We headed out at about half past eight, having packed up the few things we'd unpacked, and left our bags in our room to be sorted out by bell services. We drove over to the Boardwalk (by a very circular route due to my not being used to starting off from AKL!) and went to Epcot via the International Gateway, which was a cunning plan of Nicky's to avoid queues at ticket booths. It worked a treat, and we were able to sort out 3 annual passes plus 2 8-day passes in no time at all.
Our first stop in Epcot was Soarin', closely followed by Spaceship Earth, before walking back around the World Showcase to Japan where we had booked for lunch at Tokyo Dining. Tempura was enjoyed by all, and Jake had his meal served in a Bullet Train!
After lunch, Jake made a beeline for the Japanese department store to buy up some Pokemon cards, before we took in the "American Adventure" show. Epcot is currently running a Food and Wine festival, and we studied some of the carts on the way round, and will definitely have to go back later in our stay and sample lots of them. We nearly managed to get Nicky past all of the wine stands!
By this point we were all flagging somewhat, as a result of the early start, and so we made our way back to the hotel and sorted out our room change. Unfortunately the hotel had mucked up, and after promising us a particular room were unable to deliver, and we are now in room 5202 which is directly above reception, and which looks out over "Sunset Savannah". I'm sure that it is just as nice as the room we'd been promised (and it is ideally located to be close to the amenities) but the way the process was handled by the hotel staff can be described as poor at best, and this combined with our weariness did lead to a temporary sense of humour failure!
We came upstairs and our bags arrived a few minutes later, so we were able to settle in and unpack. The savannah view still isn't perfect (but then, truth be told, I suspect that none of them are perfect, and we were probably expecting too much) and as you can see from the photos below, we can still see some of the building work, but it is definitely an improvement from the last one.
Once we were settled in, I took Jake to the arcade and loaded up a game card with some credits. Jake beat me at hover hockey, as well as having a go on driving, bowling, basketball, skateboarding, and so on. Once we'd had our fill (for today at least) of arcade gaming, Jake stayed at the hotel with Nanny and Grandad whilst Nicky and I headed off to do some shopping. Following the advice of one of the valet parking staff, we went to find a shopping area called the Loop, and went to a very new Publix supermarket to stock up on groceries, as well as to an Electrical store to buy a new DS charger for Jake (due to a mini crisis arising when it turned out that his UK charger wouldn't work here) along with a purchase from Carolyn's shopping list!
Nicky and I had a quick tea at Perkins before coming back to the hotel and hearing all about Jake trying out the swimming pool whilst we were out, although he hasn't been down the slide yet.
Plan for tomorrow is to go to the Studios in the morning, and then have a reasonably quiet and restful afternoon, as we have tickets for the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow night.