EPCOT

SUNDAY – FEBRUARY 27, 2011 – EPCOT

We didn’t go to EPCOT during our 2009 trip with the boys because didn’t think there would be enough things for kids to do there. Boy, were we wrong! Today we found out the entire front of the park is full of things for the kids from rides to shows and other attractions. We only stayed in the front part of the park and didn’t make it to the World Showcase with all the countries today. We knew we were going back later in the week to see the International Flower and Garden Festival so we didn’t feel rushed. I think this park is where the boy’s favorite rides were. Nathan liked Test Track and Nicholas loved Mission Space and we did both twice during todays visit. We went right to Test Track and got Fast Passes, but decided to go on the ride since the wait was only 25 minutes. The boys loved it! They like the part where you go through the heat test followed by the cold test. You lose your headlights at one point and next thing you know an 18-wheeler is coming at you! Nathan jumped at the sight of that the first and second time. We survived that though and went on to the crash test. That’s where the picture is taken - as you are driving fast towards a wall!

By our third ride (on a different day) we were posing for the picture with our hands in the air or acting like we were scared to crash.

Test Track was the only ride we went on with the Spain family on the entire trip. Fortunately we made dinner (or late lunch) reservations with them every day so our one sit down meal would be with them because other than that we barely saw each other. It was nice to talk about what we each had done in the park that day because sometimes they had done something we hadn’t considered and we had done something they didn’t know about.


We went on Mission: Space second and decided to do the less intense training because it didn’t have spinning. I didn’t want to get motion sickness and I thought the spinning would be bad for Nicholas. This turned out to be a surprise hit. It’s flight training on a mission to Mars. We each had our own position; Pilot, Commander, Engineer or Navigator complete with our own jobs such as putting us into hyper-sleep, extend wings, manual controls, fire rockets for lunar orbit, deploy the shields, 1st stage separation and 2nd stage separation. We got into our training simulator and noticed barf bags, ut oh, that’s not a good sign!

It turns out this ride was a blast because the simulator made you feel like you were launching into space and in an asteroid belt dodging asteroids and landing on Mars. We went on Mission: Space three times.

After you’re done flight training, you go to the Advanced Training Lab with other games you can play related to space. We all enjoyed playing Mission: Space Race where we had to fix problems on our ship and upload them to the control tower. I was surprised at how well the boys did with it. Two teams played against each other, Triton and Orion. We were on Triton the first time and Orion won so each time after that Nicholas wanted to be on team Orion so he could win. Or was it because that’s the name of his super cute cousin? We went to Turtle Talk with Crush and this was hysterical. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures or video. It takes place inside a theater featuring a large "window to the ocean world." Crush swims to the window from his ocean home and begins taking questions and chatting with audience members. Crush came up to the front of his tank and thanked everyone in the human tank for coming. First up was the boy in the front with a “B” on his hat – Nicholas!” Crush asked Nicholas if he had a question and Nicholas replied “I have a joke. Knock Knock.” Crush responded “Who’s there?” Nicholas said “Boo.” Crush said “Boo Who?” Nicholas said “Why are you crying?” It was absolutely hysterical and we were so proud of him for talking in front of a crowd like that. Then Crush asked the next child if they had a question and they told a joke also. Crush kidded that it was comedy hour!

We were late to get to France for our dinner reservation at Les Chefs de France so we were rushing to meet the Spain family, but on our way I saw this groundskeeper drawing Mickey Mouse on the ground with his street broom and water. I’ve heard about this in the past, but had never seen it done so it was really cool to see in person for the first time. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay until he was done, but I did snap a few quick pictures.

After dinner we decided to stay in the World Showcase portion and walk around. We went to Morocco where we found these cool Aladdin type hats that the boys looked adorable in!

 In the America Adventure we welcomed the chance to sit down and watched a show which was pretty cool about the history of our country. Then it was time to prepare for IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. Nicholas really wanted to see the pyramid in Mexico so we kept walking, passing many empty areas with great views of where IllumiNations would be shown. By the time we got to Mexico though everything was filled up so unfortunately our viewing area wasn’t that great. Everyone wanted to be close to the exit after the show was over. It was a very cool show with fireworks, lasers and lights and music and the boys enjoyed it.

On our way out we ran into the Spain’s at the front of the park so we got a couple group pictures including one of us kissing while the boys covered their eyes in the background. It was really difficult to get all the boys smiling at the same time, but it was fun to get some group pictures and an amazing coincidence that we ran into them.

Day two done! Are you having fun yet?