Day 1 - Travels, BoardWalk Villas & Epcot

At Epcot's International Flower & Garden Festival

We left for Disney bright and early (maybe not bright) Sunday morning. Dad Musialowski was kind enough to pick us up and drop us off at the airport at 4 am. We flew Southwest down to MCO. I thought I was pretty quick to check us in the day before, but apparently the flight was not completely full and we were some of the last ones on the plane. Unfortunately we sat at the back of the plane, but at least we were together!

Christopher's Lego set for the plane ride down

My Lego set!

Mission completed!

Christopher packed us a surprise to do in flight - two Star Wars Lego Sets. He is so cute. He of course brought his Yoda backpack as his carryon, so he got lots of attention and some weird looks by the others in the airport and on the plane.

This trip I decided to journal my thoughts and memories during our vacation and 8 days in Disney. So glad I did. I am having a great time re-reading what we did, some of our thoughts and to-do list items. Looking back, we actually accomplished quite a bit!

On the plane ride down, we journaled that we wanted to do the following:
- ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (hopefully it will soft open while we are there)
- try Spice Road Table in Epcot's Morocco Pavilion
- try to eat healthier (really??? we actually wrote that???)
- eat a themed cupcake
- try some foods at the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival

Well...#3 is questionable, but I think we accomplished 4 out of 5 of them. Pretty good, right?

On the Magical Express!

One of my favorite things about arriving at MCO airport...boarding the Disney Magical Express! We caught our bus perfectly and boarded and right right away! And...the "welcome" video that is played on the DME has been updated! We watched intently and when we got to our resort, it was like a quick minute, not 45.

We stayed at the BoardWalk Villas (BWV). Wow this is an amazing resort. The lobby is incredible with lots of flowers and chandeliers. Check in was a breeze since we did most of it online before our trip. Since were were checking in so early (like 10 am) our room was not ready, but we were prepared for that, quickly freshened up, stored our luggage with the concierge and away we went to Epcot.

Christopher with his favorite character - Winnie the Pooh

Don't eat me! Aren't the topiaries incredible???

For lunch we had some of the offerings at the Epcot Flower festival. We tried:

- a cronut - this is Christophers special treat and it was fabulous. I think Christopher ended up eating like 5 throughout our trip

Cronut time!

- Spiked Dole Whip with dark rum
- Duck Confit over parsley potatoes - amazing!
- Bacon Cupcake (it was interesting - it would be even more delicious if it were made with cornbread instead of yellow cake. Christopher challenged me to try to make it...challenge accepted!)
- Beer Flight - Christopher's choice and included a chile pepper beer (gross)

Beer Flight offerings

Christopher loving rode Maelstrom with me (he hates that ride). I think it is cute but he thinks it is boring and lame. We then walked over to the Future World for our Fast Passes. Our first was Test Track. And the ride broke down while we were waiting :( Luckily it was only for about 15 minutes. Our picture on the ride was hilarious - my hair was all in my face. I looked like cousin It.

Enjoying the gardens

My favorite prince and princess

We thought of Marv when we saw this. And then we considered buying him a $22 plush toy of Lady. Luckily our senses kicked in and decided a $22 plush toy for him was not a wise way to spend our money.

Next up was Mission: SPACE. Then we took a break for some ice cream and rested a bit. We walked over to the shopping area and bought post cards for family and friends back home and....we ended up buying our piece of art for the trip (something we try to do every trip to commemorate it). The artist of the painting we bought happened to be there and he autographed the picture for us. We purchased a print of the Grand Floridian resort - our DVC home resort. It is so special and we are excited to frame and hang it.

We then walked over to Spaceship Earth - a must for us, even though we could probably quote the entire ride. We were pretty tired already - especially with the early morning flight, so we headed back to the resort to unpack and check out our room.  Our room at BWV was huge. We stayed in a deluxe studio which includes a kitchenette, a large bathroom and a queen bed.

Our deluxe studio at BoardWalk Villas

Kitchenette

Vanity Area

Gotta love all of the Mickeys!

After relaxing for a bit at the resort, we headed back to Epcot for our ADR at Tokyo Dining in the Japan Pavilion. We started out with a Sake flight tasting. It was delicious - I actually liked the dry sake more than the sweet one. Christopher ordered the Miso Clam soup, which was delicious too and I had a sesame garden salad. It was so good I wanted to drink the dressing. For our entrees, Christopher ordered two sushi rolls - shrimp tempura and the spicy crunch roll. I got a spicy calamari dish. Our waitress was so sweet and nice. She caught me drop food all over the table while trying to eat with the chopsticks and was very polite about my mishap.

Watching the Japanese drum performers before dinner

Sake time!

yummy!

After dinner we walked around the World Showcase Lagoon and then found a spot to watch Illuminations (fireworks show). We sat near Canada with a couple other families plus a group of pesky Mallard ducks. One of the ducks even tapped me on my back as we sat against the fence waiting for Illuminations to begin.

The firework show was great (as always). After the show we walked back to our resort. We had originally scheduled an Epcot Wind Down event for that night, but we are so glad we cancelled our reservation because we were pretty beat. We stopped on the Boardwalk to watch a magician perform some tricks. He was amazing and put together a rubics cube blindfolded in front of everyone. We then got to our room and relaxed outside for a bit and caught the Symphony in the Stars fireworks show at Hollywood Studios from our patio. Then...we called it a night!

I do love this face!

An excellent first day in WDW!

Mimicking Miss Tinker Bell