Thursday
October 10, 2013
EPCOT,
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party
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| Akershus in the morning |
Today we
were headed back to EPCOT with 11:00 am reservation at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in EPCOT’s World Showcase Norway Pavilion.
The Norway Pavilion is one of my favorites but we had never eaten at
Akershus before. This is also a Princess Character dining experience and we
were going to get to meet Belle!
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| Meeting Belle |
We told the host
at the host station we were there and he told us to wait in the shade for our
name to get called. While we waited we
chatted with several families around us. Everyone was happy and excited. My
girls loved talking to younger girls and asking them about their trip and their
favorite princess. Eventually we were
called to the line and one of the young Norwegian men struck up a conversation
with daughter. They mostly talked about how she was enjoying her vacation and
that he liked her dress. (She was
wearing a Sally dress we bought at Hot Topic.) After we were a little further into the restaurant, daughter told me she had
entered Norwegian boy heaven! I’m not
sure what they feed these Norwegian boys, but they were all very handsome.
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| Norway to the left |
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| Norway to the right |
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| Akershus entrance |
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| Just inside the door of Akershus |
Breakfast
include many American favorites such as a platter with scrambled eggs, bacon,
sausage and potato casserole. There is
also a buffet that includes smoked salmon, peppered mackerel, glassmeister
herring, capers, Jarlsberg, Munster and goat cheese, fresh fruit, dried fruit,
yogurt, granola, bagels and pastries, cream cheese and jelly. It was another yummy, filling meal.
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| Breakfast platter brought to our table |
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| Food from the buffet |
While we ate, we received visits from Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, and Aurora. This was the same Ariel we met at Cinderella’s
Royal Table and she remembered us! Daughter was so thrilled! BFF was not felling the Princess connection this morning so she chose to skip the photos.
We also
chatted with our cast member waitress and talked about where she came from in
Norway, how she loved working at the Norway pavilion at Disney and she was sad
because she was going to have to go home soon but was going to apply to come
back as soon as she was able. (It had to
do with green card rules) I asked if she
would pose for a photo with the girls and was thrilled that I asked.
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| Our cast member |
After
breakfast we rode the Maelstrom, a boat ride that takes us into ancient and
modern Norway, and we got attacked by trolls! We went into the shops and bought a few goodies. Daughter bought two of the frozen dolls, Anna
and Elsa. We stopped in the Kringalas
bakery and tried out this school bread I had been hearing so much about. It really just tasted like a cream puff to
me. It wasn’t bad, just not an” I have
to have it every trip” treat. I am glad we got to try it though.
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| Friendly troll? |
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| School Bread |
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| My Vikings in front of the Stave Church |
We decided
to double back to the Mexican Pavilion. We passed the Mariachi band on our way
and decided to listen for a bit. The Mexican pavilion is an Aztec pyramid that
you enter. Inside is the kidcot stop as well
as a Gallery with artifacts from Mexican history. We pass from here to a plaza where it is an
evening market and festival. In the
back ground is a river with an Aztec pyramid and smoldering volcano and a
restaurant on it is banks. It is really
neat. We spent time in the market looking
at the shops and then we rode the Grand Fiesta boat ride featuring the Three
Caballeros who are Donald Duck, Jose’ Carioca the parrot and Panchito the
rooster.
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| Mariachi Band |
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| Mexican Pavilion |
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| Night Market in Pavilion |
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| San Angel Restaurant with pyramid and volcano in background |
We headed
back past Norway and into China. This is
another beautiful pavilion that we had not previously explored well. I was looking forward to changing that. We enjoyed the gardens and even saw a
beautiful bird we think was a heron or maybe an egret. We
entered the beautiful Hall of Prayer and then went to the Tomb Warriors
exhibit. This is a one-third-scale
reproduction of the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang.
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| China Pavilion |
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| Gardens in China. See the white bird in the tree? |
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| My very favorite photo of the girls from the trip |
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| Prayer Hall |
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| Close up of prayer stone |
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| Tomb Warrior Entrance |
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| Tomb Warriors |
We also
watched the Circle Vision 360 movie called Reflections of China. Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai is our guide to the
sights and sounds of ancient and modern China.
The film was really beautiful. We
continued on to the shops. We all really
enjoyed these stores. They were colorful
and there were many interesting things to see.
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| Colorful store front |
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| Peaceful and elegant |
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| Looking back into the shopping areas |
We had a
Behind the Seeds Tour reservation for 3 pm so we were going to have to hoof it
over to the Land Pavilion. This is a 1
hour guided walking tour through the gardens at Living with the Land. We got to tour the Biological Control, the Biotech
Lab, and then into the green houses. Erin, our tour guide, showed us different ways we can use hydroponics in
our own homes as well as the different techniques used at Disney. It was really interesting and I even ended up
buying a book about home hydroponics. After we finished the walking tour we decided to ride the boats through the Living with the Land ride too.
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| Biological Control |
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| Biotechnology Lab |
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| Erin talking about the hydroponics system |
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| Cucumbers |
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| Ladle gourds - notice the Mickey head mold? |
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| walking into the big dome |
I took a bunch of photos on this tour. I encourage you to look at them in our flickr album. The link will be at the end of this post.
We hoped on Soarin’ after the boat tour. This was a first
for us and we really enjoyed it! I didn't take photos because I am pretty sure it would not translate well but the technology was really cool.
We had
previously planned to leave after Soarin’ and then go back to our room and get
ready for the Halloween party, but daughter really wanted to finish the kidcot
stops, so we did a marathon kidcot stop tour of the rest of the World
showcase. We didn’t get to explore all
of the pavilions well but we did manage to go to all of them! Daughter has decided we need to go back and spend several days in World Showcase. Here are a few highlights.
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| Canada |
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| The girls in Morocco! |
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| Japan |
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| Italy |
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| Germany |
After this
we did head back to our room, cleaned up and got into our costumes. We decided to go with an Alice in Wonderland
theme but with our own twists. I made
fancy costumes for the girls. Daughter was
the white rabbit but in an anime, cute Lolita style. BFF was our Alice but in a Gothic Lolita
style. Hubby was the mad hatter but he
had steam punk elements. I was the Cheshire
cat and I pulled together that costume the day before we left. It was mostly a tie dyed t-shirt and shorts
and I sewed together some arm and leg bands, and purchased a hat and tail from
a costume store. Oddly enough, I got so
many really favorable comments on my costume!
When the 4 of us were together we received a lot of kudos and were told
by several cast members that we were their favorite family costumes of the
night!
We got to
the party late and I was overwhelmed! I
really didn’t know where to go. We
watched the fireworks and the “Boo to You” parade. Daughter joined the pre-parade dance
party. That girl loves to dance! I bought both of the girls Jack Skeliington
Balloon and we ate at Casey’s Corner, which was quite the experience. Casey’s is a baseball themed counter service
restaurant that sells hot dogs and every topping you could ever imagine to top
that hot dog. It came with a drink, a
side of fries and your choice of cotton candy, Cracker Jack, or a brownie. We met another family while eating and talked
to them about the Halloween Party. They
were really nice and had a lot of great information to share. They also liked our costumes.
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| Fireworks over the castle |
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| Main Street |
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| Daughter dancing during the pre-parade festivities |
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| Here comes the parade! |
We met
several cast members in the Hat Shop on Main Street who loved our
costumes! The girls played up their roles
as Alice and the White Rabbit and the cast members and girls had a ball! While we were browsing in the stores we happened
to run into Lotso and there was no line so we all we went to visit with him,
even if he is evil! He is still super
cute and cuddly looking.
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| White Rabbit and Alice |
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| With the lovely cast members in the hat shop |
We actually
never left Main Street! I know! We didn’t get autographs, we didn’t ride
rides, and we didn’t trick or treat. We
still had fun!
Here is the link to our Flickr photo album for day 5.
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