DISNEY WORLD 2022 - Day 4 - EPCOT DAY
Lisa and I woke up early, showered, dressed, and got our backpacks packed for a day at EPCOT.
It was our last day at Disney World. We were both flying home the next morning.
We talked about our plans for the day. We both had some rides we wanted to ride, and we wanted to walk around the World Showcase Pavilions and try food from different countries.
Just as we were ready to head to the park, an issue came up with Lisa and she HAD to go home right away. She had to leave!!
YIKES!
It all happened very fast.
It was nothing involving our Mom, or any health issues. Everyone is fine. It was some personal stuff she had to go home and deal with immediately. It was a bummer that this couldn't wait ONE more day but she had to take the next flight home.
She was packed and gone before I could say Mickey Mouse, and suddenly I was there in the room alone.
I thought I should probably just go home too. No reason to stay here alone, and I was supposed to fly home the next morning anyway, so I called the airlines to change my flight.
Just as the phone started ringing I hung up.
No.
I'm not going home a day early.
I'm here at Disney World, my favorite place to be. I am in a bad ass room at the Polynesian Resort that is already paid for.
I'm staying.
I talked to Tim on the phone, and he gave me the courage I needed to stay at the resort alone for 24 hours. I decided I would just hang out at the resort for the day. I didn't really want to go to EPCOT alone.
As I sat there on my patio and people watched, I worked up a bit more courage. I decided I would take the shuttle bus to Disney Springs and go shopping.
I could do that by myself, couldn't I??
So I got myself ready and I went out to the bus stop.
I saw a photographer outside our resort, so I stopped for a solo photo shoot.
Cute pic!! I love Little Orange Bird :)
* I need to get the Disney Watermark off of this picture. Lisa has the PhotoPass info, and I can get a clean copy of this pic from her. At the moment, I'm in a hurry, so this one will have to do for now
Done with my photoshoot, I went over to the bus stop.
In about 10 minutes, the busses started coming by.
This first bus was going to Typhoon Lagoon, one of the WaterParks.
I waited for the Disney Springs bus, and I hopped on.
It was about a 10 minute ride to Disney Springs.
There are a lot of high end stores at Disney Springs,
But this one is MY store!!!!
LOOK at all of this Disney stuff!!!
This is my favorite department.
The 50th Anniversary department. :)
As a consolation gift to myself for having to spend the day alone, I bought myself this adorable and comfy zipper hoodie. It was $65.
OOOhhh! I love it! I will keep it and wear it for a long time. I still have the one I bought in 2003.
I also got my grandkids a few more goodies while I was here.
I spent about an hour looking around the store and then I decided I was hungry.
I was thinking about going out to find a sandwich shop or something I could grab for lunch, but I decided to just head back to the resort. I could eat there.
This is what the shuttle bus corrals look like. They have about 10 of them and you just need to find the correct one that goes to your resort. Busses should come by every 10 minutes or so.
When I got back to the resort, around 11 AM, I started thinking about EPCOT. I was really wanting to go. There were 2 rides there I really wanted to ride. Soarin', and Test Track. Since I went to Disney Springs by myself, I could go to EPCOT by myself too. I was feeling brave.
So I packed my backpack and got myself ready to go.
You can get to EPCOT on the monorail from the Polynesian resort now. It involves taking a monorail to the TTC (The Ticket and Transportation Center) and then getting on the Epcot monorail.
Here comes the orange one!
It's really not as fun to ride the monorail alone
Disney world is beautiful. You can see the Grand Floridian Resort and another monorail in this picture I took on the way to EPCOT
EPCOT stands for "Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow". This was supposed to be a city. Back in the 60's, Walt Disney wanted to make a utopian planned community of the future. He didn't live to see the city happen, but after he died the Disney Company took some of his ideas and made a theme park.
I made it!! I'm at EPCOT!!
That giant ball thing is called Spaceship earth.
As soon as I got there I signed myself up for DAS Passes for the two rides I wanted to do. Then I realized I was SO HUNGRY!!! I hadn't eaten anything all morning. I had some time before my first ride time so I looked around for something I could grab. I found a hotdog stand and I got a hot dog and chips.
Yikes, this hotdog and chips (with no drink) cost $9.99
The hot dog was actually really good. I could have ate two of them but I didn't want to pay $9.99 for another one.
After I ate, I made my way to The Land pavilion to find my first ride, Soarin'.
Inside the pavilion, this is place was BUSY!!
I had to make my way all the way around to the other side and down to the bottom floor.
I found where the ride line started. I found a nearby bench and waited around until my ride time came.
This ride is a giant 3D screen. You sit on these benches and seatbelt in. The benches raise up in the air and you watch an amazing giant movie that makes you feel like you are soaring over all these cool places in the world. There are smells, and breezes at the right times. You really feel like you are there.
We soared over all of these places, and many more!
After I rode Soarin' I walked to the other side of the park and found my next ride.
TEST TRACK!!
The ride is inside this building.
By the time I got over there I only had to wait about 3 minutes for my ride time to come up.
For this ride, you ride in little race cars.
Before the ride, you use computers to "build" your car.
Then on the ride, you are checking the performance of the car you built against the other people in your car. At the end of the ride, you go outside in your car and race around a half circle and then back into the building. It's very fun!
Here is the photo the ride snapped of me. I'm in a car with some random family.
- Another one I need to get Lisa to remove the watermark on.
And of course I am on my phone, snapping pictures!
As a matter of fact, I was snapping THIS picture! LOL!
This is just as we left the building to test our car's speed.
FUN ride!! I loved it!
The sky was still blue so I walked down toward World Showcase so I could see some of the countries. I love this area. I also thought I might try some food from some different countries too.
I walked around Mexico:
Then Norway:
Next was China:
I crossed a bridge and saw this funny boat in the water. Looks like the EPCOT fireworks! I didn't know they set off the fireworks from a boat.
Interesting
And you can see the progression of the sky getting grayer and darker in my last few pictures.
By the time I got to Germany, it started raining really hard.
I ducked into one of the little gift shops and waited a little while.
It wasn't getting any better and my weather app said it would be a while before it stopped.
What to do??
I finally decided to put on my poncho and get my umbrella out and walk in the rain back to the monorail and go back to the resort.
It was a loooooonnng walk! I'm really slow. I got soaked......
It took me about an hour to walk back though the whole park and ride 2 monorails back to the hotel. It was totally pouring rain the entire time.
It was really windy too. Twice my umbrella got caught by the wind and bent backward! LOL!!!
Fun times!
I was glad to be back in my room. I showered and put on dry clothes. Good thing I brought a lot of clothes with me on this trip. I needed all of them.
Over here at the resort it wasn't raining and the sky was looking OK.
The view from my patio around 5 PM
I hadn't eaten anything since that hotdog and that seemed like hours ago. I decided to go to Captain Cooks and get Buffalo wings and french fries for dinner.
After I ate I saw a pretty rainbow over the resort :)
As it got later, the resort lights came on. So pretty just sitting here.
I ventured out to the Great Ceremonial House and look at what happened to my Tiki Guy :(
He's gone! I have only been here 3 days and I feel sad that I watched him disappear into the construction void.
Here he is from my first night here:
Then they put a gate up:
Now he's gone. I will have to look for him next time I come here.
I walked around the resort a bit as it got dark.
This is a little bar/restaurant area.
They had movies for kids to watch.
The resort is really beautiful at night. Especially with the Hawaiian and Polynesian music playing over the speakers. Its has a very calming and nice atmosphere here.
I went into the gift shop for a few last minute gifts. I wasn't sure what to buy Tim. He is not a Disney guy at all, so he wouldn't really want any Disney souvenirs, LOL!
I finally got him this tin of lemon cookies that were made in Hawaii. He must have liked them, he ate them all in about 2 days :)
I also bought myself one final gift. I kept seeing this piece of art in the Polynesian resort gift shop and I resisted buying it. It was $40 and I didn't really want to spend that much. Finally, on my last night there this artwork was calling to me. I was thinking I would regret it if I went home without it.
So I bought it, and then I paid another $7 to have it shipped to me.
This is SO cute!! And look at Little Orange Bird :)
I really like that Orange Bird. He was a character created by Disney in the late 60's/ early 70's to promote Florida Orange Juice. He is making a big comeback at Disney and I saw Orange Bird merchandise all over the gift shops.
I'm glad I bought this art. It makes me happy, and I am anxiously waiting for it to arrive. It should be here this week.
*EDIT to add: My artwork arrived and it was crushed and bent when it got here. I was so sad when I saw it! I called Disney merchandise guest services and they are sending a replacement to me. It's actually UPS's fault it got crushed, Disney had packed it very well. Disney can deal with UPS. I do appreciate that Disney is sending a replacement. These are only sold at the Polynesian Resort and I would have to go back there to get a new one.
Artwork aside, it was my last evening at the resort. At 9 PM I walked over to the big beach - well, now it's the ONLY beach at the Poly because the smaller beach is now blocked off for the construction.
The fireworks were going to start soon.
After the fireworks I went back to my room and got busy packing. I had a wet poncho and a wet umbrella to dry out. I left them out on my patio overnight and they dried completely by the next morning.
I also had 3 pairs of very wet shoes to pack..............I did have plastic bags to put them in to get them home.
Lucky for me I had sandals to wear home.
I watched some TV and enjoyed my last night at the Polynesian. It was a very relaxing night.
The next morning, my sister and I had a breakfast reservation at OHana Restaurant. I wasn't sure if I was going to cancel it or keep the reservation and eat there alone.
OHana is one of Disney's more popular restaurants, and reservations there are hard to get. I decided to wait and see how I felt in the morning.
That night it took me a while to fall asleep. My feet and legs were really hurting from all of the walking. The bed was so comfortable, when I finally fell asleep I slept like a baby.
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