Walt Disney World Spring Getaway/Birthday Treat
Epcot, the Flower and Garden Show

Since I went to bed so late the night before I set the alarm to wake up later than I had originally planned. A late start however is not to be in the "wilds" of Ft Wilderness I had already noticed the first day many exotic birds (peacocks for example) Well some of these birds have very loud calls they use at dawn ( no not a cock-a-doodle-doo but, yes the same principal, I guess ). And sometime around 6am I was awake. So I got myself together got on the bus to the TTC and walked to the Polynesian which is next to the TTC (Ticket and Transportation Center). I walked through the Resort working my way to the Main building, that's where I looked around and found the Kona Cafe. Why go there you say? I simply wanted to try a dish that is one of their specialties that I had heard a lot about, from other Disney fans (mostly on the Rec.Arts.Disney.Parks news group). It's a dish known as Tonga Toast There were only a few people in the cafe this early and I was quickly served the waitress took the time to let me know to test out the sweet sauce(fruity syrup) they serve with it. I liked the Tonga Toast its mostly like French Toast but there's banana in it somehow. I did notice that the banana was not particularly strong compared to what I expected, but, you can taste it. The syrup was good too but I never did pour it on my toast I preferred dipping the chunks of toast in the syrup. I have heard that other places serve Tonga toast also, including the Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom. But, beware I heard that their serving size is *much* smaller. I liked the Kona Cafe and would eat there again (particularly if I wanted Tonga Toast)

I was still taking in the Polynesian as I left and walked onto the monorail as the doors began to close on the monorail I realized I had just made a mistake getting on the resort line monorail when I was right next door to the TTC! Doh! It took quite a while to make it around as we had to wait for monorails in front of us at each station. But, I made good use of the time filling out more postcards to friends and family.

Eventually I made it to the TTC where I boarded the monorail for EPCOT. I got some nice pictures from the Monorail of the Future World portion of Epcot before exiting the train at the Epcot monorail station.
comming spring 97 err. 98 err winter 98.....TEST TRACK ! GIANT ANTS INVADE CENTRAL FLA Imagination and the Land from the monorail Spaceship Earth from the monorail

Upon exiting the Monorail and Entering the turnstile of Epcot, the first sight to greet me was that of the giraffe topiaries placed there in honor of the opening of Animal Kingdom. In fact due to the Flower and Garden show being at Epcot there were quite a few topiaries at Epcot that day. I received a brochure listing all the events, of the flower and garden show, and there were exhibits at various places all around Epcot. I noticed some of the topiaries were ones I had seen in other parks before. I knew that they move these things around some but for this show they really brought a lot into Epcot.
giraffe-i-arys Topi-raffes one more view of the topiary giraffes

This was an early entry morning. Going against the strategy I learned from Jeff Spencers web site of going to the park that had early entry the day before. The reasoning of the strategy is that many of the resort guests went to the early entry park the day before and so that will be the least crowded park today. But this transgression was due partly to the fact that due to e ride I was had done The Magic Kingdom Thursday and, I was doing MGM Saturday because of the meet planned for there. So I had a good excuse ;-). Still the earliest part of the morning was not too bad I did a good bit of just looking around at the shops, Landscaping and other Details. For example in the Building that houses the Fountainview cafe I saw these posters of rex (the droid from star tours) and Timekeeper and noted (reading the captions) that these were of the ones from DLP, which reminded me of an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) friend of mine who goes there. And between the building that houses the Fountainview and the land pavilion there is a circle of quotes that also caught my eye. I enjoyed several of Future Worlds attractions including: Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land (the water-bourne tour of the land pavilion), Body Wars, the making of me (my first viewing of this), and of course Horizons.
Timekeeper at epcot John Deweys quote Living with the Land Living with the Land Fitness Goof at the Wonders of  Life Pavillion Topiary Fantasia Fantasia Ballet Ostriches  Hippos Fantasia Ballet Hippos  Crocidiles Fantasia The Mushroom Men-Funny Fungi

By this time I was feeling restless and wanted to move on to World Showcase . . . do you want to also? if so the next portion of my report is just a click away...



Friday, May 8,continued . . . EPCOT, Animal Kingdom? ,River Country, PI (whew!)


questions? comments? email me martsolf@mindspring.com

May 1998 trip report index (on trip reports index page)

Back to bigBrians Disney home page