We left off heading out of the shop to the bus stop. Since it was DNephew's first trip (and we were celebrating his birthday) we let him decided where we should go for the first park of the trip.
Of course, all he could think of to do was Test Track. What boy wouldn't?! Off we went to Epcot! The wait wasn't too bad. Since it was midday, (I guess

) our bus was shared and we made a stop at AoA as well. Took us just 15 minutes and arrived to Epcot at about 1:30.
Not bad on the timing.
I had preordered our tickets (well, the boys' tickets - I had AP) from
UT. So they were the paper tickets. At the turnstiles, the CMs cleared us in with their little checker thingys and said we should head over to Guest Services at some point in the day to change over our tickets to the new RFID cards. We figured we might as well just take care of that first thing.
Fernandia, the most awesome CM at Epcot GS ever!!, took care of us. This is where DS BlackHawks shirt came into play. Seems Fernandia was a HUGE hockey fan (but she wasn't a BlackHawks fan). She rooted for the Canadians.

She and DS had a bit of banter back and forth. And since DNephew plays hockey and is from NY (stuck with the Sabres

) they continued on with their hockey conversations for quite some time. DS loves to be harassed.

Well, he loves to give others a hard time, so it was a match made in heaven. She asked what our plans were for the day, and the boys of course had TT on the brain. We didn't have any major plans figuring FPs would be gone for TT and Soarin' so we just told her we would just see how the afternoon and evening went. She wrote us out FPs good for any ride of our choice that day.

Then she said they were good for 3 (kidding) since she couldn't give one out to a BlackHawks fan. DS just sort of gave her the look.... then laughed.
This is why I LOVE Disney! It's not all the big stuff. It's just the unexpected interactions along the way. And I made sure to stop back at GS on the way out that night to leave Fernandia a

and fill out a CM 4keys card.
That is what I call Disney at it's best!!!!
The cards taken care of, we made our way into the park. DS had one thing he wanted to initiate his cousin to.

Everyone has to try it, right?!
We made our way to Club Cool and DS talked about how wonderful this soda was and that DNephew just had to try it.
I'm not sure what was funnier....his reaction at that moment, or looking at the photos later and discovering the gentleman behind the boys with his reaction.
I love those two pictures...hysterical.
We made our way to the new Test Track. (I have to confess, I spent way more time here than I would ever like to again in life)
Thanks to our lovely FP, we were able to enjoy the ride via the short line. The stand by wait was over 2 hours by then. We were given the white RFID cards to load our "ride" onto and sent off into the design studio.
DH really enjoyed this part as well, and was just as happy as the boys to spend time in this pavilion.
The boys' ride
and DH's
and our poor excuse for a copied ride photo
Now, being a girl with little interest in cars, I was more than ready to move on. But first you have to pass through the Chevy zone.
That was where most forward progress halted for several "painful" moments. The boys had to try out their car on the race "mats", check out all their results (very competitive), and look around at the automobiles. As if that wasn't painful enough, we still had to pass through the dump shop.
I'm with you...once was enough; don't care for the new version at all.
Finally free of Mr. Chevy, we went to check in with Gary Sinise and his crew. I told the boys to go to the rough side, but they wouldn't go without me, so they willingly took pity on me and we launched from easy.
Cannot do this ride...got terribly ill the one and only time.
Everyone was starting to get a little hungry. DS wanted to eat in the Countries somewhere, so we made our way into the World Showcase. I had a stop where all "driven crazy by Test Track" mom's have a stop and picked up one of these:
Absolutely! I think you deserved two after that.
We continued our walk around the World. DS decided he wanted a nice place to eat (but he wanted pizza). We checked in over at...
It was about a 20min wait for something inside, but we could order right away if we wanted to eat outdoors. We opted for the outdoors (as no one really wanted to sit in the freezing cold). We were given a lovely table just off the side of the restaurant doors-best of both worlds, we didn't freeze but we did have a nice cool bit of air blowing our way.
We had an awesome waitress there on the ICP. She chatted with us about her experiences so far and told us how much she loved working for Disney. She was headed home soon, but had really enjoyed her stay in America.
We ordered the margherita flat bread pizzas - one with pepperoni and one without. And I got the pistachio gelato for desert. Everything was wonderful!!
The boys wanted another ride on TT. Standby was still nuts, but they were willing to do single rider. The wait there was listed at 30min, so we got in line. I want to say this is where we didn't have the option to create a car-only given ready-made cars to pick from to put on your card and then passed through into the line.
After our rides, they boys had to hang around a bit in the Chevy shops once again. It was around 8:30 and I asked if they wanted to stick around for Illuminations or if they wanted to head back to the room because if they did, we needed to head out before the crowds. They opted to head back to the room to have a swim and relax for the evening. I headed into Everything POP to get some milk for our cereal in the morning and some bananas.
*FYI-since we flew Southwest, rather than place an order from GG (and since I was unsure of whether or not we would get a fridge) I packed a small suitcase with cereal, PopTarts, and snack items and sent that through with ME tags. I figured, if it got lost, no big deal. Meanwhile, we carried our suitcases with our clothing onto the plane. DH is a diabetic, so I had called ahead to request a fridge because of the need for his insulin to be kept chilled. I knew we may not get one, so I didn't want to have milk or extra items ordered that would need a fridge in case that didn't happen. Long story short, when we arrived to our room, we did not have a working fridge, but a quick call to front desk and housekeeping did get a fridge to our room with no trouble at all. POP was awesome with this! (you will soon learn of our not so awesome BC experience)
Around 11 we finally decided to head off to sleep-after telling the boys it was time to pack up the Nintendo Games for the night.
Next up: Rope Drop!!! Where could we be headed so bright and early you ask? You'll just have to wait and see.