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Day Eight: Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Cast of Characters: Marissa (me-Chief Planner), Rory (my husband-Chief Financier), Renee (best friend-Recent College Graduate)-all in our mid-twenties
Orlando Weather: Clear and sunny, High 63º, Low 52º
Agenda: Epcot-World Showcase, dinner at Le Cellier, Candlelight Processional, Pleasure Island
We were up at 8:00 and ready to go in a short amount of time. Renee and I said our goodbyes to Lee and wished her a good flight to Los Angeles. Rory helped her get her luggage down to the loading area so she could wait for her Mears shuttle. When Rory came back to the room, he had a small bag in his hand that had been left on our doorknob. The hotel had left some Christmas WonderBalls for us. It was a nice Christmas treat.
We left then to go to start our day, taking the bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center and the monorail to Epcot. We marveled at the huge line for the Magic Kingdom monorail and the hundreds of cars entering the Magic Kingdom gates as we enjoyed a pretty empty monorail ride to Epcot. Upon entering the park, the crowds didn't seem too bad and we mentally patted ourselves on the back for choosing Epcot on Christmas Day.
Today's plan was to see as much of the World Showcase as we could, so we started in Mexico. We browsed the "open air" market and saw the animal exhibit, but decided to bypass El Rio del Tiempo. The Holiday Storytellers weren't scheduled to begin for a while yet, so we said we would try to come back later.
We pressed on to Norway, where we were happy to see Maelstrom back up. We walked right onto the ride and enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards, we decided to stick around for the movie and enjoyed that as well. We browsed the shops, where I found a perfume I really liked. I didn't get any on this trip, but I just might next time.
China was next, where we got lunch from the Lotus Blossom Café. It was okay food, but I've had better at home. It filled our empty stomachs, though, which was the entire point. We browsed through the big store (one of my favorites at all of WDW), and I looked longingly at all the beautiful furniture and merchandise. My husband and I lingered over the fantastic table fountains and finally decided to buy one. We'd tried to build our own fountain at home, but it didn't work too well, so we were thrilled to find a better one. As we were paying for it, the CM noticed I was wearing my Candlelight Processional badge and applied the 15% discount to our purchase. I was so grateful he noticed, because I had completely forgotten about it. After the discount, the cost of shipping the fountain home came to 30¢! Awesome!
We skipped the Outpost and stopped for a few minutes in the temporary(?) Spain exhibit to watch the Flamenco dancers. Then we moved on to Germany where we browsed the shops, got a bag of gummi bears, and listened to St. Nicholas, the Germany Holiday Storyteller.
Italy was next, where we were disappointed to see La Befana just leaving. We browsed some of the shops, stopping briefly to see Imaginum-the Living Statue. Then the Masquerade show was starting, so we stayed to see that. We browsed the rest of the shops and moved on.
In the American Adventure, we caught about half of American Vybe's show, which was very good, and waited around for the Voices of Liberty. In the meantime, we looked around at the quotes on the walls and saw the World Trade Center flag (very moving). The place was getting very crowded as it neared time for the Voices of Liberty to perform. They were excellent and did a selection of holiday songs. Then it was time to enter the theater for the American Dream show. I really enjoyed the show and if it doesn't instill patriotic pride in the heart of every American that sees it, then nothing will. The song is very beautiful and I had it stuck in my head for the rest of the afternoon.
We walked right by Morocco and France on our way to the United Kingdom to see Father Christmas tell his story. He was very good and he recruited the cutest little girl as his helper. We looked through a couple of shops and then caught the World Showcase Players doing their brief and hilarious rendition of A Christmas Carol. They picked a man from the audience that didn't speak English to play Scrooge, and he was such a good sport and played along, even though he didn't understand much.
We went on to Canada, got a beavertail to share (yummy!), and saw Off Kilter do a set. They must be working on a new album because most of the songs we heard were new to us, and we have both of their albums. Afterwards, we looked in the shop to see if there was a new album, but there were only the two we already have. We'll have to check again next time. We went to the Circle-Vision movie and took in the beautiful Canadian scenery.
There were some things we wanted to see in China that we'd been too early for the first time around, so we went back there and saw Si Xian-two women playing traditional Chinese instruments. The music was so beautiful and the women played with such skill that I actually felt like I was in China (even though I've never been there before). The Circle-Vision movie directly followed and that was beautiful too. It made me want to visit the country to see more of it.
It was time to go back to Canada for our PS at Le Cellier, so we went back, checked in and got a pager to tell us when our table was ready. While we were waiting, we saw Papa Noel and heard his holiday story. He was so good and his laughter was very infectious. We got paged for dinner soon after that and went into Le Cellier. The food was very good, especially the cheese soup and pretzel bread. We really enjoyed the meal.
There were two more things we wanted to see in China before the Candlelight Processional, so we went back there for the last time. We heard the Monkey King tell his story and he was definitely my favorite! He interacted with the audience so well and even stopped for a few seconds in the middle of his story to pose for a picture when he saw I had my camera poised. He was so good I could have listened to him all night! We went inside the temple, as that's where we were told the last show of the Dragon Legend Acrobats would be. They were so amazing! One boy was spinning bowls and eventually had six or seven tables' worth all spinning at once without letting any of them stop. Then two girls and a boy came onto the floor to do a balancing act with hollow tubes (which they could squeeze themselves through!). The final act was a bunch of boys with stacked hoops that they were leaping through. It was all fantastic and they didn't make any mistakes!
It was finally time for us to get in line for the Candlelight Processional. We walked clockwise around the World Showcase from China, and didn't find the end of the package-holders line until we were between Japan and Morocco. The line seemed so long, but once it started moving, we were in the theater in no time. We got seats in the second section back on the left side (as you're looking at the stage). We could see everything and were just off center. I'd already heard the music, so I knew I would like it, but I was amazed at how many singers they put on that stage! The singers were very good, the orchestra was great and our narrator, Gary Sinise, was excellent! He was dancing along to some of the songs and made the whole audience laugh when he flubbed one of his last lines and made a joke out of it. It was such a great thing to cap our great Christmas.
We decided to beat the crowds out of Epcot before IllumiNations began (although I would have LOVED to see it again!), and took the International Gateway to the Beach Club to catch a bus to Pleasure Island. Walking through the resort, I told my husband that we had to stay there sometime. It was so pretty and plush and, of course, it's just a few minutes' walk to my favorite park.
We took the bus to Pleasure Island and went straight to the Adventurer's Club. We stayed for a couple shows, but that night's cast wasn't as good as the previous one, so we left after just a little while. We were all very tired, so we went back to our resort and hit the sack around midnight once again.
High Points: Maelstrom, getting a beautiful fountain in China, the American Dream show, dinner at Le Cellier, the Monkey King, the China acrobats, the Candlelight Processional
Low Points: saying goodbye to Lee, still missing parts of the World Showcase
Day: 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10
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