Christmas in July is here! I held back my Thanksgiving Walt Disney World trip report due to time constraints, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you. Click here for the setup, and read all the posts in this report here. Onward!
Day three! I was up just before 7am in my official capacity as Lightning Lane Grabber and Virtual Queue obtainer, and while I was able to grab everything I wanted I noticed LL slots seemed to be going faster than they had the first two days. Product of Epcot’s dearth of thrill rides? Or were the Thanksgiving crowds starting to show? Only time would tell.
Egon’s group was easing into the morning, so Pat and I wandered down to Contemporary Grounds for coffee before moseying back up to the concourse level to pick out some new Magic Bands. It was my first Magic Band+, and now that I have one, I’d say it’s… fine. It’s kinda fun when it buzzes, but half the time I forget to charge it and never notice the difference. Pretty design though!
The girls were ready shortly after, and we all piled onto the monorail for our sojourn to Epcot.
OUR EXPERIMENTAL PROTOTYPE DISNEY DAY OF TOMORROW
No trip to Epcot is complete without photos in front of the iconic Spaceship Earth. We stopped for those first thing, although as noted previously I can’t show them in full since these are Not My Kids. Enjoy this chopped up version instead – Figment is there and everything.
Our first order of business was a jaunt through the Creations Shop (I still call it Mouse Gears in my head). Alice and Cindy had wisely decided to guard against the Florida sun with some new sunglasses. The plastic Disney pairs are cute, but where’s the Adventureland Sunglass Hut when you need it? The children want Ray Bans!
The children also wanted food, and as we had a Soarin’ Lightning Lane slot coming up we headed over to Sunshine Seasons in the Land Pavilion. I’ll do a snack roundup at the end of this report, but Sunshine Seasons is a decent food option. It’s no World Showcase, but it’ll do in a pinch.
While we were there, I figured it was high time I introduced everyone to my love: Living with the Land. Let me tell you: the children do not want Living with the Land. It was declared the Tomato Ride and it was also declared boring. The children have no taste. 😉
Thankfully I was able to mollify them with their promised spin on Soarin,’ which they did enjoy. Not only Soarin,’ but Soarin’ Over California! May they never know a warped Eiffel Tower. Note to self: buy one of those “Make the Eiffel Tower Straight Again” t-shirts.
The standby line for The Seas with Nemo and Friends was pretty short, so we scooted over there next. This turned out to be a fateful choice, as our seashells came to shuddering stop within literal yards of the exit. We sat there and commiserated with Peach as she repeatedly told us “It’s a nice song, but…” The exit was quite literally in sight, but alas.
Eventually Cast Members came around and let us out of our shells so we could walk the final twenty feet or so to the end of the ride. We received a bonus Lightning Lane for our trouble, but it wasn’t applicable to anything good, so we never ended up using it. Ah well; we really only lost about twenty minutes. It was fine.
Given we were there already, we took some time to explore the various Seas exhibits. The dolphins were a big hit, but I think my personal favorite might be the manatees.
Having accomplished our requisite Epcot Learning for the afternoon, we headed over to World Showcase’s Norway for our Frozen Ever After Lightning Lane slot. I do wish we had made this Disney trip just a year or two earlier, as both Cindy and Alice have mostly left their intense Frozen phase behind. Still, they were charmed by the attraction, with the backward drop being a highlight.
Then it was finally our Cosmic Rewind callback time! The virtual queue line was a bit lengthy, but we were heading toward the jump point soon enough. I held my breath as we waited for our song choice… and it was “Disco Inferno,” my favorite! Yay!
Cosmic Rewind had suffered some downtime during the day, so by the time we exited our ride our pre-scheduled Lightning Lane was almost immediately available; we hopped right back into line. While there, I tried to get a third VQ spot for extended evening hours, but even entering right on the time dot I didn’t get in. :/ Oh well. Second song: “I Ran.” Meh. Ooh, concept: what if Disney let you pick your song a la Universal’s Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit?
While in the area, Pat and I sent everyone else through the relatively short standby green side of Mission Space. We are Orange Team People, okay? This, incidentally, was a test to see if Egon and Ariel wanted to try taking the girls on the orange side. Consensus: they did not. 😅 Why take risks if Gary Sinise isn’t even going to be there?
We mentally poured one out for Gary, then wandered back to World Showcase for our dining reservation at San Angel Inn inside the Mexico pyramid. And of course after the meal we had to take a quick spin through the Gran Fiesta Tour boat ride. Eventually someone is bound to tell Panchito what mean ay caramba.
You can’t properly tour the pyramid without checking out all the gift shops. I came dangerously close to buying new sugar skull ears, but as I already have sugar skull ears, I abstained. Fiscal responsibility is so annoying.
The girls also had fun ascribing a skeleton doll to each of the adults. In case you were curious, this one is allegedly me:
Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the wonders of Mexico’s simulated night to experience actual Disney at night. The Epcot Forever temporary fireworks were going off as we took the scenic route around World Showcase, this being the first time we had completed a full loop.
The hope was that we might be able to hop into line for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure as staying at The Contemporary made us eligible for extending evening hours. Tragically, the line was deemed too long for the girls at this late hour, so we instead headed toward the exit. We did manage to squeeze in a ride on Spaceship Earth before we left. Gotta hit the classics.
And that was our day! We took the monorail back to the Transportation and Ticket Center, then TTC to The Contemporary, and off we went to bed. Well, Pat and I had some room wine first. There’s always time for room wine when you stay in a Disney resort.
As I drifted off to sleep, little did I know that our scheduled Studios visit would nearly end in disaster before it began. Do I fix my mistake in time? Tune in next week to find out!
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!