Trip Log:

Started off the morning with a 6:15am wake up call.  Walked out and caught a cab over to Osprey Ridge for our 7:30 tee time.  Played our round then back to the Contemporary for a quick shower and change of clothes before catching a monorail to the TTC and to EPCOT (on the way to EPCOT sat up front).  Stopped by Soarin and grabbed a Fastpass on our way out to Canada for a 2:10 lunch priority seating.  After lunch caught the O Canada circle vision then walked back to Future World.   Walked through Minnies butterfly house and over to the Garden Town in Wonders of Life.  After exploring it for a while walked back through Innoventions and stopped to play the Waste Management game again.    Then headed across the plaza and to the Living Seas.  Found Nemo and explored the pods.  Once done we headed for the Living with the Land boat ride and then back toward World Showcase by way of the Sculpture Garden.   Went for a ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour, then stopped by Norway to search for some trolls.  Hide from a rain cloud then continued on to the American Gardens stage to catch the Ventures.   After the show continued on around lagoon and caught the Off Kilter set along the way.  We ended up back at Future World, grabbed a quick hot dog and then stopped by the EPCOT 25 exhibit before going to use our Soarin’ Fastpass.   We missed the start of Illuminations so we headed back to the monorail to beat the crowd.  Along the way decided to head to the Magic Kingdom, so at the TTC hopped on the ferryboat.  Arrived on Main Street about 9:30 and had to fight our way up stream against the Spectro Magic exit crowd.  They opened the backstage walkway, so we took that, then cut across the traffic and swung around to Sleepy Hollow to grab a funnel cake and the Harbor House for some chicken.  After eating and watching the fireworks we walked down Main Street and back to the Contemporary to call it a night.

Thoughts & Observations:

• We enjoyed a great round of golf over at Osprey Ridge this morning. They were setting up for a shot gun start tournament later in the day, so there were only a handful (I believe six actually) four-somes going out this morning. Overall the course seemed in good shape, but the moral seemed down due to the impending closing of the course and what has been done to its sister course Eagle Pines. For those of you who do not know, Eagle Pines closed down last year and is currently being bulldozed to make room for houses, condos, and a four seasons hotel. Osprey Ridge will become their golf course and Disney will be back to its original three eighteen hole courses Lastly I just wanted to mention I was a bit annoyed with the CM starters. I usually try to have my own cart so I can take pictures along the way and not interrupt the pace of play. This started off that way but then at the last minute a single joined our group and the CMs merged him into my cart. This annoyed me because first they asked and I said I prefer not to share the cart, they did not seem to care though and were already moving his things. They said they were short carts for the tournament. Well I really don't care about the tournament, I had just paid $150 for my round of golf ($450 if you count the three of us), then to top it off I got talked to about how I should not hold up the pace of play. Turns out the group a couple in front of us played slow, ate breakfast, etc.. and they held things up, but still I thought this was just not very Disney and the first time I have ever encountered anything like this on the courses, over the years I have found the golf starters to be amongst the friendliest CMs, most truly loved their jobs and it really showed. Hopefully I just caught them on a bad day, but I was disappointed in this.
  
  
• We were going to EPCOT for lunch so hopped on the Monorail from the Contemporary to the TTC then to EPCOT, there was no one around so we asked to sit in front on the way to EPCOT and they let us, still a great treat, but unfortunately the monorail we were in had seen better days and the front windshield was fairly beat up and the way the sun was reflecting made it hard to see out and even harder to get good pictures through.
  
  
• It is a somewhat odd experience to walk into EPCOT with the current background music set. They are playing Beach Boys and Surf music since that fits with the theme of the Flower and Garden festival. I almost feel as if I am walking into DCA since some of the tracks overlap. I understand going with the theme but I still think the outside music should be the traditional EPCOT.. save the Beach Boys for around the topiaries...
  
  
• Had lunch at Le Cellier due to not being able to get a dinner reservation any of the eight days we were there (and I called 6 month, well maybe 5 months out). Lunch was great though... only thing I wish is they would let you order the large cuts of beef, the lunch portion is a bit smaller and I was hungry.
  
  
• We decided to give Soarin a try since many in the group enjoy the attraction, our return time was not until 8:30 and we picked up the tickets around 1:30pm, we were very lucky to get them, usually they are gone by then, how I enjoy DCA better where the return times are usually only a couple hours or less. Anyways just wanted to mention that I thought the film/projector were the worst I had ever seen and I have ridden both versions of Soarin several times over the years (DCAs more times than I can count). There was dirt and specs everywhere and it really distracted from the film. I was always annoyed when one or two specs would show up, but this was a handful or more visible in almost every scene. Even other, non disneygeeks in the group commented on this. I am still surprised they do not use digital for this, seems it would eliminate this issue.
  
  
• We made the mistake of trying to get into the Magic Kingdom, grab a funnel cake, and then leave in between the 9pm Spectro Magic and the 10pm Wishes. Seems since the park was to close early the next couple nights everyone else had a similar idea to go to the MK tonight. Luckily they opened the backstage walkway behind Main Street so getting to the hub was extremely easy but then crossing the hub to get to Liberty Square was a tremendous effort made worse by almost a complete lack of crowd control. We basically pushed our way through the masses with large groups heading South out of the park, another large mass heading North trying to find a spot for Wishes, and then a couple smaller trails of us heading West or East trying to get through the park, all of this leading to near grid lock. We did make it and we ended up hanging out till after Wishes trying to let the crowd dwindle a bit, it did not, but we then cut across and used the backstage route again to get down the street and it was not too bad.
  
  
• While waiting for those who wanted the funnel cake and others who grabbed some food from the Harbor House I was sitting in the outdoor area across from the Liberty Belle dock and I heard sprinklers running, then saw water streaming off the roofs nearby, this seemed odd at first then the fireworks started, it became quite clear that we were in a possible fallout area. I was actually surprised that for most of the show no CMs were around, a couple times though a fire marshal did come by. The view of the show was great, and we lucked out with the wind till the very end, then a cloud of smoke did descend on us.
  
  
• We walked back to the Contemporary because the monorail line was huge, back toward the entrance, the express was worse and the Ferrys were long too.. it was great to not have to deal with the busses or the masses for once! One huge plus of staying at the Contemporary (sort of how you feel after Illuminations when staying at the EPCOT resorts).
  

Pedometer Information for the day:

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