Disney World Day 2 - Epcot

We spent day two of our Disney World adventure in Epcot. Our hotel is pretty close to Epcot so it was a short shuttle ride over to the park. Today we got a wheelchair for my grandpa right from the get-go and it worked much better. When we got into the park we had two choices for our first activity. Soarin' Around the World or Test Track. Since my grandpa was willing to try Soarin' we headed over there first.

Soarin' Around the World is an amazing ride. When it was Soarin' Around California that was cool, but the new one is spectacular. We were really excited to share that with my grandparents. It was a little bit of a hike to get over to the ride. Everything at Epcot is pretty spread out. Once we got there we had no trouble getting right on the ride. I have noticed the queue areas at Disney World are much better than the queue areas at Disneyland. I have no trouble navigating the wheelchair through the lines and at Disney World, all the rides seem to have a much larger capacity so they move people through fairly quickly. We all really enjoyed Soarin' Around the World. It was the perfect start to our day in Epcot.

As soon as we got out of the ride my grandpa noticed there was a "sweet shop" where he could buy a couple of breakfast pastries. We made a stop and all got something to eat. Alison and I shared a whoopee pie that was pretty good.

Next, we walked right onto Living with the Land. It is a boat ride where they talk about the history of agriculture and then takes you through gardens where you can see some of the innovations that Disney's agricultural center is putting into practice. We mostly went on this ride because we thought it was one that my grandpa would enjoy, but Alison and I also learned a lot and enjoyed it. The gardens at the end were really fascinating and since each of the plants, they had pictures of the food you could try that included that ingredient it got us excited for the food and wine festival (emphasis on the food!).

We walked over to Journey through the Imagination with Figment. It was an interesting little ride, but I didn't care for it much. The good thing was that my grandpa came on it with us. The most memorable thing about the ride was the terrible skunk smell in the room of smells. You are all geared up for some type of nice smell - chocolate or flowers and they pump in skunk. We also rode on the Nemo and friends ride. This was also a family-type ride and was really well done. It retold parts of the Finding Nemo story and continued the conservation theme we saw throughout the parks. We were thinking about going to Turtle Talk with Crush, but the entrance was so poor for wheelchairs that we decided to skip it. 

We headed back out to the front to get some pictures with the iconic Epcot ball in the background. My grandpa questioned whether we had enough pictures yet - our answer was of course not!

Then we had a fast pass for Spaceship Earth. This was another family ride so we all got to go on it together. It was a slow-moving ride that went through the history of mankind/technology. Alison wasn't really a fan of this ride, but I thought it was interesting. In fact, I may have been the only person who thought this ride was okay. 

Our next stop was Test Track. This ride is more intense so Alison, my grandma, and I waited in line, while my grandpa waited outside. On our way over my grandpa decided he wanted some popcorn so we stopped at a stand and he bought a refillable popcorn bucket for himself and for my grandma. Alison also got some popcorn (not in a refillable bucket). My grandpa volunteered to watch my grandma's popcorn bucket while we waited in line. While we were in the queue they made an announcement that they can't make accurate readings during inclement weather and that incoming weather may delay the ride. We were worried that it could be raining on my grandpa so they sent me back outside to take him an umbrella. I made my way back through the line and to Alison and my grandma right as they let us into the design room. We designed a car with lots of power and responsiveness, but it was lacking in the other areas. That was okay with us. Our goal was to create a car that was as fast as possible. After we designed the vehicle we got onto the ride. Predictably our car won in the power and responsiveness categories but was low everywhere else. The ride itself was pretty fun, but not my favorite. Alison and I both agreed that we liked Cars in California Adventure better, even though this ride went a lot faster. We finished the ride and found my grandpa. He quickly explained that my grandma had left the lid off of her popcorn and that it had "evaporated." A lot of popcorn evaporated during our trip. 

We have no idea where the pictures are taken on these rides...

We were mostly done with rides so we headed over to the World's section. We started off eating around the world. Since it was food and wine we walked to each of the booths (usually representing a country) and looked to see if they were offering any food that looked good. Each booth had snack-size dishes and desserts. Our lunch ended up being a bunch of these snack-size treats. My favorite thing we had were the Greek nachos. The most popular booth we visited was the Hawaii booth. We got two savory items and two desserts from that booth. We loved the food and wine festival. The food was truly amazing. 

Loving it!

Won't share...

Okay, fine

It was a little rainy in the afternoon. There were even a couple of downpours. Fortunately, it passed quickly. We would usually duck into a nearby shop and wait for a couple minutes while it rained and the sun would come right back out. This kept the temperature quite pleasant throughout the day. 

We had a fast pass for the most popular ride at Epcot - Frozen Ever After. This ride is located in the Norway section of the park. When we were first walking through the World section we headed in the wrong direction. We made it to Canada by the time we realized we needed to turn around and make it to our fast pass. It was a fun boat ride with a lot of music from the show. Great ride - although it was a little bumpy for my grandparents. We came out of Frozen and it was pouring rain - fortunately, the ride ends in a gift shop and we waited it out and it passed in about ten minutes. 

We continued our journey around the world. We stopped at various world showcases and explored. When we got to America we wanted to see the show. We walked into the main building just in time to catch the start of the Voices of Liberty. They are a very talented a capella group. They sang Disney songs, railroad songs, and patriotic songs. This was definitely a highlight of our day. 

From the performance, we went right into the show "American Adventure". It was a great recap of US history narrated by Ben Franklin and Mark Twain. It combined animatronics, music, and video into a fun little show. It sure seemed like my grandparents really enjoyed this one. 

One of our next stops was the Japanese portion of the World Showcase. My grandpa was really excited about this section because he served his mission in Japan in 1962. He actually told us quite a bit about his mission during this trip. On our way in we passed some Japanese girls who were welcoming visitors. My grandpa pointed out we didn't say hello to them. I was confused we hadn't been saying hello to the greeters at any other station, but then I realized he wanted to speak to them in Japanese. After we walked through the shops and my grandpa taught us about chopsticks, fans, and Japanese characters we stopped by the booth with the Japanese girls on our way out. My grandpa talked to them in Japanese. They were all so shocked that he could speak their language. He told them all about serving as a missionary in Japan. It is really impressive that over 50 years later he still can converse in Japanese. 

We continued around the World Showcase until around 5:30. At that time we had to run back to Norway to meet Anna and Elsa. My friend Darci works at Disney World with Elsa. Her family was also in town the same weeks as us. We met up with Josh and his family to stand in line. It was fun to continue catching up with him and his family. The line was fairly short. We went in ahead of Darci's family. We met Anna and then Darci introduced us to Elsa. Then Elsa asked Anna to come over and we got to meet them together. It was a magical moment. Once we were done the Maxwells came in. We stayed to watch as Josh's two little girls got to meet Anna and Elsa and then give "warm hugs" to Elsa. That was a pretty magical moment. The looks on their little faces were priceless. 

The paparazzi

We had dinner reservations in the Japan section of the park. Epcot is my grandpa's favorite park and he wanted to eat at a Japanese restaurant so we booked Tokyo Dining. It was excellent. Later my grandpa would tell us that it was his favorite meal of the trip. The food was very good and the service was excellent. Our Japanese waitress was shocked when my grandpa talked to her in Japanese. My grandpa had a great time telling us all about eating in Japan and showing off his speaking skills. He told us all about sukiyaki and how is it traditionally eaten with a raw egg. Alison and I had sushi, which was quite good. This was a real highlight of the trip. You take away all of the rides and shows and food and the real essence of what made this such an awesome trip was that we had the opportunity to spend so much time getting to know my grandparents better. We made a lot of memories, but even more importantly we grew close through the conversations that we had on this trip. 

View from our table

After dinner, my grandparents headed back to the hotel. We walked out with them. On our way back in Alison and I stopped by the last ride we hadn't tried in Epcot yet - Mission Space. This ride spins you around in a giant centrifuge so that it feels like you are actually taking off in a spacecraft. There are two intensity options. We both chose orange, which is more intense. You could really feel the g-force on this ride. It really feels like you are being launched into space. It was pretty fun, but by the end, I was getting a little bit motion sick. Ride times had really calmed down in the evening and you could ride any ride you wanted. 

We headed over to the World's Showcase area to catch the night show IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. It was a water/firework show. It was epic. We really enjoyed it. While we were waiting for the firework show I was watching the Yankees Twins wildcard game on my phone. The park closed after the show and we headed back to our hotel. I need up staying up pretty late that night watching the Yankees beat the Twins. It was a thrilling come from behind win. So happy that the Yankees won. 

Epcot was an awesome park. We found a lot of Disney magic there. It was a fun place to be with my grandparents and looking back it may have been our best day in Disney World.