The Mulloy's

The Mulloy's

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Mulloy Disney Trip 2016 (Part 6)

I scheduled Epcot for our last day at Disney. We had never really explored Epcot (except for one 30 minute stop last year) so we were really excited to experience all it had to offer. We started off our day bright and early for a pre-park breakfast at the Garden Grill.

But first we finally took a picture in front of the Wilderness Lodge totem poll.


We headed to the boat, but learned that it was too foggy for the boats to work. So we headed towards the buses. We were running a little late, so we decided we would just hop on the first bus that arrived. The bus was departing for Magic Kingdom as soon as we showed up at the bus stop, so we jumped on the bus figuring that we would take the monorail from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot.  Michael and I both glanced at our watches and thought we would be right on time for our reservation. Well....the monorail broke down while we were on it. So we ended up being about 35 minutes late to our Garden Grill reservation. I had our day planned out pretty thoroughly since Epcot is really tricky to schedule because of the tiering of fastpasses, so it really put a damper on our plans.

We sort of rushed through breakfast. I think we would have enjoyed it much more if we hadn't been pressed for time and the kids weren't cranky from spending an hour on transportation to get to Epcot!

Peyton was terrified of Chip


But he perked up to meet Dale



Pluto is always a favorite for the boys



And farmer Mickey


Since Soarin' is right below Garden Grill (and is a new show), I had planned to go immediately there after breakfast and be one of the first in line. By the time we made it out of breakfast, the line was already 45 minutes long. I knew the line would only get longer as the day went by, so the big boys and I decided to wait in the line. The boys were in no mood to wait in line and they were awful in line. Peyton and I really liked the ride, but for some reason I don't think it was one of Patrick's favorites. We had a rider swap pass for Michael and the big boys to skip the line and be able to ride Soarin' again, but our next fastpass window was about to close so we decided we would try and use it later in the day. 

Next up was Journey into the Imagination with Figment. Conor was asleep so just the big boys and I rode the ride. Of course the ride broke down while we were on it, ugh. I had some dory suckers in my bag, so I pulled those out for the boys while we were stuck on the ride and waited for them to fix it. 

This is Patrick's feeling about how the day was going so far.


We decided we just needed to get the big boys happy again, so we headed to the Nemo ride. It is always a cute ride and the line was only about 15 minutes which was nice. 

We had about 15 minutes before our fastpass for the new Frozen ride, so we decided to jump in the short line to meet Anna and Elsa. We had never met them before, so Patrick was pretty excited to add their signatures and pictures to his collection.




My sweet Peyton was just so nervous!







Next we headed to the Frozen ride and noticed that there were masses of people outside of the ride. We headed towards the fastpass line when one of the cast members stopped us to tell us that the ride   was down and it would be a while before it was back up and running, ugh. By this time it was about 90 degrees, we had the worst luck with rides and transportation all day and just decided we needed to call it quits for a little while and head back to the hotel to swim. I wasn't sure how much more the boys could take of waiting in lines and rides breaking down!

It was a long walk back to the entrance of Epcot, so the boys hopped in the stroller and the two big boys fell asleep before we exited the park. We had planned to take the bus, but waking up the two big boys and one toddler and trying to carry them on the bus, carry our bags and fold up two strollers to carry them onto the bus seemed like a nightmare. So we opted to try and take the monorail to Magic Kingdom and then hop on a boat back to Wilderness Lodge (which is about a 5 minute boat ride). You do not have to get the children out of the stroller and fold it up on the monorail or boat, so that is ideal for us when they are sleeping.

When we got to the monorail, the monorail was down again so they told us we needed to take a ferry to the Magic Kingdom and then we could hop on the boat to Wilderness Lodge. The ferry took forever and then when we got to the boat at the Magic Kingdom there were tons and tons of people in line. It took us a really long time to get back to the hotel and it seemed as though everyone was very upset with Disney World transportation that day. Did I mention that the elevators were also broken at our hotel (ALL OF THEM)...wonderful. It was a tough day and Michael and I were pretty discouraged. I wanted to complain to someone, but had no idea who to even complain to. So Michael tweeted at Disney World and they responded with giving us a couple extra fastpasses.

We decided to beat the heat and the disappointment from the morning and swim at the hotel for a little while. The boys definitely perked up after a couple hours of swimming.

We headed back to Epcot later that night with a game plan and better attitudes! Patrick had been begging to ride Test Track, so we decided to head there first. The big boys rode with Michael, while Conor and I hung out. They grabbed a rider switch pass so that I could ride with the big boys afterwards, but can you guess what happened next? The ride broke down!!! Definitely seemed to be our luck that day! Epcot really needs to get it together!!






We decided we would go and try the frozen ride again. On the way, we saw the line was pretty short for Joy and Sadness and Baymax, so we jumped in line!

Peyton was scared of Joy and Sadness, so just Patrick and I posed for a picture. They are too cute!



Next up was Baymax


Peyton was loving him and doing fist pumps with him. Too funny!




We also hit up the Nemo ride one more time, since it is one of the boys favorites



When we finally made it to the Frozen ride, our fastpasses from earlier in the day were not working. We had to throw a big fuss to get in the fastpass line. I was glad we didn't have to wait in the 90 minute stand by line, because the ride was not our favorite at all. My back does not bother me normally, but it was so rough that it really hurt my back. Michael already has back problems and I wasn't sure he was going to make it through the ride. It is supposed to be a calm boat ride, but it was so rough and threw you around and was so uncomfortable! The animation inside is really cute, but not worth it for how much it hurts your back. I can see why it breaks down all the time! I'm hoping we just got a really rough ride and this doesn't happen to everyone else!


On the way back to Test Track, we took a family picture. Epcot really is pretty at night.


Test Track was a really neat ride and it ended up being a favorite for the boys. Patrick said that Mine Train and Test Track were both his favorites. 

Terrible picture, but I had to capture the car the boys built by themselves before the time ran out. They were really excited about it.




While we were on Test Track, Conor and Michael went to pick out a toy. Conor got a bubble gun and he LOVED it. He was seriously giggling like crazy.







We had one more fastpass, but it was about 9:10pm and we thought the boys were too tired. I really wanted to see Illuminations, but we were too nervous that the transportation afterwards would be crazy and it would put us back to the hotel too late. Maybe next time :)

We rounded out our trip the next morning with breakfast at Whispering Canyon, which is the table service restaurant in the Wilderness Lodge hotel. I wish we had been able to visit this restaurant earlier in the vacation. It was really good! Maybe next time we will have to try it out for dinner!



Luckily Conor and Michael had a row all to themselves on the plane. Conor was clearly exhausted :)


It was a fun trip, but we were all exhausted! Maybe next time will be a little easier!

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