Where were we? Oh yes, we were heading over to the World Showcase. On my last report I had told you that the entire state of Florida was now in Epcot. I think most of the free world was there as a matter of fact
if you are thinking to yourself that "I was not there" You are the only one who wasn't. No sooner do we set out, do we have to make a pit stop. The building we stop at is doing Charactor greetings so we get in a line that was not to long and we get to meet
MIckey Mouse
we also meet Goofy
and Pluto
We finally make it to Canada and the bad Canadian accents come out 'eh. Lots of "take off you hoser" not to brag but I do a pretty good Mckinzey brother impression. So after I break it out, I get "Mr. Joey you sound just like the moose from Brother Bear" at this point I feel old. Anywho, we walk through Canada annoying everyone who hears us 'eh and we wait about 10 min to see Oh, Canada. When we walk in the kids are like "what no chairs
" the long drive and getting up early is starting to catch up with us. Oh Canada was really cool. It was now time to head over to Italy for our ADR at the Original Fettucini Alfredo place. As we go through each world, or should I say as we fight our way through each world, we take on the accent of each land. It was silly but it was fun. When we make it to Italy we muscle our way to the back and see a line that is soooooo looong that I think it will take an hour to sign in, So I just walk on in and to my delight find out that that is the no ADR line outside. Yeah! Jim and Stacie (you remember them, they are the other half of our Grand Gathering) have decided to skip dinner and just stay at the Coronado. So our table for 13 is dropped to a table for 8. While we were waiting our three sleepers were at it again
We were seated at a big round table that I am sure is not usally there. It looked like it was set up for the bigger crowds. I sat the Kids on the outside and Sandi and I sat on the inside(Sandi really does not liked to be bumped) after the third time Sandi was bumped by the waitstaff she and I switched seats. For an appetizer we had fried calamari (great) lobster bisque(not so good) fettucini alfredo(Sandi and I liked it but the kids were not so impressed.) It was made with "real cheese" not a pre made cheese sauce. We did find out that the kids could order adult portions of the kids meal so it was pretty much spagetti and meat balls all around the other side of the table. Sandi got the Pork shank and loved it. I got the Lamb roast and it was great too. About 5:50 the staff handed out black party hats
at six o'clock it was new years in Italy so we had a great celebration. The staff all gathered at the front and sang Italian songs
one was the Italian National Anthem then they made a big conga line and went around the restaurant. It was pretty cool. Dessert was nothing special I think the kids were too tired to care at this point. The bill would have been over $265.00 dollars but it was all "taken care of".
As we left we called Jim and Stacie and they were still holed up in their rooms. The three oldest kids DD13, SDS15, and SDD12 wanted to go back and sleep so, we took them to the front of Epcot and sent them to stay with Jim and Stacie. On the way to the front it was crazy. While we were eating Epcot had started to pass out hats and horns for New Years. Imagine the entire free world with party horns. It was loud and in no order what so ever. It sounded like thousands of ducks all honking at once. On the way to the front the girls had to go to the bathroom so, I left them near TT and MS. When I got back I found Sandi but the girls were not there! Where were they? Let me show you
climbing trees! We drive a thousand miles, spend thousands of dollars, so the kids can climb trees.
Now that we have regrouped, it is around 8:00. At some point during the day we had gotten FP for MS between 8:50-9:50. We looked at the long forgotten tour guide sheet that had been hanging around my neck all day and decided to go to Future World. This place looks deserted, it is almost creepy that the park is SO CROWDED and there is no one here. We look around and head over to Body Wars waited for the ride in front of us to finish and got right on. Sandi loved this ride, the girls felt like they were going to be sick. We went over to Comando Crainium, that was neat. Again we just waited for the show in front of us to finish and we watched it with about 30 other people. Now that is more like it.
We head out of Future World and take this picture of the girls
it was now time to use the MS FP. I know what you are thinking. Didn't the girls just say they were feeling sick?
We asked them the same thing, and they assured us they would be fine. So on we went. Ever wonder what you look like when you take off and your face feels like it is going backwards? I look like this
This ride rocks, but if you have 8 FP don't let the kids talk you into riding it 2 times in a row. 1st time great. 2nd time not so great.
We grabbed a snack and headed over to The Sea. The line for Nemo was not out the door so we got in and walked through a maze... thinking that, hey there is nobody here either. WRONG, how long is the que for Finding Nemo? We don't know, because it broke down as soon as we hit the end of the line. Since this was down, we headed over to Turtle Talk With Crush. Once again we waited for the show in front of us to finish and we went right in. Here is the man/turtle/dude himself
aftert Crush, we had to remind Bruce that People are friends not food
We got the girls out of Bruce's tummy and headed over to find a spot for Illuminatios. We must have missed a parade of some sort, because we met these guys when we left The Sea
We get over to the crowd and I mean crowd, and try to find a seat where we could see any part of Illuminations but it was no use. We could see what time it was
It's hard to see but it was 11:18 and 26 seconds, as shown on the back of the big ball. The girls were pooped out and Sandi and I were pretending to have energy.
Once Illumanations started we realized that we could not see anything so we loaded up the girls and headed toward FT for one last ride. Half way there the clock struck midnight and it was New Years Day. I gave Sandi a little kiss
and kept going to TT. When we got there we were rewarded with a direct path to the front of the line. Even the video room doors were open and we walked right through. With a new found energy, the girls were ready to ride again, but Sandi and I were READY TO GO. We hopped on the bus to go back to the POP and get the van so we could go get the other kids from the Coronado. The ride back took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. With a drunk guy from Chicago who was making a big donkey out of himself. We took the van to the parks rest of the trip.
We made it to the Coronado in no time but getting back to the Pop was brutal. We could not get into the right turn lane because MGM traffic had it blocked off with cones
So we had to go down and make a U-turn and sit in the longest left turn lane ever. We get the kids down, which took about 3 min's and my sweet DGF gives me a cool new watch for New Years Eve. She's a keeper and around 3:00 we went to bed. And so ended the longest day of my life.
New years Eve tip, There were people who brought in blankets and were just sleeping in the grass. I kid you not at any given point in the day you could find someone asleep in one of the grassy areas of Epcot.
Don't ride the Bus on New years, drunk people make fools of themselves and irritate you when you are tired OR better yet, don't get drunk and make a fool out of yourself on the bus!
Join us next for a day in the Magic Kingdom.
Can't wait to read more...
all the pictures! Ya'll look so happy together! I 
We had to go back to the room because we forgot the cameras and then we were off to the Mgic Kingdom. It is now around 1 and the kids are gripping about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I was ready to yell "WE ARE AT FREAKIN MAGIC KINGDOM SHUT YOUR TRAPS AND HAVE FUN" but that seemed counter productive so I called Jim and Stacie who were waiting in line for Splash Mountain and had fast passes for BTMRR. So we got ours and headed over to Tom Sawyers Island We still have a large # of cranky children. As we go through the caves we see this
SO I tell the old cranky woman with the hand held reservation checker thing that I am here and have 2 parties ...blah blah blah.. and she says I will see what we can do.(she may have done the voice of Roz the old lady monster in Monsters INC) well a few minutes later Dean calls "Joey party of 2" great we will now be seated on two different sides of the CP. So I ask "will the other party be seated near us?" Dean looks at me like this
Dean is the man. While we were waiting I took these
Dinner was great but when we checked out I was a dinner credit short. Sandi and I were shareing and I thought I had just lost count but the first night, we were hit for a double whammy and I was really 3 short. The front desk fixed it the next day ( more on that later) Any way we waddled out of CP and headed over to Mickeys Phil. here is one of the best pictures of the whole trip
