3,298 miles, 10 breweries, and 1 Mega Meet - a July '16 Trip Report *New 6/5/17 - Link to new TR!*

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

What were the 3 shorts they showed? Looks like Get a Horse was one.

 

[rteetz]

Great update! The México pavilion is always fun.

Love all the Seas pictures. We didn't even set foot in that pavilion when I was there. I was sad that we didn't.

I have yet to see the Pixar shorts film festival. I wish they would create a new 4D film for the location though.

 

[SarahDisney]

Sounds like a great morning! I also love getting a picture of the Donald pinata ... I don't know why I'm so obsessed with it, but I think that I have at least one picture from every trip.

I also enjoyed the Pixar Shorts - a lot more than I thought they would. The shorts themselves are really good, and the 4D does seem to enhance the experience a bit.

 

[Dugette]

This was our first time riding since they added the animatronics at the end. I love that these were originally in the old Mickey Mouse Review attraction (again, love nods to Disney's past)

This last trip was our first ride seeing them too. I didn't realize they were originally in another attraction, though - cool!

Then Judi went to use the restroom as I kept track of the kids in the Bruce the Shark room - it took some wrangling but I eventually got an ok picture of all three kids in Bruce's mouth

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Nice work, especially since I just wrote an update that reminded me how tough it is to do that without the other parent.

Overall we really enjoyed this! The films are all really fun and beautiful animation and the 4D effects (while not many) add a bit to it. Only negative is that it does take a little while and there is only one theater so if you just miss the start of a show (as we did) it is a fairly long wait - they do have screens on in the waiting area with clips from Pixar shorts and interviews with people like John Lassater about the Short format, etc.

Thanks for the info. I didn't really know what this was. Sounds fun. I'll keep it in mind when Izzy and I are there next month.

 

[afwdwfan]

Always love how you go past the pyramid first (love the idea of entering the Pavilion that is a pyramid and then there is a smaller pyramid inside the bigger pyramid).

I absolutely love this pavilion. So beautiful!

Also, I have a weird need to always take a picture of the kids hitting the Donald Pinata that is on the Donald themed ride

Poor Donald!

This was our first time riding since they added the animatronics at the end. I love that these were originally in the old Mickey Mouse Review attraction (again, love nods to Disney's past)

Then Judi went to use the restroom as I kept track of the kids in the Bruce the Shark room - it took some wrangling but I eventually got an ok picture of all three kids in Bruce's mouth

Hey! You got all 4 kids... 3 of yours and a photobomber!

(I don't know how people do some of those 2 hour waits for rides with kids).

Oh, no way. Never.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Sounds like a good morning, pretty laid back! Turtle Talk and the Pixar shorts- 2 things I've never done! Love that last picture in the update!

It was a fairly laid back morning in that at least we weren't rushing to FP+ times or anything for the most part ... though "laid back" when trying to coral 3 little kids and cross a theme park is all relative

We seem to hit Turtle Talk most trips - it's really cute and the kids love it but can definitely see it not being a priority when not with kids as it is largely for them (and for the parents to appreciate their reaction)

Thanks!

What were the 3 shorts they showed? Looks like Get a Horse was one.

So I had taken this picture but it was pretty blurry so I didn't include it - but the three shorts were Get a Horse, For the Birds, and La Luna. I hadn't seen La Luna before so that was neat - it was a very beautiful piece of animation and definitely the one that tugged at your heartstrings the most. I think they had the most "4D effects" for Get a Horse.

Great update! The México pavilion is always fun.

Love all the Seas pictures. We didn't even set foot in that pavilion when I was there. I was sad that we didn't.

I have yet to see the Pixar shorts film festival. I wish they would create a new 4D film for the location though.

Thanks Ryan - The Mexican Pavilion is one of my favorites and also I feel a bit unique compared to the others with it largely being enclosed

We don't usually spend too much time in the Seas pavilion but we wind up there once a trip at least - usually the attractions there have a relatively short wait (though, judging by that one picture for your TR, that is not always the case)

I like the idea of leveraging the Pixar Shorts as it is something they can switch out and is relatively easy to do, etc. .... a brand new 4D film would be great though .... glad they are using the space for something though

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Sounds like a great morning! I also love getting a picture of the Donald pinata ... I don't know why I'm so obsessed with it, but I think that I have at least one picture from every trip.

I also enjoyed the Pixar Shorts - a lot more than I thought they would. The shorts themselves are really good, and the 4D does seem to enhance the experience a bit.

Thanks - I think we have either a picture or a video of the Donald pinata from ever trip too!

Glad you enjoyed the shorts - i think we liked them more than we expected as well (or at least I did) - I like that they are at least using that space for something and it is something different and a good break on a hot day

This last trip was our first ride seeing them too. I didn't realize they were originally in another attraction, though - cool!

Nice work, especially since I just wrote an update that reminded me how tough it is to do that without the other parent.

Thanks for the info. I didn't really know what this was. Sounds fun. I'll keep it in mind when Izzy and I are there next month.

I didn't realize the 3 Caballeros animatronics weren't new at first either - I never saw the Mickey Mouse Revue so didn't even think about it ... I think it was on the DIS I first saw mention of it, so

Thanks - I think I always underestimate how wired the kids can be at the parks and just out of their normal routine. I think if just at the mall or something Olivia would have been more help coraling the other kids, etc. but there they are all excited and was just harder. Also, it isn't like it is just Bruce and you can position the kids and walk right around - you have to go a bit around the partitions, etc. - definitely a bit of a challenge!

I think the shorts is a good option to switch things up to something new or if you could use a break (especially when it is hot out). Definitely not a must do but fun and I am glad they are using the space for something.

I absolutely love this pavilion. So beautiful!

Poor Donald!



Hey! You got all 4 kids... 3 of yours and a photobomber!

Oh, no way. Never.

Fully agree about Mexico and like that it is a bit different than the other pavilions with largely being enclosed in one big space

Good point - if anyone knows whose kid that is, let them know I have that photo!

I guess if it is a) your once-in-a-lifetime trip and you couldn't get a FP or something you do what you have to or b) you are local and go all the time so you can take a good chunk of one day to do something new ... beyond that though, no way would I wait that long!

 

[PrncessA]

Only negative is that it does take a little while and there is only one theater so if you just miss the start of a show (as we did) it is a fairly long wait - they do have screens on in the waiting area with clips from Pixar shorts and interviews with people like John Lassater about the Short format, etc.

Seriously I would do any job at Disney World, but I think the bottom of my list would be the CM who has to constantly ask people to stand up and move forward in that theater. CONSTANTLY, since as soon as they turn around everyone sits back down.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Seriously I would do any job at Disney World, but I think the bottom of my list would be the CM who has to constantly ask people to stand up and move forward in that theater. CONSTANTLY, since as soon as they turn around everyone sits back down.

Oh, this +100000 - always annoys people when they don't listen. Like, I'm pretty sure that CM isn't saying it in the hopes of ruining your vacation

 

[khertz]

What a fantastically Frozen morning! I'm starting to think about future princess meals for DD, and CRT is just so expensive I have a feeling we may end up at Akershus instead. So thanks for the pics of the buffet & hot items! So the buffet is mostly cold items and they bring the hot stuff out to share family style?

Glad you hopped on FEA with minimal wait. It's a decent attraction, but not worth waiting forever for.

At this point Judi looked at me and said "Ok, I guess you did pretty good with all your planning" - a top five proudest moment for me!

Okay, that made me laugh! I get that a lot when we go to Disney with other people (my parents, in-laws, etc).

Well, DD made me hit enter before I was done...

It always sucks when you're with little ones and you JUST miss getting into a show. But at least they didn't have any meltdowns waiting for Turtle Talk. I'm with ya, I don't know how parents do the 2 hour waits with small kids.

I TOTALLY agree with you on the weather. Looking at pictures, it's always like, "Wow, it looks like such a nice day!" It's so deceiving until you really think back and remember how unforgivably hot and humid it actually was. lol

Looks like a successful morning at Epcot!

 

[bartleyosu]

Love your report. I was reading the Fart one, and saw you had one about Meet, too. I went last year. I was the first one I could ever go to because I am a teacher and can only go summer and Christmas. I loved it. I got to meet Corey and Julia at sip, and Craig (my favorite) and Kylie, and others! I am so excited to go to 20th this June 1st. Are you going?

 

[TheMaxRebo]

What a fantastically Frozen morning! I'm starting to think about future princess meals for DD, and CRT is just so expensive I have a feeling we may end up at Akershus instead. So thanks for the pics of the buffet & hot items! So the buffet is mostly cold items and they bring the hot stuff out to share family style?

Glad you hopped on FEA with minimal wait. It's a decent attraction, but not worth waiting forever for.

Okay, that made me laugh! I get that a lot when we go to Disney with other people (my parents, in-laws, etc).

Well, DD made me hit enter before I was done...

It always sucks when you're with little ones and you JUST miss getting into a show. But at least they didn't have any meltdowns waiting for Turtle Talk. I'm with ya, I don't know how parents do the 2 hour waits with small kids.

I TOTALLY agree with you on the weather. Looking at pictures, it's always like, "Wow, it looks like such a nice day!" It's so deceiving until you really think back and remember how unforgivably hot and humid it actually was. lol

Looks like a successful morning at Epcot!

We've only done CRT once - and that was when Emma was a month old, Peter was still under 3 (so free) and it was the time I still had my AP discount ... so it was one of those "if we are ever going to do it, now is the time." It was really cool and I think worth doing once - but obviously pricey which is why we definitely are going to more often do Akershus

And yes, the buffet is all cold things - lots of pastries and fruit and yogurt .... and then some more traditional Norwegian type food (pickled herring, etc.). Then they bring out the platter of hot food which is all pretty "American" type food

I really like FAE - but yeah, definitely not worth a 2 hour wait or anything.

Reminds me of the one time we brought friends and I had done most of the planning and had booked California Grill right around Firework time and my friend said "so you planned this all out, right? To be here for the fireworks? nice!" I get the people that don't want to overplan trips, but WDW just seems like one of those places that a little planning can go a long way towards your enjoyment

Exactly! In pictures it is a perfect 75 degrees out with no humidity ... but not in reality!

Love your report. I was reading the Fart one, and saw you had one about Meet, too. I went last year. I was the first one I could ever go to because I am a teacher and can only go summer and Christmas. I loved it. I got to meet Corey and Julia at sip, and Craig (my favorite) and Kylie, and others! I am so excited to go to 20th this June 1st. Are you going?

thanks for coming over! That's great you got to do some of the events and meet some of the team!

It is looking like I will not be able to go to the upcoming event on June 1st. Our kids are still in school with like another month to go so just can't take them out. My wife said if we made arrangements for someone to watch the kids we could just go, but just a lot of logistic issues ... plus we have the cruise coming up which will use like 2 years worth of vacation budget for us so just a lot of hurdles. Would love to make it though

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Part 61: At Disney - Day 6: EPCOT
French Food​

We then headed back into World Showcase for lunch - with plans to try out a place that was new to us.

First we had to walk past Canada and the UK

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Then we come to a brief "Olivia French photo shoot"

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And we then walked to the back to, eventually, find, Les Halles:

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We had never eaten here before but read positive reviews here in other Trip Reports and it sounds different and thought we'd give it a go.

The space inside is a mixture of a gift shop and a quick service. The area you actually buy your food isn't highly themed but the menu does feel like what a cafe in Paris would have. Judi picked out what she wanted and then Olivia and I went to get the food while Judi found a spot:

Judi got the Niçoise salad and thought it ws pretty darn good and a really good value - big salad with quality ingredients for $9.25. I got the Dinde BLT - which is the sandwhich on the left and has Turkey, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Garlic Aioli. This was really good and huge (as this picture of Peter illustrates) and so I think a really good value at $8.50. We also got a Croque Monsier which we thought the kids would eat, but they liked the other stuff better so we kinda split everything. To drink we just got ice water and then I got a glass of wine for Judi as a surprise.

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All in all we really liked this place - and is a nice option if you just want sandwiches and salads and stuff - but with a bit of a twist from the typical. The portions were quite large for the price so you can definitely split things as well - this was more than enough food for all of us. The tables are a bit close together and fill up so finding a spot can be a challenge. Also, there are a lot of stuffed animals and stuff in the gift shop area so hard to keep the kids focused on the food. But all in all it will go in the rotation of places to eat in the future (maybe not every trip given all the options in EPCOT)

They had desserts there but we opted to go to another place in France that has become one of our favorites - L'Artisan Des Glacces. We had gotten the Croque Glace (choice of 1 ice cream/sorbet flavor in a warm brioche, with choice of sauce, warmed and sealed - $7.04) in the past and love it so we got one again - this time I believe with Caramel Fleur de Sel ice cream and strawberry sauce.

We also wanted to try the Ice Cream Martini (2 scoops of ice cream or sorbet, served in a martini glass with a shot of Grand Marnier, Whipped Cream Vodka or Rum - $11.97) - and we got once scoop each of Coconut White Chocolate and Milk Chocolate & Orange and then covered with a ton of Grand Marnier. O.M.G. this was so good and is now one of my absolute favorite things to get at WDW. It felt like a ton for the money too as it is two huge scoops of ice cream and she just kept pouring Grand Marnier (and it was the real stuff) over the op until she couldn't fit anymore. It also made for one of my favoirte gifs I have ever made

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We were then going to start making our way to the front of the park, eventually for our mid-day break. But thought we would get a drink for the walk. So we stopped at Les Vines and Judi got an Orange Slush which she greatly enjoyed. Then we stopped at one of my favorite spots - the beer cart in Canada so I could get my souvenir mug filled with La Fin Du Monde

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Coming up next - another attraction and then a break!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Part 62: At Disney - Day 6: EPCOT
A Grand and Miraculous Spaceship​

I had try to structure our Fastpasses so they made sense with our plan for the day - which including a mid-day break. So I had one for Spaceship Earth for after lunch so we could hit it up right before leaving the park - so that is where we were headed

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Whatever setting I had my camera on it was the wrong one as my pictures from the ride came out terrible - as proof we did go on the ride, here are the least terrible ones:

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This ride is always one of our favorites - love the different scenes and different technologies used and just love that it is inside the "giant golf ball". We also love the activities in the post-ride room. This time we did the car racing game and the kids loved it (we usually just do the shuffleboard energy game)

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At this point it was about 2pm and time to head out for a bit of a mid-afternoon break. Bye for now EPCOT!

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During the break we rested some and the kids got some more balcony time - this time with popsicles!!!

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Coming up next - more EPCOT, more Frozen - and another "new to us" place for dinner ... with a view!

TTFN

 

[annie170]

Your lunch at Les Halles looked really good. You can't go wrong in France! Epcot has so many excellent choices, it's hard to choose. I kind of wish a few of those places would move over to the other parks!

That Ice Cream Martini has me drooling here and wondering how I can recreate it!

For July, the park doesn't look very crowded at all.

 

[Terra Nova guy]

All in all we really liked this place - and is a nice option if you just want sandwiches and salads and stuff - but with a bit of a twist from the typical.

Les Halles is great, but I've never tried it for a meal. My family all have a sweet tooth, so we end up going here at least once to get pastries. Like you, I've seen many reviews in trip reports and they have some really good options for lunch. Definitely something I would like to try.

They had desserts there but we opted to go to another place in France that has become one of our favorites - L'Artisan Des Glacces. We had gotten the Croque Glace (choice of 1 ice cream/sorbet flavor in a warm brioche, with choice of sauce, warmed and sealed - $7.04) in the past and love it so we got one again - this time I believe with Caramel Fleur de Sel ice cream and strawberry sauce.

Another place I need to visit. Especially for that Croque Glace. There's just so many options in World Showcase, it's hard to fit it all in!

 

[amazingact21]

The security guard just told us to leave the kids and I responded with "um, no - I am not leaving my kids" - so we had to take more time with first Judi going, then back to get the kids, and then me going through - a bit annoying.

What? Clearly that guard didn't have kids and understand that's sort of the number one thing NOT to do as a parent.

Well, when we go out we saw the line and figured it was short enough to get in - this was at 7:49am and we were about the 5th family in line - so not bad! And they opened the doors just a few minutes later so we were entering the queue proper at 8:52am ... probably not a lot of chances to see FAE listed with just a 10 minute wait!

That was a brilliant plan. I ushered Alex over and told him about it, because I think that's something I'm going to utilize when we eventually make it back to WDW.

So what did we think of the ride? Overall we really liked it - considering it is really just a glorified overlay of an existing ride I think they did the best they could and it is a really solid dark ride with some great animatronics.

I'm glad to hear that as an overall dark ride, it was really good. But I defintely agree with you. The placement was all wrong.

This picture was taken at 9:09am - so doing pretty well!

Definitely!

Ok, I guess you did pretty good with all your planning" - a top five proudest moment for me!

Music to a DISers ears!

after we make it through the 27.1 mile long queue

Ugh, and it's so dark!

Judi got the Niçoise salad and thought it ws pretty darn good and a really good value - big salad with quality ingredients for $9.25. I got the Dinde BLT - which is the sandwhich on the left and has Turkey, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Garlic Aioli. This was really good and huge (as this picture of Peter illustrates) and so I think a really good value at $8.50.

That's a great value. I could tell the portions were big, but when I saw the picture of Peter holding up the sandwich I was kind of surprised by how large the food really was. I think that's a hidden gem in the WS!

we got once scoop each of Coconut White Chocolate and Milk Chocolate & Orange and then covered with a ton of Grand Marnier. O.M.G. this was so good and is now one of my absolute favorite things to get at WDW.

Oh my goodness! That sounds AMAZING. Oh man. This just shot to the number one spot on my list of desserts to try at Disney. I just messaged my mother that description with the comment, "We need this in our lives."
And that gif...that is hilarious. She just kept going with the booze!


I love how all the kids enjoyed the balcony time. I find that it can be little things like a balcony view that can make a trip extra special. (The stuff you could never predict to be entertaining.)

 

[princessemsmom]

Really loving your review! We love Las Halles and L'Artisan Des Glacces, but have never had the Ice Cream Martini - BUT OMG! Adding to my list for May now! Wowzers

 

[SarahDisney]

That Ice Cream Martini sounds amazing. I'll have to keep it in mind for my next trip (although I don't think I've ever actually had a drink at Epcot ... I'm super lame).

Spaceship Earth is always fun - it's one of those rides that's good for everyone.
I love how big of a deal balcony time is ... who knew a balcony could be so much fun? (Although ... very understandable with that view)

 

[rteetz]

I had never been to Les Halles until this January either. Your food choices look good. I love sorbet in France, that's a must do for me every trip. When I am 21 I will be getting an Ice Cream Martini.

Popsicles on the balcony! That's the life right there!