Christmastime Trip – 12/9/17-12/17/17 – Day 2

Sunday 12/10/17

We were up early and dressed in our winter clothes and on to Epcot for our 8:00 breakfast at Garden Grill. Kathy was really smart this trip and brought her actual winter coat. We all had sweatshirts and jackets. It is so nice to walk into a practically empty park! This was our first venture at Garden Grill breakfast and it was so good! We saw instantly the appeal, it’s a nice, quiet, low key setting, and we saw the characters at least 3 times! Dale even took the Epcot map and helped plan our day! He wanted us to go on Spaceship Earth and then snorkeling in World Showcase Lagoon! A little chilly for that! After fully filling our bellies and getting our passes for the 6:45 Candlelight Processional we headed downstairs where we were part of Soarin’s first flight of the day! Only B concourse was used since it was all breakfast people! This was Kathy and Ben’s first time on the new version, everybody loved it! From there we got over to Test Track fairly quickly where there was still only a 20 minute stand-by wait. That was a great way to get two tier 1 rides in with no fastpasses! We used our FP for Spaceship Earth and then our FP for Living with the Land. At that point it was time to introduce Ben to the storytellers! We started with Pere Noel in France, La Befana in Italy and Japan’s New Year tale. We also saw our lady drummer friend in Japan! Then we all thoroughly enjoyed the Voices of Liberty. I could listen to them all day! And their Christmas songs, oh my, goosebumps all over! At this point we were ready for a bit of a park break so we toured the Boardwalk Resorts of Yacht and Beach and Boardwalk. It was really nice to see all their holiday decorations. It “warmed” up nicely so that we could take our coats off. The sun felt really good but we knew we’d be needing the coats later in the evening. After some relaxing away we headed back to Epcot to try some holiday kitchens, Japan, America, and Germany. The Soba Noodle in hot soup from Japan was probably the tastiest surprise! It was really good when we didn’t really know what to expect. And the hot soup was delicious against the December chill.
We met up with Steve and Chelle and the kids and all had fun seeing Julenissen in Norway! This was the main one Ben was looking forward to! We had to split with them briefly to use our FP for Frozen Ever After. None of us had been on it before. It was cute, we all still like Maelstrom much better and all agree that we wouldn’t waste a lot of time in standby for it. We will only ride it at opportunistic moments. After riding I was able to score a 4th FP for us for Spaceship Earth later in the evening. We were able to meet up with Steve and Chelle and the kids again in Germany while they enjoyed some holiday kitchen food. We had a great visit with them, it was so good to see them again! Lauren and I were very fortunate to see them in October but it had been awhile for Kathy and Ben. It was time for them to go and get the kids ready for bed and about time for our Candlelight Processional so we hugged our goodbyes and we went our separate ways. Our narrator was Kurt Russell which we were happy about but I think we underestimated his popularity. Oh we got fine seats with the dining package, but the whole theatre was pretty well packed with dining guests. Almost no standby was admitted. There were definitely people who had stood in standby for over four hours that never got in, for any of the shows! In fact, the first time we went by the theatre during the day, just around noon, there were already people in standby! What the?! Now, we know Kurt Russell from his younger days, Overboard with Goldie Hawn, that timeframe. We could not for the life of us figure out what made this narrator so popular. Then the emcee mentioned him being in Guardians of the Galaxy! Ooooooooooh! Now it made sense! Anyway, he was an incredible narrator and the show was mind blowing! I would go to this at least a couple times a year if I was local. It exceeded all our expectations! After having our hearts and souls filled with the Christmas spirit we did a little shopping in Mouse Gear and used our final FP for Spaceship Earth. We left happy and tired after a long but very fun day. Hot chocolate at POFQ to round out the night.

Steps: 27,035
Miles: 12.21