Friday, January 18, 2019
(If you missed a day, check out the “archives” to the right –>)
OMG! Look who I ran into this morning! Joe and Elease join me for a couple of days here in DisneyWorld. Having them here makes this visit even more special to me. Check out our first day’s adventures together.
One of the Disney parks that is a bit more adult oriented, compared with the Magic Kingdom, is EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. The three of us headed there this morning, looking for a break from all the kids and hoping to find something more age appropriate. We did, but it turns out that some things are just fun at any age. For example, let’s start with breakfast.
One of the rides we all wanted to visit was Soarin’ Around the World, located within “The Land” pavilion inside EPCOT. Once inside the pavilion, we saw an amazing restaurant serving breakfast. None of had eaten so we decided to start with a hearty meal to amp up our energy for the day. The Garden Grill is an unusual restaurant in that it rotates 360º every hour, giving diners an opportunity to enjoy an ever changing diorama depicting different types of land and how each type helps to support life on earth.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)
Now, what we didn’t expect was that breakfast in the Garden Grill also included visits from several Disney characters. Ok, not exactly adult entertainment, but there’s still some “kid” in all of us, right?
Pluto and the Caracci’s 
Dang, Pluto, those whiskers are tough! 
Robert with Dale (from Chip and Dale) 
It’s Mr. Mouse, himself!
As expected, the family-style breakfast served to us was also mouse inspired. Ok with me as it was all very tasty. There was far more food served than we could eat! We ate our fill, and then headed out to see Soarin’.
Right next door to the Garden Grill is Soarin’, a ride that literally lifts you into the skies and flies you to beautiful locations all around the world. It feels a bit strange as you “take off” and enjoy an almost weightless experience as you fly over the top of the Matterhorn, zip over sand dunes in the Middle East, or nearly touch the top of the Eiffel Tower. So much fun!
We took in a few exhibits in EPCOT including an interactive space flight where we manually landed our Earth orbiter after a computer failure. We didn’t get to see everything that was offered in this part of the park because we wanted to make sure we had enough time to take in the World Showcase.
World Showcase brings many countries from around the world into EPCOT park. It surrounds a lake and brings to visitors the look, the culture and some products from each country represented. Here’s where we hung out:
England
The Rose and Crown pub 
“Get out! I need to use the phone!” 
The Rose and Crown
France
Bubbles, from and in France 
Italy
St. Mark’s square 
The Doge’s Palace 
Passing on the elixir of life (wine!)
Japan
An iconic Japanese temple 
Elease in Tokyo
Morocco
The City Walls 
Shopping in the Bazaar 
Beautiful tile work 
Rockin’ the Casbah
Germany
A Bavarian clock tower 
We’re in Bavaria! 
Joe, in Germany. 
A garden railroad
Mexico
Robert annoying the Gods. 
Temple of the Sun? 
Married muertos… 
…fight like cats and dogs!
We ended our trip around the world in Mexico for a “muy” authentic Mexican dinner at La Cantina de San Angel. This cantina (in addition to serving excellent food) sits on the edge of the lagoon we spent the afternoon circumnavigating. At 9:00, the lagoon comes to life in an explosion of lights and fireworks. Although we didn’t have a window seat, we still had a very nice view of the show, called IllumiNations.
Following the show, we aimed ourselves toward the exit gate to find our bus for the ride back to Coronado Springs. We’d walked over five miles today, the park was closing, and we were a little bit tired.
Tomorrow is another day!
