After an awesome night's sleep (the girls not making a peep from 7:30pm until 6:00am (that's more like it!), we were up early and in fabulous moods all around. The Columbus Day crowds had descended up on the World in the last day or so (some of the worst crowds of the year), so we had no real intentions of getting a lot of "attractions" done. Instead, we just planned to take in some of the other stuff that WDW has to offer (because you better know by now that it's more than you could ever really see, no matter how often you go!).
We decided to hop on the first bus, bound for Disney's Hollywood Studios. Instead of going in though, we let the girls sleep while taking a beautiful, leisurely walk against the crowds to the Boardwalk. We explored the Swan and Dolphin resorts (having never stayed there), visited the Beach Club (and missed it dearly!) and entered Epcot via the International Gateway.
We arrived at our intended destination to find no crowds, but otherwise unsure what to expect. Our girls were (and still are) at a weird age where the strangest things delight them, but even stranger things freak them out. Still, we thought we'd give it a shot.
Holy cow, Hartley and Emmersyn loved those fountains. Every time the outside or inside would start up, they'd squeal and run toward the "new" developments. Strangers stopped to take pictures, and we all laughed for nearly an hour.
Because we had brought no extra clothes* (having not planned on playing in the fountains until about halfway around the Boardwalk loop), we stripped the girls down and headed to their favorite place on our last trip - the Baby Care Center! In fact, the Epcot Baby Care Center was definitely their favorite, though I'm not sure they remember that...
*no extra clothes that fit in with my grand plan of matching/coordinating outfits carefully hand-selected for each day's agenda ;)
The girls ran around in dry, regular (non-swim) diapers while I did my best to dry out their clothes. The sun helped tremendously (the first and only time we'd be thankful for the scorching temps that trip!) and there was virtually nobody in the BCC anyway since it was still fairly early in the day. The girls were thrilled to run around and play, as they always are in the God-sent, brilliant centers! :)
Around 11am, we headed to the UK Pavilion for some Fish & Chips, only to find that Yorkshire County Fish Shoppe didn't open until 11:30. We spent about 20 minutes in some of the shops though, where the girls played with the train table and other fabulous toys. We even read "Little Miss Twins", which I now realize I had intended to buy them for Christmas when we returned. I think I had counted on writing this report more than 3 weeks before said holiday, but whatever. :)
When the restaurant opened, we got one order of Fish & Chips that we shared on the go. We had decided we would also split a meal from the Yakitori House in Japan, since we hadn't yet eaten there. We got the shogun combo and it was good, but didn't suit my tastes quite as well as the greasy fish & chips had! It was all followed up with an amazing apple strudel from the Munich booth (hooray for our first taste (no pun intended) of the Food & Wine Festival!) - so ultimately, all was [very] well.
As we walked toward Future World, Emmersyn fell asleep sitting straight up in the stroller! We laid her back and let Hartley check out Mouse Gears, since she had napped earlier while her sister had refused. Hartley enjoyed playing with all the toys and trying to wake her sister up to show her some of her favorites... so we headed out of there! :)
Poor Emmersyn missed out on dancing with the fountain and trying Beverley ;) .... but I suppose that makes them even. If you recall, Hartley slept through all the good stuff on the first trip!
When Emmersyn woke up, we headed straight to Animal Kingdom since we had an early dinner reservation there and were going to spend time back at the hotel in the evening anyway. Despite busses that felt like they took an eternity, we made it to Animal Kingdom just in time to catch the 2:30 showing of the Festival of the Lion King. The girls have an Animal Kingdom Sing-a-long DVD that heavily features this show, so we had correctly predicted that they would be enamored with it. I'm not sure they blinked the entire show. They roared with Simba, danced, and clapped a lot, and never once took their eyes off the action! :)
Zach and I enjoyed roasted almonds while the girls took a quick catnap, waiting for Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade to begin. Their nap schedule was all screwy, but Emmersyn and Hartley did catch the second half of the parade and loved it. Dale even gave Emmersyn a high five which delighted her!
Dinner was at Yak & Yeti, which I had been really excited about. It was barely ok, but hey - at least we can check it off of our list! Before heading out of the park we strolled through the Maharajah Jungle Trek where the girls loved the birds, and were very excited by the tiger ("rooaaar!") - until he got really close! :)
The evening at the hotel was a bit of a disaster. We had planned to swim but didn't get home until much later than we had anticipated. Still, we had wanted to do laundry so we thought we'd make it work anyway. Three tide-dispenser debacles, one poopy swim diaper and 45 minutes later we headed home without swimming (much - the girls hung out in the baby pool for 20 minutes or so) and without doing laundry. It was ok anyway, because the pool (like everything else at OKW, in our opinion) was really lacking anyway. No spray jet area, no fun things for little ones to do. There was one small baby pool (like at a crappy hotel, or smaller), and it was just used by bigger kids to clean off their sand toys. We'd have a lot better luck with the quiet pool to ourselves and the fountains at the park than we ever would in the "feature" pool (as they call it), but that night it was all a bust.
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