Disney Day 2 - Part 1: Epcot

On day 2 of our Disney trip, we took advantage of one of the many perks of staying on a Disney property - extended hours of the park. Epcot opened early and we were there very soon after opening. I think Epcot is pretty cool but a lot of the stuff there just isn't that interesting to young kids. So our plan was the hit the little kid friendly highlights and take off to another park. 

First up was Soarin' and The Land. Cade is too small to ride Soarin' so I let all the other big "kids" go ride that while Cade and I had a nice leisurely ride on The Land. His favorite part of the ride was the bubbles in the water under our boat. Obviously doesn't take much to impress him so I don't think he felt like he missed out.

Next up was Nemo. The ride was fun and then we walked around looking at the aquariums, posed for photos with Bruce and then went and did turtle talk with Crush.

This was Cade's "scared" face.

Seems the boys taking these photos were just not cooperating with the scared memo.

Next up was a quick trip to the next building in Epcot, the ride with Figment. From our first trip with Dylan to Disney when he was 18 months old, we got a Figment stuffed animal. Dylan was excited to go on that ride and it did not disappoint him.

The other thing we wanted to do at Epcot was the character stop. One line, get to see 4 of the "main" Disney characters. Good bang for the buck, or bang for time as it is. Did I mention our Magic Photo Pass that we got? Also another good bang for the buck in my opinion. We paid an upfront fee and then got digital access to all the photos that the parks took of us while we were there. That included random stops around the parks, character stops and even the shots during the rides. And since our magic bands were also linked with the grandparents, we got all theirs too. Pretty cool. We got a lot of great shots from that and I'm very glad we went for that option.

Everyone at Epcot!

This boy is a hugger!

So Seriously Sweet!

He was pretty stoked to see Mickey again!

It's Us!

It's Everyone!

Goofy was hiding. Minnie came over to
help Cade find him.

And then he got hugs.

The Goof-sters!

The Goofster Grandparents

Sweet Minnie

From Our Camera
(One of the few instances where I think we may have got a better shot than the pros.)

But their's was pretty good too.

See that smile? And that run? He was ready to go give someone else a hug....

Duffy!

He has a Duffy stuffed animal, complete with Buzz costume,
 that snuggles with Cade every night.

Dylan was pretty excited to meet him too!

He even gave him a hug!

After hanging out with Duffy, I wanted to do one last ride before we left. The last time we were there, the Maelstrom ride had too long of a line to wait in. I wasn't going to miss it this time. And no line...right on the nice cool ride. I'm really glad we made the trek over to Norway for the ride since it was the last time to ride it. I read after getting back from our trip that Maelstrom is closing this month to be revamped into a Frozen ride.

We also saw Pluto on the way out.

And that was it. After a couple of short hours, we were done with Epcot. We jumped on the monorail for our next park of the day.