The last few months I've barely had a chance to come up for air, so these last few days I've just been savoring a little bit of breathing room with the kids. Over the weekend, they wanted to go to the parks—so on Sunday we headed over to EPCOT in the early afternoon and my only request was to enjoy "some normal vacation-y park time." Meaning I didn't want to run in and out, or hit nothing but Mitsukoshi, or spend the whole time gathering content. I just wanted to hang out together and ride some rides and maybe try a few food items and watch a few holiday storytellers around World Showcase.
And that's exactly what we did. We ate festival food, watched the Hanukkah Storyteller at L'Chaim and La Befana in Italy and the mischievous Barn Santa in Norway, and rode Gran Fiesta Tour and Spaceship Earth and this Glimmering Greenhouse overlay on Living with the Land. The wait time for Living with the Land was manageable all day, hovering around 15 minutes, but by the time we got there it was up to 25 minutes and while we were in line we watched it jump from 35 to 55. They must keep the attraction open later this time of year, because while it usually closes around dusk the overlay lights are all the more beautiful after sunset.
I cannot begin to tell you how happy this made me. So much work has clearly gone into this overlay. I just kept saying "I love this so much" to the kids over and over again.
Because Walt Disney World has more non-local and once-in-a-lifetime guests than Disneyland (by a lot), they're understandably less likely to make major changes to classic attractions for the holidays. Someone who's only going once wants to see the attractions as they normally are. And that's more than understandable...but it does make me appreciate these rarer changes that much more.
We'd waited for the first row of our boat and so got a gorgeous view of every turn. I feel like this one opening view, though, sums it all up.
Taken at 50mm, 1/50 second, f/2.2, ISO 640.