Day 3

I waited too long to post this, so I have forgotten a lot! This was the day that we went to Epcot. Everyone tends to think that Epcot isn't fun for kids. My kids don't agree! We were lucky enough to be there during the Flower and Garden Festival. If we hadn't had kids with us, I would have liked to hit the gardening workshops and classes that they had going on, but I was happy just to walk around and see all the gorgeous topiaries and flowers. There was even a butterfly house and a fairy garden that we could walk through. As if Epcot wasn't pretty enough!

The new ride for us was Mission Space. Jeff and I were terrified of this ride... we had heard how rough it was. It puts you in a spaceship simulator. It makes you feel as if you are blasting off from Earth to Mars, and creates the feel by spinning you in a centrifuge. I didn't plan to ride it, but Jeff went on with the kids. Much to Addison's disappointment, he was too short. For some reason, he was 44" in the other parks, but not here. I think they raised it a little bit higher just for this ride, but who knows. There were warning signs everywhere trying to get people to either not ride it at all or ride the "green" version, which does not spin. They even made you hold a card that lists all the warnings while you stand in line. I tried to convince Addison that he really didn't want to ride it... and while Jeff and Asa blasted off to Mars, Addison, Ivey and I went to Innovations and played a recycling game. My competitive little Addison was happy. Jeff swore that I had to ride Mission Space before we left.

Asa and Addison had a great time playing in the water fountain. One of my best Disney memories is of me and my cousins playing in the jumping water, which we could not locate on this trip. One of the new things that we did on this trip was the Kim Possible Mission in Epcot. I found this to be complete genius. You go to a station and pick up a Kim Possible phone/communicator. You then head to the country that they instruct you to. Once there, you help Kim Possible save the world by listening to the clues and completing the missions. It was very interactive. The game used the GPS in the phone... as you found and stood near a clue and pressed the button on the phone, it would trigger action right there in front of you. For instance, in Japan, the were told to find the windchimes outside of a shop and sit underneath. When they did, they pressed their phone button and a gust of wind came down, the chimes spun, and the phone explained that the gust strengthened their signal or powers or something. At one point, they found a gong they were looking for, which normally looks just like any other decoration in the park, but it made a loud 'gong' noise when they pushed the button. They went from clue to clue until they solves that country's mission. Jeff says that the UK had the best one. You had to go into a phone booth, which had a little door that let out a golf ball... you had to take the golf ball to a shop and put it in a golf ball washer... which revealed a hidden computer. They also had to go up to a certain tea shop and say to the server, "Danger is my cup of tea". She gave them a tea bag that had the secret code "chai" on it.. that they had to enter into the computer in the shop. Very cool. We saw as many adults playing as kids! What an excellent way to get the kids to enjoy going out around the lake. It also got us back into parts of the countries that we'd never seen before!

We ate dinner at our favorite Epcot restaurant, and the reason that we even booked this trip... Le Cellier. We weren't really thinking about coming back so soon, but Jeff just called to see if we could get a reservation... and if we could get reservations at all the good restaraunts, we'd come. So, we came! We even got them to bring out more of our favorite pretzel bread. Yummm.

I did end up riding Mission Space with Asa. It was an awesome ride... great concept and great simulation. I did spend the entire ride concentrating on not throwing up. The g force was so strong that I had to squint my eyes and after trying unsuccessfully to move my arms I decided to just focus on keeping control of my gag reflex. I was an awesome ride... that I won't do again!