In Part One we joined in on Disney’s Celebrate America 250 festivities with an evening at Magic Kingdom on Friday. But the best was yet to come! Laura and I headed to Epcot on the 4th of July itself. The events actually kicked off long before we got there though.
I had heard about an Air Force flyover of Magic Kingdom and Epcot happening at 10:30am. The thing about flyovers is that the planes don’t just magically appear over the park! They have to come from somewhere! We live nearby and just happened to be driving behind Magic Kingdom at the right time so we stopped at a gas station, got out of the car and watched from there! There was a large crowd gathered who all seemed a little confused when it ended. I think everyone was expecting the blue Angels to zoom past, but we got something a little different! At least it was easier to catch on camera.
Click the link below to view my Instagram video of the flyover approaching Magic Kingdom:
We had three priorities for our visit to Epcot later that day – see the Voices of Liberty perform, get a special Photopass Magic Shot and of course, watch the fireworks. We arrived just after 4pm to catch the 5pm Voices of Liberty show. The problem was, it was pouring rain! That wasn’t going to get in our way though. Laura donned her poncho, I pulled out my umbrella and we made the trek all the way through the park to the American Adventure.
Just like Magic Kingdom the night before, the park didn’t seem very crowded. Until we reached our destination and found a massive crowd inside the pavilion. Most of these people didn’t appear to be seeking shelter from the rain though. They were all their staking out their spots to watch the Voices of Liberty sing under the rotunda. Some of them had clearly camped out there the entire day and watched every show. There was no way we were going to find a decent view so we worked our way around the crowd and found an empty stretch of wall in the back and sat down. We watched as the choir made their grand entrance and then just sat back and enjoyed the beautiful sound of their perfect acappella vocals.
Click below to see and more importantly hear the Voices of Liberty on Instagram:
After the show, we headed outside to find the rain had died down a bit but the Photopass photographers still weren’t out. We had mobile ordered our dinner from the Regal Eagle Smokehouse hours earlier in anticipation of long waits when we got there. We were still 30 minutes early so we canceled the mobile order and ordered food the traditional way! I had the BBQ Pork Burger on Garlic Toast with a side of very cheesy Baked Mac & Cheese and Laura had the Kansas City Smoked Chicken with Cornbread Brewmaster Fries (fries with beer cheese). It was all delicious as was the specialty holiday shortcake with mixed berries!
By the time we finished dinner, the rain had finally stopped! We immediately got in line for priority number two – Photopass! I just had to get the Sam Eagle Magic Shot!
Next we met up with our friends Mike and Candace for a stroll around the park, a search for lettuce on Living With the Land and some more photos! Yes, their kids and their other friends kids were very excited to watch lettuce grow! Laura loves that ride though, so we were happy to go along! Then we were off to get more photos.
One last photo with Mike and Candace! We’ve celebrated countless holidays with them at Epcot starting with the 4th of July 10 years ago!!
After our photo session, we headed back to World Showcase and met up with our friend Amber for the fireworks.
Amber already had a perfect view in front of the Canada!
Or so we thought we had a perfect view. It was a nice clear view of the lagoon and the American Adventure pavilion until I looked up. I saw the flames from one of the nearby cauldrons blowing somewhat in our direction and I thought “Uh oh!” Laura and I have been here for sooooooo many huge fireworks shows over the years and usually pick our viewing location based on the wind direction. Well, there was no time for that at this point, so c’est la vie! We would just have to deal with it. We had a great view of the back of a bunch people at Voices of Liberty. And now we had an amazing view of an enormous cloud of smoke!! It moved over us during the regular nightly firework show Luminous and started dropping ashes on us before the holiday tag even began. This was not the first time this had happened to us and it won’t be the last!!
I did still get some video of the show. Click below to watch the grand finale on Instagram!
Despite the smoke and ashes, Epcot’s Heartbeat of Freedom holiday tag was still amazing!! The classic rendition on Battle Hymn of Republic just pulses through you and the finale literally shakes you to the core. It is nothing short of spectacular!! It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, this show never fails to impress. It might be my favorite current holiday fireworks show at Disney!!
And that was it! Two parks and two days of Disney Celebrates America 250! We had mixed feelings going into the weekend based on the current state of our country, but Disney does things right and put on a show that allowed us to forget about that noise for a moment and just enjoy the view!
Here are some shots of Spaceship Earth lit up like the American Flag as we made our way out of the park.
As if that didn’t already sound like a busy weekend, it actually started with a very hilly twelve mile run! Yes, there are hills in Florida! I’m a little behind on running blogs so stay tuned for that story coming sometime next week. If you liked this blog, please like and comment below or on social media! Thanks for reading!
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