100 Eats & Drinks in 3.5 Days! ~ Updated 1/10: December TR Started!

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

Great update! Do they pipe in the music for the fireworks at CA grill?

 

[Dugette]

Great update! Do they pipe in the music for the fireworks at CA grill?

Yep, they dim the lights and pipe in the music. You also have the option to go out onto the balcony to watch, but we haven't done that.

 

[jc040404]

And there just might be something of interest on Buzz…

Can't wait to find out what this is!! You have me crazy about that silly ride. Andrew and dh think I'm about nuts because it's now our first stop when we get to MK!

And thanks.. You have me hungry again!

Hope you had a nice Christmas!

 

[Dugette]

Can't wait to find out what this is!! You have me crazy about that silly ride. Andrew and dh think I'm about nuts because it's now our first stop when we get to MK!

And thanks.. You have me hungry again!

Hope you had a nice Christmas!

Sorry about starting your Buzz addiction! It was funny, because I went from not caring at all about that ride (because I always did so poorly) to riding it over and over (once we learned the targets).

Sorry I made you hungry! I could sure go for some of that Valrhona cake right now! Yum!

Christmas was good. Hope you had a nice one too!

 

[Dugette]

After the California Grill, we hopped on the monorail. We were heading to the late Extra Magic Hours at the Magic Kingdom. It was open until 2am that night!

We arrived to a stunningly beautiful holiday decorated Magic Kingdom, complete with seasonal music playing:

We saw an available Photopass photographer in the hub, so we had to get a picture:

Our first stop was a nighttime Jungle Cruise. Dug really enjoys this ride, especially at night. After enjoying the “backside of water”, we hit one of my favorites, Pirates. Then another nighttime favorite: Big Thunder. Up next, we enjoyed a Doom Buggy ride through the Haunted Mansion. I was so sore at this point that the act of sitting down in our Doom Buggy led to a yelp...at least horrified sounds are appropriate in the HM.

On our way across to the other side of the park, we stopped to catch a ride on Dumbo. We enjoyed the pretty castle views and the sneak-peaks of the Fantasyland expansion. Here’s a shot of the “backside of Dumbo”:

After Dumbo, we finished our journey over to Tomorrowland. The next item on our agenda was yet another attempt to max out the score on Buzz. We were lucky enough to have the ride pause while we were in the projection room. This had good results.

Mine:

Dug’s:

Finally! Mission accomplished! Who cares that it took a ride breakdown to get it?!?

Next we hopped aboard the Peoplemover for a spin around the nicely lit up Tomorrowland. After that, we had just enough time left to jump on Space Mountain. The lines were all pretty short tonight. I love the late part of those super-late hours!

After a fun ride on Space, we worked our way towards the exit. But noticed something fun on the Tomorrowland sidewalk. Janitor art:

We’d heard about this, but never seen it before. Very cool!

Naturally, on the way out, we had to get a whole bunch more pictures of the beautiful castle and decorations:

When we arrived at the bus stop, we were asked which resort we were going to. And then they ordered us our own bus! We had a private bus ride back to the Beach Club! Very cool!

After the long day, we were wiped out. Trekked back to our room at BCV, put our leftover food in the fridge, and passed out quickly.

Up next: Our last day! We have to go home! And Beaches & Cream!

 

[Nermel9]

Great update! We were at MK the same night, except we ended up leaving early because we were so tired! Looks like you got there when the crowds thinned out that night because when we were there, it was crazy!

Dumbo is so cute, I really have to get around to riding that again, haven't been on it since I was 7!

I love the art the custodians do on the walkways, so cute!

 

[jc040404]

Go Dug!!! Your score wasn't too bad either! Break down or not, what a great ride!

Another awesome late MK night! These sound like heaven. All the decoration pics make me so cold reading this. How weird. Loved the Janitor art, btw!

So excited to read about Beaches & Cream!! I've thought about that one bunches of times, but have never taken the next step to plan it.

 

[A&Bmama]

Way to go Dug! Who cares if the ride broke down, maxed out is still maxed out!

I love the holiday lights on the castle. I'd love to go and see the xmas decorations one year. Did you find that it made Xmas much more hectic for you with a trip so close to the holidays?

 

[Dugette]

Great update! We were at MK the same night, except we ended up leaving early because we were so tired! Looks like you got there when the crowds thinned out that night because when we were there, it was crazy!

Dumbo is so cute, I really have to get around to riding that again, haven't been on it since I was 7!

I love the art the custodians do on the walkways, so cute!

It's funny what a difference an hour or so can make in the crowds. I've always heard that the last half of the late EMH are the slow time and I guess that was true this night!

Yeah, jump on Dumbo either first thing at the morning or super late at night for no lines. Super late, sometimes characters are riding it. Super early you can see the progress of the Fantasyland expansion.

As a pretty non-artistic person, I'm super impressed that they can do that sidewalk art!

Go Dug!!! Your score wasn't too bad either! Break down or not, what a great ride!

Another awesome late MK night! These sound like heaven. All the decoration pics make me so cold reading this. How weird. Loved the Janitor art, btw!

So excited to read about Beaches & Cream!! I've thought about that one bunches of times, but have never taken the next step to plan it.

No, not a bad ride on Buzz. There will be something else interesting on our next trip (but it's not me getting 999,999)...

I love the late MK nights. You can do so much in a short time!

Oddly enough, the decoration pics were taken on a pretty mild night. November's weather wasn't bad. But our December trip was bone-chilling!

Definitely hit B&C some time. No ADRs needed (so, pick an off time). Great burgers and ice cream!

Way to go Dug! Who cares if the ride broke down, maxed out is still maxed out!

I love the holiday lights on the castle. I'd love to go and see the xmas decorations one year. Did you find that it made Xmas much more hectic for you with a trip so close to the holidays?

I agree, that score counts!

The lights are so cool! You'll see a lot more of them in the next TR.

My thoughts on when to go to see the holiday decorations, after going mid-November and mid-December: The weather was awesome in November, but very cold in December. You can see the Osborne Lights, Castle Lighting, and attend MVMCP in either month. The Candlelight Processional and Storytellers you can only see in December. We did find Christmas pretty crazy, but I think it was because of the funeral before our trip, then extending our trip at the last minute...we were not super-prepared. November didn't cause any issues. Both trips were during pretty cheap resort rate seasons...I think December was cheaper, though. November (the first half) has the Food & Wine Festival also. So, I guess it depends on how you feel about all those variables. If I had to choose, I'd go in November and get both F&W and Holidays, even though we'd miss out on some of the later holiday things.

 

[Dugette]

In our pre-trip planning, we had left this morning open. Some of our options were:

Go back to Food & Wine to get things we missed (but we didn’t miss anything!)

Go to Downtown Disney

Go to a park

Enjoy Stormalong Bay

Sleep (with lunch at Beaches and Cream)

Can you guess which one we chose? If you said sleep, you win!!!

So, after getting some much-needed sleep, we were finally hungry again. Time for “breakfast.” You might recognize most of it from the night before (and one from our first day):

We finally got to use this feature of our room:

We also enjoyed our bottles of water that we’d had chilling in the fridge during our stay. My leftover flatbread and pumpkin fudge was a delicious breakfast! I actually thought the flatbread was WAY yummier in the morning than it had been the night before. That just may have had something to do with my lack of appetite the night before, though.

We also took some time this morning to download our pictures from the camera to Dug’s new iPad. Very cool to see a slideshow of our trip on it!

And, of course, we turned on Disney TV to watch the “must-do”s. There was a Food and Wine segment included in them.

And we packed.

Lazy morning.

Once we were all set to go, we had bell services come take our luggage to airline check-in/storage (depending on which bags). We followed our big bags down to the airline check-in area. We were second in line, with two stations open. We were a little tight on Beaches & Cream time, but no big deal, right?

This took FOREVER!!! The station on the right was apparently dealing with system problems and some general travel headaches and was helping the same person the entire time we were there. The booth on the left was taking its sweet time, but finally finished with its customer. However, they then pulled in another family that was not in line. I gathered that this family had somehow been ill-treated previously, so they were now being put first in line. Not real sure. But okay.

Finally, they were done and the family ahead of us got to go up. They were reasonably quick-ish, so it was finally our turn. I think we’d ended up waiting somewhere around 45 minutes before our turn.

But we were speedy! Smooth check-in!

Then off to Beaches and Cream! We were worried it would be crowded, since it was prime lunchtime (around noon). We needn’t have worried. Apparently, Sunday lunch is the meal to have at Beaches & Cream…everyone’s probably travelling. We were immediately led in and seated in a booth. There was a total of 5 occupied tables, which stayed consistent the whole time we were there…someone would leave and someone else would arrive. Very, very quiet there!

Take a look around:

Fresh off of our Food & Wine madness, we decided to split a meal for lunch. We ordered a cheeseburger (with fries) and a mint chocolate chip malt. Dug later remembered that the onion rings here were supposed to be good, but it would have seemed weird to order them for dessert. Don’t worry, we might just get them on another trip…

I thought it was cool that they split up all of our food for us:

We enjoyed our lunch. The burger was great, fries were good, and I loved the malt! So yummy!

After lunch, we meandered our way back to the lobby, stopping to take lots of video and pictures of Stormalong Bay (and some pictures in the hall outside of Cape May):

We got back to the lobby and had bell services retrieve our carry-on bags. I took advantage of the free ice water next to the bell services stand…first time I’d noticed it. Refreshing!

We realized that we had never had a chance to enjoy the Solarium. But the Magical Express area was viewable from the Solarium, so we sat in it to wait. After about a minute of “relaxation”, we saw a Mears bus pull up. It was about our appointed time, so we went out to meet it. But it was not our bus, only dropping off. Back into the Solarium we went. For about another 30 seconds. When another Mears bus pulled up. This one was indeed ours.

We hopped on and waited. There was a stretch limo next to us. Somebody was apparently travelling in style!

We waited some more. It seemed that all the passengers had boarded. Except for one woman. Apparently her family was on the bus, but she was still inside shopping!! So, an entire Magical Express bus full of people bound for the airport with flights to catch was waiting on this one woman to finish her souvenir shopping!!! After maybe 10-15 minutes, she finally emerged and I think the bus may have even cheered. And we were off:

Leaving is sad!

On the drive, I could see the balloon from Downtown Disney. I think we probably stopped at another resort or two, but I can’t remember anymore. All that really matters is that we ended up at the airport.

We stopped at one of the Disney shops in the airport and looked for a souvenir to bring Dug’s sister and brother-in-law, to thank them for the airport transportation. We finally decided on some Disney ice glow cubes. Small, easy to transport, and unique.

We had an uneventful flight home. Once we arrived back at MSP, our flight’s luggage took forever to get unloaded. It was so bad that, when I went out to load our carry-on bags, Dug’s sister insisted on taking me back to their house while Dug waited for the checked luggage. She had things to do and couldn’t circle the airport forever. They live close by, so she told me that they could take me back to their place so I could get Dug’s car and go back to the airport and get him and the luggage. I was hesitant, as I knew that Dug would have issues with me ditching him at the airport, but his sister said he was okay with it. Naturally, the luggage came immediately after they coerced me into their car and left. Dug was super angry about this for a bit. He (understandably) did not like being abandoned at the airport. But, after I picked him up, he calmed down and decided to drive over to his sister’s house before we went home to make up and give her the souvenir glow cubes. And everyone was friends again.

We headed back towards our place, but stopped to pick up our dog Bailey on the way. Although she’d had a fabulous stay at Wilderness Adventure Puppy Camp (as seen in an earlier post), she was thrilled to see us and go home.

Once we arrived home, Kitty declared that she’d missed us more than usual too. Dug was the first one to sit down and look what happened:

They both missed us so badly that they were willing to share Dug’s lap with each other! This is not common in our dog/cat household! So cute!

And that concludes our Food & Wine trip!

No need to be sad (yet), though! We’ve been on another fabulous Disney trip since then and I’m dying to tell you about it! The PTR has some previews if you haven’t seen it yet. I’ll let you know when the TR is started. Hopefully by the weekend!

One final thought on this trip you just read about: great time of year to go! Food and Wine was great. A lot of the holiday stuff was in full swing (Osborne Lights, Very Merry, etc.) Absolutely beautiful weather!!! Low season, so cheaper and not busy. Loved it! Whatever year we get back to WDW (2013? Not sure), I think this time of year is at the top of my list as to when to go. Just for longer. A few extra days before and after would be great. More Food & Wine, then more time to see the holiday stuff. I highly recommend it!

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

Great TR, thanks for sharing your amazing vacation! Look forward to updates on your other thread!

 

[jc040404]

From the gummy snacks to this, you win for oddest breakfasts I've seen posted on here. That mint choc chip malt souinds sooo yummy. I have definitely got to try one of those!

Bailey and Kitty are too cute! So sweet that they wanted to cuddle together. Did you travel this much before your Disney year? They must be really glad to have you both home for a bit now.

I'm going to be sad this TR is over anyway, but I'm glad you have another coming up!

 

[A&Bmama]

Can you guess which one we chose? If you said sleep, you win!!!

I PICKED SLEEP! What do I win, what do I win, what do I win? I'm hoping for the first installment of your next TR this weekend. Is that what I win?

So, after getting some much-needed sleep, we were finally hungry again. Time for “breakfast.” You might recognize most of it from the night before (and one from our first day):

Sounds like a good breakfast to me. I have never been one of those people who can only eat "traditional" breakfast items in the morning. Once I get hungry I can eat anything, but, I don't have any appetite until I have been awake for a couple of hours.

Then off to Beaches and Cream! We were worried it would be crowded, since it was prime lunchtime (around noon). We needn’t have worried. Apparently, Sunday lunch is the meal to have at Beaches & Cream…everyone’s probably travelling. We were immediately led in and seated in a booth. There was a total of 5 occupied tables, which stayed consistent the whole time we were there…someone would leave and someone else would arrive. Very, very quiet there!

Good tip. I am going to keep this in mind for our last day on property which is a Sunday. I was looking for a place to use any TS credits that might be leftover, presently, I have a lunch reservation for Sci-Fi but I don't really know that we will be wanting to be in DHS that day in the first place.

DD is a 61 lb "Disney Dining Adult" She is a grazer, and eats often but small portions. When she sits down to a meal her portion looks like something you would feed a toddler. If I order an adult meal, drink and dessert for her at each meal a minimum of 75% of the meal will end up in the trash. She is not an adventurous eater either so I think the kids menu items and portions (still too much) will appeal to her most often. I think I would pay OOP if she orders from the kids menu and save those adult credits for later. I will let her make the choice at each meal though.

(Edit: Have you ever laid down the ground work for making a point and then forgot to make the point? That's what I did here. I told you all of this about my DD so that I could illustrate the fact that it is tough for me to determine exactly how many meals I can plan before I run out of credits. Sheesh, I am starting to lose it.)

So, that is my long winded way of saying thanks for a good tip!

Fresh off of our Food & Wine madness, we decided to split a meal for lunch. We ordered a cheeseburger (with fries) and a mint chocolate chip malt. Dug later remembered that the onion rings here were supposed to be good, but it would have seemed weird to order them for dessert. Don’t worry, we might just get them on another trip…

I thought it was cool that they split up all of our food for us:

I love that they split the meal for you. Thanks for another good tip. (see, I can be concise if I try)

We enjoyed our lunch. The burger was great, fries were good, and I loved the malt! So yummy!

That food looks sinfully greasy and delicious!

Leaving is sad!

Aww, poor Dugette and Dug.

No need to be sad (yet), though! We’ve been on another fabulous Disney trip since then and I’m dying to tell you about it!

I have been DYING to hear about it.

The PTR has some previews if you haven’t seen it yet. I’ll let you know when the TR is started. Hopefully by the weekend!

I have seen the teasers, er, I mean previews and have been on the edge of my seat ever since.

 

[Dugette]

Great TR, thanks for sharing your amazing vacation! Look forward to updates on your other thread!

Thanks so much for following along! Keep an eye on the other thread...hope to update soon!

From the gummy snacks to this, you win for oddest breakfasts I've seen posted on here. That mint choc chip malt souinds sooo yummy. I have definitely got to try one of those!

Yeah, this was an odd breakfast. Especially because I'm such a cereal person, in general. Anything else is a bit odd to me. But this flatbread really hit the spot this morning. On vacation, anything goes! And, yes, the mint chocolate chip malt was really good!

Bailey and Kitty are too cute! So sweet that they wanted to cuddle together. Did you travel this much before your Disney year? They must be really glad to have you both home for a bit now.

I'm going to be sad this TR is over anyway, but I'm glad you have another coming up!

We definitely travelled more in 2010 than most years! Not only all the WDW trips, but we had a number of out-of-state weddings and such that we were gone for. It was a very busy year. 2011 looks to be a lot more boring. Although there is talk of possibly doing a southern CA trip to visit Dug's brother...which naturally would have to include a couple days at Disneyland...but that's all just talk right now. We'll see...

I PICKED SLEEP! What do I win, what do I win, what do I win? I'm hoping for the first installment of your next TR this weekend. Is that what I win?

Hopefully! We're working on getting something fun together, so with any luck we'll be able to post it tonight!

Sounds like a good breakfast to me. I have never been one of those people who can only eat "traditional" breakfast items in the morning. Once I get hungry I can eat anything, but, I don't have any appetite until I have been awake for a couple of hours.

Good tip. I am going to keep this in mind for our last day on property which is a Sunday. I was looking for a place to use any TS credits that might be leftover, presently, I have a lunch reservation for Sci-Fi but I don't really know that we will be wanting to be in DHS that day in the first place.

DD is a 61 lb "Disney Dining Adult" She is a grazer, and eats often but small portions. When she sits down to a meal her portion looks like something you would feed a toddler. If I order an adult meal, drink and dessert for her at each meal a minimum of 75% of the meal will end up in the trash. She is not an adventurous eater either so I think the kids menu items and portions (still too much) will appeal to her most often. I think I would pay OOP if she orders from the kids menu and save those adult credits for later. I will let her make the choice at each meal though.

(Edit: Have you ever laid down the ground work for making a point and then forgot to make the point? That's what I did here. I told you all of this about my DD so that I could illustrate the fact that it is tough for me to determine exactly how many meals I can plan before I run out of credits. Sheesh, I am starting to lose it.)

So, that is my long winded way of saying thanks for a good tip!

I love that they split the meal for you. Thanks for another good tip. (see, I can be concise if I try)

Glad I could help! It seems like your situation might be good for doing some 2-credit meals, but only ordering 2-3 meals and sharing?

That food looks sinfully greasy and delicious!

It was!

Aww, poor Dugette and Dug.

I have been DYING to hear about it.

I have seen the teasers, er, I mean previews and have been on the edge of my seat ever since.

Hope to not have you waiting too much longer! Downloading some video now...

 

[Nermel9]

What a nice lazy morning! I wouldn't have been able to resist going to a park for a few hours, but I need to get in as much Disney as possible!

Mmmm that Beaches and Cream lunch looks great, especially that malt!

Can't wait to read about the next trip!

 

[Dugette]

What a nice lazy morning! I wouldn't have been able to resist going to a park for a few hours, but I need to get in as much Disney as possible!

Mmmm that Beaches and Cream lunch looks great, especially that malt!

Can't wait to read about the next trip!

Yeah, it wasn't like us to do the lazy morning, but we were just so wiped out and would have had so little park time that it made sense. Especially since we were coming back so soon. And speaking of...

Trip Report has begun!!! Here you go: "How the Other Half Lives TR"

Enjoy! See you there!