After spending a considerable amount of time taking a look at the World Showcase Pavilions that preceded it, I don’t have a whole lot to impart about the United States Pavilion as the purpose of these updates is to get some legacy pictures posted and out of the way before moving on to some fall happenings. So at some point we will take a better look at everything that the US Pavilion has to offer and the meaning behind it, but this will mostly be about funnel cake toppings and Tervis tumblers. I’m sorry America.

Perhaps the best recent addition to Epcot is the large set of bathrooms installed next to The American Adventure, which is conveniently located right around the middle of World Showcase. The bathrooms in Norway were also expanded, which has caused long lines during busier days to be a thing largely of the past. We’ll see what a Saturday during Food/Wine in October brings.

This time of year in particular, you’ll want to be on the look out for character training. In World Showcase, there are two main areas, the most common of which is to the left of Liberty Inn. Because they are unannounced and usually happen in the early afternoon, you can usually meet five or six characters of varying rarity in short order. Here, Rafiki, King Louie, Winnie the Pooh, Goofy, Pluto and Meeko are greeting guests.

The other common location is in between the Canada and UK Pavilions almost across from Rose & Crown. If you see the gates to World Showplace open there, characters are usually inside the courtyard area.

Another area where you might run into a character or two is on the walkway to/from the International Gateway in between the UK and France. There is occasionally a character outside the Imagination Pavilion near the water, but that is a lot rarer.

In menu news, there is not a whole lot to talk about:

This menu picture is no longer relevant as it is from September 5th and the popcorn bucket/refill should no longer be available.

As I may or may not have mentioned before, just about every location that offers soft serve ice cream now offers it as a “float” with a variety of alcoholic sodas. They are pretty tasty in my opinion and the ice cream helps eliminate that sort of chemical-y taste that sometimes accompanies the orange sodas in particular. It is kind of strange that the Henry’s Hard Orange is $1.50 more than the Not Your Father’s Root Beer but the float prices are the same. I personally like the root beer version a bit better.

One of my favorite cold treats is The American Dream – Frozen Strawberry, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Frozen Blue Raspberry Slushy – $4.75.

I am not sure why ice cream + slushy is not more of a thing because it’s delicious, if not a bit difficult to eat because it’s so sweet. I am never sure if my teeth and taste buds are dying or just really excited whenever I take a bite. Hopefully they either grow back or it’s the latter.

But you should get one it’s really good.

Elsewhere in snacks that will demonstrably shorten your life, the Cookies n’ Cream Funnel Cake with sugar, vanilla ice cream, crushed cookies, and chocolate sauce for $11.50. The good news is perhaps that Oasis Canteen over at Hollywood Studios is again serving funnel cakes rather than the chicken nuggets that nobody other than me probably ever ordered.

Speaking of irrelevant menus, Block & Hans probably is:

You’ll find this kiosk on the right side of the Pavilion, though it usually opens between 3:30pm and 4pm these days which is about an hour after we’ve arrived at House of Blues for happy hour. But the kiosk will serve Mmmhops Pale Ale (no I am not making that up) and the Festival wines a week from today. I would also mention that I don’t know what I’m going to do if Food/Wine beer flights move to three selections each. Somebody is either going to have to scrape me off the ground or climb a ladder to pull me down from the sky.

Like several of the other Pavilions, the United States offers a somewhat preposterous number of pieces of merchandise:





































































I’m not sure if it’s just because it’s the U.S. that it feels particularly gaudy.

We’ll move on to sake bombs in Japan.