Morning Extra Magic Hours with Kids - Epcot

I seem to always recommend using Disney's morning Extra Magic Hours, don't I?  In our first 4 trips with a baby/toddler, they always made perfect sense - as early risers, we simply took advantage of what perk we had with a baby.

Even on Noah's 5th and Z's 1st trip, I had our schedule planned out based on crowd levels and morning extra magic hours.

But, when Z got sick and Noah and I headed out on our own, we stuck with our original plan to hit up Epcot for the crowds.  Noah hadn't had an "official" height check, so I wasn't sure if he was 40", but I figured even if he wasn't that there would be plenty for us to do in Future World.  Right?

WRONG.

Without Adam to ride-swap with, there was literally no point for us to be there.

Open in Future World for morning EMH are:

• The Land Pavilion (Soarin')
• Test Track
• Mission Space
• Spaceship Earth (not sure if this was actually open when we were there)
• Mission Space.

That left us with:

• Living with the Land
• Spaceship Earth (which we didn't do b/c I really don't think it was open!)
• post-show areas.

Yup.  After we were denied into Soarin', we rode Living with the Land which, while enjoyable, isn't quite enough for extra magic hours.

We shopped, admired some of the topiaries that were up in preparation for the Flower and Garden Festival, and were some of the first in line for Epcot's Character Spot.

He literally tried to run through the roses

If only he actually smiled in posed pictures...

And... that is the hat we had just bought for him during our shopping spree.

So -

we should have changed our plans - maybe headed to the Magic Kingdom for a non-EMH rope drop, but either way - getting up and out early to wait around from Nemo and Figment.... not worth it!  Sorry Epcot, no morning EMH needed for the little kids!