Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I was up around 7am. We all took a shower, got ready, and left the condo.

On our way to the theme park we stopped at Chick Fil A for some breakfast.

Katie and Chris drove this time. We went to Epcot and parked pretty close to the entrance of the park. Everyone was pretty excited to be here and so was I.

Purchasing tickets was a bit painful. Katie gave Jen an old one-day ‘hopper’ pass so she was covered. I bought a 1-day park hopper pass and it was around $100. Just for one person for one day.

The first thing we did when we entered the park was to go into the big globe thingy and the ride they have inside there. It was based around the science and technology of communication.

Next we went to a newer ride called ‘Mission: Space‘. This one was really cool. There were signs outside warning people not to go on the ride if they are prone to motion sickness. Katie opted out of this ride citing motion-sickness issues so it was just Chris, Jen, and I.

The way they make you wait for the ride is very cool. Instead of a long line, you go through a series of steps/sections to learn about the ride and safety features. It was a very short wait and seemed shorter yet because of how they handle lines at Disney.

In the ‘briefing room’ for the ride, we watched a video and it was the guy from Apollo 13 giving the speech. We lined up and entered the flight capsule thing. It was supposed to be a ride simulating a space flight up to Mars and then a landing. There were four ’stations’ that one could occupy. They had different controls that we’re supposed to use at certain times when in instructed.

We were also told not to look side-to-side as that may make you feel light headed. I thought this was poppycock and indeed when the ride was going I looked from side-to-side. I immediately got light-headed! The ride was really fun and there were lots of switches and dials and buttons to press. It was a lot of fun.

I said earlier that we were supposed to do certain things at certain times in order to make the ‘flight’ a success. I tried to thwart this by doing things the wrong way but sadly the simulation continued as f I was doing the right thing.

Afterwards we met up with Katie and did the ‘fast pass‘ for the test track ride nearby. We had some time to kill so we walked around and almost went to the ‘Universe of Energy’ place but it was going to take too long so we opted out on that.

By this time it was about time for us to go on the ‘Test Track‘ ride. We didn’t have to wait long at all. Part of this was because we skipped the normal line and went in the ‘fast pass’ line.

The entire waiting area for this ride was even better than the ‘Mission: Space’ ride. It was set up like the inside of a car testing lab with a lot of moving machines and such.

We skipped ahead to the front of the line and were soon in the ‘briefing room’ where we learned about the ride and what it entailed. Soon after that we were on the ride.

The ride itself was pretty fun but seemed short and wasn’t as thrilling as I thought it would be. Nonetheless I had fun.

Afterwards we went to the Soarin’ ride. This was pretty cool. The wait was really long but again the layout was well done and it didn’t seem like a long wait. It was actually pretty cool because all of the employees were dressed up like people working for an airline and the whole ride was meant to feel like an airplane ride with us going to a ‘gate’ for our ‘departure’. I liked that aspect of it a lot.

The ride itself was an interesting way to combine a thrill ride with an IMAX movie and scents. The ride was sort of a floating seat hovering in front of the giant screen portraying scenes around California as if we were on a hang-glider. During the flight they piped scents of the areas that we were supposed to be flying over.

After the ride we went to another attraction that was in a theater that was about the cycle of life on the earth. It was an animation with the Lion King characters presenting the info. It wasn’t that exciting.

It was after lunch time and we were hungry so we walked over to the ‘World Showcase’ area across the lake. There was a great deal of indecisiveness about where to have lunch. Finally after a very long time we finally ate at an Italian restaurant. The people working there were all from Italy and it seemed authentic.

Jen and I wanted to check out Magic Kingdom so we cut out early and took the monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom. The place was really crowded. As soon as we entered we made a mad dash to Space Mountain and rode on that. It was really fun and I’m glad we got to do it.

Afterwards we went around to a few rides but the waits were fairly long so we were not able to do a whole lot. One thing I noticed that was a bit disturbing was a few parents were pushing around grown children (like around twelve years old) in strollers.

Eventually it started to rain and our fun was over. We rushed to the monorail station and arranged to meet Katie and Chris at the car. Jen and I got a bit wet.

We were hungry and went straight to the Universal Studios area for dinner. After walking around a bit, we settled on going to ‘Margaritaville‘. Katie was able to secure us a seat quickly despite there being a wait. She’s good lie that.

Dinner was great. We sat outside and had margaritas and had a good time. Being that we were sitting outside, we had a good vantage point over the whole area. Universal Studios is a lot like the Downtown Disney but seems bit less ‘innocent’.

(Jen and I after dinner)

After dinner we walked around a bit and then went back to the condo. Jen and I had a 5:30am flight out so we went to bed early in order to get a decent amount of sleep.