We left the Coral Reef with some nice full bellies and made our way to Turtle Talk with Crush. We totally missed this on our last visit because we live an hour away from the Georgia Aquarium and we had just been to Sea World , so we didn’t feel the need to go and look at a bunch of fish again. After we returned last year and I was back to Dissing, I discovered this show is a favorite of many, so it was on my list of things we ‘must do’. The kids started complaining. “We don’t want to do this. Let’s go to Soarin. Why are you making us do this. What is this? Is this a ride? We don’t want to do it.” Yeah, yeah. They pulled that nonsense on me last year and made me miss the Muppets 3-D movie I wanted to see. I informed them that we were doing it and they were going to like it. We were going to have so much fun doing it that they were going to be whistling Zipidee-doo-dah out their…..well, you know. I put my size 8.5’s down. Momma wanted to do it, so by golly we were doing it.
The line was short! The kids and I explored the shark area and I got this cute little picture.
Ahhhhh! My babies!
We entered the TTwC room and Mr Frick and I got squished by some smelly sweaty people who were really excited about sitting down. I mean, we were squished and we were close. We were a fly’s butt hair away from each other. It was that close.
The kids made their way to the front. The show started. The baby behind us started crying. I only heard about half of the show because lil junior’s mommy didn’t want to miss the show. Nope, she wasn’t going to take the grumpy baby out for any reason. Anyhow, what we saw was GREAT! We all loved it, minus the smell, body heat and the extra noises. The kids were screaming that they wanted to do it again & I just had to pull the old “I told you so” out. We did look at some cute little fishies before we left but again, we didn’t want to spend all of our time there. Our fast passes for Soarin were burning a hole in my pocket.
After a short wait, we found ourselves in the front row of Soarin. Lil Frick had said he didn’t want to ride it, but quickly gave in when we reminded him that he rode it last year and that he really liked it. (we had to do that a lot this trip.) The lights went out and we took off. Ooooohhhhhweeeeee what a giggly feeling it is when you first start out! Half-way through the ride, I decided that I wanted to check out how high up we were and if we were the highest row so I began to look around. I ended up noticing the looks on my kids faces instead so I took a lot of time to check out their expressions and soak in the fact that they were loving it! Seeing Tinkerbell and the Castle in the end made me all excited and teary at the same time. We hadn’t seen the Castle yet and it hit me that we were finally here and had so much to look forward to. The first day is always the best to me!
When we landed and began to walk out, I began to feel a little woozy and discombobulated. (I like the word discombobulated.) I was messed up from looking everywhere except right at the screen and I felt like this
. I will not do that again. I got my land legs back and we skipped the rest of the joyous stuff to do in The Land to go on over to Figment’s ride and Honey I Shrunk the Aud. Do y’all remember this back in the old days before it became HISTA? I sure do. It impressed me back then for sure. It still does, but I think I am ready for something new there.
We tried to catch some water snakes afterwards….
and then the guys got in a water fight with the little water balls.
Big Frickles wanted to take our picture, so here is his handy work…
The boys were anxious to build and race a robot again at Innoventions. We walked in to the wrong building. I think we went East instead of West. I really can’t remember, but the robots weren’t there. In fact, no one was really there. We had the place to ourselves because as we found out, they were about to close. Mr Frick and I watched a few people try out a Segway (thanks KPK) and then he was itching to do it. The boys were engrossed in computer games so he got in the super duper short line. He was the last one for the night. He gave it a whirl and I had to be a tourist nerd and take his picture.
A thumb's up and a goofy face!!!
The sweet CM asked me if I would like to try it as well. How pixie dustish of her. They were ready to go home, but they were going to make one more tourist nerd happy before they did. I signed my papers and got on my ride. Apparently Mr. Frick was feeling like a tourist nerd too because he returned the favor.
I was working it.
Test Track (aka The Ride Of Pure Doom according to Lil Frick) was next. We didn’t secure a FP but it was o.k. because the stand-by line was super short. We drug Lil Frick in with us, hoping he would change his mind about riding after he saw the inside and watched the video. You know how loud it is outside of TT. That is the part that scares him to death. We went in to the video room and as the doors finally close we hear a mother frantically cry “Open the Doors!!!!” She screamed it over and over until they finally opened and her little girl’s fingers could be released from their grip. FYI, watch your kid’s fingers around the magical Disney doors. That poor little girl. It turned out that she was o.k, but that little episode did nothing to help calm Lil Frick’s nerves.
Lil Frick saw the video, saw the cars as people were getting loaded in to them and then he had a bit of a freak out. An awesome CM came up to him and got down to eye-level with him and told him how kids his size ride TT and love it every day. Shucks. Didn’t work. Lil Frick was looking for an exit & I offered to sit out with him. A CM let us stand at the exit to wait on Mr. Frick and Big Frickles and he told me that if I wanted to ride that I could get on without having to go back through the line. Sweet. Big Frickles got to ride one of his most favorite rides two times in a row, so it was all good. We love to make a funny face for the camera. I am 99% sure I ruined the picture for the sweet family that was in the back of our car. Oops.
I have to add this little tid-bit. I loved riding TT at night. There is just something different about it. I had forgotten how gorgeous Epcot is at night, so being in the dark & seeing the lights in the distance as we did our lap was awesome.
Last year on our Epcot day, we had two very tired and uninterested boys by the time we reached the World Showcase. Mr. Frick had picked December for our trip because we wanted to see the Christmas equivalent to ‘Santa Claus’ from each country. It is really neat to hear how people around the world celebrate Christmas and the costumes are just beautiful. We did a quick ’run through’ the WS last time we were there and then left early to hit the Magic Kingdom. This time, I had Illuminations on my ’must do’ list. Mr. Frick had never seen it and I had not seen it since I was about 10.
We had an hour to look around WS before the show. It was just so beautiful at night. My Dis friend YAK had mentioned the Pokemon goodies that Japan has in her TR. As soon as I read that I filled Big Frickles in on that wonderful piece of information. He is only 7, but he knows how to go on to Ebay and shop for Pokemon ’stuff’. I mentioned that he is a collector, and Pokemon ’stuff’ is his favorite thing to collect. I don’t get it. It is like he is speaking a whole ’nother language when it comes to Pokemon. He’ll get real excited and try to tell me about it and I am just lost. I knew we had to visit that store and I also knew we would be dropping some dough in there. As soon as I read YAK’s TR, I talked to Big Frickles about saving his money. He did an excellent job too. We went and played Bingo one night at the local VFW. It is so funny yet fun to go there. We get to see some serious Bingo players and I am sure they just love it when the Frickles Family comes barreling in there looking for a good time. (that is why we only go once a year) Anyhow, Big Frickles won $100. Sweet! He stashed most of it away for our trip and I think in the end he had $140 in his pocket for shopping at the World. Even Lil Frick saved some money. Sweet JoMomma gave the boys $50 each and my dad gave them $10 each. You’ll see why he only gave them $10 a little later. (I’m not ungrateful for $10 a piece. Not at all. He just had another plan in mind so that is why I mentioned it.)
We made our way to Japan, found the store - which is actually really lovely - and we all had fun shopping. I grew up with Hello Kitty and I had so much HK stuff that it wasn’t funny. I guess I was a bit of a collector too. It took all my willpower not to buy a cute pair of HK pajamas that another momma and former HK collector and I were admiring. I really wanted a sequined HK purse too, but since I am no longer 8, I guessed it wouldn’t be a smart buy. The boys were thrilled with the Pokemon section. I was shocked, and I mean shocked, when Big Frickles only purchased one pack of cards. Wow. He wanted to save his money. This was the first night and he didn’t want to blow it all just yet. He was super interested in getting a pearl from the oyster tank, but they closed right as he decided that he wanted to do it. Lil Frick only wanted something with blinky lights, so we headed out of the store to find the nearest cart. He got his spinny Mickey light and Big Frickles found a big score for him, a set of coins. One coin from each country represented at WS. I never knew he would be interested in that, but it was his favorite thing he bought on our trip.
It turned out we were in front of America and that is when I saw IT! The Funnel Cake stand! I’ve heard LaLa and Zzub talk about these funnel cakes and thank goodness we had some cash to get one! Mr. Frick headed off to get us some beer and the boys and I hit the FC stand. We grabbed us a good spot to watch Illuminations and we devoured the FC. It was awesome! Everyone wanted more so I ran back for another. What a way to end a night at Epcot! An amazing fireworks show, funnel cake, cold beer and a very happy family.
After Illuminations we walked past the rest of the WS that we had not seen. I showed Mr. Frick the exit for the Epcot hotels and explained to him that there are apparently some awesome hotels that are in walking distance to the park. He said “Let’s stay there next time. Epcot is my favorite park and I think that would be a super place to stay next time.” BIG SCORE! We really did have a super day at Epcot! It was not crowded, the weather was perfect and the fact that we were there at night getting to see things we had not seen before was great. Everyone in the Frickles Family had a big time and fell in love with Epcot.
Big Frickles had seen a lot of little & big kids playing with a neon string thingy and as we left he spotted one on a cart and he had to have it. So much for not blowing all his money on the first night! Lemmetellya, that is an awesome toy! He bought it and it provided a lot of entertainment for him. I wish I knew the name of it, but it was a good buy. It was really cute because we let him sit down to play with it on the sidewalk that has little lights illuminating from it. Several kids came up to him and they all played with it together. Isn’t it just so neat how quickly kids make friends.
We were all pretty tired by the time we made it back to the car. We got in, buckled up and Mr. Frick took off. Soon Big Frickles screamed “MY DOOR”!!! Yep, we were driving off with his door wide open. Oops. Did I say we were tired? It turns out his ‘juggling balls’ that we had gotten in the Wendy’s kid meal from the night before had fallen out the wide open door while the car was moving. Oh the horror. He had to have them. Mr Frick and I searched and searched the dark parking lot. This will tell you that we drove pretty darn far with the wide open door. Thank heavens we didn’t lose a child. Eeeekkkk! We finally found the last ball after about ten minutes of looking. Phew. All was good again and both kids fell asleep as we traveled to our hotel.
Unfortunately, the excitement of seeing our room had faded. We were super tired and we had two zonked out kids and a ton of luggage to bring in. Thank goodness we were on the ground floor and got a great parking space. We also got a garden view rather than a parking lot view so I guess that was my upgrade!
Usually I love to un-pack and get “sit-chee-a-ted”, but not this time. It was majorly late and we all crashed. Thankfully we got a good night’s sleep because we had a date with a “wookie" and a Halloween party to attend the next day!!!
Up Next: Animal Kingdom. I lost my TGM skills and we still survived!
To go to chapter 6, click here!
kinda day. We love Epicot!!!!! And lightey up thingyies and funnel cakes and squirting fountains!!!!!!
at Turtle talk 
