After a very busy day the day before, we enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in. We woke up, got ready and I enjoyed one of my Magic Cookie bars (thanks Ariane!) while sitting on our balcony.

We called a Lyft and had them take us over to the Contemporary, where we met up with the group for our 10:15am California Grill brunch reservation. You can read all about our experience by clicking here 🙂

After eating, Luke and I headed outside. I knew this thing existed, and I really wanted a picture with it for some reason…

We looked around the grounds a bit before heading out and taking the walkway over to Magic Kingdom.

I know a few people who were at brunch were going to Magic Kingdom, but we just went to the bus stop and caught a bus back to Old Key West. I wanted to change – my dress was super cute but a tiny bit too small so it was cutting into my ribs haha. We weren’t sure how long brunch would actually take, so we intentionally set our fastpasses for later in the afternoon. This ended up being a good decision, as it started down pouring viciously just a few seconds after entering our room at OKW. The wind was crazy, I know a few people from our group were at Epcot and took video of umbrellas being knocked over. We decided to wait out the rain in the comfort of our room, and enjoyed some down time – if I remember correctly we even turned on the TV in the room to a channel other than the Disney schedule screen haha.

Since this is Florida, the rain cleared and the sun came out – you’d never know a storm had just passed through. We got ready and headed out to use our Fastpasses at Hollywood Studios. By the time we arrived and entered the park, we were already in our window for our first Fastpass so we headed straight to Tower of Terror.

We stopped at the Joffrey’s cart by the exit so Luke could grab an iced coffee while I figured out where we were meeting up with the ladies who were in the park. We stopped for a few Photopass pictures along Sunset Boulevard –

We headed for the Tune-In Lounge, where we found Kelly, Kari, Ariane and Steve. We chatted for a bit, took some pictures and then said our goodbye’s – they were all leaving the next day so our paths wouldn’t be crossing again. These three ladies were wonderful, I was so excited to have finally met them and I’m looking forward to meeting up with them again one day at Disney! <3

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.

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!

With tequila in hand, we decided to head towards the Odyssey Building. During the Flower and Garden Festival, it was the location of Arbor at the Gardeners Terrace, but from May 2-6 it was also the location of Minnie’s Garden Party. During this limited time event, Minnie was doing a meet-and-greet in her super cute Flower and Garden dress, they were handing out pins and you could buy a specialty dessert.

When we arrived, there wasn’t any line for the food, so we decided to try the special dessert only being offered for a few days. I wrote about it here.

After we finished eating, we could see that the line to meet Minnie wasn’t very long, and less than 5 minutes later we were posing with the cutest mouse in the World –

As part of the Garden Party, they also had a Photopass photographer set up by a flower wall. We were able to walk up to that with zero wait – if I see a Photopass with no line you better believe I’m in!

Earlier in the day, we had grabbed a fifth fastpass – for Spaceship Earth. We were now in the window for that, so we left Minnie’s Garden Party and headed towards the front of the park.

We decided it was the perfect time to head out of the park, and caught a bus back to Old Key West. We had a bit of time before we had to meet up with the group for our supper reservation, so we decided to change into our bathing suits and headed over to the main pool for a quick swim.

I’m not exactly sure why it was there, but I find these things way too entertaining – so enjoy a Boomerang of wavy inflatable guy! (I was really into Boomerangs on this trip for some reason haha)

After our quick swim, we freshened up and got ready for the evening. It was the official start to the Epic Trip weekend, and there was a large group of us meeting at ‘Ohana for supper. Here’s my review of our supper 🙂

After eating, we grabbed a group photo in the main lobby –

A few people called it a night after this, and headed back to their resorts. The rest of us decided to keep the night going, and caught the monorail over to Magic Kingdom, and headed straight for the boats, with Wilderness Lodge as our destination. We ended up waiting quite awhile for a boat, but we were all enjoying each other’s company and getting to know everyone a bit better, so the time was passing quickly <3.

We eventually boarded a boat just as the fireworks were going off in Magic Kingdom. It was really amazing to watch them from this viewpoint! This picture is a bit blurry, but I managed to catch the monorail as it went by –

We were talking to Renee and Chad, and they mentioned that their boys loved money from other countries. Luke and I pulled out our wallets and handed them a full set of Canadian coins (nickel, dime, quarter, loonie and toonie – we don’t have pennies ), as well as a $5 bill (our bills are made of a waterproof, almost plastic-like material, and have a clear, see-through panel). When we arrived at Wilderness Lodge, we headed down to the water by Geyser Point where we took over an entire section. At one point, our weird Canadian money was discussed, so Luke and I pulled out cash and passed it around while everyone laughed at our colourful money haha.

Renee and Chad insisted on buying Luke and I a drink as a thank-you for the Canadian money, so I decided on a Huckleberry Punch – 44deg North Mountain Huckleberry Vodka, Bols Creme de Cassis, lemon juice and cranberry juice. I have no idea what Luke ordered, but my drink was delicious and strong – thank you Renee and Chad <3

We had a great night, and a great view of the Electrical Water Parade – which I took zero pictures of. I actually didn’t take many pictures at all – I do have this one of Melinda and I though –

She made the ears both of us are wearing, and I love them so much! I wore them multiple times on this trip…

I also have this picture saved that I definitely stole from someone else – a few others had already left for the night by this point.

Starting in the front left: Ryan, Ariane, Steve, Kari, Kelly, Su-Lynn, Joe, Jenny, Renee, Chad, Steve, Melinda, me, Luke, Lindsay and Billie

Luke and I had a very early breakfast reservation the next day, so we didn’t stay too late. We also didn’t want to waste time with the bus system, so we just headed out through the main lobby and called an Uber to take us back to OKW (so much faster, and definitely worth the few dollars it costs). I did stop to take a few pictures of the lobby at Wilderness Lodge – such a beautiful hotel!