In which we swim, golf, eat, clog, ooh and ahh and consider assassinating the ten-year-olds who beat the crap out of us

Our second full day at WDW was a day off. Some of us went to Blizzard Beach and spent the morning flying down waterslides. Some of us went to Winter Park to look at Tiffany objects. O’C met up with friends for brunch. In other words, one does what one wants on the day off.

Blizzard Beach is fun, but like anything else, get there early before it crowds up. The 4 of us who went were only slowed down by the need to climb every mountain from which the slides commence. By noon, though, our quittin’ time, there were lines going up those mountains. By then I was navigating the lazy river portion of the experience. The others had gone on for a little more tobogganing before lazy rivering themselves.

By now, btw, Kaz had gone off to Lexington to learn how to be a teacher in her new job. Despite the fact that many of us would have offered expert testimony that this initiation was unnecessary, she was gone from Monday night to Thursday. This means she missed out on the Mini-Golf Tournament. We played at Winter/Summer Land, which is attached to Blizzard Beach. Lots of Santa and snow. After last summer’s hard fought battle in the shadow of Stuyvesant, the heat was on, but I managed to bring my record against Vaughan to one-one. We need a tiebreaker. Are there any tournaments on the circuit near to any mini-golf venues? That’s definitely a problem debate needs to solve.

That night we visited the Boardwalk and ate Greek food at the soon-to-close Cat Kora’s. It was pretty good, but not to die for. The next day was the first of two at Epcot. The new version of Test Track is a dramatic improvement over the original. You get to design your own car and that is what you are testing during the attraction. I went on with JV, who was thoroughly pissed that the two ten-year-olds sitting behind us designed a better car than we did. (Not that Joe is competitive or anything.) Then there’s a design-you-own-ride called Sum of All Thrills, sort of a hidden attraction, lots of fun. Then Space and, of course, Soarin’. After that, over to England, Japan and, for lunch, Morocco. And by now it’s way into the afternoon, and time for a nap, since the night’s entertainment was Raglan Road (Irish dinner with clog dancers), followed by Cirque de Soleil. Fantastic evening all around. Cirque is always a big crowd pleaser. The clog dancers were pretty good too, and the six of us had to tie Vaughan down to keep him from joining them, as he claims to have spent his entire youth in clog classes. Whatever.

I will point out that by now we were taking a relatively easy pace through the parks. They were no longer as crowded as they had been, plus by their nature, the parks other than MK at WDW are easier to handle. Even if there were no lines at all, I can’t imagine doing everything at MK in one day. Then again, at this point in my Disney life, I can survive skipping an attraction that I’ve already done. There’s always next time.

By the way, I've posted some pix of Universal on FB. I'll get the WDW ones up by the end of the weekend.