Day Two: Walt Disney World January 2011 Trip

Lake Buena Vista, Florida: As the sun rose over the Wilderness Lodge, my family and I awoke to begin the second day of our Disney World trip. I sat on the balcony of our room in the morning and watched the sun rise over Bay Lake with the sound of the Walt Disney Railroad train in the distance. Today’s plan called for us to visit Epcot.

We began the day with breakfast in the hotel at the Whispering Canyon Café. The restaurant had good ratings and was known for their rowdy atmosphere. Our waitress, Hickory, was fantastic. My wife had a Western Omelet and I chose a bagel with cream cheese and bacon. The biggest mistake was ordering a Diet Coke with breakfast. After the playful joking from the waitress, the drink arrived and was in a quart sized canning jar. A laugh was had by all and the meal was great.

After breakfast, we boarded the bus and headed to Epcot to meet my parents and begin our day at the park. The Wilderness Lodge shares the Epcot route with Fort Wilderness, but even with the extra stop, we arrived at the park rather quickly. We arrived at the park shortly after park opening and missed the crowd of people waiting for the park to open.

The first ride of the day was Test Track. Our son finally reached the height limit to ride and was looking forward to riding. There was no line when we arrived so we walked right onto the ride, even skipping the pre-ride briefing. After the first time through, we were talking about riding again so the Cast Member showed us to the back entrance and allowed us to ride again without going all the way out and around. So we switched positions in the car and rode for a second time.

Next ride we rode was Mission Space. This one was for just me and my son, no one else in our group had the courage to ride. We chose the Green version, the less intense version. Once again we were able to walk right on the ride with no line. After riding he wanted to go again, but we chose to rejoin the group and continue our trip around the park.

But next is where I made our biggest mistake. Rather than go across Future World to ride Soarin, I chose to keep touring in order in an attempt to keep from crossing the park back and forth like yesterday and try to save our legs. So we chose to ride Ellen’s Energy Adventure. After the 45 minute ride was over, we then headed to Soarin which now had a 50 minute line.

Because of the long line for Soarin, we skipped to the Living with the Land ride. The boat ride takes you through the Land Pavilion and shows you the different types of agricultural research that they are currently working on and you get to see the area where most of the Epcot restaurant fruits and vegetables are grown.

When we completed the ride, we decided to go ahead and ride Soarin, figuring the line would not get much shorter the rest of the day. About 15 minutes into our wait time, the wait got pretty exciting. A large group tried to push their way through the line to join another part of their group that was already in line. After they cut in line in front of us, my dad and wife said something to them and a verbal assault ensued and one of the parties involved even threatened physical violence. It would not have been so bad if they had asked to move up, but to expect us to just allow their large party through is absurd. But to then threaten violence in front of kids is just not right. Some people need to learn line etiquette; it is not okay to cut people off who were already waiting in line, the right thing would have been to wait in line like everyone else. But hey, the in-line drama helped the 50 minute wait not feel so long. A word of advice to those afraid of heights, ask to be seated in row 3 or skip the attraction altogether.

After Soarin, we rode Journey Into Imagination and Spaceship Earth to conclude our tour of Future World.

We then headed to World Showcase to take a trip around the world. We began the tour in Mexico with a ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour. The ride improved a little with the addition of the Three Caballeros a few years back, but it could still use a major improvement. Right now it is an aging scaled down version of Its a Small World with a Mexican influence. I think there is much that can be done to help this attraction

We then hopped on Maelstrom next door in the Norway pavilion before making out way around the rest of World Showcase. We just walked through the remainder of the countries before stopping in Morocco for lunch. We had lunch at Tangierine Café. My wife had lamb and chicken platter which came with hummus, Tabouleh, and a CousCous Salad with Moroccan bread. I chose the most American of the Moroccan dishes which was Meatballs and yellow rice. We were both pleased with our selections.
After lunch we resumed our trip through the World Showcase. As we passed from France to United Kingdom, we noticed a large cloud of black smoke rising from across the lagoon but off into the distance. As we finished the World Showcase pavilion, the column continued to grow and get darker. Later in the evening when we returned to the hotel, we learned that the smoke was from a 2-alarm fire at Caribe Royale in the Downtown Disney area.
Before leaving the park, we took one more ride on Spaceship Earth and then headed for the park exit. We initially were going to squeeze both Epcot and Hollywood Studios into today’s plan, but our dinner reservation was fast approaching and it was not possible.

So we decided to take a ride back to our hotel using the Monorail system. We took the Epcot monorail to the Transportation and Ticket Center and then switched to the resort monorail. We rode the resort monorail past the Polynesian Hotel, Grand Florida Hotel and the Magic Kingdom before disembarking at the Contemporary Resort. We spent a few minutes exploring the Contemporary before hoping on the boat to head to the Wilderness Lodge. I tried to get our son to ride up front with the pilot of the monorail, but the station attendant advised me that the program was discontinued for safety and security reasons.

We arrived back at the Wilderness Lodge with time to spare before dinner so we explored the resort. We hoped to catch the geyser in action so we headed over there only to find out that it was out of service for repairs. So with explored more of the grounds of the hotel and took a bunch of pictures.

It was then time for dinner. Our dinner reservations for tonight were in the hotel at the Whispering Canyon. Since it was dinner and everyone was wide awake, the restaurant was much more rowdy. Shortly after sitting down for dinner, they called for a horse race and all the kids grabbed a stick pony and ran around the dining room. For dinner, my wife had the skillet which contain chicken, ribs, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and baked beans, all of which was all-you-can-eat. I chose the pot roast which came with mashed potatoes and fresh veggies and our son had a cheeseburger. The meal was average but the cornbread was fantastic.

After dinner we headed back to the room to watch the Wishes fireworks show from the Magic Kingdom and then the Electric Boat Parade on Bay Lake, both of which we had a decent view from our balcony. When we got back to the room, the hotel staff had a card for our son with a signed picture of Mickey and Minnie commemorating losing his tooth while on vacation. After the fireworks and boat parade, I then went down to Roaring Fork restaurant and grabbed three chocolate chip cookies before retiring back to the room for the night.

Below is a slideshow of photos from today’s trip to Epcot. Check back later to read about the final day of our trip, Animal Kingdom.