Some random thoughts from our day in Epcot

We went to Epcot the other day for lunch and to see the Flower and Garden Festival.

First…let me say that Epcot looks gorgeous. The nautical flags around the Future World lakes are beautiful. We didnt spend the time to decipher what they say, but I’ll coerce Bob into telling me.

The theme of this years show is good too. With “fun in the Sun” everything has a beach theme. We loved the 60’s beach music playing while we strolled.

For lunch, we went back to Chef’s de France and our opinion has not changed, It’s still the best restaurant in Epcot. The bill was $64.00 for three of us (after DDE) with three soups and three entrees. The big “hit” was John’s entree. He ordered “The French Menu” (lunch version). It came with soup, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, salad and creme brulee for $19.95. All in all…a terrific meal that all three of us thought was terrific.

While venturing on around World Showcase, we ran into an issue with a companion restroom. It was locked but the litlle indicator still said vacant. We tried to find a Cast Member to see if we could access the restroom.

We would have moved on…but this was strange. There was no sign letting you know that the restroom was out of order. We started to think that maybe someone was inside and needed help.

The first Cast Members that passed were two young women that happened to be part of the Dream Team squad. These are the folks that wander the parks giving away the Year of a Million Dreams prizes.

They radioed the maintenance team to come and check the restroom and they found that it had been locked accidentally and was in good working order.

While we were waiting, we were sort of tucked back out of the way near Morrocco and had two members of the Dreams Team waiting with us. We got a chance to talk and learned some things that we didn’t know.

There are several Dream Team members in each park.

They are given sealed envelopes containing prizes and have no say in where or when these are given away. Each Dream Team member wears a radio head set. They are contacted via their headset and given the go ahead to open a certain envelope. They are then given 30 minutes to get to the exact location where the prize is to be given away. They are unaware of what prizes are in the envelopes until they are allowed to open them or the location.

I was told that the locations can be very specific (example….Soarin’…Vehicle 2….Row 4…..Seat 6…..11:13am) or more general (everyone leaving the film O Canada at 1:30pm).

We learned that people follow them around the parks and that they are most easily spotted in Epcot as it has the most open sight lines.  We also learned that spotting a Dream Team member does not mean you get one of the YOAMD prizes.  Again….they have no say in who gets the prize(s).

These young ladies told us they think they have the best jobs in the World. They get to give away some amazing prizes and what could be better than that?

Speaking of giving away amazing prizes….today is March 29th and a member of the DIS Unplugged “Dream Team” will be in a theme park this evening, looking to give away a podcast cruise. Be the first to spot him wearing his DIS Unplugged tshirt and you will be joining us on May 10, 2009.

Happy hunting.