My morning started with calls to lost and found and the monorail station to try to recover our packet of lost autographs. Nothing. I was promised a monorail manager would call me back in 20 minutes. No call. I called back later that afternoon and the news was good. Yippee!!!  

When we got to Epcot...could the bus stop for POP Century be any further away? Geez! You start the day with a substantial hike and then just thinking about doing it at the end of the day. Sigh. Oh well. My feet are recovered now. They were in bad shape that day. So sore.  

As we came in I kept telling the kids that Spaceship Earth (hereafter referred to as "the ball") looked like a giant golf ball and that their Zade (grandpa) would love to have a go at it. If we could do it again we would have played a bit more with the ball in photos. I've seen people pose like they were balancing the ball on their finger or with their arms up and curved like they were holding the ball on their back. Very very fun ideas. Next time, huh?  

While I did these photos and my phone call, Don was supposed to go get Soarin' fast passes. He misunderstood me and went to get Test Track fast passes. Opposite sides of the park. Oh well. It worked out in the end. It was not too crowded. But when you go, get your Soarin' passes first. They go like crazy. We headed over to ride Test Track (I assumed Don had the Soarin' fast passes) and when we got there he told me no he had Test Track fast passes. Urgh... As long as we were there he and H rode on Mission Space. N is an inch too short so I agreed to be his non-ride buddy. He was interested in the water area just outside the two rides. He had a great time. Took of his crocs and kept putting them on different water spouts and screaming, "Take a picture mommy!" This is my favorite:

I got tired of waiting on Don and H so I told N we could go over and ride Nemo and get in line for Soarin'. By the time I got there the standby line was already over an hour for Soarin'. I was not interested. Told Don to meet us there and get the Fast Passes. N and I walked right onto Nemo with no wait. Not bad. Again, Disneyland does the ride better. You board a submarine there and feel like you go under the water and see basically the same things you do while you ride in the clamshells at Epcot.  

 

Lots of fun things to see when we got out. The favorite was the shark play area. We can't have a vacation in our family without goofy statue or goofy prop photos:  

 

N was also quite interested in the Manatees. By the time Don and H got over to us we had missed the only interpreted show of Turtle Talk with Crush -- kids weren't interested anyway (it is a favorite of mine though). He did catch a tiny bit of the interpreted talk on the manatees. We did ride Nemo again with Don and H though.

A huge favorite for the kids at Epcot were all the Kidcot stops. I had planned to skip them in my "hurry up and have fun" attitude because each one is a craft that requires you to take time out to color something or whatever. It really ended up being a very fun time for them. They got these cool lanyards to attach all the pieces they collected at each stop. Our first place was in The Seas.  

 

By Day 3, I was realizing we needed to get busy using up our snack credits on the dining plan. We were already behind. So...I let the kids have these gigantic popsicles which neither could finish even though they both swore they could. They had fun looking at each others' tongues to see the colors they turned.  

Next, we went back to ride Test Track with our fast passes. Great ride. H does not like the fast rides. I told her the whole time during the ride, "It feels just like how daddy drives!" (I was joking...well, a little). At the end, she said, "That wasn't so bad." See? Just had to put the ride in perspective for her.  

We had lunch at Sunshine Seasons. Loads of great choices. I had a Ahi tuna salad there...a bit overcooked for my preferences but good overall. The kids loved using snack credits at their bakery section -- loads of dessert choices there.  

Next we headed off to World Showcase. As you enter on the left side near Mexico, there is a spot where you can sign up to do the Kim Possible missions. We did this. Had no idea it would have our tired feet running us back and forth all over World Showcase. I just thought it would allow us to do something as we got into each new land. Ugh. Made Don return those puppies. Mean mom. Tired feet.  

First stop was Mexico. Probably my favorite land. I loved the Mariachi band playing in the street. Loved the art on sale. Way overpriced but beautiful.  

 

Kids got a kick out of seeing Caballero Donald.

Next country was Norway. When we went in to do our Kidcot thing -- a mask -- I saw a giant troll statue. Lots of people were posing with him. My kids got in on the action, too. We also rode on Maelstrom. Of course, we get up to the front and H announces with urgency, "I have to go potty!" We had a HUGE potty talk as we raced to a bathroom. I had just asked them 15 minutes earlier when we were right at a bathroom. We (*I*) decided that when we are near a bathroom we should all give it a go because you just never know.  

 

After our second country and second mask activity I realized the kids could just collect a paper shape and have it stamped to attach to their Kidcot lanyard. We really didn't need 11 masks or have the time to make them either. They still did an occasional mask here and there but this was much quicker. I also had made passports for them in advance. Got the files from DISboards. This really kept them going in World Showcase which is not necessarily the most kid fun place at WDW. They loved finding the Kidcot table at each place and getting their passports stamped. The people who work in each country are from that country. Most of them wrote something in their native language, wrote the kids' names in Chinese/Japanese characters or Arabic or some fun facts for the kids. The only party poopers were America and France. They just dated and signed their name. Hmph. You can see N's passport in this picture on our stop in Germany.  

China - beautiful buildings. Too hard to see the acrobat shows. Too many people standing around. I caught a leg in the air here or there but that was it. We did see Mulan and Mushu. Here is where the Epcot character problem began for me. They bring out a face character (where you see their real face) with another costumed character. It is much easier to replace the non-costumed character with a fresh person than to replace the face character because you need someone who looks like the character. So...they would send the face character away for a 20-30 minute break and bring back the other costumed character right away. That meant if you wanted to see both characters you had to wait. Lots of people waiting. Big P.I.T.A. Anyway, here we are after Mulan finally came back from finishing her tea.

Remember what I was saying about the Kim Possible communicators? You don't pick them up until Italy (nearly halfway through World Showcase). Then they wanted us to go back to Germany and so forth and so on. Here we are picking up our communicators in Italy. We returned them one country later.

America was next along the way. Loved the street performers.  

 

Morocco -- very cool place. Great buildings. The Kidcot guys were a lot of fun. Good music playing (H and N busted a few moves right there in the gift shop -- not great moves, but moves nonetheless).

 

We also saw Genie, Aladdin and Jasmine. This was another case of waiting forever for Aladdin and Jasmine to return from their magic carpet ride to join the Genie. Had to feel bad for the Genie. He was doing his best to entertain the folks but no one wanted just his autograph when they knew the other two were coming back at any time.  

We worked our way through the remaining countries with the goal to get all of our passport stamps in time for our dinner reservation at the Garden Grill in The Land. We made it just in time! Here are the kids - victorious with completed passports - outside the gardens in Canada.

Next we rushed back to The Land for our dinner reservation at the Garden Grill. I would highly recommend this one. The food was great. Served family style. Veggies were fresh and perfect. Lots of selections. Great options for the kids, too. They were both very happy. You also see Mickey, Chip, Dale, and Pluto at dinner. The restaurant VERY slowly rotates as you eat. It is so slow that we only made it about half of the way on the turn during our dinner -- we were there quite some time. Kids got "build your own cupcakes" for dessert which they just loved. Really great meal. Only thing I didn't like was when we were sitting facing all the people outside waiting while we ate. I felt kinda like a zoo animal with all the people staring at us.  

Pluto balanced our autograph book on his nose. Later Don made him balance a chicken nugget on his nose. I'm sure the guy in the costume was less than thrilled.  

After dinner, we used our Soarin' fast passes. The ride is identical to the one at California Adventure park. The queue route getting in there was a bit more insanely long (especially for having fast passes). Kids liked the ride. We got out just in time to go find a spot to watch some of the Illuminations fireworks show. I wish we had been able to stake out a spot earlier because we didn't have great visibility. Oh well. We got there just as it started so really couldn't complain. One fireworks photo:  

We took the monorail to the ticket and transportation center -- where lost and found is located. Too bad for us...found out that they close at 7pm. Keep that in mind folks. Also, most resorts will send a runner to lost and found to retrieve your lost items and bring them to your room. That is what we ended up doing. Back on the monorail to get to a bus and back to our hotel.