Week 11 – There and Back Again, A Passholder’s Obsession with Epcot Flower and Garden Festival

March 16, 2013

Miles - 3754 

Where Am I?

So many possibilities for this segment…

And for our beauty segment today, here are some quick, hair styling tips. The key to achieving this hairstyle is 60 mph winds and a self-deprecating sense of humor.

No ego and hat head run through a blender give you this alternative to a bag over your face. (The empty cups had nothing to do with these pictures!  If you’ll notice, I’m a badge-wearing Private Detective. I don’t drink Dole Whips and drive!)

Well, I’ve already told you the park, so it can’t be too hard to figure out, can it? I figured this should be easy to guess, however challenging it was to take. This was the second week I tried to get this shot. My goal is to get a shot on every ride in all 4 parks. I confess I haven’t done the math to see if that works out. 

In case you had any doubt about where this was taken, here’s our behind the scenes shot…

Yes, Chris and I pretty much rode like that the entire time we were outside.  Taking pictures on rides brings a whole new element to the experience. I recommend it if you can hold on to your camera and don’t mind missing Disney’s intended ride experience. (I think it’s all pretty self-explanatory why a member of our party is hiding her face.)

 

Off to the Flower and Garden Festival….Or There and Back Again, A Passholder’s Tale of Obsessive Trips to EPCOT ~

Tinker Bell’s Butterfly House – We love Tinker Bell Fairies! Yes, even Chris watches. We’ll not even discuss his man card, although I think he earns a star on it for watching with his daughter. (He needs a Blog name, doesn’t he?  The Islander, The Viking, …hmm! ) 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year’s butterfly garden was so lovely!

Fairies and their homes were around every corner.

We almost forgot to look for the butterflies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next we visited OZ.  I DO want to see this movie in theaters instead of waiting for the DVD, which is my usual, cheapskate way. 

 

 

Try your hand at ring toss or the bean bag throw.  If you’re not much of a joiner, step in front of the mirrors and see what you look like short and round.

(No remarkable change for some of us *cough*cough*)

 

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Or hop in a balloon and sail to Oz…

  (Wouldn’t that be a fun attraction?)

Follow the yellow brick road!

Follow the yellow brick, follow the yellow brick, follow the yellow brick road! (Look, there are even munchkins in the background!)

We’d been in EPCOT at least an hour, so it was high time to hit the ice cream!!  Here’s a first I could not pass up a second time: Dole Whips at EPCOT!  (I posted this during Week 10, but I was having a picky-eating day and avoiding dairy and most good foods.)

 

I can officially say that Dole Whips taste better at EPCOT, largely because there’s this whole feeling of being in a parallel Disney universe. If that doesn’t make sense, then you clearly need to buff up on your sci-fi ASAP. Start with Stargate, any series.  

The only flaw is they don’t serve Dole Whip floats, but I collected myself & soldiered on with a mere Dole Whip. Note there is an alcoholic Dole Whip float of sorts that has rum. That is an EPCOT-only version, of which I will not be partaking. I act impaired enough, thank you very much. 

Hope they bring this back! It feels so naughty to eat a Dole Whip in EPCOT.  Me likey!

 

Speaking of movies…

MonstersU comes out June 21, 2013!

We pulled a U-turn and headed for the Cars area to earn our Private Detective badges.

There are several of these barriers with car parts. Find them all or just ask the CM to fork over and earn your badge! They aren’t very sticky, probably to protect clothing, but if losing this is going to be a big event or you’re a scrapper, get an extra or 2. These are likely to blow off on Test Track.

The Cars area is, appropriately, near Test Track.  We love the new Tron look of Test Track.

On our way out of EPCOT we spied Agent P, Phineas, and Ferb.  We asked Ariel to pose for us.

I took some pictures, too, and it was our picture taking that led to us meeting a pair of annual passholders who meet at Orlando.  He drives from Gainesville, and she drives from Miami. Annie has the furthest drive of all of us, about 240-250 miles each way. She had this fantastic idea about getting other passholders to go weekly and making it a party.  I’m game!  I love combining Disney and a party! 

For lucky week 13 I’m going Wed, Th, and maybe Fri (3/27-3/29). Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to meet more fun people like Annie and Mr. Gainesville.