Around the parks

We went to Epcot a few times at the end of September, mostly to use up dining and snack coupons. The kids joined Susan and I one night to eat at Le Cellier and another evening we enjoyed a second cast preview of Journey of Water. It looks really nice with night lighting.

 

We also attended a special cast marketplace at the ESPN arena. Disney gave cast members a chance to buy excess merchandise at a steep discount.

Another day I met one of my fellow Friendship Boat captains after work and we rode the monorail over to the TTC, then the ferry to the Magic Kingdom, during which I took a photo of the progress on the new DVC tower at the Polynesian resort.

We then made our way back to Epcot, where we joined more captains for dinner at the Biergarten.

Journey of Water

My mom came out for a visit this week, so we spent a few days in the parks. The highlight was a cast preview of the new Journey of Water walkthrough attraction at Epcot on Tuesday. It’s a nice addition to the park, but nothing spectacular. 

We made a loop around the park and rode a few attractions. Like the California parks, the WDW parks now have signs out celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Disney company. On Wednesday I took mom to watch the shows at Hollywood Studios, and we spent Friday morning at Animal Kingdom.

We also spent some time at Sea World on Monday. We watched the Sea Lion, Dolphin, and Orca shows, and I rode the new stand-up coaster, Pipeline, for the first time. It’s a pretty good coaster, thrilling but not too crazy. 

Monday night we had dinner at Ragland Road at Disney Springs. I enjoyed both the food and the Irish music and dancing. On Wednesday evening we ate at Whispering Canyon Cafe at the Wilderness Lodge. The food is similar to what we had at the Hoop De Doo and Trail’s End at Fort Wilderness campground, and plenty of it. 

On Thursday we went to Universal Studios. I figured we’d walk back to the Hogwarts Express and take that over to IOA, make a loop around that park, then finish up the Studios, but it didn’t work out that way. We rode E.T. then watched the animal show, the make up show, and the Bourne Stunt show. I’d been wanting to watch the last show for a while; it was pretty amazing how they matched up live actors and partial sets with the giant video screen. The make up show is more silly than scary. By the time we finished the shows, the wait for the Harry Potter train was almost an hour and it was getting hot, so we ate at the Leaky Cauldron and headed out.