Disney Day 2: Epcot

We had breakfast reservations for the princess breakfast at Akershus in Norway at 8:05am, so we had to get up early to catch the bus to Epcot. Epcot is the closest park to our hotel, so it didn't take long to get there, but you still need to give yourself about an hour to get anywhere. The girls were very grumpy and hard to get moving. I know they were worn out, but I underestimated how hard it would be to get them ready despite the promise of seeing the princesses.

We were about 5 minutes late for our reservation and ended up having to wait at least 20 minutes to be seated. When you walk in, they have the kids pose with Belle before taking you to your table. That was our first character experience and I was surprised by the dialogue the princesses have to stay in character. It was pretty cute. I didn't know how SC would do, but she did awesome and was SO excited!! I knew Curran would love all of the characters, but SC's enthusiasm took me by surprise and it made our trip a thousand times more fun!

 

 

After photos and autographs with Belle, we went to our table to wait on the other princesses to come visit. SC was so excited to see everyone, but was particularly thrilled to meet Snow White and Ariel. C loved them all!

Cinderella came to get them for a little parade around the restaurant.

hugs!

Another parade!

Ariel: "It's me!" as Sallie Cate was showing off her doll.

Breakfast was pretty good. They had a buffet of cold foods {fruit, pastries, bagels, etc} and then brought a family style hot plate to share {eggs, bacon, sausage, and cheesy potato casserole}. Fun fact for those that don't know: Epcot requires everyone who works in the countries to be of that particular nationality/ancestry, so everyone who worked at Akershus was really Norwegian.

After breakfast, I checked my wait times app and it said the wait time at the Character Spot was 10 minutes, so we headed back towards the front of the park to meet Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy! Again, I was so pleasantly surprised that SC did great with the characters! The only person she didn't want to pose with was Goofy, and I can't blame her. He is really tall and a little intimidating whereas as Mickey and Minnie are really short {I was surprised by that}. I also think having her autograph book helped her not be scared because it gave her something to focus on while waiting. She loved finding the page and getting the pen ready to hand over to the character.

 

 

I was trying to talk her into posing with Goofy, but she wasn't having it.

 

I love this photo and hate it's blurry! :(

 

A twirl with Minnie!

We had a 10:05am Fast Pass for Turtle Talk with Crush, but the wait time was 10 minutes, so I used the app to change our Fast Pass to a later time in case the girls wanted to do it again, and we just went in the standby line. Turtle Talk is a interactive show where you sit in a little auditorium {the kids sit on the floor in the front}, and Crush comes out and talks to the kids. He's an animated {computer generated?} image on a screen, but the guy who does the voice can really see and talk to the kids. John and I thought it was really cute and funny. Sallie Cate was really upset he didn't call on her when she raised her hand, so we told her we would go back later. She kept saying "Crush didn't call my name!" in the saddest little voice. :)

Then we rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends, and we all thought that was cute too. We had a Fast Pass for that afternoon, but again, the wait time was 10 minutes, so we went ahead and road it. Then we rode Land of the Living to kill some time, and I really enjoyed it! I had no idea what to expect but we all thought it was fun and interesting. Then we headed to Soarin' which we had a Fast Pass for at 11:50. SC was not big enough to ride, so I rode first with Curran, and we got a rider switch pass for John, which meant C could ride again with him immediately after her first turn with me. She loved it!!

The Photo Pass photographer asked the girls to hold their hands out and act surprised and said she would photo shop something in later. Curran's face totally cracks me up! :)

Sallie Cate did a pretty good job! :)

Then we headed to France to eat lunch at Boulangerie. It was the first time we were using quick service meal credits on our dining plan, and John was confused when he was checking out. I was already outside getting a table with SC because she was acting crazy. So they ended up charging the meal to our room instead of using our credits. John was all up in arms about it, so we were being a little testy with each other. Later after I got the situation fixed, I told John he had something in his hair. It was bird poop. Serves him right. {His words, not mine. :)} But thankfully it was the only time we got frustrated with each other the entire trip, which I am pretty proud of. :) We overheard a couple say that they never fight worse than they do when they're at Disney. haha!

The girls got ice cream from  L'Artisan des Glaces, and then we walked back through the different countries to go back to use our Seas with Nemo Fast Pass as well as our Turtle Talk with Crush Fast Pass, even though the wait time was still only 10 minutes for both of them. {The only thing we wanted to ride at Epcot that actually needed a Fast Pass was Soarin'.} Crush didn't call on SC that time either, despite Curran waving her hand in the air, and SC was again very upset about it. :)

After that we headed back to the hotel so the girls could nap. SC was having a hard time, so I put her in the stroller and she fell asleep almost immediately. I took a long walk around the resort and listened to a book on tape while John and Curran napped in the room.

She seriously loved stroller naps.

We had 7:30pm dinner reservations at the Coral Reef, so we headed back to Epcot a little early and rode Spaceship Earth {the big silver ball- SC just calls it "the earf!}.

We did the Seas with Nemo again {for the third time} because we had a little bit of time to kill before dinner. While we we waiting on our table, we were walking around the aquarium there, and we saw Mickey scuba diving! We could only see the back of him because he was facing a room where there was a private party, but I asked the restaurant host about it and he said it was really rare to see Mickey scuba diving. Not sure it that's true, but we were pretty excited about it. We had a great table at dinner right in front of the tank, so we could see lots of fish, sharks, sting rays, etc, and that kept the girls very entertained. We enjoyed the food, and we finished just in time to see Illuminations of Earth {Epcot's fireworks show} at 9pm.

 

 

We had a fabulous day at Epcot and all really enjoyed ourselves! Most people say that Epcot is a half day park when you have young kids, which I do agree with, but we loved having a whole day to spend there and take our time doing what we wanted. And there is SO much we didn't get to do. I think I will plan a whole day there again on our next trip. And it will be even more fun when our kids are older.

Next up: Magic Kingdom day!