Around the World in 3 days

[The Shadoe]

This year my sister's dance team was going to be dancing at the College Dance Championships, held at Disney's Wide World of Sports and Disney-MGM Studios. My mom gave me a call on a cold, rainy day here in Saint Paul and asked if I would be interested in going! OF COURSE! I hadn't been to a Disney park since 2000, when I went to Disneyland to see my sister perform in a national dance competition at the Disneyland Hotel. Now she was in college instead of elementary school, and I was in my career instead of just beginning high school!

Since I was going with my family, I was going to stay at the same hotel as them off-site, at the Residence Inn, which was really a nice hotel with a great pool area in the middle of the courtyard and a short drive to Downtown Disney.

Being excited for the trip and wanting to maximize the amount of time I was going to spend in Florida, I took the earliest flight I could from the MSP airport. The weather in the Twin Cities was just beginning to fall to the single digits, and my buddy who dropped me off at the airport told me "I just want to punch you in the face right now".

He didn't, I had a safe flight to MCO and arrived around 1130. The weather was about 70 with partly cloudy skies. The plan was that I would meet my grandmother (who spent a week with friends at The Villages) at the airport, and we would check in to the hotel, which we did.

We took it easy, went for a walk down to a nearby strip mall and ate lunch at a restaurant called CiCis. Good for a quick bite, and pretty cheap.

Spent the rest of the day relaxing, as my parents and younger brother wouldn't show up until around midnight (they decided to take a late flight, for reasons I still don't understand).

DAY 2
Taking it easy. We didn't do much this day other than relax. Around noon we went to Downtown Disney to meet my sister, her friend, and her friend's mom. Poked around the stores, and chatted.

Here we are at Downtown Disney.

The hotel had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, so we didn't go out to eat.

That evening we picked up our tickets (discounted 3 day park hoppers with 5 admissions into the WWS complex) through the competition at Championship Hall, and while there we looked around the hotel property to see if we could find my sister. We did not, but the hotel she was staying at with her team was cool in a kitschy sort of way. Not the type of place I would choose to stay at, but it had a pool in the shape of a piano, a jukebox, etc. The hotels were clearly reserved for college kids; it sounded just like a dorm room except with lucious vegetation everywhere. Lots of college girls everywhere, which I didn't mind one bit.

We headed back to our hotel to get some sleep before our big day at Epcot.

DAY 3
Because I had read ahead, I knew that it was impossible to see all of Epcot in a day. But I wanted to see as much as I could. The day was cloudy and cool, but being from Minnesota I still had my shorts on anyway, as it felt warm to me!

Epcot was the park I had wanted to see the most, primarily for Spaceship Earth. Since I am a communications major, I was excited to see what I it! I heard this was going to be down for renovations and prayed that there would be soft openings when I was there, especially as Kevin Yee had written a review on it.

We arrived just prior to the gates opening. There wasn't much of a crowd there at all. They admitted us to the Innoventions Plaza, and did a countdown. The countdown was really cool, all the cast members were smiling, clapping, and waving, wishing you a great day. I had happy memory of my grandfather at the countdown when I saw Mickey Mouse doing this goofy little walk my Opa used to do when he was being silly. This was my grandmother's first vacation without him; he had passed away this summer after a fight with cancer.

Per the guidebooks, we hiked over to The Land and got Fast Pass tickets for Soarin'. We then went over to Test Track. There was no line, and pretty much just walk-on to the ride. It was a lot of fun! My mom decided to go on this one with me and my brother, but my dad and grandmother stayed behind. I almost was disappointed there wasn't a line to this, as I would've liked to look at everything in the pavilion area. Upon exiting Test Track, we were placed into a GM dealership, which we quickly left.

Upon meeting up with my grandmother and father, we walked over to Mission: Space. My brother and I opted for the intense team, and my mother and father opted for the less intense team. My grandmother decided to sit down and wait for us. This ride was SO COOL! I had a heavy watch on when I was on it, and at points I would lift my arm up and feel how heavy or how light it was. I really enjoyed it a lot. The little kid in our vehicle immediately befriended my little brother and they did some stuff in the post-show area before re-meeting up with our family again.

We then proceeded back to The Land to catch Soarin'. I was glad we obtained FastPass tickets for that, as the stand-by time was about 50 minutes! Soarin' was a LOT OF FUN. My grandmother went on this one with us, and she liked it a lot. It was clearly a direct transplant from California with the kid wearing a Disneyland shirt, to the Disneyland castle at the end, but no matter, as it was a lot of fun.

We then proceeded to Living with the Land. Quickly moving line here. This one was ho-hum for me, but my grandmother and father who are both really into agriculture and gardening enjoyed it.

Next was Circle of Life. I wasn't big into it, being at a Disney park with it basically showing how we were destroying the earth is quite depressing. Still, there was some really cool shots of the wilderness in Africa!


My mom and Oma.

After this we headed over to the Imagination Pavilion to see Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Originally we were going to obtain FastPass to this, and do it later, but there were virtually no crowds at the park so just walked right onto that one. I had to say that this one was a big disappointment for me. First, in the pre-show holding pen, there really is nothing to look at except for the monitors hanging from the ceiling, but those aren't too entertaining. Some people started just laying on the floor, while messages directed us to "move forward and left", which my family did. I wish we didn't; we go placed at the front of the theater. I got a crick in my neck so far up. I think at this angle a 3D movie isn't very good as the effects don't work properly. The film also seemed out of focus or something. Not such a good experience.

After this we went over to ride Journey into your Imagination. I thought this one was cheesy and silly, but my grandmother had a grand ol' time on this ride and was laughing and everything. My little brother who is in 8th grade also enjoyed this one.

At this point my grandmother was in such a good mood that she bought all of us pretzels! We next headed toward The Seas. I was pretty excited to see this one, but was let down. I had thought the Nemo ride here would be in a long completely glass tube through an aquarium, but that was not the case. It was short, and tried to put a whole movie into an incredibly short ride. There was a reason this wasn't in the guidebook 1 day touring plan: it's expendable on any schedule. Still, the line was short. Part of the reason why it's a let-down is that the entire pavilion renamed to Nemo, but the actual part with Nemo was very, very short. If the build-up wasn't so large, it wouldn't really be a disappointment.

We took a look around, and there was a dolphin show going on. Pretty neat!


Dolphin show.

We wanted to see Turtle Talk with Crush, but decided against it as when we got to that area of the Pavilion they were letting more people into the holding pen, and it would've been another 20 minutes or so. Not a bad wait if we hadn't seen everything else in the pavilion already! But as we had, we decided to leave and get dinner reservations.

After much debating, we chose Morocco to eat at, and then headed to SSE.

Next was Spaceship Earth. I had not been to EPCOT since 1993 or so, and SSE was my favorite ride there. It still is. I was absolutely amazed at the first part of this attraction... but I do agree that the last part was a disappointment. Kevin Yee is not lying when he says there is nothing to look at. The first time I had some fun pressing the screen, choosing the options, and seeing my "future". However, each subsequent time I went on it, I felt absolutely no desire to press things on the screen. If I had wanted this sort of experience, I would've just found some sort of Internet Flash game to play.

I don't want this to sound all negative, because I really do enjoy this ride, and up until the descent I swear I had to keep picking up my jaw off the floor of the vehicle. My favorite scene was the part with all the windows and phone lines everywhere. This totally struck a chord in some past memory somewhere... as I could vaguely remember this from time to time when I was at similar places like the Science & Industry Museum in Chicago, but I couldn't put my finger on where this is from!

I skipped the post-show stuff at the end, as all the stations were filled, and I only had one day to experience EPCOT.

Next on the stop was the Universe of Energy. This was probably the low-point of our trip to Epcot. I knew it was going to be dated when I saw the tile mosaic on the inside of the doors. We were admitted into a large preshow area with very little seating, tattered carpet, and a general feel of lack of maintenance. I was pretty shocked by all this, as up until this point everything was very pristine. Then the movie screens came on. One was completely out of focus. The sound quality was poor. I honestly felt like I was at the nearby dollar-theaters in this environment. We were admitted to the theater where out-of-focus projector was once again an issue. Then, the theater broke up and took us to see the dinosaurs. This was extremely pathetic. The dinosaurs were barely moving, seemed creaky, and everything appeared to be covered in a layer of dust. Next the cars all proceeded to a room in which we were in the dark for quite awhile with nothing to look at other than a radio transmitter. I craned my neck, trying to find out if there was something else to look at. NOPE! Once the video came on, I was impressed by the wrap-around screen, but the video was clearly dated. It was hard to put my finger on it, but no one talks about Global Warming anymore the way the video does. I haven't heard anyone say that there were 50 years of oil left since I was in 7th grade! Other facts were just so outdated, and the potential solutions are things everyone who has ever played SimCity knows about. Nothing new here.

Finally, back to the main theaters. We see Ellen beat Jamie Lee Curtis, and Einstein walk out with an oversized fluorescent lightbulb, the type that haven't been sold for probably 10 years as well!

At this point we headed over to the World Showcase. Mexico was one of everyone's favorites back in 1993, and it was once again. I don't remember Donald Duck in it, but it had a short line, and was really cute and upbeat. We poked around Mexico a little bit, and startred walking around the lake. We stopped in Italy a bit to see a street show, which my brother wanted to watch longer. We then met up with our sister who was out of dance practice and just came to Epcot so we all could have dinner.

Dinner at Morocco was GREAT, and was one of the high-points of my entire trip. I had lamb and mint tea. Our waitress was wonderful, (she must've had really good memory, because she didn't need to write down what we ordered) and we even saw a Moroccan Band and a belly dancer!


My sister, myself, brother, mother, and grandmother. My dad took the picture.

The rest of the day was pretty disjointed. My sister hadn't seen anything at Epcot yet, so while my parents and brother went to Spaceship Earth. The ride stopped while the screen was displaying trivia questions on the descent. The trivia questions began to loop. We were on a part of the descent where there was NOTHING to look at, not even the cool LED starfield that they had hanging once we entered the descent field. I looked behind me, I looked in front of me, I craned my neck around to see what I could make out in the darkness. The second a rider begins looking at something other than the focus of the ride is a bad sign. Unfortunately, there was nothing to look at in that tunnel. It really needs to be fixed.


One of the images.

We met up with our parents again in France, and caught that video. Being a fluent French-speaker, it really made me want to hop the next flight to France! It was a very well-done film, and the theater was gorgeous.

We nexted headed over to Germany and poked around the stores. My grandmother is from Germany and has a large collection of Hummels, and was delighted at the Hummel store. She didn't buy any though.

We next went to Norway and rode the boat ride since the line was supposedly 20 minutes. It was a lot longer than that, and the ride was a bit disappointing for having waited that long. There wasn't really anything to look at while in line, which was frustrating. Nothing worse than being in a non-themed queue.

We skipped the travelogue, and headed out to the World Showcase to catch the fireworks. We found a good spot near the Odyssey Center, and watched. I forgot how good Disney fireworks were! The only thing which seemed to needed work was the globe in the middle of the lake. Everyeone was squinting to make out what the images on this globe were, and it seemed to be a bit of a weak link in an otherwise great fireworks show!

I was sad to leave the park after that as I had barely got to see the rest of the World Showcase, but I am going back next year, and must see everything I missed. This really is a two-day park.

All in all, I was glad I came. I still remember this park all those years ago, and love it even more as an adult. I left in a great mood as my family all chattered about everything we saw that day back on our way to the hotel.

Next post: Disney's Hollywood Studios.

[mikeland]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing the trip report!

[Alice's Wonderland]

Very nice and thorough trip report!! Thanks for sharing!!

[nbodyhome]

I just wanted to say it is really interesting (and uncommon) to read a report from someone who hasn't been in so long! I really enjoyed it!

[seenoevil]

Your friend cracks me up - "I want to punch you in the face right now". ha ha! Glad you had a great time!