Day 6

It really dawned on us today that our vacation is nearly over. We’re hitting that nostalgic point, where we really try to savor all these last magical moments with one another.

Today was our final day at Epcot and things went well. We’re slowing down quite a bit today, both to savor the moments and because we’re pretty tuckered out from all our vacationing. We did, however, get up on time and caught a quick bus to Epcot. I don’t know why, but it seems like this park is always full! Hoards and hoards of people everywhere at Epcot today, but if you know how to use Fastpass and have a plan then things can be okay. We had both and our day went pretty darned well.

Our first stop was Soarin’, where Brian grabbed a quick Fastpass. We had lots of snack credits left so decided to do breakfast at Sunshine Seasons. The younger two and I got there and ordered food, only to have Brian trying to wave us down since the stand-by for Soarin’ was only 15minutes. Oh well, we’ve already got 3 cinnamon rolls, 2 chocolate croissants and 2 orange juices to share. So we go with that and then toddle our bottoms over to Test Track.

The line isn’t that long so we jump in and wait about 10 minutes in the line. Then it’s on to the preshow and into another line where we got to wait 5 minutes more. Oh well, 15 minutes for Test Track isn’t too bad. But this just isn’t one of those have-to-do rides for us anymore. Tristan used to laugh and laugh when the car would go fast but not anymore. Now we need rollercoasters instead! LOL

The kids requested another ride on Mission: Space, only this time back on the green side. They had learned their lesson from the previous day and happily rode green without issue.

The one thing that was nice about the kids being older is that we can allow them to venture off a bit more. Brian handed the kids his cell phone, told them to stay together and that Chase was in charge then we let them go on their merry way towards Mission: Space. It really has been great to give them a little more latitude. That’s exactly what happened here and it worked out perfectly. They stay together, watch out for each other, go on the ride and then call us to meet up. The wait wasn’t too long so they called us about 15 minutes after we separated and we had them meet us in the Mousegears store.

We bought a couple of neat little souvenirs there, including a watch and shirt for me and a hat for Carissa. The kids didn’t want to shop but wanted to head to Innoventions so we let them go on their way with the same directions and met them there after we had paid for all of our purchases at Mousegears.

Innoventions West is where the game “The Great Piggy Bank Adventure” is. This is something I found out about 2 months ago and we’ve played it online several times since then. It’s a great little game to help teach the importance of saving, spending, investing, preparing, etc. So it was nice to have them come here and be able to take part in the “real” game instead of the virtual version we do at home. They also played some video games at the little kiosks in Innoventions.

I think my kids could have stayed here for a much longer time but Brian and I aren’t so easily distracted so after a while we headed off for another adventure. On the way out we registered for a Kim Possible mission, which we would enjoy a little later on.

With Innoventions West quickly completed we headed back outside and to The Seas with Nemo and Friends. The Nemo ride itself was pretty horrendous but the aquarium on the other side of the ride is pretty awesome. We looked at the manatees and found hidden Mickey’s outside their tank. Yes, Chase hauled round the Hidden Mickey book again today and regaled us with its tales of hidden Mickey’s around the world. Here’s the proof...

We also hit Turtle Talk with Crush, one of my fave shows. This doesn’t rank up there with Festival of the Lion King, Finding Nemo or Beauty & the Beast but is great nonetheless. Carissa was called on by Crush and she asked whether turtles were born in shells. There was also a quite funny part where Crush came out wearing a bathing suit top he had found in the ocean. He said he didn’t know what it was and some kids started yelling out “It’s a bra” and “It holds boobs.” It was hilarious! Finally Crush realized that it was for “Dudettes” and took it off. Thank goodness!

After the seas we continued on the west side of Futureworld to use our first fastpasses for Soarin’. We LOVE this ride and wish Disney would bottle up that orange grove scent and sell it. YUM! We just missed getting on the ride so we ended up in the front row of the next ride. Since we were going to ask (and wait) for a front seat anyways this worked out well for us. We love the front row because there are no dangling feet in your face. It makes all the difference in the world. Trust me!

After riding we picked up another set of fastpasses for Soarin’ in hopes that we could use them later in the day.

The last pavilion on the west side of Futureworld is the Journey Into Imagination pavilion. Much to Brian’s chagrin the kids just “had to” ride Figment again. They loved it again (all except that skunk smell…. Eeeeeewwwww!). My kids have been singing all day… “Imagination, Imagination, a dream can be a dream come true, with just that spark, from me and you.” They’d just break out spontaneously singing it when we were walking along somewhere. I must admit that I sang along.

By now we’d missed our window for our Kim Possible mission so we went back and registered for another. Carissa really wanted a chance to do at least one more mission before we left. Our return time was less than an hour away so we decided to take a break for lunch.

We stopped in Mexico for lunch at the Cantina de San Angel. Brian and the kids got a great table right along the water while Tristan and I waited in line to order. We all got nachos and ended up having churros for dessert, as they were out of the other dessert they offered. Unfortunately the nachos weren’t very good and the churros were pretty awful. One thing we’ve learned is that Disney churros are only good in California. We LOVE Disneyland churros and eat them daily when there, but the ones in Florida are horrible! Brian and I threw ours away… which means they were very, very bad. Yet another reason to go to Disneyland – some decent churros!

Anyways, by now our window had nearly opened up for a Kim Possible mission so we headed to the headquarters. The kids were assigned Norway this time and wandered around doing their thing while Brian and I took in the sun and the water. Brian snapped this photo of me as I was lounging around enjoying the beautiful weather. On a side note, we got a text from a colleague of Brian’s today saying it was a balmy 8 degrees today in Scappoose. It was at least 80 in Florida and it felt fabulous!

The kids were taking a long time for their mission so Brian and I walked to China to look around. The kids met us there after a bit, having finished their mission and, once again, saved the world. We turned in our Kimmunicator and gave up on missions for this trip, much to Carissa’s dismay. She was very fond of those missions.

We took the kids to look around China next. We stopped for the pictures in front of the beautiful theater there. They took a nice one

then decided to ham it up for the picture. LOL

We found so many fabulous dragons in the Chinese pavilion that would have made a great addition to Tristan’s collection so he met us over there to look, but in the end decided to check out Italy before purchasing as he really wanted an ocarina? I guess it’s an instrument he’s played in music class at school and that it says “Made in Italy” on it so he’s hoping to find one in the Italian pavilion.

We hadn’t had much chance to look in the different lands so we made our way around the World Showcase. We stopped in Germany, where the holiday storyteller was telling the tale of the nutcracker. The kids sat down with the crowd and we caught just a bit of her presentation. We were just in time to see a giant nutcracker arrive!

That was the end of her story for now, so we headed to the Christmas shop to finally get a pickle ornament.

We had talked about the pickle ornament tradition a bit and wanted to start the tradition in our own home. I purchased the ornament and had it sent back to our resort. The cast member in the Christmas store said she would add a copy of the pickle tradition story to our bag so I was disappointed when I picked it up the next day and found no story inside.

We decided to do the tradition our own way and celebrated with it the first time this Christmas. The kids left the pickle on the plate with Santa’s cookies and the reindeers’ carrots. When Santa arrived he delivered the gifts and took an extra moment to hide the pickle on the tree. On Christmas morning, after opening their stockings and exploring their Santa gifts, the kids started hunting for the pickle. It’s pretty hard to find a green pickle ornament on a green tree and Santa hid it very well, but eventually Tristan found it and was rewarded with the right to open the first gift on Christmas morning. It was just a fun little addition to our Christmas.

OK, on with our day. We did more shopping in the World Showcase, stopping by a photopass photographer along the way

and finally making our way to Italy, where we weren’t able to find the coveted ocarina. And as a sidenote, we never did make it back to China and Tristan never did get a new dragon for his collection. Bummer. But we were able to get a picture in front of this fountain. We have a picture here from each of our trips - 2001, 2008 and 2009 - and one day I want to get them all together and frame them for our walls. It was pretty hot and no one was around, so we didn't get a picture with all 5 of us with the fountain, which I would have really liked. Oh well, at least we have the kids there.

While walking the world showcase I kept telling myself that I was finally going to get one of the scrumptious smelling crepes in the booth at the France pavilion, however I wasn’t really hungry at that point. We ended up grabbing a boat and taking it across the lake and back to Futureworld.

We had our fastpasses for Soarin’ to use and we took the time to do that now. Again, the wait was quite long despite our fastpass. Nothing like the 70 minutes on the sign, but long nonetheless. And like the last ride, they couldn’t fit us all in the next run so we ended up being in the front row again. And again, this ride was fabulous. One of the best rides for anyone to experience at Disneyworld is Soarin’. It was awesome!

Next up was the chance to use some more snack credits on those yummy waffle ice cream cones. We sat outside, enjoyed our ice cream and sipped some water.

The day was moving on and we knew we had other things we wanted to do today so we made our way to Innoventions East in search of “The Sum of All Thrills”. I had heard about this on the disboards and the kids were all looking forward to it. We almost didn’t do it because the line looked long but the cast member at the entrance said it would only be about 10 minute. He was right, it was. And it was such a worthwhile wait!

First off we were ushered into a preshow that told us how it would work and how this ride is to encourage kids to enjoy math and science. Then they let the kids loose on designing their own ride. Carissa was too short so she couldn’t do inversions, but the boys were plenty tall enough. They made a track together while Carissa made one for herself. I was going to ride with her but she decided she wanted to do it on her own. It was probably a good thing, as it’s a motion simulator and that could spell trouble for my tummy.

Anyways, the kids chose their ride pieces on the screens, used rulers and dials to adjust the height and speed of the track and then checked to make sure it would work correctly.
Pretty soon they were done and on their way to the simulators. These simulators were on huge arms, allowing them to turn quickly, invert and go as high as about 25 feet. Wow!
It was pretty neat to watch them enjoy their own ride designs and they all really, really enjoyed it. I wish we had stopped by earlier in the trip so they could have multiple turns doing this, but the line had gotten longer and we were ready to say goodbye to Epcot.

One last stop on the way out, to get our photo taken with Spaceship Earth in the background.

We had a dinner ADR at Chef Mickey’s so we jumped on a monorail to the Ticket and Transportation Center. There we changed to the resort monorail. We had extra time so we made a stop at the Grand Floridian resort. We had come here for a photo session last trip and really love the resort. I don’t anticipate that we’ll ever be able to afford to stay there, but it’s gorgeous and worthwhile to visit. We did stop to have the Photopass photographers take a photo of us in front of the huge Christmas tree, but I really wasn’t impressed with the photos. The tree was gorgeous and I would have like to see more in the photo. Yes, I'm picky.

I must admit that the main reason for the visit to the Grand Floridian was so that we could see the lifesize gingerbread house in the lobby. It was huge! It was so beautiful and well-done, with hidden Mickey’s and candy canes and flowers. Just gorgeous. If we liked gingerbread, we could have purchased a shingle, which they actually sell out of this house all Christmas season. It was pretty neat.

We jumped into the line for the monorail, which was pretty long at this point because everyone was heading the Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party at the Magic Kingdom. We did eventually get a monorail and rode it past the Magic Kingdom, enjoying the festively dressed cast members and extra decorations they had added for the party. The next stop after the Magic Kingdom was ours – the Contemporary Resort.

We made our way inside and had a quick bathroom run before checking in for Chef Mickey’s.

They got us seated fairly quickly and we all hit the buffet like a ravenous pack of wolves. They had cheese pizza, noodles and chicken nuggets for the kids. Brian, Chase and I had turkey, ham and some yummy mashed potatoes. It felt like we hadn’t eaten much “real” food lately so it was a great chance to fill ourselves up. We did a fair job of eating our fill and enjoyed the visits from the characters along the way.

After the characters had all visited we hit my favorite part of the meal – dessert!

The dessert bar was beautiful. I truly enjoyed the Mickey head oreos (that’s chocolate mousse on the oreo and milk chocolate ears…. YUM!). The kids all made ice cream sundaes with all the toppings they could want – M&M’s, Oreos, Reese’s Pieces, sprinkles and a variety of sauces. In the end, we all left very, very full but pretty pleased with our meal.

We shopped a bit at the stores at the Contemporary, not buying anything then jumped on the Monorail again to head back to the Ticket and Transportation Center. Here’s where I realized that they don’t have busses to the resorts from the Ticket and Transportation Center. So we headed back up to the monorail and had to wait a while for a ride to the Magic Kingdom. Lesson learned. Oh well.

We were able to catch a bus to our resort from the Magic Kingdom and made our way back to our home away from home. We were all full and tired so headed to bed, all eager to finally return to the Magic Kingdom!