Sweating, Stropping and Sleeping - Day 2 May 18t

[katnav]

Day 2
After a good nights sleep for everyone we all woke up at 4.30 this morning. Getting slightly later but still way too early!

Again we let the kids chill out in bed with their computers while we caught up on news and social media from home. We were dressed and walking out the door at 7 ready to catch the bus to Epcot for extra magic hours. The bus came at 7.18 and it was a quick and easy journey to Epcot. We were held just in front of Spaceship Earth and had a chat with a family from Texas while we were waiting. As we were here in time for rope drop I decided we would head straight to Test Track as we had a Soarin' FP for later today and had 2 Frozen FP for later in the holiday.

Once we were allowed in everyone walked quite nicely to the 3 main rides. It didn't seem very busy at all. Test Track was a walk on and we were very quickly through to design our vehicles. Me and Ava were together and didn't take much time at all to design our car. Joshua and Andrew on the other hand used every single second available. Joshua is not known for making quick decisions. The boys loved this ride, Ava and I not so much. We were sat in the front and it felt like the bar in front was really far away and I had to really lean out my seat to hold onto it. I didn't feel happy just sitting back in my seat when it speeds around the track at the end and Ava hated the speed of it. It was a lot faster than I expected it to be. Obviously Ava decided she wasn't going on that again! Joshua said it was his best ride so far.

We wandered over to Soarin' and this was posted as 15 minutes but was in fact a walk on. We were directed to B and I remembered something about B being a good view so was happy we had been put to this section. Ava was having a mini meltdown asking me the 3 question routine 'Is it fast? Does it have a big drop? Is it dark?' She was really not happy.

We were in B2 and once we were in and buckled a little boy at the end of our row was having his own meltdown although it was not mini... the cast members were trying to help calm him down and were explaining what the ride was like but he was having none of it. After a couple of minutes his mum unbuckled herself and led him out. Then his younger brother started howling and wouldn't stop either so then his Dad followed suit and unbuckled and left with him. I felt so bad for them. Hope they got another chance to ride.

After that delay which was probably about 10ish minutes we were off. We all absolutely loved this ride, we thought it was amazing and we got all the smells aswell. Ava was so giddy with excitement when she got off, she seemed genuinely amazed by it and requested to go on again. I told her we had a FP for it again later and she was content with that.

We stopped in Sunshine Seasons as Andrew had a headache and felt he needed some food. He hadn't really eaten this morning, me and the kids had eaten the cookies and muffins from our first night. He grabbed a breakfast panini and Ava had some carrot sticks, I'm sure Joshua got something from here as well but I can't remember what. We headed over to Living with the Land as it had a 5 minute wait and was a walk on. We all thought this was ok but weren't particularly fussed about it.

We headed over to Spaceship Earth as we had a FP. Joshua enjoyed this ride, Ava didn't. Andrew and I thought it was ok but wouldn't rush to go on it again. We had a quick play in the bit you exit in (forgotten the name of it, sorry) Next was our FP for Turtle Talk which was pointless as no queue and we had a 10 minute wait for the next show to start.

The kids really enjoyed it and we both laughed along. The kids had a browse in the shop and Ava purchased a bracelet. Joshua had a little paddy as we wouldn't let him buy anything in here. There wasn't actually anything he wanted, he just wanted to spend money as his sister had. He was declaring he had found something brilliant he really wanted and cried and cried about it. When I made him take me back in and show me this amazing thing it was a small christmas tree decoration! When I told him it was a christmas decoration he laughed, looked a bit sheepish and said 'lets go'

We headed back over to Soarin' for our FP. We entered the FP queue and it seemed really far back and I could overhear other people saying they couldn't believe how long the FP queue was. Now we hadn't been in the FP queue before so had no idea how long we had left to go. After 10 minutes the queue hadn't actually moved and I was starting to worry we would be late to our dining reservation which was at 12.25. We started to see people in the standby queue leaving and the kids and lots of other kids around us ended up sitting on the floor. After a while there was an announcement that the standby queue time had increased from 180 minutes to 220 minutes. Then all of a sudden our queue started to move very quickly, however the standby queue didn't move at all. Glad I wasn't in that queue but felt bad for all the people that were. After standing in the FP queue for 30 minutes without moving we eventually got on the ride after a 40 minute wait... so much for FP. Once again we were directed to B this time row 3, whereas last time we were row 2. We loved it just as much as the first time.

We hotfooted it round to Coral Reef for our ADR and we were right on time luckily. We had a 10 minute wait before we were called in, while we were waiting I booked a FP for Nemo for after lunch. Our table was right at the top of the restaurant which was a disappointment and because of the wavy top wall next to our table neither of the kids could actually see the aquarium from the table which was a real shame.

*Note curvy wall next to Ava that blocked our view*

We had a lovely server here who explained we could order 3 courses off a special menu which was also covered by the Dining Plan. I looked at the normal and special menu and the main and dessert I would have chosen off the normal menu was available on the special one so we both went for that, I mean who would have 2 courses when you could have 3 instead?! We had bread while we were reading the menu and then we ordered. I can't remember what I had for starter but Andrew had the Seafood medley. We both had the Mahi Mahi for main and I had the chocolate Wave for Dessert. It was all lovely and we all really enjoyed our meal here.

After lunch we headed to our Nemo FP, the standby queue was 20 minutes. It was a cute little ride but we wouldn't queue to go on it again. While in the queue I booked a fp for Pixar shorts so we headed there after. We didn't need a FP and we had a 5 minute wait for the next showing. We all loved this though. I had booked another FP for Figment while we were waiting for Pixar so that was our next stop. This had a 20 minute queue and we walked on with our FP. Joshua really enjoyed this ride, the rest of us weren't fussed. We had a little play in Image Works after this and then decided to leave the park.

We had got so much done and had really enjoyed our day. As we were walking out Andrew happened to spot Daisy doing a meet off to the side and Ava said she would like to meet her so we queued up. The photopass photos were so amazing and you can just see the pure joy on her face.

Just look at her face! The whole holiday was worth it just for this.


We queued for the bus for quite a while and actually ended up jumping on a Riverside bus as it came first and only took 5 minutes to walk from Riverside back to our room.

We had a chill out in the room and while checking facebook, someone on one of my Orlando groups had posted she had Hollywood Studios paper fastpasses going spare and she was staying at FQ if anyone was interested. I commented and we met 5 minutes later. I thanked her for being so kind and stashed the fp for the next day when we would be at HS.

Showered and clean we got the boat to Disney Springs. We had a 10 minute wait for the boat and it was a lovely ride over there.

Interesting poses while waiting for the boat.

Having a wander about Disney Springs.


We stopped off at World of Disney to pick up our gift card and let the kids have a little shop with their birthday dollars. Popped into the Lego shop for Joshua.

We also stopped at the photopass shop as our first photos taken in front of the castle at MK yesterday hadn't appeared on MDE but everything since had. We had also scanned Ava's band for those photos and we also scanned Ava's band when we went on Test Track and our photos hadn't appeared from that either and our car didn't show up while we were riding so I knew there was something not right with her band. It did take a while as the man had to search through all the main street photographers in a 15 minute time frame to find them but we were so thankful that he managed to and put them onto my band and they appeared on my account soon after.

We ate at Wolfgang Puck quick service we shared a meatball pizza, pepperoni pizza and ravioli. It was all lovely, the ravioli was very late, we had almost finished our pizzas and noone apologised about it being so late which did taint our opinion of it a little but not enough to stop us coming again another night. Ava fell asleep as soon as she got in the buggy and we headed straight for the boat.

Look at that tired face!

The lovely driver (skipper?) let us keep the buggy up and we all squeezed onto a very full boat. Joshua fell asleep in the buggy whilst on the boat and we put them straight into bed.

We had such a lovely day today. We all loved Epcot and were looking forward to going back again.

Day 3 Hollywood Studios

[Charl_bb]

Loving your trip report, your children are a similar age to mine is it's interesting to see how you manage - particularly with potential ride meltdowns!

[Wappum]

The grumpy face photo of your daughter made me chuckle. I have very similar pictures of our 3yr old from our last trip.

[collybird]

Haha I think we all feel like Ava come the end of the day!

[katnav]

Originally Posted by Charl_bb

Loving your trip report, your children are a similar age to mine is it's interesting to see how you manage - particularly with potential ride meltdowns!

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Thanks for reading. I loved reading trip reports from people with kids, i found it so helpful gaining an idea of what was possible and what wasn't! Next day is up

[katnav]

Originally Posted by Wappum

The grumpy face photo of your daughter made me chuckle. I have very similar pictures of our 3yr old from our last trip.

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I have plenty more to come! Thanks for reading

[katnav]

Originally Posted by collybird

Haha I think we all feel like Ava come the end of the day!

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So true!

[Gems09]

I love you trippy! You're kids are so much like mine. My little boy once told me we had to go back into a shop for an amazing thing he REALLY NEEDED... it was a toilet brush with a storm trooper on the front. He did the whole "oh"
Just like your lad, so funny aren't they

[katnav]

Originally Posted by Gems09

I love you trippy! You're kids are so much like mine. My little boy once told me we had to go back into a shop for an amazing thing he REALLY NEEDED... it was a toilet brush with a storm trooper on the front. He did the whole "oh"
Just like your lad, so funny aren't they

See more...

Thanks. Yeah sometimes I do wonder what goes on inside their little heads. Keep each day different!

[armstrongk1]

The photos of your daughter are fantastic, definitely for the frame at home!

Love reading your reports, making me extremely excited!

Cant wait to read the rest.