30 Magical Moments: #5 Get a FREE Disney Visa Meet & Greet Photo

Tonight my best friend came over and helped me pack up the closets and desk area of my apartment.  We also took down the curtains.  I swear she saved me 2 hours of packing time since I didn't have to keep climbing up and down the stepladder to pull things off of the shelves.  It's amazing how much easier things are with a second set of hands!  After running to WalMart for more boxes (how can I possibly need more already?!) I've decided to stop for the night to blog.  Moving on to Magical Moment #5!

Disney Visa Cardholders have a special photo opportunity in Epcot.  Daily from 1pm to 7pm, cardholders can go to Innoventions West to a special location to have a meet and greet with Disney characters.  Sometimes this spot is hard to find, but if you ask a Cast Member, they can two-finger point you in the right direction. If you're familiar with Innoventions, the location is right beside the video games across from where the Segway rides used to be.  There's no sign telling you which characters are meeting & greeting, and usually the cast member stays mum on who is inside as well.  We've found that   members of the Fab Five are usually back there though.  We've met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto.  Usually there are only 2 characters, but once when we had a large group, three characters met us.  Kenny the Pirate has a great write up on this character spot here.  When you step behind the curtain, the characters greet you and a PhotoPass Photographer takes plenty of photos for you.  I like this meet and greet because it never really feels too rushed.  The best part?  As a cardholder, you get one complimentary 5x7 print per Visa card of the photo of your choice!  You can get a photo once a day which means on a long trip, you can get plenty of free 5x7 character photos!

My family has utilized this location numerous times in the past, but LaRae and I decided this trip it was a must do.  After spending some time in the World Showcase, we darted over to Innoventions to snap a quick photo.  Minnie and Goofy met us, and we spent some time in Future World before we went to get our photos printed.

One of my favorite rides! I thank the Phoenicians, but I
always thank the Greeks for math as well!

I rarely get time to "play" at the end of Spaceship Earth, so
LaRae kindly gave me some time to do so. Love this game!

The pick up spot for the photos is the photo shop under Spaceship Earth.  It only takes a few minutes to look through the photos and get one printed.  You can add boarders if you like.  LaRae and I each got a print. It's a nice way to have a professional photo to commemorate the trip!  We were all dolled up, and the photo turned out so cute!  Besides, doesn't it look like I'm wearing a Goofy hat?  Incidentally we went back a day or two later and did the meet and greet again and got individual prints!  The cast member in the photo shop laughed at us saying we knew how to do it right. ;-)

Magical Moment #5

On the way out of the park I snapped some photos of the Flower and Garden Festival topiaries at the entrance.  Aren't they wonderful?

It's like Goofy made me a birthday cake (and took 10 years off of my age)! What a sweetheart!

When we got back to our room to go swimming, we found this "towel animal" in the window.  What in the world is that?!  I mean, I know what I think it looks like... what do you think??  We left it in the window the entire trip and giggled over it every time we walked in.

Oh wait, I mentioned swimming.  We were at Disney in March, and we really thought that it would be warm enough for an afternoon swim.  Oh boy were we mistaken!  There were kids joyfully splashing in the pool as we walked off.  The breeze was a bit brisk as we took off our coverups, but we thought the pool would be warm enough.  We gingerly inched our way into the icy waters and tried to keep moving to get warm.  The wind was just strong enough that if you raised up out of the water too much, it felt like an arctic breeze. After struggling to get warm and relax in the pool, we came to the realization that there was no need to torture ourselves any longer!  We scurried over to our towels eliciting the quiet laughter of the adults around the pool who were smarter than us and hadn't gotten in the water, and we went back to the room for hot showers.  It's one thing to go swimming and tough it out because the kiddos want to swim.  It's another thing to decide as adults that it's not worth the runny nose!  We still laugh about it, so it all worked out and added another funny memory to our trip.

After our "swim" we rested and then went to Disney's Animal Kingdom.  What are your must-dos at Animal Kingdom?