Disney World 2023/Day 5, Part 2/Epcot

It was time for lunch!

 

It was starting to get quite warm at Epcot and sitting in some air conditioning in a low lit restaurant was much needed. It took a little longer to get seated at the Coral Reef Restaurant than we expected, so when the waiter got to our table, we let him know we had LL reservations for Ratatouille at 1:30 - all the way in France. The walk from The Seas Pavilion to the France Pavilion is a very long one - basically from the front to the park to the back of the park. He was very understanding and he got us our food very quickly.

Lunch at the Coral Reef Restaurant...

Doug and I both got the clam chowder as an appetizer...

Bri got chicken with teriyaki sauce...

I got the most delicious shrimp and grits...

Doug got mahi mahi and I didn't get a picture of his lunch - but he said it was really good.

We finished up our lunch and then it was time to take the long walk over the France.

 I mentioned in my last post that Epcot is split into two parts. I have always known Epcot to have Future World (front part of the park) and World Showcase (back part of the park). For this visit, I still considered it two parts - because that was what I was used to. It still feels like it is split in half to me.

In actuality though, Future World is no more. Epcot has four distinct sections now: World Celebration, World Discovery, World Nature and World Showcase...

Whatever the names of the sections are - Epcot is still freaking huge.

It was getting quite warm that afternoon, but we were ready to walk (as ready as we were ever going to be)...

We walked past The Land Pavilion and The Imagination Pavilion. We walked into the World Showcase.

We walked through Canada...

 

And then we walked through England...

 

We finally saw France in the distance...

France!

Ratatouille ride...

"Remy's Ratatouille Adventure"...

I put my phone away at this point because this was a 4D experience that I knew was going to be tough to capture on camera. I did snag a few images off the internet...

Ratatouille is Doug's favorite Disney movie, so this was a must ride for us. It was really cute and I am really glad we had lightning lane reservations for this because the standby line was SUPER long.

There were several cute scooters sitting outside at the end of the ride.

Briana posed on Chef Skinner's scooter...

As we were leaving France to head to our Soarin' reservations, I snapped a couple pics of the crowd...

It was so, so crowded.

Now it was time to walk all the way back to The Land Pavilion (at least it was in the direction toward the exit at the front of the park).

  "Soarin' Around The World"...

The last time I rode Soarin', it was still the original movie (Soarin' Over California I believe). I was looking so forward to seeing Soarin' Around The World.

I just enjoyed the ride - no pictures. But, I snagged a couple from the internet...

Unfortunately I was sitting on the very left hand of the theater, so some of the images on the screen were a bit curved and distorted, but I still loved it.

 We wanted to hit one more ride before heading to the hotel for a bit of a rest. We had dinner reservations for a restaurant in France at 6:20PM, so we needed to be back by then.

We had grabbed another lightning lane for the Figment ride, but when we got there, it wasn't needed. Figment is super cute, but not the most popular ride at Epcot. We were able to walk right on standby.

Imagination Pavilion...

I'll always have a little place in my heart for the "Journey Into Imagination With Figment" ride.

 When we got off the ride, we saw Vanellope Von Schweets doing a character meet and greet...

I wished Doug and Bri had their 2018 Halloween costumes with them - that would have been a memorable photo opp!

We were SO tired by that point. And our feet hurt. And it was hot. It was time to go back to the hotel to rest for a while. Briana was ready to get out of her Disneybound outfit for something a little cooler (luckily it was a pretty light outfit, but it was still long sleeves and pants). 

Part 3 of Epcot next...