Visiting Disney World and meeting Allison Lefcort

Welcome to Epcot! I'm running a few weeks behind on some of my posts right now, so this was actually during the Festival of the Arts back in February. Because it's the Festival of the Arts, many of the artists have come to the festival to show off their skills. My favorite Disney artist was making an appearance, so I knew we'd have to come visit to say hi! Let's go!

With us, any trip to Epcot typically starts with a stop by Club Cool. Alli likes to go through all 8 flavors, including Beverly! 

We still have our favorites, but it's fun to try all the flavors again. 

Like most days, we get a cup of our favorite soda to go and then grab popcorn at our favorite popcorn stand in Epcot. 

Alli always makes sure to be super thankful to the workers who get our popcorn and is extra polite. She wishes them a good day and in general acts extra cute. Today her niceness was rewarded by Cast Member Ang. After checking with Theresa, Ang gave Alli a Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich for free! Awesome!

Toward the back of the World Showcase, near the Morocco pavilion I saw the bright colors and pop stylings of my favorite artist! Allison Lefcort, The Princess of Pop Art! She's painted so many famous people, from singers, sports stars, and celebrities to royalty! But my favorites are her paintings of Disney characters. 

I enjoyed chatting with her about her work and some of my favorites that she's done. We also talked about her method, starting with a pad sketch, sketching on a canvas, then finally painting it in. She also showed off a couple new Star Wars paintings she's doing with The Mandalorian and Grogu. Looking forward to seeing the finished versions of those! I would love to see her take on Hercules or Hades! She said she's always open to commissions!

Before we go, I wanted to recreate a photo we took back in 2015 when we met her the very first time at Disneyland! This was about a week before Alli was born! 

Continuing our walk around the World Showcase, the kids just had to have a frozen Coke. Never again! What a rip-off! This Frozen Coke Slushy is like 10 ounces and costs $5.25! You can get a 32 oz Slurpee from 7/11 for like $1.50!

We enjoyed a few rides around the park, finishing with Mission Space! It's definitely a favorite of ours. 

Epcot was busy and so our plan was always to head to the Magic Kingdom to finish our night. It would have been easy to drive the truck over, but let's do something more fun. Let's take the Monorail! From the Epcot station, we'll head over to the Ticket and Transportation Center. 

There we were able to transfer to another Monorail that would take us to the Magic Kingdom!

The sunset is gorgeous tonight. 

Love it!

After eating dinner, we found a short line at Goofy's Barnstormer. Alli kept her hands in the air the whole time. 

The kids really wanted to ride the Astro Orbiter and the line was showing a 25 minute wait, but I'm not so sure I believe that. We hopped in line at 7:15pm and watched as a couple people were let into the elevators to the upper platform. 45 minutes later, it was finally our time. It was a bit of a bummer that it took so long to get on the ride but...

Our timing was pretty perfect to be riding while the fireworks were going off! They started right on time at 8pm and we were spinning at 8:02pm. Awesome!

I love going on rides when fireworks are going off. It makes them even more memorable and fun. 

We know from experience that the wait times on other rides drop dramatically while the fireworks are going on, so as soon as we finished with the Astro Orbiter, we hustled to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It only took 20 minutes to get to the front of the line and on the ride!

The park closes in 30 minutes, so we've time for a couple more rides. We took a spin on the Mad Tea Party. 

Then a second time!

And 5 minutes before the park closes, we jumped in line again for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It's Theresa's favorite coaster!

The park was still quite crowded when we walked out at 9:30pm. The line for the monorail back to the Ticket and Transportation Center was very backed up. 

How about a walk instead? It's a beautiful night. 

At 10:10pm we made it back to the Ticket and Transportation Center. The kids still have plenty of energy!

Once we got through security again, the line to the monorail back to Epcot had been blocked off! Oh no! We're too late! I chatted with a cast member and she pointed us to the buses that were still running. 

We hadn't planned on this, but it'll be another adventure. 

I don't know how often the bus runs, but I felt pretty fortunate that less than 10 minutes later, we were on board and heading back to the Epcot parking lot. 

It's been a fun day today with lots of fun memories! Getting a free ice cream, meeting our favorite Disney artist, riding the Astro Orbiter during fireworks, and then riding the bus back here!