DeSpains Do Disney Part Three: Epcot & Memories

Thanks so much for your positive feedback regarding these Disney recap posts! I’m really glad that so many of you are finding them helpful in planning (or dreaming about planning!) your own Disney trip. If I can document our family memories and help others in the process, that’s a total win/win in my book. 🙂

If you didn’t read about our first two days yet, you can start here to catch up!

Onward to park day #2 at Epcot! This has always been Jamie’s and my favorite park. I think a lot of adults agree! It’s a really fun place to eat, drink, explore, and play.

Walking around the World Showcase, Jamie and I couldn’t help but reminisce about walking in that exact area in years past during very different seasons of life. I had this moment where I just felt so proud at how far we’ve come; it feels like we’ve grown up together in a way. From juniors in college during our first trip (a New Years vacation with my family in 2008)….

… to our second trip together as a spontaneous getaway before his second deployment (February 2013)…

… to now, walking around with our precious girls. They always say to remember to thank God for the things you prayed for years ago, and this was one of those days where I felt so darn thankful for how far we’ve come and all the seasons we’ve walked through together.

Anyway. 🙂 The park opened at 9, so we planned to leave our room by 8 to catch a bus and get to the park early. We wanted to be some of the first people inside so that we could bolt right to the Frozen ride. Fast Passes weren’t available for it when we booked our trip a month ago, so our travel agent suggested we get their first thing to avoid the inevitably long wait later in the day.

The girls were so exhausted from the day prior that we didn’t have the heart to wake them up super early. We got ourselves totally ready, Jamie grabbed a quick-service breakfast at the resort for all of us, and we finally woke them up about 7:45. They ate a little bit, we got them dressed, and we were out the door. We didn’t get into the park until 9:30ish, but thankfully we only waited about 40 minutes for Frozen. Word to the wise: don’t wait more than an hour for this ride. Not worth it, in my opinion. It’s cute, but I would never suggest waiting the 2+ hour wait that it usually accumulates.

After Frozen, we ran over to the Finding Nemo ride. It was like riding through an aquarium, but better! We really enjoyed it and highly recommend it if you have children. It also has a few aquarium-type things to hang around and see after the ride, which was neat! Hadley loved seeing the dolphins and a man in scuba gear hanging out in a nearby tank.

We had reservations at Akershus (within the Frozen village) to have lunch with the princesses (!), so we did a loop around the World Showcase and let Sadie get in a 20 minute snooze before we headed to lunch.

Note about napping: Hadley is almost 3.5 and naps some days and not others. We weren’t worried about her missing naps during this trip. Sadie, on the other hand, still naps twice a day. We decided to just go about our days at the park and let her nap in her stroller when she wanted to. This resulted in a ton of 20-30 minute naps, and though it was so painful for us to wake a sleeping baby when we had a reservation, she never fussed.  Ever. She (and Hadley) were so into the stimulation of everything. Another reason why three days was perfect. I don’t think they could have ditched decent naps for more than three days. If we went to Disney longer than this, we probably would have thrown a day spent at the resort into the mix so that they could catch up on sleep. Just a tip. 🙂

When we arrived, Hadley immediately had the chance to meet Belle. This was her first time to see/meet a princess at Disney, and she was so, so happy. Jamie and I were just in Heaven standing back and watching her. I’m smiling just typing this!

We helped ourselves to delicious, Norwegian-style appetizers from the buffet and then ordered lunch. Jamie and I both got steak and agreed that it was one of the best we’d ever had.

You guys know that Hadley eats like a bird, but her food wasn’t wasted thanks to our chunky monkey baby girl, Sadie. Eating may have been her favorite part of the trip. She ate and ate and ate some more!

We ordered Hadley a pizza, but she barely got in one bite when Cinderella suddenly rounded the corner…

I squealed, and Hadley excitedly got out of her chair. This was another moment that I got choked up. Cinderella and Rapunzel are her favorite, and the look on her face was one that I wish I could have bottled up forever. It was a quiet, magical moment for Hadley, Jamie, and me. So truly special!

She also got to see Ariel, Rapunzel, and Snow White, so five princesses in all.

Hadley enjoyed Snow White, but Sadie… Sadie was completely captivated.

I had Facetimed my mom in for her to see their last princess interaction, and it ended up being one of the best! Snow White spent so much time bent down talking with Sadie, and she couldn’t stop smiling. Then she got a kiss on her forehead. It was SO precious, and I was so happy my mom got to swoon right along with us!

After lunch we walked through the World Showcase again, but slowly this time, taking in all the music and walking around the shops.

Next we headed to use our Fast Passes for Soarin’. We knew Hadley wasn’t tall enough, so I went first while Jamie hung outside with the girls eating a snack, and then we switched. The wait for this ride was way too long the last two times we’ve been to Disney, so we were eager to give this ride a go since there weren’t any other kids rides that we were dying for the girls to do.

Our last ride of the day was Spaceship Earth. The girls were sluggish at this point (but still in good moods), so this was a good, chill ride for them to sit on our laps and relax for a little bit. We played a few of the interactive games afterwards and then loaded them up in the stroller again.

We had 5:30 dinner reservations at Biergarten, so we had about an hour and a half to kill. We were ready for the downtime at this point, so we walked over to a neat little Astroturf playground and let Hadley play her little heart out. We all enjoyed eating some ice cream (using our snack credits) and enjoyed the sunshine. We lucked out with perfect weather. Disney in March totally rocked weather-wise.

Can we talk about their precious shirts?! My neighbor Marcy made them as a surprise for the girls! Thanks Marce!! <3

By the way, any of the decent pictures you see of all four of us (or of characters or princesses) were taking via Disney Memory Maker. Basically we paid $84 (military price) and then automatically received all of our digital images that were taken during our trip. So worth the money! Any pictures that I’m usually in are selfies, so it was nice to be in pictures for a change without bugging strangers to take our pictures. 🙂

Also… may I suggest you buy these shorts in every color this spring/summer, because they are the very best shorts. They’re J. Crew’s , and I bought them this year in pink and gray. I bought a couple pairs a few years ago that I loved, but they’ve improved them by making them extra comfy via the stretch component. They also have them in and . They run true to size and are seriously the perfect shorts. Get a few pairs. You’ll love them!

We ended the day by eating our weight in German food at Biergarten, our favorite Disney restaurant. We’ve eaten there during each of our Disney trips together. Hadley of course didn’t eat the food, so she went down to the dance floor and danced her tail off for 30 straight minutes. She had the time of her life, and we so enjoyed watching her!

Here’s a flashback to New Years Eve 2008, our first visit to this restaurant. My sister and I are now both married to our then-boyfriends. 🙂

Epcot, you never fail us. What a fun day. 🙂

To continue reading part four from our trip, click here!

Let’s chat!

1. Which Disney park is your favorite?
2. What questions can I help answer about Disney?!