My Epcot Birthday

When my sister and I were talking about a time to go to Disney World, I said, “Let’s go for my birthday!” And we did. Then we had to decide which park to visit on my exact day, and I chose Epcot. I went to Epcot a while back with my in-laws, and I thought it was so cool. This year I went with my family, minus my dad who didn’t come on the trip, and I loved it even more.

This birthday in particular felt special–not because of the number (fortysomething) but because it’s my first birthday since my metastatic cancer diagnosis. I don’t know how many birthdays I’ll have or if I’ll be up to doing a big trip like this one again, so I felt so happy to be alive and at Disney World on my birthday! My diagnosis is a reminder to me, but hopefully to you too, that we should savor the opportunities we have to do fun things–especially with the people we love.

Yes, it rained the morning of my birthday, but it soon subsided.

One of the things we did before we went on the trip was purchase a memory maker pass. In the past we always avoided having the people at the parks take our pictures because we didn’t want to pay the price for the pics, but our planner said we should do it. And I’m glad we did. If you see pics where my entire family is in them you can be sure they were taken by a Disney photographer and uploaded to our account. Here are some of the Epcot golf ball/dome pics. (It’s formally called Spaceship Earth, and later in the day we went inside.)

We also got some night photos of the spaceship. I love the globe at night.

It was cool to visit Epcot while they were having this International Flower and Garden Festival where they constructed Disney characters and scenes.

One of the things that has changed since I was last at Epcot is the addition of a popular Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) ride. Like TRON, you have to join a group queue before 7 a.m.! And we did. I had so much fun on the ride. Here’s a pic of me on the ride.

The Disney photographer took these pics afterwards:

I’m a GotG fan because I actually appreciate all of the characters for their individual personalities. This was probably my favorite indoor ride at all of the parks. I love so many rides, but this one was a great thrill.

Of course, we also took some pics with characters. My favorite is Belle. I was hoping to meet Mulan in her armor, but I got feminine Mulan instead. Oh, well. I love how they never break character, even with adults.

Let’s talk about dining at Epcot. For lunch we had a quick service meal in France. Oh, yeah, you know that most of Epcot is tour of the world, Disney style. It’s a big loop around a body of water, and countries range from Mexico to Japan to France and Canada. Otherwise, Epcot is made up of Tomorrowland and a couple of other places. For reference, here’s a map.

We had a light lunch in France because we were going to have a big dinner at the Coral Reef. We ate at a dining hall and had baguettes.

For dinner we went to the famed Coral Reef restaurant. The kids had seen a Full House episode where they were at the restaurant, so they knew about it before I did. Gotta say that it was fun eating at a restaurant where I could watch a huge stingray, a sea turtle, sharks, and other fish swim by. Here are some pics of the restaurant and my official birthday dinner.

After dinner we went into the aquarium. Got to see lots of cool sea creatures.

All in all, my Epcot day was wonderful! Moments before the fireworks show, we went on Spaceship Earth. I mean, you can’t go to Epcot and not ride that one, and we were almost out of time! Those of you who have been on the ride will recall that while you’re finishing up the ride you get to plan the future. I let Keke do it, and when you get off the ride you get to see your faces on the world map. See the pics below.

To round out the day we saw fireworks and went on the Skyliner to get back to our resort.

When we got back to our room the smoke detector/fire alarm started blaring, and we couldn’t figure out why. No one else’s room had a detector going off. So, lucky me (and mom)! Finally the problem was solved, but it was one more reminder to expect the unexpected at Disney.

At least no one threw up on me that day. 😀