Our Doodle's First Disney Adventure: Day Five

This was the one day we used our Park Hopper pass, going to both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. This was because, while we had Epcot plans, we got breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest. Early enough that we actually got into the park early.

We did another round with the Mad The Party and Dumbo breakfast. This time, we sat in the East Room, which we had never been in before. It had a giant music box in the middle, lots of fun pictures and a warm pallet. Afterwards, the doodle said it was his favorite room. And the open face ham and greyre sandwich was amazing, one of the culinary highlights of the trip.

After playing a little more Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card game, we went to Epcot.

Now, we've really liked Epcot in the past. And we were looking forward to a lot of things there. The Frozen Ever After ride, since the doodle loves Elsa. The Elsa and Anna Meet and Greet, same reason. The February Festival of the Arts which had a lot of neat food for snack credits. And our long-awaited quest to get a crushed France penny, since we had ones from all the other countries. (The France machine had been broken last time)

And Epcot is an amazing park for adults. So many different foods. So many different shops. We aren't really into alcohol but it has the widest array of drinks of all the parks. But it is big and so little of it will interest a toddler. He ended up spending a lot of time being bored.

Oh, and the France penny machine was broken again.

We did go on the Three Caballeros ride, a boat ride in the Mexican pavilion that I have a fondness for. I saw the movie in grade school and it stuck with me, although Heaven knows what I'd think of it if I saw it now. I swear it may be the least advertised ride in all of Disney World. We practically stumbled over it on our second trip with no idea it existed.

And we did the wait for the doodle to get his pictures taken with Elsa and Anna, which practically overwhelmed him but we got through it.

He then fell asleep in his stroller, giving his parents a chance to eat some of the festival food, which really was quite amazing. He woke up in a cranky mood but we jollied him back enough to go on the Frozen Ever After ride.

I'll be honest. I think Maelstrom, which was refurbed into Frozen Ever After, was a stronger ride. And we knew it went backwards and had a drop so we were worried he'd get scared. Which he didn't. He loved it. Maybe we should have tried our luck and gone for Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain.

I will also say, comparing it to the Little Mermaid ride, ride technology has gone leaps and bounds forward. The special effects and animatronics were quite good.

This is where the day started to get rough. The doodle started to get cranky and fussy again. We were headed to Nemo when we passed a touch fountain. Which he had to play with. We told him not to get wet and he was good about that for a good ten, fifteen minutes. Then he got soaked. Well, we have been doing this parent thing for three years. We had a spare outfit and we hauled him to the baby care center to get him changed.

We'd visited Nemo and the aquarium the night we arrived but it was good to do it again with the doodle more rested. We love aquariums so we were glad he had a chance to see one. In particular, we were glad he got to see manatees since they are featured in one of his favorite television shows, Sarah and Duck.

Now, we had originally planned on using our last Table Service for breakfast at the Garden Grill in Epcot on our last day. But by now we knew the morning before we flew home would have to be at the Magic Kingdom and another buffet with costumed characters seemed overkill so we switched to reservations the Rain Forest Cafe at Disney Springs. Make our last supper the last big meal.

But as we were going to bus to Disney Springs, we found the doodle had emptied an entire water bottle on himself. Second outfit already on him. It was already starting to get colder. And we didn't have time to go back to the resort and get him a third outfit.

But Disney Springs has a lot of stores. So cuddling him to keep him warm, we frantically searched for a store that had toddler clothes. Turns out that's not a hot ticket item there. Finally, at Uniqlo, we found clothes in his size and for a better price than we'd been afraid of. In time to make dinner.

Which turned out to be a great choice over the breakfast buffet we had swapped it out for. The hour before had been frantic and frustrating but the Rain Forest Cafe made everything better.

We spent a little more time at Disney Springs (we had no idea we'd end up spending so much time there or liking it so much but we did) but got in relatively early for packing and a good night's sleep on our last night at the Pop Century Resort.

Our Doodle's First Disney Adventure: Day One

On a different subject than I usually blog about, I'm going to write about our family vacation. Mostly so we can go back and look at what we actually did and direct any family that wants more details to this blog. Still, if folks have fun reading this, go for it.

For the past several months, we have been planning a trip to Disney World. It is our third trip and the doodle's first trip. We thought about going to Disney Land but between things like the Magic Express and Value Resorts, Disney World ended up being more affordable. Plus, Disney World has things like the Animal Kingdom and Epcot. This trip, we were staying at the 70s area of the Pop Century Resort.

Traveling just about anywhere from Arizona makes for a long travel day. The doodle has been on nineteen different flights in his three years and, on a whole, he's a pretty good traveler. Still, we were all exhausted by the time we got to Orlando.

But when we reached the Magic Express at the airport, we started feeling more alive. The Magic Express meant we didn't have to worry about a car seat or even picking up our luggage from the airport. It showed up at our room a couple hours after we got there.

We had reservations at the Coral Reef restaurant at Epcot for supper on our first night. We had never eaten there before but we were excited to have the doodle eat at a place where one wall was a giant aquarium.

Of course, the first thing you see when you get to Epcot is the giant ball of Space Ship Earth. There was no line so we asked the doodle if he wanted to go into the giant ball. This was a big deal since this was his first Disney ride. So if he freaked out and didn't want to go on any more, that would have been annoying. 

Luckily, he had a great time and loved it. To be fair, it is a slow ride, taking you through dioramas of the world's history so it wasn't like taking him on a roller coaster. We then went on The Sea with Nemo and Friends, which he also enjoyed. That's also a slow ride, by the way.

After that, we went to Coral Reef, where the doodle finally ran out of steam. He fussed a little and fell asleep in my lap. We ended up enjoying a quiet meal that way. The Coral Reef is a very nice restaurant and we were both had very good meals. I was impressed by the quality of the food.

The doodle woke up as we left but he was done for the night so we went back to the resort.