Day 1- Epcot
Crazy morning at the airport. We had a 6:30 AM flight, but my husband got sick at the airport after eating breakfast there, and ended up going to Urgent Care instead of getting on the plane. My 3 kids and I went on without him. We landed in Orlando at about 10AM and were met by Tony Hinds. I love using his service. We stopped at Publix to pick up a few things and then were dropped off at the Dolphin hotel a bit before 11. Of course, the room was not ready yet, so we hung out for a minute in the lobby, freshened up in the bathrooms, stored our luggage with the bag check folks, and then were on our way to Epcot. We walked over and entered the park at noon, which is the earliest time allowed with the mid-day pass. We did have Club level fastpasses, so I had booked the following:
12-The Land
1-Soarin
2 – Spaceship Earth
3 -Mission to Mars
4- Test Track
5 – Frozen
This was the Monday before Thanksgiving and overall the park did not feel too crowded, but it was nice to be able to have a fastpass for all of the Tier 1’s. We also managed to squeeze in The Seas with Nemo right after Soarin and before Spaceship Earth.
Also, between Mission to Mars and Test Track, we were walking around and found Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy with no wait. My kids made me happy and agreed to a character picture.
The kids favorite ride was Test Track. They liked it so much that we waited on the single rider line and waited to do it again (after we had already done it once via fastpass). I am shocked that my 9-year-old was willing to ride by herself, but she was in the car directly in front of me, so I could keep my eye on her. My other 2 kids got to ride together a couple of cars back from us.
Frozen was okay. I am glad we did it, and I did like it better than Maelstrom, but I do not feel like we need to go on it again. We are not Frozen fans.
My parents live in FL and were nice enough to come over and do Frozen with us and then we ate dinner at the quick service Chinese restaurant. It was good. Lots of food for a decent price. My teenage son decided to run over at get a bratwurst instead, but he came back with his food and ate with us.
After dinner, we all went on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros ride in Mexico. It was no wait. Then we just walked around the countries and shopped. My daughters also did the KidCot Fun stops which they loved. We found the best shopping for stuff we liked in Japan. The mochi candies were delicious. We had 4 pearls from past trips that we brought with us, so we got all of those set into earrings and then I picked a pearl and made a ring for myself.
Since we had been up since about 3AM, the kids were exhausted and we headed out of the park before seeing the fireworks. My son walked back to the hotel, while we waited for a boat. When he called to tell us he was at hotel, we were still waiting for the boat. We ended up taking the boat to the Boardwalk and then just walked from there.
We all showered, ate lots of candies from the various countries that we bought and went to bed.