Melting Around the World

Welcome to Wednesday! Today we are hitting Epcot. Two park closures in a row meant I slept in. So we just had time to hoof it to the boat and ride over to the other side of the lake for our lunch ADR.

The beautiful blue skies leaving the Village.

Here is the full day’s video – but keep reading for the pictures and comments.

Walking into Epcot. The Food and Wine Festival was going on. It wasn’t exceptionally crowded as far as we could tell though, while we were here.

A quick shot of us. Unintentionally coordinated in blues – right down to the lanyard and magic bands.

I love the patterns on the covering here. The diamond shadows are so fun.

We made it just in time to grab a boat heading across the lake.

Which is good – because we had reservations for Beirgarten in Germany!

This is one of our favorites – a slightly different selection of food each time but always delicious. Here I got some spaetzle, meatballs, pretzel rolls, roasted potatoes, roasted veggies, german potato salad . . .

Plus dessert! Chris’s absolute favorite here is the Bavarian Cheesecake.

Just a plate-full of that and he’s a happy guy.

I learned the berry sauce for one of the other desserts was fabulous on the cheesecake:

We also got a good time to catch a full show:

From here we headed back to the front of the park. It was so warm, I didn’t even take many photos on the way.

We stopped in China, and I asked for water (you can get a cup from any Quick Service if you ask) at Lotus Blossom. What I got was a child’s size cup of tap water. No ice. Not cold (as it should come out of the soda dispenser). What the heck?

Past Mexico.

The Puerto Rico booth for Food and Wine was adorable.

We had stopped and grabbed something at the Patagonia booth. Most of the places just didn’t seem worthwhile when we already had a wonderful meal lineup from the Dining Plan, but I was determined to have SOMETHING while we were here.

So we got a beef empanada.

As well as a grilled beef skewer with chimichurri sauce and boniato purée.

The skewer was really good. We’d have it again. The empanada was alright, but not amazing.

Did I mention how hot it was? We were getting cranky from the melting heat (it was in the 90’s with a high humidity guh), and decided we should find an indoor ride to cool down on.

Of course, there’s no better option for that in EPCOT than The Land.

No Circle of Life today, but I do love the series of cutouts along the way.

I lucked out with a front row view!

Look! They decorate for Halloween/Fall in here too.  How cute.

Then we popped into Club Cool to try some of the current pop selections.

Beverly was all out. So sad . . .

We enjoyed the Sparberry, especially.

Then we took a trip through time on Spaceship Earth.

It’s easy to miss just how amazing these guys are. How much realistic movement is going on.

Somehow our spaceship was stuck in German. . .

Hey medic – think you can take a look at the swiss cheese heads we have?

The CM let us ride through again without getting off – it was a pretty quiet day for the big ball. In English this time!

They added Steve Jobs working in his garage –  I need to go back and get a better shot.

Amusingly, we liked our German surprise end video better! Too bad we couldn’t save it…

How amazing it would be to see this for real…

From here, we headed out. We had dinner reservations at:

Pretty sunset as we left.

At the entrance to AKL:

The MASSIVE and beautiful lobby:

We made our way to the restaurant. Tonight was Boma!

Clockwise: Mealie Bread (a mild corncake), Sambosa with spinach and paneer cheese, (not sure…), chicken with Tamarind BBQ sauce, African carved strip loin, and Ancho BBQ pork ribs. That Tamarind sauce was sooo good!

It was ridiculous trying to get all the white food to show up on the white plate. 

I have regular mashed potatoes, Bobotie, Basmati rice, and Pap (white cornmeal).

They had Coconut Curry Chicken Stew. This wasn’t too bad,  but not as amazing as some of the other items.

Desserts!

Strawberry Mint Panna Cotta Domes. These were just alright.

The often drooled-over Zebra Domes. Well, drooled-over by everyone else. I didn’t care for them . . .

Cassava Cakes – another that I thought was tasty, but not obsessive worthy.

Chris looked at me. I looked at him. We both went – “BOOBS”. Yep, we’re adults.

After having our fill of delicious African foods, we headed back to the park.

On the way I got a great shot of the Tower of Terror “billboard”.

Then the fantastic colors on the Spaceship Earth dome:

I am STILL blown away that I took this – it’s a postcard worthy shot if I do say so.

We decided to run over to Test Track, now that it was a walk-on wait time.

I… miss the original.

First we have the “we’re totally not trying to sell you a Chevy” area:

The exploded car was interesting.

Then you step into the “design studio”. This was honestly annoying. It felt contrived and I much preferred walking through a queue with lots of details versus being shuttled into a big room and distracted from your wait. Even better, we still got shuttled into ANOTHER room to wait again.  

Saw the reflection and had to get a shot. Here it’s testing the aerodynamics.

Again, I just felt it lost a lot of the appeal. It got this rebranding and they had to come up with a new theme/skin/refresher because of the new partnership. You have this “competition” that really doesn’t amount to anything. BAH

Finally you exit to an “Honest, this is NOT a sales floor…” room.

The moon and cloud cover made this an extra cool crossing!

By now my feet were SCREAMING. I wanted my shoes off, and had nothing to switch to. I stopped into MouseGear and very VERY reluctantly bought some crocs.

I do not want to consider to this day, how much they cost; however, I will say I STILL wear them. They are more comfortable than you would expect, and I can see why they are popular. They are not supportive enough for all day wear or long walks, but for a quick trip to the store or as “house slippers” they do the job.

I almost missed this shot – so forgive the blur. How often do you see the maintenance monorail train go by??

One last shot together at EPCOT, and it’s time to head out.

Still making the most of our time – we are the ONLY car left in the lot.

For those that don’t know, I work for Quicken Loans. Our motto is Engineered to Amaze – so noticing what section I randomly parked in made me more excited than most people.

With that we trudged back to our hotel to pass out.