I walked along the avenue I never thought I’d meet a girl like you
It was another morning where we needed to be away nice and early to get to Epcot as Neil had managed to get us an early boarding group for Guardians. In fact, it was so early that they were calling our boarding group before we had even been allowed in the park.
We headed straight to the ride. It seemed to be a longer walk once we had been let into the queuing area than it was to the ride itself from the entrance gates. I would like to have lingered longer to look at some of the models in the queuing area but we had to keep moving. I enjoyed the pre-show and it made me laugh again. I’m not quite sure why but we were given the choice of sitting on the front or the back. We chose the front. Apparently, we chose poorly as Neil said he would have preferred to have been on the back.
The ride itself again made the early morning start to get there more than worth it. It seemed even better the second time. The only disappointment was the soundtrack we had was ‘I ran’ by Flock of Seagulls. It didn’t have the same impact in my opinion as the Blondie one we had previously.
Again, we came off we a large smile on our faces. Neil then went off to ride Test Track as a single rider whilst Karen & I went and had a drink in Starbucks.
By the time Neil re-joined us we were ready to walk over to ride Soarin again in The Land pavilion. We had an end gondola which meant we got to see the bendy Eiffel Tower (if you have done this ride, you will know what I mean), but the smells that come with this ride more than compensates for any viewing difficulties (again you need to have done the ride to understand that).
Then we walked over to The Seas pavilion where we entered by riding the Finding Nemo attraction. The word to describe this is charming. It is very well executed. We then took time to have a look at the manatees and other large fish in the aquariums.
Karen & Neil were then in the mood to try the ‘Bread Pudding covered in chocolate’ that was being offered in Mexico land. They had a wait for the stall to open but it was in their opinion so worth it.
Then we made our way out of the park. We realised we had been parked just one row over from the preferred parking line. So, although I still objected to the $25 fee we had paid, it was so much better value than the people who had paid $50 for preferred parking and only ended up 1 row closer to the entrance than we had.
On the way back to the villa we went via the Outlet Malls as Neil had a T Shirt to exchange. Karen & I waited in the car on a yellow line close by whilst he ran in to sort it out. Then we called into Publix nearby to get a few items to keep us going back at the villa.
The afternoon was spent as usual in the pool and hot tub. However, the difference was that I did so in a long rain shower. I just made sure that I kept low down so that my shoulders were in the warm water. It was lovely. It seemed that we were being hit by the first part of Tropical Storm Nicole that was now gathering near the Bahamas.
At 4pm we headed back out to visit Animal Kingdom in the evening. As we parked up, we had to put on our rainwear for the first time this trip. We had a booking for Everest and fortunately as we rode it the rain stopped making for a much more pleasant ride than it could been otherwise.
It was a different situation when within a couple of minutes of getting off and although the weather on our phones described it as a light shower, it was proper Florida rain. We got properly wet and had to find some shelter.
The purpose of the visit this evening was to try and get in the queue to ride Flight of Passage close to the park closing time as possible. Once you are in the queue, they allow you to stay there until you have actually ridden no matter how late it gets. However, as the rain seemed to have closed in for the night, and there was not a much else we could do we decided that Karen & Neil should join the queue now whilst I found somewhere to wait for them as I was not sure my legs would cope with a long wait.
After 70 minutes they were off the ride and back with me. We were still wet as we made our way back to the car, but by the time we got there we were absolutely soaked through. The rain was just sweeping down.
As it was still relatively early, we made our way to the Outback at Formosa Gardens. I had steak, Neil had ribs whilst Karen had pasta. We had a lovely meal that was only dampened in the end by Neil and I having a silly squabble over nothing really. I should know better and put it down to tiredness. I apologised for my part on the drive back to the villa, where we were soon joined by Barry & Ellie who had been back to Hollywood Studios for the evening. We watched TV whilst having a hot drink on the largest sofa we have ever head in a villa before retiring.
