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Today we traveled the universe: Walked the Great Wall of China, got frozen in Norway, played with rats in Paris, guarded the galaxy, swam with the fishes, and even traveled into outer space.
Most of us look happy enough at the start of the day. Joe, is something wrong?
You're not getting sick, are you? Or maybe he's just depressed because he's found out where we're going next.
If the boys made one thing clear on the drive down to Orlando, they would NOT be doing anything related to that stupid kids' movie Frozen. But guess what? It's the only ride that's open at EPCOT this time of morning.
So here we are. It's a repurposed boat ride using all the infrastructure from the old Norway Maelstrom attraction that closed in 2014. Same ride, different things to see.
The boat even goes over the same waterfall. So, did we like it?
Rocky certainly seemed happy on the way out.
Lily and Rocky even made friends with the old leftover troll in the gift shop.
It was a beautiful day but it was going to get hot.
OK, Lily, where to next?
How about the China exhibit? The door was closed when we passed by earlier, but we can go in now.
The gardens are beautiful out front.
And inside we discovered the four of us were the only visitors at this time of morning. We have the whole place to ourselves!
Rocky is not going to pass up the opportunity to run around like a 10-year-old when he's not going to annoy anybody.
We're in an auditorium with a 360° screen. China is surrounding us and we are on a journey from the ancient past to the present.
We started at the great wall and now we've ended there. Nice travelogue.
Lily is inspired to be a lion.
Rocky is inspired to climb on a lion.
Next stop on our trip around the universe was Mexico. That's a Mayan temple of some sort behind us. We'd tried to have a look at this when we had a Mexican dinner at EPCOT Monday night, but it was closed. Now we're going inside.
It's wedding day for La Catrina, the symbol of the Mexican Day of the Dead.
There's the gift shop. We enjoyed our visit here, but maybe less than other places.
Want to see the whole nice enough but not particularly terrific ride? Here you go.
Now this would turn out to be a terrific ride based on a terrific Disney Pixar film, Ratatouille. It's the story of an epicurean rat who becomes a renowned chef in Paris.
You gotta wear 3D glasses for this one. Rocky thinks they make him look tough.
Bill thinks they make him look silly.
Here's the whole ride. Probably not as much fun as seeing it in 3D, but have a look. It is great.
Rocky found a flashy motorcycle to ride around the streets of Paris.
Lily made the boys take more sedate transportation. Rocky wants his hog back. (And just in case you're wondering, these cycles were nailed down. Nobody was going anywhere.
But we could still walk the streets of Paris.
Rocky discovered money in the fountain.
He had to throw all those coins back.
We did a quick pass by London on our way to lunch in space.
Yes, we are about to become lunchtime astronauts.
We have found the restaurant's launching site.
Rocky pauses by a model of the moon that shows where all the stuff from earth has landed over the years.
We are preparing to launch to lunch.
Actually, no rocket is involved in this trip. See, Disney has built a space elevator from Orlando to a restaurant in geostationary orbit. I know, physics and all, but apparently this really does work. I mean, we made the trip, didn't we?
Here we go!
And now we are ready to have lunch in space. Just look at that view of Earth down below!
Rocky is enjoying his space fries.
While everybody else enjoys the view.
Untethered astronauts are zooming around outside. One of them was riding a skateboard and Joe liked that.
When our waitress discovered Joe had recently celebrated his 13th birthday she was going to have every wait person in the Space Station surround Joe and sing happy birthday but Bill stepped in and insisted we not embarrass the boy quite that much. So she just brought him a special space cupcake with a candle instead. I'm not sure she understood the danger of lighting candles in spacecraft, but it seemed routine to her.
Very nice.
Joe was pleased.
And then Rocky crawled under the table and popped up to annoy his big brother. Bill handled the situation with aplomb.
We hated to say goodbye to our restaurant in the stars.
But it was time to descend the elevator back to the real world.
And down we went.
We split up again so the big boys could ride the big boy rides. Lily and Rocky went back to Spaceship Earth, the geodesic dome. Rocky had enjoyed that ride Monday night and wanted to do it again. They got popcorn.
And apparently appeared on the local news.
Meanwhile, Bill and Joe headed off to guard the galaxy.
The ride is new: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, and it is very popular. Joe and Bill got right up to the point of loading on the ride when it shut down and they had to come back later in the day. But not to worry -- they eventually saved the universe.
See? Told you.
Want to ride with us? Here's what it was like.
Rocky was just walking along innocently when suddenly Walt Disney World trapped him.
The sky is getting dark, right on its afternoon schedule. Let's go inside.
Apparently quite a few mommies and daddies have had the same idea. That's quite a stroller parking lot.
This looks interesting -- some kind of underwater exhibit.
First an introduction to The Seas with Nemo and Friends.
And then real sea creatures like this manatee.
His name is Lil' Joe and he likes to eat iceberg lettuce. Lots of iceberg lettuce.
See what I mean? And I don't care what the sign says, that's iceberg, not romaine.
Does Rocky like it here? Oh, yes, Rocky likes it here.
Look! Scuba divers!
They even wave back.
See the turtle down there?
See the mouse down there?
The boys were fascinated and actually so were Lily and Bill.
Here's some video of all this. It was every bit as beautiful and mesmerizing as it appears.
And then Rocky was swallowed by a shark.
Rocky is testing whose teeth are sharper.
This is pretty.
And that is pretty.
And it's raining outside.
So we panchoed up.
And took a boat ride through a sister exhibit called The Land. Rocky was less impressed here.
Joe endured it.
So the fish poop in the tank and that provides fertilizer for the plants. Clever. So what's next for today?
It turns out 10-year-olds like to play in puddles? Who knew?
Yep, the puddles perked him right up.
It was about now that Rocky and Bill decided to head back to the hotel while Joe and Lily would stay behind. Joe was trying to complete a Pokemon Go EPCOT challenge on his iPhone, and besides, he wanted to have dinner in Italy so he could practice the Italian he'd been learning with Duolingo. See how sad they are to say goodbye to us?
Not to worry...they perked up too when they realized they no longer had the little one and the old one to slow them down.
Joe is trying to steal Thor's hammer Mjolnir at the Norway pavilion. He's doing about as well as Rocky did with the sword in the stone.
Lily and Joe are in phony Disney Japan. Bill knows that because he toured the real Japan back in November and he knows a Japanese pagoda when he sees one.
That's a torii gate. See? I'm an expert.
Bill toured Morocco back in March, so he recognizes that distinctive Moroccan minaret. You can't fool me.
I just bet that's France.
And this must be...um...something Scandinavian?
Bill's never been there, so now he's lost.
Italy! Bill knows Italy when he sees it!
San Marco Piazza. Bill loves that place when it isn't underwater.
Joe is about to order dinner in Italian. Way to go, Joe! He talked about his lovely Italian waitress but he didn't get a picture of her. Too bad.
And now the sun is setting over EPCOT.
It's an amazing, educational, fun place to visit.
But in the meantime, back to Bill and Rocky. Remember how he was perky in the puddles? Well, he wasn't exactly a bundle of energy on the ride back to the hotel. Little boys and old men do poop out.
But Rocky woke up again when he and Bill arrived back in our room.
We watched the animals from our balcony for awhile.
And then we went to the pool.
Rocky likes the pool.
Bill likes the pool.
And if we can just keep our eyes open, everybody likes pizza. Joe and Lily did make it back to the room around 9:30. It was a great day.
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