Day 7 – EPCOT – 20,948 steps

After such an epic day yesterday, we were intentionally moving a little more slowly today. We eventually roused ourselves for our 8:30 breakfast reservation at Kona Cafe. We took the monorail over to the Polynesian Village Resort again and without much wait at all, we walked in and were seated.

Sean *needed* to come here for Macadamia Nut Pancakes. Maya had to try out their Tonga Toast. (I have made a version of Tonga Toast at home, so she wanted to see how the real thing compared, I think.) I wound up choosing a biscuits and gravy special, and Lolli and Pop found plant-based options that suited them. I won’t lie – it was a really good breakfast.

The kids had been begging to play in one of the big inviting resort pools ever since we had arrived over at Pop Century back on day one. We finally let them. Maya, Ian, and Lolli got suited up to go play in the big pool at the Contemporary. There were fountains (that they got yelled at for touching). There was a waterslide (that they only rode a time or two before it was closed for unknown reasons). But still and all, I think they enjoyed their time not standing in line and not following some grown-up’s agenda.

After a good long swim, we got dressed and boarded the monorail to EPCOT. This would be our day for spending some time in the world showcase part of the park, but first, at the kids’ request, we did Test Track again. Maya and Ian loved the idea of designing their own cars. Ian wants his car to be as fast and powerful as possible, and so his design choices reflect that. Maya worked out that she had no interest in competing with him on speed. She instead decided to make her car as efficient as possible. It fits in nicely with her desire to clean the oceans and not destroy birds’ habitats and her general good conservation wishes.

And so, with their vehicle designs set, they again test drove their vehicle. As before, we’re all in the same car, so speed and handling don’t change – the ride is the ride – but the kids can check the readout afterward to see how well they did.  Maya may have been the top runner for efficiency. And I think Ian was first or second for speed. They were thrilled, so thrilled in fact that they begged us to buy them these little cards that showed their vehicle designs and stats. Understand that we were at the tail end of a trip chock full of things they wanted, and so we said no. Lucky for them, Lolli and Pop got the cards for them, and they were very happy.

Then we started working our way through the world showcase. To keep the kids semi-engaged, we started them in collecting Kidcot cards and stickers. There’s a card and sticker for each of the 11 countries in the showcase, and there’s a little Kidcot stop hidden away somewhere in each pavilion. The cards have a little picture to color on one side and a little fact about the country on the other and a space for them to stick their sticker. At the beginning, the kids were issued little plastic bags equipped with paper suitcase handles so they could keep their cards together. If they collected all 11, they could get a special surprise, which turned out to be a postcard proclaiming that they had traveled the world. If nothing else, it gave them something to look forward to as we entered each new land.

We started our journey in Mexico, where the kids created their own digital dia de los muertos skulls reminiscent of what they saw in the movie Coco. Sean and I tried a couple of snacks: a tostada de chorizo and a tamal de barbacoa. I helped mine along with a horchata margarita. To feed the kids and Lolli and Pop, we walked over to La Cantina de San Angel where Maya and Ian had – you’ll never guess – chicken fingers again!

In some areas we lingered, in others, we more or less collected our Kidcot card and sticker, looked around a bit, and moved on. Norway, we had mostly seen on our visit to EPCOT earlier in the week. In China, we had our photo taken. We might have liked to walk around more but the kids were soooo booooored. In Germany, we had fun watching an extremely elaborate miniature railroad and village called the Garden Railway.

In Germany also, we partook of our next cookie on the Holiday Cookie Stroll. At EPCOT, you could purchase five different holiday cookies in various “countries” and if you wound up getting all five, you were given a special “completer” treat. We had started this stroll earlier in the week by getting a whopping one cookie to share – a Black and White Cookie around France and Morocco. Today in Germany, we picked up a Linzer Cookie to share.

In Italy, we stopped to listen to the storyteller there. Where France had had Pere Noel. Italy had the witch La Befana. She was great – a captivating teller of tales. Unfortunately, our antsy pants kids were not in the mood to stand there an listen to a lady tell stories, so we didn’t get to stay as long as we might have liked.

Our next stop around the world was our own country! We went into The American Adventure building, and browsed a bit. The most arresting thing inside though, were the three gingerbread houses, if you can even call them that. One represented the Lincoln Memorial. Another was The American Adventure itself. And a third showed the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial. I’m told that everything you see in those glass cases is edible. All the trees, the rocks, the foundations – everything.

Outside the building, we stopped in and picked up our next Holiday Cookie Stroll treat – this time a chocolate crinkle cookie. I know it seems like we’re eating a lot of cookies, but we would buy a single cookie and then split it four ways. It’s not nearly at gluttonous that way.

At Japan, we stopped and watched Matsuriza, a demonstration of traditional Japanese Taiko drumming. Again the kids were fidgety just standing and watching, but I think this performance was interesting enough that they were at least semi-engaged. We also made a stop back at Mitsukoshi to examine all the neat Japanese foods and toys and things. Apparently Mitsukoshi established its first store in Tokyo in 1673, so this probably shouldn’t be taken as Disney’s *version* of a Japanese department store. This is the real deal. I might have liked to browse more, but keeping the kids out of trouble in a store full of unique goodies feels like a full time job.

In Morocco and France, we mostly wandered around and gawked and picked up the Kidcot stuff. Around the UK and Canada pavilions, we partook of another Holiday Cookie Stroll treat – a snickerdoodle that featured chunks of Snickers bars. Sean and the kids mostly had that one.

By this point, the kids were looking for something more action-packed than a cookie or a show, so we went back to Mission: SPACE to try out the Orange version of the ride. For this version of the ride, you’re going to Mars rather than orbiting the earth. It was definitely more intense, to the point that I’m not 100% sure I enjoyed it. I found the experience fascinating, to be certain. The kids seemed to really like it though, so maybe I’ve just aged out of having those sorts of forces applied to my body as a means for having fun.

We also wanted to try out the Soarin’ Around the World ride one more time, and attempt to score seats in the center carriage and maybe at the top where we wouldn’t see dangling feet. Once we made it toward the front, Sean kindly asked the ride operator to hook us up, and she informed us that we would want to be in the B1 group. File that away for future reference. The pyramids had no weird curvature, and there were no limbs dangling down to muddy the illusion that we were soaring through the air. If nothing else, it was a wonderful break for tired feet and bodies after another long day. [Sean: It’s said that everyone’s mother loves Soarin’.  I don’t know if everyone’s mom does, but Lolli does and that is why I included it even though we had already ridden it previously.]

At this point, Lolli and Pop decided to call it a night. We had a few more things to do though. We had one more item to get to complete the Holiday Cookie Stroll – the Gingerbread Cookie, which the kids mostly took down without any help from their parents. Our completer cookie was of course a celebration of Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary, and while it was lovely, we decided we’d had quite enough cookies today and would save that one for later.

We also wanted to grab a few more photos around the park, since it was our last day there. Try as we might, we couldn’t beg, plead, or threaten our kids into compliance, so there are a wide range of emotions expressed in those evening photos, I’m afraid. [Sean: Fear not, these photos won’t be wasted.  The kids will eventually begin bringing friends and significant others over to the house and these photos will have their moment to shine.]

We ended our evening by watching the Beacon of Magic at EPCOT – a lovely light and sound display at Spaceship Earth. The “big EPCOT ball” shimmered and strobed, changed into a giant globe, a giant snowflake, a giant rainbow. It was pretty neat to watch.

As we were heading back to take the monorail back to our hotel, it occurred to us that we hadn’t had any real food yet, so again, we ordered pizza at the hotel. It was just too handy to be able to laying out things for packing. As the kids were getting nestled into bed, Maya pointed out that she was about to get to see fireworks from the hotel room again. Alas, that tired child fell asleep just before they started.

Sean and I were insanely tired also. Given that, we did as much prep as we could, but ultimately left the majority of the packing for our flight home till the next morning. This was not a bad choice. Our brains were mush and there were a lot of things to account for.

[Sean: An astute and thorough reader will have noted we didn’t see Harmonious nor did we see Disney Enchantment.  While I would have liked to have seen these shows you have to pick your battles.]