Jo-Ann - October 2003

Ah! Epcot! October 18th...the first Day of the F&WF!

The weather is perfect! no jacket needed or anything. Just t-shirt and capris for me, jeans for the boys and a dress for the girl!

We arrived at 8:30 and the parks were open and ready to accept us. DH exchanges his AP voucher for the real thing! He got a Minnie Mouse One!

First thing we do is rent a stroller and RUN straight for Mission Space! Do not pass GO Do not ride Spaceship Earth! I run to Fast Pass and get 3 for return time 11:30-12:30!

We then did Universe of Energy and Ice Station Cool. Then we needed to charge our digital camera and found an outlet near the lockers toward the entrance near Spaceship Earth.

We then ride Mission Space! What a ride! They gave us at least 3 chances to chicken out! I was so excited! Then they take us to our space ship cocpit, tell us to pull our safety bar down and prepare for take off. I pull the bar over my head, check my sons bar and look forward to the screen...UH...OH!! WHAT AM I DOING HERE! ***I WANT TO CHICKEN OUT NOW, CAN I CHANGE MY MIND...HELLO...CAST MEMBER!!***

Okay, its too late, I am off to MARS! What a great ride! A little intense. For a minute I was trying to imagine if I lost my lunch where would it end up, **not a pretty picture** so I tried to focus on my MISSION instead!

Hyper Sleep was a real life saver! It comes at just the right time to save you.

The 2 little ones who couldnt ride MS were treated to a nice play area right at the exit of the ride where you go for child swap. Very cool. My 4 year old was pretty bummed about not being tall enough he was crying when me and the oldest boy went off for our mission. I was quite relieved to find him playing and laughing in the tunnels! :)

Then we met my parents and neice in front of SE and rode it finally.

Next off to the F&WF! We went counter clockwise for some reason, just to do it differently.

We sampled Mexico, Australia, Poland and Germany for food and lots of other countries for drink.

****WARNING****TO PARENTS OF SMALL CHILDREN: Somewhere next the Australia pavillion my 4 year old boy got into some SAWGRASS PLANT and got 4 deep cuts in his fingers. So if you have flower pickers in your group, be careful there. Luckily, having 3 children and 4 with us that day, we were prepared for stuff like bodily injury ;-).

We made it around to FRANCE by dinner time and decided to eat at Chefs De France. They took 8 of us with just a 15 minute wait.

We had a 1 1/2 hour dinner. It really took forever to come. Not too happy about that. the kids were trying to climb out the window to leave, that was a hoot! My DH had Escargo, and a fish dinner, I had Lobster Bisque and a Roqufort salad...both really good. We ordered a Macaroni dish with cheese for 2 of the children and really didnt expect what we got, It was good, just not what we expected...The chicken strips with pasta was a hit though.

Then they surprised me with a HAPPY BIRTHDAY song in French along with a chocolate and carmel mouse type of cake (sorry, I dont have a clue what it was called) but it was really good. It was delicious and very very rich, I shared it with 4 kids and we had a hard time eating it all!!!

Then the fireworks started! We really had a great seat right where we were for the fireworks, but not the water so we went out to get a better spot.

Epcot wasnt very crowded so we found a good spot easily. We enjoyed a perfect ending to a perfect day!!

Day two and it is off to MK we go...well...not so fast. We slept in, ate breakfast at the hotel buffet and meander over to MK to arrive on MainStreet USA at Noon! Yikes! That gives us 6 hours to see all that we want to see!

No Problem!

1)We go over to Fantasy Land and get our FP for Pooh.
2)Ride Its a Small World (Hey, has anyone noticed the changes!!!!) Very NICE
3)Next, we are off to wait in line for Peter Pan (DH didnt want to hear my strategy to not have to wait 40 minutes, so whatever...we wait)
4)Our POOH FP window openes up, we get another FP for Philharmagic and ride Pooh!
6)No wait for CINDERELLAS GOLDEN CAROUSEL so we do that, stop to see the Sword in the Stone show and try to pull it out
5)Our Philharmagic window opens up, and we ride that! This is the BEST 3-D or ***actually 4-D*** show I have EVER seen! We sat in the center in the second row. Perfect spot in my opinion, I could not have been more pleased and surprised by this show! ***TERRIFIC!!!*** ***MUST SEE!!!***

6)Then off to the HAUNTED MANSION, no wait!
7)Over to Adventure Land we see the the Dole ice cream stand and we get the legendary Dole Pineapple whip! Delicious! DH got a huge Turkey Leg! Kids got Fries at the Mc Donalds stand (all in the same general vicinity not just one stop...3 stops.)
8)TIKKI tikki tikki tikki tikki room! We sat in front next to Iago (sp) and got a nice feathery surprise :oD
9)Off to the PIRATES ride again with NO WAIT!
10)hop on over to Tomorrow land, get a FP for BUZZ,
11) Ride the race cars
12) Ride Buzz! DD age 2 got the high score! 101,500!!!!!! She scored 100,000 points in just one hit!!!!! Great shot hunny!! ;-) Also, I love the new photo opportunity! Very cool!
13) Then we buy Buzz Souviners at the Buzz stand ( I got away with only spending 23.00 total!
14) TIME KEEPER was about to start, no wait!

And that is all!! we were in our car around 6:30!

I can not beleive how much we were able to do in such a short amount of time! :)

That was just too perfect of a Birthday! Everyone was wishing me a Happy Birthday all day, perfect weather and low crowds! Yippee!! If every day at MK could be like that, what a wonderful World it would be :-)))

Thanks for reading!