After our morning at Animal Kingdom and went straight down for naps. I had an awesome nap and woke up with plenty of time to leisurely get ready for the afternoon. It was wonderful! We didn’t get sweaty or anything that morning but I wanted us to wear different outfits for each park (duh!) so I got ready while the kids were still napping. HELLO LEO! I loved how pregnant this dress made me look!
When we first took Kye to Disney we did not visit Epcot. I always said I didn’t see why people loved Epcot. The main thing I always heard about it was the food and drinking and that’s just not something we have been interested in. THEN we started park hopping with Kye and realized we love Epcot. It’s actually our 2nd favorite park behind Magic Kingdom! So this trip Epcot was a “must do” for us. Mrs. Charlotte had either never been or hadn’t been in a long time so it was good for her to get to go too and honestly I wish we had a full day to devote to it. Zach and I were just talking about how we’d like to have more time for both Animal Kingdom and Epcot!
Illuminations is Zach’s favorite fireworks show so we decided early on to go to Epcot to get to see that show. It just worked out where we were actually able to do Epcot the day after we did the Magic Kingdom fireworks. So, yes, that meant TWO late nights in a row for our kids! Cool mom or whhhhhat?!? We went to Epcot as soon as the kids woke up and had a great afternoon and evening there!
For our Epcot clothes I just kinda put together random stuff. Mrs. Charlotte had bought Britt the Minnie shirt and I knew it’d be chilly that night so I thought it’d be a good time to wear it and we went to Target the week prior to our trip and happened to see the random Mickey shirt for Kye. You can’t ever go wrong with red and black at Disney, right? And I wasn’t really sure what would be an appropriate “Epcot theme” for outfits?
I LOVE these of G-mama with the kids!!!
First Stop: Spaceship Earth!
We have ALWAYS gone to Epcot in the afternoon and have never had any type of wait for anything. We have been three times now and still have yet to check out the different countries haha. We just hit the main rides and eat and watch the fireworks 🙂 I knew Britt would LOVE Nemo so we rode that but then did have a decent bit to wait for Turtle Talk with Crush. Thankfully they have a lot of fun tanks to look at while we waited!
Bless his heart…Kye had his hand raised the ENTIRE time wanting to talk to Crush but he never got called on. Like he had that hand in the air even when they weren’t taking any questions hahahaha. He said it was tired after! Last time we did it Kye was the center of Crush’s attention, remember? So I’m glad he didn’t get upset about the lack of attention on him this time! We got spoiled the first time for sure!
Since we had more time at Epcot than we’ve ever had before (we got there at 4!) I wanted to check out some new things. Each time we go to Epcot we try to do a few new things so we can experience the whole park at some point 😉 I read that The Circle of Life featured Simba and since we didn’t get to see The Lion King show at Animal Kingdom I thought it’d be a good chance for Britt to see her favorites from the movie. Y’all. DO NOT go to Circle of Life! It is just a movie. And even worse it’s a super mega liberal movie. If you’re a longtime reader then you know my feelings about The Lorax. This movie was the same. Zach was squirming in his seat. Plus it’s not even a good movie. Like The Lorax at least had a plot and some cuteness to it…this thing didn’t even really make logical sense. Def skipping it from now on!
While in The Land area we did also do Living with the Land. It got fabulous reviews and was a neat ride. Kye has actually brought both of these experiences up to us since leaving our trip and I think they made an impact on him. He said he wants to ride “the plant ride” next time we go. It wasn’t the most exciting thing ever…but it was a ride and it was cool to see all the things they grow at Epcot!
Ever since going to Epcot and eating the Mexican food there I have been wanting it! However, it was a pretty decent walk from where we were and at that point we didn’t want to spend the time walking that far away when our next ride plan was nearby to where we were. So we ate at the Electric Umbrella. And made sure to fill Mrs. Charlotte in on Zach’s almost fist fight there haha!
Britt LOVES to help. I know I usually brag on Kye for having his servant heart but Britt is following in those footsteps as well. She takes pride in helping others and enjoyed helping get us everything we needed for our dinner! Again, we ate in the room for breakfast and lunch so we splurged on dinner and ate out. The kids split a meal and each adult got their own. I got a chicken salad and didn’t like it. Boo. I had some RANDOM eye issue?!?! Sometimes I have that happen where one eye will look clouded and like I’m swimming under water with my eyes open. Thanks Lasik. I tried going to the bathroom and washing it out but nothing worked and I was pretty miserable and started getting a headache from it. Thankfully it eventually fixed itself!
Britt was being SO adorable and silly and several people stopped us to talk to her and commented on how adorable she was being (which was an ongoing theme our ENTIRE trip!) 🙂 The boys ate quick and then headed over to ride Test Track. When Kye and I watched youtube videos of the rides I knew he’d LOVE Test Track so it was on our “must do” list. Britt, Mrs. Charlotte and I took our time finishing eating and spent some girl time together. Britt LOVES “girl time.” It doesn’t matter what we are doing, if we call it “girl time” she’s crunk 😉 We were waiting on Mrs. Charlotte in the bathroom and Britt kept singing “G-Mama, G-Mama” and doing this little dance…I took a video 🙂
Once we finished up eating we saw the fountain nearby and thought we’d go check it out. On the way we passed by the light up tiles and Britt was fascinated. I hate that I’m not skilled enough with my camera to know how to take good pictures at night. In case you were wondering about the camera skills for this trip…I didn’t use any of them haha. I kept the 18-200 lens on the camera the whole time so I would be able to zoom in as well as see things close up. And I kept it in “auto no flash” the whole time as well. It’s the easiest setting to still get good quality images but without having to think about it. I don’t regret that decision as with two kids there was NO WAY I’d be able to handle switching out lenses and messing with settings. I think my pictures this trip turned out pretty awesome so I have no regrets 🙂 Maybe by next visit I will be more confident in my manual abilities! But at night I busted out my phone and used it for pics b/c it tends to do better than the camera for night shots (at least in the auto setting on the camera). These are still terrible quality but I wanted to remember the moment. Seeing Britt playing so happily with her G-Mama was special to me 🙂 We are SO blessed to have Mrs. Charlotte. I’m so thankful for the bond she has with our children and that Zach and I are so close to her as well 🙂
Britt loved watching the fountain changing colors and heights!
I love that Zach also busted out his phone for some pics on the ride!!!
The car they created 🙂
We had told the boys to meet us at Nemo. I figured we’d just go back there since it was nearby and we could check out the exhibits and stuff there. They have a good bit of sea animals and such and I figured it’d be a good way to eat up some time while we waited and would be something Britt would enjoy. First we had to stop and get some pics with Nemo of course! Girl time always means pics!!!
Fish Face Perfection!
We ended up riding the Nemo ride and it took us a bit longer than we thought it would because Britt had to go potty right when it was our turn 🙂 We know all kinds of secret ways to get to bathrooms now haha. We got done riding and started to check out the aquarium area when the guys called and said they were leaving the ride. We met them out front of Nemo and seeing their reactions to Test Track was probably one of my favorite moments of the day! They were SO PUMPED! BOTH of them 🙂 They came racing up to us all excited with huge grins on their faces. It was adorable and I’m so glad they loved it so much!!!
While we had been waiting on the guys we walked by a Character Greet Spot and there was no wait. I asked the cast member at the door who the characters were and she said Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do to have Britt meet them without Zach there. I knew he’d want to see that moment! So we didn’t do it. Well…once we met back up with the guys we walked back by that area and had some time to kill so when I noticed it was again a short wait I mentioned it and Zach said “let’s do it!” I asked the cast member what the characters were dressed like because I really didn’t have any interest in waiting in line to see Mickey dressed up in some way, ya know? But she said they were the CLASSIC CHARACTERS!!!
Now y’all know I love me some Chef Mickey. It’s awesome. However, I hate that allll we ever get to see is Mickey and gang dressed in Chef attire. I love the classic characters yet we’ve never done any meet and greets in the parks b/c we don’t want to spend precious park time in line. There was a 15 min wait so we hit up the bathroom and when we got finished there was NO wait! It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly and I was so, so, SO pumped.
Cuddling while waiting 🙂
THERE HE IS!!!
Britt did SO awesome with the princesses but I still wasn’t too sure how she would do with characters. We had Kye go meet Mickey first because I knew he was excited and it would help Britt do better with them if she saw how much he enjoyed them!
It was seriously a phenomenal experience. I was in heaven 🙂 With NO wait and NO crowds we literally took as long as we wanted with each character and didn’t feel the least bit rushed. I loved getting to sit back and just let the kids interact 🙂
And how PERFECT was it that we just happened to be wearing red and black Mickey gear?!?! I mean was that meant to be or whhhhhat?!?!
Britt was pretty excited standing next to us so when Kye was done we told her she could go and I was SO happy to see that she ran right into Mickey’s arms for a hug!!! First time meeting Mickey!!!
Kye was SO proud to introduce them 🙂
Even a kiss 🙂
Duh. Was there any doubt that THIS would be happening?!?!
My main excitement was for Mickey (of course) and also Minnie! I didn’t really care about Goofy so when we got to his station I suggested to get a big family picture together with him. We all went up to him and Kye said “Wait guys! Can I just get a picture by myself first?” How adorable is that?!?! I love that he loves some picture taking!
Kye talked about this moment for a long time…how Goofy was so silly with him 🙂
I adore this sweet boy 🙂
I think it’s wonderful how the characters get down on their level! Britt raced to Minnie 🙂
Checking out her Minnie Mouse shirt, of course
LOVE!
Mommy had to get in on that Minnie action 😉
Zach always talks about how he loves Disney b/c he loves seeing ME so happy there. Truly, I am the BEST version of myself at Disney. Well that “Best Version of Emily” was even made BETTER with that special character meeting. I was on cloud 9! And the kids were excited too…I think…I mean I was too excited to notice 😉 We still had time before Illuminations so we went over to Mexico to check out the Gran Fiesta Tour. Rachael had mentioned awhile back that it was one of Macy’s favorites and I heard that Donald Duck was on it so, duh, I knew Britt would enjoy it!
I know there are Fastpasses available for Illuminations…but I do NOT know why?!?! Is there a special area the Fast pass people get to sit in or something? Because we have NEVER had a hard time finding a good spot for the show. We got settled and busted out our glowsticks for the evening. Kye, of course, wanted to give some away again too 🙂 He was in such a happy mood and was cracking everyone up around us with his crazy glow stick dancing. The show didn’t even start until 9 and the kids are used to be in bed by 7:15 (Britt) and 7:45 (Kye) so this was late for them! PLUS they had been up late for the fireworks the night prior at Magic Kingdom. I was very, very impressed with how amazing they did and how wonderful their moods were for the whole thing!
During the fireworks show Britt kept saying “one more time fireworks! one more time!” because she didn’t want them to stop! And when they ended she was disappointed. She really did surprise me on this trip with the things she enjoyed. Things I thought might scare her (character meetings, fireworks, etc) didn’t scare her at all! And we fully went into the trip expecting some pretty hardcore meltdowns from her but she did GREAT. Even staying up late. Even when we had some lines. Even when she didn’t get everything she wanted all the time. I was very proud of her and it’s like she truly grew up into a “big girl” that week!
This time Zach DID find himself a treat haha But seriously though, he does love Illumiations!
It was the end of another wonderful day! Both kids were up later than they had ever been up and were so silly on the ride home but went straight to sleep when we got there. We were home around 10:30 which was late, but not as bad as I’d expected since the Illuminations didn’t start until 9! We were ALL wore out from all the fun and were eager for another day of memory making to come!
My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.
You can read more about our family on my About Me page. Also be sure to follow along with me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!
- Effective Parenting Tips to Discipline a 5 Year Old Child - September 24, 2024
- Happy 9th Birthday to My Daughter – Letter to Tess from Mom - August 26, 2024
- The Best Travel High Chair for Baby and Toddler - July 11, 2024
You do have a "Kye" belly! Can't wait until Leo gets here to find out!
We LOVED our day at Epcot. Of course, we enjoyed every park we visited (duh!), but I would say Epcot was our favorite park after MK. Our very first Disney experience during our Disney World vacay was meeting Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto at the Epcot character spot. I couldn't think of a better way to start our vacation than by meeting Mickey!!! And, like you, we liked the classic dressed characters BEST! I'm enjoying reliving our vacation while reading about yours 🙂
What a beautiful family! I havn't visited your blog in several months so it was nice to see all of the pics. I was hoping that when I peeked back in you would have had the baby. Looks like it's getting closer though. Hope you have a wonderful trip to Ireland! 🙂