Foodin' and Winin' 2015,Day 2, the Actual Foodin' and Wining!!!, Part 3

The previous part can be found HERE.

We made our way back to Epcot and took the requisite row pic so we wouldn’t be spending 25 minutes trying to find the car at closing.

Being a Friday evening, I warned everyone that the crowds might be a little higher than usual with the locals descending on the park to start their weekend off right.  Still, it didn’t seem too bad as we hopped on the tram towards the entrance.  We flew through the turnstiles again and booked it to the Chew Lab.


The queue line to order moved relatively quickly; the food pickup line, though…that was a different story.  We ordered a couple of the New York Strips with Parsnip silk, Balsamic Glaze, and Arugula Foam (without telling Eric anything other than “steak”) and a couple of the nitro truffles.  The strips came out in a couple of minutes, but the word had gotten out about the awesomeness of the truffles, because it was a good 10+ minute wait to get them.  It was a combination of high demand for them and the time-consuming process it took to create each plate.  Yes, folks, they actually froze them with liquid nitrogen.

Was it worth the wait?

YEP!  Oh, and all 4 of us nearly cried when we lost about half of one of the nitro truffles off of a plate and onto the ground.


I contemplated just sticking around here and getting seconds…and thirds…and…but we made the (tough) decision to trek on and seek out new foods and wines.  We resisted the urge to stop at the Cheese Studio and Wine Studio kiosks and eventually found our way back into the World Showcase.  A quick left-hand turn, and we were entering unseen kiosk territory.  Eric was again famished, as I think he was onto us with the enhancements to the strip steak at Chew Lab.  He only had a bite or two and also was the one who lost half of the nitro truffle (I’ll take the blame…I did something that made him drop it).  Anyways, he was withering away, according to him.  When he gets this way, though, he can’t make a decision on what to actually eat as he’s afraid he won’t like it and prolong his agony.  We heard rave reviews of the Loaded Mac ‘n’ Cheese at the Farm Fresh kiosk, but Eric was quick to read what was included with “loaded”…peppers and green onions.  That put the kibosh on that idea quickly; it was a good thing, too, because it was about 6:20 and the line there was loooooong!


Now nearing the stage where he had to be dragged on the ground to go anywhere, Eric started writing his will (he was going to bequeath everything to our cat).  Sheri and I saw the Tropical Delight drink at the nearby Port of Entry Coffee Cart (Frozen Mango with Coconut Syrup and Grey Goose Vodka) and just about hopped in line for a drink or five (“go on, boys…you’ve been here enough times…just meet us at Spaceship Earth after Illuminations…make sure you stay for ‘We Go On’ though because you know how much it drives me crazy when people leave before it ends”).  I bet we could have gotten away with it, too...Aaron's tall for his age - he could probably pass for a 16 year old.


Eventually, we stumbled upon the Patagonia kiosk.  Let’s see here…we sampled North America (U.S. with Chew Lab and also Canada), Europe (Greece, France, and Ireland), and now, with Patagonia, we’re sampling South America (look it up…it’s South America, folks).  All we need is Asia, Africa, and Australia, and we’ll get continental Bingo!  Eric, about to succumb and let death take over his body, agreed to try something from the Patagonia Kiosk, and we got a couple of beef empanada orders to share.

He’ll make it…he’ll live at least until we get to another kiosk.  That kiosk was Mexico! Dos Dos Equis, uno Chilaquiles de Pollo, y uno Tacos de Camaron, por favor!

Okay…we were all fed and likely to survive.  We decided to hop into the Mexico Pavilion, which is another of my favorites to visit.  By instinct, I started to turn right after descending the stairs to get my tequila flight and salsa fix at La Cava del Tequila, but Sheri steered me back towards Gran Fiesta Tour.  The line was long-ish, but we were on in about 5 minutes and floating past the folks dining in San Angel (that is soooo cool).  We had the usual traffic jam at the end of the attraction, and I felt confident that I was fluent in Disney Spanish by the time we got off; I now know the monorail “por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas” spiel and the last room conversation in Gran Fiesta.


We strolled around Mexico for a bit and then moved over to Norway, where the crowds were somewhat lower than usual, though, with Maelstrom closed, it probably should not have been much of a surprise.  We bypassed Norway (as a tear trickled down my cheek) and decided to give China the time it deserved.  This was a pavilion that we have always seemed to bypass every trip, for one reason or another.  We went in and found out that we had a good 15 minutes before the next showing of Reflections of China.  This gave us some time to get to know the pavilion a little better.  Most people consider Reflections of China to be the primary attraction; I beg to differ, though.  The architecture and the symbolism throughout the entire pavilion trumps everything else…it’s not even a contest.  Inside the Hall of Prayer of Good Harvest, I showed the boys the rotunda and told them about the acoustic qualities of the room.  I couldn’t remember the significance of the columns or the colors used in the area (gold, red, blue, and green, which all symbolize something in the Chinese culture).  While the boys marveled at the tomb warriors exhibit, I looked up at the ceiling for the first time and simply stopped in my tracks.  I didn’t take any pictures because the area almost exuded an aura of reverence.  If you haven’t taken the time to visit this pavilion, do yourself a favor and slow down here!  I would love to tour this area with someone knowledgeable with the culture to help point out just how well the imagineers captured China.  The dragon paired with the phoenix…the nine center stones under the rotunda…the (rather morbid) homage to Prince Min…the detail of this pavilion is simply awe-inspiring.


After we finished watching Reflections, we looked around the House of Good Fortune for a bit.

We thought about grabbing some pot stickers from the kiosk and getting our passports stamped; however, the line was about 15 deep.  Still, we were jonesing for pot stickers.  The Economist in me looked at the Lotus Blossom Café…same pot stickers with no wait?  SURE!  We trekked into Lotus Blossom, grabbed some pot stickers and some Tsingtao beer for me and some plum wine for Sheri (hey, it’s called the Food and Wine Festival…not the Food and Beer Festival).


It was getting to be around 8:30, and while Illuminations ranks up there as one of my favorite night-time shows, we had a long day today and a long one planned for tomorrow at the Magic Kingdom.  The vote was 3.5-0.5 (I couldn’t completely vote against Illuminations), so we started making our way out of World Showcase towards Spaceship Earth.

We decided for one last attraction, though…we had to find Nemo.

Aaron caught the above pic with his phone.

With the shirt I was wearing...you know we had to get this one:

One of my quirks in the parks is to always tell the icon "goodbye" was I exit (well, I don't do that so much for Hollywood Studios, because there really isn't an icon there, other than the Chinese Theater).  We all turned and grabbed one last shot of Spaceship Earth...

Have I mentioned that I love this park?

We had a hilarious tram announcer on the way to our car; I wish I would have gotten his name to pass along to the Disney Parks folks.  He had everyone in stitches...he started out with a tour of the parking lot like a Jungle Cruise Captain would and then went into some obscure trivia to see what answers we would shout out.  Luckily we were the last stop on the ride, so we got to hear the most.  I made sure to give him a thumbs-up and a "Thanks...you rock!!" as we walked by.

Illuminations started as we made our way South on Epcot Center Drive towards the exit.  There are rumors still swirling of a new show in the works for Epcot...that means we're going to have to come back to see Illuminations a couple more times before it's gone!

Back at the resort, it was a little easier convincing the boys to hit the hay.  They weren't too worn out, but they definitely had a lot going on.

Oh, just wait, kids...I had an insane plan for the Magic Kingdom the next morning muahahahahah.

Mushfam Disney Family Vacation, June 2010; Day 3, Part 2: Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey

Part 1 of this day is HERE

Okay…next up is another first for the Mushfam – we’re going to try doing the Kim Possible Experience for the first time.  We head over to the bridge and wait for only one person to get our Kimmunicator…seriously, it’s not busy at all:

Secretly, I’m hoping that we get Norway for our country, for three reasons: 1) I’ve heard that the Norway one was pretty cool; 2) It’s fairly close to the front, so we won’t have to walk too much; and 3) it’s Norway, which means gorgeous female cast members.  I think about the timing, with our Fastpasses for Soarin and lunch to shoehorn in, and they let me change the time to 1:00 for…you guessed it…NORWAY!!!   Oh, and no, I didn’t specifically request that one – it was fate!

With Kim Possible Fastpasses in hand, we now have a dilemma: our Soarin FP return time is coming up soon, but we’re also hungry and need to grab a bite to eat, but we want to avoid the crowds.  We weren’t quite hungry yet, and it was just around 11.  After a knock-down, drag-out argument, we decide to head over to Canada to look around for a bit and check out O Canada.

I figured the boys wouldn’t like the movie, but they did fairly well.

After that, we had another argument on what to do next.   Several minutes of arguing, coupled with a bathroom break, ensue.  Finally we agree to go next door to the U.K. to grab some fish and chips (it was a bit early, but the crowds hadn’t made it to WS yet).  I remember how amazing the fish was when we met up with a friend of ours during our anniversary trip back in 2007, so I was really looking forward to it.  What I wasn’t looking forward to was the table of moronic teen-aged boys who were teasing the birds with food.  Of course, they were seated right next to us, which meant that we were nearly under attack for much of the meal.  A CM came over and, in the way only Disney CMs can do, chastised them with a smile in the nicest way possible.  The boys said they would stop doing it, and they did…until the CM was out of eyeshot.  Sure enough, the same CM saw them a few minutes later – how he controlled himself and maintained the Disney aura, I’ll never know, because I was about to throw the two boys into the lagoon.  Of course, Aaron and Eric wanted to try it out; one well-timed set of looks from Sheri and me was enough to know that they would have to find their own way back to Illinois if they tried to feed the birds.

Drama aside, the food was really good, as expected.  A surprise hit was the stack of shortbread cookies that came as the dessert.  Everyone except Eric loved them, and Aaron successfully lobbied to have most of Eric’s.  Unfortunately, that was a LOT of sugar, which, coupled with the heat and the grease from the 7.4 pieces of fish he ate, didn’t sit well in Aaron’s stomach. 

He entered whining mode before we even got out of the U.K.   We had to revisit the bathroom from the last argument again – Aaron felt much better afterward (no, he didn’t barf – I’ll just stop there).  After that stop, we sneak through the gardens and make our way up back up to the Land.  We intentionally didn’t tell Eric where we were going, because we knew he’d resist because he’s not a fan of that ride.  As expected, he’s not thrilled when we pass the sign for the Land.  We got there about 4 minutes after our FP return window closed, but, as expected, we were okay.  We flew by the standby line and had daggers stared at us the entire way – I’m almost glad there’s that wall that separates the FP return from the standby line for much of the walk.  We’re in the queuing area within 10 minutes, and we find ourselves in the EXACT same row and numbers (bottom row, center).  Kronk clears us to fly, and all the worries are temporarily forgotten for that short duration. 

We start to make our way back to the World Showcase and nearly combust spontaneously.  As we make the turn left towards the land of porcelain goddesses (AKA Norway in case you haven’t figured it out yet), we make an executive decision to grab something to drink.  The boys get Sprite and water while Sheri gets a strawberry margarita and I get a draft Dos Equis.

Yep…about time to head back after this.

We make it to the staging area, and I’m bummed to find that it’s not anywhere near Akershus or Kringola, where the porcelain goddesses tend to reside in the land of Beauty.  We get the Verizon phone...



...which looks almost exactly like the ones we use, and I have a passing thought of terror as I fully expect to hand in the wrong phone.  I won’t go into the full detail of the experience…I’ll just let the videos show a couple of items.

All in all, we all give it a thumbs-up for this episode of the game.  Being in Norway, we had to have a little bit more fun...

All in all, we all give it a thumbs-up for this episode of the game.  The heat is really starting to take its toll, however, and Sheri and I both look at each other at the same time and nod in agreement to start making our way back to Kidani.  Before we make it out of WS, Eric decides that his legs no longer work and begs to be carried.  Being the kind, caring, and compassionate father, I tell him to suck it up and march on!  We detour into MouseGears for a brief respite from the sun.  Somehow, Eric’s legs started working again (it’s a Christmas Miracle!).  None of us wanted to leave the building, and we started plotting the next building to go to in order to stay cool…Hey…the Disney Visa Meet-n-greet is over in Innoventions West.  Let’s head over there!  Everyone else had the same idea, apparently, because the line was HUGE!  Nope…the marginal benefit of remaining in the A/C in a long line was outweighed by the marginal cost of time and comfort (I drew a graph).  We head out, and Eric’s legs nearly fall off near the gravestones.   We wait only a few minutes before we’re on the bus (MORE A/C!!!).  Back to Kidani, over the Himalayas, and into our studio.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (all 4 of us).

About 2 hours later, we all simultaneously start stirring.  We freshen up, wave to the zebras grazing outside our balcony, and are back on the bus to Epcot by around 4:15. After we get on, Miss June 2010 gets on after us, and Sheri makes sure to stare at me staring at her.  We get to Epcot soon after and start to make our way over towards World Showcase.  We’re a bit early when we get to Germany, so we relax a bit out in the promenade before our buzzer goes off.

It’s our first time at Biergarten, so we don’t quite know what to expect, though we’ve read and heard reports about it.  A few minutes later, we get buzzed, and we’re seated with a family from Monroe, Wisconsin.  They had a girl that was about Eric’s age, so we discuss the dowry with them as we order our drinks.  Sheri and I both go with the German beer flight.

We then head up to get our plates full of German grub.  I’m a bit worried as I’m not a big fan of sauerkraut.  I start off with a plate of salad as I help Aaron load his plate up with mac-n-cheese and bratwurst.

I sit down and grab a drink before realizing I should have grabbed a pic for AJ (sorry!). 

Beck's Regular, Franziskaner Weisse, Beck's Marzen Oktoberfest and Spaten Optimator Dark

The band starts up within a few minutes of our sitting down with our meals, and we get to enjoy the entertainment.  The kids (including Eric’s future bride) head down to the floor to dance, and we move so Eric can head down and show the world his moves (he’s definitely the dancer of the two boys).  He heads out and…

Well……..that didn’t go the way we expected it to go.  This is the kid who would go out on the dance floor of a wedding reception not knowing anyone out there and just go slam dancing for an hour.  He comes back, throws back a shot of milk for courage, and heads back out.

Sigh

Unwilling to wait any longer, Eric’s wife-to-be dumps him for another one…one who’s not afraid to strut on the dance floor.  I demand my dowry back from her father, and he returns the piece of pocket lint I gave him earlier.  Then, the most unexpected thing happened.

Aaron - the one that’s too cool to go out on the dance floor - heads out to do the chicken dance.

(GASP)

Eric follows him, and awaaaay theeeey go!

I think they were shooting for a world record for number of revolutions on the swinging part (poor Eric went flying the first time around!).

Seeing the carnage of the chicken dance, the band calls it a set and heads off-stage for their short break before the next time out.  The boys run back up and, famished from that intense 4-minute workout, we all head up for dessert.

While we eat the most-important course, we gab with the Wisconsin family about all sorts of things.  Our sever drops off the checks, and both families got pics:

Continued HERE

Mushfam Disney Family Vacation, June 2010; Day 3, Part 1: Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey

Need to go back to Day 2?  It's HERE.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeppppp…the thumb finally calmed down a few hours after everyone fell asleep, allowing me to join the slumber party and get a little bit of shut-eye.  Everyone got some good sleep.  We dress, hop out onto the balcony to say hello to the giraffes, and dive head-first into the donuts.  Sheri makes coffee, and we’re good to go for our long adventure…wait for it…all together now…to the lobby.  On the way, I start counting the number of steps from the door to the lobby and find that it’s 600 steps.  We make it to the bus stop, get a pic, and, within 1 minute, hop on an arriving Epcot bus.  The boys choose to sit together…away from us.  I’m not sure which I’m more worried about…when they always fight or when they get along and are plotting evil things together.

Within no time, we make it to Epcot.  As we get in line at the turnstiles, I hand out the tickets (“Mickey!  Pluto!  Goofy!”).  A minute or two later, I get a text from the neighbor saying that the cat was still lethargic but was at least at a different area and was eating a little bit of food.  Since he was eating less food, I made the executive decision to cut back on the insulin a bit to avoid him going into diabetic coma.  A couple more texts are exchanged between us before ending textfest, and I am grateful to put the phone away.  A bit later, we switch lines as we realize another side of the turnstile is going to be open.  They start letting us through, and we head through the gravestones and under the golf ball en masse to the rope near the fountain of nations.  We still have about ten minutes to go before the rope is dropped, and, with the boys calm, I take the time to listen to some of the conversations and watch the actions of some of the folks around us.  Now, if this describes any of you who read this, sorry!  I got to see people constantly trying to push forward, with others commenting that they couldn’t understand why they had to hold us up (“why can’t we just go now?”).  Some were complaining that there was no need to be there so early because there’s still a crowd, while others griped about the heat.  I had one woman next to me make it her personal goal to explain to me and wifey all sorts of information about WDW that we know is rubbish but didn’t have the heart to tell her, until she mentions something way out there like buying special Fastpass tickets or taking the monorail to Studios.  I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and corrected her.  I could tell she didn’t believe me as she pushed forward past us to get nearer to the rope.

We do the countdown to the rope drop and start walking west towards the land as folks go running past us, some dragging their kids behind them.  We team up with a couple other families also walking to Soarin and laugh at those sprinting.  More than once we utter under our breaths something like “the attraction will still be there in ten minutes!”  As we enter The Land pavilion, Sheri and I get into the classic argument of riding it versus getting a Fastpass.  My view: grab a Fastpass for Soarin and head over to TT so we can get it knocked out before the FP return starts up, which slows the standby queue.  Sheri’s view: ride Soarin now because it’s her favorite ride and her stats-geek husband doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  We go back and forth for a couple of minutes while we head down to the lower level .  Wifey ends up winning (like there was any doubt), and I hope that we get out quickly enough to make it to TT and in the loading area before 10.  We fly through the Soarin queue and walk up until just before the right curve where the CM has us go left or right.  We only wait a few minutes before we are directed right.  We are queued in the bottom row of the center section and are listening to Kronk tell us about those little beauties.  We’re in, we’re off, and we’re up over the clouds!  Eric remembers the fireworks at the end and is already apprehensive about it.  I see him putting his hands over his ears at the finale.  We’re dark, we’re down, and we’re out of the erector set in fairly decent time.  As we head out of Soarin, the boys and I peel off to the side and grab Fastpasses. 

I look at the watch and see that it’s around 9:40.  I want to get us over to Test Track as quickly as possible in the hopes that we can get on before 10.  We head up the stairs and out of the Land, and I’m sprinting…dragging the kids behind me.  Okay, we walked, but I knew that, if the TouringPlans folks saw what we were doing, they’d revoke my membership to their site.  We make it to Test Track around 9:45, and the wait time is posted at 30 minutes. 

Uh Oh.

Sure enough, around 10:00, in comes the FP returnees, and the standby line slows down dramatically.  We finally get to our cars around 10:25.

Forgive me, oh Len, for I have sinned. 

It’s a good ride, and the four of us love the outside speed test!  The on-ride pic is great, so I put them on my Photopass card.  We then head outside and let the boys mess around in the water area of TT for a minute

Up next is out of this world yet right next door.  Yep, despite Sheri’s protests, there are three of us that want to do Mission: Space.  I want to go with the Orange version, but I’m out-voted 3:1 on that.  At least I was in the majority to get in the attraction in the first place.  We go green and walk into the video room.  Lt. Dan gives us the encouragement we need, and, before we know it, we’re not spinning  (Did I mention I wanted to do the orange version?).  The boys both love it, and Sheri tolerates it.  I almost ask to see if they want to go again in orange but decide against it – mainly because we have the next surprise lined up for the boys.  We first try to get a picture.

Grrrr

We head through the Innoventions East breezeway and head past the fountain…

Yes, folks, we’re going to forego the Parent of the Year Award and introduce them to Beverley…

…only it didn’t go exactly as planned.

Well, at least we got Eric.

Sheri likes the multicultural tables and has to get a pic of it.

Part 2 continues HERE