The Coats, Boats and Little Scrotes Tour 2023 – Day Twelve Friday 20th January 

Friday 20th January

Today started with a 6.45 alarm. Yay for being on holiday. Was this early rise required for onerous cruise departure activities? No. It was required as Disney think it’s OK to have their guests be awake at 7am in order to get on some rides at additional expense. Have I said I don’t like this?

As 7am rolled around I secured a Guardians virtual queue group and a LL for Remy. We were headed for Epcot once we got back to Orlando so I was sorting out all the admin related to going to a theme park.

We rose, showered, dressed, and packed our final bits into our hand luggage before heading for breakfast at 8am. We were eating in the Roy Disney restaurant.

We started with pastries.

I also had muesli as I am all about healthy eating.

You can tell we were dining alone now as my food photo game is back on point.

For balance, I also had French Toast.

Louise had what I wrote down as “scramble”. Make of that what you wish.

Emily had Eggs for the Road

It was all very, very nice and it made us a little sad that we hadn’t managed to get breakfast here earlier on the cruise.

We said our farewells to Edi, our server and went to sit in The Bayou until our group number was called to disembark. I Facetimed my Mum whilst we were waiting and gave her a brief tour of the ship.

We left the ship at 9 and it took about fifteen minutes to queue to get through customs.

We were soon back in the car and we had a smooth and painless drive back to Orlando. It took one hour and ten minutes until we pulled up at The Yacht Club.

We dropped our cases at Bell Services and headed out towards Epcot.

I do find it hard, no matter how often I try, to express my love for this place.

It felt good to be back in my spiritual, yet expensive home.

We stopped for a drink by the pool where we were joined by this delightful lot.

We continued our walk to the park…

arriving just after 12. We started our journey of the countries in the UK and as always tends to be the case, after a swift breeze through the shops, left again. This pavilion needs a show or a ride.

Then, O Canada.

The show may have changed, but thankfully, for their sake, Disney saw fit to retain the song and I soaked up every second of it and I think I even went live on Facebook to inflict it on others too.

We continued around the showcase heading now for Mexico. The queue at the Margarita stall could have benefitted from Guardians’ style virtual queue. It was enormous!

There were similar scenes inside the pavilion for the Tequila bar too. It may have passed me by in previous times as we were busy with small kids but the Epcot alcohol thing seems to have really become a thing in recent years.

We did our duty and rode the Three Caballeros ride.

I was feeling a little peckish at this point, having only had the three courses for breakfast, so I got an Apple cake thing from the Norway Pavilion bakery. It was pure filth in all the right ways.

We wandered on through the countries until in Italy, we got some light bites. I was served by a CM called Guiseppe (yes really), who was so good looking he made me reconsider my life choices.

Freid Mozzarella and Ravioli.

We found a quiet spot to eat them.

I honestly don’t think I had ever noticed that there was a ship here before.

We were joined by a very friendly seagull, hopeful of some pasta, but he was scared away by some idiot teen who thought chasing it was a fun activity. What is wrong with people?

We browsed around Italy for a while and then it was time for our Guardian’s return time. Yes, we were the furthest point possible away from it!

We stopped off sort of on the way at Journey Into Imagination to look in the shop for a Figment T-Shirt that Emily wanted. We were a little surprised to find hardly any Figment merch there.

We entered Guardian’s at 2.30 for Emily’s first ride. This time we got Tears for Fears as our soundtrack. This ride just makes me smile all the way around. It is tremendous fun.

I have to admit to feeling a little dizzy afterwards and we had ten minutes on a bench people-watching.

Now, our slot for Remy was close and yes, we were the furthest possible point away from that too. We set off on the long walk to France.

After a long wait since it opened and a few failed attempts, we finally got to ride it.

It is a very clever ride and I am glad we did it. I am resentful that we had to hand over a load extra dollars to do so but such is the way at the moment.

Having not watched “the film” in France since the old one years ago, we stopped into the Beauty and The Beast sing a long show and despite the low numbers made our way to the end of the row.

We now made our way back to Italy for our dinner reservation at Via Napoli.

On the way, we paused in Morocco to watch the belly dancer there. This was always a favourite with my Dad and not for the first or last time this trip, he was in our thoughts.

We checked in and were seated after about ten minutes. We had a table at the back of the restaurant.

We had a great server and great food, as always tends to be the case.

I had a beer flight.

We ordered –

Emily – Mozzarella and Tomato salad….

White pizza

Louise – Same starter, then four cheese pizza

Me – Rice Balls (but CVS would have a cream for that)

Piccante pizza

Something weird happened as we were ending the meal. Our server, out of nowhere asked Emily if she was a cast member or used to be and she said yes. He chatted with her about folks he had known from the UK pavilion and a load of other stuff and we never worked out or asked how on earth he knew that. We did ask if he recognised her but he said no.

Anyway, he then proceeded to give us a cast member discount and I responded with a very large tip.

We left at 6.30 and headed for the theatre at the America pavilion to watch the Broadway show.

I am always staggered to find these things are not packed out hours in advance. They are superb, but we are big musicals fans.

Tonight’s show was from a husband and wife duo. He had played Tarzan and she was in the Newsies Broadway show. The songs they chose weren’t particularly known to me, but we enjoyed them very much.

We were all flagging a bit now. It had been a long day. We walked back to the UK pavilion to catch the 8pm show from Command Performance. We found a bench thankfully and despite the band striking up and almost frightening a poor rabbit to death, the show was great if not a little short. It was empty when we arrived but very soon filled up.

We let the crowd disperse before making the short journey to the bridge and our usual firework-watching spot. I think you know by now that I was not the biggest fan of Harmonious and again as much as I could appreciate the technical skills of the show, it felt devoid of any soul and feeling. It was just random clips of songs with no real theme or message. I appreciate I may be trying to give a fireworks show too much gravitas here, but Reflections of Earth did it and spoiled it for all other fireworks shows.

I spared you the usual collection of blurry fireworks photos.

We walked slowly back to the resort and asked Bell Services to send our cases up to our room. Once we got there I realised that I had a distinct lack of cash for any tip. I cobbled together a few dollars in coins and handed that over sheepishly to the poor chap who delivered our bags.

We enjoyed the view from the balcony briefly.

Before being asleep by 10.30.

Till the next time……