Best Vacation Haircut!

by Gaylin

In April of 2005, I had my head shaved to raise funds for Balding For Dollars, a local Vancouver charity run to help kids in the cancer ward at BC Children's Hospital. With the help of friends I raised $1,500!!

Two weeks after I had my head shaved I went on vacation to Walt Disney World. I have to say, being bald in hot Florida in May was wonderful! I got some strange looks, a few people tried to be sympathetic, I guess they thought I was going through chemo and a couple of times people forced me to take their seat on the bus . . . I did explain why my head was shaved but they made me keep the seat anyways.

And talk about a great hair style to enjoy the water parks! Slap some sunscreen on my noggin and go play.

I did have a very heartfelt talk with a woman who was going through chemo, she had a wig and a hat on – in the May heat. She thought I was very brave to shave my head, I told her she was very brave in her fight with cancer.  Hopefully she at least stopped wearing the wig and stuck with a hat for the rest of her trip.

Here are a couple of photos from the Magic Kingdom.

 One from the Animal Kingdom.

And one from the Garden Grill at Epcot.

And finally one last photo, taken at Typhoon Lagoon.

Flea Market Find: EPCOT Center Ornament

By Nick

I bought this glass ball Epcot Center ornament from 1985 at the Columbus Flea Market a couple of years ago.

I am constantly on the lookout for reasonably priced Epcot ornaments on Ebay, but this is the first time I’ve found one at the flea market. And at a price that I couldn’t believe. More on that later.
First let’s take a look at the ornament.

Not the most colorful of ornaments, but I love the graphics, which depict the pavilions existing in Future World at that time.

Here we have, of course, Spaceship Earth with the Monorail going by.

As we turn the ball, we have the Journey Into Imagination…

… and next to that, the Universe of Energy.

Then, maybe the artist realized he was running out of room, so put The World of Motion, and my beloved, and much missed, Horizons, pretty much on top of each other. Next to that is The Land.

A terrific addition to my Epcot collection. And the cost? $.50!

The Best Halloween Pumpkin!

by Gaylin

In The Land pavilion at Epcot there is the Living with the Land boat ride. I go on this ride at least once every trip, I find all the eco systems quite fascinating and I also enjoy the nice, slow pace of this ride. A great way to rest sore feet.

While they are not on display every time I have gone on the ride, I do get excited when the Cinderella Pumpkins are on display – especially when the Mickey head shaped one is right at the front, waiting for all of us to try to get a good photo.

I admit I went on the ride twice, just to get the second closer photo. Anyone else like to see the Mickey head pumpkin or the cucumber in the Mickey head form?

The Land You May Not Know

By Beth Skarp

I always enjoy going into the Land Pavilion. If nothing else, the ability to get in out of the sweltering summer heat and humidity is enough to make a vist to this building something everyone has done a time or two. Add in the benefits of visiting woderful eateries like The Garden Grille or Sunshine Seasons or taking a ride over California in Soarin, well, the Land Pavilion gets its fair share of visitors each year.

Did you know that the Land Pavilion as we know it today had a whole other idea behind its conception? Back when the Pavilion was on the drawing board, the original idea ws to make an Ecology and Mineral Pavilion?

With anything that comes to Disney, Disney looks for a sponsor—someone to help defray the cost of building an attraction. When the Ecology and Mineral Pavilion was the focus, a logging company was willing to sponsor this attraction. The idea was to showcase natural habitats and the environment. 

The original plans for a ride through the Ecology section was to be called Blueprints in Nature. Guests were to board a balloon that would run along a track, similar to the Peter Pan in Flight ride. The balloons would then take you high up into the clouds, showing you a simple snowflake and the importance or value that this frozen piece of water could bring to the land and its environment. With Frozen being as popular as it is today, can you just imagine what such a ride would be like if it had come to fruition? But I digress.  

The ride would follow the life of a simple snowflake that was formed, how it floats to Earth and is melted. The water from this simple snowflake would have a profound effect as it flowed through various ecosystems. The point was to educate and enlighten the guests on the value of water, and how to protect our land and resources from pollutants or contaminants that would alter or harm the water. As you well know, this particular attraction never did come about. 

In 1978, the logging company, for whatever reason, decided not to sponsor this Pavilion. Oh dear...now what does Disney do? Thankfully, Kraft Food Company said they would be willing to step in and take over sponsorship of the Pavilion. The emphasis was still to be on the Land since the outside structure had already begun construction along with the mural that I spoke about in my last article.

Instead, the emphasis was to be on agriculture, the environment, and innovative ways of cultivating food from a variety of sources.

 Disney never wastes anything. The balloons that were to be used for Blueprints in Nature were used, just in a different fashion. Ever notice the balloons that are hanging over your heads in Sunshine Seasons? Yep, these were the prototypes for Blueprints in Nature.

One Day in Disney

By: Barbie

Some of you may remember me asking you in a past post which WDW park you would go to if you only had a day. Well, we were on a family cruise and one of the excursions offered was a day at Disney. When I saw that, I told Nick that was the excursion that we were going to go on!

Our bus ride from Port Canaveral lasted about an hour. Our tour guide, Yasmin, was extremely knowledgeable and interesting to listen to about Cape Canaveral as well as Orlando. She really made the trip fly. So which park did we chose?

Epcot. We were so excited. We chose Epcot because it was so close to the Flower and Garden Show and we were hoping to get to see some of the amazing plantings and topiaries. Here is the view from the monorail.

My first stop was Guest Relations, to pick up my Birthday button!

Then, out of nowhere, we heard our names being called out. Our friend's sister and her family from home were down there at the same time and we didn't even know it! We chatted and then parted ways.

Our next stop was to check out pins at the Disney Vacation Club Stand, and to do the "Welcome Home" dance with the ladies there. I wish we had remembered to write their names down, they were so much fun!

After doing our dance, we were off to keep our lunch reservations at Le Cellier with friends, Laurie and Angelo.

 

Then we took a leisurely stroll around the park to see all the topiaries.

By the time we got all the way around, we were ready for something dessert, so we headed to the Refreshment Port and got a croissant doughnut. It was amazing. We had a hard time sharing the thing! Many crazy pictures ensued.

We stopped by the Land Pavilion to visit a Cast Member friend, Claire.

We had our photos taken with Minnie and Pluto.

Both were shocked when I pushed Nick out of the way so that I could get my picture alone with them! We had a great laugh over that one! Pluto almost pulled his ears out! Minnie blushed!

 

So here are the final photos of the park before we had to get the monorail back to the TTC. We had a great day, saw many people, ate lots of great food and made more great memories. I wish it would have been longer. We thought we were getting to the bus early, but we were the last ones on! With half an hour to go! Who knew we were the party couple?

Pluto's Dog Tag

By: Nick

Without looking, do you know what Pluto's Dog Tag reads?
I have to be honest, I don't think I ever noticed until I was going through our Disney photos! Not very observant of me!

Barbie and Pluto at the Garden Grill in Epcot's Land Pavilion. 

Pluto's tag reads "If found please return to Mickey Mouse."

Epcot's Garden Grill, Chip and Dale's Harvest Feast

How many of you know that there is actually more to The Land Pavilion located in Epcot's Future World than Soarin'?

 

Well, there is! Honest!

On our trip this past January, we ate at the Garden Grill which is located in the Land.

If you've only been to the Land in the morning, you may not even know this is a functioning restaurant, as it is only open for dinner, when it hosts Chip and Dale's Harvest Feast.

The characters:

Farmer Mickey, here with our friends Kandi and John. As far as I know, this is the only place in Disney World where you can get Mickey in this outfit.

Pluto is seen here with my wife Barbie.

 Chip and me.

 

Dale, with our check. There is a great story to go along with this picture.

Our bill came just as Dale walked up. Dale grabbed our check, and tried to give it to Mickey to pay. Mickey passed! 
Then he tried to give it to a family at a neighboring table, but they, of course, also declined! 
He then proceeded to attempt to throw it over the side of the restaurant, but our server stopped him! Oh well. 
It was hilarious. 
The characters spent plenty of time at each table, and this was easily the best character interaction we've had in a long while.

Throughout the evening, the restaurant itself rotates very slowly, so you can see different scenes of the "Living With the Land" boat ride below.

The menu:
Basket of Warm Breads with Maple Butter
Harvest-inspired Farmer's Salad
Char-grilled Filet of Beef with Red Wine Butter
Roasted All Natural Turkey Breast with Lemon Caper Sauce
Sustainable Fish of the Day with Roasted Tomato and Pepper Compote
Garden Fresh Vegetables
Buttermilk Smashed Potatoes
Artisan Bread Pudding
Fresh Baked Harvest Fruit Cobbler with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream
Non- alcoholic soft drinks are included.
 

The food was very good. My favorite being the Beef. Our fish this evening was Talapia.

A couple things of note.
If you want the meat cooked a bit more, like our friend John, they are happy to bring you more cooked however you'd like it.
Our friend Kandi doesn't eat pork, and the stuffing that comes with the Turkey has bacon. Our server brought out a plate of stuffing minus the bacon.
And when we wanted more of anything, there it was. We were stuffed.
And then dessert came! We didn't get the Artisan Bread Pudding, not sure why, but the fruit cobbler was more than enough!
This was a great meal, and a lot of fun, so I highly recommend it.

Portions of this article were originally posted on the Tips From the Disney Divas and Devos Blog, where Nick is a contributing writer.