Three kids ages 2-12, two late night After Hours events, and no Genie+ for us-how will this go?!?

[Bama Mom]

Sounds like a great trip so far! So glad your DD felt better the next day. I always seem to get sick at the end of vacations but on our last trip it was hubby who had an off day.

 

[Cherrychip]

Sounds like a great trip so far! So glad your DD felt better the next day. I always seem to get sick at the end of vacations but on our last trip it was hubby who had an off day.

Yes we were very lucky she felt better and no one else got sick! We’ve mostly been fortunate to avoid illnesses when we travel in general which honestly surprises me! I did get super sick on our first trip we finally took after DS was born- we didn’t travel until he was over 1 and we attempted a long weekend about 4 hours from home-I spent a day of it in bed at the hotel while DH tried to keep the kids from going stir crazy

 

[Cherrychip]

Ok, finally back to add to my report and trying to remember where I left off! I believe we will were hurrying around the World trying to see as much as possible before we had to leave for the evening. We arrrived at the America pavilion a bit after 5 and I wanted to get supper at the Regal Eagle so I ordered a brisket sandwich and Mac n cheese while DH took the girls to get hot dogs at the stand outside. The Mac n cheese was especially good!


After a quick meal, we continued on. We took some pictures of the lake with Spaceship Earth in the background

as well as some more pictures with the Snow White and 7 dwarves topiaries:




I also stopped at one of the food booths and got a cheese pastry- I gave a bite to DH and handed a generous bite to DD 12 who wanted to taste it and she dropped most of her bite on the ground then exclaimed upon tasting the remaining bit “this has cream cheese?!?” She doesn’t like cream cheese, so that lovely bit I shared was wasted alas lol!

 

[Cherrychip]

When we made it around to Norway, I made one last snack stop and grabbed this yummy treat, which I don’t recall the name of, but I think all of us liked this one:





We didn’t have time to ride the boat ride in Mexico which I was a little sad about as DS would have liked it, but hopefully next time!

We detoured back toward the Gaurdians ride as DH wanted to take a picture of the outside area and we hadn’t taken one earlier. It’s kind of a tradition at Epcot for him to decide he wants a picture of somewhere we were earlier and for us to go back to take it lol! But first he took some pictures outside Test Track even though we didn’t ride it this trip:




The light show was starting on Spaceship Earth as we walked by, so pretty!



We took some final pictures by the topiaries near the entrance on our way out:


I love the butterflies and always look for them when we go to Epcotso I can get a picture with them!


I really liked the Encanto display and should have taken a picture when we arrived and the light was better, but it was pretty crowded in the morning so we left it for later!

The girls and I were all a bit sad to leave early and miss the fireworks show but this evening was going to be the only good time in our schedule to swim at the French Quarter pool and DH really wanted to attend at least part of his online class, so we headed back to the resort.

Overall thoughts: I could have used an additional full day at Epcot on our trip but I didn’t feel like Genie+ would have helped us much- we didn’t need it for most of the things we were doing based on the crowds that day. The biggest time issues were related to toddler logistics and the overall size of the park-there is too much to do in one day IMO if one wants to ride most of the rides and also somewhat leisurely browse all of the pavilions and snack around the World and I always want to do it all! We had originally had a lunch reservation at Space 220 but we ended up canceling a couple days before as I realized it would take too much time out of our day and I think that was the right call for us.

 

[Cherrychip]

Trying to finish up our Epcot day quickly here lol! It was dark and cool out when we got back to the resort and I thought it might be too cold to swim, but the girls were adamant they wanted to go and there wasn’t any way I could keep DS quiet in the room while DH was in class so we got changed and walked over to the pool, which I realized thankfully was heated, so you were fine until you had to get out lol!

I was going to take DS to the splash pad area but it was a little too splashy for him so I ended up holding him helping him “swim” in the big pool. This was the only picture I took since I couldn’t hold my phone and keep DS afloat!


For a while I had him “ swim” without a life jacket, which I prefer to do with him because he thinks he can swim and I don’t like him to get the false impression that he won’t sink, but I eventually put one on and let him splash around in it for a while until my nerves couldn’t take it any more- he was constantly rolling over and generally doing things that would cause his face to go under water and I was afraid he would swallow too much water and throw up or aspirate the water. And he would get furious every time I lifted him up to make sure he wasn’t choking- so different from how his sisters were when they were little!

I finally got him out and made him dry off, then he happily played with the giant connect 4 game that was in the pool area while his sisters kept swimming a little longer. Play time came to an abrupt end when I discovered he had a poopy diaper and since I hadn’t brought wipes with me, we had to end our pool time and trek back to the room. Fortunately DH had finished by the time we got back so we got cleaned up and jammied. We may have grabbed a pizza at the food court just before it closed or maybe just some treats- I found this evidence on my phone but any other evidence was destroyed without photos lol!