EPCOT

Tuesday was Magic Hours day at Epcot, so we headed there a little after the opening at 8. One thing I learned about the Magic Hours is that not everything is open that early, so you may just wander around for a while figuring out what is open.

We went into Spaceship Earth first. It took some time to convince Lily that it wasn’t going to be fast or scary. They enjoyed the trip through time and were able to place some of the historical scenes with what they’ve read about in the Magic Treehouse books.

After that we went over to the Energy exhibit with the dinosaurs. Again, Lily was scared. But the girls somehow survived the 45-minute presentation with minimal complaining. Then, what to do next? We schlepped the girls over to see the Living Seas – or where they have Nemo now. The girls enjoyed that ride and the “Talk with Crush” presentation afterwards. Then we hoofed it to the Imagination pavilion for the Figment ride and activities. Eric and I were very disappointed to see that there weren’t as many activities after the ride as there used to be when we were kids. It looks like part of the building had been replaced by the CaptainEO movie or something.

So, we dragged the kids to the World Showcase just long enough to have Fish and Chips for lunch in the “UK” and have a picture taken with Alice. So, we’d been there almost 5 hours and only had managed to do 5 different things. We knew we’d be back later, so we just headed back to the hotel.

It had warmed up from earlier in the week, so we took the girls over to the resort theme pool. They LOVED it. They must have played on the kiddie pirate ship by themselves for an hour. I was worried they’d not like getting splashed, but they actually ran into the water every time the large barrel emptied on them.

I brought their floatie suits, so in the big pool they could go down the real water slides, and Madeleine quickly wanted to do nothing else.

After a short nap, we headed back to Epcot for dinner in “Mexico” at the San Angel Inn. One of my favorite places to eat in the world, they girls enjoyed it as well. Madeleine had her fill of tortilla chips, and Lily scarfed down the chicken tacos despite being worried the fake volcano on the wall might erupt at any moment.

Then we headed out to walk the World Showcase. Between the Food & Wine Festival crowd and those wanting to see Hanson, it was pretty crowded. The girls found it pretty boring overall, but enjoyed the belly dancing in Morocco and coloring their Duffy bear in France. We parked for the Illuminations fireworks over in Canada, grabbed some popcorn and a beer, and watched the show.