Our Disney Trip Day 6 -- May 17th, 2009

Sunday morning was the first of 2 days at Epcot. We got there for rope drop and I sent Jason to grab fast passes for Soarin’. The kids and I took the opportunity to see Daisy and Stitch with no lines! After we met up with Jason, we decided to go into the Character Connection and see the Fab 5 who also didn’t have a line! We couldn’t pass up some loving from our favorite characters. On our way out, we saw Mary Poppins in the lobby!

The Sea Pavillion was next on the list. Let me just say, the “Mine! Mine” birds outside the pavillion are so funny! We had a blast yelling at them. Since everyone was elsewhere, we were the first family on Under the Sea with Nemo. The kids were so fascinated by all the sea life. And it was fun to try to spot Nemo. We stopped by the aquarium and saw the diver feed the fish. It was so incredible!

Finally, it was time to see Talking with Crush. You don’t want to miss this! Emily took a seat up by the front and Jacob stayed with us since he can’t behave yet. The kids took turns talking to crush and Emily informed him that she lived in a brick house. He was like “Dude! A brick house!” She still talks about that! At one point, all the kids were suppose to practice saying “Dude!” Well Jacob caught on quickly and was screaming it. Crush said “Dude! The little dude in the back had got it. Dude!” We were all rolling.

We went to ride Soarin’ next and we did a child swap so we could both ride it with her. While we waited on Jason and Emily to ride, Jacob and I got a delicious muffin. It was nice to be able to have a snack while we waited. Emily came off the ride raving. “Snorin’ was so awesome! We were snoring through the clouds and over the city.” We didn’t bother telling her it was Soarin. We were too busy laughing.

Jacob was running thin on patience so we decided to head over to Test Track so Jason and Emily could ride. We did a child swap in case I decided to try it too, but after more consideration, I decided I just wasn’t interested. Maybe next trip. We also stopped in the child care center for a breather and a diaper change. We met the nicest cast member who was on a one year work visa from Australia. She was nearing the end of her year and she was really starting to get home sick. She told us some interesting stories about life in Australia.

I went and signed Emily up for the Kim Possible Mission before we headed into the World Showcase. Up first was Mexico. We rode the 3 cabellarios ride which was really neat. Jacob started begging for money though as soon as he saw it was a boat ride. But I was out of change and had to try to get him interested in Donald instead. It didn’t take long before he was fully engrossed in the ride.

We also got to meet Donald again. He had on the biggest Sombraro and I got one of the cutiest picture of the kids. All Jacob wanted to do was hug him.

Next up was Norway. We had a few minutes to kill before our reservation at Askershus so we decided to ride Malestrom. I hadn’t planned on us riding it and I thought it would be a rather lame ride. I was surprised to discover that it was my favorite ride in all of Disney!

The princess lunch was extremely stressful. It began with hostess who didn’t know what they were doing. They sent us inside the lobby to wait and after 15 minutes we went to check on the reservations. They had called our name 11 minutes prior but they called it outside! After they call your name, you line up for your picture with Belle. We were hot and irritated, so we only sent Emily up to be in the picture.

We were seated next and we got a nice waitress who began to tell us our choices. At this time, we noticed all these people who began to chant the theme song from Norway at the top of their lungs. It turns out that it was Norway’s independence day and quite a few Norweigans decided to celebrate very loudly.

We picked out some food from the bar and the princesses began to come around to the tables. Emily was excited to meet Aurora. She had declared Sleeping Beauty her favorite princess because she wears a pink dress. Snow White was really sweet and kind and as soon as Ariel came to the table, Emily asked her why her hair had changed from when she met her when Ariel was a mermaid. Ariel told her that she has human hair as a human and mermaid hair as a mermaid. Haha!

The entrees and desserts arrived as well as the picture with Belle. I was surprised that it was free. Emily was so excited to meet Cinderella again, but she never came. We ended up having to tell the manager.
But unfortunately, we were not given any priority and had to wait another 20 minutes for Cinderella to make her rounds with the new diners. It was very frustrating. The manager did give Emily an exclusive pin for the trouble which we appreciated.

Before leaving Norway, we rode Maelstrom once more and Emily defeated a giant troll! She was so proud of herself. We stopped in China and got another bag of candy. We had decided to try to buy candy from each country. We had already bought some in Mexico and Norway. We also spotted Mulan and ran over for a quick picture.

But by now it had started to drizzle. We sought cover under an awning and Emily entertained everyone by playing the drums. It was a lot of fun even in the rain. It was then time to pick up Emily’s Kamunicator for her mission. Jason and Emily had a blast solving the mission and I walked Jacob around America and was able to get him to take a nap. Until this band started playing loudly and woke him up. Oh well. At least he was in a better mood.

Our energy was really starting to lag at this point. We found a playground that had been set up for the Flower and Garden Festival and let the kids play. Unfortunately the rain began to fall harder and we decided to start heading back to the front of Epcot.

We stopped at Club Kool to taste all the different flavors of Coca Cola beverages from around the world. Emily and Jacob both enjoyed most of the flavors but they spit out the Beverly. I didn’t even taste it because I had been forewarned. We also spent about an hour playing in Innoventions. Jacob gladly welcomed the opportunity to be out of the stroller for a while.

Emily wanted me to ride Soarin with her before we left. We still had our child swap ticket from earlier so we decided to head over to The Land. We parked the stroller and I left the bag of candy, the kids change of clothes and my touring notebook in the seat of the stroller and we headed inside. We were also toting a backpack. We kept that with us.

We rode Living with the Land first. It was really kind of boring and it was hard to keep Jacob on his seat. He was getting irritated with us. So Jason decided to get him something to eat while Emily and I rode Soarin.

And of course, I was scared to death. It’s really irritating having this fear of heights and not being able to enjoy everything my daughter does. Emily kept leaning forward in her seat itching her leg, and I kept freaking out thinking she was going to fall to her death. But the ride was a lot of fun. Next time I will ask for the back row. They had put us in the front!

Emily and I also ate dinner after the ride. It was pouring outside and we were trying to wait out the rain. Finally it reached the point where we were too tired to wait anymore and ready to get back to the hotel. We went to get the stroller and our bag was gone! Someone had got into the stroller (which was parked up against the wall with 2 strollers in front of it and the stroller parking was attended by a cast member.) We were very upset and felt so violated. We informed the cast member who looked at us with shocked eyes and told us to call lost and found. Of course lost and found never got the bag. It was lost forever. And with it, Emily’s picture with Belle from the restaurant.

We headed back to the resort with broken spirits. Disney was the happiest place on earth, things weren’t suppose to be stolen.

After a good nights sleep, we felt a lot better. We were glad they had just taken the bag and not the stroller too. We began to look on the bright side and have a better attitude about the whole thing. (Although we still kind of wished the person that stole the bag would choke on the candy. That’s kind a mean though.)