Our 7th Trip to the World & Not Using Lightning Lane or Genie+? How Did We Do? A May 21-28, 2022 Trip Report (Updated 9/7/22)

[Riss]

Thursday, May 26 Part 1: A Pretty Good Epcot Morning

Before I start writing about our Epcot day, let me just say that our upcoming trip is only a week and a half away! Our quick 3-day adventure, including travel days, is happening on Sunday, September 11 and it feels like it came up on us really quickly. I know that we didn't book it until super late, but it just seemed so far away initially. Fingers crossed that everything will go well. And back to our Epcot day.

Now, I also have to say that I didn't write down notes for these final 2 days we had in Disney, and then our travel home. I guess I was so tired at night or preoccupied with something else that I didn't get a chance to write down some of the headliners. I do, however, have my own pictures with time stamps that I can go off of, so me mentioning times shouldn't be too bad. That's what I've been using for the times before.



After our semi-early night the previous day, we were ready to take on Epcot hoping to get there at the beginning of the early entry hours. For that day, I believe they were at 8am. Everyone was up and getting ready by 7:50am and we were on the Skyliner by 8:30am. Later than we originally scheduled, but I mean, when does my family ever actually follow the timeline we set up?

Because we were on the Skyliner, we were let off at the International Gateway and immediately headed towards Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. We were in line by 8:50am and while I don't remember what it was posted at, I do think that it took a little less. It definitely wasn't at an hour, maybe around 30-40 minutes? I do know that while we were in line, some cast members were shortening the ropes around us so the line was definitely decreasing. If it gives any indication of how long the line took us, we were inside on the rooftop at 9:15am.

I really loved the ride. It was fun and entertaining. The children also liked it, although there was one part that my nephew was afraid of, the mop, but other than that, it was fun. It's definitely going to be on our list of things to do when we go back in 11 days. And, as you can see above, we stopped for the Photopass Photographer once we were done and got a couple of good shots with the family and the boys by themselves in front of the fountain. I think you may even see how kind of nonexistent the line was by the time we got off?

Once all of the pictures were done, we took a bathroom break and made our way through France towards Mexico and towards the Norway Bakery and Frozen Ever After. First, though, we needed to take a picture in front of the Beauty and the Beast topiary. The picture I have from that says it was 9:45am. It was Flower and Garden Festival when we were there. We've been once before during the festival, in 2009, so we kind of knew what to expect and honestly, none of us are really big topiary people. They're nice to look at but we weren't going to go scope out every once and take a picture of it.



At some point, though, on our way to Norway, we decided to go all the way back to Mexico and hop on the Gran Fiesta Tour. The video I have of that ride is at 10:30am. It was a fun little ride that none of us ever went on before. I don't even know if we knew it was there during our last visits. We always love going inside of the Mexico pavilion and seeing the awesome atmosphere and I'm sure the kids loved it, too. They both have recently gotten a little bit into Coco, like they recognize Miguel, so they were happy to see some more things they recognized.

After our little pitstop, we briefly stopped at the Norway bakery, well my mom and I stopped. The others either went to the bathroom and my youngest sister and Dad took the children to see Donald wearing his sombrero.



At the bakery, I got a lefse and Mom got a Kringla? Maybe? I don't actually remember what she got and don't have a picture of it either. Looking at the menu, I believe she may have gotten a Kringla. I really loved the lefse. It was my first time getting it. Mom has stopped at the bakery before on previous trips so she already knew that she would like what she got. Next time, we're thinking about maybe trying the bakery in France to kind of mix it up a little.

With some food in our stomachs, or at least for some of us, we decided to go on Frozen Ever After. Even though the posted wait was long, it was already at 55 minutes, we knew that it was something we wanted to do and were willing to wait. We were in line by 11am and were in the inside area by 11:22am. I don't think it took the full 55 minutes, but it was definitely one of the longer waits that we had on the trip. It was a fun ride, though. It was cute and the children loved seeing their favorite Frozen characters. They both know and enjoy the movie and loved seeing all of them come to life. And because I think it's funny, I grace you with our picture from the ride.



After that, we started looking around some of the countries of World Showcase. We always love stopping in China and I love picking up some of those solar animals. It's kind of a thing I do. Every time we go, I have to get one. It just so happened that I decided to get 2 on this particular trip. A pig dressed as a duck and a yellow cat. We took some pictures in the different countries and at some point some of us separated to look at the different things that interested us.

There wasn't actually much that interested us when it came to the festival booths, but I did get the potato pancakes from Germany. They were good, but I typically love potato pancakes anyway. I also don't think that it's that hard to impress me. I'll also try anything.

At around 12:30pm my younger sister and I decided to watch the performer in the Italy section for a little bit while my brother looked through the shops. I actually don't remember where my parents were and I believe my youngest sister went with the children to Connections Eatery to get them something for lunch since she figured nothing would interest them from the booths. I do remember her saying that their food was really good and the new place to eat was also super nice.

We arrived in the Japan section at around 1pm and my younger sister and I took a look around the store and stopped to watch the taiko drum performance. We also happened to get what I think might be one of the best shaved ices, or kakigori, as it's called. Mom had gotten one, a mango one, and my sister and I tried it and loved it. That time I got a strawberry one and tried the milk topping. I loved the strawberry, but definitely thought the mango was a little bit better, and thought the milk topping was decent. I didn't really think it added anything to it, but I thought it would be an experience to try it.



By 2pm my youngest sister still hadn't rejoined the group from lunch and so we headed to a different booth for my sister to pick up the street corn she was eyeing up from the menu listings. She thought it was decent, but nothing really stood out to her about it. She was happy she got to try it, though. That was probably the mindset for a lot of the things we did. While there was the possibility we didn't like it, we were always happy to have at least tried the experience.

It was definitely hot that day, though. I remember standing at an outside table with my parents, younger sister, and brother thinking that it was definitely humid. Dad had also gotten some fish and chips from the England section of World Showcase. That was also very good. We all tried some. We then waited a little while for my youngest sister to join us with the children to decide what our next plan of action would be. After all, it was potentially getting a little late for the children, already being past 2pm. We would have to decide what we wanted to do because we definitely wanted to see Harmonious. My younger brother definitely heard some good things about it while he was waiting for the Epcot bus near the beginning of the trip, so we wanted to see it ourselves.

We just had to figure out what we wanted to do for the rest of the day.

 

[Riss]

Thursday, May 26 Part 2: Seeing the Highly Recommended Harmonious Fireworks

What ended up happening that day was, instead of immediately heading back to the hotel like we had previously done, we decided to stay in the park for a little bit longer. We met up with my youngest sister, my nephew, and the child a little after 2pm and made our way to the butterfly house and Journey into Imagination. My nephew loved the butterfly house and while they were in there, I had gotten a frozen coke to drink. The rest of the family also got one when they came out.



Journey into Imagination had a short wait, probably around 10mins maybe, and it was fun like it always was. We all enjoyed it and I think the children did, too. It was interesting enough to hold their attention the entire time. As we left through the gift shop and that whole area, we saw Vanellope and the space for the Joy meet and greet. My youngest sister also saw a photo booth where she decided to take pictures with the boys. She got the pictures printed and they also saved to our Memory Maker as separate pictures, which I thought was really cool.

Once we were done with that, we started making our way to the Land Pavilion and it was there that we decided to split up. My brother, youngest sister, and I wanted to go to Soarin' but my nephew wouldn't be tall enough. Mom and Dad, and my younger sister, offered to take him to ride Nemo and Friends and Talk with Crush while we took the child with us. By this point it was almost 3:30pm and the child was definitely starting to get tuckered out from a full day at the park.



That was my first time on the ride and I absolutely loved it. Everyone did. We thought it was really cool to see the different locations and environments and we definitely want to go on it the next time we're there, which is in only 4 days! I believe we were in the second row on the very left and our view was great. I remembered that I had read somewhere that sometimes views are obstructed by feet that may be dangling, but I didn't think that at all. Then again, it could've been a different seat location that would cause that.

By the time we were done on Soarin', my parents, younger sister, and nephew were done with Nemo and Friends and were heading to Talk With Crush. My youngest sister wanted to see that so she headed over there while the three remaining members of the party walked around for a little and looked at the food that was offered at Seasons and stopped by the movie that was showing in the theater at 4pm. Let me just say that I didn't know that Seasons had such a variety of food. I had never been in the Land Pavilion before, there were a lot of firsts for this trip, so I was pleasantly surprised at the extent of offerings and just how big the seating area was. There was absolutely no shortage of seats.

When the movie was done, my brother, the child, and I got in line for Living with the Land. It was a short 5min wait, but right when we got in, Mom called to let us know that Talk with Crush was over and they were coming back to go on the ride after all. We called her earlier to ask but they initially weren't interested. We waited a couple of minutes for them to arrive and all went on it for the first time. It was an absolute blast. We loved looking at the different types of plants that were growing and pointed out the ones that the children would recognize. Mom loved it as well and I thought she would because she really loves gardening and plants.

It was around 5pm by the time we were done and knowing the children probably needed some sort of reprieve, decided to go back on the Sklyiner for a short break. We were there for around an hour and a half and headed back to Epcot closer to 7:30pm so we'd be able to catch the fireworks that we had heard so much about.



As soon as we got there, we headed towards the Japan pavilion and got dinner at Katsura Grill. It honestly took a long time because there was a large school group in front of us. By the time we got our food, it was already 8pm. The fireworks and park closing was at 9pm, so that meant that we didn't have much time left to go shopping at Creations Shop like we originally planned. Instead, we figured we had one more day left to possibly park hop and do some hopping so we walked over to the American pavilion and watched the local band that was playing that night for the Garden Rocks concert series. They were good and we all enjoyed them.

Once they were done, we found a spot for the fireworks at around 8:30pm, kind of right next to the American pavilion, kind of standing looking straight on at the Epcot ball. We saw that a lot of people had already started to line up and decided to quickly find a spot so we wouldn't be scrambling. As we were standing there, I did go and try one of the praline bars from the America booth. It was good but was something that I definitely needed a drink of water with.

Our spot for the fireworks wasn't right up against the railing of the lagoon but we were in that first section. We actually were right inside of the line so that no one would be standing behind us because of the clearing for the walkway.



That wasn't where we were exactly standing, I took that picture after the fireworks as we were heading out.

Promptly, at 9, Harmonious began and I'm not exaggerating when I say that this definitely lived up to the hype. Everyone in my family absolutely loved this fireworks show. Well, my nephew fell asleep right as soon as they began so he didn't actually watch them, but for us that did, we definitely felt that they were better than Enchantment. Listening to all of the songs, some of them with the native languages incorporated into the lyrics, just created a wonderful blend that we felt was meaningful and incorporated the meaning of the World Showcase. This show was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip.

We couldn't give this show enough praise and are really looking forward to being able to see it again next week.



This was our view from the Skyliner heading back.

Since the park was closed when the fireworks were done, getting back and out was a little hectic, just because so many people were heading to the same spot. However, as bad as the Skyliner line may have looked, just like when we left Magic Kingdom one night, the cast members definitely have it down. There was a separate line for those who needed extra assistance and using things like scooters and wheelchairs, that way the cast members could help with moving the Skyliner car off of the line and assisting them into it.

When we were in line, it was wrapped around and outside of the station a little bit, but the wait was probably around 25-30 minutes? The other picture from us walking out of the park was taken at 9:22pm and the Skyliner picture was at 9:50, so almost a half an hour. I don't have a picture of the time we returned to the resort, but it couldn't have been long.

The children quickly went to sleep that night as we headed into our final day in Disney before we headed back home. We would be starting our last morning bright and early in Magic Kingdom.