Orlando August 2010 Part 7

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Day 7 - August 21 - Epcot and return

Well, this is it. That inevitable day. Our last day at WDW.

Sorry - I put this one in out of order... this is actually the last post...

 
The night before I had a bit of an issue with Delta Airlines. One of the perks of Mickey's Magical Express is that they will take your luggage and check it for you. In order to do that you have to pay any checked baggage fees. On the way out I checked us in online and paid the fee. I tried to do this for the return trip but they only allow you to do this 24 hours ahead of time. I had not brought a computer, so my intention was to call Delta the night before to pay the fee. They may have changed their policy since, but it turns out that at the time there were only 2 ways that Delta would let you pay the fee - either online by checking your bags online or at the airport. Since you could only do it online 24 hours ahead of time, that meant my only option was to pay at the airport which also meant we had to bring our bags with us and could not use the pre-check option. I was non too happy with Delta.

Still, on our last morning I went down to the MME kisosk and asked about it. They said "no problem" and they were able to help me get the fees paid. They were very helpful. Honestly I was still a little annoyed because their sign made it sound like you had to pay before checking your bags, but all's well that ends well. We checked our bags and confirmed our pickup time of 4:20.

Gabby, Aurora, Charlotte

Nat, Aurora, Marie

We caught the boat to Epcot and arrived about 10:40. We headed straight to Soarin' to get a FP (2:15). After riding Journey to Imagination with no wait we headed back to the World Showcase to explore the country pavillions. We visited Canada, England and France and ended up in Morocco in time for our lunch reservation at Marakesh ($116 with tip). After lunch it started to rain pretty hard suddenly so we ducked into the France pavillion. While we were there looking around, a little girl with curly hair and glasses nonchalantly looked at me and said "you know, Sleeping Beauty is over there..." I looked where she indicated and sure enough, there was Princess Aurora standing by herself. I quickly rounded up the girls so we could visit her and take some pictures.

After our unexpected princess encounter the rain had let up so I suggested we dash over to Test Track to see if we would have enough time for one last ride. The line was too long, however and the FP time was after when we needed to leave, so no luck.
Instead we went back to the World Showcase and headed off in the opposite direction. We got as far as Norway and decided to ride Maelstrom. Our FP time was now up for Soarin' so we haded over there for one more trip on the giant hang-glider (actually Nat begged out and did some shopping instead). We then left to go back to BWV to catch our MME bus. As we made our way over I started to worry that maybe my time estimate for getting back was off and we would be late. So, I once we left the park I made everyone pick up the pace. Turns out there was no problem and we got back in plenty of time. Good thing too - with all the concern over getting the bags packed I had left our MME vouchers in my suitcase. Oops. Not a huge issue, though. The folks at the kiosk wrote up new vouchers for us so we got on the bus with no problem.

Well, that was it for this trip. I'm pretty proud of myself at how much I remembered. I've been to Orlando many times, and I have to say this was absolutely one of the most fun I've had in the parks. The girls were a joy to be with - fun, funny, adventurous and never complaining. So much so, in fact, that I said that I would love to repeat the trip in a few years. We'll see...