May 6th DAY 3: Our Gran Fiesta

YAWN! Good morning world! Its Epcot Day!

We showered, beautified ourselves, slathered ourselves up with five coats of spf50, grabbed our refillable mugs, hoisted the (much lighter) backpack onto my back with Mr. Freezy Breeze and our HFW bottle firmly strapped to the back pack we were ready for a day of exploring the future and the world. But first… a stop for breakfast at the ASS’s End Zone (tee hee hee… it never stops being funny.) I had a Chocolate Croissant (which is possibly the best breakfast in the world) and Mark had a Bagle and we each had a banana. We were eating light because we had plans for lunch. After eating and drinking a refillable mug full of Power-Aid (Gotta keep hydrated. HFW can’t do all the work.) we were ready to leave. But wait! I realized we left the PhotoPass in the room. So we headed back to the room to get it and to leave our mugs in the room because the idea of lugging them around all day just didn’t sound appealing.

Now we’re ready. Onward to Epcot! We arrived soon enough to find the worlds longest bag check line ever. Three months later we arrived at the back check table and they peaked in our bags and sent us on our way. Special CM entrance…GO! And there it was, Spaceship Earth in all her glory. A quick stop at the Peter Pan topiary for a PhotoPass picture and we were ready to go. Mark had never been on Test Track before so we made that our first stop before the line got too long.

Spaceship Earth and the Peter Pan Topiary

Us with Tinkerbell

I’m not a huge fan of Test Track. I rode in 2000 and I thought it was just “meh”. But Mark really wanted to ride and I was more than willing to give it a second chance. The line wasn’t bad at all when we got there. We waited maybe 10 minutes before we were boarding our 6 passenger car. The ride was pretty much like I remembered it… bumpy, breaks, hot, cold, turn, turn, almost run into something, and then fast. Its pretty much exactly like my commute to work every morning… complete with the almost running into something part. (I live in Southern California… its just a part of life.) Mark said he didn’t hate if but it certainly wasn’t his favorite. He gave it a 6 out of 10 (I give it a 4). To compare, his other ride ratings for WDW are as follows: Splash = 8, Everest = 9 and Great Movie Ride = 10.

Haha! Emissions test... Mark passes that with flying color. And flying wind. LOL!

Our test Track picture. The little girl in the back looks a little scared.

We checked out the new Siemens Project Tomorrow. Mark drove the car of the future and then we did this cool 3D game. Vizzini from The Princess Bride was a skeleton and would talk to us to tell us where to put his parts. Mark and I made a great team and were awarded the title of Top Surgeons. Oh yeah! We know where the liver goes!

Mark drives the car of the future.


Now that we were done with the 91 Freeway… I mean Test Track we headed back to SpaceShip Earth. Now this is an awesome ride! You’ve got Jeremy Irons talking to you, some cool AA’s, Bar-b-que smell and fiber optics. Its possibly the worlds most perfect ride. Except for the people in front of us AND behind us snapping pictures the whole way. Ugh! Talk about ruining the illusion. After we got off I walked up to the people who were taking the pictures, yoinked their cameras away from them and smashed them to bits in front of them.

Nah… I didn’t really. But I had you going for a second, didn’t I?


We were feeling very proud of ourselves and ready to enroll ourselves into medical school but cooler heads prevailed and we decided to try out The Seas with Nemo and Friends. The seagulls out front are great! And the queue is really well done too. Lots of interesting things to look at and they really did a good job of bringing that “beachy” feeling indoors. I almost expected to see Pamela Anderson bounce by the lifeguard tower in slow motion. Boooooiiiinnnng! Boooooiiiiinnnng! We boarded our Omni-Mover Clam-Mobiles and we were off. What a cool ride! What a cool effect! I cannot wait to see how they pull this off for the Subs in Anaheim. And the Big Blue World song sung at the end… woo boy that’s catchy! Although, I will say, there is one mildly scary part in the ride. Mark hid behind me so I could protect him though. Haha!

The Seas with Nemo and Friends

Beth, Mark and friends.



I really wasn’t feeling well at this point. Darn you cold, GO AWAY! We decided to get some HFW and rest for a bit. We found a water fountain and lo and behold… the water was cold! And apparently coldness greatly diminishes the essence of fart found in Florida’s water supply. Epcot scores big points because they have cold water! Way to go, Epcot!

With cold (non-fart) water in hand we decided to try the new Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico Pavilion. There was no line as Jose, Panchito and Donald invited us to board. Now, we enjoyed the original ride quite a bit but we REALLY liked the updated version. It was funny, cute and how could you not like the Three Caballeros? This ride gets an A plus from us.

We wondered the World Showcase until we came to Italy which is where our lunch reservations were. We headed to L’originale Alfredo di Roma (Or Alfredo’s for short) and went to check in. The host was apparently irritated that that people were trying to check in before they were open because he snapped at Mark and many others who attempted to check in. But, I’m sorry, if your doors are open and you’re standing at the check in podium people are going to assume you’re ready for them. Anyway, aside from Mr Snappy Pants the rest of the meal was awesome. There was some rather loud crying from the child in the table next to us but once his parents finally got fed up and took him out it was a lovely meal. Our waitress, Eleonora, was very good, the appetizer of Mozzarella alla Caprese was very tasty and the Alfredo was out of this world. Mmmm! Now I want some more just thinking about it. I’m not a fan of the “cream sauce” alfredo that most of us are used to. This is the kind I like. Cheesy and buttery and oh-so-good!

Lunch at Alfredo's. Yummy!

The air conditioning was wonderful but it was time to explore Japan. I love love love their store there. We picked out some candy for dessert. We got strawberry Pocky, chocolate Hello Pandas and rice candy (because its only 99 cents and you can’t beat that). We stopped to watch the last half of the World Showcase Players in the UK Pavilion (it was rubbish!) before heading over to see Figment. I just don’t know what to make of this ride. Its weird. And Eric Idle as a moon is just plain creepy. I would have liked to see the original version.

Mark was worried about me because with the cold and all I was dragging. He wanted me to be well rested for our Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom that night so we headed back to the hotel at about 2pm. It appeared Mark was tired too because he fell asleep on the bus and didn’t wake up until he dropped his sunglasses. When we got to the room I took airborne when I got into the room and fell asleep lying across the bed.

“Beth! Wake up.” Mark was rousing me from my sleep. It was about 4pm. “Did you hear that?” he asked me.

“Hear what?” was my groggy reply.

“The thunder! It sounded like the maid dropped her cleaning cart off the top floor.” I had not heard anything but I looked out the window and it was POURING. And the wind was so blowey that the rain was literally flying both horizontal and up. More thunder and some lightning. Cool! We decided it was best to not go outside at the moment although I did try to convince Mark it would be a fun game for him to go outside and we could see how long it would take for him to get totally soaked. I was betting on 20 seconds. But he wasn’t keen on that idea. Instead we hunkered down for a while and watched TV while we waited it out. We found Anne of Green Gables on TV (Yeah! My favorite!!) and watched for a half hour until the rain stopped.

With airborne and advil in my system and nasal gel spray up my nose, I was feeling more rested and ready for Extra Magic Hours. We got our wristbands first thing when we got to the Magic Kingdom. We hit up Thunder first, with its herky-jerky lift hill and then ran off to ride the TTA. We rode Buzz and I won for the first time ever. I beat Mark by over 100,000 points. Woo hoo! I was very excited after that. I am the champion my friends and I’ll go on fighting till the end!!

Riding on the TTA


My awesome Buzz score

I have conquered you, Zurg!!

Lunch was hours ago by this time and we were hungry. We decided to give Casey’s on Main Street a shot. We got two hot dogs and two waters so we wouldn’t have to deal with the Magic Kingdom’s HFW. Oh look! They have sauerkraut at the condiment bar. Yummy! We ate outside and watched people feed the ducks and long-pointy-beaked-white-birds even though the sign said not to. But really, I have to admit they were really cute, especially all the little baby ducks that were around. Its hard not to feed cute things. Although, one lady did go a bit far by feeding a duck half her hot dog rather than a little piece of bun. That can’t be good for a duck!

We headed to IASW and we sat in front of a guy who obviously had no idea that using the back of our seat as a drum set might be just a teensy bit annoying. We thought another ride on the TTA might be nice. And it was. It was so romantic because as we were passing the castle, Wishes started. It was one of those perfect moments I think I’ll always remember.

Wishes was over so we decided to ride the Astro Orbiter or the Rocket Jets or whatever they’re called. All I know is they’re on TOP of the TTA platform just like ours should be. Hehe! That was a fun ride. Centrifugal force can be a bone crushing experience. After we wobbled ourselves off the spinny ride we got FastPasses for both Space and Pooh. Don’t ask how. Its top secret.

Wheeeee! Centrifugal force is fun!

I needed ice cream again and this time my 6th sense lead us to the Main Street Ice Cream Parlor. While we were waiting for our ice cream a little boy came in and asked “How much is a cone without nothin’ on it?” LOL! I’m not sure what the answer was because we got our yummy dairy treat and headed out to eat it. After the last sweet, cold and delicious spoonful was gone we were ready to use our Space fastpasses. Unfortunately, Mark was a bad bad guest and stood in the wrong number for our rocket. LOL! Sheesh! Don’t you wish guests would listen better. Haha!

We used our contraband Pooh fastpasses and bounced along with Tigger. The castle looked beautiful on our way out so we stopped to get some pictures before heading to the bus stop. At the bus stop there was a man and his family in front of us. The man was very frustrated because the queue wasn’t set up right and lots of people had to stand out from underneath the covered awning and it was starting to sprinkle. So Mark, with his infinite knowledge of chains and queues and the like switched a few chains around and fixed it so the all the people were able to stand under the awning. I think the guy in front of us was Mark’s new best friend. The bus finally came. It was late and everyone was tired. So tired in fact that the little boy who belonged to the family next to me, fell asleep on my shoulder. LOL!

Two sets of partners.