WDW Sisters' Trip II -- Day 6

...And after an EXTREMELY long hiatus...I have decided that it is time for me to FINALLY finish writing about the trip that Shannon and I took to Walt Disney World last NOVEMBER! We were able to visit the Food and Wine Festival at EPCOT during our trip and because the 2014 Food and Wine Festival has now started, I thought the mood fit!

Onwards to day 6 (7 November 2013): We started our day a little bit early, taking the 7:30 am bus to Magic Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours (lasting from 8-9 am). Our first ride of the morning was Space Mountain (no line, yay!). This is a classic, must-do ride for us, but I am really not as much of a fan now as I was when I was younger—it’s just so jerky! Next, Shannon and I rode one of our ultimate favorites: the People Mover! We hopped across the path to Buzz Lightyear’s ride next (which is always fun...I think we also got stuck during one of our run-throughs of this ride and we were able to keep shooting to accrue super-high scores).

One of our missions during this trip was to rind the “lost wedding ring” of the bride from the Haunted Mansion. This ring is embedded in the cement in the queue area outside the ride. We searched for it each time we rode the Haunted Mansion, but this time Shannon found it—next to a garbage can! At this point we needed some fuel for the rest of the day so we stopped by the Sleepy Hollow refreshment counter for a delicious strawberry waffle (and milk to wash it down).

Properly fueled by our waffle, we wandered over to the waiting area for the Liberty Belle riverboat and took a quiet tour around the “river.” Of course, because we were in the area, Shannon had to have another pickle break and I tried a citrus swirl—I love the Orangebird, but Dole Whips are better! I guess we were on a snacking binge because we took the train from Frontierland to Fantasyland where we had lunch at the Pinocchio Village House (the flatbread pizzas for both of us were only OK).

After lunch, we walked around for a bit and eventually found ourselves at the Jungle Cruise. This trip down the rivers of three continents was especially memorable because the skipper was scared of the dark tunnel and asked me to drive the boat through it while she hid her eyes! We survived that trip and rode Pirates of the Caribbean—always a favorite! After that we hit another favorite—People Mover again! While we were still in Tomorrowland we decided to visit a ride that we always bypass: Stitch’s Great Escape. This used to be the old (VERY scary) Alien ExtraTerrorEstrial Encounter and really is pretty lame.

It was almost 2 pm by now and we had an afternoon tea reservation at the Grand Floridian so we rode the monorail (monorail salmon) over and wandered around the hotel for a bit until it was time for our reservation. We had a great time as usual and waddled back to the monorail station to again take monorail salmon (that is the color of the stripe on its side) back to the Magic Kingdom where we took a bus back to Coronado Springs (it was ~ 4 pm at this point in the day).

Shannon and I spent our hotel break relaxing and doing laundry (exciting I know!) until we took a bus to EPCOT around 6 pm. Trying something new, we hopped on a Friendship Boat and rode it across World Showcase Lagoon, from Mexico to Germany. We wandered around Italy and USA (hearing Styx at the Eat to the Beat Concert Series) until it was time for our dinner (7:40 pm) at Via Napoli. I had a candele and tiramisu and both were pretty good. At this point, Shannon and I were pretty tired from a very full day so we took a bus back to the hotel around 9 pm. Tomorrow we planned for a mostly EPCOT and Food and Wine Festival day!