Come to find out this was probably our biggest memory from all of Disney...I thought Epcot would be a spacer between the 'cool' parks. But one we had to do anyway just to be able to do it. Man...sooo glad we didn't skip it.
Right before we left, remember me saying we saw the movie Frozen? It's all the rage by now you surely have heard. However, we saw it the day before we left which was the day it came out. AND LOVED IT! This is seriously my new favorite Disney movie ever. Its such a good lesson/story, has upbeat and fun music, great characters...the whole shebang. The girls loved it just as much and we have since seen it at the theater twice more! Its that good.
Anyway, so as we first got to Epcot, we took the obligatory in-front-of-the-ball picture....
Then we headed into the park. Brooke wanted to do a couple of attractions first and we did, which is fun. We saw Pluto and some other fun stuff.
Then by then, I had had enough time to look up on my Disney app and see what else was going on... and....stop the music. Anna and Elsa (from Frozen) were going to be in the Norway section of the World Showcase at 11am. It was 10:30a. Are you kidding me?!?! The movie JUST came out and they were already here?!?! The girls were beyond excited at the thought of seeing them. So we rushed over to get in line of course!
The World Showcase doesn't open till 11am. So I thought we'd be ok. getting there at 10:40a. To start the line for 11. That was my plan.
Uhhhh...no. Come to find out the 11am line was already full (at 10:40) and they were starting the 12pm line. Gasp!
Oh well. You gotta do what you gotta do. No way could we NOT see them. And really...we knew by the afternoon it would be much much worse. An hour wait didn't seem all that bad I guess. So I waited in line while Brad took the girls around some. Handy tip there. In fact, there was a guy in front of us in line that was holding his spot in line for his family of SEVEN. Ha! So, anyway... we finally made it up. Saw the girls. They were fabulous of course! And both of our girls LOVED every second of it.
Dumped you off in to the store (of course!!) where we promptly had to buy THE Anna and Elsa doll. Anna for Brenna, Elsa for Brooke. I was a little bitter about this at the time. My rule is we get souvenirs at the end of the day. But...now in hindsight, I am really glad we got those particular dolls at that particular store. The rest of the gift shops didn't have the same and when we got back home, noticing around Target and WalMart, their dolls are not near the same. They really were/are well made dolls we got. And they weren't that much more expensive than any other place.
So from there, that was the highlight. How could our day get better right?!?! Hmph.
Well, from there remember we had our 'dinner' reservation at 3:45, it was close to 1 or so now. So we figured we'd walk around the worlds and make our way to our restaraunt. On our way by, a photopass stop of course!
And a quick visit w Mary Poppins (a movie the girls happened to have been watching recently on the drive up)....
And then, who do we see?!?! Santa! Again, I thought, our biggest Christmas-y kinda days would be at Magic Kingdom, particularly at the Very Merry Christmas Party. But no...we found Santa (and Mrs Claus!!) at Epcot. I am so glad I happened to have the girls in Christmas-y clothes! It wasn't their "santa outfit", but it worked. And this is hands down THE best Santa picture we've ever had for sure (not a photopass, this was taken - and edited later - by me)!
The girls had a chance to tell him what they wanted for Christmas - Brenna wanted a toy horse and Brooke a toy cat. I think it was just all they could think of in the spur of the moment. But this would be key later on (on Christmas morning). My girls are pretty content with what they have and don't ask for much. Or they don't watch a lot of TV to get fed all those commercials of crap they sell. Either way, we're pretty lucky.
From Santa, we hustled over to our reservations at the Garden Grill. Remember the reservation was mainly made with the intent to have the reservation for the Candlelight Processional. But why not have a fun one and make it a character dinner too? IT was a rotating restaraunt in that it slowly moved and all the characters came by to see you. This time it was Chip and Dale, Mickey and Pluto. Fun! The food was pretty good. No choices, they brought a platter of everything and everyone shared. THe girls weren't thrilled with their selection (of course) but it was pretty good. This particular day they had a steak selection and a turkey selection (you got both) so we finally got our turkey dinner (remember we missed Thanksgiving as we were driving that day!) And it was all you can eat - so if you wanted more, you just asked!
From there, since we were in the area, we went over and did the Finding Nemo ride (a short boat - er, clamshell ride) through the story of Nemo. WHen you got off, it landed you to the opening of Turtle Talk with Crush. We remembered this from last time, as Crush asked Brooke a question and they had some back and forth conversation. It was really cool. And this time it didn't disappoint either, though neither of the girls got selected this time to talk to him.
After walking around a bit more, taking a rest break here and there, we made our way over as it was time for our scheduled Candlelight Processional. This is a telling of the Christmas Story by a famous person. While we were there, it was Gary Sinise. Very cool. But its also a HUGE choir holding candles (hence the Candlelight Processional!) singing songs along with the reading. It was pretty awesome and awe-inspiring.
Some video:
Shortly after that it was time for the nightly fireworks show... I forget the name of their nightly show, but it involves bringing the world together, world peace, using the world in the center of the park as a focal point, etc. We had priority seating due to our reservations so we didn't have to fight for a spot, which was nice. But the girls still had trouble seeing as they were so short and a lot of the show was eye level instead of up in the air. So they spent a lot of time UP on Daddy's shoulders. ;)
And then it was time to go, the park was closing, we were worn out and tomorrow was HollyWood Studios!
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