Mini-trip Report (meeting Robert Irvine)

[d_lairson]

Hi All,

Just walked in from our second weekend at the F&WF. We went to see Robert Irvine (from Food Networks Dinner:Impossible) Today was great! We spent from about noon till 3pm at the festival center. The trip up to epcot took a little longer than we thought (the turnpike was crowded) so we didn't get there until about noon and we rushed over to get tickets to the 1pm Robert Irvine demo What we did do was ask about the book signing that was coming at 2:15pm. The guest relations lady pointed us in the right direction. When went up and asked about the signing and the girl there told us that she had one wrist band left for the signing. They had books all over but we had brought ours from home, and had it in my back pack (which I just happend to wrap in a disney bag that we had at home, we have lots of bags). She gave us the wrist band, even though we did not by his book.

Since we missed the tickets we went over to see if we could stand outside and watch, no joy there. So we take a seat and are looking at the map when I look up and there is Robert Irvine standing at the exit! A couple of us walk over (then more people) and he's just stood there chatting with us like there is nothing going on. He spent a lot of time talking to a little boy (it was his birthday and he was autistic) he gave autographs, took pictures while the whole time his sous chef was setting up the demo. The sous chef kept coming over and asking a question and Robert would answer it off hand, like he was interrupting our time with Robert. He finally left to do his demo and a bunch of us just sat on the benches and walls to listen.

The demo started with the usual wine stuff, then Robert Irvine came out and started. He gets a few minutes in then he called that boy and his mom in to the demo (they did not have tickets either) and then he let the boy go up on stage to "help" the sous chef. We listened for a while (it was very entertaining) but towards the end I said we should go get in line for the book signing.

We get over there and there was a line for people with the wrist bands and a line for everyone else. We were 10th in line (the one with the wrist bands). We stood around talking for about 15min, when someone told us that there were only 45 wrist bands, and they were the only people guaranteed the get a book signed. Then they told us that you had to have bought your book there to get it signed. Freaked out i pull the book out of the bag, still in the disney bag from home, and the Guest Relations person, who was going down the line and checking on things, says "OH, your fine."

Robert Irvine showed up about 15min early and promptly re-arrange the book signing tables then asks for the first person in line. I don't know if this is normal but there was a Photopass person there taking pictures. We were thinking that this would not take long, we were wrong. It was great, he called up each group, talked to them, signed whatever they had whether they bought it there or not, then posed for pictures with the photopass person and a guest relations person taking pictures with peoples personal cameras. He must have spent 3-4 minutes with each group. We get up there and my wife gives him a big hug, which he returned that he started signing our book. He asked all sorts of questions, like where we were from, what we did for a living, just general chit-chat. He totally went out of his way to sign our book, then he signed a photo that he had for us! Then he posed for 6 photos with us!! It was great!!!

After that we stuffed our faces for two hours walking around the world showcase then came home.

BEST-DISNEY-TRIP-EVER!
(well it ties with our honeymoon....)

Just thought I would share!

[sherry]

It sounds like you had a wonderful time. My daughters and I met him last week at a demo in PA. We were really impressed with how nice he is and how he is very generous with the time he spent with everyone. He was signing shirts that they were selling and one of the employees told the girl at the table he wouldn't sign anything else. His assistant came over to her and told her he would sign anything that anybody asked him to. He is a real sweetie.

[agnes!]

Thank GOD, a celebrity who is actually a genuinely-nice person.

He's always impressed me on his TV show, just he way he interacts with everyone. This reminds me of when I saw Hubert Keller on Top Chef:Masters and then when he came on as a special guest on this year's Top Chef (TC:Las Vegas)...Class act all the way.

OP - Thanks for sharing.

agnes!

[Quacktatty]

I met Robert today too. What a wonderful guy! I was near the end of the overflow line and waited an hour and 45 minutes to see him. It was soooo worth it. He told everyone in line that he would stay until the last person who wanted to meet him got a chance. The demo was great too.

[OhMari]

I'm glad the that he and the Food Channel worked out their differences.
We enjoy watching him again on Wednesday evenings.
I wonder if he will do a food challenge again for WDW,
I'm pretty sure he did one already.