December 2020 at Disney Part 3 - Through Heather's Looking Glass

If you missed part 2, go back and read it first!

We woke up the next morning ready to head to our first park of the trip! My parents were sitting this one out, so it was just the 3 of us for EPCOT. However, it didn’t open until noon, so we had another lazy morning of getting ready, however, there was no coffee on the balcony because it was COLD! It was crazy to think about, we were there not even two months prior literally melting in the 99 degree heat, and now we were miserably cold! What are the odds.

Anyway, we were of course ready to go way before noon, and typically the parks let you in early by 45 minutes to an hour so we went ahead and loaded up the car and headed over at a few minutes till 11. When we pulled up, the gates were open and cars were going through. We pulled up and the woman said they weren’t open yet and to come back at 11:30. I told her that seemed pretty late, that we thought it was 45 min to an hour early (it was now just shy of 11.) She said no, 11:30, and we had to pull through and get back on the road. We did, and tried to figure out what to do for 35 minutes.

Bobby was convinced she wasn’t being truthful, so we circled around property and came back at 11:10, and they were letting cars into the parking lot! We were a little frustrated that she had told us 11:30, but thankfully we went with our intuition and were able to get in at 11:10. (which thankfully we did, because we ran straight to Frozen Ever After, and when we came out the wait was an hour, which we would have been waiting in!)

Anyway, no problem, we made it to the gates and were one of the first into the park which was fun. We headed to Norway and rode the Frozen ride, which we didn’t get to do on our last trip so Emma Kate was excited about.

After Frozen, we slowly made our way to Italy, we had a lunch reservation at Via Napoli. Aside from it being freezing it was a beautiful day!

Lots of cute merch for Festival of the Holidays

We took some photos with the gorgeous blue sky and then heard LOUD music. I was so confused.

We saw people starting to line the walkways and then it hit me, it’s a mini parade! It was actually Santa, and he pointed and waved at Emma Kate! She was so excited.

The loud music all made sense, and I loved that we got a little magic without expecting it!

Time for lunch! Well, we were a little early. With COVID, their operating hours have changed and they didn’t open until later tan normal (I want to say 12:30?) So we were one of the first people seated for the day.

I will say I was a little disappointed. They had a very limited menu, and took my favorite, the arranchi, off the menu. Our server wasn’t great, and would just randomly disappear for 15 minutes at a time. We were trying to pay and leave at the end and ended up having to give our credit card to someone else. However, the pizza was delicious.

After lunch, we continued around the World Showcase and stopped in at the World Showplace (confusing I know) to see what food they had. Before that, I grabbed a specialty hot coffee because I was SO cold!

It was great to get out of the cold for a few minutes and check out the other food options. After we left, we headed to Soarin and also rode Living with the Land. EK held my hand on the ride. I know she won’t always do this so I enjoyed it. <3

The characters at Garden Grill were waving at the people eating in the restaurant, so we stopped and waved, too. I mean, why not?

Backstory time, my mom really wanted to eat at Kona Cafe that night. We were tired and cold and didn’t want to get in the car to drive anywhere. We had been checking online and no luck. She had even gone to the concierge and they couldn’t help. While we were on Living with the Land I just kept refreshing over and over and I couldn’t believe it, but an early dinner reservation popped up! I know only Disney fans will get this, but it was a huge adrenaline rush to confirm that reservation for just a couple hours away! WIN! That also meant we didn’t have a lot of time left, which was fine because we were cold and had done pretty much all we could do.

We rode Space Ship Earth and Finding Nemo, and called it a day.