This post was written by Greg, with photos and comments by Maria.
Day 10 of our vacation and the last full day of our vacation.
We got up this morning, ate some chocolate croissants that we had purchased the day before, and got ready for church.
Just like the previous week, we drove to the LDS chapel across the street from the Orlando temple. When we got there near 9:00 when church was supposed to start, there were suspiciously few cars in the parking lot. We went inside and saw the gymnasium full of chairs, and a choir practicing on the stand. It turns out they were having Stake Conference this week and it would start at 10. And we were early enough to get the good seats! Actually, we had made a commitment with the time-share resort at 11 so it was not possible for us to stay since we'd put off this other appointment all week long. Also, since it was Stake Conference, we couldn't head to another chapel and attend church services there. So we hoped we would at least get points for showing up and went back home to our apartment.
Greg playing his new "Scribblenauts" DS game with Spencer looking on
It's a totally fun game! Seriously, go get one. If you don't have a DS, pick one of those up, too. (:
We spent the next while resting and tidying up since someone was coming over to visit us from the resort. They said it was to conduct a survey which we'd avoided the entire week since they kept wanting to schedule it at a time when we'd be in the park. Eventually a saleswoman showed up and proceeded to give us a half hour hard sell on their time share. I don't fault her in her attempt since we had purchased a trial package and their job was to get us to convert to a full time share purchase. However, there were so many lies and faulty logic in her presentation, not to mention the complete lack of any survey like we were told we were being given, that when she finally left we were both pretty upset. It's not a good method to sell people something if you leave them upset through your attempts. I don't know how many times they are required to hear "No" before they finally accept that answer, but it was at least 10 times before she left.
When she was done, we went out to lunch, since by this time we had very little food left in our apartment. After our GPS failed to find an appropriate restaurant, and driving around all over outside the Disney World property, we finally found a group of restaurants and chose Fuddruckers. Usually I think of Fuddruckers as a slightly costly burger place, but our meal here was probably the best deal we'd had all week to feed the whole family, plus the manager treated us all to free cookies for some reason.
Following lunch, we came home and took an afternoon nap. We planned to eventually get to the parks today, but that plan involved staying until the 9:00 firework show, so we weren't in a hurry to get there until mid to late afternoon.
Just after 4:00 we finally headed out to Epcot one last time. My feet were actually feeling fine from having had over 24 hours of rest from the parks. We drove once again since the bus doesn't pick up in the afternoon. Sadly they still charged full price to park this late in the day.
Pulling the backpack in to the park one last time . . .
It took us three days at Epcot to get around to a family shot in front of the sphere
Went spent the afternoon returning to our favorite rides. We first went and rode on Test Track. We stood in a normal line this time and actually saw the pre-show video that set up the rest of the ride, which made many of the ride elements make more sense. It was also sunny and dry this time which helped outside visibility when the car exited the building for the high-speed run outside.
This was a pretty cool car in the display area walking out of Test Track
Next we headed over to Soarin'. It still had a pretty busy line for early evening so we got Fast Passes.
Next we went to back to Imagination and rode the ride there again. There was absolutely no line there so we just walked right in and onto the ride. Having finished there, we decided to give Mission Space a try. Maria had been warned against this ride which is a simulator of a mission to Mars. Apparently the ride spins around really fast to simulate intense gravity forces of take off and acceleration in space travel. The ride comes equipped with barf-bags. However, there was a less-intense version which doesn't have the spinning part. We decided to go on that version.
Colin playing on the music floor on the way out of Imagination. Different areas light up, and when you step on them, different instruments play.
Greg and Colin in front of Mission: Space. I have no idea why those particular expressions.
It was nearly 6:30 and according to our guide book the ride was only 6 minutes long. We had a 7:30 appointment to meet some people at the park and we still had our Fast Passes to Soarin' as well but figured we could fit this in. We went in and made it fairly quickly to the front of the line. The "ride" itself may have been only 6 minutes, but there was about 15 minutes of standing in various places as they set up the ride with introductory videos. The attraction was actually fun as we all assumed various positions of a space crew: engineer, pilot, navigator, and captain. We are loaded into a small vehicle which moves and shakes around similarly to Star Tours while we have to respond to various situations by pushing buttons. I have no idea what happens if we ignore our job and don't push the buttons, probably nothing, but it was still a nice touch to feel like we were interacting. In the end we were all glad we made it to this attraction and especially to have had one new ride experience to finish our trip on.
A quick photo before our shuttle "took off." This ride is not for the claustrophobic!!
We crossed the park again from there and went back to Soarin'. The line to the ride seemed to take forever despite our having Fast Passes. We went in around 7:00 and it took a half hour. So it was 7:30 when we got out, which was the time we were supposed to be in England in the back part of the park to meet our friends.
I paused briefly to take a picture of the sunset. It was purty.
We ran from Soarin' to the back of the park to our meeting. We had spent a lot of time trying to arrange a meet up time with two other friends who would be at Disney World at the same time as us. Both of these friends were on-line friends that we'd met and interacted with through the old Palisades Toys and Creatus Maximus boards, but had never met in person. Sadly, one friend was unable to make it, but we were able to meet Baz/Ron Baseler with his wife and friends in England. We enjoyed chatting with each other for a while in the last moments of daylight until their dinner reservations were ready at a restaurant there. We said our goodbyes and decided to go look for a place to camp out until fireworks as well as find our own dinner.
Ron and Terry. We were so glad to get to meet and chat with them!
As we were leaving England, we heard a band playing Beatles and went to the back of England to find a pretty entertaining Beatles cover band playing there. We listened to a couple of songs while the boys played in a maze hedge around the stage.
Not too convincing looks-wise, but the music was pretty good.
We then headed over the bridge towards France where we found a nice spot with a clear view of the lake with some spots to sit on the edges of a raised concrete planter. Maria and Spencer stayed there to claim spots while Colin and I went on to find dinner. We returned to the bakery in the back of France where we had found pastries a week earlier. I ordered almost the exact same thing as before, sandwiches on croissants and baguettes, and even more chocolate croissants and another pastry whose name I forget that is a twist with chocolate chips all over it. We brought them back and ate our dinner in front of the lake while the crowds continued to gather in anticipation of the firework show.
Spencer patiently waiting for dinner and fireworks
I took Spencer to find a bathroom after dinner and found a cart outside of France that was selling crepes. I'm not a fan of crepes, but Maria is. So even though we'd had dessert, I couldn't pass up a chance to get Maria an almost real live French chocolate crepe. So I picked it up and got back just as the show started.
All the torches around the lake lit up a few minutes before the show started. It was beautiful.
Colin thought it was pretty neat, too!
The Epcot firework show is called Illuminations, and besides the fireworks, there are also water fountains, lights that synchronize around the world buildings, fire torches, and a giant globe that shows animated images. It was a fun show and was a great way to end our trip with a huge bang! It's amazing they do this show every night as it puts many of the local 4th of July shows to shame.
The giant globe spinning slowly around the lake
Ka-boom!
We slowly headed our way out of the park. We didn't hurry since we didn't want to run into all the traffic on the way out. Plus, once we left, that was the last we'd be in the parks. So we explored a few more shops on the way out and pretty much spent the rest of our money on last-minute souvenirs.
The fountains in front of the sphere were really neat. Every once in a while, they are synchronized to music.
Last shot of the sphere on the way out. I love the purple!
We finally made it back to our car, drove back home and headed to bed anticipating waking up tomorrow to pack everything up and go home.
Day 10 of our vacation and the last full day of our vacation.
We got up this morning, ate some chocolate croissants that we had purchased the day before, and got ready for church.
Just like the previous week, we drove to the LDS chapel across the street from the Orlando temple. When we got there near 9:00 when church was supposed to start, there were suspiciously few cars in the parking lot. We went inside and saw the gymnasium full of chairs, and a choir practicing on the stand. It turns out they were having Stake Conference this week and it would start at 10. And we were early enough to get the good seats! Actually, we had made a commitment with the time-share resort at 11 so it was not possible for us to stay since we'd put off this other appointment all week long. Also, since it was Stake Conference, we couldn't head to another chapel and attend church services there. So we hoped we would at least get points for showing up and went back home to our apartment.
Greg playing his new "Scribblenauts" DS game with Spencer looking on
It's a totally fun game! Seriously, go get one. If you don't have a DS, pick one of those up, too. (:
We spent the next while resting and tidying up since someone was coming over to visit us from the resort. They said it was to conduct a survey which we'd avoided the entire week since they kept wanting to schedule it at a time when we'd be in the park. Eventually a saleswoman showed up and proceeded to give us a half hour hard sell on their time share. I don't fault her in her attempt since we had purchased a trial package and their job was to get us to convert to a full time share purchase. However, there were so many lies and faulty logic in her presentation, not to mention the complete lack of any survey like we were told we were being given, that when she finally left we were both pretty upset. It's not a good method to sell people something if you leave them upset through your attempts. I don't know how many times they are required to hear "No" before they finally accept that answer, but it was at least 10 times before she left.
When she was done, we went out to lunch, since by this time we had very little food left in our apartment. After our GPS failed to find an appropriate restaurant, and driving around all over outside the Disney World property, we finally found a group of restaurants and chose Fuddruckers. Usually I think of Fuddruckers as a slightly costly burger place, but our meal here was probably the best deal we'd had all week to feed the whole family, plus the manager treated us all to free cookies for some reason.
Following lunch, we came home and took an afternoon nap. We planned to eventually get to the parks today, but that plan involved staying until the 9:00 firework show, so we weren't in a hurry to get there until mid to late afternoon.
Just after 4:00 we finally headed out to Epcot one last time. My feet were actually feeling fine from having had over 24 hours of rest from the parks. We drove once again since the bus doesn't pick up in the afternoon. Sadly they still charged full price to park this late in the day.
Pulling the backpack in to the park one last time . . .
It took us three days at Epcot to get around to a family shot in front of the sphere
Went spent the afternoon returning to our favorite rides. We first went and rode on Test Track. We stood in a normal line this time and actually saw the pre-show video that set up the rest of the ride, which made many of the ride elements make more sense. It was also sunny and dry this time which helped outside visibility when the car exited the building for the high-speed run outside.
This was a pretty cool car in the display area walking out of Test Track
Next we headed over to Soarin'. It still had a pretty busy line for early evening so we got Fast Passes.
Next we went to back to Imagination and rode the ride there again. There was absolutely no line there so we just walked right in and onto the ride. Having finished there, we decided to give Mission Space a try. Maria had been warned against this ride which is a simulator of a mission to Mars. Apparently the ride spins around really fast to simulate intense gravity forces of take off and acceleration in space travel. The ride comes equipped with barf-bags. However, there was a less-intense version which doesn't have the spinning part. We decided to go on that version.
Colin playing on the music floor on the way out of Imagination. Different areas light up, and when you step on them, different instruments play.
Greg and Colin in front of Mission: Space. I have no idea why those particular expressions.
It was nearly 6:30 and according to our guide book the ride was only 6 minutes long. We had a 7:30 appointment to meet some people at the park and we still had our Fast Passes to Soarin' as well but figured we could fit this in. We went in and made it fairly quickly to the front of the line. The "ride" itself may have been only 6 minutes, but there was about 15 minutes of standing in various places as they set up the ride with introductory videos. The attraction was actually fun as we all assumed various positions of a space crew: engineer, pilot, navigator, and captain. We are loaded into a small vehicle which moves and shakes around similarly to Star Tours while we have to respond to various situations by pushing buttons. I have no idea what happens if we ignore our job and don't push the buttons, probably nothing, but it was still a nice touch to feel like we were interacting. In the end we were all glad we made it to this attraction and especially to have had one new ride experience to finish our trip on.
A quick photo before our shuttle "took off." This ride is not for the claustrophobic!!
We crossed the park again from there and went back to Soarin'. The line to the ride seemed to take forever despite our having Fast Passes. We went in around 7:00 and it took a half hour. So it was 7:30 when we got out, which was the time we were supposed to be in England in the back part of the park to meet our friends.
I paused briefly to take a picture of the sunset. It was purty.
We ran from Soarin' to the back of the park to our meeting. We had spent a lot of time trying to arrange a meet up time with two other friends who would be at Disney World at the same time as us. Both of these friends were on-line friends that we'd met and interacted with through the old Palisades Toys and Creatus Maximus boards, but had never met in person. Sadly, one friend was unable to make it, but we were able to meet Baz/Ron Baseler with his wife and friends in England. We enjoyed chatting with each other for a while in the last moments of daylight until their dinner reservations were ready at a restaurant there. We said our goodbyes and decided to go look for a place to camp out until fireworks as well as find our own dinner.
Ron and Terry. We were so glad to get to meet and chat with them!
As we were leaving England, we heard a band playing Beatles and went to the back of England to find a pretty entertaining Beatles cover band playing there. We listened to a couple of songs while the boys played in a maze hedge around the stage.
Not too convincing looks-wise, but the music was pretty good.
We then headed over the bridge towards France where we found a nice spot with a clear view of the lake with some spots to sit on the edges of a raised concrete planter. Maria and Spencer stayed there to claim spots while Colin and I went on to find dinner. We returned to the bakery in the back of France where we had found pastries a week earlier. I ordered almost the exact same thing as before, sandwiches on croissants and baguettes, and even more chocolate croissants and another pastry whose name I forget that is a twist with chocolate chips all over it. We brought them back and ate our dinner in front of the lake while the crowds continued to gather in anticipation of the firework show.
Spencer patiently waiting for dinner and fireworks
I took Spencer to find a bathroom after dinner and found a cart outside of France that was selling crepes. I'm not a fan of crepes, but Maria is. So even though we'd had dessert, I couldn't pass up a chance to get Maria an almost real live French chocolate crepe. So I picked it up and got back just as the show started.
All the torches around the lake lit up a few minutes before the show started. It was beautiful.
Colin thought it was pretty neat, too!
The Epcot firework show is called Illuminations, and besides the fireworks, there are also water fountains, lights that synchronize around the world buildings, fire torches, and a giant globe that shows animated images. It was a fun show and was a great way to end our trip with a huge bang! It's amazing they do this show every night as it puts many of the local 4th of July shows to shame.
The giant globe spinning slowly around the lake
Ka-boom!
We slowly headed our way out of the park. We didn't hurry since we didn't want to run into all the traffic on the way out. Plus, once we left, that was the last we'd be in the parks. So we explored a few more shops on the way out and pretty much spent the rest of our money on last-minute souvenirs.
The fountains in front of the sphere were really neat. Every once in a while, they are synchronized to music.
Last shot of the sphere on the way out. I love the purple!
We finally made it back to our car, drove back home and headed to bed anticipating waking up tomorrow to pack everything up and go home.
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