Day 1: Epcot Extravaganza

My awesome husband took me on the greatest vacation ever! I went to Disney World for the first time in my life!! It was long days and sweaty clothes, but we had a terrific time. Of course since I was pregnant I had to avoid roller coasters and similar rides, but there was still so much to do beyond that. Needless to say, I was not bored. Our flight was Monday, and we got in around dinner time. Since vacation had officially started, we didn't want to just bum around the hotel, so we ate at TGIF and walked around the outlet mall nearby. There was a Disney store in there that had T-shirts at half the price of what we saw at the parks, so when it came to souvenir T-shirts, we stopped by there to pick some up at the end of the week. The outlet trip was short, since most of the stores were for the "rich," so we headed to Downtown Disney. There's no rides there, just shopping and clubs, so we window shopped and took some pictures.

On Tuesday, the real fun began. We spent the whole day at Epcot, getting there right after it opened and staying until it closed. The front section was called Future World, and that was the only part open for a couple hours in the morning. We did almost every attraction while we were there. Josh did this Mission: Space ride, and I waited for him in the Advanced Training Lab. Sounds all fancy and official, doesn't it?


There was a section called The Land, and there was a lot to do there. We took a boat tour through Disney's greenhouses and fish farms. I'll tell you what, these veggies were huge! And they said they use them to feed us at the park. I believe them too, cause whenever we got a salad, the tomatoes were so sweet and fresh. Josh really liked this tour--I don't know why we didn't snap any pictures. Also in The Land, there was a ride called Soarin', and it was really cool. We sat in this huge parasail-type structure, and we were suspended in front of a huge screen that changed scenery. We went over the ocean, a golf course, Disney World, a forest, and an orange grove. They kept having warnings about motion sickness, but it was a relazing ride. Oh yeah, have you ever been on a scented ride? When we went over the forest, you could smell the pine trees, and the orange grove smelled like oranges! Disney really knows how to make your experiences memorable.
If you look closely you can see a little pregnant belly on me :)
There was also an aquarium section, where we took a Nemo ride. There was a show called Turtle Talk with Crush, and he was so funny as he interacted with the audience. One of the first things he said was, "Whoa, look at all the humans in the human tank." After that, we got to look around at the aquarium, where we saw Nemos, Doreys, sea turtles, and a big ugly squid.

And that was just in the morning. Epcot is famous for their world showcase, so we spent the afternoon walking around there. There wasn't a lot of rides here, so the fun was the different atmospheres. There was Germany, Norway, China, France, and Canada, to name a few. We ate dinner in Mexico, and we met Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco. Below is a picture of one of the Moroccan buildings.

When we walked through the American section, there was a short parade going on with men dressed up in old uniforms. It was really cool.

The evening show they do is called IllumiNations, and it was a beautiful fireworks display over the water. The globe pictured below is also in the show. It lights up, shows pictures, and even opens up at the end. We had great seats for it, and I'm glad we did. It was so cool!

Boy, just writing about this day makes me exhausted all over again! Stay tuned for more days and more Disney fun!!