Am I Up to the Challenge of the 2014 F&WF? Bring on the Food!

[kimmar067]

Welcome friends, to my Trip Report. It is certainly not my first attempt, as you can see from my siggie, although I am going to give it the "ol' college try" to finish it. First of all, for those of you who know me, it will not be surprising to learn that, at some point, my DH will [once again] be bored of the whole 'trip to Disney thing' and vocally share his regret of agreeing to yet another one. Be that as it may, let me first and foremost introduce you to the cast of characters and a prelude to the actual run of events, as it were:

Me - still a believer of Disney magic, Pixie Dust, and all that is Disney

DH - ever-apparent pragmatist, has his heart in the right place, but inevitably becomes the 'apple cart turner'

Jean-Pierre - long-time friend of DH; had a cameo appearance in a previous TR

Maureen - DW of said friend

Cameo appearance by DizDaD7


"To Wine or Not to Wine, That is the Question"

My DH and I are winos, and darn proud of it. Well, that's not quite right; I think I need to offer an explanation: we frequently visit the southern part of New York State that is known as the Wine Trail - particularly a quaint and wonderful orchard known as Applewood Winery, located in Warwick, N. Y. and, they offer a service called 'The Wino Club' where you get a 20% discount on all purchases as long as you buy a featured wine 4 times a year. On several occasions we've been accompanied by our friends Jean-Pierre and Maureen. As we were enjoying a favorite bottle, my DH had mentioned that, during our last trip to WDW during the 2013 Flower and Garden Festival we had been introduced to some really fabulous Florida wines [yeah, who knew? ]. To my surprise, he recounted that he had actually enjoyed that trip - it was our first sans children, and it was filled with some memorable events. One thing lead to another, and soon we were babbling on about the annual Food and Wind Festival held at Epcot. To make things more enticing, my DH remembered that he had several hundred points on his Disney Visa Rewards card, and that to our dismay, they would become void after December 31 of this year. What better way to prevent that than spend a few days at the Food and Wine Festival! And how fortuitous or us that, during the F&WF, free dining would be something that would ultimately sway our decision into booking a trip to my beloved Disneyworld! After all, my adventurous side was waiting!

By July, our airfare was booked, as well as ADR's to some old favorites (and new ones too! ), along with fastpasses - we now can officially begin the countdown......

 

[kimmar067]

"School in the Morning, Florida in the Evening....Sounds like a good day to me."

....after, what seemed like an ETERNITY [it always appears to be so when one is heading to WDW!] at work, hastily transformed into what seemed like milliseconds. We had a tight schedule to adhere to, since our flight was leaving at 5:30 PM that evening and I left school at 3:30, last-minute packing, double-checking to see that all our important papers are in order, and we still had to drive our car to a long-term parking lot first.

To our good fortune, we did manage to avoid any rush-hour traffic, which is unusual for the New Jersey Turnpike at that time of day, park the car at a nearby location to Newark Liberty, and check our bag in with some time to spare [the second bag was my carry-on; many years of travel has taught me one thing - travel light].

......sooooo, we've done the whole 'take-off-all-your-jewelry/metal-objects-and-remove-all-coins/junk/cellphones-from-your-pockets', shown our proof of ID and boarding passes, and we are safely (well, relatively so) aboard the belly of the big bird. It's now official ~ we are on our way! Next stop, MCO:

The flight was pretty much uneventful; rightfully so, since there was no foul weather afoot and no turbulence to speak of. In fact, we landed a full 19 minutes ahead of schedule. Once past the gate, we headed for the airport monorail which would take us to the main part of the building. It wasn't too long now before I could inhale a heady breath of that glorious Florida air. We waited directly outside of the terminal, in search of our friends who would be picking us up, where we'd spend the first evening in Florida at their condo:

Inhale I did, gladly. It's aroma is a distinct mixture of moisture and flora, palm and grit, and a most welcome scent at that. Before heading directly to Mystic Dunes, we had already agreed that, since neither of us had eaten since around lunchtime, and it was now past 8:30, we'd stop at a local Publix and purchase sustenance to hold us over until breakfast the next day. Armed with a roast chicken, baked fries, fruit, assorted cheeses, nuts, chips and green onion dip [ our friends had graciously shared the bottles of wine that they had brought with them in the car ride from New Jersey], we proceeded to enjoy an indoor picnic feast, at the dining room table. Finally, at around 12:15, we called it a day, especially since the doorbell rang, with someone from the front office telling us to quiet it down. Really? There were four of us with no loud music or TV to speak of, but we were on vacation and didn't want cranky neighbors spoiling it for us, so we cleaned up the table, put away the leftovers and headed to the guest bedroom. We soon succumbed to that ever-blissful sleep, knowing that we would be checking into Jambo House early tomorrow morning....*sniff* *sni-i-i-i-i-i-iff* ~ yup, smells like Florida. Definitely.

 

[MICKEY'S DREAMERS]

WOW !! I LOVE trip reports !!

LOVED your "to wine or not to wine" !!
I could also feel the excitement enhaling Florida hot air !!

Can't wait for ... check in at Jambo House !!

 

[tiggrbaby]

I'm in!

 

[John's Mom]

I'm in.

Maybe, you'll finish this TR.

 

[kimmar067]

"Tell Me Those Two Little Words I Long to Hear: 'Welcome Home!' "

While Maureen slept in, both Ron and I were anxious to mosey on over [truth be told, I was the anxious one ! ] to Terra Disney-ferma, aka the Animal Kingdom Lodge, specifically Jambo House. Jean-Pierre was kind enough to wake up so as to do us the honors. They had later plans to relax near one of the quiet pools at Mystic Dunes; we would meet up at a later time to enjoy dinner together at the Yachtsman Steakhouse at BC/YC.

Needless-to-say, I donned my pink MagicBand upon coming home from school and it never parted from my left wrist. In fact, as we left the plane upon arrival at MCO, one of the flight attendants noted it and smiled. We pulled up to the sentry around 8:15, happily greeted by the CM, who asked to see a band (see, good thing i was wearing mine! ) Of course, as he lifted the gate, he happily greeted us with "Welcome Home!" Indeed.

We removed our belongings from Jean's car, under the expansive portico and proceeded to the check-in counter. Less than 15 minutes later, we were walking towards the bus stop to hop a Mickey bus to DHS, reassured that we would receive a text message telling us that our room was ready. It promised to be a wonderful day - a balmy 72 degrees, a dotting of clouds in the azure sky above, a half-empty bus (by-the-way, which we had to only wait for for 4 or 5 minutes!) and our destination was Tower of Terror and points east:

....welcomed by Disney twice so far, in one day. Someone pinch me, because I must be dreaming!

[next post - Page 2 ~ Post #16]​

 

[PrincessInOz]

Marking my place in the line.


The question is.....will you be up to the challenge of finishing this trippie???

 

[kimmar067]

....you couldn't leave it alone, could ya....... Hey, I DID give you some food porn, after all.....

 

[PrincessInOz]

....you couldn't leave it alone, could ya....... Hey, I DID give you some food porn, after all.....

If you were in my place.....do you think you could leave it alone???





And yes. I am looking forward to seeing MORE food porn. Afterall, what's the point of food and wine???

 

[kimmar067]

....I can only promise to TRY to update this TR as much as I can, okay?

 

[PrincessInOz]

....I can only promise to TRY to update this TR as much as I can, okay?

I am always happy to read whatever you post, whenever you post. No pressure from me (just teasing; and I hope you know that).

 

[wdwnut61]

Count me in too can't wait for the next installment

 

[snapppyd]

Well this is impossible to ignore! Can't wait for more, when you have time.

 

[Sherrkel]

Hi Kimmar - followed you over here from the AKL lite thread . . . looking forward to your report and hope to see lots of pics from AKL!

 

[kimmar067]

Hi Kimmar - followed you over here from the AKL lite thread . . . looking forward to your report and hope to see lots of pics from AKL!

 

[kimmar067]

"I'm in the Mood to Give my DH a Butt-Whoopin' - That is, I'm Gonna Beat Him at Toy Story Midway Mania!"

We got through the bag check and started to walk up to the next line to enter DHS, but then I remembered that I had to prioritize our MickeyBands. We had gotten a great deal on 3-day park-hoppers, so I was anxious to link them to our bands and use those.....that was pretty painless, and not only did the CM manage to grant my request, and rather effortlessly I might add, but I had gotten 10 fastpasses (5 for each of us), which was [I guess] Disney's way of saying sorry for the last trip's faux pas at All-Star Music. Anyhoo, we scurried back over to the line right before the 'rope drop', eagerly waiting to get to Tower of Terror...

....once inside the confines of DHS, we strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, stopping here and there to take a few quick snaps of the cellphone camera:

...making a sharp right turn onto Sunset Boulevard, towards the general direction of ToT:

....but first, we were a bit hungry and decided to stop for a quick breakfast...

....oh yes, nothing like a full stomach to begin churning first thing in the morning when you are about to ride Tot! The kiosk that was serving breakfast that particular morning also had a GF offering of their take on the bacon-and-egg on a biscuit. It was actually quite tasty...we cleaned up our table and proceeded towards ToT with nary a wait to speak of:

....it was actually quite hilarious. We wound up riding a full elevator with first-timers. The young lad sitting directly to my right [I'm guessing that he was about 10 or 11 years old] kept squeezing my arm every time we dropped! Since we were in the general vicinity of R'n'RC, we hurried to that ride too, especially since we had a preset fastpass for that ride and we were now in the midst of its time slot. Unbeknownst to the ever-growing crowd, R'n'RC was experiencing 'technical difficulties'. However, we had already swiped our bands so now our fastpasses were lost to the Fastpass Gods. We were just about to enter the Fastpass door, when a CM emerged, armed with a handful of paper fastpasses, which she proceeded to hand out to the nearby angry onlookers [we got ours for a later time - actually, it would be valid for the next 2 days]. Since it was pointless to hang around the R'n'RC area, we decided to put those 'magical' fastpasses (remember the 5 ones we got linked to our MickeyBands? ) to the test and head over to Toy Story Midway Mania. I was in a relatively good mood and I decided that it was my mission to beat my DH by getting more points. Of course, we by-passed the many folks in the stand-by crowd, who were slowly inching their way up towards those 3-D glasses; we were already way past that:

....needles to say, I emerged VICTORIOUS!

 

[PrincessInOz]

5 FP+ each?

Score!


ETA; for the updated edits by Kimmar:

You were brave getting on ToT with a full stomach. I would have lost some of my content over those newbie riders.
Shame about RnRC but at least you had yet more FP to get on it again.
Congrats on beating your DH.

 

[snapppyd]

I have never been able to beat my husband at Toy Story Mania, you go!

 

[kimmar067]

I have never been able to beat my husband at Toy Story Mania, you go!

.....beat him by more than 30,000 points too .

 

[kimmar067]

"Your Room is READY."

....we exited TSMM to the incessant beep of my cell phone, with the good news that our room was now ready. It was with this new news that my DH suddenly decided that he wanted to return to AKL; I reluctantly acquiesced, but not before taking in some of the Hollywood revelry and hi-jinx:

...besides, the temperature had eventually turned from a balmy 78 degrees to a sweltering 84. And, I really wanted to check out the room...