Disney Day 4 - Epcot (part 2)

Each country in World Showcase has either a band or character meet and greet (the characters are in their home countries...Mary Poppins in the UK, Mulan in China, Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco, etc) or some other sort of special entertainment.  But most of the entertainment is only there at specific times, so on the bus ride back to Epcot, I was examining the Times Guide that I had picked up that morning.  (Each park has a park map and times guide right at the entrance, so I would definitely pick them up right when you walk in to help with making the most of your time.  Or if you want to be a real over-achiever, you can go to www.easywdw.com before your trip.  He publishes scanned copies of times guides from every park each week.) 

We decided to walk through Canada and go to the UK to meet Mary Poppins right when we got there.  World Showcase was my favorite place to meet characters because the lines weren't bad at all, and I thought it was so fun that they were in their "home" country.  When we were standing in the (short) line to meet Mary Poppins, Hunter said, "Is she going to be mean to me?" in this timid, scared little voice.  The man in front of us joined along with James and I and had a little laugh at that.  I assured him that she wouldn't be mean to him, and he responded with "But she was mean to the kids in the movie!" So we had a little lesson on stern vs mean...but thinking back, I totally thought Mary Poppins was mean to the kids in the movie, too when I was that age.

She wasn't mean to them at all, though...or even stern really.  But she was one of the best characters that we met in terms of acting the most like the real character...

Then we headed back to Canada to listen to the Celtic rock band, Off Kilter.  The kids had SO. MUCH. FUN. dancing around to them. We had tons of onlookers laughing and making comments about how our kids rocked it at dancing.  Yeah they do! 

Then we headed back through the UK and into France to meet some characters.  Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Beast and Marie from The Aristocats are all in France.  I was totally bummed that we missed Beast:(  But we were able to line up and meet Marie...just barely.  They closed the line right after us...

Since we'd already met Sleeping Beauty we walked on to Morocco and jammed out some more with Mo'Rockin.  Charlotte wanted to meet Jasmine and Aladdin so James and Hunter stayed with the band while Char and I headed over to their line, but sadly it was closed.  We made sure to make note of their next appearance so we could come back to meet them, and then went back to meet James and H.

By then it was time to go line up in France for Belle and Beast, so Char and I went to do that while James and Hunter went to get a crepe around the corner.  Unfortunately when we got to the line, we found out that Beast wasn't coming back today, but Char was happy to see just Belle.  And she was in a different dress than she had been in that morning...

All of the princesses gave Charlotte hugs before we left, but I had always turned my camera off and didn't get a picture.  This time I remembered to keep it on...

Then the four of us enjoyed our crepe and headed through Morocco and into Japan where we got to meet Miyuki the candy making lady! I had read that she would pass out the candy for free after she was done sculpting, but it turns out that since she handles it with her bare hands, she doesn't do that. Hopefully that will save you from the mistake that I made in telling Hunter he was getting free candy. Luckily, he handled it really well...I think the fact that we had just finished a crepe helped a little, too.

Anyway.   Miyuki makes animals out of the candy, and it is really amazing to watch. If you click on this link, you can kind of see one of the animals she is sculpting.

Charlotte and I had to leave in the middle of her little show to go line up for Jasmine and Aladdin, so we headed back to Morocco.  Hunter and James made it back to us just in time...

Aladdin and Jasmine made our kids feel really special.  They spent a good amount of time with them, and I think the kids really enjoyed it!

The kids were getting a little antsy, so we left Morocco and just walked through Japan, America, Italy, Germany (where we saw Snow White and Dopey and Charlotte begged to stay and meet them...but we didn't because we had already promised Hunter a ride), China and into Norway to ride Maelstrom.  After we walked all the way down through the queue, I got a little nervous that this ride would freak the kids out, but they did well...

There are freaky troll creatures and one semi-steep (for small children) drop in this boat ride...are you noticing a theme with the boat rides?  Disney loves them!

Then we headed to Mexico to ride Gran Fiesta Tour (which is okay, but nothing special...another boat ride, but it has Donald, which is fun for the kids)

We still hadn't eaten dinner and it was after 8 pm, so we walked all the way back through Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, the USA, Japan, Morocco, France and the UK looking for a counter service place to grab some food.  We finally found a fish and chips stand in the UK and grabbed some dinner.  We got a spot on the bridge between the UK and France to watch Illuminations and ate our dinner.  

I loved walking around World Showcase. There was sooooo much more we could have done in all of the countries, but I don't think our kids have the stamina for it. I think maybe when they get older we can do more there. I also think that would be a great date night, to just walk through the countries. So, maybe James will fly me to Orlando for a date night in World Showcase...hint, hint;)

We didn't have to wait that long at all after eating for Illuminations: Reflections of the Earth to start.  I thought it was a really cool show, but it was kind of long.  Here's a short video that doesn't do it justice at all...

It was CRAZY trying to leave Epcot.  Since we were towards the back of World Showcase, we had to fight major crowds to get out of the park...and there were these South American cheerleaders chanting so loud the entire walk out to the bus.  It definitely made for an interesting exit!

We were really sad that night because we knew the next day would be our last:(  But definitely thankful for all of the fun memories we'd made!

Favorites of the day:

James - Soarin'
Carole - walking through World Showcase - I just loved this so much, I couldn't pick one thing!
Hunter - dancing to Off Kilter
Charlotte - princess processional at Akershus...specifically the one with sleeping beauty because she was in front:)