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- Morocco:
The whole setting transported us all back to the times of Arabian nights! I was blown away with again, a different atmosphere it offers. The jasmine-accented shops sold various Arabian-related attributes, from carpet to furnitures and decorations, like they were all out straight from the movie Aladdin. The exit of the shops led to an entry to the marketplace, where more Arabian attributes and items were offered to the tourists.
- France:
Bonjour tout le monde! France, here we are! Unfortunately, due to limited time (since we got some more rides to hop on), we weren't able to explore the inner side of the pavilion. While Aymee and Ardy were off to go for Mission Space ride, which I was unable to go on because of some claustrophobic condition, Elda and I instead lined up for an hour or so to get a picture with Belle and Beast in front of the pavilion's entrance. They were so sweet!!
- Canada: We didn't even go take a closer look to this one :p
- United Kingdom: Hmm, as for this pavilion, we didn't get to explore much again. It looks really interesting though, because from the entrance, I could see the buildings and everything resembled that of an English village but at least we spotted Alice from the entrance :)
Now, onto the rides!
2. SOARIN'
After the picture session, Elda and I immediately rushed to Soarin seeing that Aymee and Ardy were in line in it. I had heard of this ride before and that it got so many good reviews (even Kirsten Dunst loved this ride, as she said before in an interview), but I had never got a chance to go on to it (it was also exhibited in Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, CA).
After the picture session, Elda and I immediately rushed to Soarin seeing that Aymee and Ardy were in line in it. I had heard of this ride before and that it got so many good reviews (even Kirsten Dunst loved this ride, as she said before in an interview), but I had never got a chance to go on to it (it was also exhibited in Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, CA).
When Elda and I got there, Aymee and Ardy were already half way to the end of the line. The signal disruption made it even worse for us to contact Aymee and Ardy, but Elda and I managed to cut the line (yes, we did) to reach them. Some people didn't seem to have problems with us walking pass them, since most of them just sat on the floor (the line barely even moved), but when we were about to pass the last two people who blocked our way from Aymee and Ardy, we had a little problem: the two people sort of formed a barricade and looked pissed at us, but somehow we managed to go through them with the help of Ardy and Aymee.
While in the line, we had a nice talk with a couple who loved Soarin' very much and had been in the ride for many times.
While in the line, we had a nice talk with a couple who loved Soarin' very much and had been in the ride for many times.
The ride itself was pretty interesting. It was not a dark ride like we previously rode on; instead, it was more like a motion simulator, but with the seats levitated up in the air (quite high from the ground) and moved around to make a flying impression. Right before us was a gigantic screen displaying breathtaking sceneries of America that convinced us like we were really flying or hand gliding. I was nervous at first since I was worried there were going to be some drops midway, but overall, it was really mind blowing!
There was a scene we sort of flew through the clouds only to find ourselves flying over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Aymee, Elda, Ardy, and I were like “We flew all the way to Orlando only to go back to where we came from!” lol
3. SPACESHIP EARTHThis ride was next, and it was actually under our ride-to-go list. I wonder why this ride is a bit underrated despite the fact that it is located right inside the icon of Epcot itself, and I personally find it amusing. The line was considerably short so we made our way in easily. Overall, I loved the ride! Maybe thrill-seekers would rather find it lame and boring since it's actually a slow kind of dark ride.
3. SPACESHIP EARTHThis ride was next, and it was actually under our ride-to-go list. I wonder why this ride is a bit underrated despite the fact that it is located right inside the icon of Epcot itself, and I personally find it amusing. The line was considerably short so we made our way in easily. Overall, I loved the ride! Maybe thrill-seekers would rather find it lame and boring since it's actually a slow kind of dark ride.
Basically, riders will be taken in an omnimover who ascended slowly to explore how the civilizations came to be in chronological order, from the pre-historic era, renaissance, the invention of paper, until the advanced tech-equipped era (read=present day). By the end, the omnimovers will descend backwards (quite steep though). On the screen of each omnimovers, riders were to plan their own future and foresee how our future would look like. Elda and mine looked ridiculous lol.
4. UNIVERSE OF ENERGY
4. UNIVERSE OF ENERGY
We came right to the ride after finishing Spaceship earth. The surprise of this ride is that, it featured one of the brightest TV personality: Ellen DeGeneres! She's exclusively the star of the ride. We got to see her greeting us riders in the beginning on multiple giant screens. The ride itself followed Ellen's dream of exploring the origins of energy (which dated back to the dinosaur era) and how she came to understand the benefits of it.
I find this ride to be superbly awesome in terms of technology. Really, at first we were like sitting in a giant cinema-like studio (where we saw how Ellen brushed off the importance of energy), but then the screen sort of opened up to reveal a track in front of us. Then the seats that we sat in turned out to be huge omnimovers that ran along the track. Basically, you can say that it's like a combination of a show and a dark-ride at the same time that go along the story. The dark ride part follows Ellen's journey in her dream trapped in the Cretaceous period, where she witnessed how energy came from. Well, you can tell that a lot of dinosaurs animatronics were displayed in this part.
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Universe of Energy concluded our rides in Epcot. It was 7.45 am and we were starving so bad. For dinner, we first thought of having Japanese cuisine, but seeing that we could have that back in Cupertino, we decided to have something we would rarely see everyday: Moroccan food! Yes, we went back to the Morocco pavilion and seated ourselves in Marrakesh Restaurant. I helped myself with a plate of Moroccan chicken platter, which tasted unexpectedly superb!
Then Aymee and Ardy had some sort of a cake for dessert. I'd love to have some but I was too full for it.
Right after a fulfilling dinner, we rushed all the way to Mainstreet USA to see the evening parade “Illuminations”. Unfortunately, unlike yesterday, we found ourselves a bad spot. I hardly see the lake where the parade was going to perform at since people taller than me blocked my view. But I somehow managed to hold my camera high to capture the moment.
Credit to Elda
That was all I could tell about the parade. There was a giant globe reflecting images floating in the middle of the lake, and midway, it sort of opened up to reveal something that I couldn't quite see.
We realized that when the parade came to an end, around 9.45 am, that was when the shuttle was taking off. So we immediately ran to the exit to catch up with the shuttle. We didn't want to miss our shuttle like yesterday.
But we luckily got to hop on our scheduled shuttle and went back home to the hotel. Before going straight back to the hotel, we stopped by at McD (it became like our daily ritual) to have ourselves meal for breakfast.
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