After taking a long blogging break for Christmas, I’m back to start the new year with a continuation of my trip report.  When I last posted, I discussed how to navigate the Disney Lost and Found due to our lost camera which was returned to the “Lost and Found HQ” at the Ticket and Transportation Center.

Our day started off with the search for the camera and eventual call to Lost and Found to see if they had the camera.  Once we found out that they had the camera, we quickly formulated a new plan for the morning.  My wife went to lost and found to retrieve the camera while I went with my daughter into EPCOT.  The trip to get the camera didn’t take us out of our way since we monorailed over to the Ticket and Transportation and my wife went to Lost and Found while my daughter and I went to the EPCOT monorail.

On our way to EPCOT, my daughter and I did some searching on the wait-times app to determine what attraction we should do before my wife arrived in the park.  I steered her away from attractions like The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk because we had plans to go on those later in the day.  We ended up going on a new attraction for – Mission: Space (Green experience).  I had never done the Orange experience so I could not describe it do her so we settled on Green.

The wait time was very short.  We were able to walk right up to main waiting area but not before taking a couple of pictures along the way.

 

My daughter enjoyed her first experience on Mission: Space.  I forget what jobs we all had.  At this point, I just remember that there was a mother and her son in our spaceship as well.  After the experience, we still had some time to kill so we played the mini-games in the waiting area.  Then, we got word that my wife had arrived in the park so we went outside to wait for her and find out when her family would be arriving in EPCOT.

In the meantime, we headed to our Fastpass+ reservation for Test Track. My daughter and I have plenty of experience with the new Test Track but this was my wife’s first time on the new Test Track.  I let my wife and daughter have the experience of creating our car.  My wife’s impression of the New Test Track: she hates it.  She enjoyed the talk in the beginning about what experiences/tests the car is going to face.  She liked hearing what was coming up while in the car.  To her, it’s like just threw neon lights on everything but kept the track the same.  It’s nothing a Test Track now in her opinion.

Now, it was getting close to lunch time.  My wife’s family had set up camp in The Land for lunch.  Again, we split up.  My wife and daughter went to go meet the family in The Land.  My job was to trek to the France Pavilion to get my wife’s lunch: a jambon beurre (ham and cheese with Dijon mustard butter), mousse au chocolate, and a Perrier (her original choice of Orangina is no longer sold in the Pavilion).

But before getting her lunch, I made two stops.  The first stop was to see the new, but now no longer with us,  Lumberjack show in the Canada Pavilion.  The show happened to be going on when I was walking past the pavilion so I stopped to get some impressions about the show.  It also showed why the show had very little staying power in the pavilion.

 

The first thing I noticed was they had taken out a lot of the seating in front of the theater.  If you want people to watch a 20-30 minute show, you better give them a place to sit or they are going to just stop for a couple of minutes and walk on (which I did).  Second, the show while mild entertaining was not very engaging from an audience perspective.  The MC did a good job of explaining things and trying to a “Red Team” vs. “Blue Team” feel from the crowd.  However, when the crowd is transient that feeling gets lost quickly.  Lastly, the guests are not “blown away” by any aspect of the show.  It’s just sort of there.  Nothing really to draw you in.  Nothing really to keep you there beyond a couple of minutes.  Just an average show and average does not keep you around at Disney.

The second thing I stopped for was my lunch.  My lunch was a Croque Glace – pressed broiche ice cream sandwich.

I have talked in length about my love for this ice cream sandwich.  It is the best ice cream on Disney property.  The only downside is it is a $6 ice cream sandwich which means a guest on the dining plan can not use a snack credit to purchase this item.  Maybe at some point in the future, Disney can create a “deluxe snack” which uses two snack credits to purchase items such as this one when using the Disney Dining Plan.

After stopping for some lumberjacks and eating my ice cream sandwich, I headed to get my wife’s lunch and begin the long trek back to Sunshine Seasons in The Land.

One editorial comment about Fastpass+: I’m not a fan what the Fastpass+ reservation system has done to some of the attractions like Living with the Land.  It has turned an attraction that had zero wait time into an attraction that now always a wait of some length.  During our lunch at Sunshine Seasons, the wait was close to 30 minutes.  That’s a long wait for a tour of the greenhouses.  Plus, I’m a little bitter about the wait because I like Living with the Land and now I have to wait for it.

After lunch, we were able to enjoy more attractions within EPCOT.  We had experiences on Spaceship Earth then went to the seas to visit Nemo and his Friends and capped it all off with a journey to meet and talk to Crush at Turtle Talk.  After Turtle Talk, my wife and I were left to explore the park on our own so we took the time to Journey into Imagination with Figment which one of my wife’s favorite attractions.  She’s loved this attraction since it debuted in the parks.

After Figment, we went back to Bay Lake Tower to relax and rest up for our dinner at Chef Mickey’s.  But we will leave that meal for another blog post.

As always be sure to tell your friends and family about this wonderful blog as we move into 2015.

Thanks for reading!