Day Seven - Epcot

After several early starts, we had a long lie.  We decided upon breakfast in the market place in the neighboring Beach Club Resort.  This was our first foray into the Beach Club.  This seemed a much busier hotel with more families.  This backed up by the numbers getting on and off the Disney buses.  Breakfast was tasty with Mickey Waffles and bacon and a platter with sausage, bacon, egg, biscuit (more like a scone) waffle and potato.

After breakfast it was off to the pool.  The kids could play about until their hearts were content. The adults could relax and play with the kids as suited.  This lasted until 1:30pm, when the sky darkened.  There was a flash of lightening and the pool was immediately cleared. Shortly afterwards the rain started.  Back to the room for a shower and change. So we are ready to go on our next trip when the rain abates.

The thunderstorms are intense and quite spectacular.

In previous visits the thunder showers were later the day and worked out well for splitting the day.  This visit we are having to change our plans depending on what the weather is doing.  This is no real problem as there are plenty of options.

The rain has become a constant drizzle, going from being enough to need a coat (or poncho) to just putting up with it. We entered Epcot between the UK and France ( no not in the middle of the English Channel) and headed towards France.  We were off round the world.  We headed to Morocco.  There were some tasty looking offerings for snacks that were savory rather than sweet.  We bypassed Japan as we had been around earlier in this visit and we were a little peckish.  Next stop was USA where we had to try some Funnel Cake.  It was hot and stringy and covered in icing sugar.  We all dived in.  Next we went to Italy.  It was by this point that there were many people on a drink around the world challenge. A good number seemed quite young and a number were clearly celebrating their 21st and \or graduation.  Some were quite noisy and were obviously playing drinking games.  You have to wonder, if this really fits with family image that Disney portrays.  Then again the price of the drinks must make this a good earner, on top of this you have the souvenir glasses.  How long will alcohol be allowed in Epcot or will they need to impose some sort of limit to the number of drinks? The few could spoil things for the many.

After Italy came Germany.  Once again alcohol was at the forefront as this seems to be what Germany is most famous for. 

Next comes Norway, famous now for Frozen. As we had breakfast here earlier in the week we passed straight through.  On to China.  The pavilion where a the souvenirs are actually made in the country being represented. They are all considerable cheaper in the country of origin.  They had a troupe of Chinese acrobats to entertain.  The didn't have much of a space to perform in, but they were quite good.  We then took in the 360° film presentation on China.  It started in Shanghai and the tallest building on the Pudong side of the river was the ??? Tower.  This is now dwarfed by several other buildings and shows the age of the presentation.

Lastly, we went to Mexico, home of Tequila and Margaritas.  We did the ride and headed out.  The kids had wanted to try burrito, but there didn't seem to be any on offer. 

Most of our visits to Epcot so far had been after thunderstorms and Test Track had been closed.  It had been closed most of the day.  As we wandered past we could hear cars on the track above.  This was the test before the attraction being opened.  We were lucky enough to get straight in as the reopened the ride.

Our dinner reservation was in The Nine Dragon restaurant.  The meal was really good, one if the best so far on this trip.  I had the Kowloon spare ribs in hosin sauce, cabbage and noodles.

After our meal there was a short wait until the illuminations reflections of earth fireworks display.  We had read that the bridge in Italy was a good place to view the fireworks from, so we made our way there and found a spot.  As the park wasn't very busy, there were lots of spaces. This was indeed a good spot as in the distance we could see another firework display. This must have been the Magic Kingdom. Disney do spectacular firework displays.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw some of the fireworks from Hollywood Studios to the soundtrack of Star Wars.  Three displays for the price of one.

A tangle of wires...

I do not know what the collective noun is for cables, but a tangle seems to fit the bill.  In the past, I can never remember this being a problem.  In early holidays the only "gadget" that went on holiday was a camera and this was generally a mechanical affair.  There may be some batteries to be involved for flash bulbs (for younger readers you will need to look this up,in Google).  The first gadget that came on trips was a digital camera, this was a 2 megapixel state of the art camera.  It required 4 AA batteries and went through them with alarming speed.  This required a compact flash card, which you could easily fill in a two week holiday.  The only cable required was for downloading the pictures.  As laptops were like bricks, these stayed at home so therefore so did the cables.  This all changed for us in 2004 when we discovered wi-fi in San Francisco.  It was everywhere and best of all it was free. On returning home to the UK we explored wi-fi further.  It was possible to set up a home network, but it was not generally available and the few outlets that had it, charged for using it.  We are often a good few years behind the USA in these things.

The next handy gadget to go on holiday was an IPod touch.  This required a cable to recharge the built-in battery.  The plus side was that it provided a camera as well as internet access.  It has to be said that I used to be quite au fait with technology, but phones were always a mystery to me.  My first mobile phone was a Nokia, with a keypad and a little green screen.  I am now on my third phone and at last it is a smart phone.  I say smart, it is mildly clever - my usage does not warrant a high end phone. So now I need to take cables for the phone.  The IPod is still handy, but has been largely superseded by an IPad. This has proved particularly useful, with features such as FaceTime for keeping in touch with home.  The thing is that this is no longer just me as the whole family now has all this technology.  The result is that we have a case full of wires, chargers and adapter plugs.  This is not helped by the fact that the technology all have different plugs.  The IPhone and IPads have two different plugs, depending upon age.  The kids tablets and Android phones have yet another plug (micro-usb) and the video camera has yet another (mini-usb).

Is all this technology really necessary?  Well in the most part, yes. Everything is on-line these days.  All the Disney restaurant bookings need to be done on-line, (with Deposits). The itinerary of Fastpasses and restaurant times is on the My Disney app.  The wait times are all on-line, which is much better than traipsing across a park to find a 3 hour wait at the end. We can access all sorts of useful information using the Internet for life outside Disney.  Then there is the entertainment value to keep the kids amused while we have some quite time.  Yes, we have some quite time, after tramping around the park from my ours we return to the hotel for a little break before getting changed and going out for the next round.  With the Disney photo package included in our package we can review all the photographs on-line.

The day they closed Epcot

I am a big fan of Wolfstone, a Scottish band who play folk music with bagpipes, electric guitars and an electric fiddle.

I was in America, the Epcot Pavilion when I heard, in the distance, music not dissimilar to Wolfstone.  It was very faint and I had to concentrate to make sure my ears were not playing tricks on me. 

On returning to our hotel, we checked out the "What's On" pamphlet we had picked up in the park.  The only thing that fitted the bill was Off Kilter at the Canadian Pavilion.  I wanted to hear more.  Checking out our schedule, we had nothing planned for our last day in Orlando and checking the schedule Off Kilter were due to play that day.  Trip on!

We got up and ready and left to get to Epcot.  In the car enroute, signs by the roadside indicated that Epcot was closed that day (17th July 2002).  This was only the third day that the park had closed since opening in 1982. I couldn't believe it!

The problem was linked to a local electric substation.

Luckily, we have visited Disney several times since and I managed to see Off Kilter and not surprisingly became a big fan.  I was very disappointed when Disney cancelled them.  The lumberjack show I'd a poor second behind the energy of Off Kilter.  At least there are plenty of clips of Off Kilter on YouTube, to remind me of those visits and the day I didn't see them.

Disney and YouTube

I have mentioned before that I did quite a bit of research into the Great Mickey Adventure using YouTube and it has been very helpful.  I did also warn of the danger of going over the top with watching videos to extent the adventure is lost as you have seen it all before (without the experience). Today I was on YouTube and there were pages and pages of suggested videos all dedicated to Disney.  There are lots of My Disney Holiday or vlogs, there were review of everything you could imagine, there were lists of best, worst or just lists, walk throughs, what to pack, top tips, Disney history, Disney news and it just goes on and on.  It was endless.  There was a video on how much it would cost to stay at Disney for a year (unsurprisingly it's a lot). There were videos on how to get kicked out of Disney, but given the cost of entry why would you even try?  One video seemed to suggest that the participants were trying to get locked in one of the parks for the night - again Why? Some video were little more than mobile phone footage (without the use of a selfie-stick as they are banned from the parks) with little or no editing, whereas others have a high production effort.

At the end of all this I have come to the conclusion that you can get too much of a good thing. People have posted these videos with the best of intention, but there is a real danger that a holiday could be completely spoiled as it is no longer journey of discovery.

Are we in danger of doing the same with blogs?  If the aim is to encourage and help fellow travellers then all well and good, but we don't want to provide experience by proxy.

I am keen to create a video record of our holidays, but I don't let it interfere with the holiday.  I edit the footage to give flavour of our experience and this has a limited to release to members of my immediate family only.  I want these to be a record for our children for when they are older and childhood memories start to fade.

The Check List.

The idea of travelling at the drop of a hat sounds ideal.  To be able to drop everything and head off on an adventure seems like the way to live and the more often the better.  However, this does not seem to be the way of the world (certainly not mine).  There are so many things that need organising and planning that hours of time are spent on the trip before I even leave my front door.  In our case here is a check list of things we have had to do or are yet to complete.

1. Book the hotel. (After hours of research and comparisons. Done well in advance to take advantage of the Disney deal.)
2. Book the flights. (We booked the hotel so far in advance that we had to wait for the flights to become available for our return date. More research and comparison.)
3. Book a hotel at the airport.  (Flight is early morning so we need to travel the night before.)
4. Book airport car parking.
5. Book pets into pet boarding.
6. Travel insurance (included with house insurance but need details).
7. Create an itinerary for trip. This is needed to plan meals and takes advantage of extra Disney hours.
8. Book Fastpasses. (Starts 60 days before departure).
9. Make reservations for meals on Disney Dining Plan (starts 180 days before departure).
10. Organise Esta's for the visa waver scheme.
11. Complete API forms.
12. On-line check-in.
13. Exchange cash.
14. Top up money travel card.
15. Sort out emergency telephone numbers (insurance, bank cards, etc).

Now that all that is organised the only things left to do are to make sure we have all the essentials that we need to pack and then actually get there.  The packing is not as it used to be, where there was a panic if something had been forgotten. Now for any items that we have failed to pack we either do without or buy another locally.

The only real essential is the travel documents such as passports.  Much of the other documentation is    on-line.  It is never very clear whether or not this needs to printed out or not.  In a recent flight booking, they suggested printing out the e-tickets as some countries require a physical return ticket to prove that you intend to leave the country.  

Bermuda trip is on...

Well after a short deliberation we have booked our trip to Bermuda.  It was all very easy using the Internet in the comfort of our own home to sort out the accommodation and flights.  We will be flying direct to Bermuda from Gatwick, this was by far the best option.  Indirect flights were no cheaper, but took considerably longer that the seven and a half hours we will have to endure.  We are going for 8 days, rather than the 7 that were originally planned.  The cost of flights were much cheaper the day after the day we were going to return.  The cost of accommodation for the extra night is less that the additional cost of the flight, so it was an easy decision - a cheaper holiday and an extra day.

The accommodation again proved very straight forward, once we had made a decision.  We will be close to our friends and staying in an area which we know.

We were surprised by the cost of the holiday.  The total cost is coming in at not much more as we would pay for a week in the Mediterranean.

We visited Bermuda last year (for which I kept a journal, so may publish details later) and spent a lot of time on the north (or east) side of the island.  We visited St Georges and Hamilton as well as the Crystal Caves, Gibbs Lighthouse and the Zoo, Aquarium and Museam.  We visited Horseshoe bay beach (it was packed with people from a couple of cruise ships that were in the docks), Tabacco Bay (which was absolutely wonderful) but our beach of choice was Shelly Bay.  Shelly Bay was close to where we were staying.  It was a gently sloping beach which stays shallow for miles.  Although, there was little vegetation on the sea floor, or rocks for that matter, there are still plenty of fish to see.  The beach was very quite. It did not have the facilities of the other beaches, but frankly we didn't miss them.

This leaves us with the west side of the island left to explore.  We have not visited the Royal Dockyard or taken a ferry.  There are still lots of beaches to be tried.  I would like to do some kayaking around the coves as well as go snorkelling by a shipwreck.

This trip has diverted our attention from the forthcoming Disney Adventure, but now that all is booked it's back to the final preperations for Florida.

Bermuda accommodation...

We have sorted out the flights, although we still have to book them.  This will be done after booking the accommodation, as it is easier to cancel.  Initially we had a short list of 3 places that looked to suit the bill.  We contacted our friend in Bermuda and on his advice narrowed the choice down to two.  This is now where our problem lies, making a decision.   As you would expect both properties have their pros and cons...

One is close to our friend house, the other is very close to a number of attactions.  One is more central, but the other has the bus stop right outside the door. One has two bedrooms, the other sleeps 5 but has only one bedroom. Both have excellent reviews.  Decisions, decisions!

At least, with the benefit of Internet, there is a host of information available to help make a choice.

I always struggled with travel brouchers, there was minimal amount of information, the information supplied by the people trying to sell you the holiday and a number of small pictures.  The pictures were always the same a view of the hotel and pool.  They all looked the same after a while.  The information about prices was not very helpful.  By the time supplements and costs of flying the price you ended up paying was much higher.

I remember a holiday to Westendorf in the Austrian Tyrol, where the broucher showed a foot high hedge outside the hotel.  Upon arrival the hedge turned out to be more like 12 foot.  It was a great hotel and we did enjoy the holiday, but it did make me suspicious about the age of the photographs used.

The cost of flying from local airports can make a huge difference to the cost of a trip.  Living in South Wales there is the local airport, Cardiff, but there is another airport relatively close in Bristol.  There is not a lot of difference in the time it takes to get to either airport.  However it is often much cheaper to fly from Bristol.  It always pays to check out alternatives.