After spending 3/21 at Magic Kingdom, we had reservations for breakfast the next morning at one of our family’s favorite Disney restaurants: ‘Ohana. Our reservations were originally for around 9:30 am, but I had a last-minute Zoom call I needed to be available for at 11:00, and with some late night searching we were able to score an earlier slot.
We were up and out the door before 7:00 am, and on the bus on the way to Magic Kingdom shortly after. After unloading at Magic Kingdom, one of the younger kids had a bathroom emergency, and our group split up. My wife took the younger kids to the bathroom outside Magic Kingdom, while the oldest and I made the long (for me, anyway) walk up to the monorail station. My asthma was kicking into high gear by the time we made it to the top of the monorail ramp, and we made it onto a train that was ready to leave the station. We started along the big Magic Kingdom resort loop.
As the monorail pulled out of the Contemporary Resort (the first stop) my wife called to let me know she and the younger kids were on the next monorail right behind us. We set up a plan: since we were running late, the oldest kid and I would head straight over to the check-in stand for the restaurant as soon as we arrived at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort and let them know the rest of the party was going to arrive any minute. This worked out fine: as long as the whole party was there before we were seated, it wouldn’t be an issue. The rest of the group arrived right as my phone got the alert that we had a table, and we headed in to the restaurant.
A full review of our breakfast at ‘Ohana can be found here. The breakfast here is amazing, and it’s not one to be missed if you or your family members like Lilo and Stitch. There’s a rumor going around that this may soon be the only place guests will be able to meet Stitch at Disney World. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s definitely the only place to see Lilo, and the food is delicious.
Photos: Stitch recreates an old photo with the oldest, Stitch plays peekaboo with the toddler, and the toddler’s first Mickey interaction (he was very excited to tell Mickey that the waffles looked like him!)
After breakfast, we headed back for the monorail to Magic Kingdom and then on to the busses, reversing our path from earlier that morning. When we got back to the hotel, my wife took the kids to go explore the hotel grounds and play at the playground (they LOVED it, especially the sand) while I got changed into more “professional” clothes and did my makeup. I hopped onto my Zoom call for about 45 minutes, and then once that was done, I called my wife to let her know they were okay to come back to the room so we could get ready to head over to EPCOT for the rest of the day.
Photos: the big kids waiting for the monorail to arrive, the big kids on the monorail, me with my walker at Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort, heading to the bus to EPCOT.
Anyone who knows me knows that EPCOT is, by far, my favorite park. Our priority this afternoon was to try to snag a Virtual Queue slot for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. We made it to the park’s bus drop-off right around 1:30 pm, and it took some time to make it over to the entrance. (I walk SLOW, and while most of our group is able to go through the detectors with no issues, it takes me some extra time because my epipens and our inhalers set off the machines every time.)
This was our second time scanning into a park, and our oldest kid did fine, but the middle kiddo had some trouble. After a few unsuccessful tries, I asked if we could attach his ticket to my fingerprint. This wasn’t a problem. They had a Guest Services cast member come over with a tablet. They took my kid’s photo and we set up the fingerprint again to use my fingerprint instead. So now when he taps his card, I scan my fingerprint, and we’re good to go.
We stopped for a minute – we got a few photos with the Encanto topiary display and Spaceship Earth, I got our virtual queue reserved for Cosmic Rewind, and we discussed what we wanted to do first. The overwhelming answer we got from the kids was that they wanted to get on SOMETHING and get out of the sun. My wife and I decided to set a DAS reservation for Spaceship Earth, a favorite of mine, and we chose to wait out the queue time in Gateway Gifts.
Photos: Me and the kids at the fountain and me in front the Encanto topiaries at the entrance to EPCOT.
We bought a few bottles of cold water (a cheaper option for water, if you can make the walk over to a quick service restaurant, is to get a free cup of ice water there, but we had one child inches away from a meltdown and time was of the essence, so we just went with it) and we investigated the ears they had for sale. I got my hands on a pair of EPCOT 40th Anniversary ears, the oldest found a Turning Red ear headband, the middle kid got a The Nightmare Before Christmas pair featuring Jack Skellington, my wife got a cute pastel pair with a butterfly bow, and instead of a headband, the toddler got a Goofy hat that totally matched his outfit. While we were talking about the hat and how cute it was on him, a cast member walked over and discreetly let me know that Goofy was currently meeting just around the corner if we wanted to walk over for him to meet his favorite character. We had to do it. Spaceship Earth could wait.
After we paid we found the line for the Goofy meet-and-greet. If you’re wondering where to look, once you enter the touchpoints at EPCOT, and you’re facing Spaceship Earth, Goofy and Minnie were meeting to your right along the wall. Many characters have had meet-and-greet opportunities here over the years. As a matter of fact, this was the very spot our oldest met Stitch for the first time eleven years ago. The character attendant with Goofy offered to let us borrow their sharpie for Goofy to sign the hat we had just bought. Our toddler absolutely loved this, and kept talking for the rest of the trip about his “Goofy hat that Goofy signed” for him.
Photos: The toddler meets his hero, Goofy.
Once we finished up with Goofy, we headed back to Spaceship Earth. I made a critical error in accessing this ride. I’m not used to having my mobility device with me in the parks – my last Disney trip before this one was in 2017, and I started using my rollator in January 2020 – and I wasn’t aware of the mobility entrance to the ride. I parked my rollator next to our stroller and we went in the standard entrance, up the lightning lane ramp. Getting on the ride was no problem, but we’ll come back to this mistake. The middle kid sat with me, and absolutely loved it.
Afterward, we stopped in Project Tomorrow for a few minutes. My wife took the toddler to the restroom and the big kids were allowed to play some of the games while I responded to an important time-sensitive text message. After about 20 minutes, my oldest ran over in a panic – she had set her phone down at one of the stations and walked away when I asked her sibling to find her, without grabbing the phone. Now it was gone.
The short version of what happened is that another guest turned her phone in to a cast member, she had to wait a while to get it back, had an anxiety attack, and we learned a valuable lesson – the “Find My iPhone” app on our phones is not super helpful at actually finding our phones. For some reason, it wasn’t set up to share location with other members of the family. We could ping the phone, and we could lock it, but we weren’t able to see it on the map. At that point I made an executive decision – I downloaded the Life360 app onto my phone and my kids’ phones, set up a family group, and got us all onto one map that would show everyone’s locations at once. This decision would prove helpful a couple days later (more on that another day).
After the phone was retrieved (they do require you to unlock it for them to prove ownership) my wife took her over to Connections Cafe and Eatery to get a drink and calm down, and I was going to hit Mission: SPACE with the middle kid. First though, we had to get my rollator. Here’s the problem… I didn’t realize how far the exit out of Project Tomorrow was from the stroller parking at the front of Spaceship Earth. Maybe it’s not too far a distance for most people but it was a rough hike for me to get there then double back to Club Cool, where my kid wanted to stop for a drink. What I learned is that there is a wheelchair entrance within Project Tomorrow. I’ll share more about this entrance on my post about the second EPCOT day (because of course we rode again!)
Anyway, me and the kiddo hit Club Cool – only three flavors, including the Beverly, were available. The other two were the South Korean one with the lychee and apple juice flavors and the Chinese plum one. Then we went and hopped in the line for Mission: SPACE on the green mission. This kid had never been on any kind of ride like this, and I wanted to be sure they could handle the green mission before we even considered the orange side for them. Turns out, it was a good thing we went with green, because we had to stop for a break afterward because he was not feeling well. After letting him rest on the bench outside of the exit, we headed over to the Advanced Training Lab. He decided to lay down on a bench in there as well, and my wife stayed with him and the toddler while I took the oldest kid on the orange mission. She’s done green before and loved it, and felt that she was ready to graduate to the “more intense” mission.
After Mission: SPACE we decided we were going to get a DAS return for Test Track. But at that point… our Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind group got called up and we headed that way instead. A full review of my experience on Cosmic Rewind is available here.
After Cosmic Rewind, it was getting late. We had about 30 minutes before Harmonious was set to begin, and we had dinner reservations over at Beaches and Cream after the park closed. Our original plan was to head toward International Gateway, but the walkways around World Showcase were getting crowded and it was dark. Navigating that area with a mobility device in those crowds was tricky. After a quick discussion with my wife, we decided that she would take the younger two and keep moving toward International Gateway and we’d meet over there after the show. The toddler was asleep, and the middle kid isn’t big on fireworks, noise, or crowds, so they ended up moving quickly to the UK pavilion and finding a bench tucked away from the crowds gathering for Harmonious.
My daughter and I, on the other hand, headed to the wheelchair viewing area by Port of Entry. It was mostly full, but they allowed us to stand (and sit, in my case) near the back of the viewing area. My kid loved it. One of my favorite things about Disney is seeing her face absolutely light up at the entertainment. If my kids are with me at Disney, I’m not actually watching the castle, or the fireworks, or the projections, or whatever. I’m 100% watching the show through my kids’ faces. This kid, in particular, is in awe of the nighttime shows. She’s a big Hercules fan, and just a few hours before she was talking about how she really wished there was more Hercules representation in the parks… I kept my mouth shut, but I knew what was coming… and when the “Go the Distance” segment of Harmonious started and the recognition of what was happening hit her, it made my night.
After the fireworks, we took a couple photos in front of the barges as we waited for some of the crowds to clear out. After all, this was the last chance we’d get to see Harmonious and it was such an awesome moment in this vacation. Then we headed over to the UK Pavilion to meet the rest of the family, and from there we headed to International Gateway and the Friendship Boats. My wife decided to walk the pathway over to the Beach Club, but the kids and I took the boat over.
Photos: Me and the kiddo after Harmonious.
We got to Disney’s Beach Club Resort, checked with the concierge there about the best way to get back to our hotel after dinner, and arrived at Beaches and Cream about 30 minutes before our reservation. We were able to check in early and we shared a delicious meal. (A full allergy review is available here!)
After dinner, we walked back to the lighthouse to wait for the Friendship Boat over to Hollywood Studios, which the concierge at Beach Club said would be running until 12:30 because of a late-night special event at Hollywood Studios that night. And that begins a two-and-a-half-hour long saga of the worst transportation experience I’ve ever had at Walt Disney World… which is a story for another post (coming soon).
In the end, thanks to a very kind Disney bus driver who was closing down for the night while we were stuck, we finally made it back to our hotel room just after 2:30 am. I cancelled our early breakfast at Topolino’s Terrace the next morning. We were going to sleep in.
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