A Shortened EPCOT Day
The YES classes were done and we decided to meet back up at Spaceship Earth, and once we were all back together we rode on it before heading over to the Electric Umbrella Restaurant to get some lunch! We didn't get free dining for this trip so we set up some guidelines to keep the costs as low as we could, but still enjoy our dining. We would be eating breakfast in our room, each of us could order one soda a day and drink water for the rest, and everyone could purchase one snack a day. I'm happy to report that Michael and Elsa never complained about our little money saving policy. I am so thankful they understood my reasons, and it really helped ease the anxiety of paying out of pocket for all the food! The money was budgeted, but hard to part with, none the less.
We ordered the Southwest Black Bean Flatbread sandwiches and weren't overly impressed. Just wasn't our thing, I guess.
After we ate our fill we decided to head on over to
Innoventions West, a building we often skip right by, but not today! We grabbed this pic on our way:
Once we got to Innoventions we headed straight to Where's the Fire?. The kids remembered doing this on their first trip back in 2007, and were really excited to play it again. We had fun, and our team won! Then we took a picture with Michael and Elsa next to the big fire truck to send back to Chase at home.
Michael and Elsa chose to do Smarter Planet next. It was a cool interactive video game where you are the star! You create your avatar with a picture of yourself, and when you jump it jumps! I never saw the screen, but I watched Michael and Elsa jump around and dodge things, laughing the whole time. Pretty much Michael's dream come true to be IN a video game!
They moved over to play the vintage video games while I called the boys. They were doing great, but I missed them something fierce.
I was in a total funk. It was mostly inward, but I was very unsettled, and was really wishing we had brought them. The reality is it just won't work right now, but my heart was still sad. It's a weird feeling to be in your happiest of happy places, but also wishing you could be home with the rest of your family. This was new for me.
I gathered Michael and Elsa, snapped a picture and we headed on out:
We sampled drinks at Club Cool (side stepping the Beverly) while tracking out the rest of our day. We decided to ride the major rides, skip the countries, and head back to our resort earlier than normal. So off we went to Ellen's Universe of Energy.
The kids have posed for 1000's of pics at Disney (I average 800 a trip, but weed out about half...I'm obsessed, I know!) and have started getting creative/dramatic. I love it
We enjoy the pre-show greatly, especially Michael. The ride is fun, but I was super tired and just wanted to curl up on the seat and snooze. I might have even dozed for a moment or two.
Next on the list was Mission:Space. We rode the wimpy green side with Michael so he wouldn't be alone. He once rode the orange side with us and felt like his head was going to explode. Usually Meema and Peepa are with us and Peepa rides it with him, but they wouldn't be arriving for a few more days. This is what Elsa thought of that:
Enjoyed it, like always. We take our jobs VERY seriously and just enjoy pushing the buttons.
Test Track was closed as was the frozen coke stand we were counting on for our snacks. We bought some jelly beans and shared those as we headed over to Soarin' where Elsa was FINALLY tall enough not to have the baby safety strap on.
It was only 3pm, but we decided to head on back to POP. I was anxious to keep up with the Olympic coverage, Elsa wanted to swim, and Michael thought he would really like to use one of his 5 passes to
Disney Quest (every gamers dream). One last picture and we were on our way, leaving EPCOT way earlier than ever before:
We made it back to POP, ordered a pizza, and picked up the keys to our new room located in the 1960's right by the Hippy Dippy Pool!!!!! We picked up our pizza and headed to check out our new digs. It was pretty neat that they moved all of our luggage for us. All we had to do was unpack it! So we ate the pizza while doing just that. Michael and Elsa went out to swim for a while and then they decided to go to Down Town Disney where Disney Quest is located. I have never let them go anywhere like this on their own before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I was nervous, but they did a great job of taking the bus to DTD, finding Disney Quest, enjoying the heck out of it, making it back to the buses, and returning home by the time we agreed on. They are really growing up.
While they were gone I walked around and got a pic of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head to send back to Easton:
Once we all back to our room and settled in, we finished watching the Olympic Prime Time coverage together and called it a night, falling asleep quickly with thoughts of Magic Kingdom in our dreams.
UP NEXT:
On Our Way to the MK