EPCOT was my favorite park even though we managed to hit it during the Food & Wine Festival, which made it mobbed.
Hi, I'm Pat and welcome to my blog, Life's A Trip!
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I love traveling, food and getting a great deal on anything - which is what this blog is about.
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I'll share not only my travel destinations including accommodations, dining hot spots, and top (and weird!) travel attractions with you - but how to make any trip more budget friendly.
What an amazing place! Although I do think it's geared more toward the adult crowd.
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We got there at opening, were about the only ones there that early and before the Disney cast members from all over the world had to start work. The French kids were out playing soccer in front of their pavilion so got to speak with them and they even invited me to play soccer with them. (I think it was only so they could chuckle at my miserable French...but that was OK with me.)
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When you enter EPCOT stop and pick up a World Showcase Passport book.
The passport comes with stickers for each pavilion and a pin (not for pin trading, but it has a picture of Mickey and with all the flags for the countries in the World Showcase). They're available at just about any shop in EPCOT.
We'll start with my favorite pavilion first - Mexico
Whoever designed this pavilion was brilliant. It has the appearance of being night out inside. When you enter you walk into kind of an 'open air' Mexican market full of tradespeople selling Mexican products they've handcrafted.
After you get through the market, on your right will be a restaurant (The San Angel Inn) that has the appearance of an open air Mexican restaurant under a starry night sky with a Mayan pyramid in the background. Just beautiful all lit up in the dark.​
Beyond that, you board The Grand Fiesta water ride that takes you on a trip past different Mexican scenery with cartoons of the 3 Caballeros playing on screens on the wall. We had a bit of a mishap in that our ride ran into technical difficulties and stopped dead in the water - as Disney loud speakers blared "PLEASE STAY IN YOUR BOAT! YOUR RIDE WILL RESUME SHORTLY!"
We all began joking with one another..."Should we make a swim for it?" "Is anyone here a lifeguard?" We were all perfect strangers to one another but there was a moment of bonding going on there since we were dead in the water for more than a few minutes.​
NORWAY PAVILION
My next favorite pavilion was Norway - although they've done a touch of remodeling on that pavilion too, changing the water ride Maelstrom to some dumb Frozen ride that has nothing to do with Norway whatsoever.
We stopped at the Kringla Bakery to indulge in some Norwegian sweets.
I had the Lefse while Barb ordered Fastelavnsbollar, which is essentially a Norwegian cream puff. Both were excellent.
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One of the most impressive things in Norway's pavilion was the full-sized replica of a Viking ship.
The old Maelstrom ride that was so cool...
CHINA PAVILION
In this pavilion you could watch a movie about China in Circlevision, that showed different parts of China.Of course there was a large gift shop. But what was so amazing about China's pavilion were the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats - who are KIDS! I spoke to a couple of them and they told me they start training to be acrobats when they're only 4 years old.
GERMANY
The Germany Pavilion was pretty much what I expected - lots of beer and German music in the restaurant Biergarten and it was staged to look like an old German town. With the obligatory cuckoo clock.
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UNITED KINGDOM
We had a blast in the United Kingdom because all the Brits from the UK were there "on holiday" as they say. The Brits are just super people to talk to, so friendly. We had reservations at Rose & Crown for lunch so talked to the Brits while we waited for our table.
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We ordered bangers and mash and Scotch eggs.
It was our first time ever trying any of it but it was superb.
The UK pavilion really did look like you were in England, right down to the red phone booths.
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JAPAN PAVILION
Absolutely breathtaking with its beautiful gardens, koi ponds and bonsai trees! I could have spent all day in those gardens just being zen.
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We watched the Matsuriza Taiko Drummers who were phenomenal.
MOROCCO PAVILION
The Moroccan pavilion was set up a bit differently it seemed tan the other pavilions in that there were shops tucked down alleyways, etc.
Barb and I found it strange that all of the visitors in the Moroccan pavilion were women, not a man in
sight! I figured out why when I walked out into a kind of town square...they were all glued to the belly dancers were who performing! (Boys will be boys)
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The Morocco exhibit was very colorful but I didn't find anything exceptional about it.
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FRANCE PAVILION
Again, pretty much what I expected and nothing that really wow'd me.
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My sister had made 5 trips to WDW and never gotten to fulfill her one wish of dining at Les Chefs de France so I decided to treat her to dinner there. This is one of the busiest restaurants in EPCOT so we had reservations for when it opened at 4:30. We both had the Filet de boeuff grille which was nothing to write home about as far as we were concerned. What was interesting were the 2 acrobats dressed
as a chef and French waiter who entertained all of us waiting for the restaurant to open.
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They were phenomenal.
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The France pavilion did have a movie much like China's that highlighted the different regions of France.
ITALY PAVILION
Again, it was pretty much what I expected to see, reminiscent of a French town.
Nothing really stood out to me.
The French acrobats
CANADA PAVILION
Absolutely phenomenal. It really represented what Canada and all of its provinces are like and the flower gardens were beautiful.
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They too had a movie, O Canada which was really good.
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Off Kilter was playing in and Canada pavilion while we were there, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We sat quite awhile listening to them.
The absolute worst pavilion? This is embarrassing to say...
THE AMERICAN PAVILION
After seeing what a fantastic job the other countries had done on their pavilions, I looked at ours and thought What is THIS hot mess?!!
It looked like Disney had just thrown something together just to plop any 'ol pavilion down there, like there was no real thought put into the design whatsoever - with all this country has to offer and highlight!
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It was more like an art gallery than any actual kind of exhibit. American Adventure? The only "adventure" there was getting out of there before the soprano in the Voices of Liberty ruptured my eardrums.
So many talented artists and those versed in animatronics at Disney and THAT was the best Disney could come up with? It was embarrassing!
The best rides & attractions at epcot
SOARIN'
If you like hang gliding you'll love Soarin'. It's the next best thing to hang gliding.
If you can, wait the few extra minutes it might take to get a seat in the front row of the ride. The scenery is spectacular! My only complaint? The ride didn't last long enough!
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LIVING WITH THE LAND
I'll be honest here...I thought this one was going to bore me to tears. I liked it so much we ended up going on it twice.
This is where much of the food served at WDW is grown and there's about any kind of food you can think of growing in this exhibit. They also had an aquaponics exhibit.
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THE SEAS WITH NEMO AND FRIENDS
I loved the entire Seas With Nemo exhibit, all parts of it. Especially Turtle Talk with Crush. Whoever does the voice of Crush is hilarious.
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We decided to have dinner that night at Coral Reef Restaurant. My favorite restaurant in WDW.
Dining at Coral Reef is like dining in an aquarium. We had to wait a few extra minutes to get a table right next to the aquarium but it was worth it. We had a big sea turtle lying right in front of us. This turtle didn't move, didn't even open one eye the entire time we sat there.
Barb said to our server "Uhhhh...I think your turtle there is dead."
The server laughed, told us the turtle was over 75 years old so most of what he did was sleep. She told us the divers that cared for him had named him ToeStool because he slept so much they could use him as a footstool.
We both had the grilled mahi mai with rock shrimp and rice and a lime sauce.
It was delicious and perfectly cooked.
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The entire time we were eating ToeStool never moved a muscle.
ToeStool
That old boy went from comatose to moving at warp speed. We were glad to see he wasn't dead after all.
MISSION SPACE
Blast off on a thrilling simulated NASA-style mission to Mars—or orbit the Earth on a more gentle ride through space. If you want the more gentle ride, select "Green Team". If it's your first time on the ride, I'd suggest selecting "Green Team".
spaceship earth
Travel through time and explore the remarkable history of human communication from the Stone Age to the computer age.
luminous - the symphony of us (fireworks)
Fireworks aren't my thing...but I'm posting this for any disabled guest attending them. There were special sections set aside for those of us who were on scooters, in wheelchairs, etc.and were disabled.
We made the mistake of utilizing that special section to see the fireworks. The problem was there was no Disney cast member at all present to oversee these disabled areas.
The disabled person was allowed to bring one person in with them to these areas. But since no one was supervising them, disabled people would bring their entire families into them - to the point we were packed in so tightly you couldn't even get out to use the restroom. Nor could you get out if you had any kind of a medical emergency.
My advice to you is to skip these special areas that are designated just for the disabled to watch the fireworks - or skip the fireworks altogether.
