Thursday, March 8, 2018

Destination Disney: Epcot

This week I've been recapping our Winter Break trip to Disney, and today I'm sharing our time at Epcot. To read about the first two days of our trip you can check here and here


For the third day of our Disney trip this year we scheduled Epcot. I remember Epcot growing up and the moment I entered the park I realized not much had changed. Several of the rides were the same, and the lay out of the countries hadn't changed. That made it so easy for us to navigate and know where to go. 

By this day we were all a little tired. It was all coming back to me how exhausting Disney is. You don't want to miss out on any of the fun, but unless you do it right, it can be super tiring. We had fast passes scheduled for late morning so we didn't make any rush to get to the park right when it opened. Similar to the day before though, it was super crowded. 


I checked the Disney app to see what wait times looked like and was astonished to see that the wait for Anna and Elsa was only 5 minutes. We made our way over to Norway, and the girls and I went straight for the Frozen duo. 



To say L.C. had a fan girl moment would be an understatement. She was so tongue tied and her mouth hung open in awe no matter what the Frozen sisters said to her. She was all smiles, but wouldn't respond to anything. B.C. ran around like a crazy girl until Queen Elsa tried to give her a hug and then she became so shy. It was so funny seeing how they reacted to seeing Anna and Elsa in real life.


After we said our goodbyes to the princesses B.C. decided she had to have an Anna costume. By this I mean she death gripped it as we were passing by and was not about to let it go (pun intended).


So we frolicked through Norway, and the entire rest of our day with a very happy Anna.


Once we wrapped up our Frozen fever we headed to the Nemo ride, and this was one of our group favorites! It was a slow ride that didn't take very long, but we loved checking out the aquarium in the Seas pavilion afterward.


The kids love when we visit the Georgia Aquarium, so this was right in their wheelhouse.  Seeing all the fish up close, the sharks, and checking out the divers that were doing demonstrations was one of their favorite parts of the day, and while the boys were riding a ride the girls and I even circled back around to see everything again later. 






By this time in our day we decided to do lunch. Now Epcot has so many amazing restaurants on site, but my little crew wanted nothing to do with all the new food they could try. They wanted their favorite chips and dip. So we headed to Mexico and enjoyed a lovely lunch at San Angel Inn.


We didn't have a reservation, but we were able to be seated with in five minutes. I promptly ordered the queso and a margarita and didn't think twice about it. Neither lasted long. So so yummy!


Once we were refueled we headed back out to the park. The boys took off for some rides and the girls decided to do a little tour of princesses. First up was Snow White.


She was so sweet with L.C. (who fan girled again), and even gave her a huge kiss goodbye!


Then we headed towards Morocco to see Princess Jasmine. We missed her. And not that she wasn't there. We missed her in a sense of the line was cut off at a certain spot and we would have to come back at one of the other scheduled times. I realized after this that all the princesses/characters were like this. We just happened to stumble upon the right time for Snow White.

The girls were getting antsy so we bailed on the princesses and rode a few more rides with the boys.


Spaceship Earth was a crowd favorite of my three older children. Soarin' freaked out one of them. And Figment and the "What If" labs were a huge hit for everyone.


Then B.C. decided she needed a little nap. So we ate our way around the world, and checked out some of the amazing topiaries and gardens that were set up for the Flower and Garden Festival the following week. It was amazing to see what they could create!


After everyone got their fill of rides we made our way to France so that L.C. could see at least one more princess on her list, Aurora. We arrived just in time... to miss the cut off. Whomp, whomp.


But a sweet cast member informed us to come back about half an hour later and she would be back. I decided to park myself at the front of the line and just let the girls run around that part of France for a bit. We weren't the only ones and they quickly made friends to help pass the time.

Mr. Cute and Cute went off in search of food, and brought back pastries that the kids devoured in .5 seconds. When in France!

I kept eyeballing all the people walking around with cold glasses of champagne and wine, but I wasn't about to give up my first spot in line.


When Aurora finally made her grand entrance we had a very happy little girl, and I could check off another character on their ever growing lists.

We made our way back over towards our last scheduled ride of the day, Fast Track. Mr. Cute gladly volunteered to take both the older kids on this ride. I am not even sure I was going to be given an option to ride it.


First up was Cute, and while the boys took off to ride it the girls checked out the rest of the pavilion to see what else they had to offer. I was shocked to walk in and see Chevrolet had a whole showroom of cars for you to see. Complete with salespeople. I couldn't imagine who would want to buy a car on an already semi-expensive trip, but then again maybe it works. Like Chevrolet has done some market research that after people are jet propelled at 70 miles an hour around in a circle they are more likely to be on such a magical Dole Whip infused adrenaline rush that they decide right then and there that they just need the latest model Traverse.


After I spent 45 minutes letting the girls "test drive" the cars we made our way back to the front thinking the ride would be over soon and the older Cutes could switch. In reality, it was another 45 minutes! Thankfully the boys came out super excited because I was running out of Mickey pretzels and frozen beverages to keep L.C. entertained.



Apparently the ride was so much fun, but it takes a long time to get to the ride. You get to design a car and do a bunch of other "really cool" things that I didn't hear because at this point I was starting to crash.

And then L.C. and Mr. Cute took off for their turn. So it was a second round of Mickey pretzels and frozen beverages for everyone and then an hour and half later we were all reunited. By this time it was dark and late and we were done.


We arrived back at the hotel and ate dinner in our room at around 9:45p.m. I looked over at Mr. Cute and mouthed, "Two. More. Days.".

At this point I realized we were treating this trip like a sprint instead of a marathon, and we were all exhausted. As everyone was passing out our community beds, I had a Disney epiphany and decided to make the next day a little more magical. I promptly cancelled all our fast passes. I declared the next day a pool day, and if we wanted to use our tickets we would go in the late afternoon much like we did the first day. I was rewarded with enthusiastic cheers from all members of our little crew. And by enthusiastic cheers I mean loud snores.

Check back in tomorrow to see our "relaxing" day at Disney! 

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