Disney Day 4

Tuesday 23 Jan 2007

The kids were very excited this day to continue our adventure. Perhaps this is why they were up and at 'em well before 6:00 AM in the morning. While working my way out of a milkshake induced coma and wondering why Shelley had all these children, I manged to contain the kids and their enthusiasm until nearly 7:00. Oma and Opa joined us for a pancake breakfast, then went back to their RV where I assume they went back to sleep.

We saddled up ol' Cart 444 and tooled our way to the bus stop, just in time to catch the Epcot bus. As an aside, on our previous two trips to Disney we were very disappointed by the the transportation service. I don't know if they've made improvements or if we've just been lucky, but on this trip I don't think we've had to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus, boat, or monorail.

Anyway, we went back to Epcot since on our first visit there we'd only managed to see a fraction of what we wanted to. Even though only two days had passed, we returned to Epcot older and wiser, and so this time rented a stroller. This was easily the best $18 we spent on the whole trip (the second best being the $18 we spent on 4 bananas at the Fort Wilderness Trading Post - just kidding, the bananas had some brown spots and could have been a bit sweeter).

We strollered back to Soarin', where Ella was still too short. She and I found a Kidcot Fun Stop while Shelley and Alex went on Soarin'. They had a surprise awaiting them in the queue. This year Disney is doing the Year of a Million Dreams where they award prizes such things as free vacations, a night in Cinderella's castle or a Dream Fast Pass which gets you on all the rides without waiting. Shelley and Alex were lucky enough to win 2 of the million dreams in the form of Dream Mouse Ears. What makes these special is that they cannot be bought, only won. OK, so not as good as a $20K Disney Vacation Club property or a trip to all the Disney parks around the world, but still fun to win.

With our ears donned, it was off to Mission Space for Alex and me while the ladies hit another Kidcot station. Shelley and Alex then rode Test Track (Alex did not mind the speed, but did mind being made hot and cold) while Ella and ate a yummy soft pretzel.

We wheeled our way to World Showcase, blew through Mexico, blew past China and Norway, and landed in Germany. Here we enjoyed lunch at the Bier Garten which consisted of brats and hot dogs and some delicious German beer (Lowenbrau for me and some weis beer for the Frau.)
It was in the German toy store that we then discovered the World Showcase version of the Kidcot Fun Stops. These stations allowed the kinder to create a mask in one country, then collect charms and stamps for it in all the other countries. These masks were brilliant since they gave the kids a reason to keep on going. While they were coloring their masks, I discovered a Spaten and Shelley discovered a Becks Dark, which were also brilliant since they gave us a reason to keep on going.

World Showcase also turned out to be a great place to collect autographs. Some of the best were Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Jasmine, Aladin, Genie, Aurora, Belle, and Pooh. You can see the requisite photos of all these and more at zooomr. I'll share one here just to prove the Duck Brown was actually on this trip:

After seeing all that we wanted to see in Epcot, it was back to Fort Wilderness for a swim. This we did not because it was particularly warm, but because you should not miss a chance to swim outside in January.

Tuesday night dinner was hot dogs and marshmallows at the campfire where we were entertained by some campfire song singing lady, Chip and Dale, and a cartoon. The Fort Wilderness campfire was one of the few things I remembered from 1977, and not much has changed in the last 30 years. This is a good thing, and was a great way to end a (dare I say it?) magical day.

Chip Ahoy Hosted on Zooomr