We woke up on our third morning in Orlando feeling better. Our stomachs were still off-kilter but at least we felt good enough to get up and go exploring Epcot. 
I hoped we would be able to spend the whole day there as even though I have been to Disney a few times now, I feel my time at Epcot always gets shorted. We headed over to Epcot with an hour to spare before we were to meet up with the entire family for lunch at The Coral Reef. The park wasn't officially open yet so we spent our time taking pictures with various characters. We were lucky to run into several characters that were not surrounded by a bunch of people and we had fun collecting pictures. See, I don't collect autographs like the little kids but I do like to try and collect photos of the different characters. At 11:30AM it was time for lunch. We hadn't eaten at the Coral Reef before so I was excited but I was also leery. At least I felt hungry which was a good sign. The Coral Reef doesn't have as good as food as some of the other restaurants at Disney but it does have a really cool aquarium inside. 
Clayton liked it too. I got to sit with Faith, the hub, Kat and Bryceton and we had fun. I haven't spent much time with Bryceton in the past and I must say I was really glad to be able to spend time with him on this trip as he is really cool. I also like that Misses of his. We had a fun lunch and we were able to eat much more than we had in the past. We even made it to dessert! 
After lunch everyone parted ways again and the hub and I went directly to the countries. I had brought my New Orleans Style Mask with me and the hub also bought me an Epcot passport. So I began an afternoon of collecting. We went into each country and looked around. I realized I hadn't really seen a ton of stuff during past visits. I would then find the KIDSCOT table and present my mask to the country representative. 
They would stamp the wooden stick holding my mask and then also attach a symbol from their country to my mask. Then they would stamp my passport. In the passport they would also write messages in their native language and then tell me what they said. It may have seemed a bit childish but I really had fun talking to everyone from each country. I practiced my French in France and totally "Wowed" those Japanese girls when I spoke to them in my limited Japanese. I really wanted to drink around the world as they have so many specialty drinks but our tummies weren't not up for that quite yet. A few highlights from our trip around the world was the "Romeo and Edna" show performed in Italy. A group of performers travel around the countries and put on this quite funny alternate version of "Romeo and Juliet" using people from the crowd. 
I also enjoyed the choir in America and I loved shopping for Japanese candies in Japan. Those Japanese are so creative when it comes to packaging and tasty little snacks. So luckily we both made it around the world. My last stop was good ole Canada. The whole thing took about 4 1/2 hours to complete. By the time we made it to Canada it was almost dinner time. We had rescheduled our Brown Derby Restaurant night for this night. I really wanted to stay and rest as I wasn't hungry at all but the Hub said "Come on, let's go see what this place is even if we don't eat anything." Well, I was glad he pushed me. We took a boat from our resort to Hollywood Studios where The Brown Derby was. This time they seated us and we had a very nice waitress. The restaurant was neat. I had never been to the original one as it closed before I moved to LA. So it was neat to see what the hoopla was all about. The only problem was nothing on the menu looked good as my tummy had now shrunk and my meal from earlier was still keeping me full. So I tried to pick light things. Well, one thing I learned that night was that there was no "light" at The Brown Derby. My appetizer salad was huge! Followed by a huge noodle bowl. I could only take a couple of bites. I felt so bad the credits were going to waste like that. But the atmosphere was really nice and it was an enjoyable time despite the lack of appetite. After dinner the park was closed so we took the boat back to The Beach Club. We only walked a few paces on the dock when a man in a Disney uniform approached us. He asked the hub if we wanted to see the Epcot "Illuminations" Fireworks Show from his boat. For some reason or another I have always missed this show so my ears instantly perked up. He said that he had some spots on his boat and he could give us a free ride. The hub immediately said yes before I had any time to really think about what he was saying. I sort of remembered Faith saying something about renting a boat in the past but that it was an extremely hard thing to do as it was very hard to book and not to mention expensive. As he lead us to the boat I felt for sure this was some kind of scam but then again he was in a Disney uniform. We got to the boat and we were the ONLY people in the 10 seat boat. I thought he was going to get more people but he pulled up anchor and told us to help ourselves to any drinks and snacks. He pointed to a fully loaded cooler with drinks and a ton of snacks. If only we were hungry!! He pulled out of the harbor and went the opposite direction of Epcot. I felt for sure he was going to kill us. He was taking us out of view to rob us. He started talking all about Disney and giving us some really cool factoids. If he was going to kill us he was sure putting on a really good cover. I started to get more relaxed after I realized he was giving us a tour of the entire harbor. Good thing my hubby knows how to make small talk with strangers. Strangers scare me so while I tried to keep up in conversation I was very suspicious. "Dave" our benefactor parked the boat under a bridge at Epcot and there were a few other boats like ours next to us. Then and there I knew we had received something very special. 
We were experiencing a magical moment. We were in the right place at the right time and we were about to view the fireworks in a way that most people at Disney do not get to experience them. Dave gave us all kinds of suggestions and told us where and when to look for things. The 15 minute show was amazing! The whole time I was thinking oh I wish Faith could have been there. She would get a kick out this. Maybe the Disney gods were setting things right since we got sick. If they were setting things right they did a heck of a job because it was such a cool experience. As Dave dropped us off at our resort we thanked him a million times over for picking us. We walked back and couldn't believe what had happen to us. When we told Faith she couldn't believe it and told us we were lucky because someone must have booked the boat and paid for it and couldn't make it. It was at least a $4-500 treat. I am not sure where Dave is in the world but he sure made our night!!
I hoped we would be able to spend the whole day there as even though I have been to Disney a few times now, I feel my time at Epcot always gets shorted. We headed over to Epcot with an hour to spare before we were to meet up with the entire family for lunch at The Coral Reef. The park wasn't officially open yet so we spent our time taking pictures with various characters. We were lucky to run into several characters that were not surrounded by a bunch of people and we had fun collecting pictures. See, I don't collect autographs like the little kids but I do like to try and collect photos of the different characters. At 11:30AM it was time for lunch. We hadn't eaten at the Coral Reef before so I was excited but I was also leery. At least I felt hungry which was a good sign. The Coral Reef doesn't have as good as food as some of the other restaurants at Disney but it does have a really cool aquarium inside. 
Clayton liked it too. I got to sit with Faith, the hub, Kat and Bryceton and we had fun. I haven't spent much time with Bryceton in the past and I must say I was really glad to be able to spend time with him on this trip as he is really cool. I also like that Misses of his. We had a fun lunch and we were able to eat much more than we had in the past. We even made it to dessert! 
After lunch everyone parted ways again and the hub and I went directly to the countries. I had brought my New Orleans Style Mask with me and the hub also bought me an Epcot passport. So I began an afternoon of collecting. We went into each country and looked around. I realized I hadn't really seen a ton of stuff during past visits. I would then find the KIDSCOT table and present my mask to the country representative. 
They would stamp the wooden stick holding my mask and then also attach a symbol from their country to my mask. Then they would stamp my passport. In the passport they would also write messages in their native language and then tell me what they said. It may have seemed a bit childish but I really had fun talking to everyone from each country. I practiced my French in France and totally "Wowed" those Japanese girls when I spoke to them in my limited Japanese. I really wanted to drink around the world as they have so many specialty drinks but our tummies weren't not up for that quite yet. A few highlights from our trip around the world was the "Romeo and Edna" show performed in Italy. A group of performers travel around the countries and put on this quite funny alternate version of "Romeo and Juliet" using people from the crowd. 
I also enjoyed the choir in America and I loved shopping for Japanese candies in Japan. Those Japanese are so creative when it comes to packaging and tasty little snacks. So luckily we both made it around the world. My last stop was good ole Canada. The whole thing took about 4 1/2 hours to complete. By the time we made it to Canada it was almost dinner time. We had rescheduled our Brown Derby Restaurant night for this night. I really wanted to stay and rest as I wasn't hungry at all but the Hub said "Come on, let's go see what this place is even if we don't eat anything." Well, I was glad he pushed me. We took a boat from our resort to Hollywood Studios where The Brown Derby was. This time they seated us and we had a very nice waitress. The restaurant was neat. I had never been to the original one as it closed before I moved to LA. So it was neat to see what the hoopla was all about. The only problem was nothing on the menu looked good as my tummy had now shrunk and my meal from earlier was still keeping me full. So I tried to pick light things. Well, one thing I learned that night was that there was no "light" at The Brown Derby. My appetizer salad was huge! Followed by a huge noodle bowl. I could only take a couple of bites. I felt so bad the credits were going to waste like that. But the atmosphere was really nice and it was an enjoyable time despite the lack of appetite. After dinner the park was closed so we took the boat back to The Beach Club. We only walked a few paces on the dock when a man in a Disney uniform approached us. He asked the hub if we wanted to see the Epcot "Illuminations" Fireworks Show from his boat. For some reason or another I have always missed this show so my ears instantly perked up. He said that he had some spots on his boat and he could give us a free ride. The hub immediately said yes before I had any time to really think about what he was saying. I sort of remembered Faith saying something about renting a boat in the past but that it was an extremely hard thing to do as it was very hard to book and not to mention expensive. As he lead us to the boat I felt for sure this was some kind of scam but then again he was in a Disney uniform. We got to the boat and we were the ONLY people in the 10 seat boat. I thought he was going to get more people but he pulled up anchor and told us to help ourselves to any drinks and snacks. He pointed to a fully loaded cooler with drinks and a ton of snacks. If only we were hungry!! He pulled out of the harbor and went the opposite direction of Epcot. I felt for sure he was going to kill us. He was taking us out of view to rob us. He started talking all about Disney and giving us some really cool factoids. If he was going to kill us he was sure putting on a really good cover. I started to get more relaxed after I realized he was giving us a tour of the entire harbor. Good thing my hubby knows how to make small talk with strangers. Strangers scare me so while I tried to keep up in conversation I was very suspicious. "Dave" our benefactor parked the boat under a bridge at Epcot and there were a few other boats like ours next to us. Then and there I knew we had received something very special. 
We were experiencing a magical moment. We were in the right place at the right time and we were about to view the fireworks in a way that most people at Disney do not get to experience them. Dave gave us all kinds of suggestions and told us where and when to look for things. The 15 minute show was amazing! The whole time I was thinking oh I wish Faith could have been there. She would get a kick out this. Maybe the Disney gods were setting things right since we got sick. If they were setting things right they did a heck of a job because it was such a cool experience. As Dave dropped us off at our resort we thanked him a million times over for picking us. We walked back and couldn't believe what had happen to us. When we told Faith she couldn't believe it and told us we were lucky because someone must have booked the boat and paid for it and couldn't make it. It was at least a $4-500 treat. I am not sure where Dave is in the world but he sure made our night!!
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