Due to staying up late the night before for the dessert party, we gave ourselves the morning to sleep in and slowly get up and moving. Our original fast pass and ADR plan was the following:
9:05-10:05 Spaceship Earth
10:15-11:15 Mission Space
11:15-12:15 Frozen Ever After
12:10 Akershus Lunch
Because we were given those three anytime fast passes for Epcot (included anything except Frozen Ever After) we weren't in a rush to get going in the morning. We didn't actually make it in to the parks until 10:30 am and we just rearranged some of our morning fast passes to later in the day and weren't worried about making everything the first day since we had a couple more days we'd be in Epcot before we left. Flower and Garden Festival is the current happening at Epcot and it was just amazing. The topiaries and flowers were just beautiful. It was so impressive and we will need to make it a point sometime to go back during this time again.
We knew the one fast pass we had to make due to it being so hard to find later in the day, was Frozen Ever After. So we walked back to the world showcase and found that Frozen had a 25 minute wait and we had about 30 minutes to kill before our fast pass window opened up. So we decided to wait the 25 minutes for the ride in line and then jump back on for fast pass time after we waited.
One main difference between his trip and our October 2016 trip is that the kids are now both great readers. It was so easy to wait because we kept a book for them in our bags and once they were done looking around, just read the book while moving through the lines. Definitely makes Disney lines easier with kids who enjoy books.
We skipped Frozen Ever After in October of 2016. Partly because you can only fast pass one of the following - Soarin, Test Track, or Frozen and the others had higher priority, and partly because I thought it was just a boat ride like Its a Small World, and didn't think it added that much to the trip. I was definitely wrong. It is a really fun little ride and you have a small backwards drop and then a forward drop. The first time Ally was nervous, but we were fortunate enough to ride it 4 times this trip and she got more brave on each one. I am also glad we waited through the queue. It was a cute, fast moving line, and while I wouldn't want to wait in it for an hour, 45 minutes or less is definitely doable.
This was Ally's second ride and we ended up in the front row. You can see she was still unsure at this point, but as we went on, she had her arms up for that final drop.
After our two rides on Frozen, we went right over to go meet Anna and Elsa. They had a 15 minute wait posted, but it ended up being only about 7-8 minutes.
We finished up with Anna and Elsa before we thought we would, so we figured we'd go check in at Akershus early. Our ADR was for 12:10 so we figured we'd have to wait awhile, but we checked in and were seated by 11:55 which was a nice surprise!
This is a nice meal to meet the princesses. You meet Belle when you check in, and then once you are seated and have ordered your food, you can go through the buffet line for appetizers while you wait on your main meal. During the meal you are visited by several princesses, and ours for the day included Aurora, Ariel, Snow White, and Cinderella.
Ally ordered Mac and cheese (I was concerned she'd turn yellow by the time we left by all the Mac and cheese she ordered!), Sam got a pizza, I got the meatballs (amazing!!) and Paul got the stuffed chicken.
I should have taken pictures of the food, but we were starving and didn't think of it. But it was all delicious. After the main meal, you are brought out three desserts to split at the table.
We finished up and made our way through the rest of Norway. Again, Flower and Garden festival is just amazing with the details all around.
After Norway, we walked one country over to go to China. Paul and I always like to do the meet and greet with Mulan, so we wanted to get that one done on our first day. The characters that meet in the World Showcase can have weird hours and also close lines early to make sure they are done by the scheduled end time, so we didn't want to miss out on this one.
We made our way out of China and walked back towards test track in future world. On the way past Mexico we stopped for the Gran Fiesta boat ride. The wait time was posted as 5 minutes, however, it broke down right as we were next to board. Something happened that shorted the ride, but as we were the very next to get on, we stayed to watch them fix it. It turned into about a 15 minute ride but Sam was captivated by trying to get it working, and we got to ride front row.
Because we arrived so late, I went ahead and moved our morning fast passes around to be in the afternoon. So we used one of the three anytime fast passes to go on Test Track next. This is Sam's favorite ride and the one he was looking forward to the most. Ally also loves it and we were pretty fortunate this trip to be able to ride it 8 times. Today however, we just rode twice.
After our first round of test track we made our way over to Japan. This was quite a walk for the kids but they didn't mind since it had what Ally was looking forward to the most, Pick a Pearl. They each picked out a clam shell and there was a big ceremony that others in Japan could watch as the kids waited for their pearls. The person doing the ceremony was great at making each child feel special. Sam got a silver one, and Ally got a larger sized one, so both left feeling great.
After Japan, we walked around to look around at more of the topiaries while we went to Club Cool for some free soft drink samples. I should have gotten a photo of Club Cool but every time we were in there it was packed. This is one of Sam's favorite stops, and I have to say the Pineapple Fanta is a favorite of mine. It is nice that anytime you stop by you can pop in for some free samples.
We used one of our moved fast passes from the morning for Spaceship Earth at 4pm. This ride was a first for us, and we got stopped for a couple of minutes at the part where you are going down backwards (slowly in the ride) and it wasn't the most comfortable part for the ride to get stopped!
After Spaceship Earth we went over to the land to eat dinner at Sunshine Seasons. We used 4 quick service credits and Paul and I got the Mongolian Beef, Sam got grilled cheese, and surprise surprise Ally got Mac and cheese. This was not a favorite meal for Paul and I. It tasted more like pot roast than an Asian Mongolian Beef. If we eat here again in future trips we would be ordering something else.
We jumped into the stand by line for Living with the Land and waited about 10 minutes for our boat tour.
After living with the land, we walked to the next ride in the building and used our second anytime fast pass of the day for Soarin. This is another favorite. This is the ride that terrifies me a bit! I am so scared of heights, and even though I am not actually flying over canyons or the Eiffel Tower, I still get freaked out. I had to close my eyes a couple of times and the kids got a kick out of anytime I closed by eyes telling me what we were doing. They were spoiled this trip as they got to ride it several times due to our anytime passes, and as the trips went on, they would lean forward and try to look down to see how high up we were actually and take in all the little details they could see.
We left the land and used our final of the three standard fast passes given at Nemo. Took a quick spin on that ride and walked through the aquariums. At this point we are all getting tired, but have one additional anytime fast pass to use, so we walk back over to test track to use our final anytime fast pass of the day.
We called it a day and left the park at 7:30 pm.
STEPS - 20,027 ACTIVE MINUTES - 118
Our actual days activities:
10:30am - arrived
11:05am - Frozen Ever After standby
11:15am - Frozen Ever After fast pass
11:40am - Met Anna and Elsa in Norway
11:55am - Akershus Lunch (ADR time was 12:10)
1:25pm - Met Mulan in China
1:50pm - Gran Fiesta Boat Ride in Mexico
2:30pm - Test Track (anytime fast pass)
3:30pm - Japan for pick a pearl
4:00pm - Club Cool Drinks
4:20pm - Spaceship Earth Fast Pass
4:45pm - quick service dinner at Sunshine Seasons
5:30pm - Living with the land standby
6:05pm - Soarin (anytime fast pass)
6:30pm - Nemo fast pass
6:40pm - Walk Aquariums
7:00pm - Test Track (anytime fast pass)
7:30pm - bus back to resort
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