Stemming from a most unfortunate schedule which essentially begins this week and won't end until at least the end of April, I had only two days off on my reserve schedule. It was too short an amount of time to try and make it back to LA, since Nicole was going to be in New Jersey anyway, so I hopped on over to Florida to see the folks. The crowd outlook was not good. For whatever reason, the Disney parks were projecting large crowds throughout the brief duration of my stay. As a result, we ended up going to Epcot where waiting in line was not a real requirement to exploring the countries at least.
Also going on at Epcot was a transformation of various open areas into character-themed topiaries. They were all quite elaborate, but again, this is Disney. Throughout the countries, they also had hidden "easter eggs," which I successfully tracked down with some help from the folks, who had naturally done all of this before. All things considered, the crowds weren't horrendous. It was relatively easy to walk around without being trapped behind a Brazilian school group and a column of rascals. After our brief trek around the world at Epcot, we visited some of the Disney resort hotels like the Polynesian and the Floridian.
The latter had elaborately designed chocolate eggs decorated as either scenes or characters from Disney films. My favorite was of course BB-8 as you see here. I wonder how they actually taste since they are made from chocolate. I imagine they are only "edible" in about the same way that kindergarten paste is safe for consumption. Nevertheless, a very impressive display of artistry in the medium of chocolate. Believe it or not, the real Disney fun had not yet begun!
The main area for shopping all things Disney used to be called Downtown Disney, but has lately gone through a few renovations and renamed itself Disney Springs which somehow equates to massive crowds. It was ten times worse than anything we saw inside the actual theme parks. Why were they here? What were they doing? These are questions I could not find an answer to. I could merely hypothesize that the skewed ratio of New Jersey license plates in the parking garage had something to do with it. After all, if people are frustrating me and being loud, there's a 50/50 shot that New Jersey is to blame. I won't be returning to "Disney Springs" anytime soon.
