Day 10 – Epcot

We decided to forgo Panera as our surf site of choice and are now sitting in another McDonalds. This one, however, is a Bistro Gourmet. I had heard of these types of McDonalds but had never seen one. As we were on our way to Panera we passed by this two-story Mickey D’s and decided to give it a try. There’s an elevator that goes between floors. The upstairs is set up as a kids’ game room. We’re downstairs in the bistro part. They serve bistro food too. I had the

Signature House Salad:

A mix of spring greens tossed with prosciutto ham and Asiago cheese dressing. Garnished with goat cheese pesto croutons.

My McDonald’s Salad…on a plate, with silverware.

I would have believed it to be from Olive Garden before McDonalds. It was good.

The Bistro McDonalds

 

LUNCH, however was better! We ate in France. France, Epcot that is. There I had French Onion Soup (not as good as my own), a Croque Monsieur (a French toasted ham & cheese sandwich) with a salad, and Crème Brûlée. Très magnifique!

When you enter Epcot you start out in Future Land. It is open two hours before the rest of the park. We rode the Test Track Ride, which was awesome. Reagan was a little frightened, but she ended up enjoying it after it was over. We rode the Nemo ride and then had a “live” talk with Crush, the surfer-talking turtle from Finding Nemo.

Crush was a cartoon character on a huge movie screen, but he was able to interact live with the kids in the audience. He could see them, describe what they were wearing and ask and answer questions. Although he only answered two kids’ questions and really didn’t answer the questions. He just started talking about what he wanted to say. One kid asked him if turtles hang out in a pack and Crush came back with how boy and girl turtles are made (it has to do with the temperature of the sand). Du felt that Crush closely resembled Obama. Not in looks, stop that. He was all style and no substance, all generalities. He makes you feel good and you forget that he’s not saying anything of substance. That was neat for the kids though; you know, the masses who go with the flow and don’t think for themselves.

Du and Reagan rode Soarin’, a really cool ride that’s worth the wait…at least I’m told that. We decided to do the kid swap deal where one parent goes on the ride with the child who’s big enough to ride while the other parent waits, and waits, and waits with the kid who’s too small. Then, when the first two are off the ride you’re supposedly able to just get on and ride too. We tried it with the Test Track Ride and Du was the one who waited for Reagan & I to ride first. They made him go through the Fast Pass line, which was still a wait. So, for the Soarin’ ride, after I’d waited with Ashlyn for about half an hour for them to ride the ride, I decided I didn’t want to go wait in line myself and then have them hungry and Ashlyn-wearied when I got off. I took one for the team…but that gave me leaverage to decide where we were going to each for lunch.

Reagan got to see more characters today. She even had to get a second autograph book. The only one’s she’s missing that she’d really like are Snow White and Pocahontas. We didn’t see Snow White at the Magic Kingdom and Pocahontas ran off the stage as fast as she could after her humans-are-evil-and-burning-down-all-the-forests rant at the Animal Kingdom.

My goal for the day was to pig out in every country at Epcot. That started…and ended in France. We skipped over Canada and England to get to France and I ate so much for lunch I didn’t have room for anything else. We got some candy (and really cool chopsticks) in Japan and Italy, and I think that’s it.

The Vikings

It got really windy during the second half of the day so when we realized we had come full circle and had seen all the countries we decided to leave. We did not want to wait four hours to see a fireworks show that may or may not happen due to the weather.

 Epcot at night

That’s how we ended up here at the gourmet McDonalds. Oh! We’re raising a fast food kid and I can’t say I’m too happy about it. When you’re on vacation though there’s not too much that can be done about it (no comments please about the full kitchen sitting unused back at the house…I’m on vacation too). Ashlyn ate FIVE chicken nuggets last night. And she didn’t even want them torn apart in bite size pieces. She grabbed one and just bit in. So, that’s how she eats them now. She ate four and some fries tonight. She would have eaten more, but we had a six piece meal, and Reagan did have to eat too. Don’t worry about Reagan. She’s good with eating maybe one nugget and then is full. Tonight she was more concerned with playing with her new Jasmine doll set that she bought with her own spending money. She also bought some glass slippers. The Princess is complete.