Day 6 dawned a little early for all of us. After a late night, we were scheduled for breakfast at Epcot at 8am. This, of course, meant being at the bus stop just after 7. There were some tears from our littlest one....
It was cold, he was sleepy, and couldn't fathom why we didn't have his blanket.
We made it to Norway!
The main event was a big Norwegian breakfast with lots of princesses and lots of food. After not nearly enough breakfast the day before this was a big hit. We began the fun by meeting Belle. She was delighted to hear about our dinner at the castle the night before.
As we dined princesses stopped by and talked, signed the autograph book,
and took photos-- beginning with Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty).
Ariel had a lot to say about the silverware, of course.
M was happy and the food made everyone happy. E really liked the brown Norwegian cheese. B like unlimited doughnuts and pastries. I admit, I may have been more excited about princess breakfast at the outset than M, but she did get into talking with them and liked how different their autographs are.
There is Snow White (yes, she stopped by too, but in this photo is leading a parade, which of course our kids did not join). See that person in orange in the right corner? Yes, we were sitting next to a table of OSU fans, obviously.
Mulan was the last to stop by before we headed out for some fun in the park.
Quiet, early morning international area with Canadian (?) castle in the distance.
Epcot was having its spring flower and garden show, which included a lot of awesome topiary. This car was on the way to the Test Track. We wanted to try and get there before the line was awful, but we were already too late.
Instead, we went to Colortopia and learned about how color work, mixed some colors, and did some magic painting with fiberoptic paint brushes. (All in a blissfully warm building). Next, we bought M some sweat pants as she was still freezing :)
Next up was our first FastPass at Mission Space. I went through first with M & B as E was too short. We took the "Green" adventure, which is the more low-key option. The ride is a flight simulator of a mission to Mars. There was a lot of build up and videos before we got started, but the actual ride was not very intense. It is fun to pretend to take off for Mars though! While we were in the ride, Brent found a small, indoor playground for E so everyone was happy. Then we switched and Brent & B went again on the "Orange" level, which was marginally more spinny. B loved it.
This was followed by some wandering around and photos with the various plant sculptures.
We neared the main entrance and had a classic photo with the Epcot sphere. Inside that sphere was our next ride, Spaceship Earth (are you beginning to note a theme in our ride selections? All the space things). This may be E's most happy family photo! The ride is sort of old school talking about technological achievements of mankind through history from the stone age to Steve Jobs. It is a fairly docile ride, although randomly part of it is viewed with the seats rotated backwards.
After this ride we went and tried out the Pixar 3D shorts. They were actually really good and exceptionally well done 3D. There was even water splashed on us at one point. The seats also moved with the action (so if a car bumped you "felt" it). They showed three different shorts and they were all awesome.
Our next ride was "Soarin" in which we "flew" all over various parts of the world swooping over rivers and jungles, mountains, and oceans. This included some smell-o-vision as it smelled just like grass as we flew over the grasslands of Africa, for example. It was awesome and really well done. This ride was B's requested fastpass and a great choice.
On our way out of the "Land" area, E wanted to see the Lion King video about the "Circle of Life." This turned out to be a movie about preserving the environment narrated and with valuable lessons being learned by the characters from the Lion King. My guess is it was made in the late 90s..... So, off we went.
We were definitely hungry by now even with our huge breakfast so we headed for the international part of Epcot with some pictures from M as we began looking for lunch.
In non-surprising news, I wanted to eat lunch in "France" which is also where the Beauty and the Beast flower creations are as well as a lot of french pastries. Getting lunch was a bit of an ordeal, but it was definitely delicious. After that, we set off for some browsing of the shops in the various "worlds".
M tried on and fell in love with the Kimonos. This super helpful cast member told her lots of fun facts and helped her learn how to wear it. She was very sweet. Speaking of sweet, while M and I were pondering Kimonos, the boys went to the Japanese candy store and B found these sour lemon candies that he loved and snacked on the rest of the trip. M and I also got to see a little Japanese drumming.
I had some hesitation about buying one, but M loved it all day and it has been a great choice.
In "Germany" E spent a lot of time examining the little model trains.
M put her Kimono on immediately, of course.
E has recently discovered, and fallen in love with, the Lion King so he especially wanted this photo.
Here we are in "Mexico"
Butterfly topiaries!
We happened onto a photographer so we had a little mini photo-shoot in M's new kimono while Brent tended so some minor injury E had encountered.
We were heading back to the center to pick up some souvenirs the kids spotted earlier in the day and visit the butterfly garden. When it was time for our dinner reservation, we took the ferry boat back to Japan!
Waiting for dinner. Too cute.
I was worried that the kids might not love this restaurant, but Brent and I love Japanese food so I made the reservation anyway. This turned out to be M's favorite food of the trip. This is the type of Japanese food where the chef comes and cooks at your table on a very hot griddle. He did some tricks along the way. Better still all the food was completely delicious. E adored the Miso soup. My scallops were perfection. M loved mango sponge cake for dessert. The food at Epcot was a huge win and this was definitely a highlight for all of us.
 |
| Man, oh man, I love this photo! |
So after this, we made our way back to the "Seas" part of the park and rode the Seas with Nemo and Friends. It was not a super exciting ride, but happily it ended in an area with LOTs of HUGE aquariums so we wandered around for quite awhile looking at all the sea creatures on a couple levels of the exhibits. The sea turtles were my favorite, as usual. Then we headed back to the center of the park for the firey "Illuminations" fireworks. We headed back to the hotel with some tired kids, but a day full of fun.
Overall review - the food at Epcot was amazing as promised. The rides were so, so. If we were to return to Disney World, I would get a park hopper pass and come here to eat, but not spend the entire day here.
We only have one more day of park adventures to go and got to sleep a bit longer before our adventures in Hollywood Studios!
(Did you miss the posts on the Magic Kingdom? You can find them here:
Part 1 and
Part 2)
No comments:
Post a Comment