Chapter 59
One More Sleep

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(Originally posted December 7, 2012)

Having finished all we could eat of our tiramisu, we began to walk back to Future World. On the way, however, we spotted this family!

It was our pal from our first Epcot day, the “only-duckling” who seemed to be both spoiled and overly-protected, and this time he was being corralled by both his parents.

We couldn’t leave Epcot without having ridden anything, knowing that Soarin’ was still open until 10:00, so we cut across at Innoventions and started to walk toward The Land. We passed the Imagination pavilion nicely illuminated.

Hurrying into The Land in case there happened to be a line for Soarin’, we came to the attraction and saw that miraculous 5-minute wait posted.

We quickly shuffled into line and made it to the front very quickly. Knowing this would be our last time riding on this trip, we asked the cast member loading whether we could be in section B, row one, and he told us we would have to wait till the next ride, but if we were willing to take row two, we could still be in section B. This was fine with us, even if it wasn’t what we were hoping for, so we stood on our spots. As the rows filled up, however, we noticed that the cast member must have miscounted row one. People weren’t standing on their allotted hang-gliders, so we saw that the row was two people short. Grabbing the attention of the cast member, we asked again if we could move up, and upon seeing the situation he was happy to oblige.

This ride on Soarin’ was one of my favorites of the trip because of the family we happened to be seated next to. It was just what appeared to be a single mom and her son, who was probably around five or six years old. We were a little skeptical as to whether he would be of the right age to enjoy the ride or whether he would be scared by it. Luckily, our fears were assuaged as soon as we took off. This kid LOVED the ride. He was whooping and laughing with every new change of destination. And when we went through the scene flying over LA traffic, he excitedly yelled out, “Woohoo, New York City!!!!!” He was so excited about it, that no one cared to correct him. Tracy and I were just cracking up at this kid’s reactions. We’re not always super fond of children, but this is exactly how I would hope my kid would be on his first trip to Disney—loving every minute of it.

Coming back to the ground, I got to hear my favorite “Disney sound” one last time before exiting the attraction—I love the sound of hundreds of seat belts releasing at once as everyone gets ready to leave Soarin’. It’s one of those uniquely Disney sounds. We grabbed our belongings and made our way back out into The Land. I snapped a picture of the balloons floating above.

It was well past closing time by now, and there were barely any people left in Epcot as we passed under Spaceship Earth en route to the exit.

Changing things up from our now-standard route home on a French Quarter bus, we actually waited for a Riverside bus this time. We had one more destination there before our night was complete. The bus came before too long and we were luckily dropped off at the main depot first this time.

We walked into the main lobby building, and headed over to the River Roost Lounge. We had heard many times as we planned to stay at Riverside that we needed to checkout Yehaa Bob’s show at the lounge. Unfortunately, we had never been back to Riverside early enough to see the show, and even now we didn’t have it in us to sit down and watch. So we just stood by the entrance to the lounge and watched as Bob performed a couple songs.

He is one of the most energetic and vibrant performers I’ve ever seen, and everyone seemed to be having such a good time at the lounge. We decided that next time we’re there, we’ll actually make time to see Yehaa Bob’s full show. Unfortunately, at this moment, Tracy was starting to feel like she was getting a cold. She hadn’t been feeling great since we got to Epcot, and now she definitely had a sore throat. Being sick in Disney stinks, so we decided to head to bed so she could get as much sleep as possible going into our last day.

We got back to our room, got ready for bed, and watched the fireworks on our headboard one last time before drifting off into our last sleep in Disney.

Overview of May 23, 2012

Highs
– Our day at the Wizarding World
– Riding the Forbidden Journey several times
– Our free Butterbeer steins
– Getting to meet several characters at the Magic Kingdom
– Our dinner at Via Napoli
– The hilarious kid at Soarin’

Lows
– The Butterbeer scandal
– Having it finally rain on us
– Waiting forever for a Magic Kingdom bus
– Tracy starting to get a cold

Weather
Mid 90s when it was sunny, then pouring rain, which cooled it off for a while, then hot and really humid once the storm was past.

Food of the Day
Carciofi Pizza from Via Napoli

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