Victoria and Albert's

Tonight was Ross and my "night out". Grandma Trudy watched Amelia while we out for dinner at Victoria and Albert's at the Grand Floridian Resort.

The menu was prix fixe, meaning that you pay a set price, but don't get to order from the menu, which is actually better than it sounds. lol.

There was nothing we didn't like, but it is not a "meat and potatoes" kind of place.  The food is a bit exotic (seared duck with gooseberry sauce, for example) and the portions are small, but extremely tasty.  If you like that kind of food, then Victoria and Albert's is not to be missed.  

At the advise of our waitress, we both ordered the chocolate souffle for dessert and it was excellent.  The best part of the meal however, may have been coffee, which was vacuum brewed on the table in a Cona coffee maker.  It was so much fun to watch and was some of the best coffee we had ever had.




After dinner, our waitress offered to take a picture of us.




Despite being all dressed up, we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom and wandered around there for bit which was lots of fun too.

Before heading home we stopped at the Contemporary to use their business center to fax some of Grandma Trudy's real estate paperwork.  Unfortunately, we were unaware that the business center closed very early in the evening.  Disney has such good service, I knew that they would find a way to help us and they did.  It took 3 different people, but finally someone was able to open it up for us. 




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Epcot - World Pavilion

Today we slept in a little later usual and then headed to the Epcot World Pavilion (which doesn't usually open until 11am).



We have almost always had great luck with the Disney bus system, but things just did not go smoothly today.

About 15 minutes passed and several busses for Blizzard Beach, Downtown Disney and Animal Kingdom came and went before we spotted the Epcot bus. It pulled up to the curb as Grandma Trudy made her way to the "scooter" spot and I walked to the front door. Other people who had also been waiting for the Epcot bus also stood up, gathered their belongings and started making their way towards the bus. However, as soon as I got to the front door, the bus pulled farther forward along the curb. This isn't unusual and I
assumed the driver was just making room for another bus behind him. I again walked to the front bus doors, but just as I got there, the bus pulled away! The other potential passengers and I speculated that he was just pulling around the loop to get a better spot. We watched him the entire way, hoping he would pull back into the lot, but he just kept going straight on the main road. It was so odd.

There was another family who was also headed to Epcot. They told us that they had already been waiting over 20 minutes before we had even arrived at the bus stop. They were growing frantic because they had reservations for a princess breakfast at Akurshus Castle and were worried they were going to miss it.

We accosted the driver of the next bus that pulled up (headed to Animal Kingdom) and he called dispatch to let them know what had happened. After some radio communication he told us that another Epcot bus was on its way and would arrive in about 5 minutes. He was right and we did get on that bus, but it had been an exceptionally long wait.





Sweet Pea was fascinated by the ride in the Epcot ball and wanted to ride it again so we did. She couldn't quit talking about the scene of the people who lived in caves. I think we may have a future anthropologist here.



We headed to the World Pavilion next. As we neared the Mexico pavilion, we spotted several groves full of many different types and colors of orchids.





We saw this interesting artwork was just before we entered the Mexico Pavilion, which was located mostly inside a large step pyramid.




Once inside, we took a fun little boat ride that cruised along a variety of Mexican scenery and passed by several video screens that told an ongoing story about searching for Donald Duck, which fascinated Sweet Pea.



After the boat ride, we wandered around a replica of an open air Mexican market which contained many shops selling merchandise from Mexico (or perhaps just Mexican-style merchandise from China. Lol.)

We had a lot of fun trying on the huge sombreros.



They were perhaps a bit too large for some of us.




Next we visited Norway and Sweet Pea got in touch with her Scandinavian heritage.




We also tried the Kim Possible spy game. It involved receiving "missions" via a mobile phone and was a cute idea, but it took longer than we expected and Sweet Pea needed lots of help. I think it was designed more to keep older kids occupied while their parents shopped at each pavilion.

Grandma Trudy soon grew board and headed for China. We ended up going on a few more missions, but quit before the end of the game so we could go meet Grandma Trudy.




In China, we spotted _my_ favorite princess, Mulan. I wanted to get a picture with her, but the line was very long so I decided to skip it. However, Ross had a great idea of how to get a picture with her! (You may have to look very closely above my right shoulder.)



Before we left China, Sweet Pea asked to go back to the cabin and take a nap, but I wanted to go to Japan to buy some origami paper first.

I shopped a little bit and then discovered a sales girl talking Grandma Trudy into trying on a kimono. Grandma Trudy looked very nice in it, but decided not to purchase it since there is a decided lack of opportunity for kimono wearing in the USA.

After that we headed out of the park and back to the cabin. On the way, we spotted what I think was a beautiful heron.




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