Below are the links for the various days of the Mushfam's 2015 trip report to Walt Disney World during Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival.
Enjoy!!!
Pre-Trip and Arrival Day
Only 1 Part
Day 2, The Actual Foodin' and Winin'
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Day 3, Ridin' and Tourin'
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Showing posts with label International Food and Wine Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Food and Wine Festival. Show all posts
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
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...
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.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Foodin' and Winin' 2015,Day 2, the Actual Foodin' and Wining!!!, Part 2
The first part of this day can be viewed HERE.
Okay…Future World done…onto the Festival!!
BUT FIRST!!!!
Requisite SSE pic
Now, onto the Festi….no….nononono. We had to see the Ocean Spray cranberry bog, too.
Okay…now?
YES!
ONTO THE FESTIVAL!!!
We headed right towards the Canada side and started looking at the kiosks. We all had our passports and were flipping between reading the passports and reading the displays at the entrance to each kiosk. Sheri and I nearly stopped at the Desserts and Champagne kiosk for some Moet and Chandon Imperial paired with Belgian chocolate truffles but remembered that we had our boys with us this trip. Three of the four of us decided to go for Greece as our first stop!
We got a chicken gyro and an order of spanakopita to split.
Eric, the dissenting vote of Greece, nearly died of hunger in the two minutes it took to get from the Greece kiosk to the Canada one, where the orders were no-brainers: two Mooseheads, two soft drinks, two cheddar cheese soups, and two mushroom filets.
All the tables were full, but someone offered to share their table with us. We graciously accepted and returned the favor when they left and another family was looking for a place to park.
It was a vote of 4-0 on the question concerning if we liked the Canada food/drink offerings. We liked!!!
After we ate, Eric decided he was temporarily okay again, so we walked around the Victoria Gardens area of the Canada Pavilion.
No waterfall? Bummer.
After touring Canada, we were again famished (Canada is the second-largest country in the world, donchya know), so we strolled over to the U.K. pavilion and tried the fisherman’s pie, the cheese plate, and some Kilkenny’s Ale.
Yeah, I think we could safely say that the boys were enjoying Food and Wine…wait, that didn’t sound good. They were enjoying the Food portion of the Food and Wine Festival.
I had to grab a quick photo of a gate:
Those who have done the Walt Disney World Marathon know exactly why that gate is significant!
After we finished our grub, we explored the United Kingdom pavilion for a while. I took note of the boys and how they had changed over the past few years. Had we recommended this to the boys when they were younger, we would have heard a chant of protests about their lives being ruined due to boredom. They were now readily exploring the various pavilions, not in search of a thrill ride, but rather, at least in part, in search of the different cultures that can be found. Granted, it only lasted about 12 minutes in the U.K., but we’ll take that over immediate protests that we expected.
(seriously, a practically perfect Mary Poppins…she was amazing!!)
In time, we crossed the bridge and made our way over to the France pavilion. If you’ve seen the cover photo on my Agency’s Facebook page, you can probably guess that France is one of my favorite pavilions in Epcot. Since it had been all of 27 minutes since we last ate in Ireland, we grabbed a Boeuf Bourguignon and a vanilla/chocolate crème brulee. While we sat by the fountains and ate, we caught a few minutes of Serveur Amusant.
I could tell the boys were getting a little tired, so we decided to check out Impressions de France, which was a first for the boys. There were only a handful of people in the beautiful theatre, plus a group of what I am guessing are 8th-10th grade girls with a couple of teachers. The teachers handed out some papers with questions pertaining to the film; it appeared that they were using the movie as an educational experience.
I remember seeing the movie back in 2001 and thinking, “meh”. This time, though...I liked it a LOT more. It’s not all Paris…just as Paris is not representative of all of France…not in the least. While only so much of a country can be depicted in a 15-20 minute film, this film gives you a taste of many parts of the country, not just the common tourist areas. Even though this movie is dated (it has remained pretty much unchanged since its debut in 1982), the production highlights some of the true beauty of France. That being said, I don’t think the boys shared the same appreciation of the film as us, but I also think that they were starting to wear down a little.
After Impressions, we had to (sorry, there was no choice...we HAD TO) stop at our favorite drink location to get our favorite drinks...the Gray Goose Citron Lemonade Slush (or, as we affectionately call it, our Gray Goose Slushie!!!!!!).
It wasn't intentional, but the MINE bird on my shirt was located perfectly for this pic!
Another !@#%#$&$^ selfie!
We made the decision to head back to our unit for a little rest. Before heading out, though, we headed back to the Festival Center to get a souvenir; the boys wanted to go back for another chocolate bar sample from Ghirardelli! We got some cool t-shirts and used our Annual Passholders for a discount. As we walked back towards the chocolate area, I made eye contact with someone who looked remarkably familiar; her look back and smile confirmed that we knew each other. Her smile grew as she walked up to us and verified that we were the Mushrushes.
I gave a big smile and replied back with, “Jan, right?”
I knew that Jan Pepe and several others from the Team AllEars running team were in town as part of a travel agency celebration, and were at the right place at the right time. I think it’s impossible to not be happy when Jan’s around; she has that personality that just makes you smile! We talked for a bit about how her trip was going and mentioned to our boys that her son had recently earned the rank of Eagle Scout. All too soon, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
We made our way out of Epcot, found our car, and make it back to Vacation Village in less than 12 minutes again. We figured that the boys would crash as soon as we got in the car...
Nope.
Sheri and I were tired, so we wanted to grab a nap. The boys, however, caught their second wind, which meant nobody slept. When they don’t sleep while I wanted to sleep…I’m not happy.
I wasn’t happy.
I took the time to talk to some friends over on Facebook who have been to Food and Wine to see what their favorite kiosks were that we haven’t hit yet. I posted:
The responses were immediate!!! There were votes for several of the east-side kiosks mentioned as not-to-be-missed, but the hands-down winner by far was the Chew Lab and the Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle with Warm Whiskey Caramel. That had to be our first stop, or I would have let down Julia, Brian, Jamey, Wendy, and Wendy (yes, two of them) who told me that we HAD to get the nitro truffle.
On that, we gave up fighting the boys and headed down to the car...
(Continued HERE)
Okay…Future World done…onto the Festival!!
BUT FIRST!!!!
Requisite SSE pic
Now, onto the Festi….no….nononono. We had to see the Ocean Spray cranberry bog, too.
Okay…now?
YES!
ONTO THE FESTIVAL!!!
We headed right towards the Canada side and started looking at the kiosks. We all had our passports and were flipping between reading the passports and reading the displays at the entrance to each kiosk. Sheri and I nearly stopped at the Desserts and Champagne kiosk for some Moet and Chandon Imperial paired with Belgian chocolate truffles but remembered that we had our boys with us this trip. Three of the four of us decided to go for Greece as our first stop!
We got a chicken gyro and an order of spanakopita to split.
Eric, the dissenting vote of Greece, nearly died of hunger in the two minutes it took to get from the Greece kiosk to the Canada one, where the orders were no-brainers: two Mooseheads, two soft drinks, two cheddar cheese soups, and two mushroom filets.
All the tables were full, but someone offered to share their table with us. We graciously accepted and returned the favor when they left and another family was looking for a place to park.
It was a vote of 4-0 on the question concerning if we liked the Canada food/drink offerings. We liked!!!
After we ate, Eric decided he was temporarily okay again, so we walked around the Victoria Gardens area of the Canada Pavilion.
No waterfall? Bummer.
After touring Canada, we were again famished (Canada is the second-largest country in the world, donchya know), so we strolled over to the U.K. pavilion and tried the fisherman’s pie, the cheese plate, and some Kilkenny’s Ale.
Yeah, I think we could safely say that the boys were enjoying Food and Wine…wait, that didn’t sound good. They were enjoying the Food portion of the Food and Wine Festival.
I had to grab a quick photo of a gate:
Those who have done the Walt Disney World Marathon know exactly why that gate is significant!
After we finished our grub, we explored the United Kingdom pavilion for a while. I took note of the boys and how they had changed over the past few years. Had we recommended this to the boys when they were younger, we would have heard a chant of protests about their lives being ruined due to boredom. They were now readily exploring the various pavilions, not in search of a thrill ride, but rather, at least in part, in search of the different cultures that can be found. Granted, it only lasted about 12 minutes in the U.K., but we’ll take that over immediate protests that we expected.
(seriously, a practically perfect Mary Poppins…she was amazing!!)
In time, we crossed the bridge and made our way over to the France pavilion. If you’ve seen the cover photo on my Agency’s Facebook page, you can probably guess that France is one of my favorite pavilions in Epcot. Since it had been all of 27 minutes since we last ate in Ireland, we grabbed a Boeuf Bourguignon and a vanilla/chocolate crème brulee. While we sat by the fountains and ate, we caught a few minutes of Serveur Amusant.
I could tell the boys were getting a little tired, so we decided to check out Impressions de France, which was a first for the boys. There were only a handful of people in the beautiful theatre, plus a group of what I am guessing are 8th-10th grade girls with a couple of teachers. The teachers handed out some papers with questions pertaining to the film; it appeared that they were using the movie as an educational experience.
I remember seeing the movie back in 2001 and thinking, “meh”. This time, though...I liked it a LOT more. It’s not all Paris…just as Paris is not representative of all of France…not in the least. While only so much of a country can be depicted in a 15-20 minute film, this film gives you a taste of many parts of the country, not just the common tourist areas. Even though this movie is dated (it has remained pretty much unchanged since its debut in 1982), the production highlights some of the true beauty of France. That being said, I don’t think the boys shared the same appreciation of the film as us, but I also think that they were starting to wear down a little.
After Impressions, we had to (sorry, there was no choice...we HAD TO) stop at our favorite drink location to get our favorite drinks...the Gray Goose Citron Lemonade Slush (or, as we affectionately call it, our Gray Goose Slushie!!!!!!).
It wasn't intentional, but the MINE bird on my shirt was located perfectly for this pic!
Another !@#%#$&$^ selfie!
We made the decision to head back to our unit for a little rest. Before heading out, though, we headed back to the Festival Center to get a souvenir; the boys wanted to go back for another chocolate bar sample from Ghirardelli! We got some cool t-shirts and used our Annual Passholders for a discount. As we walked back towards the chocolate area, I made eye contact with someone who looked remarkably familiar; her look back and smile confirmed that we knew each other. Her smile grew as she walked up to us and verified that we were the Mushrushes.
I gave a big smile and replied back with, “Jan, right?”
I knew that Jan Pepe and several others from the Team AllEars running team were in town as part of a travel agency celebration, and were at the right place at the right time. I think it’s impossible to not be happy when Jan’s around; she has that personality that just makes you smile! We talked for a bit about how her trip was going and mentioned to our boys that her son had recently earned the rank of Eagle Scout. All too soon, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
We made our way out of Epcot, found our car, and make it back to Vacation Village in less than 12 minutes again. We figured that the boys would crash as soon as we got in the car...
Nope.
Sheri and I were tired, so we wanted to grab a nap. The boys, however, caught their second wind, which meant nobody slept. When they don’t sleep while I wanted to sleep…I’m not happy.
I wasn’t happy.
I took the time to talk to some friends over on Facebook who have been to Food and Wine to see what their favorite kiosks were that we haven’t hit yet. I posted:
“Okay, Food and Wine Connoisseurs, we've done Greece, Ireland, Canada, and France. We're going to head back and do the east side tonight. Best foods from Ocean Spray bog east (Mexico side) to the American Adventure?”
The responses were immediate!!! There were votes for several of the east-side kiosks mentioned as not-to-be-missed, but the hands-down winner by far was the Chew Lab and the Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle with Warm Whiskey Caramel. That had to be our first stop, or I would have let down Julia, Brian, Jamey, Wendy, and Wendy (yes, two of them) who told me that we HAD to get the nitro truffle.
On that, we gave up fighting the boys and headed down to the car...
(Continued HERE)
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Foodin' and Winin' 2015,Day 2, the Actual Foodin' and Wining!!!, Part 1
Read about our Arrival Day HERE.
Okay...before I start the next day's report, I do have to announce a winner from the previous day's report. Renee Perri, all of SIXTEEN years old, was the first to correctly answer the question I had inside the last post. Check out her response in the comments section of the May 1, 2016 post, which, to the best of my knowledge, is 100% correct (including the rumored link between the proposed Dragon Tower coaster and Islands of Adventure's Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge at the Universal Orlando Resort). Renee, you totally rock, and I'm fully convinced that you would easily annihilate me in a Disney World trivia contest!
Now...onto Day 2 of our report...
It took a couple of threats to get the boys to sleep the previous night, thanks to them just being brothers. Of course, that meant that they went to sleep a lot later than we had hoped, which, of course, meant that we had to get their butts out of bed in order to have any chance of making it to rope drop in Epcot.
Sheri always teases me about being the ultimate planner and making sure I put a bathroom break in the plan somewhere (she’s joking, folks…she knows I always put in 1 bathroom break a day muahahah). She probably doesn’t want people to know, though, that she’s probably just as much a planner as I am. She has the clothes picked out down to the underwear that we’re supposed to have on every day. I usually acquiesce and let her have one day where we match; she often sneaks in two days (wait until you read the report of the Universal Orlando trip we just came back from). Today, though, she went fairly easy on the matching trend; we got to more or less pick what we wanted to wear this day. Aaron, Eric, and I all thought something was wrong, but she was good with it; her revenge was the matching shirts for Magic Kingdom the next day.
Anyway, the goal was to hopefully leave at 8:00 to make it past the turnstiles by 8:30 or so. Getting the boys out the door proved to be a little bit of an effort (“Dudes…you know the protocol by now…we’re on Disney time, and this isn’t the first time you’ve experienced it”). I nearly called a friend of mine from the Disney World Trip Report Hall of Fame: Commando Nikki! Nikki is the daughter of Robin Costello, who was affectionately known as “Delswife” in the trip report arena, and one of Robin’s epic reports chronicles Nikki constantly attempting to get her entire family on the move out the door to the parks; it was rumored that a whistle and/or an air horn were part of her arsenal…oh, okay, she used them all the time! If she could have connected up a train horn to blow, she would have used it!!!
We eventually (FINALLY) made it out the door around 8:15 and hoped that the traffic wouldn’t be too horrendous; I recall the very first Disney World Trip that Sheri and I did where we stayed on Black Lake Rd just off of Irlo Bronson and cursed every stop light on Bronson that made us take forever (until I found the back-door entrance to Disney World using Sherberth Rd.). I hoped we could make it to Soarin’ not too long after the park opened as I had FastPasses for Test Track instead of Soarin. The entire vacation would be ruined if we had to wait more than 5 minutes for Soarin!!
Well, from the parking lot of Vacation Village to the Epcot Toll Plaza, it took us a grand total of nine minutes. Current time: 8:26 am.
See? Nothing to worry about.
I could get used to those commute times!
We flashed our APs and got waved through, parked in the second or third row from the entrance, gooped up with sun screen, walked to the entrance, slipped through bag check, and made it through the turnstiles by 8:32!
Honestly, I think it’s a toss-up between the Flower and Garden Festival and the Food and Wine Festival…I don’t know which one I’m a bigger fan of. To a certain extent, they’re kind of morphing into similar experiences, with topiaries during Food and Wine and food kiosks during Flower and Garden. Regardless, I like both, and I REALLY like both when we get to experience both during a single event. We had some time, so we grabbed a couple of pics near the entrance.
@#$%#%@&@$ Selfie was taken, too...
Just before 9, we were positioned near Innoventions West for the daily Dash to the Land Event. As soon as the ropes are dropped, the sea of humanity typically makes a mad run to be the first on Soarin…and today was no different. We love walking and watching people sweat as they try to get ahead of everyone else…why they have to do this, I just don’t know. They often look like fools, they probably will smell for the rest of the day, and, while I could be mistaken, I think that the cast members in charge of Soarin will probably reset the attraction and run it again about 3-4 minutes after the first show. I wish I would have gotten a pic of the dash…we stayed behind and walked with others, all shaking our heads and snickering at the sight.
Eventually, we made our way into the Land where the masses had already made their way into what had to be the absolute best Soarin ride ever. We strolled in and, because we walked, we had to wait a gut-wrenching 5 minutes to start listening to Kronk in the pre-load area (yep…center section, top row...best location to watch the film).
Our vacation was going to be ruined because the wait.
During our excruciating wait for Kronk to tell us the ever-popular “heelLLLLLO and WELcome to SOARin” spiel, we talked up with the family behind us, who gave a lot of information on the Food and Wine Festival Center (get the free chocolate, look for the hidden bathroom and phone charging area, etc.).
Awesome as always, Sheri and I both breathed in the pine and the orange smells during our flight. The official announcement of the extended refurbishment of our favorite attraction came just a few days prior to our arrival, so we wanted to make sure we got on this. After we got off, we almost jumped back in line to ride it again, but we resisted. It’s going to be hard to top the California version of Soarin, but we’ll withhold judgement on the new digital film that will have us Soarin all around the world until we see it a few times.
Our Fastpass window for Tron Tra…errr…Test Track started at 9:25, and it was right at about 9:25 (thanks to that killer wait time at our first attraction). Since we were here, we decided to hop on what we think is one the biggest sleeper attractions in Epcot…Living with the Land. We walked on and just about had the boat to ourselves, until a group came in just before we launched.
Always a tranquil ride, we chilled as we snapped pics in the greenhouse.
With that done, we decided to head out of the Land Pavilion, once again foregoing one of the only attractions we have yet to do at Walt Disney World (the Circle of Life movie). As we trekked over to the Innovations East Breezeway, we caught a couple minutes of the 9:45 fountain show. I seriously could just stand and watch the fountain for an hour and not get bored.
Over to Test Track for our FastPass. We flew right up to the doors to design our car. I let Eric make the car, with a few “suggestions”. I recalled Brian Thompson, a friend from team AllEars, mentioning a few days before we arrived, that he decided to “screw the environment” to make the biggest muscle car for the attraction. I took Brian’s words to heart and convinced Eric to soup up the engine a LOT!!!
We made it a special contest with the rest of the attraction car, as Sheri and Aaron designed a car while one other family in our car designed their own collectively.
We won the overall challenge…hands down (though we did get our asses handed to us in the efficiency category). Quoting Brian’s reply on Facebook, “You have done well, young Padawan” .
We had plenty of time built into our schedule to take in the Festival, so we headed into the Wonders of Life Pavilion (yes, I’m still going to call it that, even though it’s now the Festival Center). Once we were in, I hopped into the line for the Welcome Center to see if we could get the ever-popular Festival Passports, and I recognized the cast member who was manning the entrance where we got into the park. He remembered my shirt (and the banter we had at the park entrance), and we joked about who was stalking who. I tried to get him to spill where he would be stationed next so we could meet up again, but he wouldn’t give up the information. I knew I should have signed up as an interrogator for SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) during my Secondclass/junior year at the Air Force Academy (I selected Basic Cadet Training Cadre Over SERE). Had I done so, I might have been able to get his entire schedule (along with his checking account, social security number, and birthday).
We walked around and, recalling what our new friends from the Soarin queue told us, headed towards the back of the building to grab some samples from Ghirardelli, find the hidden bathrooms (which, while we did find, we did not use), and look at some absolutely amazing scenes created entirely of chocolate.
As we left the Festival Center and tried showing the boys the solar panels on the roof of Ellen’s Energy Adventure, we ran into our school’s band/choir directors again, and we caught up on how the trip and their research was going. We joked about our research starting in a few minutes when we made our way over to World Showcase for the food kiosks. They agreed wholeheartedly.
Before our Fooding and WINING, we had to take a moment to reflect on our grand and miraculous spaceship that has sailed through the universe of time; we had to thank the Phoenicians, smell Rome burning, and communicate from somewhere other than Earth in 1969.
(Sheri always likes getting some shots of her future)...
Woohoo...I got all four of us on the globe!
(Continued HERE)
Okay...before I start the next day's report, I do have to announce a winner from the previous day's report. Renee Perri, all of SIXTEEN years old, was the first to correctly answer the question I had inside the last post. Check out her response in the comments section of the May 1, 2016 post, which, to the best of my knowledge, is 100% correct (including the rumored link between the proposed Dragon Tower coaster and Islands of Adventure's Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge at the Universal Orlando Resort). Renee, you totally rock, and I'm fully convinced that you would easily annihilate me in a Disney World trivia contest!
Now...onto Day 2 of our report...
It took a couple of threats to get the boys to sleep the previous night, thanks to them just being brothers. Of course, that meant that they went to sleep a lot later than we had hoped, which, of course, meant that we had to get their butts out of bed in order to have any chance of making it to rope drop in Epcot.
Sheri always teases me about being the ultimate planner and making sure I put a bathroom break in the plan somewhere (she’s joking, folks…she knows I always put in 1 bathroom break a day muahahah). She probably doesn’t want people to know, though, that she’s probably just as much a planner as I am. She has the clothes picked out down to the underwear that we’re supposed to have on every day. I usually acquiesce and let her have one day where we match; she often sneaks in two days (wait until you read the report of the Universal Orlando trip we just came back from). Today, though, she went fairly easy on the matching trend; we got to more or less pick what we wanted to wear this day. Aaron, Eric, and I all thought something was wrong, but she was good with it; her revenge was the matching shirts for Magic Kingdom the next day.
Anyway, the goal was to hopefully leave at 8:00 to make it past the turnstiles by 8:30 or so. Getting the boys out the door proved to be a little bit of an effort (“Dudes…you know the protocol by now…we’re on Disney time, and this isn’t the first time you’ve experienced it”). I nearly called a friend of mine from the Disney World Trip Report Hall of Fame: Commando Nikki! Nikki is the daughter of Robin Costello, who was affectionately known as “Delswife” in the trip report arena, and one of Robin’s epic reports chronicles Nikki constantly attempting to get her entire family on the move out the door to the parks; it was rumored that a whistle and/or an air horn were part of her arsenal…oh, okay, she used them all the time! If she could have connected up a train horn to blow, she would have used it!!!
We eventually (FINALLY) made it out the door around 8:15 and hoped that the traffic wouldn’t be too horrendous; I recall the very first Disney World Trip that Sheri and I did where we stayed on Black Lake Rd just off of Irlo Bronson and cursed every stop light on Bronson that made us take forever (until I found the back-door entrance to Disney World using Sherberth Rd.). I hoped we could make it to Soarin’ not too long after the park opened as I had FastPasses for Test Track instead of Soarin. The entire vacation would be ruined if we had to wait more than 5 minutes for Soarin!!
Well, from the parking lot of Vacation Village to the Epcot Toll Plaza, it took us a grand total of nine minutes. Current time: 8:26 am.
See? Nothing to worry about.
I could get used to those commute times!
We flashed our APs and got waved through, parked in the second or third row from the entrance, gooped up with sun screen, walked to the entrance, slipped through bag check, and made it through the turnstiles by 8:32!
Honestly, I think it’s a toss-up between the Flower and Garden Festival and the Food and Wine Festival…I don’t know which one I’m a bigger fan of. To a certain extent, they’re kind of morphing into similar experiences, with topiaries during Food and Wine and food kiosks during Flower and Garden. Regardless, I like both, and I REALLY like both when we get to experience both during a single event. We had some time, so we grabbed a couple of pics near the entrance.
@#$%#%@&@$ Selfie was taken, too...
Just before 9, we were positioned near Innoventions West for the daily Dash to the Land Event. As soon as the ropes are dropped, the sea of humanity typically makes a mad run to be the first on Soarin…and today was no different. We love walking and watching people sweat as they try to get ahead of everyone else…why they have to do this, I just don’t know. They often look like fools, they probably will smell for the rest of the day, and, while I could be mistaken, I think that the cast members in charge of Soarin will probably reset the attraction and run it again about 3-4 minutes after the first show. I wish I would have gotten a pic of the dash…we stayed behind and walked with others, all shaking our heads and snickering at the sight.
Eventually, we made our way into the Land where the masses had already made their way into what had to be the absolute best Soarin ride ever. We strolled in and, because we walked, we had to wait a gut-wrenching 5 minutes to start listening to Kronk in the pre-load area (yep…center section, top row...best location to watch the film).
Our vacation was going to be ruined because the wait.
During our excruciating wait for Kronk to tell us the ever-popular “heelLLLLLO and WELcome to SOARin” spiel, we talked up with the family behind us, who gave a lot of information on the Food and Wine Festival Center (get the free chocolate, look for the hidden bathroom and phone charging area, etc.).
Awesome as always, Sheri and I both breathed in the pine and the orange smells during our flight. The official announcement of the extended refurbishment of our favorite attraction came just a few days prior to our arrival, so we wanted to make sure we got on this. After we got off, we almost jumped back in line to ride it again, but we resisted. It’s going to be hard to top the California version of Soarin, but we’ll withhold judgement on the new digital film that will have us Soarin all around the world until we see it a few times.
Our Fastpass window for Tron Tra…errr…Test Track started at 9:25, and it was right at about 9:25 (thanks to that killer wait time at our first attraction). Since we were here, we decided to hop on what we think is one the biggest sleeper attractions in Epcot…Living with the Land. We walked on and just about had the boat to ourselves, until a group came in just before we launched.
Always a tranquil ride, we chilled as we snapped pics in the greenhouse.
With that done, we decided to head out of the Land Pavilion, once again foregoing one of the only attractions we have yet to do at Walt Disney World (the Circle of Life movie). As we trekked over to the Innovations East Breezeway, we caught a couple minutes of the 9:45 fountain show. I seriously could just stand and watch the fountain for an hour and not get bored.
Over to Test Track for our FastPass. We flew right up to the doors to design our car. I let Eric make the car, with a few “suggestions”. I recalled Brian Thompson, a friend from team AllEars, mentioning a few days before we arrived, that he decided to “screw the environment” to make the biggest muscle car for the attraction. I took Brian’s words to heart and convinced Eric to soup up the engine a LOT!!!
We made it a special contest with the rest of the attraction car, as Sheri and Aaron designed a car while one other family in our car designed their own collectively.
We won the overall challenge…hands down (though we did get our asses handed to us in the efficiency category). Quoting Brian’s reply on Facebook, “You have done well, young Padawan” .
We had plenty of time built into our schedule to take in the Festival, so we headed into the Wonders of Life Pavilion (yes, I’m still going to call it that, even though it’s now the Festival Center). Once we were in, I hopped into the line for the Welcome Center to see if we could get the ever-popular Festival Passports, and I recognized the cast member who was manning the entrance where we got into the park. He remembered my shirt (and the banter we had at the park entrance), and we joked about who was stalking who. I tried to get him to spill where he would be stationed next so we could meet up again, but he wouldn’t give up the information. I knew I should have signed up as an interrogator for SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) during my Secondclass/junior year at the Air Force Academy (I selected Basic Cadet Training Cadre Over SERE). Had I done so, I might have been able to get his entire schedule (along with his checking account, social security number, and birthday).
We walked around and, recalling what our new friends from the Soarin queue told us, headed towards the back of the building to grab some samples from Ghirardelli, find the hidden bathrooms (which, while we did find, we did not use), and look at some absolutely amazing scenes created entirely of chocolate.
As we left the Festival Center and tried showing the boys the solar panels on the roof of Ellen’s Energy Adventure, we ran into our school’s band/choir directors again, and we caught up on how the trip and their research was going. We joked about our research starting in a few minutes when we made our way over to World Showcase for the food kiosks. They agreed wholeheartedly.
Before our Fooding and WINING, we had to take a moment to reflect on our grand and miraculous spaceship that has sailed through the universe of time; we had to thank the Phoenicians, smell Rome burning, and communicate from somewhere other than Earth in 1969.
(Sheri always likes getting some shots of her future)...
Woohoo...I got all four of us on the globe!
(Continued HERE)
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