Epcot World Showcase

I'll go ahead and get started covering my whirlwind long-weekend at Disneyworld! We arrived at our first park, Epcot, on Friday afternoon after 5PM. It was so fun to return after last being there about 20 years ago!

We first headed toward Futureworld to see if we could get on Soarin, but the wait was long. We headed off to the World Showcase to checkout all the countries. (This is the awesome future-greenhouse that I'll come back to later in the post...)

Our first stop was England- where we grabbed some quick fish and chips as an afternoon snack to get our tummies warmed up for all the food around the world.

Next stop- France, with the Eiffel Tower. I'm sure I'll "blog" this a hundred times, but the thing that is so amazing to me about everything Disney is the attention to detail. Everything is matching in detail right down to the uniforms or garbage cans or ticket machines in every single area of every park.

Can't eat around the world without drinking around the world! I somehow missed the pink sparkling vodka that might be worth a trip back somebody.

Morocco was gorgeous with it's old-world charm & unique style of buildings. The *purpose* of the world showcase is to experience different culture- including eating, drinking, shopping and art. Each country had many stores that sold art and good from that area. There were some beautiful rugs and collectibles in Morocco.

We tried to stop in Italy for a good pasta dinner, but had our first experience with 30+ long lines for dinner & $30+ entrees, so we decided to keep moving & just grab snacks.

I was very impressed with this recreation of St. Marks Square in Venice, with Doge's Palace in the background.

I have no clue where this was- but I'm guessing Germany. It was getting very dark, so I didn't get too many good photos of the remaining countries. We grabbed a bratwurst as I enjoyed a glass of German wine and watched the coo-coo clocks with their cute little performances every 15 minutes.

We continued wandering around the World Showcase & appreciating many of the countries in the dark. Unfortunately we didn't have time to stop and see any of the cool 360 movies because we wanted to get a good spot for the Illuminations: Reflections of Earth fireworks show starting shortly.

I think the World Showcase is such a neat thing, especially several decades ago when many people didn't have the opportunity to travel around the globe and experience different cultures and countries.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Working on the flowerbeds & garden today if it doesn't rain.