Epcot

Our last full day at Disney was spent at Epcot.  I kind of feel like Epcot got short-changed because we were so tired when we visited.  Five full days at Disney will really take it out of you. Still, Epcot is a nice park and we enjoyed our time there.

 The Garden Festival was going on when we visited so we had the chance to see all sorts of topiaries and other floral arrangements.

 Two rides that we were able to check out were Test Track and Soarin.  I have been wanting to ride Test Track for several years now, so I was glad to finally get the chance to do so.

 After lunch, we went to explore the countries in the World Showcase.  We were going strong through the first half of the countries, and then we got worn down.  We kind of flew through the last couple.  Before leaving, we had dinner at the San Angel Inn restaurant in the Mexico pavilion.  This was a fun place to eat because it was located inside of a pyramid.  Owen deemed the restaurant "a good place to go on a honeymooon".  Sometimes I don't know where this kid gets stuff from. He tickles me.

Magic Kingdom: Beyond the Rides

While we spent most of our time at Magic Kingdom on the rides, there were a few other attractions that we enjoyed as well.  One of those things was Enchanted Tales with Belle.  This experience assigns roles to various kids and lets them reenact the story of Beauty and the Beast as a surprise for Belle.  Each of our kids was assigned a part to play: Ava was the wardrobe, Claire was Mrs. Potts, Julianna was a plate, Owen was Phillipe the horse, and Olivia was the Beast.

Owen did a great job and appeared in the scene right on cue.

Olivia's role involved her roaring.  She also did a great job.

Since she was playing the role of Beast, Olivia also got to share a dance with Belle.

Beauty and the Beast took a bow at the end of the performance and then Belle took a picture with all of the performers.  This was a very cool experience.

Later we had the chance to watch the Festival of Fantasy Parade.  We had a good spot for viewing the parade, which featured all of our favorite Disney characters as well as a fire-breathing dragon.

We had lunch reservations for the Be Our Guest restaurant.  This has been added since our last visit and is a really cool place to eat.  It looks just like Beast's castle from the cartoon.  We just had to try "The Gray Stuff" (and, yes, it was delicious).

Another fun attraction was the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor.  Audience members had the chance to text in a joke before the show began, and Owen's joke got used during the show (and he got a shout-out for it).  Owen was also one of the audience members chosen to be interviewed and he did a great job.

On our last night at Magic Kingdom, we stuck around for the Wishes fireworks show.  It was really really crowded and Brian and I ended up having to hold Olivia and Owen the whole time so that they could see.  The show was really good though, so it was worth the pain.

Magic Kingdom: The Rides

 We spent two days at Magic Kingdom.  This park was really crowded on both days- so we arrived early and left in the afternoon.  The Murrays stayed all day on both days, and I think that they literally rode every ride and saw every show in the park.  The primary focus of both of our Magic Kingdom days was on the rides.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the older kids are getting to the stage where they like the thrill rides, and the Magic Kingdom is the best park for this.

First on the list of thrills was conquering the Magic Kingdom Mountain Range- beginning with Space Mountain.  We rode this twice, and it is a lot jerkier than I remember is being.  The kids loved it though.

 It wasn't that scary for us adults, so we decided to ham it up for the camera.

Next up: Thunder Mountain, which I believe is the best ride in the park.  We rode this four times (and even got Gigi and Papa on it).

 The last "mountain" was Splash Mountain.  We were all able to ride this together (you can't see Julianna in the picture, but she is between Hannah and Kelly).

 We also got to go on the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and it was really good.

 Of course, we had to ride the classics too.  The good news is that even though it was crowded, we didn't have to wait very long for the rides thanks to the Fastpass system.  I love those fastpasses.

Animal Kingdom

 Our second full day was spent at my favorite park- Animal Kingdom.  This was another long day.  We arrived at rope drop and left only one hour before closing.  We rode every ride and saw every show in this park.  There were a few stand-out moments, which I will discuss below.

 The kids' favorite ride of our entire vacation was Expedition Everest.  We rode it three times.

 We had fun exploring the trails and looking at the animals.

 The safari is always a favorite, and this year was no exception.

 One of my favorite moments of the trip happened during the Festival of the Lion King Show.  We arrived early and had the best seats in the house.  I say this because Olivia and Owen were chosen several times to participate in the show and interact with the performers.  At the beginning of the show, Olivia was picked to introduce the "giraffe" section.  (I have a video of her doing so below).  Later on, Timon the Meerkat joined the show and he came by and gave Owen a hug.  Then, some acrobats dressed as monkeys stopped and high-fived the kids.  And if that weren't enough, at the end of the show, both Owen and Olivia were chosen to participate in the closing musical number.  At the end of the number, Owen was held back to have the final interaction with Timon.  Timon told the kids that they all did a great job and said "especially you" to Owen.  This could not have gone any better.  It was definitely a "magical" moment.

 Another of my favorite Disney moments  occurring at Animal Kingdom was when our entire family rode Kali River Rapids together.  We were a party of 11, so we had to divide up for most rides.  But, the boats on this ride held up to 12 people, so we all got to ride together- and it was so much fun.  We all got so soaked- except for Daddy who somehow managed to avoid most of the water.  I have also attached a video of this.  I love this video because you can just see how excited to kids are.