Back in August I told you how excited we were to be joining with WDWCelebrations for their Celebration 30 event in September. We have been home a few weeks now and I wanted to share with you about the event and what the WDWCelebrations team has up their sleeve for the next 2 years.
Celebration 30 was a 4 day event that ran September 28, 2012-October 1, 2012. Since we were celebrating our wedding anniversary and visiting with friends from all over North America who were at the Walt Disney World Resort for Epcot’s 30th anniversary, we chose to not do every event the group had scheduled. This flexibility is part of what makes celebrating with WDWCelebrations a great idea.
WDWCelebrations Schedule Days 1-3
WDWCelebrations Schedule Day 4
We arrived Friday afternoon and went to dinner and then celebrated our anniversary at Port Orleans Riverside enjoying the musical stylings of Yehaa Bob Jackson. If you have never been to his FREE, high-energy, family-friendly show at the River Roost Lounge, you are missing out!
Ron and I with Yehaa Bob Jackson on our 21st wedding anniversary
Saturday morning we headed to the Magic Kingdom to meet up with the WDWCelebrations group. Since we were meeting back at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at 9:10am we arrived at the park extra early. For the first time in our 200+ visits to WDW we FINALLY made it for rope drop! We enjoyed the brief show and were able to mark something else off of our “Things To Do At Least Once at WDW list”. We arrived in Frontierland and found the group. We were given our credentials and most of the group headed onto the ride. Next we walked to Fantasyland and Storybook Circus. We rode Dumbo, it was fun looking around and only having adults on the ride! Next was Barnstormer. Then we posed for a group photo in Storybook Circus and another one in front of the new castle wall.
Group at castle wall
After the photos were taken we all did Mickey’s Philharmagic before heading off to explore the parks on our own. We chose to hop over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the bulk of the day to hang out with our friend David aka Oom from the ReedyCreekRadio.com chat room.The park closed at 6 so it could prepare for the Tower of Terror 10k that was being run that night so David headed to dinner with his brother and we headed back to Magic Kingdom to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade with the WDWCelebrations group. We were so hot and tired we headed back to our resort after the parade so we could relax and get a good night sleep.
We spent most of Sunday at Epcot enjoying the attractions and eating our way around the world at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We even ran into Ron’s cousin and his wife who had come over from Tampa to enjoy the festival. It was another very hot and humid day so late in the afternoon we left Epcot, headed back to the resort to relax and freshen up. The timing worked out great because there was a thunderstorm while we were back at the resort. An hour and a half later we headed to Disney’s Hollywood Studios so Ron could ride Rock’n Rollercoaster and then we could catch the 9:30pm showing of Fantasmic!
Monday morning we headed to Epcot to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the park. Upon arrival we received a commemorative button and guide map. We headed back to the Fountain of Nations to meet up with the WDWCelebrations group for the scavenger hunt. We had to move our meeting place a few times because the lines of people waiting to enter Mouse Gears to purchase “day of” pins and memorabilia were so long, some people waited in line 4-5 hours! We finally got organized and there were about 15 teams of 5-6 players on each team. We made 3 new friends, Max, Cory and Tammy who were teamed up with us. We spent the next 3 hours traveling Epcot in search of answers. We were not allowed to use our cell phones, the Internet, cast members or other people to help us during the hunt so we were very busy visiting every pavilion in the park. Our team worked very well together and we turned our answer sheet in ahead of schedule 🙂 Then we headed off for lunch and a visit to The American Adventure before meeting David at the American Gardens Theater for the official Epcot 30th Anniversary Celebration.
Epcot 30
After the 40 minute celebration we met up with the WDWCelebrations group for the scavenger hunt awards ceremony. Unfortunately, since the official celebration went over the scheduled time and the fact that it started to rain, they decided to postpone the awards 🙁 Ron and I headed to World Showplace to meet David and hear Marty Sklar speak about how Epcot Changed the World and Tammy and Cory went back to the resort to pack. We figured we would have to wait til they announced the winners on the WDWCelebrations Twitter handle to find out how we did.
As we were leaving World Showplace Max came in and found us to tell us we had won the scavenger hunt!! He showed us the prizes, an autographed book, some cards and a ring from the 1964 Worlds Fair. I texted Cory to let them know we had won and then I texted Adam from WDWCelebrations to see where we could collect our prizes. Unfortunately we weren’t able to catch up with Adam so we are waiting for him to ship us our winnings.
The Winners of the WDWCelebrations Scavenger Hunt
We toured a bit more of World Showcase and then headed to La Hacienda San Angel where we were having dinner with David and Chris Reid. There was a loooonng wait to be seated but the meal was delicious. Ron and I had the La Hacienda which is a mixed grill offering New York strip, chicken al pastor, chorizo and vegetables, served with beans and fresh salsas. I can’t wait to have this again!
Dinner at La Hacienda
After dinner we headed over to Canada to meet up with friends to watch Illuminations: Reflections of Earth with a special 30th anniversary tag. The tag was an amazing 5+ minutes of additional fireworks that was a fitting end to a wonderful day of celebration at Epcot.
The WDWCelebrations team has just announced their 2013 and 2014 events! To stay up-to-date follow them on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to their newsletter when you visit their site.
Disclosure: We attended the WDWCelebrations events as guests of the team to help facilitate this review. We paid for all other costs involved in this vacation. All opinions are 100% mine.
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