Day #6 - Epcot, Take Two

Thursday, May 24, 2012


We had not originally planned to go to Epcot two days in a row, and had planned Hollywood Studios this day, but my brother and Kat decided that Thursday was the best day for them to go to Islands of Adventure and then they would go to Hollywood Studios on Saturday.  We decided that it was better to switch our day #2 to Epcot to Thursday, and join them at HS on Saturday so that we would have someone else to do Baby Swap with for Rock N Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Otherwise, Jeff and I would be riding those alone.  No fun!  This was a risk considering that Fri, Sat & Sun are Star Wars weekend, and were predicted to be 9.5 out of 10 crowd levels at HS those days!

Anyway, we didn't roll into Epcot until about 9:30 am.  Whew - what a crowd it was getting in the door at that time of morning compared to the 8:45 am crowds.  Upon entering, we headed to Innoventions West and Jacob really enjoyed the exhibits, including a Piggy Bank exhibit, a Make Your Own Video Game exhibit, and an exhibit on Fire Safety that was really cute and included a game that the whole family could play.  I just strolled Jackson around mostly during that time.  While there, we discovered the Chase Disney Rewards Visa Private Character Meet N Greet (whew, that is a mouth full!) It didn't open until 1:30 pm, so we decided to come back then.  After Innoventions West, we headed to the Living Seas Pavilion and rode the Nemo ride.  Jackson has been so good on all the rides we've ridden.  On the very first ride, Triceratops Spin, he was shaking a little, but after that he's been fine  It's a stark contrast to Jacob riding the rides at 16 months.  It was pretty much disaster from the get go!  After the Living Seas and Nemo, we headed towards the left side of the World Showcase.  We did the Grand Fiesta Boat ride in Mexico.  Jackson enjoyed seeing Donald everywhere.

He's gotten pretty good at identifying the characters: "Dee-Dee" for Mickey; "Min-ee" for Minnie, "Don-a" for Donald, etc.  In fact, the week before we left, I was putting him in the car as we were leaving Chick Fil A and he started saying "Dee-Dee," and somehow I knew he was saying "Mickey," but I didn't see any Mickey.  Well, sure enough, I turned around and there as a Mickey Ears antenna topper right behind me that he was pointing at! Anyway, it's pretty funny walking through a Disney gift shop with Jackson because he has to point out every Mickey he sees.  It takes a while. :)

After Don-a's boat tour, Jacob wanted to ride Maelstrom again, so we did that as a family.  Jackson pretty much fell asleep during that boat ride, and I got him back into the stroller, still sleeping.  We strolled the World Showcase back to the America Pavilion and had lunch at Liberty Inn.  Jackson slept peacefully through lunch until the end when the Revolutionary Quartet came into the Liberty Inn playing a very loud drums, etc.  It was entertaining, but it did wake Jackson up.  That was okay, because we went ahead and fed him some lunch.  We did a little more shopping around the World Showcase, and then got caught in a rain shower around the UK Pavilion.  We hig htailed it back to Future World and stopped in Club Cool and sampled a few sodas.   Then we headed to the Visa Character Spot around 1:20 pm.  We were about 10th or 11th in line, which was good.  By 1:30 pm, the line was LONG.  We got in pretty quickly and had a private meet n greet with Minnie & Goofy.  Jackson has just loved the characters.  He gave Minnie a hug.  He really seems to love Minnie! They took pics and we headed out.  Jackson and I went to the Camera Center to get our free 5x7 that was part of the Visa deal.  Jacob & Jeff rode Spaceship Earth again. We headed back to the house.

Once back at the house, we had some pool time and then Jeff and I got ready to go out to dinner.  The kids had pizza and Jeff and I went over to Animal Kingdom Lodge and looked around and then we went to Sanaa in the Kidani Village for dinner.  We had Habanero Lime Margaritas - delicious!  After a short wait, we got seated sort of in the second "row" of the restaurant, still with a great view of the windows including giraffe views and zebras too. We had the Indian Bread service, which was very good.  Jeff had slow cooked beef ribs and shrimp in green curry sauce, and I had tandoori chicken. Both were just excellent!  After dinner, we were pretty tired and headed back to the house, where we visited with my grandma, dad, dad's wife and brother and sister in law for a bit before heading off to bed.  Another great day!!