Now we’re up to Sunday (Mar. 8th). Daylight Saving Time happened overnight, urgh, but I woke up at my traditional time, now 6:15. My legs hurt (I’d done 25K steps or so the day before) and I had a blister forming on my right foot. Oh, well, no hope for it. This day was starting very foggy and I had hopes for a nice cloudy day, but it all burned off.
The plan was to head to Epcot for just a couple of hours. I wanted to (a) get breakfast, (b) do a ride or two and (c) walk around the lake. Oddly enough, I wasn’t successful. I was with the early birds, and hustled over to the Test Track, which had been broken when C and I were there. Parked at the end of an already-long line, to hear an announcement that there was something wrong and they’d be starting late. Bleah. OK, let’s go find breakfast. By now the fog was gone and it was bright and sunny and humid (i.e., uncomfortable) and there was not a lot of shade. My AI eggs research had identified that the France pavilion had a restaurant with breakfast eggs, so I headed there. Oddly enough, I could not find it, maybe it’s not there any more, or maybe I’m an idiot. I did, however, check out the Ratatouille ride. Oh, look, this was the hinted-at, but not previously-found, situation where they offered a special ‘single-rider’ entrance. I grabbed that right away. This ride swooped you and your fellow pod-people around various rooms to give you a rat-eye view of the kitchen and parts of Paris. It was really fun, except (and I hadn’t seen this before), there was an obvious place where the scene we were in/watching did sort of a ‘vamp until ready’ thing and we sat there watching it until our pod moved again. Then later on, we actually got stalled in a hallway behind some other pods and I was worried it would shut down completely. We moved ahead eventually, but it was weird and glitchy. I did a little research later and found it this is not uncommon for this and other ‘trackless’ rides. (it’s been fun doing my post-visit research to find out how things worked, or didn’t) I liked the ride, though.
Continued around the circle – apparently there were maybe eggs in the Norway pavilion, but the Frozen attraction was attracting big lines and I steered around it. Unfortunately, all the other opportunities for breakfast seemed to be giant donuts. I’m not opposed to giant donuts, but knew that’s just not a good idea for (a complete) breakfast. I was in a mildly pissy mood because my legs hurt and my foot hurt and it was hot and gross and nothing was working right. But I hadn’t expected a lot out of Epcot – I’m not sure who its audience is, but I don’t think it’s me.
I was planning to Uber over to Hollywood Studios, but a chat with a guest consultant revealed I could get there (for free!) by using the Skyliner, basically ski-lifty gondolas – first over to the Caribbean Resort, then switching to another one. So back to the France pavilion, but right before that, there’s a special entrance/exit to the park, and the Skyliner right outside it. This was a delightful experience, actually, calm and air-conditioned, with great views.
Finally at Hollywood Studios. I’d last been probably over fifteen years ago. First order of business was to get breakfast, and they had a Starbucks on the main street, although it was called something else. Got one of the Starbucks typical egg sandwiches (which are small, but good) and an iced mocha or such. Found a picnic table in the shade over by a not-yet-open snack stand and finally had breakfast.
Unlike my MK day, this day I had a series of timed Lightning Lane events: Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Star Tours and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. So it was a series of ‘what can I do before the next time I’m due somewhere’. I explored the grounds, pretty much everywhere except Galaxy’s Edge, having some popcorn and a frozen Coke on the way. Then the Runaway Railway. This was, in execution, much like the Ratatouille ride – you’re in a pod, which is navigated from room to room where you see (and are sometimes in) scenes. M&M are out for a picnic, but Goofy is driving a train and events occur. It was cute, but didn’t make a lot of sense.
My next event was the Indiana Jones thing. I still am not 100% sure that I hadn’t already seen it once (it’s been there since the park opened) but there were definitely events that I think I would have remembered clearly, like the huge freaking airplane in the last scene. It was fun – the setup was that we were watching Harrison Ford’s and Karen Allen’s stunt doubles filming scenes and we got to see a lot of fake derring-do – although the rolling boulder bit has been cut because fairly recently, the boulder bounced out of its track and went hurling towards the audience! Anyway, this was a lot of fun and a nice chance to sit down.
Straight over to Star Tours, which I’d done before, but the fun thing about Star Tours is that there’s about 20 different versions of it and you don’t know which one you’re going to get. There was some nonsense about baddies firing on our ship and us getting in an asteroid field, although maybe that was one of the other Star Wars rides, I don’t remember. But it’s a lot of fun. I thought about going back, the line was generally pretty short, but never got around to it.
At this point, I could have done what I did the day before and gone back to the hotel to swim, but I decided to stay. I explored Galaxy’s Edge, which is wonderful. One of the cool things about the Star Wars universe is that you get new-fangled technology, but in an environment where it’s all filthy and everything’s beat up. There were lots of opportunities to see full-size X-wings and droids and stuff, and of course the Millenium Falcon. So that’s what it’s like to stand next to. There were lots of shops, of course, and actors playing Stormtroopers and Kylo Ren and so on (apparently, if you used your phone app, you could take part in some LARPing, but I wasn’t interested).
I hadn’t gotten a lightning pass to Smuggler’s Run (the ride where you fly the Millenium Falcon, and everyone wants to be the pilot), but they also had a single-rider lane (with a warning: ‘you don’t get to pick your job’) and so I got in quite quickly. I was one of the button-mashers in the back, and one of our two pilots was a stupid kid who didn’t do a particularly good job, but the ride itself was a ton of fun.
Also found where “Rise of the Resistance” was – so committed to the ‘we’re the underground’ bit that there were no signs. But my time in wasn’t until later.
Somewhere in here I checked out the Villains are Misunderstood show, which was campy and fun. Three live actors (Cruella, Captain Hook and Malificent) interacting with a lot of animation. Good way to get cool for a bit. Then got ice cream, yay, had a fun chat with the mom in front of me.
I decided to go back to Toy Story Land to wait in line for the Slinky Dog coaster, which looked like a lot of fun. The line had never been less than an hour, but I had time to kill, so I did. Really great ride – I do love a roller coaster.
Finally time for Rise of the Resistance, which was oh so cool. You are a rebel being transported, and then the First Order captures your ship, then you’re rescued. The first transport – you get on, the door shuts, there’s projections as if you’re traveling and the ship shakes, and then the same door opens and you’re inside a Star Destroyer, facing a whole raft of Stormtroopers (just statues, but it’s impressive). An evil orderly leads you off and places you in groups to be put in the next part of the ride. Unfortunately here, although they were having fun calling us ‘rebel scum’ and stuff, they weren’t projecting (as actors) enough so I could hear them, particularly because they were also playing background music as if we were in a movie.
But then you get shuttled to a pod and then have another ‘being hurled from room to room and spun around’, as you get fired on and Kylo Ren demands to know the location of the secret base and so on, and then you get rescued and all is well. It’s very cool, and I’ve never been on something like that before, it’s very clever. Although, even worse that Ratatouille, it’s prone to hours-long breakdowns – I guess I was lucky.
Got out of that, still had time to kill before my dinner reservation and decided, because why the hell not, to go to the Little Mermaid show. This was kinda lame, but not too bad. Two live actors – Ariel (who got to sing) and Prince Erik, who didn’t get to do much of anything, so … accurate? And the rest was puppetry, quite a lot of it. Just like the Villains show, from time to time, during big moments, my Magic Band buzzed and lit up like it was having an orgasm. So… good for it?
Coming out of that, realized I had enough time to tick off the Tower of Terror before dinner. I hadn’t planned it, I’d been before, but OK, and it was fun. I’d forgotten it was Twilight Zone-themed – the last time, I’d never actually seen TZ, but I’ve seen plenty of it by now.
Finally time for dinner at the Brown Derby. Checked in the front, then went back outside to wait. They said they’d text me when my table was ready, but I got no text (there’s a story there, for later) and eventually a major-domo came out and barked, “Peterson, party of one”.
Turns out the restaurant ambiance and the whole presentation and food and waiter attention was 100% better than Be Our Guest. They had cosmos, for one thing, yay, and then I had a glass of wine. I started with …
(Oh, quick side note, I’m now remembering that one of the few impressive things about Be Our Guest is they did bring you a baguette fresh out of the oven. It was enormous and delicious.)
… oh right, I didn’t start with anything, but I ate rolls and drank, which was delightful. My entree was the pork tenderloin with sausage (!), sweet potato polenta (!) and sauteed greens. This was all terrific, especially the sausage and the polenta.
Meanwhile the waitress kept commenting on my purple theme – I was wearing the lavender Magic Band, a purplish watch and my purply “Sailor Bear” shirt from last summer. I told her about the Lavender Court Guy from the jury duty, I haven’t quite committed to the bit like that, but yeah, I like purple and lavender and blue and I’m getting more queeny and expressive as I age, so watch out! She was a delight, I loved her.
For dessert, I had their famous grapefruit cake, super yummy (although I didn’t finish it) and a cappuccino.
On the way out, I poked through the shops just like I’d done the day before, but didn’t buy anything.
Bus back to the resort, now to go swimming again. I decided to try out the Ol’ Man Island pool, which was big and had ‘water features’ and was open until 11:00. Some adults were up by the bar deck, and others were in lounge chairs, and there were a bunch of ‘cast members’ like lifeguards and so on walking around doing something, but no one was swimming. I came in, grabbed a towel, got set up, and walked in the pool. Whereupon someone said, ‘oh sir, actually the pool’s not open right now, we’re cleaning it, but it will be open in just a few minutes’. She was polite, but I kinda snapped at her, “I’ve been walking around for five minutes clearly getting ready to go in the pool, no one could say anything before I got in?” Oh well. But she was right, it opened up fairly quickly and I got to bathe and lounge and have a good time before heading back to my room for a final bourbon and coke before bed.
Coming up: postscript – getting home – not that interesting. And soon I promise finishing up the trial coverage.
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