Friday April 1st 2016

Summer weather has been here the last couple of days. Today it was still 90 degrees at eight in the evening. I spent the morning on tasks around the RV and the afternoon and evening at EPCOT.

Daisy Duck Paints the welcome sign.

This final winter of 2016 visit to EPCOT was to see how the Flower and Garden Festival has matured 1 month into its 3 month run. Earlier in the month some of the plantings were sparse showing signs of being freshly put into the ground. This time around there were lush and dense beds of flowers throughout the park.
I took many pictures of the flowers and IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth show. I am not going to include them in this blog post because I am running up against my internet data limit for the month. When I can find a strong WiFi connection or my new month of data starts, I’ll upload pictures.  The picture above was from my last visit in March.
EPCOT was very busy. There were a lot of high school age students in the park. It seems to be a combination of senior trips and the high school band competition that Disney has been hosting this week. Three bands marched around the world showcase while I was in the park. The one from Louisiana was impressive providing a jazzy swing march music. It was very New Orleans like.
As part of the Flower and Garden Festival, Disney has a weekend concert series. This weekend was Herman’s Hermits staring Peter Noone. I caught the end of the first show and the beginning of another one later in the evening. They played parts of many popular music of their era as well as the Herman’s Hermits hits. Some of music was down right strange for Herman’s Hermits; Peter Noone sang some of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire. The set ends with their early hit Henry the Eight I am. It was an OK show, but I didn’t have a seat. The line was just to long an hour before show time.
My evening at the park ended with the Illuminations pyrotechnic display. I had reserved a Fastpass to the preferred viewing area. This area is right at the entrance to the World Showcase from Future World. It provides an unobstructed view of the hole lagoon (pond). I still think a pure fireworks display would be better than the attempt to tell a story with lasers and narration, but it is enjoyable.