Okay, okay. It only took about 2 hours, but we still made it around the world. A few months ago we stopped in Mexico at the World Showcase and picked up a couple of Duffy the Bears. They are these cardboard bears that you decorate and then take around the world. At each country's pavilion you find the Kidcot area and there is someone there to stamp it. There are also Passports you can use, but I think you pay for those and this was just a fun thing for us to do on an afternoon so we used Duffy. Plus, half the fun for the kids was decorating them. That day we had them stamped at about 3 countries but we decided that one day we would take a trip back with the sole intention (and maybe a few other things) to go all the way around the world.
We left the house a little after lunch (and after a quick afternoon nap for Will) and made it down to Epcot around 1:30. After a sunblock stop outside of the car of course, which takes way longer than I remember every time we do it because putting sunblock on three people is crazy. Steven can handle it himself. Haha! When we entered we realized that we managed to catch the Flower and Garden Festival. We weren't playing close attention to the dates so we didn't know it was still going on, but we were glad it was because it was gorgeous! After taking a few pics, we went to ride Spaceship Earth. This is one of Kenzie's (and Steven's) favorite rides. This time though, I actually got to ride with Kenzie and I realized how funny it is when she is in the car with you. Apparently the scholars in the Middle East with copies of some of the books are having a tea party, the people learning in Greece are having story time, and the people painstakingly writing copies of books are practicing their ABC's (and one fell asleep because he didn't go to bed on time the night before). She had me cracking up. Apparently Will spent the entire ride pointing and "oh"-ing at everything, too. After Spaceship Earth we decided to go ahead and start our journey around the world. We had Fastpasses for a few things at Magic Kingdom later in the day so we wanted to try to make those and didn't know how long the trip around the world would take.
Epcot World Showcase has 11 countries right now. (There is room for more but they haven't expanded at this point.) As usual, we went into the World Showcase and took a left. Looking back, I wish we had taken a right and started in Canada. Instead we started in Mexico which is always super crowded around the Kidcot station. We had to wait for a spot to sit and color. If we had started in Canada, there were quite a few tables to color at and hardly anyone was there. Anyway, we started in Mexico. We had plans to ride the boat ride in the pavilion, but it had a line. We have never seen it with a line but this line looked like you would be waiting at least 30 minutes and we have a rule that we do not wait more than 15-20. With two small children in tow and the option to return another day, we always choose to try to keep that rule as it just makes our trips more pleasant. So, we stopped instead and did the Kidcot. Both kids did a bit of coloring but it is always so crowded there that they didn't do too much. Unfortunately, Kenzie was handed a bear that didn't have the Mexico stamp on it. It had the drawing, but the stamp was forgotten. We didn't notice until China and by then, we weren't going back. She didn't mind though and she was just excited as she got to each new country to see what they would draw.
Our next stop was Norway. The Frozen ride is supposed to open next month so Kenzie will be excited about that. Not like I think we will be able to get Fastpasses for quite some time and I figure the line will be crazy long. Steven and I both miss Maelstrom, but the kids would much rather ride a Frozen ride.
China was next and the kids took the opportunity to color a bit more of their bears since it wasn't a super crowded stop. Another aside: I have never walked back into some of these countries. I did not realize how far back some of them actually go. They are huge! Also, finding the Kidcot stations in a few is a feat in itself. Parents should get a medal at the end if you locate them all because they aren't usually marked.
Then came Germany. Steven stopped for a pretzel and a beer. The kids got their stamps and then promptly ate about 90% of the pretzel. Kenzie ate most of it. (Side note: The bottomless pit has returned after taking a vacation for about 2 weeks.)
After Germany is Italy. I think this is one of my favorites. Despite the fact that we have never eaten here or anything, I think this one is just beautiful. The kids got their stamps and we moved on fairly quickly. At this point, we were realizing that our time was getting away from us. We were debating if we would have time to finish each country. We were about 1/2 way and were deciding if we should just do a few more and then call it. We decided to waive our first Fastpass at Magic Kingdom (Buzz Lightyear) and try to finish all the countries instead. We really wanted to try to get it all done in one day. We did start picking up the speed at this point though. We stopped allowing Will to walk around at each stop while we got the stamps, which I don't think he minded because he seemed to be getting tired and he was content to just watch from the shade of his side of the stroller. Kenzie still got out at each stop because she wanted to hand her bear to the person doing the stamping. After Italy is the American Adventure. I don't know why we call it that instead of just "America", but whatever. Then we hit up Japan (which is also a HUGE country site that I didn't know was as big as it is) and Morocco. Morocco is also one of my favorites. Come to find out (as I was looking up a map and how many extra countries would fit) it was crafted by Moroccan builders as Morocco itself sponsored the building of the pavilion. That is pretty cool. After Morocco is France. I LOVED the Beauty and the Beast topiary here. Belle has always been my favorite Disney Princess. I do love me some Rapunzel, but if we are going to go old school, it's Belle all the way.
2 more! The United Kingdom was next. This Kidcot took us quite a while to find. Probably one of the longer ones (with the exception of Japan) but we finally found it and then we were almost done!
Finally, about 2 hours after we started, we hit Canada. Our last country. They seriously hide the Kidcot here but they must realize how difficult it is to find, because it is the only country with signs leading the way to it. Like I said, if we ever do this again, we are starting here. Way less crowded and low key. We did it! We made our way around the world and managed to stop in every country. We really enjoyed this. The kids liked it because they got to get their bears stamped and see what each drawing would be. They are always different because different people draw different things. They each had their names written in Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Steven and I liked it because we got to see each country and there are quite a few that we have never walked into before. I highly recommend it for anyone that has a few extra hours. It is a nice calm activity too during nap time perhaps if you child will sleep in the stroller. Adults do it too. Will usually sleeps as we make our way through the countries but we planned a nap at home so he was wide awake.
We left Epcot at that point and started making our way over to the Magic Kingdom. We elected earlier to park at Epcot so we took a couple of monorails over and I think sometimes that we could just go into the park, park the car and let the kids ride the monorails back and forth for a while. They would be just as excited. They love those crazy monorails. Part of the reason we went to Magic Kingdom is that the first time Kenzie wore her Rapunzel outfit, we were at MK with my parents and didn't have time to visit Rapunzel. She specifically wanted to show her the tutu so we told her we would make a special trip to see her. We were able to get FP so we figured this was the best time to go.
On the way down Main Street we randomly heard a guy yell "family photo!!" and every cast member in the area came running to take a pic with him and his girlfriend. Now, I don't know if this is a thing you can do (though we figure not because then people would do it way more often) of it is was some sort of code. Anyway, he obviously drew a crowd and at some point, someone handed him Belle's rose under the glass case. I couldn't hear what he said but he uncovered the rose and dropped to one knee. So sweet. I think that was our second marriage proposal we have seen but I think it was the cutest and sweetest. What an awesome idea too. You end up with adorable pictures because the photographer kept snapping away. He also managed to gather quite the audience between cast members and random passersby like us. Love it. We stopped in front of the castle then to get a few pics ourselves. We took one normal one before being instructed to be our favorite characters. Will was Mickey and Kenzie was Elsa. Those were chosen for them though Will does love his Mickey and Kenzie is an Elsa kind of girl. I chose Belle and Steven chose Hook. We are such an eclectic mix.
While we missed our FP for Buzz Lightyear, we were on time for our FP for Haunted Mansion so we headed that direction. As usual, the mansion trip was fun. We had to stop in the middle for some reason. Maybe a wheelchair getting on or off and I was a bit worried about Kenzie being in the dark that long and not moving, but she was fine. On the way out we were picking up the stroller and Kenzie was getting a bit crazy because she was starting to get tired. She tried to run after Steven to fetch the stroller with him, tripped over my foot, and slammed onto the ground. She ended up skinning her knee and being in an overall bad mood because of it. There were quite a few tears. We cleaned her up the best we could (the first aid station was not anywhere near where we were so we didn't worry about going by there and just cleaned her up ourselves). I was reminded that I should definitely throw a small first aid pack into our Disney bag from now on. Honestly, I am surprised we made it through this many trips without an incident. She recovered on the way to our next stop though. To meet up with Rapunzel! Actually, she took some convincing to go inside once we were over there but we told her she could show Rapunzel her pretty tutu and her skinned knee. Whatever works. She was super excited to meet Rapunzel (again) and talked all about her trying to grow her hair out like hers. Rapunzel told her it takes about 18 years to get hair like that and asked Kenzie if she was in for that commitment. Obviously, she said yes. Haha!
Unlike Kenzie, Will was NOT having it. We have noticed him start to have a bit of an issue with characters recently. So far we have only met up with face characters that he has had difficulty with. We are going to try to see Mickey and Minnie maybe on our next trip to see how he does. He might be better if he recognizes the character. So funny because he used to be all about meeting them. Our next trip will have a much older Will though too so that might make a difference. Or it might not. We shall see. Anyway, next up was Cinderella. Cinderella loved Kenzie's tutu and the two of them did dancing/twirling lessons. I have to stop here and say that this right here is the reason we decided to make a few other monetary sacrifices this year and invest in another year of passes (plus buy Kenzie's pass as she has definitely aged out of the "free" range and she looks even older than she is usually so we weren't going to be fooling anyone much longer). The joy on Kenzie's face as she danced with Cinderella was magical.
After meeting the princesses, we had to ride the carousel because no visit to Magic Kingdom is complete without a ride around the carousel. It definitely hits high up there on the list of favorite rides for both kids.
We decided that it was time to grab dinner after that so we just went to our usual spot and ate at Cosmic Rays. The norm. One of these days we will have to expand our horizons. It is just an easy, low key way to eat a meal and a lot of the time, the kids are somewhat tired. They need just a few minutes to relax and it is easier to let them be in a place that they can stand up and dance if need be and not need to sit down like a table service restaurant would be. We were initially planning on trying to hit up the train before we left but the wait on Dumbo was super short so we went back to Fantasyland for that. This was the first time that we went through the actual cue and we had no idea, but there is a playground inside the cue. You can get a pager and play for a while then they will call you when your turn comes around to ride the ride. I guess that is how it works for longer waits, but the wait was short so you could technically just go in and play. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we wanted to ride Dumbo and then start heading out. We elected to pass on the playground at this point but we will definitely be back. Our kids love playgrounds. This was actually Steven's first time on Dumbo too. For some reason, it has just never worked out that he was the one to ride it. Both Kenzie and Will love to go as high as possible. Will was freaking out about being able to see everything while up in the air.
At this point, it was almost 8pm and we didn't want to get caught in the hoard of people leaving Epcot after the fireworks there. We had to ride back to get our car in Epcot so we knew that would take a while. We decided to go ahead and head out. As we were leaving, people were hanging out on the sides of Mainstreet waiting for the parade. Apparently, our children thought that they were the parade. They literally waved and said "hi" the entire way out of the park. Plenty of people waved back so that just kept the momentum going for them. It was pretty hilarious. As usual, the ride back on the monorail was a highlight of the visit for the kids. We did pretty well and made it out before the fireworks ended. We technically made it out before they began. We changed the kids into pjs in the car and then headed home. We saw some of the Hollywood Studios fireworks as we were leaving. It is the one firework show we haven't seen so we will have to make a point to do that sometime. Will was asleep before we were off Disney property. Kenzie always waits to see the sign at the exit to say goodbye to Disney. She did that and then was OUT. Didn't even make it onto 429.
We had a great visit. This is going to be our last visit prior to hitting our blackout dates for the summer. We don't mind though. Today was almost too hot. The summer is unbearable around here and we figured we wouldn't use the days anyway so it will be later in the summer before we make it back. We had an awesome final visit before that though. It will be that much fun when we go back after the break too. We find that there was a while there that we were feeling Disneyed-out and I think Steven and I are thankful to have a couple of months off. The kids love it regardless. Disney is such a cool place for them. Like I said earlier, there are moments that we have that make any amount of money we have to spend for passes totally worth it. Seeing their faces light up makes it worth it. Until next time Disney....
See you real soon!!
We left the house a little after lunch (and after a quick afternoon nap for Will) and made it down to Epcot around 1:30. After a sunblock stop outside of the car of course, which takes way longer than I remember every time we do it because putting sunblock on three people is crazy. Steven can handle it himself. Haha! When we entered we realized that we managed to catch the Flower and Garden Festival. We weren't playing close attention to the dates so we didn't know it was still going on, but we were glad it was because it was gorgeous! After taking a few pics, we went to ride Spaceship Earth. This is one of Kenzie's (and Steven's) favorite rides. This time though, I actually got to ride with Kenzie and I realized how funny it is when she is in the car with you. Apparently the scholars in the Middle East with copies of some of the books are having a tea party, the people learning in Greece are having story time, and the people painstakingly writing copies of books are practicing their ABC's (and one fell asleep because he didn't go to bed on time the night before). She had me cracking up. Apparently Will spent the entire ride pointing and "oh"-ing at everything, too. After Spaceship Earth we decided to go ahead and start our journey around the world. We had Fastpasses for a few things at Magic Kingdom later in the day so we wanted to try to make those and didn't know how long the trip around the world would take.
Our next stop was Norway. The Frozen ride is supposed to open next month so Kenzie will be excited about that. Not like I think we will be able to get Fastpasses for quite some time and I figure the line will be crazy long. Steven and I both miss Maelstrom, but the kids would much rather ride a Frozen ride.
China was next and the kids took the opportunity to color a bit more of their bears since it wasn't a super crowded stop. Another aside: I have never walked back into some of these countries. I did not realize how far back some of them actually go. They are huge! Also, finding the Kidcot stations in a few is a feat in itself. Parents should get a medal at the end if you locate them all because they aren't usually marked.
Then came Germany. Steven stopped for a pretzel and a beer. The kids got their stamps and then promptly ate about 90% of the pretzel. Kenzie ate most of it. (Side note: The bottomless pit has returned after taking a vacation for about 2 weeks.)
After Germany is Italy. I think this is one of my favorites. Despite the fact that we have never eaten here or anything, I think this one is just beautiful. The kids got their stamps and we moved on fairly quickly. At this point, we were realizing that our time was getting away from us. We were debating if we would have time to finish each country. We were about 1/2 way and were deciding if we should just do a few more and then call it. We decided to waive our first Fastpass at Magic Kingdom (Buzz Lightyear) and try to finish all the countries instead. We really wanted to try to get it all done in one day. We did start picking up the speed at this point though. We stopped allowing Will to walk around at each stop while we got the stamps, which I don't think he minded because he seemed to be getting tired and he was content to just watch from the shade of his side of the stroller. Kenzie still got out at each stop because she wanted to hand her bear to the person doing the stamping. After Italy is the American Adventure. I don't know why we call it that instead of just "America", but whatever. Then we hit up Japan (which is also a HUGE country site that I didn't know was as big as it is) and Morocco. Morocco is also one of my favorites. Come to find out (as I was looking up a map and how many extra countries would fit) it was crafted by Moroccan builders as Morocco itself sponsored the building of the pavilion. That is pretty cool. After Morocco is France. I LOVED the Beauty and the Beast topiary here. Belle has always been my favorite Disney Princess. I do love me some Rapunzel, but if we are going to go old school, it's Belle all the way.
2 more! The United Kingdom was next. This Kidcot took us quite a while to find. Probably one of the longer ones (with the exception of Japan) but we finally found it and then we were almost done!
Finally, about 2 hours after we started, we hit Canada. Our last country. They seriously hide the Kidcot here but they must realize how difficult it is to find, because it is the only country with signs leading the way to it. Like I said, if we ever do this again, we are starting here. Way less crowded and low key. We did it! We made our way around the world and managed to stop in every country. We really enjoyed this. The kids liked it because they got to get their bears stamped and see what each drawing would be. They are always different because different people draw different things. They each had their names written in Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Steven and I liked it because we got to see each country and there are quite a few that we have never walked into before. I highly recommend it for anyone that has a few extra hours. It is a nice calm activity too during nap time perhaps if you child will sleep in the stroller. Adults do it too. Will usually sleeps as we make our way through the countries but we planned a nap at home so he was wide awake.
We left Epcot at that point and started making our way over to the Magic Kingdom. We elected earlier to park at Epcot so we took a couple of monorails over and I think sometimes that we could just go into the park, park the car and let the kids ride the monorails back and forth for a while. They would be just as excited. They love those crazy monorails. Part of the reason we went to Magic Kingdom is that the first time Kenzie wore her Rapunzel outfit, we were at MK with my parents and didn't have time to visit Rapunzel. She specifically wanted to show her the tutu so we told her we would make a special trip to see her. We were able to get FP so we figured this was the best time to go.
On the way down Main Street we randomly heard a guy yell "family photo!!" and every cast member in the area came running to take a pic with him and his girlfriend. Now, I don't know if this is a thing you can do (though we figure not because then people would do it way more often) of it is was some sort of code. Anyway, he obviously drew a crowd and at some point, someone handed him Belle's rose under the glass case. I couldn't hear what he said but he uncovered the rose and dropped to one knee. So sweet. I think that was our second marriage proposal we have seen but I think it was the cutest and sweetest. What an awesome idea too. You end up with adorable pictures because the photographer kept snapping away. He also managed to gather quite the audience between cast members and random passersby like us. Love it. We stopped in front of the castle then to get a few pics ourselves. We took one normal one before being instructed to be our favorite characters. Will was Mickey and Kenzie was Elsa. Those were chosen for them though Will does love his Mickey and Kenzie is an Elsa kind of girl. I chose Belle and Steven chose Hook. We are such an eclectic mix.
While we missed our FP for Buzz Lightyear, we were on time for our FP for Haunted Mansion so we headed that direction. As usual, the mansion trip was fun. We had to stop in the middle for some reason. Maybe a wheelchair getting on or off and I was a bit worried about Kenzie being in the dark that long and not moving, but she was fine. On the way out we were picking up the stroller and Kenzie was getting a bit crazy because she was starting to get tired. She tried to run after Steven to fetch the stroller with him, tripped over my foot, and slammed onto the ground. She ended up skinning her knee and being in an overall bad mood because of it. There were quite a few tears. We cleaned her up the best we could (the first aid station was not anywhere near where we were so we didn't worry about going by there and just cleaned her up ourselves). I was reminded that I should definitely throw a small first aid pack into our Disney bag from now on. Honestly, I am surprised we made it through this many trips without an incident. She recovered on the way to our next stop though. To meet up with Rapunzel! Actually, she took some convincing to go inside once we were over there but we told her she could show Rapunzel her pretty tutu and her skinned knee. Whatever works. She was super excited to meet Rapunzel (again) and talked all about her trying to grow her hair out like hers. Rapunzel told her it takes about 18 years to get hair like that and asked Kenzie if she was in for that commitment. Obviously, she said yes. Haha!
Unlike Kenzie, Will was NOT having it. We have noticed him start to have a bit of an issue with characters recently. So far we have only met up with face characters that he has had difficulty with. We are going to try to see Mickey and Minnie maybe on our next trip to see how he does. He might be better if he recognizes the character. So funny because he used to be all about meeting them. Our next trip will have a much older Will though too so that might make a difference. Or it might not. We shall see. Anyway, next up was Cinderella. Cinderella loved Kenzie's tutu and the two of them did dancing/twirling lessons. I have to stop here and say that this right here is the reason we decided to make a few other monetary sacrifices this year and invest in another year of passes (plus buy Kenzie's pass as she has definitely aged out of the "free" range and she looks even older than she is usually so we weren't going to be fooling anyone much longer). The joy on Kenzie's face as she danced with Cinderella was magical.
After meeting the princesses, we had to ride the carousel because no visit to Magic Kingdom is complete without a ride around the carousel. It definitely hits high up there on the list of favorite rides for both kids.
We decided that it was time to grab dinner after that so we just went to our usual spot and ate at Cosmic Rays. The norm. One of these days we will have to expand our horizons. It is just an easy, low key way to eat a meal and a lot of the time, the kids are somewhat tired. They need just a few minutes to relax and it is easier to let them be in a place that they can stand up and dance if need be and not need to sit down like a table service restaurant would be. We were initially planning on trying to hit up the train before we left but the wait on Dumbo was super short so we went back to Fantasyland for that. This was the first time that we went through the actual cue and we had no idea, but there is a playground inside the cue. You can get a pager and play for a while then they will call you when your turn comes around to ride the ride. I guess that is how it works for longer waits, but the wait was short so you could technically just go in and play. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we wanted to ride Dumbo and then start heading out. We elected to pass on the playground at this point but we will definitely be back. Our kids love playgrounds. This was actually Steven's first time on Dumbo too. For some reason, it has just never worked out that he was the one to ride it. Both Kenzie and Will love to go as high as possible. Will was freaking out about being able to see everything while up in the air.
At this point, it was almost 8pm and we didn't want to get caught in the hoard of people leaving Epcot after the fireworks there. We had to ride back to get our car in Epcot so we knew that would take a while. We decided to go ahead and head out. As we were leaving, people were hanging out on the sides of Mainstreet waiting for the parade. Apparently, our children thought that they were the parade. They literally waved and said "hi" the entire way out of the park. Plenty of people waved back so that just kept the momentum going for them. It was pretty hilarious. As usual, the ride back on the monorail was a highlight of the visit for the kids. We did pretty well and made it out before the fireworks ended. We technically made it out before they began. We changed the kids into pjs in the car and then headed home. We saw some of the Hollywood Studios fireworks as we were leaving. It is the one firework show we haven't seen so we will have to make a point to do that sometime. Will was asleep before we were off Disney property. Kenzie always waits to see the sign at the exit to say goodbye to Disney. She did that and then was OUT. Didn't even make it onto 429.
We had a great visit. This is going to be our last visit prior to hitting our blackout dates for the summer. We don't mind though. Today was almost too hot. The summer is unbearable around here and we figured we wouldn't use the days anyway so it will be later in the summer before we make it back. We had an awesome final visit before that though. It will be that much fun when we go back after the break too. We find that there was a while there that we were feeling Disneyed-out and I think Steven and I are thankful to have a couple of months off. The kids love it regardless. Disney is such a cool place for them. Like I said earlier, there are moments that we have that make any amount of money we have to spend for passes totally worth it. Seeing their faces light up makes it worth it. Until next time Disney....
See you real soon!!
Comments
Post a Comment