Disney World 2023/Day 5, Part 3/Epcot

When we got back to the hotel, we rested a bit and freshened ourselves up before returning to Epcot for dinner.

For some reason, the MK monorail was a bit slow that afternoon. Taking the MK monorail and then switching over to Epcot monorail is a bit time consuming, so we tried to give ourselves enough time to get to the France Pavilion - including another very long walk to the back of the park. 

If I had to do it all over again, I would have booked something for dinner more toward the front of the park and not the back. The walks in Epcot are just tremendous and exhausting. There was a family who must have been very late to a dinner reservation because they were running to their destination once they got off the Epcot monorail.

Sadly, Doug developed a bad blister on the bottom of his foot. We needed to walk a bit slower to accommodate him. We had walked so many miles in 4 days, all of our feet were starting to give out.

 

When I got to Epcot, I ran quickly to the restroom and Doug and Bri took this shot...

 

 The Spaceship Earth ball sure is pretty in the evening and nighttime...

The temperature was starting to cool a bit at this point and by nighttime, it was just perfect.

So we once again walked through World Nature, through World Celebration, up the right side of World Showcase and finally we were back in France. I had reservations at "Les Chefs de France" at 6:20PM. (I was getting worried we were going to be late - but we got there right on time.)

The restaurant was a bit loud and kind of crowded, but we were seated right away.

We chose the 3-course, prix-fixe option (appetizer, main course and dessert) off the menu. Our waitress was very sweet - she had only been living in the states for like two weeks after moving to Orlando from France. Her English was very good.

The food was good overall, but it was rich (it is French food), especially the French onion soup appetizer (Bri and I ate very little of it) and Bri's mac n cheese main dish. Doug and I both got the rotisserie chicken dish and that was quite good. And Doug tried their escargot for an appetizer - which he said was quite good...

We finished eating and we were still kind of tired. It had been a long day. Doug's foot was hurting a bit. Bri really wanted to do a little shopping and visit the China Pavilion. So, we decided to walk slowly around the part of World Showcase we hadn't walked through yet heading toward the front of the park.

We had no intentions of staying for the Epcot night show "Harmonious" - even though that would have been really cool. We didn't want to deal with the insane crowds leaving the park when the show was over.

Time for some World Showcase browsing and shopping.

 

Morocco...

Japan...

Beautiful view of the World Showcase lagoon...

USA Pavilion (The American Adventure)...

Another pretty view of the Spaceship Earth ball...

Italy...

Germany...

Walking toward China...

China...

The moon and planets on a very clear night...

We did some shopping damage in China - heh...

Norway...

While we were back at the World Showcase, Doug and I kept checking the standby times for the Frozen ride - it continued to be about an hour or more wait. I kept checking and hoping until we were actually in Norway. We had other things to do and we wanted to be out of Epcot before Harmonious started. We had to "let it go." Heh - see what I did there?

And finally, Mexico...

Inside the Mexican Pavilion...

The "Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros" ride...

At this point, we were D. O. N. E.

We were ready to go back to the hotel. First, we had to walk through World Discovery and World Celebration to the Epcot monorail and then switch to the MK monorail. It took a little while.

Goodbye Epcot...

When we got back to our hotel room, we saw that the maid had serviced our room. She left the yeti that Bri had bought in Animal Kingdom like this...

Very cute!

I will say one thing about Epcot before moving on to Day 6. 

Several days in a row are definitely needed to experience all of what Epcot has to offer. I've been to Epcot several times in my life and there are many things I still have not experienced. I'd like to spend more time in the World Showcase - learning more about each country. Though I don't plan on going back to Epcot anytime soon, it is now back on my bucket list for the future. And I will go at a time that isn't so crowded!

 So, we got through Day 5 of our winter break vacation without many hiccups at all. We experienced every single park and had a great time at all of them. We were heading back to Hollywood Studios on Day 6 to hit a couple of things we weren't able to hit the first day. I was calling it our "gravy" day because we had finished the "staples" of our trip - we had enjoyed every park and had done almost all of what we wanted to do.

 We did go to HS on Day 6. But, Briana ended up getting pretty sick. It isn't how I envisioned or wanted our vacation to end, but I am grateful we had experienced all the parks happily up to that point. 

 My next blog post will be more difficult to write about because Briana struggled through most of that day. It makes me sad to think about, but she was a real trooper. 

Hollywood Studios "gravy" day is next...