Chapter 10: Finishing "The 46" at Epcot
After our ride on FEA, we headed directly to Soarin', where we went standby and waited less than 10 minutes for our very pleasant flight. While not required for The 46 to ride both, my daughter wanted to ride both the Orange and Green missions at Mission Space. We had a FP for MS later in the morning, but we went there right after Soarin' to ride the Green mission on standby (Orange had the longer wait). We waited less than 5 minutes, and soon were taking our relaxing journey around the Earth.
It was then getting close to 10 AM, and we had a Test Track FP+ expiring at 10:15 (or 10:30 with the grace period), so we went to TT next. We were slightly delayed at TT due a reset, but were glad that it was not a true breakdown, and within a few minutes my daughter was designing her car. She really enjoyed the car design process, and was excited at each test to see how her car performed. She actually did really well, although she didn't quite max out her speed.
After TT we went back next door to Mission Space, this time to use our FP for the Orange mission. We again had little wait, and before long were twisting and spinning into our crash landing on Mars. We were now at 41 rides, so had only 5 to go to reach our goal. Our plan was to ride 3 more before having lunch at Nine Dragons in China, and then do Gran Fiesta Tour and Living With the Land, which we were saving for relaxing after lunch cruises.
Next up was Journey Into Imagination with Figment, which is in my top 3 least favorite rides at WDW. I guess I really just don't get the point. We hadn't used our 3rd FP (Spaceship Earth) yet, so needed to go standby. The wait was posted at 25 minutes, but we were hopeful that was inflated. Unfortunately, it was pretty close to accurate, and we endured our longest wait of the trip (to that point) to see Figment. But at least we got to check it off and were now 42 rides down, 4 to go.
We then went to Spaceship Earth, where we used our 3rd FP+, and I booked us an immediate FP for The Seas with Nemo and Friends as we were walking through the SE queue and into the sphere. SE is my daughter's 2nd favorite ride at Epcot (behind FEA, of course), and she is particularly delighted by the interactive part at the end where you answer questions and get to see a video of your lives in the future. I made a mental note that we should try to come back, if possible, before the FEA Dessert Party that night.
Next was The Seas, where we used our 4th FP. I quickly grabbed a LwtL FP for after lunch, insuring that we would not have a long wait for our 46th ride to complete the challenge. Nemo is a cute ride, and my favorite part is the scenes where you see the projections of Nemo and others frolicking with the actual fish in the tank behind the screen. We finished there around Noon, and had a long walk ahead of us to get from The Seas up to China for lunch. My daughter (for not the first nor the last time on this trip) conned me into letting her climb on my shoulders so that she could have a birds eye view of the park as I did all the walking. The things daddies do for our daughters
We had a nice lunch at Nine Dragons. My daughter liked the fried rice, but had no interest in the shrimp, so that made for a nice little bonus side of shrimp with my honey sesame chicken (yum). Since our plan for the morning had gone according to script, we only had 2 rides left to complete our mission of riding all 46 rides at WDW. After leaving China, we passed by Norway (where we would be returning that night) and made our way into the pyramid at Mexico. As expected, there was no wait for the Gran Fiesta Tour, and we enjoyed our jaunt with the Three Caballeros.
We then made the very satisfying walk from Mexico to The Land to finish The 46 at LwtL. We were very excited to be achieving our goal, especially right on schedule. We used our FP and soon were on our boat. For all the great photos on this trip (most not taken by me), one of my favorites is this blurry selfie of my daughter and me as we started on Ride #46.
I snapped a slightly better one later in the ride.
Having gone on every ride in WDW in 2.5 days, we felt a real sense of accomplishment, and I felt like all my hours of obsessive planning had really paid off. We now had 1.5 more park days to go back for more rides on some of our favorites. In fact, I grabbed us a FP for TSM for later that afternoon, when we planned to head back to HS, where our journey had begun just 2 days earlier.
To commemorate the occasion, we posed for some photos before leaving the park.
Not only were we riding all the rides, but we were truly having a great time. It was a great way for me to bond with my daughter over a shared interest, and I was really looking forward to what the rest of the trip had in store.
In the next chapter, we make a very productive return visit to HS. Thanks for coming along as I recap our trip where everything went right.
