Epcot Day at Disney (Disney Day 3ish)

Today started earlier than yesterday because we booked a “Princess Breakfast” for our daughter (of course, the boys were just THRILLED at being at a breakfast buffet with only princess characters).  Our daughter loved it, though, from my point of view, it was a little disappointing that of the 4 princesses, we had seen 2 last night; I mean, if you are going to go to pay a premium for princesses, they should be ones you haven’t seen.  We did, however, get new autographs from Princess Jasmine and Mulan.  In the end, I think Disney should program their breakfasts around me and my family.  What’s so unreasonable about that?

Breakfast was over by 9:30 or so, and the World of Nations does not open up until 11a, so we went to Tomorrow Land and did Test Track and Mission: Space.  Test Track was COOOL!  For those of you who don’t know, it’s sponsored by GM and you basically sit in a “test car” and go through some obstacles, finishing up with a high speed lap around the builiding.  It was fun to go fast.  My oldest son pretty much summed it up when he said, “Me likey!”  Afterward, we spent some time looking at (sitting in / playing with) various GM cars.  Mission: Space is a flight simulator which was okay, but not great.  They did work in some interactivity to this simulator, which is nice, but I don’t have any desire to do again.

My friend Seann and his family joined us and we went into the World of Nations.  Now, the various nations are Disney-fied representations of different countries of the world.  It’s a nice touch that all the cast members in a given nation is from that country.  However, by and large, the nations are more an adult thing.  Disney is trying to get kids involved by having the “Team Possible” challenge.  Essentially, kids can sign up and get a cell phone and get clues to a secret something in each nation.  The problem with the program, though, is that kids have to go to a particular location and find out which country to go to.  As far as I know, there’s no way to get the challenge for the country you are in or want to go to…you are at the mercy of the game.

Two sets of kids from our group did the first challenge.  My boys enjoyed the searching thing in Mexico, but the ending was underwhelming and they opted not to do another challenge.  Seann’s girls loved it and would have done it more, but we had to get together for lunch.  Your mileage may vary.

After lunch, we hit the Seas (with Nemo), Spaceship Earth, and the Epcot Character Spot (where my daughter got together again with Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto (no need for duplicate autographs), but also got new autographs from Donald Duck and Goofy.  Beyond that, the only other new autograph was Aladdin’s.

In general, today was a good day, but I had the sense that we just didn’t do all that much.  It seemed less productive than yesterday.  Perhaps it’s just we’re all tired.  Tomorrow morning is a sleep in morning, so perhaps we’ll get rested by then.

In the meantime, please take a look at the embedded slide show from Disney Day 3 or you can view the slideshow (a little larger) in a new window.

Enjoy (what’s left of) the evening.

Merle

Disney-Day 2ish

A couple of notes: (A) I’m fine.  I’m a little tired and my stomach seems to be giving me some fits (largely because I keep forgetting to take my enzymes), but I seem to have recovered from the chemo; (B) This blog is written as if it were still yesterday; that is, it is currently 12:50a on Sunday morning and I am pretending it’s still yesterday; and (C) I say this is Day 2ish only because today was really our first real day in the parks.  Yesterday was more of Disney batting practice.  And now, on with the blog!

Today started bright and early for me (like at 4:30a, that is).  I have this problem, you see.  When I am excited about something, I have trouble sleeping.  I woke up at 4:30a and my heart was racing and it wasn’t until this evening that I realized how excited I was about going to Disney.  The rest of the gang woke up at 7a and we ate breakfast in the condo and headed out ot the Magic Kingdom (I mean, really!  Disney World to my daughter *IS* the Magic Kingdom, so there really wasn’t much of a choice).

The morning activities were more suited to my daughter, as we stopped on our way back to Fantasyland to get autographs from any character we saw. Now, while my daughter has an autograph book, MaryBeth doggedly also got each character to sign a copy of my “I’m done with chemo” shirt.  Most of the characters write their name, but some of them use stamps.  Buzz Lightyear is one of the characters that uses stamps — usually!  Apparently, on hearing that I was at Disney celebrating being done with chemo (I have a button saying so, and everything), he decided to sign my shirt himself; according to his handler, my shirt was the only authentic Buzz Lightyear autograph given out today (Down cynical side!  Down!  I am sure the handler wouldn’t just say that to make us feel good…Down you cynic)!

A partial list of our signees include: Mickey, Minnie, Buzz, Snow White, Belle, Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Cinderella, Alice (in Wonderland), Pooh Bear, Eyeore (probably the cutest signature for the day), Chip & Dale, Pluto, and Lady Tremaine (the evil stepmother from Cinderella).  Not bad for a day.  More tomorrow, I hope.  There’s plenty of room on the shirt!

The pictures today are largely daughter-centric.  I spent much of the day either standing with my daughter to get autographs or riding rides with my sons.  The former is much more conducive to taking pictures.  I was able to get some of the other kids, though, and a rarely seen picture of my wife (don’t tell her I put it in).  The embedded slide show is below or you can open a somewhat larger version by clicking here.

Tomorrow (um…today) starts at about the same time, but we are having a Princess breakfast in Norway (well, the Norway pavilion in Epcot.  Afterward, my best friend from college, Seann, and his family are coming to join us for a day of roaming the nations of Epcot.  Not sure how long we’ll last, as we didn’t get home this evening (um…yesterday) until a little after 11p (though, we did come back to the condo in the middle of the day so that my daughter – and wife – could take a nap; the boys swam; I puttered around the condo).

Time for me to take a shower and head off to bed for a brisk 5+ hours of sleep.  Heck, I’m at Disney, I can sleep next week.

Merle