I appear to have got a bit behind with my blog as we have been busy at the theme parks. We’ve already been to two but I have decided to split the blog or it would be a very long entry. This way you can decide to read one or the other or both depending on which park interests you more.
We all woke up stupidly early considering the traveling we had done the day before. I went out to do my run and got a better look at the complex. It is a mixture of condos, town houses and detached villas. The townhouses appear to have a small plunge pool in the backyard and the villas a full swimming pool.
When I got back we went to the small food shop on site to get some bits and pieces for breakfast. After breakfast we decided on our plan of action for the day.
We decided to go to Epcot first as there were not so many big rides and thought it would be a gentle introduction to Disney World. As the Illumi -Nations light, music and fireworks show didn’t start until 9pm we thought we would aim to arrive around 1:30pm giving us around 7 hours to see Epcot and then watch the show. As we had time to spare, Bethany and I went to pick up a few essentials from the local Walmart supermarket. As usual we were astounded by the size of the store and the range of products sold. I was however a bit frustrated that I could only get skimmed milk in a one gallon container – I would have to drinks hundreds of cups of tea to use it all up! Bethany was pleased to see all her favorite American sweets. I imagine there will be lots in the suitcase when we go home.
Once we had unpacked the shopping we headed out to Disney World. The theme parks are only around 5 miles (8 km) from where we are staying so it was a quick trip to get to the car park.
I was a bit shocked to find out that parking for the day would cost $22 – when we were last here it was $5 per day! The parking lot was well organized, as expected, and we were parked in Create 49. We took the tram to the entrance and headed to the ticket counter.
We hadn’t bought our Disney tickets in advance as I wasn’t sure we would be able to add our existing tickets when we arrived. As it happens it would have been no problem. I told the guy at the ticket desk that we would probably be a complicated case due to our old tickets but he didn’t seem phased. He showed us other old tickets he had already had today. Ours were however the oldest. Luckily for us they all scanned using the card reader, otherwise we would have had to go to guest services, making everything much more complicated.
We bought enough new tickets to give us each 4 days in the parks. We didn’t choose Hopper tickets as our old tickets were Hoppers and if we decided we could use these tickets to visit more than one park per day. From our old tickets we also had 5 unused water park days. Bethany decided to get a magic band for her tickets so she could wear it as a watch. Micheal and I stuck to the normal cards. The bands and cards are necessary to enter the parks and for Fast Pass + at a number of rides in each park. As we hadn’t bought our tickets in advance we hadn’t booked any Fast Passes and therefore just had to join the stand by line at each attraction we wanted to visit.
Currently Epcot has a flower festival taking place so there were lots of Disney characters made from plants and flower displays around the park.
Michael spotted a Starbucks store and headed off to get his daily fix. Bethany and I perused to map and decided we would walk round the World Showcase first.
We walked through Canada first and watched a band playing music and dancing.
Next was United Kingdom 🇬🇧!
We had spotted a fish and chip shop on the map and went there to get lunch. The staff were all from England and promised us that the fish and chips were authentic. We took our food, served on fake newspaper and sat at tables by the lake to enjoy a bite from home.
We were even visited by ducks and serenaded by gulls – just like being at the seaside. The battered fish was really good and the chips were thick cut but perhaps a bit crispy to be real chip shop chips. There was however malt vinegar, Heinz tomato ketchup and tartare sauce to have with it all.
After lunch we carried on round the lake. France 🇫🇷 came next and we timed it perfectly to see two guys doing a street performance. They drew a good crowd and the final stunt was amazing.
After this break was continued through the other countries.
Morocco 🇲🇦
In Japan 🇯🇵 we saw traditional drumming.
The United States of America 🇺🇸
China 🇨🇳 
In Norway 🇳🇴 , Bethany wanted to do the Frozen ride but there was over an hours wait and no Fast Passes available all day so we headed back to Future World, via Mexico 🇲🇽 .
Bethany chose our next destination – The Sea. This included 3 attractions, 2 of which were linked to Finding Nemo – The Sea with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk with Crush. The third was the aquarium where we saw lots of different fish and sea animals.
After The Sea, we headed next door to The Land. Here Bethany experienced her first ‘thrill’ ride – Soaring Around The World. She was concerned by the description. It wasn’t anywhere near as ‘thrilling’ as she expected, but she did enjoy it.
We then went on Living With The Land which was a really interesting ride about how we can use land better and what research they are doing in the Disney labs to enable more food crops to be grown in smaller areas with or without soil.
This was my third visit to Epcot and I hadn’t been on Test Track so I was hoping to actually manage it this time. The wait times all day had been between 60 and 90 minutes which ruled it out as I was the only person that wanted to do it.
We went across to Mission : SPACE to do the astronaut training ride which was next door to Test Track. During the ride Bethany was the navigator, Michael the engineer and I was the pilot. Not sure those roles played to our strengths.
When we exited we still had 45 minutes before Illumi-Nations started so I asked Michael and Bethany if they would mind waiting while I went on Test Track. The single person queue was much shorter than the stand by line. They decided to go in the Mouse Gear shop to have a browse round. The line moved really quickly and within 5 minutes I was sharing the ride with a family of 4. After so long waiting, the ride itself was a little underwhelming but at least I finally managed to do it.
Our final ride of the day was Spaceship Earth. A look back through history and to the future of Planet Earth.
We then decided to watch the light and firework show from where we had had lunch. Luckily it wasn’t too busy and we got a good view.
After the show and a few final pictures, we headed back to the parking lot.
We chose to walk to the car as there were loads of people leaving at the same time and waiting for the tram. Considering how many people were leaving we got out of the parking lot very quickly and were back at the condo in 20 minutes.
We were all shattered and after a bite to eat we were all soon in bed dreaming of our next day at Disney!
Crouch Family On Tour 