The Ultimate Star Wars Experience - Day 1 - Early to rise

[RachaelC]

Sunday 16th February

Now I've been to the US a fair few times, so I'm used to an early start on the first morning, but Holly set a record for us by waking up at 3am. She also then quickly discovered that she could use the cot between the beds as a kind of bridge between the two beds, rapidly flinging herself from one side of the room to the other with great excitement.

So, it's hardly a surprise that we were all WIDE awake within no time. Cue us getting the iPads and phones out and convincing the kids to watch them while we proceeded to cat nap as much as possible!

Once they couldn't be contained any longer we set them up at the table in the room with cereal bowls that we had picked up at the grab and go the night before with snack credits and resigned ourselves to getting up!

By the time it hit 6:30am we were raring to go and headed back over to Old Port Royale to pick up some more cereal for the next day and a few other bits and pieces.

It did look beautiful in the early morning sunshine though, so that was a small consolation for our early start!

After heading back to the room to get our stuff together for the day, we then headed off to the Skyliner and made our way to EPCOT.

We very swiftly fell in love with the Skyliner. It's so convenient, we were through the entrance at International Gateway within 30 mins of leaving our room, plus it felt like we'd had a ride already on the way there!

From International Gateway we wandered down towards Spaceship Earth where we had our first fastpass and I was excited that Holly was going to go on her first proper ride.

Only, just as we were nearly there I realised she'd fallen asleep in the pushchair!

So the boys went on the ride and a kind cast member told me to go into the the exit part and that they would let me go on up through the exit to ride so I didn't have to queue again. I was really impressed with that - I hadn't asked, she'd just spotted that Rob and I were arranging where to meet when they were finished on the ride.

I took advantage of the air conditioning and sat down for 20 mins or so until they were back. Then another cast member kindly let Ethan come back on the ride with me too, so he got to go twice and we didn't have to queue again - result! Meanwhile, sleeping beauty was still sparko in the pushchair.

After Spaceship Earth we headed back over to The Land for our next Fastpass, my favourite ride, Soarin'.

It was a bit frustrating as they wouldn't let us take the pushchair into The Land even though Holly was asleep, and to take advantage of child swap I had to take Rob's Magic Band in with me when I went on, but again this was made up for by the fact that they gave Ethan a bonus Fastpass so he could ride again - what a lucky boy!

It was my first time since the film had changed to Soarin' over the world and I loved it, there's something that I find just magical about the way you fly over the sights and the smells that they pump in.

Once we were done there it was time to head outside to take over childcare duties. Holly woke up about 5 mins after the boys went in to take their ride on Soarin', so I parked up the pushchair and we ventured inside. As we were walking down the slope I decided to take her to watch Awesome Earth. I'd not seen it before, and wasn't sure what she would make of it, but she very patiently watched and I enjoyed it too.

Once that was over we met the boys downstairs and went to Sunshine Seasons for lunch.

After lunch we headed to Nemo as it had a relatively short queue at 30 mins (it was a REALLY busy day at Epcot as it was a holiday weekend). Ethan and I enjoyed it in our clam shell, while Holly spent most of the ride hiding her head on Rob's side as she was a bit scared of the shark!

By the time we'd come off the ride it was time for our final Fastpass - Figment. At the time of booking them I thought that Figment might be a total waste of a Fastpass, and only booked it because it was one that we could all do together. As it turned out, the standby queue was 45 mins, so I think it was well worth having the Fastpass!

Again, Holly spent the whole time hiding (is she even my child if she doesn't like rides?!), but didn't seem upset.

By this time it was super hot and the tiredness had taken hold, so we headed back to International Gateway to hop on the Skyliner back to the hotel as we had a special Star Wars Dessert Party and the Epcot Forever fireworks that evening so we wanted to make sure we had some energy for that.

We got back to the hotel in no time as we were so close to the Riviera Resort Skyliner station (have I mentioned how much I love the Skyliner?) and I crashed out in bed for a nap.

Holly wasn't up for sleeping again, so Rob took her for a walk to explore the new Riviera Resort and to see if he could buy a box of cereal as otherwise we'd get through all our snack credits in no time by getting them by the "bowl".

After a snooze and sorting ourselves out to go out for the evening we left the hotel again to go back to Epcot at about 5pm. This time we decided to take a walk around the International Showcase and the rain started pretty much as soon as we got there. By the time we got to Germany we decided to buy some ponchos as the rain had got significantly heavier.

Equipped with our wet weather gear we headed over to China to eat at the Lotus Blossom Cafe and we were very fortunate to get a table. We all had the Orange Chicken which unfortunately the children turned their noses up at, so we had to raid some of the snack supplies that we'd brought from home for such an event.

After dinner we had about 45 mins until we were due to meet with the rest of the "Star Wars" gang for the dessert party, so we went down to Mexico to go on the Three Caballeros ride there. They reckoned it was a 30 minute queue, but luckily we were on in 20 - I really like that ride, but guess what, Holly hid through the whole thing again!

After our brief stop in Mexico we headed back over to France to our designated meeting spot. Holly fell asleep on the way, so that was great as I was worried she might be a bit tired and grumpy for the evening otherwise.

At France it became a bit of a challenge to find out where we were meant to go. When we found one of the reps they explained that they'd had to move the dessert party indoors due to the weather (although it had actually stopped raining at this point) and we were to follow the people with red lights guiding the way to our new venue!

So we did that and ended up being directed to a giant marquee-type building in between England and Canada. We went inside and it was a massive room with quite a few tables and all the desserts set up at the back (including some savoury things - if I'd known that would be there I would have saved my meal credit and just eaten there!).

We ended up speaking to a few other people on the trip, including the family we'd met the night before and Ethan played Top Trumps with their son. He'd not managed a nap in the afternoon so a sit down and playing the game seemed to revive him somewhat.

Needless to say, as it was a Star Wars dessert party there were some suitably themed items:

Before we knew it, the reps were coming back round with some cardboard glasses for us - when we put them on it made all the lights look like Mickey heads which was fun, so we took them out with us when we were lead back towards France to an exclusive area to watch the fireworks.

Once we were settled in there (with Holly still asleep in the pushchair), the fireworks began. The boys were underwhelmed, they're not fireworks fans, but I loved them - I liked the inclusion of the kites and it seemed quite different from Illuminations. We also found that the special glasses made the fireworks look like Mickey heads too which was fab!

Once the fireworks were done they had laid on coaches to take us back to the hotel, but we decided to go on the Skyliner instead - it meant we didn't have to fold the pushchair and rouse the sleeping toddler and I suspect we actually got back earlier than we would have done if we'd gone by road.

Then it was back to the hotel, all changed (Holly didn't even stir as I got her ready for bed) and again we were out like a light when our heads hit our pillows after a lovely first day on our special holiday

[Tinkermom]

What special first day, hopefully Holly wasn’t up quite so early on day two.

[Joshie1]

Great first day. You got loads done despite being awake so early. I don’t know how you kept going!

[Em4owen]

We're staying at CBR in August so it's really useful to hear how great the skyliner is and convenient. I can't wait to try it out.

[scottishnellie]

That was an incredibly early start. I would have been done in by the dessert party so fair play to you! Another great day.

[RachaelC]

Originally Posted by Joshie1

Great first day. You got loads done despite being awake so early. I don’t know how you kept going!

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Ha! At the time I thought we were being a bit pathetic by not doing more! I consider us to be fair-weather park goers. We don't really like queuing and so focus on just making sure we enjoy ourselves rather than trying to squeeze everything in.

[RachaelC]

Originally Posted by Em4owen

We're staying at CBR in August so it's really useful to hear how great the skyliner is and convenient. I can't wait to try it out.

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I honestly would stay there again JUST for the Skyliner - it was so convenient!

[RachaelC]

Originally Posted by scottishnellie

That was an incredibly early start. I would have been done in by the dessert party so fair play to you! Another great day.

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Weirdly I didn't feel too tired! I think my afternoon nap helped. Poor Ethan was totally exhausted though, but dealt with it well.

[Th1nkT1nk]

A great first day! You all coped so well with doing so much on your first day. We are staying at cbr in August so it’s great to hear how much you enjoyed the skyliner

[Jules32]

Fab first day, we got back from CBR in august so just missed the skyliner but we fell in love with the resort it was just beautiful