Kevin & Heather - August 2006

Cast of Characters: Kevin & Heather Schiffer

Dates of trip: August 4, 5, 6, 2006

Sunday morning, we woke up (seriously tired) with our wake up call, showered, packed, lathered up with sunscreen, and took the bags to the car. We walked into EPCOT at 8:00…again, the International Gateway is awesome, there may have been 100 people waiting to get in for EMH…no problem!

We decided to head to the Land pavilion to get fast passes for Soarin', then over to ride Test Track (which we have ridden together once, with Nathan in between us). The ride broke down briefly twice while we were waiting to load but the first time was for about 5 minutes and the second about 2 minutes, so it wasn't bad at all. We then walked back to do Soarin' (this is the first time we've noticed the pine scent, and the ocean as well) which has to be our favorite ride in EPCOT. We had breakfast here, pastries and milk (by now it was too late for coffee….way too hot!), rode Living with the Land, then went shopping. We wanted to look at the Art of Disney…oh, then we rode Spaceship Earth (again, for the first time together in years…usually I'm with Nathan, she's with Natalie). We noticed some improvements, although we couldn't put our finger on anything specific, it does seem to be getting some much needed attention.

About 11, we left EPCOT, walked out to our car (parked at the Boardwalk) and head over to Downtown Disney. We had some shopping to do, and we wanted to look around without having to keep an eye on the kids. We found a bunch of things, including the watch I want (Citizen Eco-drive Mickey watch!), some chocolate at Ghirardeli's, glasses for the kitchen (clear with the Mickey icon in a frosted white) and things like that, but we only bought the chocolate. We then got in line at the Earl of Sandwich…which was an experience. Now, we eat at the Earl the day we leave pretty much every time we have been since they opened, and it always busy...but we have never seen it this busy. The line wrapped across the store three times, and we waited about 20 minutes. The good news was that once our order was placed, we only had to wait about 5 minutes, if that, for our drinks and sandwiches. We both had the Earl's Grey Lemonade…again, we always have it, and it's really good. We walked from there to our car, about 5 minutes, and by the time we got there, it was so hot that the ice in our drinks was mostly melted.

From there we made our way to I-4, and headed home. Well, 12 or 13 years ago, when we traveled to Disney for the first time, we went to the Magic Kingdom, and we went in August. We traveled the way we did when I was a kid – leave early in the morning, play in a park all day, and leave before the fireworks to avoid the crowds. We took that trip in August, and had an OK time, but it was way too hot and very crowded. Now, we almost never do the one day trip, although we did one day this spring go to MGM and EPCOT in one day with my mom (which reminded me of why we don't do one day trips any longer). We did forget the August part, crowded and hot. This trip reminded us of why we don't go in the summer (can you believe a native needed to be reminded?), and we were really glad not to have the kids, not only because this was our first trip without them since Nathan was born (over 8 years), but because they would have hated the heat. We did have a good time, and would go at this time again (since it is our anniversary), but I don't know if we'd take the kids. Our opinion…it's just plain too hot!

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