Epcot Passport details--??

[Local_Girl]

Hi everyone,

I've started making Epcot Passports for my children and have a pretty good idea of how I'd like them to be. They are made out of small 4x6 inch photo albums with the kid's pictures in them. I was planning on a 2-page spread for each country. The problem: I've never seen the inside of the passports sold in WDW so I'm not sure how to do the pages. I understand the CMs stamp the books, but how big are the stamps? Do they use more than one stamp in each country? And how much room do they use to write their "greeting"?

I've also read something about stickers in the passports--? What are these stickers and are they only sold with the passports or can you purchase the same (or similar) Epcot stickers separately?

I'd really appreciate input from anyone who has either done the official passport or made their own...Thanks!!

 

[BethC]

My kids have done the Epcot passports a couple of times. It sounds like you will have plenty of room with a 4x6 book, because the ones they sell are smaller than that (more like a real passport size, maybe slightly larger).

The stamps from each country are quite small, maybe 1"x1", if that. The CM's can sign as much or as little as you like. They will usually just say something like "good day" in their language, but you can ask them to write anything, as long as it will fit (there's only a small line or two for them to sign in the official passport). When it was my daughter's birthday one year, she had them all write Happy Birthday to her in their native languages.

The stickers are pictures from the various countries, and I think maybe the flags too. There's 2-3 stickers per page. I don't believe this is something you'd be able to buy separately, you might just want to draw pictures (or maybe cut out from magazines?) on each page with a landmark, ie Eiffel Tower for france, pyramid for Mexico, etc.

Good luck!

 

[Local_Girl]

Great info! This gives me a good idea of how to do the pages. By the way...I KNOW there's a Kalamazoo, because I've been there!! (We live in Holland)

Thanks again!

 

[Hunnybee]

Hello again, Local Girl! Guess what! We ran into a blueberry farmer from West Olive on the bus to MGM last week -- isn't it a small world! LOL

We just returned from WDW yesterday. We had a ball! My son turned 3 while we were there. We ran into a meltdown while at Spain in the WS (definitely needed the nap) and a rain day the next day, so we didn't get as much accomplished as we would have liked (there's never enough time, is there? ).

I did buy the Passport there for my DS, and I would allow more room for writing than 1 or 2 lines. I have his passport in-hand now and there are 9 lines per country, although some of them are not full lines (1 5/8 inches as opposed to almost 3 inches). It depended on the sticker placement for each country as to how many lines and the size of the lines. And, at a few stops they used the whole thing -- not because of how much they wrote, but the size in which they wrote it.

Unfortunately, we only made it to 5 or 6 countries (don't forget S. Africa and Spain which are add-ons to the passport). Be sure to leave lots of room in the back for other countries -- I'm not sure how many extra there are, since we didn't make it through the whole WS. Their passports have 3 pages in the back that are all totally lined that say Notes: at the top. That's where Dave from South Africa added his stamp/note and Isabela from Spain added hers.

Their passport is 3 3/4 inches by 5 1/2 inches. The country stamps were generally 1 1/2 inch square, but the actual picture inside the box was smaller than that -- 1 inch. They have 5 stickers per country in addition to a large one of each country's flag. I was quite impressed with it for the $9.95 I paid for it -- it even came with an Epcot pin with Mickey and each country's flag(not trading kind -- large like the birthday buttons you get). I thought it was a great value. What fun to make your own though! Your kids will learn a lot before they even go. Why not check out the internet for pictures from each country, as well as pictures of the flags? Do you have a color printer?

Make sure and stop at China -- they will write your child's name in Chinese -- very cool! And they will stamp their passport with a stamp of the year they were born (rabbit, ox, dragon, etc.)

The mask is very neat too. Be sure to do that. At each country, a CM will add something from that country to the child's mask. We picked ours up at the first country we stopped at which was Mexico. There they had a pyramid attached the mask. The mask was plain white posterboard which the child could decorate. They will also stamp the paint stick handle with the country's stamp. If you are going to do the mask, be sure to allow enough time -- my son didn't want to stop coloring.

Have a wonderful time!

 

[Local_Girl]

Great info about the passports--wow, I didn't know about Spain and S. Africa! Maybe I need a new plan--LOL! I had thought the passports were about $12...don't know where I got that figure. Sounds like a better deal for $9.95 for what you get. Anyway, thank you so much for the detailed info. So glad to hear you guys had a wonderful trip!