We started out our second day of our anniversary wandering around our resort.
Across the lake there are various construction projects. On the one end is the new resort, the Rivera, which will open in December. They have some fun dining options coming, so it could be fun to stay at the less expensive Caribbean Resort but pop over to the Riveria for dinner. And on the other end of the lake, the gondolas are still undergoing construction. But overall, none of that construction really impacted us. It was quiet and hardly noticeable in general.
When they redid the Caribbean Beach resort they added in a second restaurant over in the Trinidad section, called the Spyglass Grill. I'd heard good things, but on various websites it said it was a trek to get over there. Lots of places said you wouldn't walk it, but instead take the internal bus. Now, don't get me wrong the Caribbean Beach Resort is pretty sprawling. It's one of (if not THE) biggest resorts on Disney property. But you guys, it was like half a mile from our room to the Spyglass Grill. Like, you can walk it, from basically anywhere on property. We were in the Jamaica village, there was only one more further away than us.
Anyway, over at the Spyglass Grill they have some of the best french toast ever. It's guava stuffed cream cheese french toast! And it's very, very good. It's not too-too sweet. But, get it with the extra fruit instead of the sausage or bacon. You're going to want a strawberry in every bite.
Asa toyed with the idea of getting the red eye chorizo gravy over yuca hash. But, he isn't a yuca fan. So instead, he got the breakfast Cuban sandwich.
He gave me a bite and we both agreed it was a little dry. I told him to go ask for a side of the chorizo gravy to add to it. He did and found it to be an awesome choice.
After breakfast we hopped on a bus to Epcot, since I had some Fastpasses scheduled for the day. To date we had completed 38 of the 71 things to do in Epcot.
We started out at Spaceship Earth. Not only are we doing Spaceship Earth on our list, but we are trying to do it in every language offered. That day we did German. We only have Spanish and English left until we can check it off our list.
We decided to check a few things off our list when we ran into
#39 The JAMmitors
They're pretty entertaining. They play the drums on trash cans, and they're really good! Catch these guys if you can.
Then we were headed over to
#40 Innoventions
Now innoventions used to be awesome. There was an east and west building for innoventions and both of them were jam packed with activities. We did them all with the boys when they were little at one point or another. But, now there's just one innoventions left and only half of it is opened. There's a few little kiosks with magnifying glass things that are a total after thought. BUT, besides that they have COLORTOPIA. It's a little experience that moves you through three different stages, and it's really worth ducking into this out of the way little building people don't even notice anymore.
First you go into this little room and you hear a little story about colors (by Phil from Modern Family!) and the room changes colors. It also made our magic bands change crazy colors too!
Then you get to play a game where you try and match the color in the middle. I was fine until you had to start mixing colors. Then I wasn't so great.
But then you get to go into the paint bush room, where you get your magical paint brush. You get to dip it in various colors and then paint a picture on a touch screen. And the items change depending on what color you paint them.
We changed our colors lots of times, and by the time the sky goes from day to night, you're all done in the color lab. Seriously, check this one out. It's air conditioned, and totally not crowded, and worth the stop. I'll be doing it again for sure. There's lots of other pictures to be colored!
Next up we were headed over to the land pavilion where we had Fastpasses for both Soarin and Living with the Land. We had done both of these before on the list, but didn't take a picture. We even got front row in the boat on living with the land, which I don't think I had ever gotten before.
After that we headed over to Club Cool to try free Coke's from around the world. I don't know how this isn't listed as an attraction, but it isn't. So, onward.
We were prepared to walk to Morocco where we planned to have lunch but the boat to go across the lake was right there waiting for us, so we hopped on and took that over.
We decided to get the lamb and chicken plate. It came with pita bread, hummus, couscous and some sort of parsley based green salad. Usually when we're in Epcot, it's festival time. Especially because except for the summer it's almost always festival time. So we don't really get to eat at a lot of the quick service places within the pavilions.
This was a really good choice though. I mean, I love the cold couscous mixed with the parsley, and I've never had better hummus. The whole plate was awesome. Asa also got some crazy Moroccan espresso, Moorish coffee or something. It was SUPER strong. Like, holy geez. But, a fun try.
A lot of the things in Epcot are just live entertainment we'll have to catch at the right time. Eventually we'll probably have to nab a times guide. But we did catch
#41 Serveur Amusant (French Acrobats)
while passing through France. He stacks up all these chairs and then balances on his hands. It's bananas. He always has a big crowd though. We'd seen this one before because it's such a spectacle and on the main path around the world.
One place we hardly every stop by is Les Halle in France. It's just a little bakery with authentic French pastries. It's usually pretty packed and now I know why. The food is delicious and inexpensive. Two thumbs up from me and Asa.
That's it for us and Epcot this trip. We're at 41 out of 71 items completed or 57.8% complete.
By now the weather was clearly about to take a turn for the worse. I tried real hard not to complain about the rain. We needed it SO. BAD. But, I will say instead of our usual afternoon thunderstorms it was downpouring for a majority of the day. We made sure to pack our rain jackets in the backpack wherever we went. My mom had gotten us some at Costco. They are perfect for Florida. They're super lightweight. We decided at this point we wanted to try and go over to Hollywood Studios. We got on the boat, and then they immediately closed all boat service due to lightning in the area. So, we decided to walk. We made it over to the Boardwalk hotel and ducked in there before the down pour began.
But, we only waited a bit. When it became clear that it wasn't going to stop anytime soon, we decided to continue on our way anyway. Technically you can walk from Epcot all the way to Hollywood Studios. So, that's what we did. In the POURING down rain. Our shorts and feet were soaked by the time we made it over. But, we had fun playing in the rain and puddles along the way anyway. Nothing to do but to embrace it, you know?
And at least there weren't any crowds! It had lightened up a little by the time we got over there.
But, it was still raining, and at a decent clip.
Luckily, our Fastpass was for Alien Swirlin Saucers and since that's covered, it's usually unaffected by the weather.
Once we used up our fastpass we were able to grab another one- this time one for Toy Story Mania. But, we did have about 15 minutes to kill so we went over to the Incredibles area. This used to be where you could get on Toy Story Mania before Toy Story Land was built. This summer they've got an Incredibles 'Block Party' going on here. It may or may not end up leading to Galaxy's Edge though, so I'm not sure it will stay beyond August 29th. So, I had to try a Jack Jack Cookie Num Num before they are no more. This giant chocolate chip cookie, served warm, is good. But not as amazing as the Disney Food Blog made it out to be.
A few items are listed on the Disney app and website for the Incredibles, even if it is a limited time engagement. They break it down into two different items, so we'll just say this counts as
#14 Celebrate with the Incredibles at Pixar Place
Which it lists as "Character appearances, Edna Mode’s suit gallery and more"
So we got our picture with Edna!
After that we headed back over to Toy Story Mania. We got stuck in line for awhile as the ride seemed to be having a bit of trouble, but I didn't mind because I was inside and not getting rained on.
While we were waiting I decided to check on Fastpasses to see if I could nab anything else. We had gotten through both the fastpass check points when we got stopped in line, so we had time to check on new ones. We were pretty soaked even with our rain jackets and were thinking about going back to the room, but I decided to see if I could get something like Tower of Terror.
So, I just kept refreshing the app over and over again. It's how you get the good Fastpasses like five minutes out. AND YOU GUYS! Slinky Dog Dash came up for 19 minutes away! Now, if you know Disney, you know how impossible it is to get a Fastpass for Slinky Dog Dash (just like Flight of Passage in Animal Kingdom). It has been open a year and we still haven't ridden it, because I couldn't manage to get a Fastpass. When you stay on Disney property you can book Fastpasses 60 days out instead of the usual 30. And then sometimes you can nab one. But even when my mom was there for a whole week in November, and I got up at 7am to try and get one, I couldn't. I had gotten them for our anniversary the following day, and the day after that. But, neither time was ideal. So I was SUPER excited to nab this one and then not have to worry about having to make it to the one on our anniversary.
We still had Toy Story to ride, and it took us awhile, but the ride eventually went back up and we were able to ride it. It took so long, when we got out of Toy Story Mania, it was time for our Slinky Dog Fastpass!
Unfortunately, the second we came out of the Toy Story building we saw some lightning. I figured the ride would go down and we wouldn't get to go on it. But, by some miracle they were still running it. So we ran over there and got in line as fast as we could.
Luckily, the Fastpass line to Slinky Dog is SUPER short, so we were on in less than 5 minutes. We even got assigned to the front row! It was raining some, but we were able to ride it. And, it's super fun! Like, for real, it's a fun little coaster. It's not too intense or anything but I loved it.
And that's a big one off the list that we didn't have to wait in the stand by line for.
#15 Slinky Dog Dash
We did realize the only reason we got that Fastpass, and the other two for that matter was because of the frequent absolute downpours. The park was pretty empty, and I'm sure some people just didn't come in for their Fastpasses because of it. Thanks to the people who cancelled so I could get them, instead of just letting them expire. I try and do that too and pay it forward. (In fact, I ended up doing it the next night since we didn't end up being in Hollywood Studios in the evening for our Slinky Dog Fastpass).
We were pretty wet though, and ready to head back to the hotel, but we stopped by the bathroom and noticed the little wait to see Pluto.
Surprisingly, Disney doesn't list all the Playhouse Disney characters on their website. So we didn't have to visit Fancy Nancy, Doc McStuffins, or some other character I didn't know to check off
#16 Meet Disney Junior Pals in the Animation Courtyard
After that it was back to our hotel room. We took the bus and then ran back barefoot. By that point our feet were so wet we were starting to get blisters, so it was just better to take them off. I knew I was about to be cozy and dry so I didn't mind when Asa ran ahead to our room and took my picture.
We warmed up and changed and then decided just to drive ourselves over to Disney Springs. It was still raining off and on, so we thought if it was pouring down we could just duck into Polite Pig at the bottom of the escalator from the covered parking garage, instead of having to wait for the bus.
Luckily, when we got there it was just sprinkling, so we got to go ahead with our idea of a Disney Springs progressive dinner. We decided to just try one thing from a couple different places. First up we went over to the bar at Morimoto Asia to try their orange alligator in a waffle cone. Yup, that's gator in a waffle cone! It's part of the summer taste of Florida offerings around Disney Springs. I am not always a gator fan (eating for seeing them, honestly!) But, for $15 you get two cones, so I decided to give it a go. They soak their gator in sake to make it less tough, and honestly it did taste like orange chicken. Asa loved it. I thought it was good but not great. Either way, it's an experience.
After that we wandered over to Cooks of Dublin to finally try their 'chips' in Dubliner Irish Cheese Dip. This might be a new favorite stop of mine. It was so many fries, I think it'd be great for the family to split and the cheese dip was stellar. The whole thing was about as much as poutine over at the Daily poutine, but way more bang for your buck. (To be clear, I'll always be a Daily Poutine fan).
After trying some new favorites, we decided to go back to some old favorites: Teddy's Tea and the Scottish Professor over at the Hangar Bar.
And of course we needed dessert, so we wandered over to Amorette's for some French pastries. Everything always looks good in the case.
But this time we decided to go with their taste of Florida offering: the grapefruit orange cake, and an old favorite the cheesecake with lemon curd. We were so stuffed though, we decided to take them back to our room.
That's it for our second day at Disney.
Up Next: Anniversary #9
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