The children and I left the house on Friday morning, 30 October 2009, and arrived at the airport in plenty of time to park, ride the shuttle, and get through security before our 9:35 am flight to Cleveland. Jim, having flown from Raleigh, met us at the gate in Cleveland, and we spent a comfortable half an hour in the "family room" at the Continental President's Club, catching up and watching TV before catching our flight to Orlando.
Some homework had to be accomplished during our flight, and Aidan and Esme both worked frantically to get a lot done. Esme finished everything but her vacation journal, and Aidan worked on science and math. When we landed in Orlando, it was raining just a little bit, but it was nice and warm. As we had landed early, we decided to add Epcot to our travel plans - we had originally planned not to go there, but there was plenty of time and we saw a billboard for the Test Track ride there. (That was pretty tempting.)
As we drove under the big arch announcing Disney World, the rain stopped, and we parked at Downtown Disney. We walked around the attractions area for a little bit, and then took a water taxi to the shopping and restaurant area. Of course we went to the Lego store first. Here each of the children chose a Lego set, and so did I (we had them shipped home, thank goodness, our luggage would never have stood the strain). Aidan chose a Power Miners set, Esme a Belleville house set, and I picked out a downtown Christmas set that I intend to assemble as a family and display as part of our Christmas decorations. Interestingly enough, the lady who cashed us out was named Wendy, and she was from Michigan.
We browsed a bit around the area and then decided to head for Epcot. We drove over to Epcot and bought our four-day park tickets. It was
hot, and we were still dressed for Michigan weather, but it didn't dampen our fun at all!
Here are the children and I near the great big fountain at the front of the park.
Despite the fact that it was only midafternoon, we were all hungry, as our "brick" of a mini turkey sandwich on the plane wasn't really much of a lunch. So we decided that our first order of business would be dinner - and we chose the Coral Reef restaurant randomly off of the park map. It turned out to be a wonderful choice. The Coral Reef restaurant's main feature is the enormous windows looking into one of the largest aquariums in the United States. It was a real treat to watch sharks, sea turtles, lots and lots of fish, and even a class of diving students swimming around while we had dinner. The food and service were also excellent.
Back outside, we stopped for a few pictures near the restaurant entrance (Aidan was excited just
looking at the monorail track). The palms and flowering trees are just beautiful all over the park system but we were particularly pleasantly astonished here as we had just arrived from the north country, where it is cold and grey.
The sun was setting, shining on the Florida foliage, and reflecting off the big Epcot dome. Every time we passed it, it was a different color.
We rode on The Seas with Nemo and Friends - a really tame ride in a clamshell. Cool scenery!
Bruce the shark had just left this area when I took the picture.
We then entered the aquarium we'd seen from the restaurant side, which had so much more to offer. We saw a dolphin swim by so close and so fast he looked like a streak. It seemed like there were entire schools of fish just everywhere! The manatees were off in their own little room, munching on lettuce. These are rescued manatees; one of them had some really bad scars from a tangle with a motorboat.
After the aquarium, we headed to the Test Track ride, snagged our FastPasses, and went back to the big geodesic dome to ride the Spaceship Earth ride. To our great pleasure (well, Jim's and mine, anyway!) the journey through our planet's ages of technology was narrated by Dame Judi Dench. Our pictures were taken as we entered the ride, and pasted into the "ship's computer" at the end of the ride, showing us going about our daily business in the world of the future. Very cool.
When we went outside again, it was dark...and what a lovely dark! Back over to the Test Track, where we got to hop right to the front of the line, into the holding pen (they probably don't call it that, but they have them all over Disney World!), and eventually into the briefing room for our "vehicle test". To our great surprise and pleasure, in the briefing room was a map of Milford GM Proving Grounds, where my brother Scott works and where my dad worked for many years! The ride is sponsored by GM. :)
We boarded our six-passenger vehicle, and took our car through its paces on two different kinds of bumpy roads, tested the braking with and without ABS, crash-tested (well, the wall opened up at the last second, so not really!), and then did a speed handling test on a big curvy track that goes outside the building. Very, very cool. We were impressed. Here are the kids waiting in the holding pen - Esme looks a little worried that she's about to be a crash test dummy.
See, isn't it pretty?!?
We started around the World Showcase well after dark, and stopped at a stand for drinks. We walked through Mexico, rode the Maelstrom viking boat ride in Norway, wandered through China, Germany, Italy, the American Adventure, Japan, Morocco, France, and the United Kingdom. We arrived in Canada just as the "Illuminations: Reflections of Earth" show started. Fireworks, lasers, pictures, colors, flames...wow. It turned out to be the only nighttime show we saw at Disney and it was really great. We took the long hike back to our car, drove to our hotel (offsite Doubletree) and checked in, and got everybody to bed and sleep.
