Epcot

Our first day at Disney was spent at Epcot. We had help planning our trip from a travel agency in town, and the parks we went to each day were based on the reservations we had for character lunches. The travel agent thought she was doing us a favor by having us in the park with the extra magic hours each day, but it ended up being much more trouble than it was worth because no way were my kids going to make it long enough for any extra magic... parks open until 12 and 2am?? I don't think so. AND everyone else wanted to be in the park with extended hours, so they were the most crowded of the parks each day. Oh well. Lesson learned. We decided to put our meal plan to action and grabbed a "quick serve" breakfast at our resort. This didn't turn out to be very quick with the 6 of us figuring out what all was included for the first time. We joked that by the time we ate, caught the bus to Epcot, and made it through security, it'd be time already for our character brunch at 11...which wasn't far from the truth. 

 The kids did have time to run around some fountains, and we grabbed a few quick pictures. I was all about using the Disney photographers since we had paid for the photo pass. However, I wasn't willing to wait in a crazy line for a picture, so we jumped in short lines whenever we could and opted to take our own pictures everywhere else. 

 

The kids were already too grouchy to be in the first picture (happiest place on earth?...), so Phil and I grabbed a few with just the two of us. Phil would probably like me to point out that I bought this shirt for him and forced him to wear it. He was supposed to match Avery, but then Avery insisted they not wear theirs on the same day. I give up. ;) It was Food and Wine Festival time at Epcot, hence the Mickey with a kabob. 

 

Willing to smile for mommy but not the pros...

I love these of my mom and dad laughing at each other... I think we were making fun of my dad's "cheese" face. 

Brunch was at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway, and I would definitely recommend it. The food was pretty good, nothing fancy (still breakfast fare at 11am), but we were able to meet so many of the princesses and get their autographs. Belle was there to greet us at the door. 

Cinderella was the first to come to our table, and Claire was too shy to stand with her to have her picture taken. Avery was pretty excited though. He asked me on the way there when we were going to meet the characters he liked (instead of princesses), but it was cute to see him be so enamored with them all once we got there. Claire warmed up pretty quickly, too. :)

 

Ariel...

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)...

Snow White...

It was really neat to hear the princesses talk in character to the kids and answer their questions. Phil and I had to laugh sometimes at their sing song voices and themed answers involving dwarves and woodland creatures. We joked (quietly!) at what it must be like to keep that up all day and what they probably say/talk like on breaks. The kids ate it up, though, and that's what it's all about, of course. :)

Norway is where the summer home of Anna and Elsa is now located, and we were really disappointed that the line for the new Frozen ride was already over an hour when we got to the park. It was the first thing I wanted us to do at Epcot, but we didn't have a fast pass. We were lucky enough, however, to see that the Anna and Elsa meet and greet line had dropped to only 20 minutes as we finished eating so we ran right next door to say hello. The kids were so excited to see them in  their "summer home."

I could tell the Disney photographer thought he had his work cut out for him with our group! This was right outside of Anna and Elsa's home.

It's Elsa!! Claire looks shy, and Avery looks like he's in love. :) Claire even made sure to point out her Frozen tennis shoes.

   

It was really fun meeting Anna, too! Phil and I were very impressed at how you would keep going through a series of doors/rooms while waiting in line so that by the end, it really was just you and the characters. Each family got their own special time alone with them. 

Claire wasn't tall enough for Mission Space, but Avery rode it with me (the milder version), and then Phil was able to jump on pretty quickly afterwards as part of the parent swap process. Avery loved it. 

We also really enjoyed Soarin and both the Nemo ride and Turtle Talk with Crush. The kids liked the playground at the end of the rides, too.

 "Fish are friends, not food!" Little girls...not so much!

 Lastly, they decided to play in some pretty cool fountains after watching the Pixar short films show and got soaked. Thankfully, all we had left to do was grab dinner on our way out of the park.

                 

                 

 And of course, right after they got all wet, we saw an empty line for a photographer! I'm glad we did though, because he took the best pictures of the kids we got the whole trip!

First Disney day in the books! We were exhausted but had a lot of fun!