Tiny Bubble? I'm Here, Big Bubble - A July 2025 TR *Updated 10/12 x2

[disneyAndi14]

I love Evie’s Viking outfit. We loved Isle of Berk so much. I would say Hiccups was my second favorite ride after, Monsters Unchained!
I have to say we are spoiled now after staying at Helios and I dread the actual Epic entrance lol

 

[tkd lisa]

Im really loving your trip report! And so strange that the seats are different depending on the car. Wonder why they don't say where the larger seats are on the test car?

 

[disneywlf]

Glad to have found your TR @amazingact21 Love reading about your adventures so far, especially as it is intriguing to know more about Epic, since it is a brand new park! I love Evie and Landon's logic, especially with their cousin and as a travel nerd, I can sense you guys are travel nerds too, which makes this TR all the better! Cannot wait to read more especially about Epic and yes, Berk looks incredible! Thank you for sharing your adventures!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

We’re old enough to remember the experience.
-We’re big enough to ride everything.
-If Cousin Chrissy remembers Epcot 43 years later, then of course we’ll remember Epic!
-Evie might not be as interested in dragons as she is now.
-Landon’s on the verge of being too busy in the summer to care about theme parks.

I mean that is sound points!!! And I know we will all remember getting on Rise of Resistance on the very first day forever.

I shared a moment of whoa with one of said guards, who told me point blank: “Whoever set this up must hate us.”

Ha! I hope they can fix that at some point!

It was while we were waiting for him that Eddie proclaimed, “Aren’t you glad you brought your uncle to Epic!”

Best uncle ever!

Sounds like a good start to the day! I feel like we could spend most of the day in this area.

 

[amazingact21]

I love Evie’s Viking outfit. We loved Isle of Berk so much. I would say Hiccups was my second favorite ride after, Monsters Unchained!

Monsters Unchained is such a great ride, too! It's definitely Evie's. I think if there was a way for her to dress as Victoria Frankenstein next visit, she would.

I have to say we are spoiled now after staying at Helios and I dread the actual Epic entrance lol

Hah! While certainly no Helios, at least you will be coming from Stella. Won't be dealing with any bus nonsense, and I think so long as you're aware of the process, it's a little easier.

Im really loving your trip report! And so strange that the seats are different depending on the car. Wonder why they don't say where the larger seats are on the test car?

I'm not sure, either. We chalked it up to the Team Members still being new and maybe the ones sending us to our rows didn't know yet.

 

[amazingact21]

Glad to have found your TR @amazingact21 Love reading about your adventures so far, especially as it is intriguing to know more about Epic, since it is a brand new park! I love Evie and Landon's logic, especially with their cousin and as a travel nerd, I can sense you guys are travel nerds too, which makes this TR all the better! Cannot wait to read more especially about Epic and yes, Berk looks incredible! Thank you for sharing your adventures!

Thanks for following along! The entire family loves to travel, and we were excited to visit Epic its opening year.

Sounds like a good start to the day! I feel like we could spend most of the day in this area.

Between the two days we spent at Epic, we did end up spending the majority of our time in Berk. At one point I just found a spot to sit and took in the area while Alex and the kids went off and did something else. It has lots of spots for just that purpose, which is really nice.

 

[rdkeim]

How fun to visit a brand new park! Very sound reasoning by your DD and DS Love the Viking outfit - perfect!

 

[amazingact21]

How fun to visit a brand new park! Very sound reasoning by your DD and DS Love the Viking outfit - perfect!

They present their cases very well. On one hand, we're proud of their ability to put up a good argument, on the other hand, it means we tend to be on the losing side a lot.

 

[amazingact21]

Anyone else losing their patience a little bit with the ads on the board? I had an additional post to put up with my last update, but it took me over 30 minutes to upload what I had, and by the time it went through I was done with the site.

Hence, this next update that’s going up is more of a wrap up of my last post. Sorry it doesn’t cover much. Bear with me while I see who is more stubborn, me or the boards!


To make up for the sparseness of the writing, I will go ahead and share some of my upcoming trips.


On Thanksgiving Day, we are going to be at Universal! This was completely unplanned and unexpected. At the end of the summer, Alex’s aunt announced that she wanted to celebrate her 80th birthday at Alex’s mom’s house with the family. (She is the parent to the infamous Cousin Chrissy in my last post.)

Going back to Florida was 100% NOT on our radar, and at first we declined. But then Alex’s sister said she was going to make the trip from Minnesota with her 4 kids. And of course Alex’s brother and sister in law would be around. So Alex was the only missing piece.

Pieces fell into place and now we will be there to celebrate the milestone birthday. Alex loves his aunt dearly, and she has been so amazing to the kids. She doesn’t have grandkids, so she has always treated Landon and Evie like ones. Once upon a time she taught high school English, and now she sends the kids the best books on holidays and has gifted me some amazing editions from her father’s personal library. It kind of went without question that Alex and I wanted to do something in return for her.


Which somehow led to a theme park day.

We’re doing a big Thanksgiving dinner with everyone earlier in the week, because someone has to fly back for work Thanksgiving day and it was the one guaranteed day off for Eddie. But on the flip side, Leslie knows a hundred percent she off work that day, and her Annual Pass gets us free parking at CityWalk.

And the military Universal tickets aren’t blacked out on Thanksgiving Day, so we decided to take the opportunity and go! We haven’t seen any of the holiday events at Universal, so that will be really exciting to experience. Plus, it won’t be 100 degrees! Not going to lie, that appeals to me more than anything else.

My family flies out the following evening, so we are hoping to spend the morning in Disney Springs. Not ideal, since it will be Black Friday, but it’s the most convenient time to go. Plus, Gideon’s cookies to take home!



At the end of January, the four of us will then fly to Disneyland for race weekend! I’m so excited for this one. I keep impatiently waiting for the military Disneyland tickets to be released for 2026 so I can buy them and make our park pass reservations.

I hope Monsters Inc. won’t be closed before the trip. I’d love to ride it again a few times before it gets removed to make way for Cocoa.

The kids already know what their costumes will be for the 10K. Alex and I do, too, but we haven’t ordered or made any pieces for it yet. They are also on their 4th week of a training plan and are doing fantastic. It’s become quite fun, getting this extra family time with them a few times a week, witnessing their confidence grow as their aerobic threshold improves.

One of them has even asked if they can do another race down the road.




Recently, Disney released their spring hotel discounts so I snagged a room for my Springtime Surprise race. It’s just a Friday through Tuesday in April at All Star Sports. But having an official ressie did the trick and got my friends to tentatively commit to a girl’s weekend. One recently bought a home and is doing remodels, so she has to wait and see what the final cost is before she knows for sure.

And the other is just waiting to see when she can go back to work. Gotta love shutdowns…

I’m so excited to probably be having a friends trip to WDW. The second friend I mentioned used to be my travel buddy while in Germany. We had the best time going on adventures together, whether it was train rides in Switzerland or bakeries in Paris. Our families went to Disneyland Paris together and her husband ran the Half with me. Our kids did the kid’s races:




So needless to say, I’m looking forward to creating more memories with her, and getting a chance to catch up one on one. She’s had an incredibly tough year, and I want to do whatever I can to take her mind off the stress.



Lots of amazing trips in the work for this next year! Which is a good thing, because next summer is a move year – it should be our last one before retirement! – and those are always stressful. We need the distraction. If only so we aren’t twiddling our thumbs going, “Where are we going next? Somewhere where we need new winter jackets? Somewhere near a beach?”

(In case you’re wondering where Landon is hoping for, he has begun DuoLingo…for Japanese.)



Whew, all right then, let me drop this abbreviated update in the next post. As always, thanks for reading and following along!

 

[amazingact21]

Part 2:

Unfortunately, we were told Toothless wouldn’t be in the show, but we all still wanted to watch and weren’t sure when we’d make it back to Berk.

We decided to see it anyways.





The theater was decked out in all things Norse, and the map on the curtain changed, adding different weather and dragon pop ups.




While we were waiting for the show to begin, an older Team Member came up and asked the kids if they wanted to sit in the front row. Naturally, both jumped at the opportunity.





Even without Toothless, the Untrainable Dragon was a fantastic show. The puppetry, the drummers, the storyline, it was all very well done. It was the best show at Epic and worth seeing, even if you know nothing about How to Train Your Dragon.

And at the end of the show, the actors came off the stage to wave and say hello. Hiccup saw Evie and came up to her, bent down on a knee, and asked if she was a Viking in training.

Evie’s smile was huge.

Then, he walked over to Astrid and brought her over to Evie. She gave her a high five and said hello.



Friends, the look on my daughter’s face when she turned back to us was priceless.

It was worth the cost of entry. Worth the long car ride.

My daughter is 9. She’s out of that pretend stage where characters are real. She knows the mechanics behind the magic. But let me tell you. For just a second there, my little girl was thinking, “Hiccup and Astrid just said hi to me.” In a room full of people, they saw me, and they acknowledged me.

I remember hugging Alex and both of us getting a little misty eyed.

We didn’t have an almost 4th grader who was on the cusp of puberty. For just a split second we had our little girl who waved to princesses on floats again. We got to relive the past for a breath of a moment. Remind ourselves of what it’s like to experience pure joy without any judgment.


The kids roll their eyes and hate when I get asked what my favorite part of Epic was, and I, without hesitation, say “That.” It wasn’t a ride or a snack or a show. It was witnessing Evie’s smile as she returned high fives to two beloved characters.

Thanks, Cousin Chrissy.



Leaving the theater, Evie wanted to check out the eggs you can buy with dragons inside that "hatch." The detailing inside the store was fantastic. These little ones made snoring sounds:


Unfortunately, the only dragons (you can actually see them on display in the above picture) were Toothless and the Lightwing, and Evie was hoping for the Cloudjumper. She decided not to buy one. This ended up being a mistake, because they later sold out of all the eggs and she couldn't even get those two.


Moving along, we decided to try our first snack at Epic. All 6 of us had the PB and J Cone on our list of must-try items, so we grabbed one to share. This was mac and cheese with pulled brisket inside garlic bread.



The meat had a very good barbecue to it, and we all agreed it worth getting again. In fact, this was Landon’s favorite food at Epic. We did learn, though, that while too large for one person, it was not nearly big enough for 6 people. We all got one healthy spoonful before it was gone.

No big deal for me.

No big deal for Eddie or Leslie.

No biggie at all for the kids.

But for Alex?

It just made him realize he was hungry.

His appetite was activated, and he was ready to go on the hunt for a real lunch.



Which was fine with me, because I knew if we were to follow the best touring strategy, it was time to enter a new portal.

Not before we stopped to take some scenic shots of Berk, though!











Since Alex wanted food, I suggested we go to the area that had the most dishes on offer. It also meant once we were finished, we could go inside a long queue while the heat really started picking up. Everyone agreed to my plan, which is always the most satisfying feeling in a theme park.

To get 3 other adults and 2 kids to go along with what you say? I was practically floating out of Berk.

It’s too bad that feeling of success was snatched right out of my grasp after that.

Gotta keep me humble I suppose.

But, really, this was the last time we stuck with my park plans, and it showed. The rest of the day was a bit of a cluster. Not necessarily leading to a bad time, but definitely not a “we made the best use of our day” mentality.


I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s stay the course. To lunch!

Onwards!

To where?

Any guesses?



Up Next: It Tastes Like Something, But I Can’t Tell You What or You’ll Not Like it Anymore

 

[disneyAndi14]

Yay to more trips! I’m going over to Universal on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so will just miss you!
We really enjoyed the How to Train your Dragon show, we did get to see Toothless fly, very cool!
We tried one of the famous cones in Berk, very tasty but gave Andi a little stomachache maybe too rich? I loved the bread cone the best!