Anyone with any sense in Central Florida knew that last Sunday would be a "very blustery day". Sadly, I am not counted among that group. Ben had been cooped up at home with the the flu the entire week previous, and so by late Sunday morning we were both ready to get out and get some fresh air. I did notice that it was a little more overcast than usual, but I didn't think to check the weather forecast or listen to the radio. Mostly I wanted to get to Epcot to exchange our paper annual passes for the new plastic cards with the embedded RFID ("arphid") chips, and Ben was happily talking about "Epcot... take-a-boat!", and so it was that we headed out to enjoy the day. Neither of us had any idea that we would end the afternoon significantly less dry than how we began.

If you aren't familiar with Disney's big NextGen/MyMagic+ technological initiative, it's pretty cool (if a little spooky). They have enabled public WiFi access throughout the public spaces on the Walt Disney World property, and they have rolled out extensive use of arphid scanners at the park turnstiles, hotel room doors, and other key locations. If you have an arphid-enabled card or a MagicBand wristband, you no longer have to get out a paper pass and put it through a slot to be scanned at the turnstiles. You can just wave your card or wristband in the general vicinity of a scanner, which then lights up and has you do a biometric finger scan to confirm you are the person associated with that pass. For guests staying on property in Disney hotels, the same system works to open your hotel room door. At more and more pay points in restaurants and shops, guests can charge the bill to their hotel room with a simple scan (and yes, that functionality is turned off by default on children's passes). The FastPass system is also being converted to this technology, and then the whole thing is wrapped up in a smartphone app that senses where in The World you are and then recommends attractions or activities that are nearby. It can warn you if a particular ride is temporarily closed for some reason, and it will alert you when you have FastPasses that are ready to be used. It's all pretty cool stuff, and for the next several weeks annual passholders can swap out their paper passes for the new plastic arphid cards by going to the Odyssey building at Epcot, located halfway between Test Track and Mexico.

That was the first place I wanted to go when we arrived at the park, although as we were walking under the shadow of Spaceship Earth I got my first hint of the kind of day that was in store; Out of nowhere a huge gust of wind blew the cap off of my head, and that same gust also scooped up an infant carrier (thankfully empty) from a young family nearby and blew it several feet away. I chased after my hat, tightened the band, and then after a short visit to the Art of Disney store Ben was ready for me to lead him over to Odyssey. Exchanging our passes was surprisingly quick and easy, we were in the building for less than five minutes, and with that taken care of Ben led me away to where he really wanted to go.

Disney runs two shuttle boats on the World Showcase Lagoon. All they do, all day long, is shuttle back and forth between two stops. Ben loves riding on these boats, and can stay on them for hours at a time. This is why I carry a book or my Kindle with me whenever we go to Epcot. With the Flower & Garden Festival happening all around, we spent the next hour and a half floating back and forth between Canada and Morocco. Passengers came and went at each stop, I made good progress in the book I was reading, and Ben was very happy. He also kept talking about Alice, and so on a whim I pulled out my iPhone and checked that Disney app I mentioned earlier. It turned out that Mary Poppins was currently doing a Meet & Greet in England, and in about 20 minutes she would leave and Alice would come out to the tea garden to visit with park guests. I asked Ben if he would like to go see Alice, and that was met with a very enthusiastic response. The next time the boat docked in Canada we hopped off and then headed over to the England pavilion. After just a few minutes of waiting, Alice showed up and Ben got to have his picture taken with her.

.

From there, Ben dragged me over to the International Gateway located between England and France. Many people don't realize that there is a back entrance to Epcot, but there it is -- a way for visitors to enter the park who are coming from Disney's Boardwalk or the other hotels in that area. Ben's was interested only because they also run a shuttle boat there that runs from Epcot all the way over to the DIsney Hollywood Studios, making stops along the way at the Yacht and Beach Club, the Boardwalk, and the Swan and Dolphin hotels. Where the shuttles on the World Showcase Lagoon take 3-4 minutes to make their journeys, a full round-trip on this boat will take upwards of an hour. I should also note that these are actual free-floating boats, nothing like the Jungle Cruise "boats" that do nothing but ride on a rail. The ships' pilots on the shuttle boats are genuine ship captains piloting their vessels and taking responsibility for the safety of their passengers. As we pulled away from the dock at Epcot's International Gateway, Ben was chattering happily as I pulled out my book and continued reading. The skies were still overcast, but did not seem particularly threatening. That would soon change.

The outward journey was uneventful, all the way over to The Studios. On the first leg of the return trip, however, the gray skies began to turn black. As we docked at the Swan and Dolphin the ship's copilot suggested that anyone who was headed to the Boardwalk might want to get off here. He advised that it was only a four minute walk from that location, and that it would be another twelve minutes before the boat made it to the dock at the Boardwalk. He pointed out the threatening skies and said that if you walked from here you might beat the rain. I didn't pay much attention since the Boardwalk was not our ultimate destination, but I did glance out the window and saw the black storm clouds closing in.

Less than a minute later we pulled away from the dock, nosing away from the Swan and Dolphin and headed across the man-made lake over towards the Yacht & Beach Club. I have never been a sailing man myself, but I have heard stories about how quickly the weather can change on the open seas. I never expected to witness this while on a little shuttle boat on a tiny waterway not much larger than a pond. In the space of just two minutes the blackness was directly overhead and the boat began to rock in the wind. The surface of the lake was whipped up and churning, with whitecaps forming all around us. To be sure, these were tiny little waves -- perhaps six to nine inches -- and not the least bit frightening, but it was extremely eerie to see the rain coming across the water towards us forming sideways curlicues in the air as surface of the normally-placid lake turned into a furious blanket of blue-and-white energy. Even as I began to think about taking out my phone to film this, the storm suddenly hit the boat with full force. I could see the pilot struggling with the wheel as she became instantly drenched from head-to-toe while her copilot fought to get the doors and windows closed. Ben and I were perfectly dry and warm, but the captain was shivering with the sudden chill as her uniform dripped on the decking at her feet. It was only a few hours later that I found out there were actually tornado warnings in place due to the storm.  After a few minutes the storm lessened a tiny bit and the pilot was able to dock the boat and secure it to the posts there. We spent the next twenty minutes or so riding out the rest of the storm.

Once the worst was over, they tried to continue the ship's journey. We floated across the lake to the dock at the Boardwalk, as the rain continued to come down. Upon reaching that stop, the copilot advised us that they had been ordered to suspend service for the time being. We were welcome to get off there, or to wait on board for further developments. I figured we were much better off staying nice and dry where we were, and Ben was still perfectly happy, so we sat in place and waited it out for another ten minutes. Unfortunately, then Disney made the safety call that they needed to order all passengers off the boat due to the risk of lightning strikes. Something else I discovered a few hours later was that two of the monorails had been struck by lightning during the storm and had to be towed back to the stations. I knew that Disney was making the right call for safety reasons, but that meant that Ben and I had to venture out into the storm with no cover available nearby. In the time it took for us to get from the ship's dock over to the lobby of the nearest building, we were completely waterlogged. Fortunately,. Disney was ready on the spot for all of the drenched guests and had someone standing in the lobby offering dry towels to anyone who needed them. Ben and I found an empty seat near the stairway, dried off, and waited for the storm to pass.

.

An hour passed, and while the storm finally lessened to more of a steady drizzle still the shuttle boats were kept out of service. Ultimately Ben and I ventured out to walk from the Boardwalk back over to the International Gateway, then through the entire length of Epcot and out the front turnstiles, and finally trudged all the way out to our car in the distant Discover parking lot. By the time we finally made it to the car we were both thoroughly waterlogged. As I tweeted shortly thereafter, "How much more wet can Ben and I be? None. We can be none more wet." Through it all, Ben was never the least bit upset or afraid. Even when walking through the rain he maintained a jovial attitude. He also recognized that the rain could damage his iPod, and gave it to me without prompting in order for me to put it in my belt pack to keep it safe and dry. He was clearly not perturbed by the experience, as the very next day he began asking to go back to Epcot again to ride the boat. I think maybe next time I will remember to bring our jackets ...