Dinner Shows and Goodbye Central Orlando!

We wrapped up our last stay in 'central' Orlando for the season.  Central is in quotes because technically it's Kissimmee, but it's the area close to all the amusement parks, so 'central' for tourism purposes ;-).  Again we stayed at Sherwood Forest, this time right across from the laundry facilities, which was very convenient!

Final campsite at Sherwood Forest

The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival started shortly after we arrived, and we went a couple days and did the 'Garden Graze' - buy 5 items from the food vendors to receive a free treat.  The food was excellent and we received another fun cup with the completion!

Epcot has many fun topiaries for the festival

50th Anniversary cake!

50th anniversary flowers!

Winnie the Pooh was so cute!

Our reward for completing the Garden Graze

With our seasonal departure imminent, we evaluated what all we needed to do that we'd been talking about all season and ended up with three dining reservations.  First, we returned to Garden Grill at Epcot - one of our favorite restaurants on Disney property.  The food is homestyle and delicious, the restaurant rotates through part of the Living with the Land exhibit, and characters come visit during your meal.  It did not disappoint!

Pluto!

Next, we booked dinner and a show at Capone's, an establishment right down the road from the RV resort.  This had the theme of "1931 gangland Chicago" - set in a speakeasy.  The food was actually quite good and you were allowed to choose from a menu (unusual for a dinner show - normally you eat what they decide to give you or go up to a buffet).  The entertainment was a bit cheesy but very fun.  We thought it was an excellent value for the money and quite enjoyed our evening.

Some of the singers and dancers

This didn't come out great in the low light, 
but it was a very interactive show and
they had you practice stereotypical 
Italian family motions and sayings so 
you could fool the cops

Finally, we returned to Medieval Times - also right down the road from the RV resort.  We had been here several years earlier, but it is one of my favorite dinner shows and so we decided to return since it was so close.  We cheered for the red and yellow knight, who sadly did not win the tournament, but the entertainment was great as always.

In the lobby with a picture of the 'queen'
(a year or so ago they changed the 
script and now there is a queen instead
of a king)

The knights marching in with the queen at the start of the show

Finally, we also stopped by Shingle Creek Regional Park, also right down the road.  It was a nice little park, I wouldn't say it's worth a special trip, but if you're in the area it has some pretty walks.  There are a couple of historic buildings and informative signs - including the fact that Shingle Creek is so named because shingles were made from the cypress trees in the area.

The bridge over Shingle Creek

As we close out this phase of our seasonal travel, I have some reflections on our winter activities.  This year, as you may or may not have heard in the news and social media, Disney World was INSANELY busy.  You might have noticed we only went to Epcot in this post...that's because the other parks were way too crowded to be enjoyable for folks like us that want to wait in a couple of reasonable lines and stroll around unhindered.  I'm not sure if this is pent up COVID vacationing, an expected side effect of the 50th anniversary celebrations this year, or an unexpected side effect of the new Genie+ paid FastPass, but the lines this season were unbearable.  Usually in February the lines are short and crowds are low and the parks are quite fun to visit, but not this year.  And this isn't just our biased opinion - it was commented on by all the Disney YouTube channels we follow as well.  So we're thinking next year we'll drop the annual passes (gasp!) and find some other way to entertain ourselves in the winter.  This will likely still center on Florida (we determined everywhere else is too cold), but we're thinking we'll take more of a tour around the state and maybe get ourselves organized enough to pop into a few state parks along the way.  It's a sad thing to think about because we did really enjoy Disney, but it's a good thing for you as a reader because my posts will probably become more interesting next year ;-).  

In related news, we have trips planned for the spring in Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana so things will get more interesting here soon!