Vacation Heaven - Day 3

We spent Day 3 in Epcot - and once again had a great time! We rushed to get there at 8:00 am. Staying at the park gave us a lot of benefits - riding to the parks on the bus for one, and also extra magic hours, when the parks are open only for people staying in the Disney Hotels. We got there early, and rode Soarin, Test Track and the Dinosaur ride, all before 9:00! Loved Soarin... it was so much fun! Madeline had that Disney awe after riding Soarin, I think she was really amazed. She declared it the best ride at Epcot, and we ended up riding it twice.



Epcot is a HUGE park - so much walking! Plus, I don't mean to dwell, but it was HOT! We loved it though, and managed to ride all of the rides we wanted to ride, and also saw the fun 3D movie Honey I Shrunk the Audience - it made all of us jump!



After much running around and riding rides, we walked to the World Showcase, and ate lunch in the USA. There was a great Fife and Drum group that played patriotic songs, and I enjoyed seeing some old guys saluting while the songs were played. They did cheers for our soldiers, and people paused and gave a big Cheer. We also enjoyed checking out the other nations, although honestly the heat put a bit of a damper on our wandering around and shopping. We enjoyed the Viking Ride in the Norway Exhibit, Japanese drummers in Japan, relaxed in some blessedly cool air in the China exhibit. Germany had a train exhibit that reminded me of pictures from Europe from my childhood at a park with a miniature city - I can't remember being there, but remember cool pictures of that park.






Madeline purchased herself some fabulous Minnie Bride ears, and proudly wore them around the park. Several girls stopped and pointed at them, which as you can imagine pleased our little ham to no end!



I can't remember whether I mentioned the Birthday Celebration in my last blogs - Disney does a Birthday right! We were there for 4 days, and Madeline wore a Birthday pin the whole time, so tons of people said Happy Birthday! A "Cast Member" pulled her aside and gave her a phone call - which turned out to be Goofy wishing her a Happy Birthday - I love the look of surprise she has in the picture :-)



We got more character autographs in the World Showcase, it was tons of fun and the lines were not as long as they had been at Animal Kingdom or at Magic Kingdom - brilliant Disney planning once again, all of the kids were excited about autographs!






At the end of the day we came back to our hotel, and took a blessed dip in the pool - Madeline loved swimming at night, and the pool was really neat, so it was a fun part of our day too.




All in all, we are glad that we chose Epcot over Hollywood Studios, we had a great time!