Photo Trip Report: My 6 and 4 year-old park commandos -- How we conquered the World!

[jake&samsmom]

Coming up next, off to EPCOT we go. More pictures to come!
(In other words, time to make Dinner!)

 

[Blessed_wth_Triplets]

LOVE your report and all the pics!!! Went for our boys' first trip in September...it's fun to read a report with kids around the same age! My boys will be 5.5 next Sept. when we return...that is if we don't get prego before that ..that's a whole nother story! Can't wait to see EPCOT pics!! That was one of our favorite parks along with MK of course ...and we never even made it to one country!..oh well..save something for next trip! How was dinner ???

 

[jake&samsmom]

Great report so far!

Thank you! I have over 700 plus pics on my digital camera, and over 150 on our photopass I promise I won't make y'all fall asleep by posting all of them!

 

[jake&samsmom]

LOVE your report and all the pics!!! Went for our boys' first trip in September...it's fun to read a report with kids around the same age! My boys will be 5.5 next Sept. when we return...that is if we don't get prego before that ..that's a whole nother story! Can't wait to see EPCOT pics!! That was one of our favorite parks along with MK of course ...and we never even made it to one country!..oh well..save something for next trip! How was dinner ???

Thanks! Dinner at EPCOT was at Coral Reef...Tonight, though, its only PB and J sandwiches because Mom has to complete at least the first day's trip report! Btw, we also never made it to any one country at EPCOT, we just stayed at Future World! That's right, we too are saving World Showcase for our next trip

 

[snowwhite325]

I love your TR, it is getting me so excited for my upcoming trip in 3 weeks I love pictures so I hope you post them all

 

[Skyw]

Love the PIC's. The more the better. We leave in 5 nights and a wake up!!!! I have a 4 year old too!!

 

[Donald is #1]

Thank you! I have over 700 plus pics on my digital camera, and over 150 on our photopass I promise I won't make y'all fall asleep by posting all of them!

Keep the pictures coming! I love looking at pictures.

 

[jake&samsmom]

Thank you all for reading along. I am going to post more as soon as photobucket hurries up and loads my pics!

 

[jake&samsmom]

We ride the Disney Bus Transportation to Epcot park. I didn't get any pics at this point because: a) there was no line at the bus stop so we immediately had to hop on to the bus, and b) the bus was SRO and we were packed in snugly, I didn't have much space to point and focus the camera.

We got to EPCOT, and it was a long walk to the front of the park from the bus stop. It also started to rain, well, really just a light drizzle. But enough for Mom to make the boys use their umbrellas.

Here they are in front of Spaceship Earth (closed for refurbishment!)

Here's another one with just the "giant golfball" as the boys call it

The boys were amazed at the twirling thingies that looked like DNA strands, so I decided to take a picture of it

Light crowds at around 5:30 p.m., perhaps due to the light drizzle.

The boys by the upstream waterfall

The clear, clean waters of the fountain - so clean you can see the rocks at the bottom of the pool

We had time before our 6:30 ADR for Coral Reef, so we went on Figment's ride. Here's the boys in line, actually, no line...practically walked on

After the ride, the boys ran around a little bit in the play area...see how hard to catch them on camera?

A photo of the skyline on our way to the Seas Pavillion. I thought it looked pretty especially the pink flowers by the monorail line

We still had a few minutes before our Coral Reef ressie, and the Finding Nemo ride was only a 5 minute wait so...

The jellyfish looked so real!

We get to Coral Reef finally, and while waiting for our table, Mom wanted more pictures, to which Sam does this...

I had arranged for a personalized menu for Jake as part of the surprise for his 7th Birthday. (Only I knew about it, not even DH knew about the surprise.) It was so beautifully made! Debbi, the Coral Reef Manager did such an awesome job. Here it is...

Cover

Second page

Third page

 

[jake&samsmom]

The drinks came, and look at the cool dolphin that swam along with Sam's drink!

One nice thing about the Coral Reef is that they give you a little booklet with pictures and names of the different sea creatures in their tank. We had fun searching for them and looking up their their names. Here's some pics of the tank/aquarium from our tier one table. See if you can name some of the animals swimming around

 

[jake&samsmom]

Dad and the boys at our table

A view of the restaurant from my seat

The food's here! DH and I ordered the same thing, NY strip steak! Yummy!

Sam got the grilled chicken.

Jake got the mac and cheese, but asked me to please not take a picture of it because "mac and cheese looks the same everywhere, Mom!"

 

[jake&samsmom]

All of a sudden, a diver appears out of nowhere at Jake's side of the tank! She beckons to Jake to come up closer to the glass...

Then, she surprises him with a sign that says....

Jake comes up closer to the glass to read the sign....

The diver then gets a handfull of seashells from her pocket, and pretending its confetti, proceeds to shower it all around her and around the sign....

She then does some backflips in the water, which I didn't get to photograph as I was getting teary-eyed and happy that the surprise worked out so well. Everyone around us cheered!

 

[jake&samsmom]

Several other divers swim by and wave at us....

After dinner, we pass by the Nemo ride again and resist the temptation to go in. Instead, we take pictures by the birds that go "mine! mine! mine!"

Jakob does his first pin trade.

The boys and Dad really got into pin trading this trip! The CM's are very nice, and the pins we traded for were all excellent in quality!

 

[jake&samsmom]

We really wanted to ride Soarin' but the wait was over 55 minutes! At that rate, we would miss Illuminations, and this night was our only scheduled night to be at EPCOT for this trip! What to do? At this point, DH comes up with a surprise, Fastpasses for all of us for Soarin'! Here are the boys in line for Soarin'...

We fall in love with this ride, and will ride on it twice more this trip!


Now we head to the north end of Future World for Illuminations. It is now almost time for the show so there are hundreds of people taking up the preferred viewing spot(s). Luckily, we find a passable viewing place, but have to carry the kids in our arms so that they have a good view of the show. Hence, no pics at this moment - Jake is almost 50 lbs. and required the support of both my arms!

We purchase some pins from a giftshop after the show. Sam asks to buy a small Stitch toy. I buy a beach towel for Jake to use during swim competitions. Off Topic: I want to shamelessly promote the swimming skills of my son Jake has been swimming since he was 18 months old. He is a highly accomplished swimmer, and swims for our local recreational swim team. He has a wall full of swimming awards, ribbons, trophies etc. Shameless proud Mom!

On the way out of EPCOT (sorry, not as glamorous as I would like to look, but the humidity was really something!)

This was taken on the bus ride home to ASMU at around 10:35 p.m. There were only around ten people on the bus. Little did we know that this would be the earliest time we would ever be returning "home" for the duration of our trip!

Coming soon....Our first full day -- at Animal Kingdom!

 

[eyenjeff]

What a great report so far!!! Your boys are sooo cute!! I love all the pictures! We leave in 1day and Im so excited I can't sleep! Keep the report coming it is helping with my excitement!

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

wow great TR so far. looks like some very happy people

 

[Blessed_wth_Triplets]

Love the TR so far! Coral Reef looks like fun! WE'll have to try that next time...we did GG at Epcot for fear of CR after all the bad reviews

 

[jake&samsmom]

The boys got up early and we went to the ASMu food court to get some milk for our cereal.

DH was still asleep, tired from EPCOT last night, so the boys and I decided to shower and get dressed (the boys in their camo t-shirts in homage to the AK theme). We head to Animal Kingdom without Derrick ("call us when you get there, Dad")


This was taken while we were waiting for the elevators in the Calypso building.

Jake inside the elevator. Notice his growing pin collection

This is Sam in the elevator. He didn't want to wear his pins/lanyard. Mom kept them safely in her purse

By the poolside on the way to the bus stop

We were at the bus stop by 9am, and got on the bus almost immediately. Again it was SRO, but we loved riding the bus as we do not regularly experience that here in Houston. Everyone around us comments on how nice Jake's pins are

 

[jake&samsmom]

Love the TR so far! Coral Reef looks like fun! WE'll have to try that next time...we did GG at Epcot for fear of CR after all the bad reviews

I too was initially wary about the bad reviews it had been getting. But I am happy to report that it was the best and most memorable meal we had at WDW The food was great, service excellent and it was clean, clean, clean

 

[jake&samsmom]

What a great report so far!!! Your boys are sooo cute!! I love all the pictures! We leave in 1day and Im so excited I can't sleep! Keep the report coming it is helping with my excitement!

I know the feeling of sleepless anticipation! Have fun on your trip, Eileen! Please tell me/us all about it when you get back. And, oh, give Mickey a big hug from all of us!