February 2020: An Exploded Family Trip to FL: Day 3, Part 2

Day 3, Part 2

First stop on the tour of the visual arts? The topiary at the entrance to World Showcase, because need to prove I was at the festival!

Next up? The chalk art. Admittedly, I failed with this first one. This is apparently a chalk design that appears 3D if you’re standing in the right place. I was not. But it still is quite the impressive chalk art feat, I think.

Then I checked out the series of 2D chalk art. The artist shared that they have 3 hours to do these. 3. That’s insane. 

It was a beautiful day in Epcot!

From here it was on to the guest participation part of the visual arts tour...the giant paint by number mural. The line was short, and hey, what the heck. I was handed a grayish paint (boring!) and directed to paint 6 squares anywhere with that number on the mural (there’s a lot of gray on there). I painted my 6 squares, and then moved along. 

After painting, I worked my way over to near the temporary MouseGear. Here I spent some time watching the Living Statues. Wicked fun to watch their antics as people posed for pictures in front of them. 

Once I’d watched the Living Statues for a bit, I explored the temporary MouseGear. It’s so little! I’m not going to lie, the merchandise this trip was pretty boring.

After shopping without buying anything, I watched the Living Statues for a bit longer. Then it was back to World Showcase. I decided to go clockwise around World Showcase for a change. When I reached Norway, I discovered that they were starting to place topiaries for the Flower and Garden Festival. Sweet! Two festivals in one (sorta)!

When I reached China, I stopped for another snack. I got the pork bun. This was surprisingly light. It really was delicious. 

I kept walking around the World, and hopefully walking off some of the calories. When I reached America, I realized I had timed things wrong, so I kept walking, but didn’t have to go far. The drummers were out in Japan. I watched them for a few minutes.

Eventually it was late enough to head back to America. It was time to see the Voices of Liberty! They were awesome as usual, and, as usual, the set was too short!

After listening to the Voices of Liberty, I walked further around World Showcase, checking out the topiaries in the UK. 

From here, I decided it was time to get one more snack, and then mix things up a bit. From the Masterpiece Kitchen, I got the white chocolate and rose water panna cotta. This was the most disappointing food of the day. Why? Well, usually panna cotta is like a cross between Jello and pudding. This was frozen. And it tasted like soap. 

Time for a brief break from the park. Mostly because I don’t like it when T tries Disney things before I do, and he and mom will be in Disney in July for a week. So I went for a spin on the skyliner. It was a pleasant enough ride, but because most of them have those awful character wraps on them (there had to have been another way to characterize them!), the views are not clear enough to take pictures. 

I took the Skyliner over to Riviera Resort. What a beautiful resort. The murals, especially, are amazing! But it might be slightly too nice. 

After exploring for a few minutes, I returned to the Skyliner station. I had thought I would have to take the Skyliner to Caribbean Beach and transfer there to go back to Epcot, but I didn’t have to do that. I just had to go to the opposite side of the station from where I had arrived at Riviera.

When I got back to Epcot, I started working my way back to Future World. I had a mid afternoon fastpass for Soarin, and decided to use it. But first, a snack! I stopped at the Deconstructed Dish booth, where I got the Deconstructed cheesecake and the (non-alcoholic) Deconstructed Breakfast shake. Both were delicious!!

As I worked my way toward Soarin, I couldn’t help but notice that they’re not even trying anymore to conceal the fact that Starbucks has taken over the parks. But I also noticed (again) that it was a beautiful day in Epcot!

Once I reached Soarin, I didn’t have to wait long to ride. After Soarin, I found a table in the Land to plot my next few hours. I’m not used to spending a full 12 hour day in one single park, let alone one that is so under construction. This led to looking at wait times, and fastpasses. In the end I ended up with an immediate fastpass for Nemo, because everything had a stupid wait (45 minutes for Imagination?!), and there weren’t any interesting fastpasses. So, I killed some time with Nemo, which, with a fastpass, was a walk on (standby was 30 minutes). And then I took some pictures of this beautiful day, and of how weird things look with parts of buildings missing.

After picture taking, I worked my way back to World Showcase. First stop? Canada, where I watched the new Canada movie. This new movie is reasonably well done, but honestly? I preferred Martin Short’s corny humor.

From Canada, it was time to start dinner with a little French food. Namely, a frozen French martini and the brie in a bread bowl. Both were excellent! 

From France, I started walking, and discovered that people were already lined up for the 2nd Disney on Broadway concert of the night, which is the one I wanted to go to. For a frame of reference, they hadn’t actually started the first concert of the night yet. That’s right...people were lined up over an hour before the concert. I quickly hit the restroom, and then finished dinner with the “stuffed” chicken drumstick from Italy. Quotes around stuffed, because it wasn’t. The ricotta was on the side. That being said, this was a delicious dish.

Then I hopped in line, still a little unsure of why the line started so early. Turns out, 4 performers in 1 night isn’t a common thing for these concerts. Plus it was the final night. So I waited in line for about 45 minutes, enjoying the early show from line, before the line was let into the American Gardens theater.

I ended up with a terrific seat for this show. For those who haven’t experienced the Festival of the Arts, the Disney on Broadway concerts are where they bring in key performers from Disney Broadway shows, and they do a concert of Broadway music. Usually, there are 2 performers per night. But since it was the end of this set of concerts, there were 4 performers tonight: Michael James Scott (who was actually the same Genie that Nick and I saw in Aladdin in Boston), Ashley Brown (Mary Poppins), Josh Stickland (a little of everything), and Syndee Winters (Nala in the Lion King). The show lasts for half an hour, and does not cost extra (unless you do a dining package to get seating, of course).

All I can say is WOW! That half hour alone was worth the cost of admission into Epcot. It was amazing!

The concert ended about 7:15, so it was about time to start strategizing for watching Epcot Forever. The wind that had been ever present since my arrival in FL was still strong, so this evening required some major strategizing.

In the end, I chose a spot near Mexico, and grabbed a spot to sit and wait around 8, since people were already parked along many of the rails. I chatted with the people around me and the time passed pretty quickly.

It’s no secret that I loved Illuminations. I was pretty bummed when it ended. I also thought it was pretty weird that Disney put a temporary show in place. Why not just run Illuminations an extra 6 months?

Now all that being said, I kind of liked Epcot Forever. Can it compete with Illuminations? Uh no. Did it capture a bit of my heart with the music from my childhood Epcot? Yes. For a temporary show, it’s pretty darn good. I’m now anxiously awaiting the new real nighttime show.

Once Epcot Forever ended, I exited the park. There was a moment of concern when it seemed like there was no possible way my could be parked THAT far down the row, but, I found the rental car, and about 15 minutes after leaving my parking space, I was back at the resort, where I showered the Disney germs off of me, and finally crashed around 11.