Disney Day One-Epcot and Magic Kingdom

Although I had done a ton of investigating and research before we left, I did not make a list of “must do’s” until our drive.  I had wanted to decide with Matthew what we were going to do and one of the only times we were able to sit down together was on the drive-that’s sad!  Life has been too busy!

So, on our drive to Orlando, we made a “game plan”.  I had two books that I was using as my resource guides, along with the mom forums that I had looked at before our drive.

We decided that on day 1 we would go to Epcot and, based on what we had read, would probably be able to make it to Magic Kingdom that evening.

I had forgotten that we enter a new time zone when going to “the happiest place on Earth”…it did not make for happy girls our first morning.  Regardless, we headed out bright and early Monday morning.

So excited!  (Side note: Nora informed us in the Epcot parking lot that she was too big for a stroller, she was FIVE.  She changed her tune after about 100 yds of walking.  If you are planning on a multi-day visit to DW, a stroller is a MUST!  Even if your kiddo thinks he/she is too big.  I saw several 7 and 8 year olds riding around in a rented stroller.)

We got lucky as soon as we walked into the park, we saw Daisy!  But, we saw the line (and in hindsight, it was very small) and thought, naw, we’re doing our character dinner tonight, she’ll be there then.  She wasn’t.  And we NEVER saw her again…that Daisy is a sneaky one!

Oh well, we walked around the corner and saw that there was a character signing with practically no wait at all…we went in a met THE MOUSE first thing…magical!

Next up was Minnie and much to my disappointment, we had to get a family picture-ha!  I love how the girls are holding their shirts like Minnie is holding her dress!

After Minnie, Elyn was pretty much done.  Pluto completely freaked her out and Goofy put her into hysterics.

At least Nora continued on with the autographs.

But, Nora didn’t want to get too close to Donald…

After the character greetings, we headed over to the Nemo and Friends “ride”.  It was pretty cute and very quick, as I learned most rides are at DW.  You, potentially, wait in line for almost an hour for a 3 minute ride.  It’s all about the experience, right?

Thankfully, we walked right up to this ride and hopped on…

After the ride, we headed over to an ADORABLE show with Crush the sea turtle from Nemo.  It was so funny!  The girls really enjoyed and it was one of my favorite things we saw.  While we were waiting for the Crush show to start we saw Nora’s teacher from last year, Mrs. Beth!  I’m so sad I didn’t get a picture with Mrs. Beth because that was definitely a highlight for Nora!

Here are the girls posing with some of the Nemo characters.  You can see how Elyn is giving us her “non smile”.

Her sister, on the other hand, is all about the pose and smile…

We happened to be at Disney during HGTV’s Festival of Flowers (or something like that) and the foliage was amazing!!!!!!

We wanted to walk through the “world” part of Epcot, although we knew there wasn’t a ton for little kids to do…but, hey, it was our vacation too-ha!

But, I think the girls were happy, happy, happy that we ventured to the other side of the park…it was princesses galore!

Aurora aka Sleeping Beauty

Belle from Beauty and the Beast

Jasmine from Aladdin

Snow White

Mulan

Tinkerbelle…right before we were about to leave the park.  We were all burning up…I don’t know Tinkerbelle was doing it!

We left Epcot and headed back to our resort for a much needed nap.  Sadly, the nap could only last for about an hour because we had a character meal to be at that evening.

(Side note: We did go back to our resort each day, except the last day, for a nap.  I do not regret leaving the parks mid-afternoon at all!  We typically left between 1-3, during the hottest part of the day, and returned to the park between 6-7:30.  We had late nights most evenings and early mornings EVERY morning!  We thought maybe the girls would sleep in the stroller if we stayed at the parks, but that never happened and Matthew and I needed some downtime too.)

Our dinner that night was a character dinner, Chef Mickey’s.

And, yes, Elyn did go with us to dinner.  She just decided that she hated the characters and DID NOT want to be anywhere near them.  We were super glad that we shelled out a TON of money for her to eat-ha!

Now, I hate to be negative, and really, I’m not being negative, just documenting our thoughts for when we take another trip to Disney in a few years.  We don’t want to make the same “mistake”. 

We did not love Chef Mickey’s.

I know for some families, this is the BEST character meal.  And, I think if we had gone at breakfast, we would have enjoyed the experience more.  I don’t know, I think we didn’t really enjoy it because Elyn didn’t really enjoy it.  And she really DID NOT enjoy it!  I’m also not quite sure what we were expecting, but I think our expectations were a little too high (which is understandable considering the cost of our meal).  And if you LOVE this meal or have reservations for it in the future, please know that I am not trying to say it’s awful, because it’s not.  For our family, it just wasn’t the best.

We left dinner and headed for Magic Kingdom.  The girls had been asking us all day when they were going to see Cinderella’s castle and we couldn’t go home  until we had seen it!

We boarded the ferry and caught our first glimpse!

The bronze Minnie statue they wanted their picture made with, it’s right when you walk in the park.  They were pretty funny about not wanting their picture made with Walt, sitting next to Minnie.

We wanted to do a few rides/see a few things before we went back for the night.  The ride for Small World was pretty empty, so we hopped on.  (Tip: when everyone else is lining up for the nightly parades, go get in line for some rides, you will get right on!)

We did one more before calling it a night, Mickey’s PhilharMagic.  It is a 3-D show and SO cute!  We actually did this one again the next day.  Both girls loved and thought all the special effects were pretty funny.

After the 3-D show, we headed back to the car and got made it back to our resort by about 9:45.  The girls were beyond exhausted and cried the entire time we were showering them and getting them ready for bed.  Matthew and I were pretty tired too!  But, we could not dwell on that too long because Day 2 began very early and was just as action packed as day 1!