Thursday morning was my favorite character meal BY FAR! We had a reservation at 9am for breakfast at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian. I feel like this breakfast was just perfectly classic. It is in a gorgeous hotel with some of the most prim and proper characters, with a few silly ones as well!
We got there just in time, checked in and then waited to have our picture taken as a family. Then we walked right in! I thought the food was awesome and I am not really a big breakfast person at all. It was buffet style, all you can eat. Which is great because you can eat a ton and be set for a good part of the day! Lyla especially loved the buffet because they had a special place at the buffet that was kids sized, so she could serve herself! She thought that was awesome! They had their classic Mickey Mouse shaped waffles which she loved! They also had like a "dessert" station which I thought was a little strange at breakfast time. But Lyla spotted it right away, and how many times are you at Disney?? We lived it up and she filled her plate with gummy bears and rice krispy treats, haha!
We met Alice. Lyla has watched this movie several times and LOVES it. Re-watching it with her, oh my goodness....it is WEIRD!!! Seriously. What were they on when they made that one?! But she loves it.
I do love how you do not have to worry about getting time with the characters or stand in a line to see them. You can just sit and enjoy your food and they come to you! It is so nice.
Sweet Alice. She was totally in character as her absent-minded self. The Mad Hatter was there as well and Lyla was super scared of him. Like did not what him to come to our table and did not want to be anywhere near him. She kept saying "Don't let him come to our table!" So we made sure we were up at the buffet as he was visiting the tables close to ours, so that we wouldn't be there when he came by. He was the first and only character that she did not want to meet.
My personal favorite....Mary Poppins. She was seriously practically perfect in every way. She was beautiful and so so so sweet. We loved meeting her. Lyla talked about her the rest of the time. We have not seen her movie yet, but it is on my list for her. I think she would love it!
Her dress was GORGEOUS!
She was gorgeous.
She was my favorite part of the breakfast. And along with meeting Snow White, my favorite character to meet.
Winnie the Pooh was there too!! Lyla loved meeting him!
Silly girl. Some how Tigger missed our table. And Lyla refused to leave until we met him. I mean, who can blame her. Literally the whole dining room had cleared out and the new round of guests were coming in to eat. We did have to ask a couple of times and wait awhile to meet him.
So we took the opportunity to take some pictures!
Tigger finally made his bouncy appearance and all was right with our breakfast!
I loved doing a character breakfast and will definitely plan on doing at least one again next time. It is a great way to start the day and you do not have to worry about getting somewhere later on in the day. You are nice and full and can almost skip lunch or just grab something light.
We could have left our car at The Grand Floridian, but decided that we might be exhausted that evening, so we went ahead and moved it to the transportation center and caught the monorail there. We got to Epcot and it was FREEZING!! Like Adam was seriously considering buying warmer clothes in the park because he was so cold (and he hardly wears a jacket at home on cold days!!). It was overcast and drizzly as well, which just made us colder. Lyla was a trooper and never complained!
Ready to have a fun day at Epcot!
Mom and Dad!
Pawpaw, Honey and Lyla.
Mimi, Lyla and Gramps!
Going to Epcot, I was not sure Lyla would really enjoy it. It just seemed more for adults, but I was totally surprised how much we all enjoyed it!
We started off at The Seas with Nemo and Friends. What a fun ride! Lyla loved it!! I tried to talk her in to Turtle Talk with Crush, but she was not interested in doing that.
So everyone headed to do Soarin' but ended up doing Living with the Land since the line was so long while Lyla, my mom, Steve and I waited in line to see Chip and Dale. My mom and Steve do not do well with those kinds of rides. Lyla enjoyed meeting the Chipmunks and adding another signature to her book.
The other group was still busy doing their own thing, and we noticed that the line to meet Mickey was not super long. So we headed in to meet him and some of his friends. We waited about 15 minutes or so to meet him. Since we had not seen him at Magic Kingdom, I thought it would be great to see him!
Mickey Mouse!
Getting some Mickey love!
Goofy! We were next in line to meet him and he left to go on break! I was thinking, great, we will have to wait 20 minutes before seeing him again. But out popped Goofy...another Goofy. You could totally tell it was a completely different one. He was MUCH taller and had much more of a stomach on him. It made me laugh. I cannot imagine how many character cast members it takes to pull off a day at Disney.
He was SUPER tall!
Kisses for Goofy.
And Minnie! I am so glad we got to meet her! We saw her on our last trip, but she was in her pink dress. I loved seeing her in her classic Red and White.
Getting her book signed.
She loved meeting Minnie.
The cast member with Minnie was super insistent that it would be great to get a generation picture with Minnie!
We rode the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros which was fun and I totally remembered from when I was young! We got to see the glass blower, which we thought was really neat to watch. Lyla loved watching him put the glass into the fire and bend it and mold it to make these gorgeous flowers. What patience and skill that takes!
We also rode that ride in Norway?? I cannot remember what it was called. But no wait, out of the cold, it worked for us! I heard they are possibly getting rid of this ride and making a Frozen ride? I don't know if that is fact or rumor. We saw where Anna and Elsa were having their meet and greet and oh. my. goodness. That became the focus for the rest of the trip. That is all Lyla could talk about, was meeting them!! The line was literally THREE hours long to meet them. No joke. No exaggeration. No FastPass. They did not start their meet and greet until 11am, but people started lining up at 9am. Seriously. Those two and their little fans are no.joke. There was no way we were going to stand in line that long. I told Lyla we could come back and check to see if it died down at all. But it NEVER did. She was so disappointed. And I just could not justify us standing in line for that long to meet them.
I knew there were several fun characters to meet while at Epcot.
Lyla got to meet Belle! Since we have only ever seen her at Enchanted Tales with Belle at Magic Kingdom, this meet and greet gave her a chance to sign Lyla's book.
Even though their costumes were all covered up, it was kind of fun seeing them in their "winter attire". It was cold!!
We tried to meet Mulan, but she had just left to go on break and it was so cold and rainy and we were hungry. So we ate in China at a yummy restaurant. After we ate, it was time for Donna and Steve to leave. It was so sad to see them go! It kinda felt like vacation was coming to an end once they left. But we had planned to have Friday as just our family day, so we knew we had at least one more park day. I am always sad though as our vacations come to an end.
A must for me was to meet Aladdin and Jasmine. They were my favorites growing up and I had never met them. They had just gone on break but we got in line anyways and waited quite awhile for them. My parents went to do their own thing for awhile.
Aladdin was quite the character. He was SO funny and super bubbly. It must be so fun for these two to have their meet and greet together. They can totally play off of each other and it must be nice to have each other!
I mean, they just went back and forth and had us all laughing. Lyla thought he was so silly.
They talked about their magic carpet and Aladdin's friend Abu.
Since it was so cold, Jasmine had her warm coat on.
We did not make it all the way around the countries. It was just too cold and we were TIRED. My dad and Adam wanted to take a spin on Test Track. I really wanted them to enjoy themselves and not feel like their whole trip was meeting characters, so while they did this, my mom Lyla and I went on Ellen's Energy Adventure. Oh my goodness. I wish I knew what this was before we wasted our time. It was a total bore and Lyla totally did not enjoy this one. It was WAY over her head and so.slow. moving and I think because we were so tired, we all could have fallen asleep. The only "fun" part of it was when we rode through the Dinosaur time. But we will not be doing that one again. I thought maybe because it was Ellen, it might be more funny and light-hearted, but it was seriously about Energy. At least it was inside, warm and we could sit down. We finished up with that and walked over to the Test Track to wait for Adam and my dad. They said it was a BLAST!! I cannot wait to try this one out next time. They had so much fun!
As we were walking towards the entrance, we decided to go on one last ride. We jumped on Spaceship Earth, since there was no line and hey, it was inside the big Epcot ball which I thought would be cool. This might have been a great ride had it not broken down every few minutes. We would move a little bit and then literally sit. I got so hot and was feeling claustrophobic for some reason, I was just ready to get off!! I think I was just hungry and the fact that it was so stop and go, I think it literally took us like 20-30 minutes to get off that thing. I might not have really been that long, but we were ready to be done!
We left the park and took the monorail back to the transportation center to grab our car. We were exhausted. I was so ready to eat and go to sleep. We ran by Chick-fil-A and grabbed a quick dinner on the way back to the condo. We got Lyla in bed and then hung out with my parent's for a bit. Adam had to take them back to the bus station so they could catch their Mega Bus back to Atlanta that night. I went to sleep when they left around 10pm and he did not get back until super late. I think their bus left around 11pm. They said it was totally worth it, they thought, to ride the Mega Bus. It was so fun having them with us and I was super sad to see them go. Now it really felt like vacation was coming to an end. I am so thankful for such great parents and in-laws to travel and enjoy vacations with. It was such a blessing to have them with us and it was be memories that Lyla will cherish forever!
Our last day would just be our little family day. We had decided that we would go back to Magic Kingdom to do some of the things we had missed as well as head back to Epcot for a special farewell to Disney dinner!!
