[Joy J]

We had a big decision to make this morning - what park to visit on this, our last day at WDW. It was also our day to return home so it wouldn’t be a full day at the parks but Magical Express wasn’t picking us up until a little after 4:30 so we had a fair bit of time to play with. Our original idea had been to do the Magic Kingdom this morning since they had an extra magic hour this morning which, coupled with their extended holiday hours, meant they were opening at 7:00 a.m. However, in lieu of how exceptionally crowded the MK had been the day before and what a magical time we’d had there compliments of our Dream Fastpasses, we changed our minds and settled on merely strolling over to Epcot instead. We packed up our few remaining possessions that we hadn’t taken care of the night before, called Bell Services to come pick them up and store them for us until it was time for us to catch our DME bus, then off we went.
We followed our usual Epcot Future World pattern of grab Fastpass for Soarin, ride it in the Standby line, then go look for that ever-elusive Nemo again before riding Soarin one last time using our Fastpasses. This time around, we also spent some time in between enjoying all the exhibits in the Living Seas. We also couldn’t resist one last trip through Figment’s domain before meandering back to the World Showcase. We wanted to focus heavily on all the countries’ shops today but first we decided to fortify ourselves with an early lunch. Although we didn’t have any ADRs, we dropped by the podium at Tutto Italia to see if they had any openings and very soon thereafter found ourselves seated at a comfortable table for two and being waited on by a delightful young woman from Italy. Kirk had never dined at the Italian pavilion before whereas I had eaten here twice before when it was under different management and was known as Alfredo’s. I had been rather underwhelmed with both the food and the service on those two occasions plus I hadn’t liked how packed together the tables were. The new owners seem to have opened up the seating in the restaurant a tad as I no longer felt like a sardine in a can. The service was absolutely impeccable with none of the condescending air I’d detected from the waiters in the past. And the food - out of this world! Both Kirk and I enjoyed every bite of our sumptuous meal. We even enjoyed a rather different beverage with our food - it was an Italian version of orange soda pop and was unlike anything either one of us had ever tasted before - very refreshing.
Now totally stuffed, we headed out to explore the rest of the World Showcase. Our first stop was the American Adventure as we hadn’t managed to fit this show in yet so far on our trip. As luck would have it, the next show was due to commence very shortly so in we went to enjoy a performance of the Voices of Liberty first. They had just started their show and it was as fabulous as ever. These singers are so talented that they never cease to amaze me. When they were done singing, they immediately dispersed and sought out guests to meet and greet. It was great fun talking to one of these talented performers and getting the opportunity to tell him how much we enjoyed their singing.
The rest of our time seemed to zip by faster than you can blink an eye and before we knew it, it was time to head back for our return to the airport. Normally, this is always a sad moment for me but with the hordes of people that had now descended on WDW (Epcot was almost as crowded as the Magic Kingdom had been the day before) and the heat (about 87 degrees on this particular day) and in light of the fact that we’d packed a lot of magic into our seven day sojourn, I was actually ready to return home. Our trip via DME back to the airport was comfortable as was our flight home. Now it was time to start planning our next trip to our favourite place on earth.

Joy