I feel you. I teach high school and start Monday so want to try to finish it tomorrow or Sat. I’m excited to be able to save it to look back on with the kids and for planning future trips.
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Loving your trip report. My stepdaughter was 10 when when DH and I got married. We suffered through years of infertility as well before having DS5. They are almost 14 years apart too.
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Jenny that’s so funny. Ingrid is 15 and she was 8 when we got married. Glad you had your miracle baby too. We’re going down that the road again in the hopes of one more, but will be planning Disney trips in case it doesn’t go our way so as to have a great fall back.
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My husband is 10 years older than me so Ingrid and I are actually just 15 years apart too, so she always teases me calling me big sis stepmom.
I’m in the same boat. My husband and 1 are 9.5 years apart. My step son and I are 11 years apart. It’s not an issue for us.
Day 5 Epcot Day
This day was super long as it was the only park we wouldn’t get to twice. It was also the only day, Katie gave us a run for our money, but that was only from about 10:30-3.
We grabbed a bus at about 7 to get to our PPO at Garden Grill. We were one of the first families through the gates and went straight to the restaurant. We have been here before, but for dinner. We are a family who never eats out for breakfast so this was out of our norm. But I love Epcot and it was great. Katie ate her weight in fruit and tater tots and Ingrid loved the juice. I thought the cinnamon bun tasted like heaven-OMG! The characters were also excellent. The only downside is because it’s pretty quick we did not take in much of the views from LwtL. Our server was great and gave us extra potato and we bagged a lot of food to take with us.
We went down to Soarin and knew we’d be investing time here because everyone in our group wanted to ride twice. So I sent mom, hubby and Ingrid and set up RS. Because we all wanted to ride twice, when they came back I went through standby with my husband and Ingrid. After, my mom and I went through RS. We all enjoyed it, but missed the California version.
Next our plan was to race over and do FEA. As we entered WS I saw some people turning back so I asked someone and found out the ride was down. So to plan B, we headed to our TT FP. Both groups got on TT in decent time (20 mins or so). The second time our car design station didn’t work, but oh well. Then we hit Mission Space, which is not my favorite so I sent the others first. They did mission green and came back bored. To make Ingrid happy, I agreed to try Orange for the first time and was terrified. I’ve been scared to do this ever since hearing it made people sick, but it was really not so bad.
After, we had FPs for Spaceship Earth and Nemo. These went great, but Katie started getting fussy at Turtle Talk and we did the embarrassing mid-show leave. This girl learned on this trip that she wanted to do everything on her own so naturally that was frustrating. So we hit up Sunshine for lunch. I still love their Ceasar salad. After, we rode Living with the Land one of my favorites. I absolutely love the smell in that ride.
Done with future world, we headed to the countries. I managed to get a same day drop for Frozen and taught Ingrid to modify it so we could ride before dinner. We started in Canada, which we usually don’t do. Thankfully, Katie napped through the countries, but because of this we missed the films and shows. Mom and I were bummed we couldn’t find the Irish jewelry in the U.K. The countries are great to walk through, but something felt off. I think both parts of Epcot actually felt much more lifeless than our last visits and this is one of my favorite parks. There just seems to be something missing. It was overcast so luckily the countries weren’t blaring hot. I got my pearl in Japan and beer in Canada and Norway. I should add that this is probably the only time on our trip where the CMs seemed kinda meh. I’m wondering if Epcot loses its life in between festivals. We did get to Frozen and Caballeros before our late reservation at Hacienda. I miss Maelstrom, but we thought Frozen was adorable. Hacienda was good but I felt pretty nauseous by entree time, probably from a very long day with too much food. When illuminations started the waitstaff told us to move to any table for a good view and it was nice to watch in the quiet AC. I’m thinking Epcot was not crowded at all because leaving the park and taking the bus was super easy. We were just super exhausted.
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Sounds like you Jenny and I can start a super stepmoms Liner group 
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Day 6 our actual anniversary day. Split between MK and HS.
We headed to MK early again to do some of the classics we don’t usually have time for in a full day. We started with PPO BOG but just ordered cupcakes. Because obviously cupcakes are the best anniversary breakfast. It was nice to leisurely go into the park, get drinks and the grey stuff is amazing. The staff teased us for just eating cupcakes but gave us a pastry basket as well. I had no guilt as we did BOG for lunch twice this trip. The original plan was to RD MineTrain, but I decided we’d lose the benefit of getting there early because of needing to swap. Instead we RD Peter Pan because I was dying to see the queue. It was an EMM morning so they let us on at exactly 9. The queue was great. Then we backtracked for a ride on Pooh for Miss Katie. After, we did the carousel and Katie loved it, then didn’t, then wanted to go again, but we didn’t. I was intent on not missing Splash.
Woohoo! Splash was open so I was psyched and my family let me go twice. Then we continued with chill touring hitting up Tiki Room, Country Bears, then Carousel of Progress. I adore all of these. My husband says the Bears stink and my mom is not a tiki fan, but they humored me. We hit PeopleMover as well and then headed to lunch at Crystal Palace.
While Narcoosees is special and has great food, CP was the sleeper hit. It is gorgeous in there and we just loved the Pooh characters. We literally had to drag Katie off Pooh and Piglet (her true loves).
After lunch and my heart was fully melted, we walked outside to watch Festival of Fantasy. We loved watching it from Main Street. This was such an awesome way to relax and see some of MK’s hidden charm.
We then bussed to HS to use a few FPs. We got to reride our favs (Tower and Rockn) and then try Slinky Dog. We got these done early enough that we could go back and get Katie to bed earlier before our last park day. Slinky was cute, but nothing to write home about… it left us wanting more.
Overall, a really great day!
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loving your report! thanks for taking us along 
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That baby with Pooh and Piglet, tho! 
Thoroughly melted…
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What time did you get the same day FPP for Dinosaur? Asking for a friend…
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Our three booked FPs ended around 12:30. So I think I found a dinosaur for about 7pm and just modified it to mid afternoon.
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I love that photo of Katie with Minnie! adorable. And oof re the stroller. Miserable.
Just finished the whole report – I love it. So many great photos of the girls and characters, and the wedding photos are neat, too. Thank you for writing out so many details, as well as your honesty about leaving Crush. You didn’t happen to be there about 10am on Tuesday August 13, did you? Just wondering if you were the woman with the toddler next to me who left mid-show!
Awesome! Hoping to get Dinosaur as a 4th FPP on my AK day, but I think it will be after 12:30 when I am trying to snag it. Will see how it goes!
Adorable family and great trip report! Your youngest daughter’s curls like looking at my DD when she was that age… I miss her blond baby ringlets. You’ve got some cuties for sure! Here’s to another 6 years for you and your DH, and hopefully we all get to tag along for your WDW trips in the meantime!
I am terrible at buzz as well…my 3 yr old is better. I figure i must be doing it wrong which is why my pictures in the ride always end up with me having a really disgruntled and confused look on my face . Living the report and like that you added how long your rider swaps are taking too!
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Thanks! We were actually there the 12th but must have just barely missed you! The 13th was a much better Katie day lol
My pics are the same… like what red dot am I looking at? If there are so many targets why am I not hitting any lol
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Thank you! Her curls are getting more and more wild! I’ve always had natural curls that I hated when I was younger and learned to love as an adult so I’ll have to coach her through them
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good luck to you! We are about to start our third (and final) IVF next week to try for one more.