A few people joined the giant line for beer in Germany, while the rest of us continued on. When we reached the African Outpost, Billie and Melinda decided they wanted to get their faces painted. Some of us hung out with them while that was happening, while a few others went ahead to China. Luke and Ryan (Melinda’s husband) went to Joy of Tea – Luke loves the Tipsy Ducks in Love from there. I don’t have any pictures of it, but it’s one of his favourite Disney drinks and he typically has one every time we’re at Epcot.

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Once faces were painted, we started heading towards the International Gateway for our Illuminations Cruise. We found another Photopass photographer, so of course we had to stop!

We met up with everyone on the boat dock by the Yacht Club, our meeting place for the Illuminations Cruise we had scheduled for the evening. But, of course, Mother Nature had to throw a wrench into those plans and due to thunderstorms moving into the area our cruise was cancelled. Naturally, we heard there was lots of rain moving in, so we all went to Hurricane Hanna’s – you know, the OUTSIDE pool bar at Beach Club… Luckily it is covered by lots of umbrellas because the sky opened up and it poured for about an hour. We all grabbed drinks and made the best of our evening. There were a lot of laughs and I took a single picture of my drink. I enjoyed the wonderful company we were with <3

Eventually we made our way inside to the lobby of the Yacht Club. We stood around chatting in smaller groups before realizing that half of the group had disappeared to Ale & Compass for drinks and food. It had been a long day, so Luke and I talked about calling an Uber and heading back to OKW for the night. Instead, we somehow found ourselves in a Minnie Van headed to Wilderness Lodge with this crazy crew? I don’t remember how or why this was decided…

When we arrived at Wilderness Lodge, I took this picture of these cute little figurines that I thought were cute, before we took over Territory Lounge.

Territory Lounge was actually on the short list of places Luke and I had always wanted to try, so we were excited to finally get there! We had some drinks, some food and enjoyed another great evening with some of the ladies of the Epic Trip (and our new friend Terry…). You can read about it over here 🙂 At one point Ariane took me to Roaring Fork so I could pick up some of the Magic Cookie Bars that she always raves about in her trip reports – I tucked them away in my bookbag for the next day.

Eventually, Luke and I called an Uber to take us back to OKW, where we collapsed into bed. So many late nights!

The sky opened up just after we had entered the building, so we ended up having great timing! We easily found the group, and spent the next hour or so hanging out and chatting. At some point I took this picture but I don’t think Luke or I actually bought this (or tried it?)???

Once the rain cleared, we all headed out into the World Showcase to enjoy some food and drinks. We ended up split into multiple groups, I know one group was headed for Steve’s shrimp but Luke has a shellfish allergy and I don’t eat fish so that didn’t interest us at all. We found ourselves in Mexico, and someone we were with suggested the Grand Fiesta Tour. I don’t even remember who was with us at this point – Jackie maybe? Liesa? Docsoliday1’s daughter was definitely there I think?

From there, we made our way to Norway, where we grabbed a beer for Luke and a cute little thing of moscato wine for me. The wine wasn’t even from Norway, but it was cute and I enjoy sweet wines.

We checked out some of the stuff in the Norway Pavilion, I had never looked at these things before?

We headed back through Mexico and cut across over to Canada. Luke and I hadn’t had any actual food in a few hours, so we stopped for some poutine at Refreshment Port like the good Canadians we are.

We met up with a large group of people shortly after this, and a group of them stopped in Morocco to grab some food from The Taste of Marrakesh booth. Luke wanted to try the Cauliflower –

We made a quick stop in Japan at the Kabuki Cafe, I’m obsessed with the kakigori from there. Luke went for a Sake Mist. Again, full descriptions and pricing can be found in my dining report of this day 🙂

A few people wanted to check out the Garden Rocks concert (it was Herman’s Hermits that day). One group headed inside to the quick service location in the American Pavilion, and we found a picnic table with an umbrella to sit down outside (also in the American Pavilion). We could easily hear the concert but it wasn’t overpowering loud, so we just sat there listening, enjoying our shaved ice and chatting with Billie and Sarah for the entire duration of the band’s set.

Once the band finished, most of us managed to find each other again. We took off as a large group –

– before stopping for some group photos in Germany.

Someone, I think it was Ariana, bought a pretzel here because I definitely had a bite of one, but did not buy it haha. It was delicious – much better than the stale Mickey pretzels sold everywhere.

Another day at Disney, another morning with the alarm going off way too early! We pulled ourselves out of bed and got ready for the day before calling an Uber to take us to our breakfast reservation at Trattoria al Forno. We had one of the first seatings of the day, I believe our reservation was for 7:05am. My review can be found here.

This was actually only my second time in the lobby of the Boardwalk Resort, and the only other time was on our wedding day so I didn’t remember much. It’s so pretty! I think I say that about all the Disney resort lobbies though…

We were still a bit early, so we took our time wandering outside, and enjoying a basically empty Boardwalk (since, you know, it was still the 6am hour – gross!).

We had to take pictures of Sea Breeze Point as we reminisced about our wedding ceremony which was held there in January 2018 <3

We checked in to Trattoria al Forno, and were quickly led to our table in a mostly empty restaurant. It was still very early, and the characters hadn’t even appeared yet.

We left the restaurant shortly after 8am, and headed straight for the boat dock. It was May the 4th, so of course we had to begin our day at Hollywood Studios!

The park was very busy when we arrived, which we were prepared for (May 4th and it was a Saturday – and Galaxy’s Edge hadn’t even opened yet!). We made it through security, and scanned into the park. They had limited edition merchandise only available on that day, but from what I had seen of it, none of it interested me that much. That turned out to be a good thing, since the lineups were insane!

We didn’t plan on spending much time in this park today, but we did have a Star Tours Fastpass to use – and we had planned it to line up with some of the other Epic Trip ladies! We all found each other and scanned in together – Luke and I, Lesley, Caroline, Molly, Billie, Sarah, Su-Lynn, Su-Queen and Steve. If I remember correctly, it was either Molly or Lesley that was selected as the Rebel Spy.

A bunch of us had overlapped our next fastpass as well, so we all headed over to Toy Story Land to ride Slinky Dog Dash. We met up with Ariella and her family for this ride as well, so it was nice to see them even if it was only for a few minutes. I still had no idea where the camera was on SDD…

We stopped for a group photo afterwards –

We said goodbye to Ariella and her family, and see you later to the rest of the group. Most of them were heading to Sci-Fi for lunch, but Luke and I had opted out of that reservation since we figured we’d still be full from our breakfast (we were). But we did have to stop for a snack before heading out of the park at Neighbourhood Bakery. My review can be found here 🙂

We grabbed a Starbucks on our way past (a Very Berry Hibiscus refresher for me, a basic coffee for Luke). We stopped after exiting the park so I could get a picture by the main entrance in my Star Wars outfit <3

We walked over and caught the boat heading to Epcot – it was time for our Epic Epcot day!