Monday 14th August

We are in Epcot for our first visit. Epcot is two large circles, one has all the big rides and the second has all the countries of the world.

Epcot has some very popular rides, the newest one the $550m Guardians of the Galaxy ride had a 95min queue by the time we arrived. There is also a Frozen show and Ratatouille ride that both had 60min queues. Our plan is to come back and pay for Genie + and it some Lighting Lanes (queue jumps) as waiting for anything for 60+ mins isn’t happening, especially in “feels like” 42c

We knew we needed to get over to Disneys Beach Club as we had a reservation at Beaches and Cream. The ice cream shop is set up like a 1950s dinner and set within the high end Beach Club resort. The resort is lovely but there isn’t anything Disney there, you could be in Spain, New England or Jamaica it was quite generic.

We met a lovely man called John who took us directly to the restaurant. John has lived in Florida for the last 19 years and he said that this summer has been the worst of record. He said hopefully in a few days it will be cooler.

The stand out menu item is the kitchen sink for $36 is the must have, when someone orders the kitchen sink the staff call out. When it’s ready alarms come out of the ceiling and the server shouts out “kitchen sink” and lists the ice cream insides.

The server told us that some customers get scared and think the kitchen sink alarms are hurricane warnings!

We were people watching to the maximum and one women caught our eye. She wanted to order a grilled cheese sandwich. The women’s delivery of the order was spectacular “Beaches and Cream…..pause….smirk…..grilled cheese….smile…..smarm”

We had a lovely waitress who recommended against the kitchen sink as the kids might be sick. But they had a “Mickey Bucket” which is exactly what they wanted and needed at 11am!

Nate even got an extra birthday cupcake!

We headed into Epcot and started straight away looking through Paris and France. We saw a familiar face in the corner!

The Beauty and the Beast sing along was the first thing we shoved got Nate onto. You can’t go wrong with Beauty and the Beast and signing along. Mummy loved it!

As we got to Morocco, we saw our favourite green photographer from Disney!

Guess what…it rained today. For about 2mins and only spitting, but still progress! We spoke to another cast member Rick who said this is the hottest weather he has ever seen in Florida and he has been here 30 years. Those sort of statements make us feel better that we are not just being British. This is Super Mario 3 where the sun is trying to kill you level.

We had a very special dinner booked in a restaurant called Coral Reef. The restaurant is inside the aquarium and you could sit face to face with turtles, sharks and stingrays.

We got probably the best table in the whole restaurant, right at the front with no one blocking our views. The food was delicious!

Daddy got a prime rib that was about the size of his dinner plate.

The boys got double mains and a side (after a birthday badge was shown) and Nate got dessert and ice cream, again the birthday badge strikes wonders.

We enjoyed the aquarium and a turtle talk with Crush! The technology behind that show was amazing and the actor playing Crush was so quick witted it was very entertaining.

We headed to the “giant golfball” as Nate called it and passed the under construction Moana ride.

We knew there was a slower space ride that we could get Nate on with relatively no queues.

But Elliott loved the ride, he jumped off and told the lady that “this is my favourite ride I’ve ever been on” Elliott also asked if we could go on the ride again and if we could rope drop the ride. Cute but crazy as the ride has no queue. Daddy the ancient Greeks! We are going to be fine with home schooling in September.

Unfortunately Daddies camera wasn’t working too well.

We looked at the time and realised it was already 19:45, the Epcot fireworks were at 9pm so we decided to stay late and let the boys watch the the fireworks. They played on virtual games and driving simulators (Nate was actually very good at this)

We have Skyliner for the way home, so getting back is relatively straight forward.

Tomorrow is Nate’s actual birthday, we have been using the birthday badge for two days now and we have snagged a few tasty gifts. But tomorrow Nate officially turns 5. Where would you want to celebrate turning five? That’s right Disney World and dinner with Mickey Mouse!