Day 3 ~~ MGM & EPCOT

Day 3 and we are totally in the swing of being here... well unless you count showing up at Hollywood Studios at 11 AM. As I said, we west coasters just can't seem to get it together too early in the morning. We'd be aces if this was Disneyland!! Of course Em and Bri didnt even make it with us at this point.

When we got into the park, Jeff headed over to Tower of Terror to get Fastpasses while the rest of us stopped and watched a street show with Otto van BonBon and Tutu Tulllula. It was hilarious. The kids couldn't stop laughing.

Everyone enjoyed it so much they wanted to get their picture taken with TuTu.
She was holding her "X marks the spot" prop.

Oh how I LOVE classic cars.

And this one if from California too!

Alex and Jeff headed over to ToT while Erin, Katherine, Jeffrey and I went shopping and stopped to watch the High School Musical Show in front of the Hat. This was not Jeffrey's idea of a good time so while the girls watched I walked him around to the pin carts and traded pins with the cast members.

It wasn't long before it was time for our reservations for the Sci-Fi Dine-in where Em and Bri met us and we had a really great lunch. This is another of my favorites! I love sci-fi and love the retro 50's look of everything. And I actually like the food there too!

The entire group minus Jeffrey and myself then headed over to Rock n Roller Coaster. He and I walked around, played some games in the Toy Story arcade, traded some pins and took some fun pictures to pass the time.

By the time we met up with everyone it was hotter than blazes so most of us headed back to the room to relax.

Em and Bri stayed for a little more Rock n Roller Coaster action:

Back at the room the little kids took a bath in the jacuzzi tub, put in too much bubble bath and had bubbles up to the ceiling. But they had a good time. I used at least 5 towels to sop up the bubble overflow.

Jeff relaxing and being silly in the room:

We cooled off for about an hour than headed to EPCOT and caught a ride on Mission Space. Katherine tried the orange side with Alex this time and became an immediate convert. No more wimpy baby side for her! We tried to go on Test Track but the ride broke down so instead of waiting we bailed.

It was about time for our reservations at Tokyo Dining where we would be celebrating Bri's 21st birthday.

Happy Birthday Bri!!

The dinner was superb!

 The little kids got to eat their dinner in dishes shaped like high speed trains.

The wait staff brought out a cake and we all sang Happy Birthday!

We finished just in time to go out on the balcony and watch Illuminations.
Another first for us! I really enjoyed it!

We got back to the room around 10:30 where we watched Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal then fell exhausted into bed.

Day 4 ~~ Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom

By day 4 I had hoped maybe we could actually get an early start morning but apparently some of us don't read the memos:

You've met our son, Mr Pretzel Leg ?

Alex on the other hand is ALWAYS up early, but he goes out to the patio and plays his Nintendo.
Mr Plan-ahead! I like it!

A few shots of all the plants surrounding our balcony:

When everyone was finally up, we headed to Animal Kingdom. It took absolutely forever to get there. There were no AK buses for 45 minutes then 3 of them showed up in a row. Fortunately that doesn't happen very often.

We immediately got some fastpasses for Expedition Everest then walked the Maharajah Jungle Trek. It is so beautiful!

Boy Bats (sorry to point out the obvious. I decline to resign to maturity)

When we were done it was time for lunch so we headed over to the Yak and Yeti for our reservations and took some more pictures while waiting for Em and Bri to get there. They had an even harder time getting started than the rest of us this morning.

Once they arrived we got seated pretty quickly. The food was excellent but the meal took almost 2 hours. Again, this was because our waiter took forever to bring drinks (almost 10 minutes from when he took the order),  then took forever to come back and take our food order (at least another 10 minutes) and then it was another 20 minutes until the food arrived. After he brought the check it took 10 minutes for him to come back and pick it up then another 10 minutes to bring back the credit card. Slow and forgetful wait staff seems to be a running theme this trip. At least we were enjoying each others company so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.


We walked over to EE when we were done and my stomach was in knots all over again anticipating the ride, even though I knew what to expect. We got in the fastpass lane and 2 minutes later the ride broke down and that was that. Secret happy dance for me!

We went into the store there where Katherine bought a cute round stuffed Yeti. As we were gathering up our stuff by the stroller Erin noticed we were missing Jeffrey. (Yes his sister noticed, not his mother). I hurried back into the store but couldn't find him. After a few frantic minutes he turned up outside with a cast member who said he was very matter of fact about the whole thing telling her he was lost and he knew to ask a cast member and could she help him find us. I was relieved because I was afraid that he might have ended up getting caught up in the crowd and people surfing in one direction or another to the other side of the park.

We headed back to the room because it was beyond hot, as the cool morning clouds had cleared and the sun had come out in all its fury.

We only spent about an hour cooling down before we turned around and made our way to the Magic Kingdom for the first time this trip.

We rode lots of rides including Buzz Lightyear, Carousel of Progress and People Mover before we stopped to eat at Cosmic Rays. Then onto Philharmagic, Small World and Haunted Mansion (where we all agreed it was much spookier when you ride it at night).

We then found a perfect spot to watch the fireworks. The show was fantastic!
There is nothing like a Disney fireworks show!!

We waited for the crowd to clear  then went on Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Big Thunder Mountain (extra good at night), Autopia and Winnie the Pooh.

We tried to get on Space Mountain but it was going on 1 AM and the line was almost an hour.

Heading down main street:

Off to the resort and off to bed!

Day 5 ~~ EPCOT

Today we went back to EPCOT because had scored reservations at Le Cellier for lunch.

The Canadian grounds are just beautiful.

It's raining in this picture:

While we waited to be seated, the kids started to make a mask so they could get it stamped at each country around the World Showcase. Unfortunately, when it rained after lunch the masks got soaked.

We didn't have to wait very long and as we expected, the food was absolutely wonderful!
I of course had a steak and cheddar cheese soup.

The kids each got a chocolate moose for dessert.

We stopped for a group shot after lunch while it wasn't raining:

When we were done we headed over to Station Cool where you can get samples of free drinks from around the world.

Hmmmm, which one should Bri try?

That one Bri... "Beverly"..... I think you'll like it!

 OH well, maybe not!!

After Bri told said she would never trust us again, we headed into the museum tucked inside one of the pavilions that had vintage EPCOT memoribilia in it.  I love it!

Then we headed out to walk the countries, stopping into Mexico first to ride the ride and see the gorgeous handmade animals.

The ride pictures came out blurry but I added them anyway:

Off to Norway where we took usual picture of everyone under the troll. The little kids insisted on wearing hats:

Next up: Japan. I can taste the yummy candy now!

We watched Miyuki make caramel animals. This is a dragon that didn't photograph clearly:

We watched the Taiko drummers. Another highlight of our trips!

Then we went up into the gardens

and checked out the Koi fish who wanted us to feed them

And then we got our first Kaki-gori of the trip.
Shaved Ice! YUM YUM.
I always get melon and the kids get rainbow.
Jeff likes Cherry.

Then we took a walk through the tin toy exhibit.
I didn't know it at the time but this was the last time I would be able to see this.
It's been there for about 5 years and this was the last year before all the toys went back to Japan.
If I had a lot of money I would seriously consider collecting these because I JUST love the them, especially the robots.
I have a ton of other pictures from previous trips fortunately.

ACK! Blurry pic again!
These are pictures of the boxes that the toys originally came in.

The Fastpasses we had gotten earlier for Test Track were good so we headed over there and took a silly picture.

Of course after that thrilling ride, everyone wants to drive their own car.

It started raining again, this time pretty hard so we headed back to the room to stay dry and watch more Olympics before hitting the sack.