WDW Day 1: Epcot

The time has finally come to relive our Walt Disney World trip! We have a lot of photos and a lot of memories, so I think the best way to handle it is one park at a time.

We did have to travel to get there- long drive, stuck in Orlando traffic for way too long = about 12 hours in the car. We stayed on site at the Pop Century resort. We stayed on site essentially so we could fast pass rides and have extra magic hours in the park. The hotel was perfectly acceptable (it did have a heated pool that Kevin and the girls enjoyed several times (February is still WAY too cold for me for an evening swim), but for the most part we barely saw the hotel other than sleeping.

Our first park was Epcot. We selected the order of the parks somewhat based on low attendance predictions and somewhat based on which park had extra magic hours (the hour that WDW resort guests can get into the park early), but I also liked the idea of Epcot because I felt like it was one of the parks with less to do and a good warm up park. I was right about less to do, but I was wrong about it being a warm up. Because there was less to do and we were trying to skip ride lines using fast passes, we ended up zig zagging all over the park and clocked our largest milage of any of the parks at 9 miles. The first day! On the upside, everyone was fresh and the walking didn't seem like 9 miles.

Food is always a highlight at Epcot. Alaina grabbed a lunch in Germany, the rest of us picked up pizza in Italy. Dinner was in Mexico, and all of the food was very tasty and just over-priced enough to make you groan but not feel gouged.

The park is split into "Future World" where most of the rides are and the "World Showcase" which involves walking through all of the countries, where you can shop and eat. There are only a few rides in the World Showcase, one being the "Frozen" boat ride, which is, not surprisingly, incredibly popular. Comically, this was Alaina's favorite ride from childhood, partly because it was a fun ride and partly because there was never a line and they could go on it over and over. That is no longer true, and I am really glad we had a fast pass to that one! It was fun, but not wait in a line for an hour fun.

The first ride in the park we hit was Soarin'. Now is a good time to mention a VERY important WDW strategy. You want to bring three adults, and two children, one of whom is under 3. The under 3 year old gets free park admission and can't ride many of the bigger rides. We knew you could do a parent switch, which means they will give you a fast pass for the parent that stays with the smaller child. What we didn't know was that the fast pass would be good for 3 people, which means that Stephanie got to ride every bigger ride twice with two adults, and she really loved that. The fast pass was good for the whole day (actually the whole month, but we only had the day), which was nice the few times that we were having to rush off to something else. While they went on Soarin', I decided to take Gwen on a little boat ride called "Living with the Land". It was really cool, actually, because it went through some experimental gardens/alternative farming experiments at the end that I really enjoyed seeing (and later we all went again as it was a short line kind of ride). They also had tours of the experimental "Seeds of Change" area, but they closed earlier than the rest of the park and we missed it- on the list for next time. Less fun about Gwen's first ride was that the ride broke while we were on it. We drifted along for quite a while in the little boat and Gwen was DONE being on that ride long before they got it moving again. They gave us free passes back to Epcot, but since we only got two and we had a crammed schedule, we never got to use them.

We, of course, did all of the other rides. Other than Test Track, lines were really reasonable, especially when wisely combined with fast passes.

Soarin', Mission Space and Test Track were Stephanie's favorites. Mission Space made me a bit sick the second time I did it, as Stephanie wanted to do the "more intense" version (they had two different choices when you went on the ride, the less intense was fine, but the more intense was a bit much). She came running off the ride, I could barely walk. We did Mission Space three-four times, someone staying behind with Gwen every time, and after the more intense experience volunteers to stay behind were at record numbers- Both Alaina and I were not loving the more intense experience.

Soarin' was my favorite ride. Turtle Talk with Crush was a favorite for both Alaina and Kevin. Animated Crush from Finding Nemo interacted with the audience in a live Q and A. It was very clever and well done.

A big surprise for all of us was the aquariums at Epcot. They were fantastic and had things I have never seen at any aquarium (specifically dolphins and manatees). We all wished we had more time at the aquarium.

I think that mostly covers a full day at Epcot. And now, the pictures!

On the bus, excited for the first day!

See all the people NOT behind them? Good prediction of a low attendance day.

Spaceship Earth had some fun things to do after the ride- this one was a game that you used the paddles to move things around the screen to "power" a city.

An unexpected find in "Future World".

Still looking fairly fresh after a long day! Gwen mostly was carried, mostly on Kevin's shoulders, but Stephanie did the vast majority of the 9 miles herself, riding on Alaina's back towards the end of the day and some on Kevin's shoulders.

A photo by Stephanie!