Labor Day Disney Trip: Epcot
Our first Disney day was at Magic Kingdom (you can read the post here!). We wanted to hit up Epcot this trip as it’s the only park I hadn’t yet been to since reopening and it has Zach’s favorite on property restaurant 🙂
A perk about Epcot not opening until 11 am? Plenty of time for a pancake breakfast!
I am OBSESSED with this face ice roller and try to always remember to bring it with me on trips because it’s SO refreshing! My later opening perk was time to roll my face 😉
We did the same routine as we did with Magic Kingdom and arrived a little over an hour before park opening at Epcot. Parking lot didn’t even open until 10:10.
We breezed through security much quicker by just not attempting to remove anything from our bags. The security cast members agreed that with as much stuff as we have with us it’s better to just go through the security, let it beep, and let them check by hand.
Our plan was to utilize getting in the park before opening in order to let the kids ride Test Track. Well. I randomly had this GUT FEELING that we should all do Soarin’ instead. I should have listened to it! Apparently Test Track was not going to open before the park opened so Zach and the big kids had to go allll the way across the park to meet me at Soarin’.
Spear and I had fun killing time letting him run around and play and Cast Members were super sweet watching him and interacting with us 🙂 We also saw a new show “Awesome Planet” but didn’t take the time to watch it.
The kids made it over and we road Soarin’! I thought it was super genius the way Disney set up the partitions for the social distancing on the ride – they used a booster seat! I also love seeing how temporary it all is. It’s a nice reminder that this is not all forever 🙂
After Soarin’ I took all four kids over to Nemo (Zach and Spear rode it while they waited on us so Spear was excited for a second ride!) while Zach went ACROSS the park to get a DAS pass for Frozen.
Spear was so cute and did this fish face without any prompting!
While Turtle Talk with Crush and the playground area are closed, cast members are handing out super cute sticker books with a Dory scavenger hunt to encourage kids to explore the tanks and look for animals. We also stopped and talked to a CM for awhile about some shark facts.
The girls and I had purchased matching masks the day prior and wore them for our Epcot day! Love twinning with my girls 🙂
We had a DAS return time for Frozen and Zach made his way back to us while we made our way to meet him. I love that he took the time to stop and get a photo pass picture 😉
A new Beauty and the Beast Sing Along opened in France and it was on my list of things I’d like to do this visit. We had great luck arriving right as it was about to start. It was funny that we were forced to sit socially distanced from each other!
The show is very cute. It’s actually a different version of the classic story rather than a retelling of it and it made us all want to re-watch the original! The songs are tougher to sing than Frozen ones? But it was still cute and was a nice cool off break.
During our visit it was Food and Wine Festival and there were hidden Remy’s throughout World Showcase which were fun to spot!
We stopped in Japan for a family pic! I like to always try to get ONE photo pass family photo when we visit the parks. I know it seems like an obvious thing to make sure to get, but I often forget about doing it in the rushing of the day!
For lunch we headed to Via Napoli. It’s Zach’s FAVORITE and I was excited to surprise him with the reservation. It is SO GOOD yall!!!
We packed tons of food items for the kids to help keep the pizza cost as low as we could, we decided to get the super big pizza and yall. It ended up costing $60! SIXTY. DOLLARS.
We did do half white sauce and I’m assuming that was some sort of uncharge? The cast member was not super helpful or upfront with the costs involved but we ate EVERY BITE and it was DELICIOUS. It would have been more expensive if we’d eaten elsewhere so we tried to just enjoy it and not stress it! And next time we’ll be more careful when ordering!
While the CM wasn’t super great at being transparent with costs…he was very interesting to talk to. He’s from Italy and said that he never went home during shut down because he’s a resident. Apparently all non-residents were sent home at shut down but Disney is working on reinstating visas and hopes to have them back by Dec. Gives some hope that things may be getting more normal soon!
A showcase of the wait times 30 min after the park opened as well as about 2 hours after park opening.
I have been on a hardcore hunt for a replacement ring for Britt. I got both of the girls a super cute, super simple “hidden mickey” ring last year and Britt has done phenomenal taking care of it and wears it constantly but it’s gotten too small.
We found this replacement ring that works, at least for now. I know the gold will wear off probably as it was a cheaper ring but I’m just glad she has something for now! She was thrilled to find it and it’s a cute princess crown with a hidden mickey too.
On our way to Frozen sweet Daddy went out of the way to let Spear watch the Choo choos. That’s the kinda moment that makes my heart the happiest! I love seeing my kids enjoying the magic at Disney!
Frozen was a 75 minute wait, which is awful or not bad depending on your typical Disney day. We are fast pass people. We are wake up early to get to the park early people. So, to us, these are long wait times when there is NO fast pass option to bypass it!
As yall know Zach has multiple sclerosis. It sucks. PERIOD. We learned a couple of years ago that he qualifies for a DAS pass and it’s one small perk with a super sucky health situation. So we’ll take it!
The line to enter the Mexico Pavilion started where Donald usually has a meet and greet. And this was NOT the line for the Three Caballeros. This was just the line to enter the pavilion! Luckily it was quick moving and then the line to get on Three Caballeros was pretty short. I will say the partitions though in that line made it a TIGHT fit!
Spear was so excited to see that Donald Duck was okay after crashing into the wall during Philarmagic the day prior and he kept saying “Where Mickey Mouse go?”
Zach and the big kids ran ahead to ride Test Track and I took my time with Spear and watched some of the Future of Epcot show which is a GREAT place to hang out if you have a younger one. It’s very high paced and entertaining!
Kye spent part of his “fun money” from chores the day prior on a slushee and wanted to spend the rest on an ice cream.
This brings me to my reasoning that I have NO GUILT about removing masks for photos. THIS picture of Kye is totally and completely allowed. Because he has food in his hand. He’s actively eating and standing still. So he’s allowed to remove his mask. Yet take out the popsicle and suddenly his taking his mask down to smile quickly at the camera is an issue? It’s just really silly.
And yall know. I’m typically a super hardcore rule follower person but this whole mask thing has made me rebellious haha. It’s just TOO extreme in my opinion. Universal is being MUCH more realistic and practical in their guidelines and in the execution of them.
Epcot right now is a hot mess of a park. It’s extremely difficult and frustrating to navigate and it takes FOREVER to walk from one part to another due to all the construction. If you’ve never visited Epcot and are considering a trip, I’d hold off on visiting until it’s all completed.
The health guidelines and masks and social distancing all require a whole lot of patience as it is, throw in construction confusion and it’s just TOO much.
One GOOD thing about Covid? It delayed the closing of Spaceship Earth! We LOVE it and were happy to get to experience it again in it’s original format 🙂 The masks did mess with the pics though! I don’t think their system is designed for cloth face coverings to work with the face scanning.
We got home early enough to do a movie night which we LOVE and we got to show Daddy Onward for the first time. Yall it’s SO GOOD especially for Dad’s. It hit me more emotionally the second time watching it too and he got misty-eyed as well. If you’re looking for a fun movie night activity I have this post about our Onward themed fun!
The kids enjoy the game room at our Disney Rental House and we always make sure to set aside time to do worship services. God comes first – even when traveling 🙂
We planned to go Monday morning to Volcano Bay for the morning before heading home. We all got ready and loaded up and headed to the water park. When we pulled in we realized Kye had forgotten his shoes so we had to come up with a plan and hope he’d be allowed in (our genius idea was have him wear Britt’s shoes and have her ride in the stroller with Spear and have Tess walk).
But then when we got out and realized the MASSIVE amounts of people we decided to call it. So yup, we left and went back to the house and let the kids swim awhile and just got things cleaned up and loaded up to go on home a little earlier. We did a quick stop for some ice cream because ice cream makes things less disappointing right?
It was insane seeing so many people crowded together too. It really showed just how used to “Covid life” we’ve gotten because it was a TON of people which would normally be not a big deal but in today’s world seem crazy! In the video on this post you can see the crowd!
We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and always enjoy our quality time together! A video should auto play in this post 🙂
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