Hey, I got a picture of Tesla guy...or maybe just his Tesla. Our drive was the one on the very end passed the Tesla. The Windsor Palms has some really nice maintained areas. They would pick up your garbage every day from a nice little bench beside the front door. The garbage fit into the bench, so no one would see it. The grass was perfect. The hedges were trimmed often. And the pool guys came by weekly to check on things and clean it out as needed. I looked into the HOA fees, and they are a nice $1500/month. Yikes!
This morning began a little early for me as I had to wake at 7AM to get a reservation for Ratatouille, today being the very last day for the virtual queue system. I was up, noticing the knee was feeling a little better, sitting in the bathroom with Magan and my phone both opened to the Disney app ready to press join the queue at 7AM. And we got it, in at 01:30PM to the ride. Now I could go back to sleep for a bit more before we started moving towards EPCOT. EPCOT opens a little later, but we had our sunday service as just our family that morning, so I did not get much more sleep.
I can't believe I didn't capture any of the race pictures, but this was the day of the full marathon at EPCOT. And we arrived in the parking lot which is right next to where the marathon finishes. You could hear the music blaring and the names being announced as the runners crossed the finish lines. And there were a large number parking with us that were just going thru security so they could walk over to where the race was being finished. Pretty neat, we also saw many on the roads again as we came in. This race goes thru all 4 parks ending with a small run thru EPCOT from the international gateway across the park leaving near Testtrack.
And thus our first adventure for the day came with the runners. As they let everyone into the park at the opening, they were pushing the crowds to the right of Spaceship Earth, and seemed frustrated at the few that slipped out of the crowds to the left. But that has to be the best path to TestTrack, right? Well there was a lot of construction, and I figured that had to be the right path...anyway, it put us away from the giant crowd, and with the small group of people that were continually told two Disney cast members that we can't go this way. Which I interpreted as...ok, I just wasn't listening to them, because it had to be this way. We wrapped around and over to the Mars ride where we found the potential issue. The path from the Mission to Mars ride to Test Track was ON the actual marathon race course. But we were there as some of the first guests and got to see the running going by...that is when we watched Disney castmembers close off the left side of the race course pathway, which opened up a corral for us guests to co into...then closing us into the middle of the race course, they opened up the left side, and closed the right side...allowing us to pass thru and over to TestTrack. Mind Blown at the efficiency of this process. But to all the cast members that said we would not make it to TestTrack...BooYah!
I remember laughing at myself after the TestTrack when I thought my mask had blown off. Magan said it just blew behind your back. We stayed away from the World showcase that morning waiting for our Ratatouille ride later in the afternoon. Ruby found another one of her disney lock pins at the Seas. Kinda sad, but we only had Ruby left for Turtle Talk with crush...even Davis was not going to turtle talk. After hitting I think everything except for Soarin, we headed over to the World Showcase. There was some difficulty on this day becuase we had a dinner reservation at Italy at 2:30, then our ride reservation slot started getting delayed and it ended up being at the same time. So after making Sam and Davis run this way and run that, we finally decided to just ride the ride, then go to our Pizza reservation late. Everything worked out well, but I think Sam and Davis did alot of walking due to my indecisions at this time.
At our diner reservation at Via Napoli, I wanted us to get a good meal in us so I ordered the Mezzo Metro huge one meter long pizza. And if you see the picture below, I didn't even have time to get a picture of the pizza, it was gone! Then I had ordered some tortellini to just help those that were still hungry, which was about 6 people at this point. So I am sure everyone will remember how much those next shared 4 tortellini noodles apiece filled us up.
We made our way around the worlds to each country hitting all of the kidcots which were a bit of a disappointment. It used to be a fun way to interact with young people from those countries, but post-covid, it is just another american handing out stickers with a postcard. Ruby was still excited as it came with a ziploc "briefcase" and if you got the card from each country, you would receive a special prize...which was disappointedly just another postcard. Oh well, me and Ruby had fun collecting them anyway.
And Ruby helped make the end of this day exciting as we visited Mexico to ride the donald duck ride, and just as we were getting on the ride, she has a nosebleed. So we are on the ride, holding her head back, scrambling thru the bag for tissues/napkins, and she is still trying to look around and watch the ride. Haha...luckily, we had been packing the bag with napkins as all had some drainage issues, and Davis with a bad cough (more foreshadowing). But we finished the ride quickly walking out of mexico to make sure she was cleaned up. And all was well...until we walked back over to the land to ride Soarin. Ruby had not rode this that she remembered, and started getting a little unsure of the ride, then apparently from the taste of the earlier nosebleed started getting sick, and almost gagging. I have run I think multiple kids from this ride all the way to the bathroom in emergencies before, and thought I was going to have to do it again. But I think Mom did some jedi mom tricks and got Ruby to suffer through it. And guess what...It is her new favorite...at least for today. We got off and went right back for a second ride she liked it so much. And this last time, we got top row center for the best seats in the house.
And we finished this night with the new firework display at EPCOT, and it was really cool, probably slightly edging out the magic kingdom. Mom found us a perfect spot while I grabbed some drinks and monster donuts. And since I have not written about it, the kids will remember, it all the sudden was no longer an issue...my knee was somewhat back to normal. I could feel a twinge that was telling me not to do any jumping jacks, but just sitting, standing, and riding...back to normal. I kept hitting the advil periodically to make sure inflammation stayed low. EPCOT is basically a mass of construction walls right now, but still my favorite as an all around experience. I am pretty sure that we also bought Sam his Honda Civic on this day back in Birmingham. So we did that also while down in Orlando.
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