Today was going to be an Epcot day. We had a morning reservation at Bon Voyage at Trattorio al Forno at the Boardwalk. We planned to drive over to the Boardwalk and eat breakfast and then go into the parks for the day. The original plan was:
8:05 ADR Breakfast Bon Voyage
9:15-10:15 Spaceship Earth Fast Pass
10:15-11:15 Mission Space Fast Pass
11:30-12:30 Test Track Fast Pass
8:00 Frozen Ever After Dessert Party
However, we were exhausted from the night before, so we decided to just drive over to breakfast, and instead of leaving the car at Boardwalk and walking over to Epcot, to drive back to the resort and take a bit of downtime before taking the bus over to Epcot.
Breakfast was fantastic. The restaurant is on the boardwalk and it was beautiful. It was also absolutely freezing (40s) so we didn't stick around outside to admire the scenery. This was a character table service breakfast where you meet Rapunzel, Flynn Rider, Ariel, and Prince Eric. The characters were amazing, the details of the restaurant were amazing, and breakfast was really good.
Flynn Rider was the first to stop by and he was great. He worked on the smolder with Sam and asked Ally about Pascal who we brought with us to breakfast. My camera was just not working at all with the lighting and the speed light ran out of batteries. Our waitress was wonderful and had Flynn stop back by so we could get a photo on my iPhone. Wouldn't it figure I have this really expensive camera and have to use my iPhone instead. However, I did just upgrade my iPhone before vacation so it did take pretty good pictures as well. The one below is before my camera just stopped working.
Rapunzel was next followed by Ariel. When Prince Eric stopped by he also did a great job. He asked Ally to dance and spun her for a twirl next to our table.
We finished up the meal and walked back to the car to head to Art of Animation to take about an hour of downtime before starting the day in Epcot. Once back in the room I called down to the front desk. Yesterday while we were in Animal Kingdom I missed a call from the manager of the resort regarding the email I had sent on Tuesday. She was offering to move us to a suite. However, since I didn't call back until this morning (or listen to the voicemail until this morning) I didn't think it was worth it to move us all for one night. So I called and while that manager wasn't available, I did get to speak with another assistant manager. He was great, and completely understood that I didn't want to pack us all up for one night. So he said instead he saw that we had planned on Epcot that day and the next day, so would go ahead and give us three anytime fast passes for Epcot each day. Which was super nice of him.
Because of the way fast passes are scheduled at Epcot, you have to use your three (one tier 1 and two tier 2) before you can book any additional tier 1 fast passes. The Tier 1 fast passes are really the only three you need fast passes for, and those are Frozen Ever After, Test Track, and Soarin. Having those three anytime fast passes per person (which work for everything except Frozen) really helped. However, because I knew we didn't really need the tier 2 fast passes, I went ahead and let them expire, so we could just show up to the park and ride Test Track and then start looking for Tier 1 fast passes and it worked perfectly.
At 10:45 we caught a bus to Epcot and by far had the longest lines of the week getting to security. We pretty much picked the one slow line but at that point we were committed and just waited the 30 minutes it took to get through bag check.
We took our obligatory photos at the entrance at 11:30 and were on our way to use our fast pass at Test Track by 11:45.
We got our own car for this spin around the test track.
Because I let our earlier fast passes expire as opposed to rescheduling them, we were able to look for new Tier 1 fast passes immediately. I found a Frozen Ever After fast pass after some modifying, so we grabbed it, and headed over to Norway.
We got in line for our fast pass at 12:30 and had a surprise as we were almost to the boat. Ally had a good friend from school that she kept telling us was at Disney the same week we were. She kept saying she wanted to meet up with them. Now, I don't know this mom's name or number, so we just kept telling her, it's a big place there is no way we will end up seeing them at Disney. Well, guess who was in line behind us at Frozen. Her friend! So she got to ride Frozen Ever After with them and we got a few photos.
After saying goodbye to her friend and her family, we went over to China for the use of one of our Quick Service lunches. It was a great meal and we had a nice place to sit that was covered and free of wind. We then walked around Japan and some of the world showcase to get some more photos. We were trying to see Belle in France but she was closed at the time we went through, so we just jumped on the friendship boats to take the boats across the lagoon to future world.
Once we arrived in Future World I just started grabbing a fast pass at a time as they came up. We first went to Figment and rode at 2:10 with a fast pass and then I was able to grab a fast pass for Soarin at 3:00 right after that. So we ended up riding Figment, walking over to Soarin for a fast pass we found, and then getting right back on Soarin with one of our anytime fast passes.
We are seriously spoiled after this trip and the number of times we got to ride certain attractions.
We are seriously spoiled after this trip and the number of times we got to ride certain attractions.
We left the Land and Soarin behind and went to use our final two anytime fast passes at Epcot and rode Test Track back to back at 4:05 and 4:35. You would think the kids would have been tired of this ride by now, but not at all!
We grabbed some Mickey Ear Ice Cream Bars and walked towards the monorail to jump on for a ride over to Magic Kingdom around 5:15.
Our original plan was to have this be our final full day at Disney, and leave early afternoon Friday for home. However, a winter weather advisory was in place for Indianapolis and talk was of 4-8 inches of snow arriving and having terrible travel conditions when we would be arriving. So we ended up booking an additional night at our hotel (hotel cost only, not a dining plan and already had the ticket) for under $200 and would spend a full day in the parks on Friday and leave early Saturday morning.
So because we had additional time, we decided to go to Magic Kingdom to finish up our Sorcerer's adventure. We went to Adventureland and completed the mission and then went for dinner at Peco's Bills again. We had just ate there the day before, but the kids loved it, so we got it again. We only had 2 Quick Service meals left, so Paul and I got our meals on the meal plan and we paid out of pocket for the kids. The kids this time went with Nachos, I got an adult Nachos, and Paul got tacos. We used quick service again and it was so nice just walking in and waiting for the order and not standing in lines.
We took another spin on the magic carpets with a fast pass and then were on our way out of Magic Kingdom to the monorail after stopping to get some more cards for Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom.
We got back to Epcot and walked over to the World Showcase to check in at Mexico for our 8pm dessert party. We had a dessert party which was Frozen themed. This one was really nice in that it included outside seating along the lagoon to watch Illuminations. Then, after the park closed, we were walked over to ride Frozen Ever After.
This dessert party included desserts, appetizers, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. It also came with the fun glasses you see above which turned the fireworks into snowflakes. After the show is over (around 9:15) you wait about 10 minutes for the park to clear out and then are walked over to a private ride on Frozen with just the guests from the party. It was fun to walk against the flow of traffic and have a really relaxing time leaving the park after the ride.
While the Star Wars party had more to do while you were waiting for the fireworks, it didn't have the seating (or the tier 1 ride after it) that this one did. The view was great for Illuminations and while there wasn't as much to do once you were done eating desserts, the kids had their books and were fine to just sit and read and relax until the show started.
After the ride we walked back to the bus stops for Art of Animation.
STEP COUNT - 29,063 steps. ACTIVE MINUTES 148 minutes
8:05 ADR Bon Voyage (met Rapunzel, Flynn Rider, Ariel, Prince Eric)
9:30-10:30 rest time in hotel
10:45 Bus to Epcot
11:30 Photos in entrance of Epcot
11:45 Test Track (fast pass)
12:30 Frozen (fast pass)
12:55 Lunch in China at a quick service
1:45 Photos in Japan
2:00 Friendship Boats from France to Future World
2:10 Figment (fast pass)
3:00 Soarin (fast pass)
3:25 Soarin (anytime fast pass)
4:05 Test Track (anytime fast pass)
4:35 Test Track (anytime fast pass)
5:00 Mickey Ice Cream Bar Snack
5:15 Monorail to Magic Kingdom
Sorcerer's of Magic Kingdom
6:15 Pecos Bill Dinner
6:45 Magic Carpet (fast pass)
7:05 Stopped to get our daily pack of cards for SOTMK
7:25 Monorail back to Epcot
8:00 Mexico to check in for Dessert Party
9:15 Illuminations Fireworks Show
9:30 Frozen Ever After ride
10:00 Bus back to Art of Animation
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