WDW Miniature Golf

One of the new things that we tried this trip was playing a round of miniature golf. There are two mini-golf courses on the property, and I decided that we should go to Fantasia Gardens. We had a good time, and I'm glad we tried it, but we'd probably prefer to spend more time in the parks instead of coming back in the future (one problem is getting there--it's not easy when relying on the bus system).

The course is Fantasia themed, and it was actually really hard! A lot of holes required the first putt to go up a rather steep hill. On the plus side, many holes also had some kind of special effect in addition to the cute statues and landscaping.

In the hole behind me, the buckets slosh water as you walk by.

The bars on the left side make noise like a toy xylophone
when the balls bounce down.

Something about how whimsical the course is made me
want to emulate the dancing topiaries and statues. :-)

Each hole has an amusing little clue, too.

All in all, it was a nice way to spend a morning, but it's hard for mini-golf to compare with the excitement of the parks, I guess!

WDW Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot

I think I mentioned previously that our trip overlapped with Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival. This event happens every spring; there are concerts and other events, gardening displays, topiaries, and, for the last few years, food kiosks. On our trip in 2007, we arrived just after the end of the festival, so we got to see a lot of the topiaries and special landscaping. This year, we found that we weren't super interested in many of the festival events, but we did enjoy trying food from the kiosks. I think if we're ever at Epcot again when the festival isn't happening, we might find the landscaping dull--we've gotten used to seeing everything in full bloom!

One of the extra things that I enjoyed was the butterfly house:

The topiaries are really amazing, too. They are scattered around all throughout the park.

And, here's some of the food we sampled (we shared these snacks instead of having a proper lunch one day).

Duck and potato dish in France

Tamaki hand roll in Japan
(we didn't like the curry sauce)

Bacon maple cupcake
(we were optimistic, obviously, but it turned
out that this was really gross!)

Shrimp and grits--our favorite!

School bread in Norway (from their regular
bakery, not a special kiosk)

Salmon tartare on a cheddar chive biscuit in England.
I also had an excellent lemongrass iced tea.

WDW Boardwalk and Downtown Disney

In addition to the four major parks, there are two other areas to explore, no admission tickets required: the Boardwalk and Downtown Disney. We skipped both of these areas on our last trip, so I was excited to check them out again.

We didn't spend long at the Boardwalk, which is mostly shops and restaurants, because we were really just passing through on our way to play mini-golf (more on that later). It was pretty quiet there in the morning, but I imagine there's a lot more happening at night. Still, it was a nice place to take a few pics. After mini-golf, we walked back through, took some more pics, and caught a boat over to Epcot, which is pretty nearby.

On the boat...slow but scenic 

in the Boardwalk Resort

At Downtown Disney, there's also a lot of shops, including the huge World of Disney store and the Lego store, which has some awesome Lego sculptures.

our favorite Lego sculpture

one of these things is not like the others....

There are also restaurants, an indoor theme park called Quest, and a venue for Cirque de Soleil. And, we could travel to and from Downtown Disney and our hotel by boat, which we did once at night and once during the day.

the blue building is Quest; the white is Cirque de Soleil

on the boat

We set aside a few hours one day to go to Quest, which we'd never done before. Unfortunately, the second "attraction" we did there (a virtual reality thing) made us both feel awful, so although we tried a few other things, we didn't feel well enough to stay, and we completely lost interest, even in the arcade-style games that Mark probably would have enjoyed if he hadn't been so queasy! In the end, we decided that this wasn't worth doing again!

However, I would like to go back to Downtown Disney to spend more time exploring the shops, and to see how the current construction/transition to "Disney Springs" turns out. We decided that if we do another long trip, we might not buy park tickets for our first day, and we could instead spend that time exploring our hotel and visiting Downtown Disney to stroll, shop, and have dinner. (I think this is what we did on the trip that my Grandparents hosted in 2007, actually).

This might also be the place to mention the water parks. Disney World has two: Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. We spent one morning at Typhoon Lagoon, which was Mark's first water park experience. Thanks to a swim shirt and sunscreen, he didn't get sunburned at all! :-) We had fun, but we didn't take our camera, so there are no pictures to share. If you want to get an idea of what it looks like, this blog has some nice photos. Going in the morning was a great idea--we didn't wait in any lines, and we were able to have a full afternoon/evening doing other things.