2015: EPCOT

HEY I'M PRETTY PHOTOGENIC GUYS

EPCOT, as I'm sure I've said many times, stands for the ExPerimental Community of Tomorrow, a concept that has basically nothing to do with the current theme park; it was an idea for a planned community that somehow became a 18-story golf ball. Epcot is cut in two - the front half is called (frantic googling) ummm (asks Katie) "the future spot" and is where the rides are. The back half is the World Showcase, mostly stores and restaurants. Let's cover the ride first, then those of you curious about what we ate can read about the food and wine festival, and the rest of you can hit each other with sticks or do tumblr or whatever kids do nowadays.

Mission: Space

This is a fun ride where Gary Sinise puts you through training for definitely not NASA to go to Mars. The theme is serious, but it's more science fiction than real science (unless NASA is really working on energy shields and hypersleep). The little details really make this ride shine - you go on in teams of four and each get assigned a position (I got Commander) with duties to perform by, uh, pushing a big glowing button when Gary Sinise yells at you. We managed to survive the mission as each button was pressed in time, surely because of my commander skills. (This is one of the few rides where it matters who you ride with - if you get kids who don't push those buttons, you're usually a goner. Luckily, all the members of our crew were pros, and those buttons were mightily pushed).

Ellen's Energy Adventure

This is probably the weirdest ride in all of WDW (which stands for Wow! Disney World!). It used to just be a ride called the Universe of Energy, and when it got upgraded to Ellen's World of Energy, they kept all the dinosaur animatronics. This has resulted in a truly bizarre ride that starts with Ellen having a nightmare about losing a game of Jeopardy! about energy to Jamie Lee Curtis, then has a long dark ride full of dinosaur anamatronics (including, as far as I'm aware, the only place you can see a Ellen anamatronic fighting with a giant snake), then a movie about where energy comes from. If this sounds weird, it's even more weird than you can imagine. Good place to rest your feet, though.

Test Track

This is one of the two super-popular rides at Epcot (the other one being Soarin'). It starts out as you design a car, picking parts and the shape and trying to get a high score in four categories. Last time we made a sparkly purple monster smartcar with a 97 in Efficiency; this time we made a sparkly purple monster, uh, car equipped with a plasma engine that got 95 in power. 

~beautiful~

The actual ride has you get in a car-shaped ride vehicle and go through various tests - swerving around the road, going up and down hills, etc. This part is okay, but the best part is when you burst out of the building and go 65 miles an hour on a track that tilts around. This part is a ton of fun, and I'm sure this is why the wait is so long for this ride (and also, sadly, why it tends to shut down in the rain).

Soarin'

Soarin' is as awesome as ever; I think this is the best ride at WDW (Walt Disney World for you little babies) hands down. Basically, you get lifted in a hanglider into a circular IMAX screen. Even having gone on this ride a few times, the magic is still there. It's so real that I still find myself lifting my feet to avoid brushing the orange trees or ocean peaks I'm flying over. 

The line for Soarin' is also the best spot to find old Disney pros if you need any advice. (The highest IQ area in WDW [which stands for "Wampum Doesn't Work"]  is the fast-pass line for Soarin'; the lowest is the bus from Downtown Disney to anywhere.)

Living with the Land

This is a boat ride where the first third is a little boring talking about how great Mother Earth is and how if you litter, well, gosh, I'm just so very disappointed in you. The second two thirds you go through a greenhouse and are legally obligated to take a ton of pictures of lettuce being grown using the innovative nutrient film technique. This is more interesting than it sounds. One of these days we're going to take the Behind the Seeds walking tour, if my high arches can take it. (It's hard at WDW [which stands for "Warble Darple Doo"] for us high archies!)

Little Nemo Ride Where You Get In The Same Giant Clams as Ariel's Ride Although The Little Nemo Ride Was There First So I Guess More Accurately In The Ariel Ride You Get In The Same Clams As The Little Nemo Ride

I don't have much to say about this; this is one of the shortest rides out there and basically goes Nemo gets los- oh, here he is. IT'S A BIGGG BLUEE WORRRLDDD
This ride uses some kind of wizadry where they show fish tanks and superimpose Nemo and his computer generated buddies on it; the time we went on we saw both a lil' shark and a dolphin if you looked past Nemo yelling at his dad into the real aquarium. After the ride you can check the aquarium out. Last time we were here two manatees were bumping into each other derpily; this time they were either asleep or busy evading income tax. (Probably the first one. I don't know what taxable income a manatee would have. I mean, they have lettuce, but it's literally the green plant, not as in money. I'm pretty sure.)

Captain Eo

I remember in one trip report I wrote "Captain Eo is BACK, motherfucker" and sure enough Captain Eo is still BACK, motherfucker. This is a very charming 3D movie where Micheal Jackson, a two-headed muppet, grumpy robot, and one of those blue keyboard-playing elephant from Star Wars fight the Borg by shooting 80's special effects at them. This is a perfect slice of nostalgic cheese, as well as a nice big helping of classic Micheal Jackson, and I really recommend seeing it at least once. (Maybe twice if you really enjoy 80's MJ yelling "Hooter!!!!!" at a small blue elephant.) My only complaint is that the floor where you wait to go into the theater is sloped just enough to bother my feet.

Journey into Imagination with Figment

This is a tame ride for kids all about how great using your imagination is, guided by Eric Idle and a purple cartoon dragon who enjoys releasing skunk gas smells on unsuspecting audiences. Apparently this replaced a famous old Figment ride you can see muddy ridethroughs of on YouTube. The current ride is pretty cute, although it has one of those trademark Disney songs you will never, ever, ever be able to forget no matter what you do. Also features Eric Idle's face as the moon singing it when you get to the end.

Just Realized I Forgot To Mention Spaceship Earth And I Took A Picture And Movie Of It To Use Where The Movie Might Not Work, We'll see

This is the que. Did I take this picture off center? Ahhh, shit.

This is the ride in the globe. Good chance to sit down. Let's see if this movie I took of stick figure me with a weird head living in the future worked!

** UPDATE**

It did not work. :(

World showcase

The World Showcase has two rides and one cool movie. The first ride is a slow boat through Mexico's ziggeraut. This is a little weird. The start of the ride has you going past an Aztec pyramid and passing giant stone heads before you get to movie screens showing two birds looking for Donald to play a concert with. It's a little weird where the two parts overlap; at one point there's a screen of two cartoon birds chasing kids around looking for Donald over a statue who seems to be motioning up at the TV. "How do you like this mayhem?" he seems to say. "My civilization was destroyed, but do you like these cartoon birds?" It's weird. Katie says this ride used to have vendors following you on the video screens, which doesn't sound like a great advertisement for Mexico.

The second ride is undergoing rennovation; Maelstrom, the boat ride in NORVAY, is being turned into a Frozen ride, which isn't ready yet. Sadly, I think the goofy 1970's era movie about how great NORVAY is and the most cool, powerful and attractive thing you could do is come to NORVAY will be gone, but I'm okay with that.

The cool movie is in the American section, and is basically a history of America narrated by Ben Franklin and Mark Twain. However, I don't recommend seeing this show; the finale is an incredibly annoying, catchy song about America spreading its golden wings that will be using up precious real estate in my memory until long after I'm dead. I'll be in Hell rapping with Atilla the Hun, and he'll be like "Tell me about your life," and I'll be like "Golden biiiiiiird, you must keep dreaaa-aaaaaaming now!" 

Also, before the show a bunch of period-dressed singers come out and sing about AMERICA, and god help 'em, you just can't a capella sing the Consitution without it sounding super goofy. (These people have great voices, but even they can't manage to pull of singing "To provide.... for the comMOONNN.... wellllFAAAAAREE!")

There are other movies - China and Canada have eight-screen ones where you stand in the middle and have a 360 degree view - and France has a movie I only saw when I was here on a school trip lo these many years ago. I don't really recommend any of these. The 8-screen movies are kind of a neat novelty, but standing that long hurts my feet, and the Canadian one attempts to have a sense of humor and then closes with a song half in English and half in French from the winner of Canadian Idol. Yes indeed.

There's also many stores & restaurants. We ate at Nine Dragons in China for the first time, which was really good. We also ate inside the Mexican pyramid, which had great food, but our waiter disappeared for half an hour two separate times, so I hesitate to recommend this unless you have some time to kill.

chillin @ 9 dragons lol

Also, we got poured on while doing the Food & Wine festival. I hesitate to just call this rain; it poured and poured and poured. I ended up eating chicken nuggets hiding under an overhang next to the bathroom. Good nuggets, though.

Food & Wine Festival

It was too hot and too crowded to do the whole thing, but we covered a pretty good amount of ground. In order from the passport they give out:

Dominican republic:

Souffle de Yuca (Yuca Souffle topped with Griddled Cheese)
Katie: The griddled cheese was interesting and it was fluffy. I'd get it again.
Nick: Couldn't eat it because of the cheese. Thanks, Nobama. (Hey, how are these Obama jokes aging? You're a lovely audience.)

Caramel Flan with Rum-roasted Pineapple
Katie: Pineapple was too much.
Nick: Flan was good, rum-roasted caramel was a little weird; the rum had a bitter aftertaste that didn't go with the flan.

Refreshment Port:

Croissant Doughnut with Cinnamon and Sugar
Katie: That was fuckin' delicious.
Nick: Katie liked this so much she was tearing chunks out and moaning "FUCK THIS IS GOOD". So, good. 

Fried Chicken Chunks with Dole Pineapple Sweet and Sour Sauce
Katie: I didn't have too many of these. (Too busy eating the donut)
Nick: Very tasty, although I don't think they could find a less appealing name for this than "chunks". Nobody wants to eat "chunks". Great with BBQ sauce!

Greece:

Greek Salad in a Cone
Katie: Uh... just tasted like onions.
Nick: Didn't taste like anything; literally it was like wet lettuce in a cone. What happened here, Greece?? Ya done goofed!

Spanakoptia
Katie: Spinach and cheese filled pasteries. It was okay. Very hot!
Nick: This had my enemy spinach and my arch-enemy cheese so I didn't have any, although the name sounds like "Spankotopia", which is a place I don't want to live.

Patagonia:

Beef Empanada
Katie: I don't even remember this. I think it was okay?
Nick: Apparently I really like empanadas, because this was very tasty. I think the beef was a little bit spiced which was nice.

Grilled Beef Skewer with Chimichurri Sauce and Boniato Puree
Katie: I don't think this was very good. Or was it? I don't remember. I guess it can't be that good if I don't remember it. 

Nick: I have no idea what "boniato puree" is, but it tasted like mashed potatoes and was good. The beef skewers
were okay, but I thought the chimichuri sauce was grease, which should give you some idea of how it tasted.

New Zealand:

Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney
Katie: I don't remember this at all.
Nick: I just don't like meatballs, sorry. SORRY meatballs. (sorry you SUCK)

Seared Venison Loin with Wild Mushroom Marsala Sauce and Kumara Dumpling
Katie: I'm surprised I liked venison.
Nick: If you told me this was beef I would have believed you. The kumara dumpling is like a bread bowl the, uh, loin came in (doesn't that sound appealing)? Good, not great.

We got rained on hard af fam.

Australia:

Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies
Katie: This is pretty good. Served just like on the cooking shows!
Nick: I don't really like meat on the bone, so I wasn't a huge fan of this. I accidently typed it as "Grilled Lamp Chomp".

Lamington Yellow Cake Dipped in Chocolate and Shredded Coconut
Katie: This was really good. It's a little tiny ball of chocolate and coconut and it's very delicious.
Nick: I'm not sure why this is called Lamington, which as far as I know is one of the stuffed toys on Doc McStuffins. Anyway, I tried to take a no-coconut bite of this, but I'm afraid I was defeated by my old nemesis, coconut. Haven't you ruined enough baked goods, coconut?!

Mexico:

Chilaqulies de Pollo: Corn Chips layered with Seasoned Chicken, Queso Fresco, Sour Cream and Cilantro
Katie: I would have eaten this as a meal!
Nick: I think this was my favorite dish at the whole food festival; slightly spiced chicken and flaky baked corn chips. My only complaint is that it was a little hard to eat (Katie tried to get a bite on her fork and the whole upper layer came off). So good we went back for seconds!

Pastel de Elote con Queso: Sweet Corn Cheesecake
Katie: This was super good too. They should just serve these in the restaurant.
Nick: Corn cheesecake sounds weird, but this was my second favorite dish - kind of like sweet corn flan. I ate two!

China:

Gaoli Beef Slider
Katie: I really wish I had written all my thoughts down at the time. More like a hamburger that you can eat without having to deal with all the meat. The beef was good,  but it's not like I'M A BIG WAD OF MEAT YOU NEED TO PUT IN YOUR MOUTH
Nick: Very tasty, although there were a few too many onions for me. I'd make a meal out of four or five of these.

(Maybe with the next item as the appetizer)

Chicken Pot Stickers

Katie: Super good!
Nick: They're pot stickers. I don't have much to add; very tasty pot stickers.

On that slightly underwhelming note, that's everything that happened at Epcot (and possibly a few things I made up).

Now who wants to see 10 billion blurry pictures from The Land??! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Welcome to HELL, hybrid bass!

I don't know why they're raising alligators. Do people eat these?

THE INNOVATIVE NUTRIENT FILM TECHNIQUE

I did not try these.

Wow, I really destroyed the page formatting adding captions to these

These rotate!

MUSTARD

2015: Day 1 - Arrival & Introduction

(A cartoon dog in a suit steps up to a podium and adjusts his glasses)

Oh, hello there! It's that time again - we're at Walt Disney World (or WDW, for you old pros) for 11 (!!!) days. We're taking a break from our careers as breakdancing guidance councillors who let kids know that real men use hugs not drugs for nice long vacation in Central Florida. I didn't get to sleep until after 11 the night before leaving and woke up at 4 am on departure day and had a hard time getting back to sleep because both cats realized I was up when I went to the bathroom and ran in there demanding I pay attention to them. As a result, this trip report may be a little bit more loopy than usual.

(curtain raises)

We got to the airport and went through security (held up only by the TSA agents telling us we were the most cool, powerful and attractive people at the airport) and had a uneventful flight to Florida. 
A slightly interesting (translation: not interesting at all but I'm putting it in anyway) note I spotted in the men's room at the Albany airport - a passive-aggressive little plaque next to the hot air dryer stating that using a hot air dryer saves the earth and is more hygienic than using paper towels. "Huh, that's really interesting!" I thought, grabbing a handful of paper towels.

Once we got to Florida we used Disney's hassle-reducing service known as the Magical Express, where you put luggage tags on your checked luggage, and they pick it up and deliver it to your room for you. All you need to do is get off the plane, find the Magical Express area, use your Magicband (more on this later), and you're driven right to your resort.

Before we left the airport, we saw a Pinkberry ("Huh. Look, a Pinkberry") and I went to the bathroom and saw a sign saying that, sure, use those paper towels over there if you don't mind thousands of acres of rainforest being destroyed just so you can avoid using a perfectly good hot air hand dryer, it's fine. "Huh, that's astounding!" I thought, grabbing two handfuls of paper towels.

Yes, I know this is a picture of the Polynesian before we got to the Polynesian, but I have a LOT of Polynesian pictures to fit in here.

** HUSBAND TIP **

If your wife says something sweet like there's nowhere she'd rather be and nobody she'd rather be there with, "you too" is not a great answer, but it is much better than "I agree on the place, but I'm afraid that you're honestly my second pick to Samus Aran, because she has the incredible power of super-bombs and the magma-defying Varia Suit".

Don't say this thing either.

We're in the "Aotearoa" building with a nice view out on the garden from our balcony. The monorail comes right to our resort, and you can see it pass by from our room, which means I'm going to have to remember to close the blinds before someone sees my epidermis.

As a quick refresher, there's six total parks at Disney World: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Downtown Disney (not really a park so much as a giant shopping center), and two water parks we never go to. This is for a few reasons; if want to cool off we'd probably just hop in the pool instead of getting on a bus and riding to a place with giant waterslides, and neither one of us really likes being seen in our bathing suit (Katie has one from Lane Bryant that makes her look great but apparently isn't super comfortable, and I don't like to reveal the second mouth in my chest that's always talking about David Tennant.)

David Tennant sans makeup

Today since we're both a little fatigued we just went to the Animal Kingdom for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a big jungle-themed restaurant full of anamatronic animals. (There's also a huge aquarium you can walk under. We saw a fish on his side parked over a bubbler, but before I could get a picture of it the hostess came up and yelled KATIE HAAAAA-MERRRRRR!!! because our table was ready.)

Katie wore both pairs of glasses and her novelty pipe for most of the trip.

As it turns out with our deluxe dining plan, we have a life-ending 66 table service meals, each one being a appetizer, entree, desert, and non-alcoholic drink. I guess we'll end up walking it off. We both got the South China Chicken Salad, which I remember from last trip. We also got replacement Rainforest Cafe jugs. I'm very particular about these - they have to be 32-36 oz with a snap lid (NO TWIST ONS). Rainforest Cafe is the only place I've been able to find these, so we had to get two. NO, the 64 oz. Dunkin Donuts mugs aren't the same. They're too big, MOM. Sheesh.

After our huge salads and desert (mango sorbet for Katie and a root beer float for me) we were pretty stuffed, so we headed back to the resort. First, though, I went to the bathroom and saw a sign yelling "Only stupid little babies who hate Mother Earth use these paper towels for chumps instead of this amazing Dyson hot air dryer!"
"Huh, that's amazing!" I thought, grabbing two big handfuls of paper towels.

CAPTION: SALAD BIG

THINGS I LEARNED FROM A MOM TALKING TO HER SON ON THE BUS RIDE HOME FROM ANIMAL KINGDOM:

Space Mountain is "Mount Everest" (not sure I heard this right), and if you go there you will have "a booger explosion" (I'm sure I heard this right).

I also saw a kid sitting there with a really funny expression of tired concentration on his face and I kind of wanted to take a picture, but that would probably be a little creepy. ("Why, yes, I did just take a picture of your son. It's for my tripreports! I have a whole bit where they want me to use a hot air dryer but I just use paper towels!")

That's about it for today, although I wanted to talk about the magic bands a little bit. These are wristbands that basically take care of everything you need at Disney - it's your room key and credit card in one; you use it to pay for meals (on the meal plan or linked to your credit card), open your room, get into the parks, and set up your fast-passes. The way Disney has these set up is amazing; as soon as we used our magicbands at the Magical Express kiosk, Katie got an email from the resort letting us know our room wasn't quite ready yet. Disney really is its own little world with these, far away from the little bit of Central Florida your bus (excuse me, motor coach) drives through, the slightly skeezy Central Florida where you can get "Hong Kong Cuisine" and "MASSAGE" in the same strip mall. (And that's not a bad thing, although my legs could use a MASSAGE after all this walking. Oof!)

TOMORROW: Our first foray to the Magical Kingdom ends on a cliffhanger as Katie becomes the Purple Ranger and uses her mighty zord to foil Lord Sledge's evil plans. (ED. NOTE: This joke was written when Power Rangers Dino Charge season 1 was on the air and is now terribly dated; of course it turns out the Purple Ranger was Miss Kendall, and Lord Sledge was defeated when the Red Ranger crashed his ship into Earth. Please feel free to change "Purple Ranger" to "Silver Ranger" and "Lord Sledge" to "Heckle" as appropriate. THANKSSSS)

Found this in my photo roll