siblings, and a question. She asked Kyler if his sister kept her room clean (Kyler said yes). She asked Ilea if her brother used his manners (she very shyly said yes). Then they got to take a picture with her. It was great.

For dinner we ate in the park. Kyler had McDonald Chicken nuggets, and we had burgers. It was cool, and the food was good. We wanted to repeat a few rides so we went on Test Track again. It was so great, we went on it again! Because there were so few people, we only had to wait about 5-10 minutes. The lack of lines was amazing. We went over to the Soarin' one again too, and this time we got the top row. It was great! The top made a difference, and it was even better this time.

The park closed at 9pm, and there was supposed to be a great fireworks show (IllumiNations). Around 8pm, we headed out to find a good place around the lagoon (the World Showcase is all around a large lake). We found a pretty good spot and plopped down to wait. We talked with the people around us, and it got dark. The show was really neat. Choreographed to music, of course, with fireworks, water fountains shooting up, lights on some of the buildings around the lake, and then a huge globe started moving out to the center of the lake. It was made up of the land masses only, so the water parts of the globe were see through. Then the continents started to light up, and it was very different. Also there was fire in the lake. The heat was intense, and we were pretty far from it. All in all, it was a great show. We headed home late, tired, but happy.