Day 2 – First Full Day
Disney Park: EPCOT (open till 11PM- Extra Magic Hours)
Featured Event: 2018 International Flower and Garden Festival
The Bay Lake Tower is a beautiful DVC resort. Very modern aesthetic. It isn’t decked out with as much Disney kitsch as the other locations, but it has enough. Mickey Mouse is its main feature throughout. Which I love, cuz I love Mickey the most.
We had stayed here during the first half of our last trip and fell in love. The location is key for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT or any monorail service areas. The dedicated pool area is the great with a decent water slide, a kiddie water slide and splash park, and full bar. My favorite part, aside from being a five minute walk to MK, is the scent in the air as you walk in every day. It is intoxicating; just so clean and fresh. Ahh, I love scents, and theirs I just like lots n lots
Ok so this day we gave ourselves a little time to sleep in; it was the first day of vacation after all! The view from our room was the lake view, which was different from our last stay, which was park view. I actually liked our view this time a lot. It was so peaceful in the morning out there, just the breezes, the balcony, me in my pjs and the trees lining the water. Just perfect.
I have certain rituals while on vacation, like first thing in the morning I like to hang out balcony side alone in thought while in my jamz. I don’t care where the balcony is, I am in my pajamas enjoying the morning light!!
We got all dolled up then headed straight for the parks for 10:30AM, before our first reserved FP for Soarin’ at 11:40AM. Ok maybe I do remember some times…I am jk I am looking at the itinerary I printed for the girls. heehee
We all love EPCOT a tremendous amount, so we were looking forward to our first full day there. Plus, my husband and I have only been to the Flower and Garden event before they had all the outdoor kitchens that now accompany it. So, we grabbed some coffees ..and frappuccinos.. and took off to ride Soarin’. They have revamped this ride since our last visit four years ago, and even though we loved the original, we all really liked the new one. Me especially. I am a big world traveling nerd, so seeing all those landmarks and the castle, well, I left it wanting to actually take off to explore! Plus, the grassy plains scent they implemented smells so good!!
Soarin’ was the only reserved FP we made, but we ended up walking on Test Track and Soarin’ right after we explored the World Showcase. Ok, so World Showcase was where we headed right after Soarin’. Right before we arrived we saw a Cinderella and Belle character meet up being set up, so we took advantage of the short line to meet Cinderella. We love Belle, but we all had a pretty light breakfast on account that this day was reserved to binge eat all day, so we were starving! Eating was kinda what we did this whole trip, #familygoals, but somehow I came back 4 lbs lighter than when we left… go figure? (It’s def from all the running around and walking)
After the meet up, we took the left side making our way towards Mexico. We went inside the ruin to shop around then ride the Gran Fiesta with the Three Caballeros! If you didn’t read that in the “The Three Caballeros” voices, that is just a shame. Ok, anyways, we love this ride for so many reasons… it’s relaxing, it’s funny, it’s roomy, it’s cool inside, the fireworks at the end, but namely this is the ride our youngest daughter made us float on 8 times in one swoop since the lines were dead, I kid you not. She is the same child who made us ride it’s a small world fifty times in 8 days, too. She is so funny. The ride is a good time, and we noticed that they have added on the three animatronic singing Caballeros at the end. Cute!
From Mexico, we went on to Norway to grab some school bread, of course. Our kids have been talking about School Bread for four years. Since the Kringla Bakery was under construction we had to grab it from an outdoor kitchen they had set up. It seemed different somehow, almost like the bread was denser and whole wheat. It was still good, we end up eating it again later, but just seemed different. From Norway we trekked through Germany for some more food and drinks, and for the girls to play their first round of Agent P. While grabbing some German wine and potato sticks snack for my oldest, I saw a hometown friend with her family there; my husband and hers went to HS together. Big surprise! While I was in the WeinKeller talking, the girls went with my husband to get some caramel snacks, and came back with the largest chocolate caramel cookie. It was so good.
From Germany, you guessed it, we hit up Italy. We just walked through the shops, talked Italian to a few folks as I smelled some pretty perfumes. Then we perused our way through America into Japan. Ok, so Sake Mists, one of the drinks I had been dying to try was at the Kabuki Cafe, the first little house on the left in Japan. The girls got the non-alcoholic kakigori slush, one got rainbow the other blue raspberry. My husband got the blackberry flavored sake mist and I got (of course, I am Sicilian) blood orange flavored. It definitely did not disappoint, and was so much fun to …eat? It was awesomely huge and you can’t order one thinking you will continue to walk around the showcase. Nahuh. No way. You need a spoon, a straw, all hands on deck, and lots of napkins! Right after we had our drinks, we did another Agent P while shopping around.
After this we walked through Morocco for a minute then landed in France. Ok, I also have been dying to try the outdoor kitchen’s la vie en rose slushie from France. I am a big St. Germain fan, elderflower or elderberry anything I just love. Plus it is pink, and so pretty. 🙂 It was listed on the menu to have Grey Goose Vodka Orange, St. Germain liquor with White and Red Cranberry Juice, so it was on my radar. We first got a Grand Marnier Orange slushie, walked over to the other spot and grabbed a la vie en rose slushie.. which I fell instantly in love with! We grabbed a tomato tarte, too!
After France, we walked our way through the UK and Canada, then made our way to Test Track to walk on as single riders. We love love Test Track, but I sorta liked the old way they had the track indoors. I still don’t understand what the futuristic looking city made from shards of plastic is for.. anyone? From Test Track we went to Mission: Space, then munched on a Mickey shaped pretzel walking towards the character meeting area. We got real lucky because both Baymax and Joy and Sadness were less than a five-minute wait each! We got to interact, and I got to hug everyone, I am a hugger. We then walked around the park a little bit before heading back to Mexico for our dinner reservations. We had seen the butterfly garden they had set up before, so we decided to venture in. The varieties of butterflies were beautiful, and a lot got out (must be native to the area) so as you walked along the park you’d see a dozen giant monarchs fluttering by.
We got ourselves to Mexico just in time for our reservations at La Hacienda de San Angel. We ate here on our last trip, also the other restaurant in Mexico, but we liked this one a lot. We had a super fun time talking to our waiter, and with each other. We munched on chips n salsa. Margaritas and cervezas showed up. The girls got steak tacos. I got the carnitas and my husband got the shrimp tacos. Everything was actually better than the last time we were there. As soon as dinner was over we hit up the showcase, and made it to Japan by the time Illuminations was being announced. We got to cuddle together along the rails and watch the show, it was beautiful as always. Our youngest didn’t really remember it, or much of our last trips, so we got to see it through her eyes all over again new.
We left Illuminations right as it ended, only to be stopped at the drawbridge in the outpost to watch a boat towing the globe back to its hiding spot. Which was a fun behind the scenes experience for us all that we actually saw on YouTube before leaving for this trip. The girls were happy!
Since the park was open later, Magic Hours, we made a bee line back to Soarin’ then finally hit up The Land because we got a FP for it earlier that they couldn’t accept as the ride went down. Then we decided it was time to make it to the entrance, and on our way out ride Spaceship Earth!
We left EPCOT super happy, and felt like we were finally on vacation after the week leading up to this trip that we all had. You can kinda see it in my face and stuff, that I wasn’t right, but I wasn’t letting that stop me from enjoying my family and this time off!!
Ok, till next time when we go back to the Magic Kingdom for our first full day there! Yee!
Valeria Out Loud 