Day Six, Part Two: Friday, July 24 ~ “The last day is always a sad day!”
We hadn’t been sure what our last park would be until about mid-week. I had hoped on hitting MK one more time, but we had missed an important stop at Epcot on Wednesday and I couldn’t go home without making it. We dropped our stuff off, changed our clothes, and packed up the suitcases a bit before heading out to catch a bus. A bus came quickly and we were on our way to Epcot.
We arrived and got through bag check. We also stopped for some pictures in front of Spaceship Earth (this was around 6:15).
We look happy on the outside, but we are sad on the inside!
One more picture in front of Spaceship Earth.
We also decided to check out the Visa meeting spot again, but there was about 5 families in line. Since we had already done it once during the week we decided to pass. However, our disappointment passed as we rounded the corner to exit from the back side of the building. As we had earlier in the week, we found a surprise in the back corner. This time it was SNOW WHITE! We had missed her in the WS earlier in the week so we got right in line. The wait was really short, but the meet was very fun! I was wearing my sparkly Minnie ears (which I have always admired, but would never buy) which I had acquired from the “damages” store in Wednesday (not really sure what’s wrong with them) and Snow White pointed out that we had matching bows. She also told me that Grumpy had mined the jewel that was on her bow. This then led to a discussion of how my dad and Grumpy have a lot in common. She was sure that this wasn’t true (clearly she’s never been around him in the morning) and that she thought he was more like Doc since they both wear “spectacles”! After we took some photos, we said goodbye to Snow and continued on the mission that brought us back to Epcot tonight.
Discussing our bows!
Telling me she doesn't think my dad's like Grumpy...
Noticing a non-existent wait for Journey into Your Imagination, we stopped for a quick visit with my favorite purple dragon.
We decided to stop and take a selfie with SE.
We entered the WS from the right side and quickly made it through Canada. We popped into the UK to look for Pooh and Tigger, but the door to Christopher Robin’s bedroom was closed. I thought this was odd since
MDE said that they would still be there for a few hours, but we didn’t dwell on it and continued on. The next country was our point of interest!
In case it wasn’t apparent in my first Epcot post, I am in LOVE with Paris (also France in general)! I have never been there and likely won’t for a long time, so this is definitely my favorite WS pavillion. We had stopped for pictures on Wednesday, but we were watching the time to get to our Illuminations FP so we had missed visiting the store. In 2013, I had left a big chunk of my spending money in the store (and found out the hard way that to ship a purchase to your hotel you have to do it before 7...not fun carrying that BIG bag around!) and it was calling my name again! On our way over to France we stopped for a PP photographer on the International Gateway bridge. He was a great photographer and took a ton of fun pictures. My mom’s favorite picture from the trip came from this stop.
Love these family pictures!
My mom's favorite...it's one of my favorites too! We look pretty good considering I had just tried to take my mom's eye out with ears when the photographer told us to put our heads closer. The ears are so comfy, I forgot that I had them on! OOPPSS!!!
Dreaming of Paris!
Our first stop in France was to watch Impressions de France. We had somehow missed it last time and I didn’t want to do it again. The movie is beautiful and makes me want to visit France even more than I already do! How convenient - the movie leaves you in the gift shop!!!!Some of the merchandise was the same as they had last time so I didn’t do as much damage. I did get a new t-shirt (with my favorite white, kitty Marie on it) and a non-Disney tank top with the Eiffel Tower on it. My mom also bought me a little 4x6 painted canvas with an Eiffel Tower scene on it. They had a ton to choose from and no two were alike so it took me awhile to pick which one I wanted.
We hadn’t really planned on eating a big meal again today, but after peeking into the Patisserie we changed our minds! I am sucker for any kind of good bread and all that was in my radar was croissants! We had just planned on getting dessert stuff, but while we were waiting we noticed the tasty looking sandwiches. Needless to say, we ate again! My dad and I had the Poulet au Pistou (which was grilled chicken, swiss cheese, tomato, red onion and basil pesto on a delicious piece of bread) and my mom had the Croque Monsieur (ham and swiss cheese on delicious bread). We also picked up 3 croissants to take back to the room. Let me tell you, this was hands down the BEST food we had all week! If I could eat that sandwich every day (maybe even more than once) I WOULD! I love a Disney cheeseburger or chicken nuggets just as much as the next person, but this sandwich was just soooo good! We will certainly eat there again in the future!
You know it was an awesome sandwich if I had to take a picture with it!
AHHH There's nothing better than the smell of a fresh croissant!
After we ate, we headed out the WS and stopped into Mouse Gears. I don’t think we bought anything there. At this point I was feeling a bit sad about leaving and was trying to come up with something else we could do to stall leaving the park. I decided that one more visit with some of my favorite friends was in order. We headed over to the Character Spot, I was hoping the wait wasn’t too long since Illuminations would be starting soon, but it was 20 minutes. We got in line anyways and it was at least 20 minutes, if not longer. I was glad that we decided to do this, because I was wearing the Minnie skirt that my mom had made for me. I had the material at JoAnne Fabric’s and it took a lot of convincing to get my mom to make it. The material was designed to be sewn into a shirt/sundress for a child, but I had determined that it would be long enough for a skirt. The elastic was already finished on the top, so it just had to be sewn up the back. It was a little shorter than I would normally wear, but I still loved it (and I did wear shorts underneath it so there were no wardrobe malfunctions!)!
When we finally got to the meeting room our first visit was with Mickey. It was definitely bittersweet...meeting Mickey is always fun, but when you know it’s your last time for awhile it’s also a little sad. Mickey loved my Minnie outfit and I pointed out to him that he was on one of my shoes, so that made him happy! We took a selfie and then a group photo and then we said “see ya later”!
One last hug from Mickey!
Selfie time!
This is probably one of my favorite selfies from the trip...I like the angle of Mickey!
Group shot
Next was Goofy. He was also a lot of fun and was really excited to take a selfie with me. We hadn’t gotten a picture with just my dad and Goofy on Thursday so we made sure that we asked for one this time. We are pretty sure that Goofy and my dad have to be related!
Hugs!
Sadly, the PP photographer took the picture at the same time I did so I have weird coloring...lesson learned=snap more than one picture!
Two peas in a pod!
Last was Minnie, this was a lot of fun since we had matching outfits and ears! We did some cute poses with our skirts and took a selfie before our group photo.
A hug from my girl, Minnie!
Look at our matching skirts!
Time for our selfie!
The interaction with all three of these characters was great! Maybe it was just because I knew that I won’t be seeing them again soon, but all three of their hugs felt extra long and extra special. I was still sad about leaving, but I felt a little bit better walking away from the Character Spot. Unfortunately we also noticed that it was 9:05 when we were walking out! My dad, our resident Illuminations expert, informed us that the show was only 12 minutes long so we better hustle to the buses. We had planned on getting back to the room a little earlier tonight, but we kind of lost track of time! We walked to the bus stop faster than we have probably ever walked before...we were on a MISSION! We got the our stop and got in line and then we were noticing that people were just coming into the park...it wasn’t until this point that I decided to looking at my phone and see that Epcot had EMH that night! So, we had been in a HUGE rush to beat the exiting masses and the park wasn’t even closing for another two hours! Oh well, it makes for a fun story now! A bus soon came and we were on our way to back to OKW.
Once we got back to the room and packed up all of our stuff (the food we had brought was pretty much gone, but we had more new stuff than that). Packing was a challenge, but we did it! We rewarded ourselves when we were done by eating our delicious croissants!
We headed to bed with an early alarm set for a sad morning heading home!
Step Count for the Day: 13,973; 6.03 miles
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for a very short description of our journey home and my final thoughts on the trip!