The Calm Before the Storm
This was a pretty hectic trip. If I limit the scope to everything Disney, my weekend included EPCOT's International Flower and Garden Festival, Dapper Day at the Magic Kingdom, and the debut of the new daytime parade, Festival of Fantasy. On Saturday, we wanted to spend most of our time exploring EPCOT. Since EPCOT is not a traditional theme park, you would have to experience the World Showcase to enjoy the essence of EPCOT. This also leads to why there is a lack of FastPass+ worthy attractions. Currently, your three FastPass+ reservations are limited to a single park; therefore, we weren't free to save any reservations for any of the other parks after we've made our selections. As EPCOT really has only two FastPass+ worthy attractions (Mission: Space and Test Track), we opted to use them at Disney's Hollywood Studios. So our journey begins at Hollywood Studios.
After checking into our hotel, we promptly left straight for Hollywood Studios. We arrived pretty early, but there was already quite a line to get into the parking lot. I am not sure if this is standard practice, but the cast members at the parking booths didn't bother collecting parking fees from guests, nor did they ask to see our annual passports. My guess is that the line was backing up all the way to the entrance of the lot, causing traffic at the intersection. This doesn't mean you should park at DHS, take the monorail to the Ticket and Transportation Center, and take the monorail over to the other parks, just so you can save on paying the $17 parking. In hindsight, just get an annual pass and forget about paying the parking fee all together.
After we squeezed through the entrance, we hunted down a FastPass+ kiosk. We didn't have to go too far as there was a herd of FastPass+ cast members on Hollywood Boulevard towards Echo Lake. We made evening reservations for Star Tours, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and Toy Story Mania! and then made our way out of the park. For those keeping track, Michelle was only going to experience the Tower of Terror queue and not experience the ride portion. We then took a pretty empty tram back to the parking lot and made our way to EPCOT.
During this visit, Disney's Flower and Garden Festival was taking place. Each year in Spring, EPCOT is filled with topiaries of various Disney characters and bright, beautiful flowers everywhere. This is coming from a guy that has bought flowers for a total of three times in his life so far. We for the most part sped through Future World, probably due to the lack of nutrients sloshing around in our stomachs. We made one exception, which was making a quick pitstop through Club Cool to grab several tiny cups full of exotic soda. Actually, make that two exceptions. I spotted a butterfly garden near the entrance to the World Showcase and I guess I just really wanted to check out some butterflies. While it was not the humid environment I am used to in butterfly gardens (e.g. California Academy of Sciences and Six Flag's Discovery Kingdom), the walkways were packed with other guests. Although the butterfly garden was quite small, ducking and diving between people probably added an additional half hour if you were trying to see everything.
Being quite hungry, and probably quite lazy, we took a boat across the World Showcase lake and over to Germany. Once we landed, we made our way through the World Showcase counter clockwise. For the festival, there were food stations that were situated by the countries, offering specific dishes of that country. We ended up passing on these and going to Spice Road Table, which is a restaurant that had opened up in January. The entire menu consisted of small plate items, of which we ordered several to hopefully fill our appetite. We had ordered the Mussels Tagine and the Tingis Sample, consisting of lamb sliver, harissa chicken roll, and Merguez sausage.
By the end of the meal, we still had some room for more. So just across the restaurant, we grabbed a lamb brewat roll and a harissa chicken kebab at Taste of Marrakesh. They were swallowed down before I remembered to get a shot of them.
We had some time to kill before we had to head back to DHS for our first FastPass. Leisurely, we explored the Western hemisphere of the World Showcase.
Along the way, we spotted an assortment of plants and topiaries, which probably used the same amount of water to get California out of their drought. Totally worth it.
We then headed off to explore some areas that we've neglected in the past. First on that list was Germany. One of the reasons why Germany hasn't caught my attention was the lack of rides or attractions in the area. What was there was a few shops and restaurants. Since we've recently ate, all we noticed were the shops that I can barely pronounce. In one of the shops, I did find a few things that were interesting.
Right out of Germany was the (African) Outpost. I didn't quite understand why Africa has a rather pale "showcase" (if you can call it that) in comparison to the other countries. After doing a quick search, The Outpost is a placeholder for a future expansion called the Equitorial Africa Pavilion. Don't hold your breathe though, as it has been a placeholder since 1983. At the very least, they had a rather clever shirt for sale.
Next up was China. While we haven't neglected it, this would be our first time viewing "Reflections of China". As we entered, we were greeted with a very ornate lobby.
Mexico was the last country on our way out. The reason why I've probably neglected it in the past was because the entire area is enclosed in a building. It's practically the same reason why I haven't ventured into Aladdin's Oasis in Disneyland. To enter the area, you pass through an ancient pyramid facade. Once inside, day turns into night (unless it was already dark outside), and you walk into a marketplace full of carts. Around the marketplace were a few attractions and restaurants. One of which was the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros. Like many of the rides (maybe all?) in the World Showcase, Gran Fiesta Tour was also a boat ride. What I found interesting was that shortly after loading, the boat passed by a restaurant, just like how Pirates of the Caribbean in California passes by Blue Bayou. Unfortunately, that's the only thing that I found interesting about this attraction. The storyline involves the Three Caballeros searching for Donald duck. I would much prefer if the ride focused on Mexico's history and culture, which would align with the other World Showcase rides.
After Mexico, we made our way towards Future World. One of the few things there that we haven't done before was Journey into Imagination with Figment. The ride features an omnimover system (think Haunted Mansion) as you are given a tour of the Imagination Institute by Dr. Nigel Channing and Figment. At various points in the ride, the pair sing the song "One Little Spark", a song that is both catchy and annoying. I would say the song is on par with "It's a Small World" in every category. Before I come up with a conclusion, I think it warrants another reride.
Thirsty for something to drink that wasn't water, we grabbed a drink at Starbucks. I'm not sure what Michelle ordered, but it sure is colorful.
While it was almost about time to head over to Disney's Hollywood Studios, we didn't want to wait until we got there to have a meal. So we had a counter service meal inside The Land. By now, our FastPass window for Star Tours had started. Feeling sluggish, we just let that one slip by as we enjoyed our meal.
We still wanted to use up our last two FastPasses. So an hour after eating and a few shots later, we were finally back on the road towards DHS.
With a bit of more time to kill, we practiced more of our forced perspective photography.
If you've been following, you would have known that Michelle would only ride the Tower of Terror if I run 10 miles with her. Although she has a FastPass to the Tower of Terror, I did not run 10 miles. So instead of riding, she at least went through the queue with me and took the chicken exit right before the elevators in the boiling room. Though, I've never seen fowl birds take that exit before.
Next up on our FastPass list was Toy Story Mania! But before we rode that, we saw that Star Tours had a non-existent line. So we rode Star Tours to make up for our missed FastPass. Like all our previous travels through space, neither one of us was the rebel spy. It's probably because we are very good at avoiding the EN-ES-AY.
Between the two versions in California and Florida, Toy Story Mania! in Florida has a much more elaborate queue. While it is nothing like Indiana Jones in California, TSM in Florida crushes the bland outdoor queue found its California counterpart. This ride often reminds me that endurance is required to score well. It's a good thing that this ride was scheduled late in the day, because my arm was quite fatigue just trying to stay above Michelle's score.
The last thing we did was catch the 8:15pm showing of The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. Unlike most shows, you don't physically line up for this show. Instead, castmembers hand out a paper with a return time. My guess that they use this system to manage capacity and at a more microscopic level. If they had used the FastPass+ system, it would be hard to approximate the actual number of guests that appear for a particular time slot as FP+ return times are good for an hour. The entire show appears to take place in a soundstage where the audience is surrounded by the set. One of the set pieces is the Black Pearl, which is where Captain Jack Sparrow and most of the action occurs. The technology to project Jack on the Black Pearl was impressive. I had a hard time figuring out of it Jack was played by a castmember or if it was a digital projection. If it was obvious to you, let me know and make fun of me in the comments below.
With Dapper Day the next day, we dared not stay until DHS' closing. To wrap up, we took a few shots of some empty locations and called it a night.
We have decided that we wanted to get to the Magic Kingdom for Dapper Day by opening. To reach that goal, I tried to prepare as much as I could for the next morning. In the end, I was getting things ready up until 2 AM. Join us in our next post to see how we fare at getting up early.
Next up, Dapper Day and the debut of Festival of Fantasy!
0 comments :
Post a Comment