[Soundgod]

Wednesday night Chast and Cub told me there was a notice in their room at the Beach informing them there would be a fireworks test that night. We didn't get a similar warning at the Boardwalk.
When Gail and I finished dinner (Yachtsman's Steakhouse), I wanted to take a panoramic night time pic of the Boardwalk from the lighthouse at the Yacht. Lucky I had all my stuff with me. I had the still camera up on the tripod when suddenly, I'd say around 11:15, there was a shot and burst over Epcot. Then another. And another. Nothing rapid, all single shots, but all seemingly new patterns or colors. I quickly ripped open a fresh tape, went without the wide angle lens, and quickly put the camcorder on the tripod to catch the rest of the test. Well, that was an anti climatic 10 minutes. They never strung them together into the show order. Now, for the next 20 minutes after they did the fireworks, I could tell that they were running through lighting cues and then testing what seemed to be new additions to the sound system around the lagoon. I gave up waiting for a full up test after a while and finished the picture and headed back to the Boardwalk. Up in our room, I heard them continue to test the audio system (we could see the back of France and Morocco from our balcony), so I set the camcorder back up still hoping they'd run a full up test. No such luck, but I did hear the audio portion of the Epcot 25th birthday tag at the end of Reflections of Earth.
That's right, at least in the short term, Illuminations will have a special ending for the 25th birthday. I got a confirmation on this from a cast member who works in Epcot. I don't know if the video globe refurb is still happening, or if that was a cover for them developing new air bursts. It still could be possible that the video globe is going to be refurbished and it is also still possible that Reflections of Earth will be replaced by Skydance in the near future, as I heard several different things from different CMs in and around Epcot.

Maybe I ought to put all this together in my trip report that i just don't want to start.