Everything I touch turns to broken. A fantastic Festival of the Arts Trip – January 2023 (Updated 6/22!!)

[VAtink]

Happy Saturday everyone! I’m freshly back from my FARTs trip, and boy what a trip!

Seeing FARTs for the first time was awesome, I’m obsessed, this may be my new favorite festival (at least until special events come back for food and wine). The weather was phenomenal, the art was amazing, and there was some delicious food as well! But I’m getting ahead of myself here. First let’s get into the introductions.



Hi, I’m Debbie! I usually visit Disney World during the fall for Food and Wine, but have been known to make surprise visits at other times during the year as well! This was only my second trip ever in January, and my first one was back in I think 2004, and was with my ex boyfriend, so I pretty much forgot everything about that one! I've been wanting to check out the festival of the arts (FARTs) for a while now, so I'm so happy I finally got the chance!

Now on this trip it was just me traveling.

Usually my mom joins me on these trips, and she was planning on coming on this one, but work stuff got in the way so I was solo this time around.

This was a pretty short trip, only Tuesday through Saturday, but it was just enough time to get everything done I wanted to do.

Now, the trip overall was awesome, I seriously could not stop smiling for 99% of the time I was there, but there was one odd thing that kept happening, and was the inspiration for the TR title. Everything I did, or tried to do, ended up breaking. Either breaking down or just flat out breaking. Seriously, even the latch to the overhead bin my stuff was in on the plane I was just on broke and wouldn’t open when we landed.

Oh, and sorry for anyone trying to use the monorail yesterday night and today, that’s another thing I "broke". Was on it when it went down and ended up being the last car to operate before shutting down for who knows how long.

So yeah, it’s like the Midas touch, but instead of gold you get something broken.

But even with this odd ability to make things stop working, it was such a great trip! I cannot wait to get into it more!​

 

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TOC

Day 1, Tuesday January 24th, 2023
Day 1, Part 1: Disney World Here I Come!
Day 1, Part 2: First Taste of FARTs!
Day 1, Part 3: The Famous Popcorn Bucket!
Day 1, Part 4: Is that Animatronic Winking at Me?
Day 1, Part 5: An Evening in Epcot

Day 2, Wednesday January 25th, 2023
Day 2, Part 1: Animal Kingdom Here I Come!
Day 2, Part 2: A Perfect Nomad Lunch!
Day 2, Part 3: More FARTS Food Studios!
Day 2, Part 4: After Hours at Hollywood Studios!

Day 3, Thursday January 26th, 2023
Day 3, Part 1: A Day Dedicated to the Arts!
Day 3, Part 2: Eating My Way Around the World!
Day 3, Part 3: More Art Please!
Day 3, Part 4: Takumi-Tei!

Day 4, Friday January 27th, 2023
Day 4, Part 1: I Guess I Should Go to the Magic Kingdom at Least Once This Trip!
Day 4, Part 2: Back to Breaking Everything!
Day 4, Part 3: Steakhouse 71!
Day 4, Part 4: Oops, I Broke Guardians Again (and the Monorail...sorry everyone!)
Day 4, Part 5: Dessert Party Time!
Day 4, Part 6: Don't be THAT Woman.

Day 5, Saturday January 28th, 2023
Day 5, Part 1: Until Next Time, Disney!






​

 

[Noreen411]

Glad you had a great time - looking forward to reading all about it

 

[SEAGULL59]

I hope to make it to FARTs someday!! Excited to hear about your trip.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I'm looking forward to reading about your trip.

Our FARTS trip begins next Sunday, Feb 5th.

 

[rdkeim]

Following!

 

[suse66]

Can't wait to hear all about it! I am hoping for my first FARTS trip next February!

 

[Marrila]

Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

 

[VAtink]

Glad you had a great time - looking forward to reading all about it

Thanks, and ! So exited to get into all the fun!

 

[VAtink]

I hope to make it to FARTs someday!! Excited to hear about your trip.

, thanks for joining in!

100% recommend visiting for FARTs! It is such a cool festival!

 

[VAtink]

I'm looking forward to reading about your trip.

Thanks! It's a good one, this was such a fun trip!

Our FARTS trip begins next Sunday, Feb 5th.

That's awesome! Hope you have a great trip!

 

[VAtink]

Following!

, thanks for following along!

 

[VAtink]

Can't wait to hear all about it! I am hoping for my first FARTS trip next February!

Thanks! Oh fun, I 100% recommend FARTs now, it is such a cool little festival. I'm trying to figure out a way to go again next year now too!

 

[VAtink]

Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

and thanks for following along!

 

[VAtink]

Day 1, Part 1: Disney World Here I Come!​

Ah travel day, the most exhausting, yet exciting day. This day came up amazingly fast, I feel like it was just Christmas and then BAM, FARTs trip!

I had originally planned to work the Monday before the trip (I left on Tuesday), but I made a last minute change to take that day off too. I’m so glad I did. Not only did I get to sleep in that day, which I think helped me survive the lack of sleep that so often happens at Disney, but I also was able to do some last minute chores at a more relaxed pace since I had essentially a three day weekend to get everything done.

So on Tuesday morning I was up bright and early and so excited to go! I was also oddly nervous. I just had this weird feeling like something was going to go wrong. I chalked it up to just flight jitters (I HATE flying) and got ready to head to the airport.

I booked an nice and early flight, I think the official time was like 6:47 or some odd time like that, so called for an Uber around 5:20. This morning I was able to get a car very quickly, in the past two years or so it’s be hard to get a car early in the morning, so it’s always a nice surprise when I get one easily!

The driver arrived by 5:30 and by 5:40 I was at the airport. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I LOVE how close I am to the airport!)

Since I had such a short trip, I only had carry on bags, so headed straight down to security. Now that last time I flew early in the morning, there was a HUGE wait for pre-check, so I expected that again, but fortunately this morning there was hardly any line! Wahoo! So I breezed right through security and then found a store to pick up some water before making my way to my gate to wait.

The flight started boarding around 6:17, and since I was first class I was one of the first on. I got settled in, and did what any normal person would do at 6am, ordered a mimosa. I mean, its vacation, right?

I was thrilled when they closed the cabin doors early, around 6:40. My luck with flying isn’t great, like 99% of the time my flight is delayed, so whenever it’s on time or early it is reason to celebrate!

Well, I may have started my celebrating too early, since a minute or so after closing the cabin door, they opened it back up and maintenance walks on the plane. Uh oh.

It turns out the auxiliary power had just run out of oil. Who knew auxiliary power uses oil! Learned something new that morning.

The fix didn’t take horribly long, only about 20 minutes, and soon enough the doors were closed for take two!

This time we did leave the gate, phew! There was hardly any wait to take off, so soon we were flying! The flight time was pretty short, only about an hour and 50 minutes, and the pilots said they would try to make up some of the lost time in the air, so in the end we only landed like 10 minutes late. Not bad compared to most of my other flight delays!

We landed around 9:25, and since I was in row 2 I was off the plane very quickly. I got to the APM just as one was pulling in too, perfect timing!

Since I wasn’t picking up checked bags I headed straight outside to call for an Uber.

This is where things got weird. There was no one there. Seriously, no one. It was actually kind of eerie. Every time I’ve gotten an Uber at this location there have been tons of people, cars, police, everything. It’s always gridlock. This morning there were two police cars. No other cars, no other people. It was wild! I even took a video of it since it was so strange!
​

https://flic.kr/p/2oe6w4u

It was also very nice since my Uber didn’t have to fight any traffic to get me and was there in about 4 minutes.

It was a nice ride to the YC, my driver was awesome and we chatted the whole way until we pulled into the YC at 10:01! Not bad timing only 35 minutes from wheels down to being at the front door of the YC!

I collected my bags then headed into the lobby. I wanted to swing by the front desk to verify the credit card on file wasn’t my expired one. When I tried to update it in the app and on the computer it kept crashing, so I had no idea if the change went through, so I got in line for the front desk.

When it was my turn I was thrilled to see the woman checking me in was Georgette!

Now you’re all probably thinking, “who the heck is Georgette?”

Haha, I don’t blame you.

Well, back in 2017 when my mom and I stayed at the YC for Flower and Garden, Georgette checked us in, and she upgraded us from a standard view room to a water view room, and put us in one of the new refurbished rooms! (At that point only the 4th and 5th floor had been refurbished).

It was the first time in the 30+ years staying at the YC that we had ever been upgraded, so we will never forget Georgette!

I tell her all this, and she seems a bit overwhelmed, I guess I may have been gushing a bit. Oops! She was so sweet though and said she was so happy she made our trip extra magical back then! She did look to see if she could add magic to this trip, but the YC was fully booked and sadly no magic for me. Oh well.

Now, this trip was a recovery trip (ie a free stay on Disney) from some not so great things happening on previous trips, so after finishing my check-in, Georgette went and found the YC manager to come chat with me.

The manager was super nice and assured me that they would do everything they could to make my stay perfect. (I actually started to feel a bit guilty by all this, I felt like a total problem child!)

Finally we finished up and I dropped my bags off at Bell Services before heading to Epcot for my first taste of FARTs!

NEXT UP: First Taste of FARTs!​

 

[DLo]

Popping over from your other current TR. Looking forward to reading more .

 

[disneyfan314]

I'm heading down for a solo trip in about 2.5 weeks (actually going to be in Orlando for a conference, so of course, I've added some Disney days to the trip). It will be my first time at FARTs too, so I'm looking forward to reading about your experience!

 

[Wood Nymph]

So on Tuesday morning I was up bright and early and so excited to go! I was also oddly nervous. I just had this weird feeling like something was going to go wrong. I chalked it up to just flight jitters (I HATE flying) and got ready to head to the airport.

I think that is normal to have a feeling that something will go wrong. I always feel that way.

Tuesday seems to be the least crowded day to fly. It's just too bad that Disney jacks up the price of Friday and Saturday stays at their deluxe resorts and so we aren't always able to take advantage of a Tuesday flight.

Was this a solo trip?

 

[piglet1979]

I am looking forward to reading more.

 

[Joy1127]

Excited to hear about your FOTA experience!! We go in less than two weeks and I can't wait!