I woke up briefly as Luke was getting ready at some insane hour (I think he was out the door by 4am to catch a bus?) – but I quickly went back to sleep after wishing him luck and telling him how proud I was of him.

I didn’t sleep too long though – my alarm went off and I was out the door around 8:30. At the bus stop, I met up with the three members of Luke’s family who had already arrived in Florida – his mom, Laura, sister Jill and Aunt Cathy. My Dad had decided he wanted to sleep in and hang around the resort for a bit this morning, so he did not join us at this time.

Introduction time! Laura, Jill and Cathy were all sharing a room at Old Key West from Saturday-Saturday (we had walked them through renting points). Laura had a 5-day park hopper ticket, while Jill and Cathy each had a 4-day hopper (they spent a day at Universal together to check out the Harry Potter sections). This was the first trip to a Disney Park for Laura and Jill – Cathy had been before but it was years ago when her now-adult son was still young. They had spent time the day before checking out Disney Springs, so I was excited to take them into their first park of the trip!

Our destination this morning was Epcot! After getting through security, we stopped at guest services to activate their Canadian discount tickets. I was messaging two of Luke’s friends who had arrived the day before as well, and were also meeting us at Epcot – and then we realized we were standing less than 10 feet apart haha. They were also in line to activate their tickets – when you purchased tickets using the Canadian discount, you had to show proof of citizenship at guest services in order to activate them.

Time for another introduction! Devin is one of Luke’s long-time friends, and a groomsman in the wedding party. He and his wife, Larissa, had booked a room at All Star Music from Saturday-Thursday using the discounted room block we had set up through our Disney wedding planner (it was a crazy good deal – like $101/night or something!). Neither of them had ever been to a Disney Park before, but they were very excited about it!

After everyone was all set, we entered the park!

After stopping for a few pictures, we headed off for our first Fastpass of the day – Spaceship Earth! Devin and Larissa had their Fastpasses set for Hollywood Studios later in the day, so they were just going to use the standby line – but when we arrived there wasn’t a wait at all! We decided to drop our Fastpass and just use the regular line so we could all enter the ride together. Devin and Larissa sat together, Jill and Cathy sat together and I went with Laura (my Mother-in-Law). I don’t think we planned on making similar faces, but this turned out hilarious haha –

After we exited, I checked the app and encouraged Devin and Larissa to run over to Test Track – the standby time was listed as 20 minutes which is excellent for that ride, so they took my advice and started heading over there. Jill, Cathy, Laura and I actually had a Fastpass for Test Track, so we went in that direction as well, but we did stop to cheer on some of the marathon runners making their way through the park (I love being in Epcot on marathon day – we were there in 2016 and it’s what inspired Luke to even attempt a full marathon).

The Jamitors were also out this morning, so we stopped to enjoy them for a few minutes –

And then it was Test Track time! I think Laura and Cathy had the same reservations as my Dad the day before as they approached the ride, but they both ended up really enjoying themselves. Since there were four of us, they split us into two pairs for the design portion of the queue line. Laura and Cathy designed one car, and I let Jill take control of the second one (I’ve been on this ride a few times, I wanted to let the first-timers truly enjoy it!). Here’s the creations haha –

And our on-ride photo – I’m the one in the front with the sunglasses, Luke’s sister Jill is directly beside me, Luke’s mom Laura is directly behind me and Luke’s aunt Cathy is in the middle seat in the back row. The other two were single riders.

We hung out in the post-ride area and waited for Devin and Larissa to exit (we had beat them, thanks Fastpass (and also RIP Fastpass). We didn’t have to wait long until we were all back together again.

I had everyone from our group linked to me as Friends and Family through the Disney account. I also had the super fancy Annual Pass for this trip that was valid in both Disneyland and WDW, so I was able to download the Photopass pictures for every single person – Devin and Larissa are in the front row of this Test Track car, facing away from the camera haha –