Day 1, Part 3
We loaded April into her stroller at about 5:15, according to the timestamps on my images, and made our way down to the main floor. I definitely felt a little unmoored in a resort that was completely new to me.
If you haven’t been to the Riviera, the first floor is hope to the courtyard with the two pools, a bocce ball court, Primo Piatto (the quick service restaurant), and Bar Riva. It’s also where you go if you want to get on the Skyliner.
We had a bit of a hard time finding the station, but once we did, the path was very clear and we never got lost again. Riviera is pretty compact, so it’s not too hard to get used to its layout. As I mentioned, we stayed in the East wing, and the station is on the West wing, but it was not a long walk at all, maybe five minutes from our room, unless there was a hold up at the elevators or something (Disney is asking folks to limit the elevators to one party per car).
I do want to mention that the elevators at the Riviera were exceptionally fast. We usually stay at the Polynesian, on the second or third floor of Tokelau, and as my dad put it, you could use a year of your life on those elevators. I suppose age is a factor here, so enjoy the speed while you can!
On our way to the station, we also passed the activity center and the gym. If you read my report from last fall, you may remember we spent a lot of time in both locations when we stayed at the Boardwalk. We didn’t work out in the gym, though. We were just there to refill our water bottles and take advantage of the scented cool towels. Sadly, this gym did not have any scented towels. I’m not sure if that’s just how it normally is, or if it’s a victim of Covid, but we did stop in a few times during the trip to refill our water bottles. The hours weren’t posted, but there were a couple of times our bands wouldn’t let us in, so I assume it’s not 24/7. We didn’t end up going to the activity center at all during our stay, but it’s nice to know it’s there for future reference.
A few moments later, we arrived at the Skyliner station. We followed the signs to the Epcot line, and waited behind a few parties to get in our own car.
The Skyliner right now is pretty much the only form of Disney transportation I feel comfortable using, since every family gets their own car. But I do look forward to using boats and monorails again in the future.
We boarded without having to fold up April’s stroller, which was nice and convenient. We were able to wheel it right on. She didn’t seem sure of what to make of the experience, and I took this video as we ascended.
It was a pretty quick trip to Epcot, where we went through a quick and easy temperature check and a pretty painless bag check. The procedures have really changed since Covid. The guards tend to not look through your bags unless they have to. Instead, they ask you to take out any large metal objects and just carry the bags through the metal detector. They would also have me park April and her stroller off to the side a few feet, and once I went through the metal detector, either I would go get her or the guard would push her to me. It was always pretty efficient. Be aware that things that can trip up the metal detector include umbrellas and some portable chargers, so you’ll want to take those out of your bags (my dad has a charger that tripped up the detector at least once).
By now it was about 5:45, and even though our reservation wasn’t until around 7, we were starving. So we had a couple of options. We could eat at a couple of booths to tide us over, or we could go straight to the restaurant and see if they could seat us. We decided to go with the latter option because we were so close to the restaurant.
Our destination this evening was Spice Road Table at Morocco, our current Epcot favorite. I was surprised to see that the cast members working at the restaurant were actually from Morocco, given all the current travel restrictions. I’m not sure if these folks are permanent residents or citizens, on a different type of visa, or if Morocco has different travel restrictions than other countries, but it was nice to see some international cast members in World Showcase.
We checked in, and were able to be seated right away. We requested a table outside and they were able to accommodate that. This is always our preference for seating, although the inside area is very nice and pretty open air.
There weren’t a lot of other tables being utilized when we went out, which was nice. They let us bring April’s stroller onto the patio, but I still wanted a high chair because eating in her stroller is not ideal. They brought one out and we wiped it down just to be safe.
I bought these disposable placemats at Publix and they were a great investment. I do have a tip if you use them, though. Always make sure the end closest to the child dips slightly over the edge of the table. Otherwise, as you can see here, there’s still room for them to store food directly on the table surface, which of course goes against the point of the tablecloths. Oh well. After this, we got wiser. We gave April some snack puffs to keep her occupied while we waited for drinks and food, and she decided the container itself was entertaining enough.
This dinner marked the first of many times during this trip my dad attempted to get a dark beer. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it in previous reports, but he loves dark beer more than any other kind of beer, and is always disappointed by the lack of it at Disney. I imagine a dark, heavy beer isn’t a super popular option for people dealing with heat and humidity, but that has never deterred him. Sadly now with the pandemic, menu options have been further curtailed and dark beer is even harder to find. He will always order whatever the waitperson says is the darkest beer on the menu, and he is almost always disappointed by it. I can’t remember what he ordered this time, but I think he had a similar experience.
I ordered a red sangria, which I ordered when we dined here last February, and I was very pleased with my choice. It was tasty, refreshing, and the perfect way to start a vacation.
Before our food arrived, I held April a bit, as I knew if she stayed in her high chair for too long she'd get fussy. She was fascinated with my hat.
For food, we ordered the same thing we got on last year's fall trip, so I’m just going to steal pictures of them since we both forgot to take pictures this time. We got the vegetarian sampler (hummus fries, babaganoush, vegetable couscous, grape leaves, and pita chips, though it looks like last year they were soft slices of pita bread), and the mixed grill (chicken and beef skewers, green beans, and fried potatoes). Dad was worried it would be too much food for us, but I wasn’t. I was ravenous, and we ate it all. We also shared some of it with April. She got to try the babaganoush, and we also took the skin off a couple of potato slices so she could eat the bits underneath. Looks like we also let her try a green bean, although I'm sure she just gummed on it.
It was a really delicious meal as always. Towards the end, as is usual for her, April started getting fussy. It was close to her naptime, so I took her out of the high chair and tried to sing to her to get her ready to go down to sleep. This was how well it went.
I held her while Dad settled the bill, then I put her in her stroller and reclined the seat and covered the top to encourage her to sleep. A few minutes later, she finally gave into sleep.
By the time we left Spice Road Table, it was starting to get a little bit crowded on the patio, so I was really glad we’d decided to eat early. We made our way around World Showcase towards Mexico, just enjoying the sights. It was pretty empty.
We passed by Norway. The line for Frozen was pretty long, plus I didn’t want to wake April up from her nap, so we decided to skip it, along with Mexico as well. We were resigned that we wouldn’t be able to go into any buildings while April was asleep, but as we passed Mexico, Dad finally thought to ask what was open and what we could do. I opened the
MDE app to check.
And that’s when I discovered, nothing was open. Because while we were walking, Epcot had closed! The park actually closed at 7, mere minutes before I checked my phone. I had no idea until just then. My dad teased me about it. How could I, the family Disney expert, not know that the park was closing early? My only excuse was that this is a weird year, man. Park hours seemed to be changing daily. Also, I thought it was weird that there wasn’t any sort of announcement that the park was closing. Especially at Epcot, where the fireworks are usually what signal the end of the day, you would think they would have another way for guests to know when it was time to leave.
But oh well, nothing we could do about it now. At least we’d gotten a nice dinner. We kept walking around World Showcase, deciding to make the full loop before getting back onto the Skyliner.
We stopped briefly at the popcorn cart in Canada. It was closed, but there was still a cast member there. Dad just wanted to make sure they were still serving maple popcorn during park hours, since we are obsessed with that maple popcorn. We were worried they had stopped serving it during the pandemic, but we were delighted to hear that was not the case. We had another Epcot day on our schedule, so we looked forward to coming back and getting some on that day.
Next we stopped briefly at the UK pavilion. My dad wanted to get some mayonnaise for our hard boiled eggs. He asked a cast member where he might find some, and they suggested he ask at the bar in the Rose & Crown, which was still open. So he ducked in there to check it out while I waited on the sidewalk with the stroller.
While I waited, I witnessed a disturbing interaction, which will become relevant again in a moment. A group of four young adults were at a table on the sidewalk on the other side of the street (in front of the shops). Maybe late high school, early college age. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were having an argument. The boy was towering over the girl, using an aggressive stance, while the girl was being firm but I could tell she was rattled. I couldn’t make out what they were saying or arguing about, but it was one of those things where you can tell what the emotions were, and whose side you’d take if you had to. After a moment, the boy stormed off.
Shortly after, Dad came back out. He didn’t get his precious mayo, but he had packets of all sorts of other condiments like tartar sauce and vinegar. The mayo quest continued.
We went up the hill and then down again through the International Gateway exit. A line was starting to form for the Skyliner, but it was moving pretty quickly. Not long after we got in line, April woke up, and I noticed that the person in front of us was the boy from the argument I’d just seen.
Let me tell you, I was diligent about following the distance markers throughout our trip, but never so much as I was here. I hadn’t told Dad what I’d seen after he came out of Rose & Crown, and I wasn’t about to tell him right now. I was really grateful that we had to keep that distance between us and other parties, because up close this boy only looked more disturbed. He was staring at his phone, obviously angry. I felt really bad for the girl he’d argued with. I didn’t know if she was his girlfriend or what, but I’ve dealt with enough angry boys in my life to know when to stay away. Not that I think he would have done anything, but it was just something about him that skeeved me out and made me want to make sure we didn’t interact with him.
We got on our Skyliner car and once we were safely isolated, I told Dad about the boy and why I’d been so keen to make sure we stayed away from him. He understood, and commended my diligence.
Next up, our Riviera evening!