We started off right by hitting up The Great Movie Ride!! It was just as great as it's always been!! I was glad to see that nothing had changed. In the weeks building up to vacation I kept reading about all of these updates to rides and shows. I'm glad the powers that be didn't screw with The Great Movie Ride!! It's truly a classic!
We followed up The Great Movie Ride with Star Tours. Brent's motion sickness did not agree with Star Tours. At all. Thankfully, his reaction was not nearly as bad as it was in Ohio so we were able to continue on with the day. Although, I'm pretty sure Brent had written off Disney and the entire trip at that point.
We hit up The Backlot Tour next. I think the last time I visited Disney World the featured movie while waiting in line was Conair or something like that. This time around it was Pearl Harbor. The movie effects thing at the start was entertaining!! And I noticed the cast members no longer do the ride commentary. It's all automatic now. Boo. I was bummed to see the tour was shortened to include the costumes and carpentry shops, the Boneyard and Catastrophe Canyon. Remember the little street with the Golden Girls house and all of the others? Gone. Boo. Change sucks. But I guess they had to move everything to make room for their motor sports show, which we saw later in the week.
After The Backlot Tour, I took a ride on Woody's Midway Mania. Brent decided to sit out the Woody ride as it spun every whipstitch. So I rode it by myself with a Fastpass. A Fastpass is mandatory for that ride. I don't think it's worth a 30 minute or more wait. It was a lot of fun but it's very short!!
I loved our brief time at Hollywood Studios. I would have loved to head down to Rockin' Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror but Brent and I had lunch reservations in Norway at EPCOT. We park hopped via the water taxi. We arrived in EPCOT at the International Gateway with plenty of time to walk around the lake. We rode the boat rides in Mexico and Norway before checking in at the restaurant. Disney really needs to update the Norway video!! I think Norway deserves a 360 show like China and Canada!
For our late lunch we had reservations at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. Not too long ago, Disney changed this restaurant over to a character dining place. We didn't really care much about it being a character dining place. We just wanted to try some Norwegian food. Our reservation was for 3:05. We arrived at the podium at about 2:50 and finally made it to a table around 3:20. I'm not sure if they were allowing walk-ups so I have no idea if waiting 30 minutes for our "reserved" table was normal or crappy.
We were ushered in to meet Belle! A printout of our picture with Belle was delivered to our table later. I'm too lazy to scan it but it turned out pretty good! HA! Brent got to meet all the princesses as they stopped by our table to chat us up. Brent was called a sailor by Ariel and a beast by Belle. Classic! The food was pretty darn tasty too! I love me some Lingonberries!! The dessert was fantastic!!! We pretty much gobbled it right up before I even thought to take a picture!
After refueling and giving our feet a break, we had a bit of a second wind to start trucking around EPCOT. We wandered around the lake and popped into each country. The China movie was pretty cool. That was the first time I had seen it!
It was a hot and busy day!! We went to EPCOT the very next Friday as well and it wasn't nearly as busy as it was this day. Brent was getting grumpy and started complaining about the crowds. I figured sitting down in air conditioning for a while would be a good idea so we waited for the next showing of The American Adventure. It was nice to sit down in those cushy theater seats for a half hour show!! Even though I've seen it a dozen times, it's always nice to see!! The volume of the show is a little loud though!! Some ear plugs would certainly come in handy in that theater!
The fireworks were great!! There is a whole other story about Illuminations and how I managed to piss off dozens of parents but that's probably for another day. Let's just say if I stake out my place an hour and half ahead of time, don't expect me to be nice to you or your kids when you arrive minutes before show time and expect your kids to have a front row view once the fireworks start going off. I'm going to end my brief rant now as I can already feel my blood pressure increasing just thinking about all of the stroller pushing parents with entitlement issues.
Anywho, I enjoyed the fireworks!! And because the park was open late to park guests, we also enjoyed Spaceship Earth with no line! We showed our hotel card and hopped right on! I would have loved to stick around longer and hit up some of the other Magical Hours rides but Brent was exhausted so we called it a day!!
Brent crashed when we got back to the hotel. I waited around for a bit and met my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and Moxon who were just arriving!!! Mox opened his Welcome to Disney package and we set our meeting time for the morning!! Before I knew it, the morning alarm was going off!!!
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