Part 8: Disney World! : Putting the Night to Sleep at Epcot

Welcome back to my Disney Series!  In this series I recount our vacation days and everything we did.  It's part scrapbooky so I'll remember the details and part helpful hints for my friends who have asked me things about my planning.  We're on Part 8 of the series and I'm still only talking about Day 2 at Disney, ha!  I'm having a blast though remembering and recounting everything that happened.  Come on, read on... :)

I've gotten into somewhat of a pattern with our posts where one post covers the first half of the day and the next post covers the afternoon and on.  I'm doing that simply because we did so much each day that it would be hard to cover everything in one post!

And to us the day did seem like two parts.  We would go to the park in the morning, leave in the afternoon and return later on in the evening.

 When we left Epcot in the morning we were getting this from Cal...basically done with Epcot and I would have to agree.  A lot of Epcot in the front of it at least seemed to me like those exhibit buildings at  a county fair.  You know the ones, where companies set up a booth and try to give you free pencils and caps?

So after our lunch at the Coral Reef (fantastic atmosphere, pretty good food!) we left to check out Downtown Disney.

 Truth be told we hadn't really wanted to go to Downtown Disney until our reservations but we had told Cal there was a lego store and since we had left our house two days before he had been asking for the Lego store.  So we went.

 Building...

 Building...

 A thumbs up at the infamous Buzz statue (seriously I think everyone gets their picture taken at this thing!)

 And building Mr. Potato Heads.  **Which heads up we did not get but I've read that this is a good deal for your kiddos.  You can get a Mr. Potato head box which you fill with whatever you want.  I'm pretty sure it was $19.99.  The idea is that you get your Mr. Potato Head and some accessories but I've heard if you already have a Mr. Potato Head and don't get one you can get one of every accessory into the box.  You'll have to shove and finagle but I've heard it can be done.  If your planning a trip to Disney a toy idea for you might be to pack your Mr. Potato Head, buy the accessories and then have hours of playtime in your hotel with all of the pieces.

I've gotta tell ya.  We drove to Downtown Disney twice and took the shuttle once.  Nick called DD the place where time goes to die because it seriously sucked the life our every day we went.  It is free and there are lots of shops but it seemed like such a hassle for us in terms of what was there compared to how much time it took us to get in and out of the area.  If you visit Downtown Disney make sure you plan ahead and give yourself a lot of time.  Then add an hour onto that.  Just a word to the smart Mama's out there :)

We had reservations back in Epcot for dinner at this place, Tutto Italia.  We were so behind in trying to get out of Downtown Disney that we almost skipped our reservations.  But I had really, really wanted to try this place so Nick in all of his awesomeness insisted that we made our reservation.  That included him parking the car and then sprinting all of the way to the restaurant so we could make our reservation.  He is such a rock star amazing husband.  

I am so, so glad we made it for dinner because it was hands down the best meal we'd ever had.  EVER!!!  The restaurant was gorgeous, the food was to die for, and our waiter was amazing.

Emma and Daddy being silly while waiting for our food :)

Our Antipasto platter which was so, so good!  Emma was even eating it and saying things like "mmmm, this is amazing!"

We missed our normal quiet time in the hotel that afternoon so until spaghetti arrived this boy had been passed out on the booth.  Sprawled out, snoring  But as you can see, spaghetti was worth waking up for.  I think this was the only meal he actually ate the entire time we were at Disney.

Another fan :)

I had planned the reservation so that we would be getting done about the time that the fireworks started and it worked out perfectly!  All we had to do was walk out of our restaurant and this is what we could see.  The kids seemed to like it. Well Emma did, Cal was a little freaked out.  There was a lot of fire!

After the fireworks we walked around the world part.  We didn't have much time...the kids were fading fast.  Here's France...

This is totally our daughter...in the middle of Epcot reading :)  No sights for me, thanks.  Just finishing up this Magic Tree House :)

We also visited England and then headed back to the resort with two very tired kiddos.  My biggest regret during our vacation was spending half of the day at the front of Epcot and then running out of time at the back in the countries.  When we go back we will be spending more time exploring all of the lands.  I really wanted to purchase the passports for our kiddos and have them visit everywhere.   next time...

I guess that's not too bad for only having one regret, right?  Besides that I think we saw every dern thing we had wanted to.  And I'll take that :) So that concludes our day at Epcot.  As always if you have  any questions please feel free to let me know :)  Not that I'm an expert but I'll be happy to help!