Mic & Family - August 2007

Who: 3/5 of the Anderson family, Mic, Sean (12) and Sarah (9)
When: August 2007
Trip: Cocoa Beach and Kennedy Space Center, 5 nights at Disney, followed by a 7 night Magic for Less group cruise out of Miami, and then 3 nights of free dining at Disney.

DAY 17:
Today's report: Back to Disney

Today is our Epcot Day as we do not have park hoppers on the kids tickets, and we had the Grand Gathering International Dinner booked with some friends tonight. I gave the kids the option of getting up at opening, or waiting til after lunch. They were tired so we slept in, and then headed to meet our friends for lunch at the Concourse Steakhouse. I had never eaten there and wanted to before it was closed down. We met up with our friends (Pam, Steve, Hanna, Pam’s mom, Deb, and Jill) and had a great lunch, it was delicious. I wish I had discovered this place sooner.

After lunch the kids and I (I inherited one at lunch) took the monorail to Epcot and Pam & Steve drove. Jill and Deb has plans for the afternoon but would meet up with us later for the dinner. As the kids and I are walking up to the gate, I pulled out my cel phone to see where we should meet up, but they had beaten us. Hmmmm. Oh well, I would still ride the monorail, love that view coming into Epcot.

We had 1 day tickets onto our package, so I stopped by the guest services window before entering the park and upgraded DD’s ticket to a 3 day, and DS to a 2 day. He then used my 1 day, along with his 2 day, as I had some days left on my old ticket to use.

Spaceship Earth was closed off and partially under construction. Someone in the Adventurer’s Club had told me the walk through part was open, but we didn’t check. It’s a bit fuzzy as I waited too long to do a trip report (Sorry Jud!) but I know the kids rode Mission Space while the adults played. After the kids came off we all played the game in there, although quite simple I still enjoy it ! I think we might have pulled fast passes for Soaring and rode that, then the kids wanted to kick around in Innoventions for a bit.

After hitting Ice Station Cool and tricking a few (poor innocent) people into trying Beverly (I must be very convincing), we headed for the World Showcase. Did I mention it was REALLY hot out ? Well it was. So we went from air conditioned building to air conditioned building, stopping for long breaks at each one. We rode the boat ride in Mexico. We got ahold of Linda, Mike and their family and agreed to meet them in China. Why ? Cuz there’s a BIG air conditioned room to sit in. tee hee. Of course use adults are all busy visiting and were shushed several times during a presentation (not sure what it was about). We did visit the exhibit, and spent some time browsing in the store. When we came out Mushu was there so my kids posed for a picture with him. Poor DS was looking a little downtrodden by this point as all the other kids were girls, and were off on a girl power kick. He was feeling a bit left out.

We made it to Germany where we ducked in for a pretzel and a beer, then plodded on to America, where we promised the kids ice cream. We headed into the counter service place and WHAT ? No ice cream, so we had to head outside to get some and hurry back inside before it melted. Linda had put her parents on the boat back in Germany and they were going to find someplace cool to sit until our dinner later that night. We browsed through the stores in Italy, stopping for a glass of the pink champagne. Soon it was time to head to our dinner, and time to say good bye to Pam, Steve and Hanna as they were heading back to their resort and not joining us that night. We discussed perhaps getting together to swim after the dinner and said we would call them.

The International Dinner can only be booked as part of a Grand Gathering, and if you are using dining plan credits it costs 2 table service credits. It is held in the Odessy Building in Epcot, which is the building off to your left as you are walking towards the World Showcase, it’s the same building that First Aide is located in. We went and got checked in once our entire group was there. It was Linda, Mike, their girls, Linda’s parents, Jill, Deb, and me and the kids. We were seated at a large round table that had a lazy Susan in the middle with salads, breads and such to get us started. When it was our turn to go up to the buffet we headed up. There was an area with Mexican foods, Italian Foods, Asian Foods, and a kids buffet of course. I had trouble deciding what I wanted as it all looked and smelled good, but I was still suffering from a bit of a food hangover from the cruise. I made my choices and took small portions and headed back. After eating, the characters showed up. Goofy and Minnie were there to kick off the party ! There was a dance party and they had the kids out there doing the Conga line and such. Across from us was 3 tables with matching shirts, they had all come for an anniversary celebration, looked like the grandparents, all their kids, and their kids families and kids. They were having SUCH a good time together, it really made me happy that Disney offer’s the Grand Gathering extras for groups. There was posing for pictures after this and then we were all sent to our Illuminations Desert Buffet. You never know ahead of time where you will be, there is another area near the UK I believe that they use. Our area was a bit closer though, it was behind one of the gift shops right as you enter the World Showcase. It was a bit crowded and standing only. For some reason I was picturing tables to sit at, oh yes because that’s what we had when I went for the College of Disney Knowledge Training. All in all it was a good view though and the deserts were delicious.

We headed back to Pop Century and made plans to meet the Stockwells down at the pool. The Forresters had called and Hanna had crashed on their way back to the resort and was down for the count, so they would not be heading over to join us. We went into 1 of 3 pools at Pop and it was quite large and very refreshing. I told DS to grab his key when we headed down since he has a pocket in his swimsuit. Well DD had to go to the bathroom so she grabbed DS key as you needed it to get into the bathroom apparently. Ummm, hmmm, guess what, it was our CABIN KEY from Freedom of the Seas. UGH. We ended up going to Stockwell’s room to call and they had to send someone up to let us in. Took about 20 minutes for them to get up there, but we were just happy to be in our room and crash for the night.

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