Laura's Disney Lines

Thought I'd write a little bit about the conditions here this week.

Crowds: Because of the Food and Wine Festival, World Showcase at Epcot was quite crowded Friday night and Saturday, though lines for the attractions were short. Sunday afternoon and evening were less crowded, though - five minutes before IllumiNations started we walked right up to the railing near Morocco and had a really good view - not blocked by trees or islands. And during the week there's been almost no wait at the Food and Wine booths. This week we've found the waits in the rest of the parks to be quite short as well - less than 10 minutes for Expedition Everest, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Tower of Terror. There's a big group from someplace called Hollister, wherever that is - we've seen groups of them in several parks.

Clouds: The weather has really been a mix of "nice" and "showery". The temperatures have been VERY pleasant - nothing higher than 81 (if that), but most days we've had showers off and on. The only really serious extended rain we had was (unfortunately) during our Halloween party on Tuesday night. According to the Weather Channel there's been some front pushing through Florida that's been bringing all of this wet weather, though it's supposed to improve over the weekend.

Christmas: Christmas has begun here in Central Florida. I knew that the Osborne Lights in the Studios started going up a few weeks ago, but on Tuesday we saw that Hollywood Blvd now has Christmas garland strung across the street and those tinsel Christmas trees on the light poles. There's also Christmas trees back around MuppetVision, and a big Santa climbing the side of a building. Today (Thursday) when we came in the International Gateway at Epcot we noticed Christmas decorations outside the gift shop there, as well as garland around the doorways in the UK pavilion. Once we reached World Showcase Plaza we saw that the Epcot Christmas tree had magically gone up sometime in the last 48 hours. There's also decorations in Guest Relations and over the turnstiles at the front of the park. Come on...Halloween is barely over!!! (And it's not over at the Magic Kingdom, where there is still a Halloween party tonight!)

Speaking of Halloween - they did some fun things here at Animal Kingdom Lodge. When we arrived on Tuesday there was a display of pumpkins set up in the Lobby. They had been carved by Cast Members, and there was a contest for guests to select the best in a number of categories, such as Best Animal Kingdom Lodge Theme, Funniest, Most Frightful, Most Original, etc. We voted, and I should've taken a picture of them, but I didn't get around to it, and they were gone by Thursday morning. There was a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt for the kids on Halloween evening - we saw quite a few kids in costume running around with papers in their hands and getting treats at locations throughout the Lodge. They seemed to be having a fine time. We opted for a "treat" and had dinner at Jiko - and I've never seen it so empty! Our waiter told us it was because of Halloween - people were out someplace with their kids instead of going out to dinner. Worked for us, since Jiko was nice and quiet. :-)

Events: The Food and Wine Festival at Epcot runs through November 11. Festival of the Masters is November 9-11 and Super Soap Weekend is November 10-12. On November 12 there's the first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party of the season and The Osborne Lights at the Studios light up the night. Epcot's Holidays Around the World begin on November 23.