Disney Days 3 and 4 and the Long Drive Home

Day 4: EPCOT

We arrived at EPCOT a little later than we previously had.  Having been there, we weren't really in any rush, so we felt ok about going in a bit later.  We had a fast pass for Spaceship Earth and went on it right away. Then I decided to be a bit bossy and tell the girls we were spending most of the day in the World Showcase.  Of course we stopped for pineapple Fanta on the way!

The main draw now of the World Showcase is that the various Disney princesses are in the various pavilions.  Apparently this is because no one wants to go there otherwise, which I think is sad.  I mean, where else can you visit Mexico, England, Canada, China, Japan, Morocco, and more and try all different foods, see beautiful art, and more?!  But no, the princesses are what get people over there, and I knew this would appeal to Leah in particular, but actually, Ine got into it as well!  So we started off in England, where we got to meet Alice and Mary Poppins.

Neither of the girls would say a word to Mary Poppins.  She attempted to get them to say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but failed spectactularly.  She did elicit some giggles, though.

The scenery at the World Pavilion is incredible.  Here's France...

Onwards we went to France, where Princess Aurora, AKA Sleeping Beauty, is found. We got to also see some pretty amazing topiaries along the way, as EPCOT was getting ready for the flower show. 

Well, as soon as we got on line to meet Aurora, didn't Leah have to use the bathroom!?  So we abandoned Ine for a few minutes, only to discover that we had to leave the country to use a bathroom.  Haha.  So when we got back, I told Ine we had to go all the way to Morocco to find a bathroom!  Thankfully Aurora arrived and spared her having to laugh at my jokes.

We wanted to meet Provincial Belle next, but we had about an hour before she was due to make an appearance, and I knew from the little app that Disney has set up that we could go see Jasmine and Aladdin in nearby Morocco.  We located Belle's hiding spot, and then charged onwards to Morocco to get in a seemingly interminable line.  The reason it took so long was that the guy who was Aladdin talked incessantly to everyone who came up to him--he was really very good at his part... He hugged everyone, asked lots of questions, it was crazy.  It was getting on close to Belle time and we hadn't made it through Aladdin and I knew there'd be trouble with at least one member of our group if we didn't see Belle.  Fortunately one of the other employees told Aladdin he had only 15 minutes left, so he kind of sped up a bit.  And it was worth the wait, they were wonderful with both girls, and Ine got hugs from both as well!

We raced back to Belle's location and I saw the dreaded Disney employee at the end of the line.  This is almost always the kiss of death--when they show up, you know the line is closed.  But she thankfully let us in on the end of the line and one other family before she decided no more visitors for Belle.  I should have bought a lottery ticket, we led a charmed life!

After all this princess-y excitement, we were ready to sit down and have some food!  Neither girl had an opinion about where to eat, as long as it was good and fast, so we went back to Morocco and ate at the little cafe they have there.  The food was incredible and it was nice to have a semi-picnic in the open air restaurant.

Afterwards, we had time to go meet Snow White in Germany.  This was vindication for me personally!  I tried to get Leah in to meet her 2 years ago, but the line was shut down, and Leah's screaming fit did nothing to soften the frosty heart of the Disney line killer.  So this year, if we met no other princess, we were damned sure going to meet Snow White.  The girls got to go first, but then I decided to get my picture taken with her too.

I couldn't have been happier!  It worked out just great.

Afterwards, we took more rides.  We enjoyed Soaring, which we had a FastPass for, as well as the boat cruise for the Land.  We stopped off to see Nemo again and killed time on various rides and drinking pineapple Fanta until we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit before the big excitement of the evening--dinner at Askershus Palace with the princesses.

Ok, I can tell from what we are wearing that this is from our first day at EPCOT, but whatevs!

We got all dressed up after a short rest and went back to EPCOT around 7.  We decided we didn't really have time to do much in terms of a ride or anything, so we just went straight back to Norway in the World Pavillion and checked in for our reservation.  In this particular experience, you get to meet Fancy Belle, as well as have tableside greetings with Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, and Sleeping Beauty.  The meal consists of an appetizer buffet of Norwegian specialties, and then a main meal.  We all chose the meatballs.  Dessert was a trio of different things like chocolate cake and rice pudding, but we wound up getting that to go, as we were all STUFFED by the time dinner was over.  This was Leah's special EPCOT dinner, and I was happy to bring her and it was fun for her to enjoy princess time, but unfortunately a) it was 8:00 when we had a reservation and she was tired and b) Cinderella kind of brushed us off, which given that Cinderella is Leah's other favorite princess was a big bummer.  But Leah enjoyed marching in the parade and the food was delicious.

As we came out, it was just time for the EPCOT fireworks show to start and we came out right as a giant explosion started.  Leah got scared and started crying because we didn't know if it was an accident and she was worried someone got hurt.

Turns out it was on purpose and everyone was fine.  The show was quite beautiful and moving, all about how we are part of one Earth.  I loved it.  But we were all definitely tired and we didn't stay to watch the whole thing, instead returning to our beds and a good night sleep.

DAY FOUR: Magic Kingdom

 (Oh, and I forgot on our first day at Magic Kingdom, we went on the Jungle Cruise at night which was a truly cool experience that I highly recommend!)

This was our final Disney day and I had some definite plans.  Our first stop was the fire station on Main Street.  I had heard there were some magic playing cards you could pick up like the interactive game we played on the Disney Cruise Leah and I took last year, so I wanted to get them.  It took a while to get the game to cooperate with our cards, but we had fun doing it!  It's pretty neat to see little hiding spots around the kingdom that we might never have noticed before, and we defeated Dr. Facilier with speed.

But before that, we used a fast pass and hit the Pirates of the Caribbean, which had been closed on our first day.  I tried again to convince the girls to go on Space Mountain, but they were having none of it!  So after Pirates, we grabbed a spot on Aladdin's Magic Carpets.  I was relegated to the back, while Ine was given a spot of honor next to Leah.

This did not mean that Ine had any chance of helping to control the carpet.  Whether we went up or down was purely in Leah's control, and we spent a lot of time going up.

Afterwards, we stopped for Dole Whips, which everyone goes crazy for.  We each tried a different combination of juice and whip and they were good, if not something I'd scream for every time I go.  But I tried one, and Ine got one, so she can officially say she was in Adventureland. 

We spent the whole day on rides.  There were times we saw various princess meeting opportunities, like we saw Merida and Tiana from afar, but just decided not to bother.  There was a dance party under the castle, and I ran out in the street and danced with Genie, but the girls looked at me like I was crazy and declined to join in, so we left.  I think we had Disney fatigue a bit!!!  The girls got hungry and we went over to some little fast food joint in Tomorrowland.  There was a singing lounge alien and we enjoyed the music while the girls had burgers and fries and chicken and I munched on an Uncrustable I had brought with me.

We checked out the Dumbo ride, as that's kind of iconic, as well as the tea cups and the Barnstormer and Prince Charming's Carousel.  We had a fast pass for Peter Pan, and just kind of kicked around various rides that we wanted to do again, but by about 4:30, Ine was done with Disney, so we left and went back to the hotel. I told Leah I would take her back after dropping Ine off, but she didn't wind up wanting to go back either, so that was fine.

We had a quiet dinner in the room, trying to eat up fruit, sandwiches, leftovers, yogurt, and more, and then walked over to the main building at the resort for souvenir shopping.  I got some stuff for my nieces and nephews, and got Leah a Frozen pin, and Ine picked out the things she wanted.  Then we went back to the room, packed up and called it a night!!  We had a big drive ahead of us, as I wanted to make it home all in one day, so I told the girls to get some rest and we left by about 8AM the next day.  It was much easier leaving the room--we had much less stuff on account of not as much food to haul out, and we had become quite an efficient team after really being thrown together for so many days without a break.  It was a good way to really and truly deal with each other's quirks without retreat--we were together literally 24/7.

We didn't quite make it to Georgia before stopping, mainly because I needed some gas and decided to buy some oranges and grapefruit to take home.  Once in Georgia, we stopped at the welcome center to get a picture of the girls with the welcome sign since we missed it on our way down.

We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel because I was REALLY tired and thought a sweet tea would keep me awake.  It did the job!  I was ready to go! :)  We sped northward, and for once didn't hit traffic anywhere along 95.  It did get considerably colder as we went further and further north, and we knew there was the possibility of bad weather waiting for us in Virginia, which was a bit sobering.  Ine was bored of the ride, so I gave her my iPad and she entertained herself with card games and jigsaw puzzles.  Leah was fine in the back with her camera and DVDs.  They both traveled quite well.  For supper, we stopped at another great American place to eat: Waffle House.  It seemed a fitting end to an epic vacation.

We made it home around 10PM and everyone was in bed and tucked up asleep by 11. 

It was a fantastic vacation, not only because of what we did, but because of the togetherness we experienced.  So many times in our daily lives, Ine is consumed by homework, I'm running to choir practice or a board meeting, Leah is off at the babysitting service, my family is visiting, we have friends over, something crazy is almost always happening.  The absolute best thing about this trip was that for a week, we were together, just the three of us, having the best time ever.  There were nonstop smiles, laughter, and closeness, and I can say that things have been different since we got home.  yes, we are all back to our routines and our busy-ness, but we are a more cohesive family now than we were before.  You gotta love that!