Day 1, Part 1 located HERE
For those who haven't read any of my past trip reports, we determine how well the day is going to be by how long we have to wait for a Disney Transportation System bus. We depart the Pop Century Food Court, make our way through the gift shop, and head out the doors to the Epcot bus stop.
No bus.
And nobody in line.
@#%&^&!…we just ate the exhaust of the bus…it pulled out about 30 seconds before we got there. This essentially equates to disaster at the parks.
So we get (Aaron, don't touch the chain) into the (Aaron, don't touch the chain) line for the (AARON, QUIT GRABBING THE CHAIN!) Epcot bus (AARON!!!!!!!!!!!).
Breathe in…it's a vacation…breathe out… they're just exciteAARON IF I HAVE TO TELL YOU ONE MORE TIME TO….BACK ON A PLANE AND GO HOME!
They pause long enough for a picture:
Eric still has the "I'm gonna bite something" look.
About 15 minutes later, the Epcot bus comes trundling in. We throw the kids out of the stroller, collapse the strollers, holler at the kids for getting on the bus without us, and hop on the bus.
Of course, Aaron falls asleep on the ride to Epcot. Now, how to pic up a 45 pound kid and a medium-sized stroller, walk off the bus, open the stroller, and get said kid into the stroller? It was ugly the first time, but he got in there. He's out for the count as we get to the bag check. We stroll through with no problem and head to the entranHOLY COW there are a lot of people here!! Touringplans.com had today's crowd level at 4, but I think the Florida residents didn't get the memo. We finger scan and head in. Aaron's still out, so we decide to do an Eric-only WDW vacation to appease all of you who are calling us bad parents.
See? Just me, Mommy, and Eric! She just had to wear another Lime Green shirt…she's not even on the Disboards, so she's just doing it to annoy the Hell out of me (it worked).
We realized that Eric doesn't have a "1st Trip" pin, so we make our way over to Guest Relations (bathroom break first…Aaron's still out). We walk in, and who do we get but Tom! Tom was the guy who we met two years prior when he made the infamous "penis-head" hat for me (you can look it up yourself, if you want). He gives Eric a pin, and, as we talked about meeting him before, he throws out Grand Gathering pins to all of us (the ones with the Incredibles on them). We head out and head towards Innoventions West for the Visa Character Meet and Greet to get Eric's first exposure to a Character.
Too bad half of Orange County had the same idea…the line was 30+ deep. Nope, we ain't gonna wait for that! Aaron's awake and wants to do a little in Innoventions, so we let them loose for a few minutes. We head out by the Character Connection and see lines upon lines, so we make a beeline for the fountain (or the "waterfall" as Eric called it). After a few minutes of that, I start getting a bit antsy because we're about an hour behind schedule now. I throw the schedule away and get us heading towards the World Showcase. Drinks first! A Grey Goose Slushie sounded really good, but we were gonna stop at the International Gateway. We settle on a bottled water and a frozen lemonade. The boys did really good sharing as they passed it between the two of them every few seconds. We go by Canada and see the Lumberjack Santa finishing up. We then head over to the U.K…while the crowds on the main walkways were thick, the U.K. pavilion was somewhat quiet. We chanced it that there would be characters and were rewarded to see Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore with almost no line!
Was Eric scared?
NOPE!!!!!
We took a chance by not getting autograph books this time. We got it for Aaron last time, and he got so focused on the autographs that he didn't take the time to enjoy seeing the character.
We left the U.K. and headed to the Gateway to catch a boat to MGM. As we walk down to the dock, we just about get there when we get stopped…full boat…wait for the next one. On the bright side, we were first in line for the next one. While waiting, we gabbed with a CM from San Diego who was a huge Chargers fan. Okay, I gabbed while Sheri yawned. There was another CM there who was trying to do crowd control. They were going to fire up a boat that was docked by the big floral thingy that looks like a spider made of dolphins and take it non-stop to MGM, but it was going to dock behind another boat that just arrived and was going to do the hotel stops. He was hilarious telling people which way to go ("I can't say it any clearer, folks!").
Spider made of dolphins (kind of a compromise between Sheri and me as to what it was):
We hop on the boat and cruise straight to MGM. Along the way, I could have sworn I heard something echoed in the distance…DeeeeVeeeeSeeee…DeeeVeeeSeee…look at how close you can be with DeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeSeeeeee….. Once we get there we stop for a couple of Photopass pics by the tree. It's an hour later than I had planned, but hey, it's vacation!
We headed straight to the Animation Courtyard area in search of another character. We had planned on doing the Mermaid show, but it was down that day. We snuck around past the High School Musical show and made our way under the arch. Wow! Characters everywhere! We hop in line for none other than Handy Manny. Aaron did absolutely great as a big brother…he often would let Eric run up to the character first, even Manny, a character that wasn't in the parks when Aaron was there by himself.
We look at the other characters and are about to get in line for Jojo when we notice that Playhouse Disney Live is about to start. We head over there and grab some carpet! We weren't quite feeling the vibe at Epcot, but we're back on track here at MGM. Both boys were up singing and dancing and, most importantly, smiling and having a great time!
After that, we head out of the Animation area and walk towards the huge hat. We go by it and hit the bathroom quickly (Eric still dry). We figured that we're on a roll, so we decided to see if Mike and Sully from Monster's, Inc. were out. They were, but the line was rather long, so we kept on going in the hope that we'd get to see them later. We kept on walking towards Toy Story Pizza Planet (a huge request from Aaron). We get to the Muppet Fountain, and I decide to take us on a minor detour to Al's Toy Barn to see if Buzz was still out.
WOOHOO!!! He was…as was Woody. Best of all, there was hardly any line for either. Now, I should tell you that Eric has Toy Story and Toy Story 2 completely memorized, and he absolutely LOVES Buzz and Woody! He got so excited to get in line for Buzz that his legs couldn't keep up, and he wiped out on the pavement. His knees are scraped up badly, and he starts crying pretty loudly. Aaron's trying to comfort him as we make sure he's okay. A CM saw the spill and gives each of them a couple of Woody stickers. Eric's fine when he realizes he's next in line to see his hero.
His knees are all better, apparently. Oh, and Aaron's all smiles too as he also loves Buzz!
We then turn to get in line for Woody and notice that a huge line materialized out of nowhere (my guess is that Muppets just let out). We stay in line for a couple of minutes but realize that we're about 18 deep. We leave it up to the boys as to whether we stay in line or leave, eat, and try to catch Woody another time. Sheri and I were both floored when they both readily agreed to get out of line to see him later.
A couple of minutes later, we make it to Pizza Planet. The atmosphere is cool here, and Aaron loves the aliens and the games. The pizza itself is okay, but the number of smiles that this place gives the boys makes the food taste better. My brains are shot as Sheri and I decide what/how to order. She agrees to do the ordering while I take the boys upstairs to sit. Of course I stupidly pick a table next to the railing where the stairs are, and I become a nervous wreck (seriously…I was not in good shape) with the boys as they look over the railing. In my mind I'm seeing one of them falling over. I got them to head over to see the registers and food pickup line and calm down a little. Wifey brings up the food, and Eric has a conniption because I cut his pizza when he wanted it whole. After tears and some furtive glances from tables around us, he calms down and eats a piece. Then he announces that he's done…until I wave a Mickey Rice Krispy bar in front of him.
Continued...Day 1, Part 3 HERE
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