Day 19 - Epcot

TLDR: Unplanned visit to Epcot to take one last peek. Test Track, Nemo, Soarin’ & Spaceship Earth all done before the rain decided we weren’t going to continue. Home, changed and dinner. Weather cancelled our late night Magic Kingdom plans, so we hit a Comic Book store instead where the kids spend the last of the remaining dimes they had.

The penultimate day :( We decided to visit Epcot although we didn’t really have it in the schedule originally, but we’ve returned to every other park twice and there are a few very good rides here (I’d also class Mission: Space as a very good ride though Ann hates it but it’s closed right now).

I feel the need, the need for speed!

We missed our first two scheduled Fast Passes as we were up a little later again today but we’re on time for the best one: Test Track! Me & Ro were up against the other three and we won! (competitive till the very end :P). We scored 212 to their 199 so it was close but in the game of car design you win or you die (GoT SUNDAY BABY!!!). Oh and I didn’t look online for design tips or anything… ;) It looked like we just made it as it started raining (as Test Track has a section outside they usually shut it down).

Next, we visited The Sea with Nemo & Friends. A gentle ride looking for Nemo mixing in animation and real life fishees. Good for the kids, but they sung more songs that weren’t in the film again, hmmm. It ended with a huge aquarium, with loads of different fish and sea creatures, including Clownfish and Blue Tangs (which is what Dory is, which I didn’t actually know and had to look up) and Manatees (weird looking hippo things).

Moving on we had Soarin’ next, awesome ride flying you over different scenic locations all across the globe. My favourite is the islands scene(which I’ve been reliably informed by Robert is part of Fiji), you can actually smell the ocean as you fly overhead. Disney is one of my favourite places in the entire world, but transport me to that island for a day and Id be more than happy!

Now at this point, we planned to walk around the World Showcase to mainly meet the characters, take photos and see the sights (there aren’t really any rides in the World Showcase save for the new Frozen one). However it was raining. Hard. And it was forecast to rain for the next few hours, as we were a little brazen not bringing our rain jackets (for the sole purpose to reduce the amount we were carrying really), we thought it best to cut our losses and head for home. Heading to the exit we decided just to do one more ride, which was a really good one to finish on - Spaceship Earth! Me and GG in a cart this time as I was interested in what she chose for her future (there is an interactive part at the end of the ride where you can choose your own futuristic lifestyle). She chose a Doctor and hot chocolate as her favourite options (which was a little weird but I went with it).

And that was it for Epcot, never really planned a return trip but we were all glad we did it, it was just a shame we couldn’t hit the World Showcase and meet the characters (esp Elsa ;) ). Home to get a quick change before going out for dinner.

Now we planned Olive Garden for our last night (tomorrow night), but as we couldn’t decide on anything else and we were early enough, we just went tonight. We go seated right away (I think Patrick was more gutted than me about not getting the half price drink option while we waited on a table - HAHA). Seafood and pasta, really cant go wrong. And throw in some Olive Garden bread sticks and a huge salad and you have an amazing dinner, once again. (we were hungry and hadn’t eaten anything all day so don’t judge, ok? :P). One of the best restaurants all round for us.

The best laid plans (part II)

The plan was Magic Kingdom tomorrow and as we didn’t want to stay for the FULL day we thought we’d go tonight and catch the fireworks and light show. However, that rain we mentioned early hadn’t really gone away and it was forecast until late, so instead of having a wet experience at MK and them likely cancelling the fireworks due to the inclement weather, we opted to go elsewhere instead…

That place was a comic book store. Coliseum of Comics as its formally known. We had spotted it the night before whilst at Super Target and Patrick, with his superhuman memory, said he wouldn’t mind visiting it (three or four times to be more exact, superhuman memory he may have, but superhuman patience, thats another story). We shouldn’t have went - it was amazing (and likely to cost us a pretty penny). The walls were lined with backdated comics, some of which were really up to 900 bucks! They had back issues for everything imaginable. Patrick picked up an original Ghostbusters and Hand Solo comic from the 80’s, as well as a stack of others. Robert picked up 3 rare Pokemon cards with his last 20 bucks (I know, I know - three cards, THREE! Its his thing though and he’s very knowledgeable about it). Me being me, I went for some Harley Quinn novels and comics including a alternate inked cover of Harley’s Little Black Book #1. I also picked up a signed print of the aforementioned cover and also an Alice in Wonderland print by the fantastic artist J Scott Campbell. :GEEK!!!: Ahem…. So yeah, wallet was a little lighter after leaving there and it was a good job we found this at the end of the holiday otherwise we would have had no money left after the first few days!!!

Patrick’s Fun Fact time (sorry I forgot about it today so pulled it from the archives at the last minute before submitting):

> The spadefoot toad smells like peanut butter!

Mmmm toads. Anyway, home then and it was time to do that horrible thing we were all dreading, pack the rest of our cases. We bought space for an extra case for the trip home and just as well, we’re pretty much on the allowance for all six cases! I think we just about made it. A little sad that the room now looks empty but we have our last day tomorrow at Magic Kingdom and we are gonna rock it! :)