Day 5- Christmas at EPCOT

Christmas morning we slept in. When the kids did finally wake up there were a few presents (under my fabulous tree) from me and Chet since Santa gave them the trip to Disney World.

Yay presents!

Harris smelling his presents to see if can can sniff what it is. He picked this up from Chet who does this as well. :)

We made a total mess!

When we finished unwrapping our presents we got ready for the day and headed out to EPCOT. We spent the whole day there because we had several things that we had reservations for later in the day. We started the day by getting fast passes for Test Track. It was so busy that even tough we were there by 11 our fast passes weren't until 5:30! We had some time to kill so we decided to go over to the VIP area of Mission Space. Mission Space is a space shuttle flight simulation made by HP. Since Chet is an HP employee they have a special room reserved just for them. Well, come to find out it was closed for Christmas. How lame is that! Since it was closed they let us use the fast pass line instead of waiting 75 minutes in the regular line. I was a little worried about this ride because they close you into this tiny little simulator room and then spin you around and stuff. There is also a less intense version, which is the one we did but while we were standing in line someone said that it was like Tower of Terror and I had a mini meltdown. I was freaking a little and the cast member that let us into the simulator actually asked me if I was going to be ok. I did survive the ride but decided once was enough so we moved on to finding characters. :)

The way they do characters at EPCOT is pretty cool. They match the characters to they countries they are from. Like Mulan in China and Donald from The Three Caballeros in Mexico (we missed him unfortunately). There were others but I cant remember who was where. :)

Marie from the Aristocats in France

The Beast and Belle also in France

Liv wants to be Belle one day.

We also saw lots of princesses this trip. They are way more accessible at WDW than at DL. Sleeping Beauty was in France so we stopped to see her as well. She was so cute with Harris. Telling him what a handsome prince he was and asking him if he had slayed any dragons. His answer to the dragon slaying question was that he would find one and punch it in the face! Silly boy.

We finished with the characters in France and headed to explore the rest of the countries in the world showcase. We only made it to Morocco before we realized it was time for our dinner reservations at the Coral Reef Cafe.

Headed into the streets of Morocco

Hanging out in Morocco

 I would have loved to spend more time exploring all the rest of the countries but there is just so many things to do in each country we just didn't have time. Maybe next time. ;) After our visit to Morocco was done we took the ferry back to the other side of EPCOT where the restaurant was.

Enjoying the view while waiting for the ferry.

My adorable family on the ferry.

Our dinner reservations were at the Coral Reef Cafe. I was really excited to eat at this place because it is a restaurant with an aquarium inside. Chet made sure that our seats were right next to the tank! It was so cool!

That turtle sat there the whole time we were eating. The waiter told us that is her favorite spot in the aquarium he also told us that she is 92 years old!

After a wonderful dinner we went next door to the restaurant to The Seas with Nemo and Friends. It's a dark ride. It's really cute. You can't really compare it to the one at Disneyland because they are completely different. For Harris it was less scary. So that was a plus. :) At the end of the ride you exit into The Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion. It was awesome! It was a Disney themed aquarium! We spent quite a bit of time there and had a blast! (Chet and I decided that if we could somehow merge The Georgia Aquarium and Disneyland I would live there.)

They had 2 manatees that they rescued. One of them was hit by a boat propeller and the other beached herself.

 In all of the aquariums that I have been to, and there has been a lot, I hardly ever see anything that I haven't seen before. Leave it to Disney to have several fish that I have never seen!

So pretty!

So creepy! Yes that is a fish and I have so idea what kind.

The tanks were all pretty small but very beautifully done.

The Lion fish tank.

This Rock fish was doing his best at hiding in the coral reef tank.

The eels. You know I had to text Linz a picture of these guys. ;)

One more picture and then it was finally off to Test Track!

The kids being eaten by Bruce.

When it was finally our fastpass time for test track we still had to wait another 30 minutes or so in the fastpass line. It was a really fun ride! Especially when you are going on the track at 65 in an open car. It's a very different feeling from a roller coaster. I wish we could have done it again but the fastpassses were gone for the day and we couldn't wait in line because we had reserved seats for the Candlelight Processional with Edward James Olmos.


I'm not sure why but they take your picture at the end of the ride instead of during the fast part.

To close out the night we had reserved seating for the Candlelight Processional and the firework show IllumiNations. I was really excited for the Processional. The Candlelight Processional is a celebrity reading the Christmas Story with a 50 piece orchestra and a choir. It was amazing! I had tears in my eyes through the whole concert.

Edward James Olmos was intense!

Edward James Olmos and the choir and part of the orchestra

It was kind of weird to feel the spirit at Disney World but it was there. It was an amazing way to end Christmas day, thinking about the real reason of the season. I will never forget it.

After the concert it was starting to get really cold. We were debating whether or not we should stay for the fireworks or call it a night because we didn't have our jackets. It had been 78 degrees during the day so we didn't think it would get that cold. Boy were we wrong! We decided we would stay and just huddle close together to stay warm. When the fireworks finally started the wind had picked up and was blowing the smoke and ash right in our direction. I even had a giant piece of ash fall in my eye and it watered and swelled up! We stuck it out for about 10 minutes and then bailed. It wasn't that great of a show anyways. :)

IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth

Can you see all that smoke?! That's what was blowing in our faces!

Overall we really enjoyed EPCOT and had a Christmas Day that we will never forget!

Day 4 - Christmas Eve at Magic Kingdom

Knowing that Magic Kingdom is Jaime's favorite of the parks, (I knew this would be the case beforehand as Magic Kingdom is the most like Disneyland...) we decided to spend Christmas Eve there.  This was our first day to spend daylight hours in Magic Kingdom and, among other things, we wanted to see some characters that we either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen in a while. (Finding characters and getting a pic/autograph has always been a hobby of ours.)

When it comes to finding new characters to have pictures with, we count characters with new outfits as new.  For example, Pirate Goofy:

We own a Dub Video Dub that includes Disneyland songs including the Country Bears.  Disneyland has long since gotten rid of their Country Bear show but it still exists at Disney World.

This was the absolute craziest thing I have ever seen at a Disney Park. Songs that included lyrics like; "blood on the saddle, blood all around and a great big puddle of blood on the ground", "all the guys that turn me on turn me down" etc. was just plain weird...but fun.  Harris loved it and made us go see it again later on in the trip.

After this we saw the Disney World version of the Tiki Room. Here it is a little different in that Iago and Zazu (from Aladdin and Lion King) had taken over and revamped the show.  It was fun to see it a little more updated.

Zazu

Iago

At this point we headed over to Toon Town to check it out. They had a cool Character Spot that had a place for the Disney Princesses. Now, Jaime loves the Disney Princesses but Olivia feels that she is now way too mature for such things :).  As such, we haven't stood in line to see them for years so we decided to overrule Liv and give it a go.

So, I was in charge of photography and Jaime informed me that I had taken an inordinate amount of pictures of Belle.  For the record, I have no idea what she is talking about...

The kids in front of Mickey's house.

Keeping with the theme of meeting with Characters, we decided to do a Character Dinner with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

I liked seeing the characters this way (with them just walking around to each table), especially Tigger.  Tigger is one of the most obnoxious characters to get a picture with when he is walking around Disneyland. He usually ends up just walking away.

We spent the rest of Christmas Eve doing rides and having a good time.  Here is some picture evidence:

We almost never do the Teacups ride (both Jaime and I get a bit motion sick) but we made an exception here.  The kids here are wrestling me for control of the spinning mechanism ( I won, btw)

We saw parts of the Electrical Parade just about every time we were at Magic Kingdom.  Christmas Eve was no exception.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of our very favorite rides at either park.  We made sure to do it as much as possible.

Jaime's favorite ride is Splash Mountain, so we made sure to do it twice...

I thought this was funny.  The park was so dead late on Christmas Eve that even though there was no one on the ride they kept taking pictures of when the logs went over the big drop...

We liked not having to wait though, we especially liked that we didn't have to exit our log when we went on the ride for the 2nd time!

The Laughing Place outside the ride

After a very full day we headed back to our hotel room.  On the way out I snapped this cool pic of the castle:

I also thought this was a cool photo opp.

At this point  I should relay the story of the Christmas Tree. 

For months and months, Jaime has been bugging me to get this ridiculous Christmas Tree from the Disney Florist to have in our room.  It was a cool 4 foot flocked tree with a  monogrammed tree skirt.  While the tree was cool I would describe it as...cost prohibitive.  So, much to Jaime's dismay, I denied her request.  I definitely understood Jaime's concern about spending Christmas morning without a tree and decided to honor her request but without her knowledge. 

So, in the middle of the day on Christmas Eve we found an 18" fiber optic tree for sale at one of the little shops and Jaime asked me if we could buy it so we could "at least have something"...my wife is so dramatic!  Anyway, I had already purchased the tree from Disney Florist and arranged to have it delivered and set up while we were at the park on Christmas Eve and I really didn't want to spoil the surprise (for her or the kids) so I agreed to the purchase of the fiber optic tree and send her and the kids out of the shop so I could "arrange to have it sent directly to our room".  

OK, back to the blog journal.  Once we got back to the resort and headed to our room Jaime could see that our blinds were open and what looked to be Christmas lights were shining through the window.  As I opened the door for Jaime to walk in she caught site of the tree and started to cry.  That moment made it all worth it.  Here is a picture of said tree;

So, all in all Christmas Eve was a smashing success.

Day 3- Hollywood Studios

The Hollywood Studios icon is the sorcerers hat. There was a big concert stage set up in front of it so we had to take our picture from the side.

Hollywood Studios was very California Adventureish. That's where Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster are. Neither are my favorite rides but Chet and the kids love them so while they did those rides I did some shopping. Those are really the only two rides besides Toy Story Mania (which was a 2 hour wait!) so we spent most of our time there looking for characters. 

Bad pic but that's Chet, Liv and Harris on Tower of Terror.

Chet and I were going over the character meet and greet schedule and saw that you could meet Lotso from Toy Story 3, who is Livs favorite character. We didn't tell her who we were going to see and just rushed over to meet him. She was pretty excited when we walked into the room and he was there.

He even smelled like Strawberries!

We also got to meet several other new characters at Hollywood Studios like...


Frozone


And...

Sorcerer Mickey. New to Harris but the rest of us met him the first time we took Liv.

And...


Mike Wazowski

 When we were done meeting characters we had dinner reservations at Mama Rosa's for some Italian food and then reserved seating for Fantasmic! Dinner was good but it took almost 2 hours! Way too long in my opinion. When we were finally done with dinner we got our tickets for Fantasmic and headed to the other side of the park where they have an open air theater just for the show. This was so much better than standing around for hours at the Rivers of America at Disneyland waiting for the show to start.

When it was time for the show to start we went to the area we were told and were led behind a gate that took us to the back and outside perimeter of the park. It was soo cool! I love it when we get to see a place that not everyone gets to see. :)


All alone behind the park. Awesome!!!



The show is a lot different than the one at Disneyland. I would say that overall it was much better, although there is a really long segment dedicated to Pocahontas that I just didn't understand. I mean who even liked that movie?

(Please excuse the blurry pics. The camera had a hard time focusing beyond the mist from the water screens.)

The Pocahontas part. The kids were like what is this?!

The Villains part was cool because besides the Maleficent Dragon they had Jafar the snake.

Harris knew what was coming after Jafar and was not to thrilled about it. Not may things scare Harris but bears and the Maleficent Dragon do. We had to do lots of persuading and reassuring to convince him to go. One thing that we have told him more than once is that Little Buddy will protect him. So when the time came he was ready...

I am pretty sure that this is the cutest picture EVER!

Pretty scary but not as scary as the one at Disneyland.

When the show was over we walked over to the Streets of America to see the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. There are about 5 million lights that "dance" to music every 10 minutes. We were there in between shows which I was just fine with. I liked seeing them all on at the same time.

This was the first night it started getting cold.

There was a huge line for pictures in front of this tree so we just took a pic of the tree without us standing in front of it.

While it wasn't my favorite park we still had a great time looking for characters and seeing Fantasmic!