The Garden Rocks!

What better way to close out my birthday week than a visit to Epcot’s 22nd International Flower & Garden Festival!  The festival was well under way having started at the beginning of March for 75 days of beautiful flowers, plants, over 100 topiaries, special guests giving gardening demonstrations and tips,
   vendor booths, and music.  This year’s theme is “Goofy About Spring”, and there he was at the entrance with Daisy and Pluto.  Joining them at the other end of their garden were Donald, Chip, and Dale.

 

   Each year there are new exhibits and topiaries like these beautifully redesigned butterflies dubbed “Spring Is In The Air”…I love butterflies!  There’s also a butterfly pavilion every year which I love to walk through.  Lots of flowers, foliage, and 10 different varieties
   of butterflies fluttering around!  They also have a display explaining the life cycle of a butterfly as well as some actually in the chrysalis stage and beyond.  Who knows…you might actually get to see one emerge!

 

  Another new feature this year is Disney Pixar’s Inside Out Emotion Garden which is themed after the upcoming “Inside Out” movie due out in June.  Each part of the garden is color coded to match a different emotion and corresponds with a character in the movie.  Very colorful and kind of cool.

 

Of course it seems that the main attraction of the Festival are the topiaries, and we saw quite a few but not all.  Naturally two of the newest are Elsa and Anna from Frozen.

 

In the past part of the Festival that’s a big hit has been the Flower Power Concert Series featuring performers and music from the 60s & 70s.  However this year it has been renamed the Garden Rocks Concert Series now featuring
     performers and music covering a wider range of decades.  We’re guessing it’s because so many of the older folks are passing on as Paul Revere did last year.  The only group we were really interested in seeing during the month of March
  was Starship Starring Mickey Thomas.  The past few years they’ve performed after we’ve left town so what a birthday treat that we’d get to see them before leaving town!  Mickey Thomas definitely has not lost his voice,
       and Stephanie Calvert handling the lead vocals with him is amazing!  They sang such Starship hits as Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, Somebody to Love, and at both shows had the place rockin’ with We Built This City.  We had arrived
   for the second show and stayed for the last one, too (each performer does 3 sets lasting about 35 min. every weekend over the Festival).  During the last show, Mickey broke out the acoustic guitar and sang Winds of Change and then broke into his rendition of
  Rocky Raccoon.  The group of people in front of us were obviously prepared just in case he sang that song.  One guy wore a raccoon hat while the other 8 or 9 folks with him donned little raccoon eye masks…what a hoot!  As usual both were excellent, excellent shows!!
 

Following the last show, we caught up with Joe and Nancy, and found a great spot by the Canada pavilion to watch the Illuminations fireworks before heading home.  As we made our way to the exit, I was able to get pictures of a couple more topiaries that were lit up for the evening.

 

In a few days we’d be leaving Florida and heading to our summer home in Yellowstone, but this year we weren’t going to take the most direct route through St. Louis.  It’s time for some more adventure so stay tuned! 

Celebrate!

And what are we celebrating you ask?  My birthday!  The day started with a call from my sister with her very special birthday song (she makes up a new one every year).  I decided to wear the special shirt she sent me a few years ago, and Russ and I headed across the street to Denny’s for my free Grand Slam breakfast (you know it’s free to everyone on your birthday!) 
Now the last few years we’ve gone to one of the Disney parks for my big day, but this year we broke with tradition and met Paul and Anne for dinner at Red Lobster.  Our server, Billy, was great and even brought a small bowl of ice cream with a candle...and everyone sang!

 

A couple of days later we headed to Animal Kingdom for my birthday park visit, and right after coming through the gates we spotted DiVine leaning against a pole.  This performance artist appears throughout the day as a living vine, covered head to toe in leaves, vines, and even clusters of grapes (click on the photo to enlarge).  Performing on stilts, and without words, she becomes part of the jungle as she gracefully twists, bends, and then begins to walk.  Many were walking right past her without even noticing which is easy to do.  What a treat to see her! 

Every so often we experience something at one of the parks that we haven't before, and as we made our way towards Kilimanjaro Safaris, we spotted a group of people watching a cast member feeding a flock of macaws.  I took a quick picture and just as I turned away, the entire flock took off over everyone’s head, but I already had turned off the camera!  As it turns out this is a relatively new show that we didn’t know about called Winged Encounters - The Kingdom Takes Flight.  The macaws swoop in over the crowd, land on the perch, and while getting fed, a cast member educates the crowd about them.  It only lasts 3 - 8 minutes depending on the birds. J

Once on the Safari ride, we had a couple more new experiences.  As the vehicle made its way out onto the savannah area, we suddenly came to a stop.  Our guide (driver) was hearing over her headset that there was a giraffe standing in the middle of the road, and nobody was moving including her!  Several minutes later help finally arrived to
move her along, but as we passed, she seemed to want to come back to the road.  As we continued our ride through the savannah, there on one of the very top rocks was the king of the jungle himself.  This was the first time we’d ever seen him lying there with his head up looking so majestic.  Usually he’s all stretched out and sound asleep, or nowhere in sight.  What a thrill to see him this way!  Quite a number of animals were out so I was able to get some good photos.

 

 

Afterwards we strolled along the Discovery Island Trails that take you around the base of the Tree of Life. With over 300 critters carved into its trunk, it’s possible to find something you hadn’t seen before especially since they’ve added some new roots like the elephant and buck (at left). We love looking to see how many we can find in the tree's trunk, and just looking at a section from different angles can be enlightening.  For instance looking at the owl from one angle (below left), you see the bats, kangaroos, scorpion, etc., but walk a little further around the bend, and now you see the bear, octopus, etc. just below it (below right)!









 

It’s been a few years since we rode Expedition Everest and decided to get a FastPass for some reason.  Towering nearly 200 ft. high, this roller coaster ride is not for the faint of heart, and in fact we had forgotten just how intense it is!  The entire ride only takes about 3 min., but we were definitely ready to get off when it was done!

 

From there we headed over to Finding Nemo-The Musical, a live stage production that merges puppetry with live performances.  It’s a fun and entertaining 30 min. show that I always enjoy seeing.  Flash photography is not allowed, but I was able to get a couple of halfway decent shots.

   There are lots of character greeting opportunities at all of the parks, and as the characters move from their designated spot to take a break behind the scenes, they always remain in character until out of sight.  What a thrill for this little girl to see Donald Duck walking past her!

 

When we arrived at Animal Kingdom on this morning, we saw a pile of sand and several guys setting up to do some work.  As it turns out, there’s a new Disneynature film documentary opening in theaters on April 17 called “Monkey Kingdom”, and they were creating a sand sculpture to promote the film.  Narrated by Tina
Fey, it’s about a family of monkeys living in some ancient ruins in the jungles of southern Asia and their struggles to survive.  When we got ready to leave the park 3-1/2 hours later, we could see the progress they had made.  Disney always hires very talented folks!

Missing The Hat

Back in Dec. we attempted to visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but it was so crowded that traffic to find a parking spot was backed up all the way to the entry kiosk and we simply made a U-turn and left.  So late one afternoon we finally headed back over, and once inside the main gates, something was missing even though we knew to expect it.  One of the iconic items the last several years at the Studios has been the 122 ft. tall Sorcerer Mickey hat located at the far end of the main street.  It was installed in 2001 as part of the park’s “100 Years of Magic” celebration and was supposed to only be
temporary.  Evidently a lot of people have complained that it blocks the view of the full-scale replica of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre which houses The Great Movie Ride.  Granted, you do have a clearer view of it just behind the walls where they’re doing some work, but we miss the hat.

With some time to kill before our first FastPass, we decided to go on The Great Movie Ride.  This 18 minute tram ride takes you through scenes from some of the most famous moments in movie history and features nearly 50 Audio-Animatronic replicas of legendary movie stars and scenes from some great movies. (It’s very dark inside and hard to get really good pictures.)

Then it was off to use our FastPass on Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, a 5 minute motion-simulated space flight. The queue resembles a spaceport terminal for all of us boarding space travelers, some of it overseen by R2D2 and C3PO.  There are 50 different story combinations that can happen so each ride is a different experience.

We wandered through the Streets of America which recreates the streets of New York City and San Francisco.  Our main reason for heading over to this area was because I wanted to see Cinderella’s carriage that is temporarily on display.  It was custom built for the movie, is covered in gold leaf, measures
10 ft. tall x 17 ft.  long, and weighs nearly two tons.  I thought I could get a picture of me in front of it but didn’t realize it was a special Disney photo op with a long line of folks waiting to hold the glass slipper on a pillow in front of the carriage.  Oh, well, at least I got a picture of it all.

One of the cutest food/drink kiosks in Disney is shaped like a 6 pack of Coca Cola bottles, and standing next to it is a giant Coca-Cola bottle that sprays out a mist every few minutes…great on a hot day!

It was time for our next FastPass, and we headed to Toy Story
   Midway Mania! Most of you know that it’s basically a virtual 4D shooting gallery of carnival games where guests wear 3D glasses and ride in rotating vehicles that take you through the fast-paced maze of 5 different games featuring characters from the Toy Story
    films. As each game/section is completed, your vehicle quickly rotates and slides into the next game.  Russ may have been beating me this season on Buzz Lightyear, but this time on this game I was the undisputed champ (Player 2 in the photo)!

 

The sun had set, and we had a great view of the Tower of Terror as we made our way over to the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater.  We came over so late this particular day so we could catch the 8:30 evening performance of Fantasmic!, a 30 min. “nighttime spectacular”.  It’s been a few years
   since we’ve seen this show and had heard that there had been some changes.  Basically it’s Mickey’s wild and colorful imagination come to life with lots of Disney music, characters, lasers, dancing fountains, scenes projected on water screens, boat parade, and so
  much more.  His imaginative story includes scenes from various movies and villains including Maleficent who turns into a larger than life fire-breathing dragon and sets the lake on fire (those sitting close can feel the heat!)  Of course, Mickey saves the day by creating a wall of water to smother the flames
and defeat the dragon.  The major differences we noticed were fewer fireworks and the big steamboat at the end on which all the characters rode around the lake was now replaced with everyone standing on the “mountain stage” dancing, singing, and waving ribbons.  It’s still a good show and well worth seeing despite the changes.

 

      The only other event this week was my annual St. Patty’s Day tradition of cooking corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes served with some rye bread…one o’ me favorite meals!  I even enjoyed a wee bit o' green beer!  We invited our neighbors, Joe and Nancy, to join us, and she brought a yummy cheesecake variety sampler for dessert.  Another fine evening with good friends.