Florida day 11: Old Key West and Epcot

Despite having stayed here since the beginning, today was the first day I properly spent some time in the resort leisure areas. Tom's been a couple of times but I'd usually been having a lie-in or putting my feet up. This morning, however, we decided to shift the day's FastPass reservations to later, and give ourselves time to chill.

The other reason we needed to do this was that we both needed to do laundry - I was down to only 3 clean t-shirts, which is an emergency situation in my book! Thankfully Disney provide laundry facilities next to the pool, and we'd previously had our housekeeping leave us some detergent to use in them. Thus the morning saw us lugging bags of clothes over to the main complex, and fighting with the bizarre commercial top-loading machines.

Having set them running, we then spent an enjoyable couple of hours by the pool, occasionally checking in on the washing (transferring it to the drier when done, then folding and bagging it ready to take back). Tom's was done earlier than mine, so he was ready to head back before I was. Before that, however, one of the lifeguards walked by and said hi to him by name. I was impressed that they offered such a personal touch, until it transpired they'd chatted on Grindr. Gays, eh?

Back at the room we prepared to go to Epcot, where we'd arranged afternoon FastPass reservations for Soarin' and Spaceship Earth. We'd done both of them before, but a) I rather liked Soarin', and the main queue line is always horrific, and b) due to the bizarre restrictions on FastPass tickets at Epcot, you have to pick from "tiered" attractions, so you can't just have the bigger rides.

Going in, however, our first priority was lunch. It was fairly late on (around 2.30-3.00pm) but the food places weren't that quiet. It was a lot easier to move around compared to our weekend visit, however! I stopped off in the "France" area where I had a very nice jambon-fromage baguette and a tarte aux fraises, while Tom went to the adjacent "Morocco" area for his north-African themed lunch.

Full and satisfied, we headed back towards The Earth pavilion (I'd decanted the rest of my lunch drink into my resort mug - as part of the dining plan you automatically get a large soft drink, I never finish mine, and the resort mugs are insulated). Once inside we joined the FastPass queue for Soarin', went through the usual convoluted boarding process and were allocated seats almost dead centre in the ride, which was ideal. As before, I enjoyed it very much - it's very much a feelgood attraction.

Across the way at Spaceship Earth we only had a small queue to skip. Mindful of how the interactive element of this ride works, we pulled some ridiculous faces for the camera, so that at the end when they're used to build up the animation, it looked absolutely bonkers.

From there, we'd decided that we'd tick off the remaining attractions we were yet to do in the world showcase. We watched the Circle-vision video in China (which carefully glossed over any less-than-savoury aspects of the country), then the USA's rather pompous and taking-itself-far-too-seriously animatronics show, then back across to France for an eighties video showing the same set of cliffs multiple times, followed by some anonymous Provencal towns, Mont St Michel, and finally a very 80s view of Paris. Apparently it's the original 1982 video - it shows!

Dinner was at the Teppan Edo Japanese restaurant in the Japan pavilion. No, for those of you who know me and my eating preferences, that's not a misprint. Yes, I did end up in a Japanese restaurant. And I cleared my plate (except for a few mushrooms, but they don't count). It was a Hibachi style restaurant where the chefs prepare the food at your table on a large hotplate. Tom ordered Scallops and I had Swordfish. First, however, the chef made an elaborate show of chopping onions, courgettes and noodles on the hotplate and cooking them together. This was served to us along with some rice and a selection of dipping sauces: one ginger (which I liked, and went with everything I'd ordered), one brown-coloured one that was quite meaty but didn't go with anything on my plate, and one white-coloured one which was all right but didn't taste of much. I had second helpings of the ginger sauce as not only did it go very well with the noodle/vegetable mix, but it also worked with the swordfish, which was in large tender chunks. For dessert I had a "chocolate ginger cake" which was layers of white sponge, sandwiched with some sort of ginger paste, with a chocolate fondant topping. It was very light and very nice indeed. Tom had a green tea cheesecake, which was actually green, and apparently didn't really taste of much, unfortunately.

We left the restaurant just in time for IllumiNations. This would be the third time I'd seen them, but again from a different location (first time was "France", second was "Italy", tonight "Japan"). I think it's my favourite of the Disney parks fireworks displays - Wishes is nice but a bit kiddie and always packed, and Fantasmic was good but not as spectacular. IllumiNations has gorgeous music, great fireworks and visual effects and I love the lighting up of the buildings around the lake and the lightshow.

For once we're back at the room at a reasonable hour, which is handy as we've now rejigged tomorrow's FastPass reservations in Animal Kingdom so that they're all morning-based, giving us an afternoon at the resort pool before our dinner at the California Grill.

(I didn't take any pics on this day!)