2017 Holiday - Day 5 - EPCOT

Woke up a little later today, but it wasn't a day for hanging around. We were determined to rope drop the Frozen Ever After ride - which has monster lines through most of the day. Clare had been planning for this moment and it was time to execute that plan!

We ate a quick breakfast in the lounge, and I promptly buttered my GF bagels (one plain, one cinnamon and raisin - both delicious), got myself a mint tea to go and headed for the park gate. I ate my packed breakfast standing at the entry to World Showcase half an hour before the park opened. Clare promised us it would be worth it.

Rope drop! We were off! Those visits to my podiatrist had paid off as we power walked round World Showcase to the ride. We were towards the front on the human bow wave. As we came past the entrance to the Showcase Plaza we could see a tide of people heading for the same ride from the main entrance. We increased the pace and just pipped them to the path past Mexico and up towards Norway where the ride was. We'd made it! A Cast Member was there to stop people running and calm us all down and we hit the queuing area. We must have been in the first 5 or 6 people winding our way round the queuing area. We slowed down now to look at some of the features of the queuing area, but got straight on the ride. It wasn't bad. The animatronics were quite good, the models and scenery were OK. I preferred Maelstrom - the old ride that got jazzed up with the Frozen them - but there you go.

As we exited the ride I checked my watch... From entering the park to exiting the ride took 10 minutes. As we looked around us we saw the queue was snaking out of Norway and along towards China. The Wait Time was advertised as 50 minutes! Mission accomplished!

As you can see from the photo above, the sun was showing through - which did make a nice change to the clouds of yesterday. Clare and Matthew had a Fast Pass for Soarin' but, we had time to kill before then so headed for one of Clare's childhood favourites: Journey Into Imagination With Figment. We literally walked on to the ride (it's not what you'd call popular) and had a fun time in the room afterwards where you can do some experiments. It either needs updating or removing. I do hope they update it and don't put yet another franchise in as slowly the parks are changing to becoming more about the movie franchises (i.e. Frozen replacing Maelstrom) and less about some of the traditional characters.

We then went to The Land pavilion and hopped on to one of my favourites: Living With The Land. This gentle boat journey explains how man has not done so well in the past regarding the relationship with the land and shows how EPCOT scientists are growing food in a more environmentally friendly way in the on-site greenhouses. Clare and Matthew the did Soarin' whilst I headed for Starbucks and sat in a sunny spot watching the pin traders negotiating tough deals with each other for pin swapping (a fascinating spectator sport :-)).

 After meeting up, we went to a Joffrey's stall to get Matthew a donut before he and Clare went to ride Mission: Space - the Orange mission. This is the one with all the G-force simulation and makes some people feels sick (and occasionally are sick). How this passes for entertainment, I'll never understand! Anyway, I did my usual wandering around various shops and sitting watching the world go by whilst they did it. They both enjoyed it, and Matthew said he's do it again, but just not this trip!

Another traditional fave was to meet Donald Duck in Mexico. As it was raining now (the morning had been bright and sunny) was couldn't see him in his usual spot, and found out from someone else he was meeting in the Mexico Pavilion. So we headed in there and had our photo taken - albeit in a different location than usual.

We headed back to World Showcase to lunch at the stalls - picking up odd plates of food from various stalls.We then did Ratatouille Hide & Squeak - which is where you get a map of World Showcase and have to hunt the Remy rats in each location to see what he's holding. You then match the stickers you have with the location on your map. We found a few Remys and had a good look round Japan, which Matthew and I hadn't done before returning to the hotel for a rest for an hour.

We then went back in to the park for dinner at The Rose & Crown pub - a traditional English pub seemingly stuck int he 1980's! Clare ordered a Snakebite (who drinks those nowadays - haha!) and I had had half a cider. Initially, I wasn't impressed with the GF menu, and order the baked cod and chips (think of fish and chips with no batter) but it was actually pretty good. Clare had proper fish and chips, and Matthew bangers and mash (beware the mash isn't just mashed potato, it has 'things' in it which taste nasty according to him). For pu, I had a GF scone (not bad at all) and Clare had the Jaffa Cakes.

I'd used the app to move our last Fast Pass of the day back, so we could jump on Space Earth super fast. However, when we got there, there was no queue in the Standby Line either so we could have jumped on! Typical! The day we get a Fast Pass there's no queue! Oh well...

Our faces are on the globe just above S. America!