Spring Break 2023: Epcot and our last day at the pool!!

 Our last day in the parks, Thursday, we decided to have a later start.  It had been a long day in Magic Kingdom and a late night getting back.  I was up by 7am to book the virtual queue for Cosmic Rewind Guardians of the Galaxy (success!).  We were up by 8am, showered, and got our mobile order for breakfast at Pop before going over to the skyliner.  Since the park had already opened by the time we got to the skyliner there was no line at all!  It was a breeze getting over to Epcot and a breeze getting into the park back in the World Showcase entrance.  

Since we started in the World Showcase and it was only 10am, not everything was open like some of the shops or restaurants.  But, it was so peaceful and beautiful.  Not many people were there so we got some great pictures in some of the countries and did some character meets with Donald, Daisy, and Princess Jasmine.  We used our DAS pass to get on Frozen with a minimal wait by the time we walked over to Norway.  We also used the DAS pass to get on Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, which was really fun, but made us all feel a little queasy afterwards.  

We also just enjoyed walking around and seeing all the Flower and Garden Festival topiaries.  I even bought a Scavenger Hunt for $10 that was so fun to complete and I earned a cute souvenir cup at the end.  We snacked on some of the festival food spots and really enjoyed the chicken and waffle from the Honey Bee-stro tent and the street corn!  OMG the street corn was sooo good!  It was dipped in garlic butter and then spicy corn chips were smashed on top.  Even the kids loved it.  We ended up all getting a street corn to have.  

 We moved over to Future World to ride Figment, Soarin', Living with the Land (love this one - it's like the People Mover in Magic Kingdom, but educational and on water), The Seas with Nemo and Friends, and Turtle Talk with Crush.  We grabbed a light dinner at the new Connections Quick-Service and did some shopping at the big store near there.  Sean was still on the hunt for the Stitch stuffed animal he saw the day we arrived at Pop and sold out.  No luck, but the kids did buy a few things.  

Our last two rides of the day, of the trip really, were big ones!  Test Track using the DAS pass, which is always so fun for the kids to design their cars and then test drive.  And lastly, our virtual queue for Cosmic Rewind got called right around 5:30pm, right after we finished up with Test Track and our light dinner.  It was perfect timing.  We only waited about 45 minutes in the virtual queue line and the ride was so amazing!  Easily our favorite at all Disney parks right now, with the exception of Rise of the Resistance, which we did not do this trip.  Our song on the ride was Disco Inferno and again, it was so much fun!

We rode the skyliner back to Pop and enjoyed swimming in the pool for the rest of the evening until bedtime.  

Friday morning we woke up and grabbed breakfast at Pop.  We packed up the truck and checked out of our room and decided to enjoy the pool all day before trying to get on the road by 4pm to do another all-nighter driving.  Pop is across from Art of Animation and I always wanted to check it out so after sunbathing for a while I went for a long walk around Art of Animation to check out the Cars, Lion King, and Little Mermaid decor.  It was super cute!  I did some last minute shopping, the boys did some pool games, and we decided to get on the road.  

The ride home was so much harder than going down!  We hit pockets of traffic getting out of the Orlando area and central Florida.  We hit bad weather in Tennessee and Kentucky.  We almost became part of a 7-car fender bender in Atlanta traffic.  And just staying awake was harder it seemed.  We switched driving during the night every two hours.  We made it a point to stop at Buc-ees in northern Georgia and woke the boys up to go inside.  It was packed at 1am and we all needed the wake up to shop, get some snacks, and some Buc-ees swag!  We made it home by 10am and the tire light came up for our left rear tire the last 20 minutes but we made it.  It ended up going flat overnight at home, but at least we made it home!  Whew!