EPCOT
Downtown Disney (warning: not a good experience!!!)
Today was going to be a great day. Besides spending our day at EPCOT and having lunch at Le Cellier, it was also Janice's birthday! Since it was her birthday, Janice chose to spend her day in her (and mine) favorite park.
We entered the park through the International Gateway (which I love!). We had a chance to wonder a very empty World Showcase and take in some of the Flower and Garden displays.
Since we had an extra quick service to use, we decided to have breakfast at Sunshine Seasons in the Land. This worked out perfectly as I suggested we get fast passes for Soarin'. As expected, it was busy early on and our fast passes weren't until an hour or so later.
We had breakfast and then took in Living with the Land and the Circle of Life movie. I always love going on the Living with the Land ride. It is always interesting to see what they are growing.
I was worried about the Circle of Life movie and taking Graydon into it, as it is a pretty loud movie. Surprisingly, Graydon fell asleep in it, in my arms.
While Graydon slept, Janice and Steve went on Soarin'. You never realize how long you are in that attraction until you have to wait for someone. Once they were done, Steve and I took in the attraction.
Once we had finished all of the attractions in the Land, we rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Journey into Imagination with Figment. I was disappointed to find out that Figment was no longer around for pictures. Luckily, we were able to get one with him the last time we were in WDW.
By the time we were done all that fun, it was time for our lunch at Le Cellier. This wouldn't be just any regular lunch at the Le Cellier... it was also Janice's birthday lunch.
I checked us in at the podium and quietly asked about the cake I had ordered her. They noted my request and assured me they had it.
We had a great meal as usual. I had my favorite: the filet mignon with mushroom risotto. I actually found it a little saltier than when I had it before, but it was still a great steak.
When our waiter, Colin, came to take our dessert order, I had to pull him aside and remind him about the cake. He didn't know about it, but in his defence he had never had guests with a special cake order.
He brought out the cake and sang happy birthday, which embarrassed Janice (she really hates that stuff but too bad!).
Once done at Le Cellier we wandered through the UK pavilion while Steve took Charlotte back to the room for a break.
When we made it back to the room, we all went for a swim and had a couple of celebratory birthday drinks. Janice decided she wanted to go to to Downtown Disney to spend her $75 gift card she received from Disney for her birthday. Steve decided to stay back with Charlotte and we agreed to pick up dinner to bring back. We figured we wouldn't be longer that a couple of hours... or so we thought!
We made our way to the bus pickup only to find a group of people waiting for the Downtown Disney bus already. We ended up waiting forty minutes for the bus! The wait is supposed to be about twenty minutes.
We finally made it to our destination and hit our favorite stores: Art of Disney (the forth of five), the Pin station, the Winnie the Pooh store, Once Upon a Toy and the World of Disney. As usual it was busy all over Downtown Disney.
We also went into the new Tren-D store. I was actually disappointed as the store was geared just to women. They had some interesting pieces of Mickey art in the store though. I did help Janice pick out a cool purse: it was made of wide strands of old reprinted Mickey comics. Janice used her birthday gift card towards it, as it was pretty expensive. (Note: once I'm done my trip reports, I will be writing a post on all the stuff we bought, with pictures)
We didn't end up picking up dinner, as both quick service locations were busy. We made one more stop in the Art of Disney, where I purchased two Olszewski pockitpals. I also found out that they were releasing the three other Haunted Mansion paintings in the pockitpal series.
Again, we waited quite a while for the bus to get back to the resort. We ended up getting off at the Swan resort and walking back via the bridge, as we would have been quite later if we stayed on.
I sent Janice and Graydon back to the room while I went and picked up a pizza for the three adults. The pizza took a half hour, which allowed me to go back to the room to get my refillable mug, go to the front desk to complain about bus service and make it back just in time to pick up the pizza.
We had a late dinner and called it a night. While it was a fun day celebrating Janice's birthday, it was a very long day!
