Disney Day 1 - Epcot

Luke and Belle. Hayley was too shy to talk to the princesses the first day!

Luke and Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty)

My shy girl watching from a distance! (ha ha, for those of you who know Hayley, she doesn't have a shy bone in her body, until this day)

I am going to pace myself as I try and recall all the fun from the last week. Taking it one day at a time will help me remember as much as I can, I hope. So here we go....

Breaking the 12+ hour car ride up over two days worked very well for us. We spent the night in Savannah, and then continued on our way to Orlando. We arrived at our hotel in the afternoon, so the kids got a swim in before we headed to Downtown Disney to check things out. After a dinner at Captain Jacks, shopping, and a ride on the carousel, we headed back to the hotel for a good night sleep.

We woke up in the middle of the night to thunderstorms and pouring rain. I fell back asleep praying that it would be cleared up by the morning. Up at 6:30am, the rain was still falling, though not as hard as it was during the night. We decided to try Epcot since it was raining and they have several indoor attractions. When we got to Epcot, the rain had pretty much stopped and it was actually a very pleasant overcast day.

We headed straight over to The Seas with Nemo only to find out it was down, not working. Bummer!!! So in we went to see the aquarium and Turtle Talk with Crush. What a cool show. Crush, the turtle from Nemo, actually talks and interacts with the audience. Luke and Hayley loved it (so did Chris and I)! Once we finished TT with Crush, the Nemo ride was up and running. Hooray. No wait time and we walked right up and climbed in our clam shell and headed off to find Nemo.

Imagination was next and the kids were introduced to Figment, the purple dragon. I love the science aspect of this park. The ride talked about the 5 senses in such a fun way. There is actually a part of the ride where a skunk sprays and it really smells like a skunk! Hayley didn't like how loud the ride was, but Luke sure got a kick out of it.

We toured around the World Showcase and ran into Jasmine and Aladin, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty. Hayley, my little princess, was so star struck she didn't want to go up to actually meet them. Luke on the other hand jumped at the chance to meet a princess. I mean, what guy wouldn't. He met Belle first and re-caped the entire Beauty and the Beast movie for her. Very cute. She was so sweet and kind and listened very intently to everything he said. Next, we ran into Sleeping Beauty (aka Aurora). Luke thinks that she is the most beautiful princess. He was quite the charmer I must say. He even told her that he wanted to pick her a flower to match her dress but his mommy told him not to pick the flowers in the garden (thanks!) After a 5 to 10 minute conversation (seriously), Aurora gave Luke a kiss on the cheek and even left a kiss print. He wouldn't dare let me wipe it off!!!

We made our way back to Future World and decided it would be best to get in line for the character greeting. We met Mickey, Pluto, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy all in one swoop! That was the longest line we waited in all week and it took us about 45 minutes to get to the front.

After 4 BIG scoops of ice cream and a break, we went to ride Spaceship Earth (or I like to call it the Golf Ball ride). It had been redone recently and was very interesting. Hayley was not at all fond of the dark ride and cried most of the way through (she was also pretty tired at this point). We decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. We knew we all needed a good night sleep if we were going to tackle the Magic Kingdom the next morning..........