Wednesday, October 9, 2013
EPCOT
Today we
were headed to EPCOT and we had reservations for AAA Story Time Experience in
Innovations West at 11:30 am. I couldn’t
remember where we were supposed to go and it was after tearing apart our luggage
that I realized I had left our itinerary at home on the kitchen table. (Head smack) I called our travel agent, Kelly, and she was able to e-mail the
document to me. Hurrah Kelly! While we were on the phone she asked how
everything was and if the requested refrigerator was in our room. My husband was taking insulin at the time and
needed it to be refrigerated but at that time Disney was replacing all of the refrigerators
in all of the resorts so the rooms did not automatically have them. I had talked to Disney before our trip and
they said it was not going to be a problem. However when we arrived there was no refrigerator. He called the front desk who put him in
touch with maintenance and told them he had put in a request for a refrigerator
for medical reasons and that there was not refrigerator in the room. The cast member he spoke with told him they
would “get to it when they get to it” and he "can just put ice in the ice bucket
and keep the insulin there." We were a
little taken back by the response but this is what we did. Every morning before we left and every night
after we got back, hubby would dump the melted ice, get fresh ice; take his
insulin injection and the place it in the ice bucket. I told Kelly about the fridge situation but that
despite that we were having a good time. She felt this was unacceptable and said she would call them
immediately. Hubby was actually out at
that moment getting fresh ice. Kelly called back and told us that they said the
situation would be taken care of and she wanted me to text her when the fridge
was in the room. Within 10 minutes there
was a knock on the door and sure enough, it was maintenance with the fridge and
an apology. Kelly is awesome! I’m not sure where the breakdown happened in
the process. Most of the cast member are
always helpful, polite and lots of fun.
We chalked it up to a fluke; happy it was not an issue and headed out to
EPCOT.
We were soon
on our way to EPCOT where we and a few other families were read a story by none
other than Mary Poppins! After the story
we got to take photos and get autographs. Mary was so wonderful!
After we
left innovations we saw that Chip and Dale were giving autographs and the girls
decided to get in line. We met a lovely
family in front of us and we passed the wait time chatting with them. Chip and Dale were so much fun! They played and teased with the girls, looked
at their trading pins, did a happy dance when they saw the girls had chip and
dale pins on their lanyards, signed autographs and posed for photos. Hubby and I even got hugs!
We rode on
spaceship Earth, which has been updated since the last time I rode it. We went to the living Seas and waved at the
Scuba divers in the tanks, watched Turtle Talk with Crush and rode the Nemo ride. We went to Club Cool and tasted all the soda
flavors. We went to Ellen’s energy
adventure but it broke down and we had to leave. (There was only about 10 minutes left of the
show.) We realized we missed our fast
passes for Test Track and Mission to Space.
I had gotten the times confused. I tried to fix it with the fast pass app, but had no luck.
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| In line for Spaceship Earth |
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| SCUBA divers cleaning rocks |
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| Tasting Soda from around the world at Club Cool |
We decided we were hungry so we headed toward
world showcase. We passed the cranberry bog,
which was kind of cool.
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| Cranberry Bog |
We headed past
the Food and Wine Festival food booths to the United Kingdom pavilion. It has sort of become a tradition to eat at
Rose and Crown. We did not have a
reservation but since it was Food and Wine and most people were at the food
booths, we got in the restaurant in less than 5 minutes.
BFF loved it, began speaking in a British
accent about tea and crumpets and declared Rose and Crown British boy heaven! We ordered the Disney punch to drink and the
girls both got souvenir cups.
Daughter and
I ordered the pot roast with vegetable and beans. It was so flipping’ good! Seriously yum! Hubby and BFF ordered the fish and
chips. Hubby let me taste his fish and
it was really yummy too! We admired the
décor, BFF admired our waiter. We asked
him about the cultural exchange work program that Disney has for the folks from
other countries. He was a lovely young man and seemed to enjoy sharing his experiences with us.
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| Pot Roast |
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| Fish and Chips |
We left with
full tummies and began to explore the United Kingdom. I bought both girls a “passport” that they can get
“stamped” in each country at the kidcot stops.
It became a goal for daughter to get her passport filled. The lovely young lady at the U.K. kidcot stop
was named Lynn and both girls were taken with her. They asked her all kind of questions about
where she comes from, how she liked working at Disney, what she thought about
the U.K pavilion, etc. They ended up getting
a photo with her and asking her to sign their autograph books, which thrilled
her! After our lovely time visiting with
Lynn we walked the hedge maze, and then we met Alice in wonderland and got
photos and autographs.
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| Lynn and the girls at the U.K. Kidcot stop |
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| U.K. Streets |
Hubby was
starting to have some mobility issues so we went to the International Gateway
wheel chair rental. While we were there
Tigger and Pooh started a meet and greet, so the girls lined up to meet and
greet them. It was getting too dark for
autographs but a Disney photographer was there taking great photos. The girls had fun and even got to bounce with
Tigger!
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| Lots of bouncing! |
Next we
visited France. We shopped, stopped at
the kidcot stop, learned to say hello and good-bye in French and just enjoyed
the atmosphere of the French Pavilion. Most of my photos did not turn out though because it was getting dark and the tablet doesn't have a flash.
We had late
dinner reservation at 7:40 for Japan’s Teppan Edo. We headed over to the Japan pavilion to the
restaurant hostess booth. It was being
manned by two really sweet Japanese women. The girls had a great time chatting up these ladies about Japan and anime.
They also got to practice their Japanese. The
ladies were thrilled when I asked if I could get a photo of them with the
girls. We had fun chatting with these lovely
ladies but soon it was time or us to be seated for dinner.
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| The girls with the Teppan Edo Hostesses |
The
restaurant is beautiful! They serve food
in the “communal ritual of Teppan-Yaki style cooking”. Very much like a Japanese steak house. We sat at a table with another family of 4
who were celebrating the dad’s birthday. They were a lovely family and we enjoyed eating with them. Our Chef was very entertaining and had some
funny jokes. Dinner included the yummiest
rice I have ever tasted, vegetables, and meat if you choose. Hubby got all seasonal vegetables, I had
steak, daughter had sword fish and BFF had chicken. They also had various sauces, including yum
yum sauce. (I think we had noodles too) We all drank either hot or
iced green tea. We all chose the
Chocolate Ginger cake for dessert. It
was AMAZING!
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| Waiting for dinner |
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| Green Tea |
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| Steam volcano made of onions |
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| Chocolate Ginger Cake |
After diner we went shopping in the Japan Pavilion. The girls, being big anime fans, were in absolute heaven. There were many Japanese pop culture as well as traditional item here. We all enjoyed this pavilion.
After shopping we realized it was almost park closing so we decided to waddle (because we were
all pregnant with food babies) to the front of the park. We did make one stop at the front of the park
to get a night time family photograph, returned the wheel chair and caught our
bus back to pop.
Here was
Wednesday’s white board.
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