It’s trip report time again! Read all posts in this trip report here.
Oh, the dreaded Very Last Day.
It begins in the usual fashion: get up, shower, finish packing, say goodbye to our room, check our bags at bell services. Alas and alack.
Then, of course, it gets more fun for a bit! Our first stop that morning was Epcot, so we took that lovely stroll over to the most magnificent Skyliner. Nothing can compare. And stopping for coffee on the way in? That’s the icing on the cake.
We were just in time to enter during the extra resort guest half hour, and as it was also Disney+ Day, we got some free pins on the way in to boot.
First up was a ride on Spaceship Earth. That refurb is still coming, just delayed, right? I do enjoy it in its current iteration, but I’m thoroughly bored with the “building your future” animations on the way down. I’d far rather get some legit scenes again. We did do it in Spanish this time around, just to mix things up.
Next up was another spin (literally) on Mission Space, Orange Team Forever. Is Pat a fan club of one for this ride? Gina certainly doesn’t seem super excited.
On the way out we took a spin through the renovated Creations Shop, nee Mouse Gears. It’s neat but kinda generic; not very Epcot-y, really. Not a ton of Food & Wine Festival merch either, which is what I was on the hunt for. Dang supply chain problems strike again.
Pat wanted to explore The Living Seas. He did not much care about riding the Nemo ride to get to the Living Seas. Faced with a 30 minute wait for the ride portion, he was pleased to hear that you can just go in the back way via the gift shop, which is what we did.
We spent a pleasant half hour or so wandering around the exhibits, including the dolphins and manatees plus all the little tropical fish tanks. The only thing we sadly missed was the diver demonstrating how they enter the aquarium. Next time!
After saying goodbye to the fishes, we headed over to World Showcase for some final Food & Wine Festival fun. Cheddar cheese soup from Canada was at the top of the list, where the pretzel bread was particularly tasty and fresh. Then we backtracked through the promenade and circled around in the Mexico direction.
And that’s basically how we spent the remainder of the afternoon – we got drinks and snacks here and there, and ducked into shops and exhibits. Pat discovered that the France food kiosk has TWO lines, the hidden one of which has a shorter line, so write that down. We investigated the Kawaii exhibit in Japan, and the Race Against the Sun exhibit in Morocco. Oh, and the Matsuriza drummers are back in Japan too!
For our final Epcot act, we stumbled upon performers in Mexico – I don’t think it was Mariachi Cobre but probably included a lot of the same people – doing a Coco set.
“We’ll be back in 10 Mexican minutes,” said the bandleader. “So that’s about 30 regular minutes.” But we couldn’t hang around. Tragically, it was then time to head out if we wanted to make our (last ever) Magical Express bus back to the airport. At least I was dressed appropriately.
We took the Skyliner back to Caribbean Beach, stopping in at the gift shop for some quick snacks before retrieving our luggage from bell services. And then we were whisked back to the airport followed immediately by REAL LIFE, where planes are late and Magic Bands don’t work on ANYTHING. It sucks.
Still it was, like they always are, a great trip. It had, like they always do, its share of ups and downs, but ultimately I am thrilled runDisney is back and I have the perfect excuse to plan trips again! Believe it or not, I’ll be back in WDW for the marathon in a few short weeks, so there’ll be more trip report posts in the near future. If you enjoy reading them half as much as I enjoy writing them, then we both can’t wait. 😀
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!