Thursday, June 11, 2009

WDW 10-Year Anniversary Trip, Day 4, Part 1: Around the World With the Big One

No alarm…getting better…made it to 7:30 this morning.


Donuts for breakfast this morning. We needed something to wash them down. I suggested the champagne, but that didn't go over too well, so I was sent to the food court to refill the mug. No hurry this morning as we're going to Epcot and have just a short bus ride over there. With the luck my snapping has been having on the transportation system, we shouldn't have to wait for a bus.


We head out to the bus stops, and, within a minute, here it comes! I made sure I had my phone charged and ready, because today we were hoping to meet up with Brisully. Also, there was a chance that Todd and Mo and the Badelves family might be heading over.


We go through the turnstiles and head through the gravestones. I felt bad because everyone there for the first time was oohing and aahing about the topiaries (as we were on Day 1). Today, though, we were like "Yeah, yeah…we've seen them, whoopee, outta the way! Please stand clear of the walkways, Por favor mantengase alejado de los senderos." We make our way to, you guessed it, SOARIN and got fastpasses.


Only the fastpasses simply wouldn't come out. What, was there some sort of limit to the number of times you could ride an attraction on a trip? Were they worried that we would become desensitized to the attraction and just think it's okay? Neither key would work for FPs. A CM comes over and forces them to spit a couple out. Then she gives us in-park tickets to use for the FP machines and suggests we go to Guest Services to see what the problem is with our keys to the world. We ran through Innoventions West first to see if the Disney Visa Character Meet was open or not (it wasn't). Then we got to Guest Services, and, the minute I walked in, I just burst out laughing. The guy working behind the desk today was none other than the EXACT same guy who, a year and a half ago, gave me my first nickname on the Lodge. It's too traumatic to mention it here, but, if you don't know about it, head over to Day 1 of the 2005 Trip Report to read about the "hat incident".


Of course, the guy is just as feisty now as he was back then!


He sees the anniversary buttons and, after hearing that it's our 10th, concludes that I must be behaving and have figured out that I should do what she tells me to do.


"Hey! Why is it always the GUY that has to behave? How do you know she isn't the one that causes the trouble?"


Sheri: "Well, DUH!"


Ornery CM at Epcot: 2

Mush: 0


He types "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" into his computer and runs my card. He then says it's demagnetized and asks if I've had it near my cell phone or anything like that. Nope, I'm fairly certain that I didn't do that (though I don't think Sheri believed me). Hey, I'm anal here! The cell phone is always in the right-hand front pocket, and the tickets and FPs and credit cards are on the left-hand side.


Ornery CM at Epcot gives us 2 temporary tickets and says they're good for the parks but not for the hotel. Or the dining plan, I guessed.


Hmmmm….2 tickets from the Soarin FP CM, and 2 tickets from the Ornery CM at Epcot. Plus our keys (which actually worked later on). I considered getting a FP for every attraction and making my own ultimate FP dream plan!


After Guest Services, we strolled over to Club Cool. This was a first for both of us. She already knew about Beverley, so I couldn't do that. Had she not, you would have been guaranteed that I would have done that to her! We wasted a few minutes there until it was time to head over to the breezeway of Innoventions East where the Jammitors (Jamminators) were to perform in a few minutes.





Loved em!


We still had some time before our FPs return times for Soarin, so we ducked into Mouse Gears for a while before heading over to the Land. We got in the final staging for the attraction, and I realized that I had Kronk's entire spiel almost memorized. This ride keeps getting better every time as we both find new things.


We head out and start making our way to the World Showcase. We're eating at San Angel tonight, so we started off with Canada. This tells us just how much we have missed in the World Showcase. You see, the first time we came down here was in March of '01. We were absolutely clueless about what this place had to offer (busy as heck and no plans). More than once I asked where all the rides were in the World Showcase. Plus, I had the luck to make it on Millionaire while down here, so my mind wasn't quite in the parks. The second time down here was with Aaron, and, being almost 3 at the time, the World Showcase would be a tremendous bore to him. While down the second time, however, we started realizing just what Epcot had to offer.


As we walked around Canada, we saw the waterfall for the first time.








Now you know just how flippin clueless we were the first time down there. All throughout the pavilions, we kept exclaiming to ourselves "how in the hell did we miss this?"


We saw O Canada and went through the store there. I resisted the urge to take pics of the moose hats as well as the maple syrup that they sold there. For you WDW Today fans, this was BEFORE the famous Snack, Sip, and Sick episode.




Just because this area is so beautiful.



The United Kingdom was next, and we sauntered into the stores there. Lots of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff there (meaning the boys would love this!). Sheri picked up what she thought was a huge football…she'd never seen a rugby ball before…then she regretted bringing it up as I started reminiscing about playing rugby in college (played both wing forward in the scrum and outside centerback). That was a friggin fun game, especially at the Academy, where there's so much daily frustration that rugby was perfect to release some of that stress!


Sorry…got to reminiscing again.





We looked for Mary Poppins, but she wasn't around. We then walked outside and ran around the maze (I won nyaaaaahhh). Just after we hopped out of the maze (did I mention that I won?), the phone rings, and it's the ringtone indicating that it's a Lodger. Brisully pops up on the caller ID (yes, for most of you, it's your screen-name in my phone). I answer it, and he mentions that he'd just left AK and was heading to Epcot now. We'll meet him at the International Gateway in around 20 minutes. As we crossed the Gateway bridge, we noticed:




Our best guess is that these are members of the evidence team for Water Bottle DNA Procurement. Dang it, we'll have to move again, and we just got the neighbors starting to like us, too! For those folks wondering what I'm smoking, it's a recurring inside joke between DaisyDebbie and us (again, refer to the 2005 report).



We still have some time to kill, so we go over to France and to the scratch and sniff perfume garden.




Sheri sniffed the perfume samples and thought they all smelled the same.


I sniffed the perfume samples and contemplated taking Sheri back to the Pop to "take the nap take the nap take the nap" (and this time actually not take the nap).




Continued...HERE

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