“Stop talking and just smile!” – a Food and Wine TR 11/4 – 11/8 ( COMPLETE! Link to new TR 3/9/18)

[skier_pete]

Hey everyone! This may come as quite a shock to you, but we are a family of Disney fans, and I am writing a trip report!

EPCOT_ECENTR2_20171107_406133292782 by Peter , on Flickr

Some of you may have come here from my PTR or previous trip reports. For those of you that didn’t, my wife, daughter and I are well entrenched in the Disney lifestyle. We counted and this is our 14th trip to Disney World together, only our 2nd without our daughter since she was born. (Her count sits at ten.) We’ve also done 3 trips to Disneyland, one of which was on an ABD tour, we’ve done one Disney Cruise, and also since 2014 have been DVC members. Clearly we love Disney, and we love going with our daughter, but we bought into DVC (At Animal Kingdom Villas) resale when we realize that we love it on our own. And THEN this year I got big promotion, and my wife reached a big birthday milestone – so we bought a 2nd DVC property at Boardwalk. That's for Trip #17, though.

But Disney is expensive, and so we look for opportunities to save. And what we discovered is that for what they charge for a park ticket for a week, we can upgrade to a Platinum Plus pass for barely $100 more. So by piling several trips in a 12 month period, we reduce the costs significantly.

And so we come to THIS trip…the first for our Annual Pass, and the first of FOUR in the next 12 months. (You can find the link to the PTR for all 4 trips in my signature.) Like many people out there, DW and I love coming to Epcot Food and Wine festival. So we are bookending this 4-trip spree with two short adult-only trips.

One other thing:

DD 14 last year decided (without having been there) that she was a “Universal girl” and being big Harry Potter fans we decided back in February of this year to do a Universal Only trip. Discovering that similarly a season pass is about $40 more than a 3-day ticket, we decided that we would go back to Universal in February 2018 for a bit – of course this is part of the NEXT trip report. When we went to Universal, and it turned out that this 13 year old that hates thrill rides and hates 3D shows doesn’t really like Universal all that much, so it's good that her parents like Disney better, too.

What does that have to do with THIS trip? Well, since we had Universal season passes ANYWAYS, and we were – you know – in Florida, we figured what the heck, let’s hit Universal. And when we decided to do that we said “What the heck, let’s try and hit all 6 theme parks in 2 days!” Yes, because nothing screams a relaxing adults only trip like running around Florida for 36 hours.

So join us for a really short but fun-filled trip to Florida full of big crowds, Food and Wine and as many parks as you can stuff into a weekend. IF you are interested as Shakespeare said "Read on, MacDuff."

 

[skier_pete]

Content Table

Day 1 - Adventures in the Islands - LINK
Day 1 - Studios that are Universal - LINK
Day 1 - Kingdom of the Animals - LINK

Day 2 - Studios that aren't at all like Hollywood - LINK
Day 2 - Not Expermental, Not a Prototype, nor a Community - LINK
Day 2 - Farm French Lunch with Lots of Food and Wine - LINK

 

[skier_pete]

Because we were flying from Buffalo New York and only having 5 days, 4 nights, we wanted to maximize our time, so we booked a 6:20 AM flight from Buffalo. That meant getting up at 4:30 AM and leaving the house at 5 AM. Since we had TSA-precheck, we went through the process quickly, got on the plane, and were on the ground in Orlando by 8:45 AM, out to our car and we were entering Universal by 10 AM!

So we had goals for each park – and our first park was Islands of Adventure. We wanted to do (1) Spiderman, (2) Kong, (3) Forbidden Journey, and (4) Lunch at 3 Broomsticks / Butterbeer.

So here we go…

DSC05344 by Peter , on Flickr

But wait, before we even got to our first ride…who’s that over there! It’s PO!

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So we entered Marvel-land, and hit our first ride. And again I love to point out we woke up in our own bed just 5.5 hours ago in New York.

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Spidey had 5 minute wait! So we walked on together.

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I still really enjoy this ride. The queue needs an update, but the ride is a really great fun, a great use of the combination of screens and live affects. Considering its 20 years old, it’s still one of the better rides in Universal.

And once you’re done with a Spidey ride, why not stop and see the man himself. Again, there was no wait at all. We talked to Spidey about having just come down from New York. Sorry that I forgot to bring him a Pizza. Then a pose! (We didn’t pay for the background obviously.

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I got a kick out of the fact there was a big display in the shop For Thor:Ragnorok. I sometimes wonder if while Disney wishes they could have marvel in their parks, the love the fact that Universal has to advertise Disney movies.

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So we headed off towards our second destination – which requires a pass through Toon Lagoon. This area looks so interesting, but there doesn’t seem to be really a lot to do here unless you want to be really, really wet.

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Finally on to Reign of Kong!
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This ride is sort of strange in that it’s just sort of off on it’s own between Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park. To me, they should have just incorporated it as part of Jurassic Park. However, the outside themeing is pretty snazzy.

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DW and I both really enjoyed this ride the first time we rode it in February, at the time we had to use rider swap because the queue freaked out our 13 year old so much she wouldn’t ride it. So this time we rode together, and honestly – I thought the ride didn’t hold up that great on 2nd ride. The first time we didn’t get the outside part, but the outside part is literally nothing at all – maybe 30 seconds and done. The first two scenes were pretty boring, and even the main fight scene on second viewing was not as exciting as the first time, but honestly still very impressive. It’s a fun ride, but it definitely wasn’t as good to go.

After that, off to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts!

IMG_20171104_111103657 by Peter, on Flickr

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We headed into the Forbidden Journey rides – only a 10 minute wait again. Now, where I though Kong didn’t hold up on second riding, this ride MORE than held up. This is still a fantastic ride and still convinced this is the “high bar” for a theme park ride. Immersive, a great combination of screen and animatronics and the ride mechanism is fantastic. The one drawback – most rides don’t make me ill, this one once I’ve ridden it, I “feel it” for a little while. I means it’s not super re-ridable, but look forward to doing it again in February.

With that, we were done with our rides, and this left us with Lunch at the 3 Broomsticks:

DSC05366 by Peter, on Flickr

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Love the lights streaming in on this shot:

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Butterbeer, the best thing about Universal.

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Entry to the 3 Broomsticks.

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Love the high ceilings inside

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I ordered the Cornish Pasties with a salad. These were very good but the portion was rather small. I guess that’s what I get for only spending $10 on lunch. DW got the half chicken meal. This was really good also and a really good portion. That extra $4 was worth it! And of course that’s a butterbeer there!

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Next up - off to our second park of the day!

 

[Crristy]

Great pictures! Can't wait to see more.

 

[khertz]

Joining in!! I am really missing Universal right now having just been, and trying to see when and where we can fit in another trip before our APs expire. I was about to hit "BOOK" on a Mardi Gras trip (which would have overlapped your February arrival, of course!) when I remembered my parents would be out of town that week and unable to keep DD. I'm hoping we can go again in September with maybe a good AP discount on a room.

Pretty nice to be in Universal just a few hours after getting up in the morning!! That's a great way to start the day. And you seem to have gotten all your must-dos done pretty quickly, which is another win!

So jealous of seeing Po! I didn't realize they even had him as a character to meet in the parks!!

 

[skier_pete]

Great pictures! Can't wait to see more.

Thanks! Just realizing looking back at them that I didn't mentioned that the crowds were MUCH lighter than when we went in February. You could actually walk around Hogsmeade without feeling like you were at a cattle auction or something.

Joining in!! I am really missing Universal right now having just been, and trying to see when and where we can fit in another trip before our APs expire. I was about to hit "BOOK" on a Mardi Gras trip (which would have overlapped your February arrival, of course!) when I remembered my parents would be out of town that week and unable to keep DD. I'm hoping we can go again in September with maybe a good AP discount on a room.

Pretty nice to be in Universal just a few hours after getting up in the morning!! That's a great way to start the day. And you seem to have gotten all your must-dos done pretty quickly, which is another win!

So jealous of seeing Po! I didn't realize they even had him as a character to meet in the parks!!

Oh...I just PMd you wondering if you're February trip (in your signature) would overlap. Figures yet again we fail to connect!

We definitely don't feel a strong affinity for Universal. The Harry Potter stuff is brilliant, but it sort of highlights how "thin" everything else there is. Looking forward to staying on-site in February and getting FotL (especially now that the HP stuff is included), but really the two days we plan on spending there feels like it will be enough. I already found myself walking by stuff and thinking "Nah, don't care about that." There's so few things at Disney I put in that category. DD is already saying she doesn't want to do anything but the HP stuff, so I also see a fight with trying to get her to ride more than the 3 rides. I definitely don't want to take a chance without the FotL though, I suspect it will be super-crowded President's weekend with it overlapping the tail end of Mardi Gras week.

It was a lot of fun walking into the park that early after leaving home. Spider-Man was very impressed when we told him we had just "swung in" from New York!

 

[rteetz]

Joining in Pete!

Some day I will get to Universal. Looks like a great start so far!

 

[skier_pete]

Joining in Pete!

Some day I will get to Universal. Looks like a great start so far!

I keep forgetting you haven't been to Universal. I don't hold it in as high esteem as WDW, but it's definitely worth a visit, especially if you are a Potter-head.

 

[KimmyD]

Fantastic Pics! Can't wait to see more!

 

[franandaj]

I guess I didn't comment when I read this the other day. I can't believe the amount of energy that you folks have, if I took a 6:20AM flight I'd be needing to go back to the room as soon as it was ready! Heck, I might even be sitting in the lobby taking a nap waiting for the text!

 

[skier_pete]

I guess I didn't comment when I read this the other day. I can't believe the amount of energy that you folks have, if I took a 6:20AM flight I'd be needing to go back to the room as soon as it was ready! Heck, I might even be sitting in the lobby taking a nap waiting for the text!

Well, remember we aren't coming from California! Only a 2.5 hour flight. But honestly by the end of the day (and I'm talking 7 pm) I was nodding off during Rivers of Light, and that was with having taken a power nap! These short trips we always seem to push hard at least early on. Past day 2 we slowed down quite a bit!

 

[skier_pete]

One we had completed our lunch, it was time to head for our second park of the trip! We really only had two rides we wanted to check out in the this park – Gringotts and the new Jimmy Fallon ride. But first, we had to make a stop at Honeyduke’s as we promised DD some candy.

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Time to ride the Hogwarts express. The fake one…

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…and the real one…

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…I was not very impressed with this as a ride the first time, and still not much. It’s cool for the little kids, and I suppose if the line isn’t too long a handy way to transfer between parks, but even as a Harry Potter fan it seems too slight considering how long you have to walk through the queue on either end.

We got to Diagon Alley and headed in. DW really liked the “Otter’s Fizzy Orange Juice”, but the only place to get it was at the Leaky Cauldron, which had a HUGE line. So we moved on to ride the Escape from Gringott’s ride.

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The problem is that when we got there, the wait was 75 minutes. So we just thought “OK – single rider”, except that single rider was actually LONGER than that, so they had closed it. So, in the end, we decided “Nope” and didn’t ride it this trip.

Since we had time freed up, DW decided she really wanted that Fizzy Orange drink. She said we would wait in line for 15 minutes and if we were still waiting we would leave. I predicted that we would stay in line anyways…and in the end we waited about 25 minutes. She got her Fizzy, I said if I am waiting in line anyways, I’m getting a beer. We took this picture to celebrate our success in front of the leaky cauldron, but the flash bled out everything but the drinks.

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We left there with our drinks and headed over to the Jimmy Fallon ride. This has a special system where you get a pass to come back, and then once you get the time to come back, you wait in like a pre-show area. We had to wait about 20 minutes until we could go into the building itself, so we say and finished our drinks.

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The pre-show had the “Ragtime Gals” performing, and it was pretty fun. We were only in there about 10 minutes and we got called to the ride. The ride is a YASR – my acronym for “Yet Another Screen Ride”. It’s I guess fun enough – but after only 5 rides, I was already getting tired of the screens. We finished the ride and left the park. It was 2:30 and a bit…so that’s 4.5 hours of Universal and it was plenty for us. We will be back in February for about 2 days with DD, but we were both saying after that it could easily be 5 years or more before we need to come back, outside of Harry Potter world, there is little to pull me to Universal.

We drove from Universal to Disney in our rental car. I accidentally made a wrong turn and ended up at the Epcot parking gate. We told them we weren’t going in, but there were so many cars going in, that the traffic was backed up all the way back to the pay gate. Yup, Epcot on a Saturday of Food and Wine (and the ½ Marathon). We love our food and wine, but Saturdays – forget it. (We later heard it was a complete madhouse there – glad we weren’t going there.

Instead we got to the car care center, and they actually shuttled us directly over to our hotel. This was a nice treat, and only an hour after we left Universal we were settling into our room.

I probably shouldn’t brag, but if you are a DVC owner at AKV, the value rooms are such a great deal to be able to snatch up. The point cost for 4 nights in a value room runs us 39 points, which at 2017 costs comes out to $82 a night (Saturday costs a bit more but it’s averaged in.) This makes this room probably the least expensive room on property, and the least we’ve ever paid for a room at Disney.

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And our view – like last year we ended up with a pool view. We were about 3 rooms down from our previous location.

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I have to say, if you were to eliminate location on property as a variable, then Animal Kingdom Lodge would absolutely be my favorite resort on Property. That ranking goes to the Poly when you include location, but AKL is still in 2nd place.

Next up...our 3rd park of the day...

 

[franandaj]

Nice room at AK. I totally understand having had enough of the screens. By this point in your day I would want to lay down and have a drink!

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1 - concluded.

We weren’t done with our day yet, but we allowed ourselves a little rest break here at the hotel. We probably took a 20 minute power nap and also did some unpacking before heading out to the parks. There were two main sights to see tonight – we had FPs for Navi River Journey and Rivers of Light.

But first we had to make a stop to upgrade/pick up our APs.

On our way in – they were taping the Christmas specials. Apparently Nick Lachey (of 98 degrees and reality TV fame) was hosting this portion of it. We stopped to watch a bit.

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We didn’t see who was singing here, but walking away I said out loud. “Well now I guess we have to watch it!” Someone nearby said “We just said that too” I wonder how much ratings they get just from people walking by.

For those of you that don’t know, they literally spend FIVE DAYS filming the two Disney specials. (For Thanksgiving and Christmas.) It’s a whole lot of standing around and rehearsals and such. We saw Ciara later in the trip at MK. They were running through her whole routine and not even taping it.

I had suggested to DW that we try eating our dinner at Tiffin’s Nomad Lounge.

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I want to preface this by saying, the Joe Rohde-ness of this place is just about dripping off the walls. A nice restaurant, at first we couldn’t get a seat, but eventually two seats opened up at the central table.

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Here we are waiting to be served

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We started with drinks – I had the Kungaloosh beer. If you want to sell me something, no matter how expensive, put an Adventurer’s Club related name on it. It helped that it was pretty good.

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We ordered 3 of the appetizer plates…

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We started with the Poutine – which was not on the regular menu but was a special. I am usually a fan of Poutine, but it was a braised short ribs poutine, and it was quite delicious.

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Second up was the Waigu Beef sliders. These were wonderful, and very tender and tasty. I also liked that they gave two sliders, making it enough to share.

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The last bit was the cheese plate. I actually liked all 3 of the cheeses, but as usual for this the portions were rather on the small side. DW doesn’t like Blue Cheeses or their variants, so she only really liked two of the three cheeses.

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Next it was off to Avatar for the first time. First impression was – it’s really crowded. Second impression was that it was pretty amazing.

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DW and I had sat down and watched the movie the last few weeks. This was my first viewing since it was released, and her first viewing ever. We both enjoyed it well enough, really it is a decent movie that gets a lot of hate because it was much more successful than it probably should have been. I still think it wasn’t the wisest move by Disney, but if the sequels ever come out and they do well maybe I’ll eat my words.

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We actually had to hurry, as we left Tiffin’s we had about 15 minutes left in our FP+ window for the Navi River Journey. We found the entrance pretty quickly, and the wait was pretty short for us. (I think it was like 75 minutes using standby.)

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There wasn’t a lot to write home about for it, I guess it was a good little ride – sort of weird, just a tour of the forest at night. There was no real story to it, and I think that is strange as Disney rarely puts out a ride that doesn’t tell a story. It was sort of short as well, but I think everyone knows that. I didn’t try to take any pictures. It was one of those rides that SHOULD have like a 20 minute wait but because it’s new it’s an hour or more. Be curious when this one dies down.

Coming out, I was thinking it would be dark, but it was still light. We again had just time to get over to see Rivers of Light, but first took another picture.

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We saw a photopass photographer and grabbed a shot.

AK_PANDORALGFALLS_20171104_406045364291 by Peter , on Flickr

We had to get over to Rivers of Light, and I decided we should travel through Africa, which may not have been the fastest choice. Unfortunately just as we were leaving Pandora was when it really started to get dark. We were also starting to wear down pretty good – it was around 6:45 PM at this point, and though that doesn’t sound so late we were pretty tired from having gotten up at 4 AM. We eventually made our way across the back of the park. (The tree was all lit up from filming the holiday special.) We had to find the FP+ seating, and we ended up sitting very close to the front, which was nice.

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The show starts with a “shaman” walking through the crowd. The it went out onto the lake.

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There’s a lot of projections and several floats with fountains. It was fairly impressive at first, but it sort of just went on the same way the whole time. In fact, the biggest issue I had with it is there wasn’t much of a finale, it just kind of went on, and then ended – there was a little fire.

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Honestly, I was nodding off during the show, but hard to blame the show. That said, I would not say that we would go and see this show a lot of times. It was fine, but not great by any means.

We were tired. We got out of the show, and made our way to the front of the park. IT was a short bus ride back to the resort, and we were happy to get there.

 

[khertz]

I'm glad you had better luck with the wait at Jimmy Fallon than we did!! lol

Absolutely LOVE AKL. I'm hoping and hoping we can work out a stay there again one day. We loved it when we stayed last year!

It's so odd that for a brand new show in WDW, Rivers of Light doesn't seem to get discussed much in any of the Facebook groups I'm in (since I frequent those more than the boards lately). It doesn't seem to garner the love and attention that pretty much all of the other nighttime entertainment does.

 

[skier_pete]

I'm glad you had better luck with the wait at Jimmy Fallon than we did!! lol

Absolutely LOVE AKL. I'm hoping and hoping we can work out a stay there again one day. We loved it when we stayed last year!

It's so odd that for a brand new show in WDW, Rivers of Light doesn't seem to get discussed much in any of the Facebook groups I'm in (since I frequent those more than the boards lately). It doesn't seem to garner the love and attention that pretty much all of the other nighttime entertainment does.

I think it's not discussed much because it's not very good. I suspect they will be revisiting this one a lot faster than some of the others, especially after a year or two if it's playing to empty seats.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 2 - Early morning at DHS

Well, we had an EHM morning at DHS available today. With only wanting to do a couple of things at DHS, and having lunch reservations in Epcot we couldn’t miss, we wanted to take advantage of the DHS Extra Magic Hours, so we left the hotel pretty early – getting down to the bus stop at 7 AM. The good news was that this was the day of the fall time change, so we gained an hour of sleep and 7 AM was like 8 AM!

So we got to the bus stop – and not good bus karma today – we waited….and we waited…and we waited. 3 Epcot buses, 3 Disney Springs buses, even 2 MK buses – yet no DHS buses. What’s going on? Well, there was a bus service person there, and we asked – hey don’t forget, it’s Princess half marathon day! Since the race was currently going by on the streets and runs through DHS, this apparently disrupted the bus service. In the end, we probably waited about 30 minutes for a bus, but when the park you are going to is the only EMH park, it’s kind of frustrating to see.


What was fun though was once we got on the bus, the bus travelled along the race route, so we got to watch all the racers in their costumes. Then we got to DHS and all the racers were running out of the park right by the entrance and to Epcot. We were sort of in a hurry at this point, the delays meant that we were walking up just as they were opening the gates for EMH, and we were sort of back of the pack. Fortunately, we realized they were running an AP entrance, so we cut a bit of the line that way, and before we knew it we were entering the park. Meanwhile, racers were running through the park down Sunset, then Hollywood Blvd, so we were routed over to Echo lake.


IMG_20171105_080741707_HDR by Peter , on Flickr

They had just put up the Christmas decorations a few days before, and I really liked the way they decorated this area. But of course we had a place we needed to be…yup if it’s DHS rope drop, it’s Toy Story Mania!

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I was the winner…

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…and all I have to say about that is…

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On our way out, they had one of the Cars 3 cars out. Was this Cruz Ramirez? Someone would be excited about this!

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I tried to get a peek over the wall to Toy Story Land – no such luck. Darn no selfie stick rules! I talked to a custodian who said it was all ready to go, just needed landscaping. Somehow, I don’t think that’s completely true.

The other thing we had wanted to ride was Star Tours, so we decided to head over there before the EMH ended. But first a stop by the old Great Movie Ride:

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SQUIRREL!

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On the way to Star Tours, I had to take a picture of Disney’s newest feed-hole, the Baseline Tap House:

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It wasn’t open yet, so on to Star Tours:

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There were so few people in line for Star Tours we only had like 12 people on our flight, so they said “Sit wherever you want” so we did! We got to tour Tatooine (pod racers) and Naboo. Always enjoy this one.

So, the only other thing we were looking forward to for today was we wanted to meet Star Lord, but he didn’t start meeting until 10 AM. So, we decided we would split a cinnamon roll, since we skipped breakfast this morning. Well, this was easier said than done, it seemed most of the restaurants weren’t opened yet, and the Starbuck’s (Trolley Car Café?) had a line about 50 people deep. So instead we ended up taking more pictures of the Christmas décor.

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DW wanted to do a little shopping, so I said I would go and ride Tower of Terror real quick. It was after official park opening, but the lines were still super short, so no problems it was simply a walk on at the time. (I felt bad for people using FP+.)

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I debated a quick ride on Rock N Roller Coaster, but decided against it. I went back to meet DW – the park was still not very crowded at all.

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After we met up, we figured we’d get a quick Photopass to celebrate our AP:

STUDIO_HBTAILOR_20171105_406054029641 by Peter , on Flickr

STUDIO_HBTAILOR_20171105_406054029645 by Peter , on Flickr

Next up....Skier Pete meets Peter Quill

 

[skier_pete]

Day 2 - continue - still at DHS for now...

We headed back over to Pixar Place to get that Danish we wanted. (It was the only place we could find one without a 2-hour wait.) I didn’t take a photo, but we got a cinnamon swirl Danish. Then, it was almost time for them to open up the Walt Disney Presents theater so we could meet Starlord and Groot. We got in line about 5 minutes before it opened, and there were perhaps 6 families in front of us, so we probably waited about 15 minutes before we actually got to meet them. We had a fun interaction I thought. I told Starlord I was excited there was a superhero whose name was Peter because that was my name too. Starlord played his role very well too!

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While we were there, I took a few pictures of the Toy Story Land model. I know this doesn’t have the sexiness of Star Wars land, but this to me looks like a fun area. I love Mater’s ride in DCA, and the Alien Spinner will be a similar ride. Likewise, this coaster looks like a lot of fun.

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DSC05475 by Peter , on Flickr

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DSC05483 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05480 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05473 by Peter , on Flickr

There was a bit of the Star Wars model there as well, but not as much to look at.

DSC05477 by , on Flickr

And then also a bit about Mickey’s Runaway Train ride.

DSC05482 by Peter , on Flickr

Once we were done in here, we decided just to head out of the park. Bye Hollywood Studios! We had our lunch plans in Epcot, and we certainly didn’t want to be late.

We only had to wait maybe 5 minutes for a boat to arrive at the DHS dock. In the meantime, a couple pictures of the new Skyway Gondola station being built near the DHS entrance. Not much but a mound of dirt so far.

DSC05487 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05489 by Peter , on Flickr

The ride over was uneventful. I should point out we are now entering our FIFTH park of the trip, and we are just a little over 26 hours from when we landed in Orlando. When we got off at the International Gateway, we traded pictures with a couple of ladies that wanted their picture taken.

IMG_20171105_111754699_HDR by Peter , on Flickr

They had never been to Food and Wine before, so we sort of showed them where the booths were, and also how the whole World Showcase was set up. We ended up walking towards England with them since we had a little bit of time before we had to check in.

DSC05490 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05491 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05492 by Peter , on Flickr

Of particular interest to me as a DVC member is the new tower they are building at Carribean Beach – the Riviera resort. The tower will have the ability to look into the park from the upper floors and restaurant, so to me it is curious to see where this tower is going to appear on the horizon. It looks like it will fall behind the Germany pavilion based on what we are seeing of the construction cranes.

DSC05493 by Peter , on Flickr

We were getting close to check-in time, so we headed to the France Pavillion. The French Family Lunch was being held at Monsieur Paul’s, which we have never eaten at before. It is sort of above the regular Chefs De France restaurant, but the entrance is sort of hidden over by the ice cream shop.

DSC05497 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05496 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05495 by Peter , on Flickr

Here’s the entrance:

DSC05494 by Peter , on Flickr

We got there and people were checking in, but they had not let anyone into the restaurant. That happened about 5 minutes after we got there. When eating at Monsieur Paul’s, you check in downstairs and then have to make your way up the spiral staircase.

DSC05499 by Peter , on Flickr

And then you pass by the Wine Room

DSC05502 by Peter , on Flickr

To be continued next post...

 

[skier_pete]

We had a seat right by the window looking out onto World Showcase. Our napkin was folded into the shape of a tuxedo jacket:

DSC05503 by Peter , on Flickr

The menu for the meal

DSC05506 by Peter , on Flickr

Inside the menu
IMG_20171105_114958564 by Peter Scheidle, on Flickr

IMG_20171105_115005114_BURST000_COVER_TOP by Peter , on Flickr

We were seated at a table with another couple that were DVC members and were from Alabama, and then two ladies from Colorado, an older lady and her daughter who was probably around our age. They were all Disney regulars, and in fact we were the only ones that hadn’t done one of these specialty meals before.

The first course was the Rye Puff Pastries with Chives and Goat Cheese Cream and also a Cocktail La French Mule made with Lillet rouge, crème de cassis Lejay, Lime Juice, and ginger ale.

IMG_20171105_121700784_HDR by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05510 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05509 by Peter , on Flickr

Honestly this first course was just sort of OK. The pastries I thought were good,the goat cheese cream was tasty, but the rye puff pastry was a little chewy for my taste. The Lillet Mule was OK too, a little on the sweet side, sort of tasting like a wine cooler.

In addition to the Hors D’oeuvres, they also gave us a bread serving that was quite a yummy baguette:

IMG_20171105_122527865 by Peter , on Flickr

The second course was Cheese Gourgere, Split Pea Soup, and salmon rillettes, and it was served with a Rose Frizant.

IMG_20171105_123748666 by Peter , on Flickr

IMG_20171105_123813430 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05511 by Peter , on Flickr

So there were really three things here. Starting on the left, the split pea soup was a chilled soup with a dollop of cream. I am not a huge fan of cold soup, but this was quite good, very rich and the pea taste was not overwhelming. The Salmon in the middle was excellent, and this is coming from not a salmon fan. However, they did also give you a small side of salmon roe, which was terrible, but easily scooped aside. The third item, the cheese bread, was really delicious.

The wine also was wonderful. Being a Rose I would normally worry it would be TOO sweet, but I found it just right, had a very nice flavor. This was the point where they also started to pour freely. I probably had about 4 glasses of this wine before they got around to the main course.

These French lunches traditionally serve a stew pot of sorts for the main course, and that’s what we got. But first up the wine was a Lafarge Bourginion, and I have to say this was probably my favorite wine of the night. I don’t always like red wines because they can be very heavy and thick with tannen, but this was light and crisp. Not sweet, but a bit of fruitiness. Very pleasant. It may be a small coincidence that my memory of the rest of the meal gets quite fuzzy, because again I probably had at least 4 glasses of this wine during our main course.

DSC05514 by Peter , on Flickr

The dish itself was a veal blanquette with rice pilaw, carrots and mushrooms.

IMG_20171105_130931054 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05516 by Peter , on Flickr

In past years I had heard they served a large portion of rice on the side, but in this case the rice was under the meat and vegetables. This was REALLY good. Creamy and rich and the meat was so tender and tasty. Just a wonderful dish with a great wine.

Fourth course was I guess a cleanser of sorts, listed on the menu as just “cheese” it was indeed cheese, but also with a little fruit compote, some walnuts, and a piece of bread and grapes.

DSC05519 by Peter , on Flickr

The wine on hand was a Bordeau called Cheval Noir. Maybe it was because of how many drinks I have had to this point, but while this was a heavier wine I still thought it was not too rich, and really enjoyed it – at least another couple of glasses worth!

DSC05517 by Peter , on Flickr


Here’s the whole fleet of the last three wine bottles. It should be noted everyone at our table was taking pictures of all the food and wine. Must be a Disney thing!

DSC05518 by Peter , on Flickr

The dessert was a lemon raspberry “marvelous” cake, with a raspberry sorbet (“the kind you find in a second hand store”…sorry that was funnier when I was drunk.) This was fantastic. Or was it the wine. I think the former. The cake was truly marvelous, and the sorbet was…well, it was sorbet which is still pretty good.

IMG_20171105_142534305 by Peter , on Flickr

DSC05521 by Peter , on Flickr

The final wine was a Brut Cremant De Bourgogne, essentially a sparkling wine similar to a champagne. I have to say I was not so enamored with this, so clearly not quite as drunk as not to recognize what I like.

IMG_20171105_143737013 by Peter , on Flickr

All in all I want to say we were approaching on 3 o’clock when we wrapped up the lunch, maybe between 2:30 and 3. Things get a little bit fuzzy at this point. It turned out that the other couple at our table was planning on getting an Uber ride from Beach Club to Animal Kingdom. Since we were staying at AKV, we offered to split the Uber, thinking we could bribe the driver to take us the rest of the way to AKV. They were up for that, so we walked from the Interational Gateway to Beach Club, a walk I don’t remember too much about in particular. I know we got the Uber pretty fast, and also that we gave the driver $10 and he dropped us at AKV – Jambo House where we were staying. We went directly up to the room and I remember kicking my shoes off and lying face down on the bed and then I fell asleep almost instantly.

That's it for today...in case I don't get another update in...Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[pooh'smate]

Your meal looks really yummy.