EPCOT Part Deux

After the tour and some lunch, we were heading back into the World Showcase for our first Kim Possible Mission. If you are not familiar with Kim Possible, she is a cartoon super spy who saves the world with help from her friends (also spies, of sorts) all while attending high school. You can sign up to help her on a mission in 6 of the 11 countries. Our first mission was in Norway.

We're Vikings, what do you know, the terrors of the sea...

What they do is give you a “Kimmunicator” (a stripped down cell phone) that will give you clues, then you go on a scavenger hunt though that country to collect the clues needed to solve the mystery. You can also use the Kimmunicator to trigger certain things, like raising a flag, sending smoke signals, or even trigger a distant camera to take your picture.

Using smoke signals to communicate on our mission

It is definitely a fun way to tour the countries. We did two, Norway and France.

We had fastpasses for more but it takes about 45 minutes to complete a mission and we had 6 other countries to look at before the parked closed!

There is so much to talk about in each area; they are all beautifully themed with characters that would be the most appropriate.

Belle and Beast in France

Jasmine and John Stamos.... err Aladdin in Morocco

The dedication to architecture and style were wonderful.

Morocco

Mexico

 
One of my favorite things was that all the Cast Members in a country were all actually from that country. I could never do it justice by writing about each one in a blog, it really needs to be experienced firsthand.

After getting a little more than halfway through the countries, the heat and sheer size of the park caught up to us and we took a second to chill in an Italian courtyard next to the lake and some gondolas, just to rest our legs.

A few minutes later we heard a whistle, laughing and applause. Our curiosity outweighed our exhaustion and we dragged ourselves over to where it was coming from. And we saw this guy…

He was one of the street performers (they have them in every country, I believe). He was a mime of sorts (not sure what else to call him), only using his whistle to “speak”. He was awesome. So hilarious!! He involved the whole audience in his various antics and had a little girl be his assistant. She didn’t quite always understand him with the whistle but she did a great job! In the end he juggled a grand total of 5 soccer balls!

This guy was my favorite moment in EPCOT and let me tell you why. He loved what he was doing. You could see it in his face, he was never happier than when he was doing his act. He easily could have the attitude of “I’m just a performer for people at Disney” but he was loving it! He smiled at everything and laughed at the little girl’s confusion over what he was whistling for her to do. It didn’t matter that he has done this act a thousand times before probably, he was in the moment and enjoying it, and that came out through his performance. I loved it!

Around this point it was time for our dinner reservations in Germany’s Beirgarten. It is an all you “care” to eat buffet with about 14 different types of meat and 5 different kinds of potatoes. One of the risky things we knew walking in was that it was family style seating. Meaning that we would be seated with up to 6 other people we didn’t know. Out of the 6, we only talked to the 2 gentlemen seated immediately next to us. They were students in helicopter school, one originally form New York, the other from the Cayman Islands. We had a great time talking about the parks, comparing Disneyland to Disney World, comparing food in LA, NY and Orlando. NY guy apparently ate at the actual Soup Nazi place and it was as good as Seinfeld said.

Along with dinner there was a floor show, different German music and instruments. There was toast to special events including one to Matt and I for our anniversary. Everyone got to raise our steins full of various beverages and sing “In Munchen stadt ein hofbrauhaus, ein, zwei, zuffa! ” (I believe it means, “In Munich town there is a tavern, one, two, bottoms up!”) to toast Matt and I. It was a lot of fun!

After dinner we wandered around some more, saw the rest of the countries including China where we saw replicas of the terra cotta warriors.

Matt trying to lead the army

We were originally going to watch the nighttime show in EPCOT, but I had read that since it takes place right as the park closes, it is a nightmare to get out of the park afterwards with everyone else. Given the facts we were exhausted and were relying on Disney shuttles back to the hotel, we decided to skip the show and head out. We took the long way, stopping at the few shops we wanted to come back to before leaving. We got to the park entrance right at dusk, so everything had a beautiful pink glow.