Is there Gluten in Whiskey? Sept trip: 9 days, 3 boys, 1 urgent care visit NEWx2 11/7

[kokotg]

Oh how I miss Flame tree BBQ! We had awesome food there last time - Ryan also got the half chicken - I had this chicken salad that was so incredibly filling and so good : ) only 55 days until we're in AK.

I didn't even realize Y&Y had a counter service - we did table service there - and other than someone getting glutened (soy sauce on the table was very tempting for a little girl to grab and guzzle:s) the food was perfect.

Ryan always gets flights of scotch while in Disney. There might be some risk of gluten added in some, but wine is actually more of a risk. THough I suppose it might depend on where it comes from.

IT's funny in all my years going to Disney I've also never been to Flights of Wonder. Timings always been off for it, maybe this trip we'll go.

Really? Wine? Who knew? Well, I'm glad our Le Cellier server didn't try to stop us from ordering wine

I'd like to try the Yak and Yeti table service sometime...it looks really nice in the pictures I've seen! the counter service is really small...I think there are just a few tables off to the side. There are only a few different options even if you CAN have gluten.

You pictures of food are making me so hungry! (Doesn't help that it's 5:20.) I'd have just said "yup" or something to the lady asking if you were a food blogger. Or just say you want to scrapbook the pics. Everyone may not do it, but it's not really weird or anything.

Glad everyone's feeling better and able to get back on track! I'm enjoying your report so far!

Thanks! Yeah, it's totally my issue about the food pictures...I know it's not a big deal; I just hate drawing attention to myself!

Now I'm kicking myself that we didn't go to Flame Tree! And also that I'm not having Barbecue right this second. Mmmm.

I found it really amusing just how deceiving the Enjoy Life packaging was. It made it seem like those cookies were going to be of normal size, when they were really the size of half dollars!! Bite sized, for sure. But then again, I have a big mouth...does that shock you?

the Enjoy Life cookies are kind of disappointing. The French Meadow stuff has dairy in it, I guess, so it won't work for Brynn? You'd think they'd be able to find a dairy free vendor that had something as good as French Meadow in quality and serving size! We've had the chocolate Enjoy Life cookies at home, and they're better than the chocolate chip, IMO...but still tiny and expensive!

 

[kokotg]

Chapter 19: Monday 9/18: More Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney

Do you know what we love as much as Flights of Wonder? The Festival of the Lion King! So we went that way, and we cut it very, very close. In fact, the show had already started when we got there, but they were still letting people in. The Lion King sure is a long way from everything else.

After the Lion King, it had been like two whole hours since we'd ridden Everest, so we went back over there. And after Everest we had to buy Gus a new lanyard because we'd somehow lost his old one. Or he may have lost it. We couldn't be sure, but no one had seen it in a long time, so we bought him a new one. Luckily, we hadn't put his new castle pin on the old one, but it did have a couple of other pins that we'll never see again. It never turned up. Much like Dave's hat. There seems to have been some kind of strange vortex or something opened up at Pop this year, sucking in all our stuff.

The kids spent approximately three hours looking at pins at the Everest gift shop, and we somehow wound up making 3 separate purchases here, all pins and lanyards.

Since we had two full days reserved for Animal Kingdom this year, we fully intended to spend some time at Conservation Station and finally see the Nemo show (we saw like half of it one year, when the kids were much younger, but they were all show-ed out and wanted to leave before it was over). But, well, we were tired and we wanted to go back to the hotel. A side note: we totally rocked the afternoon break this year. In years past, it never really worked out for us...mostly, I think, because the kids were beasts when we kept them out past their bedtimes, so we really needed to get things done during the day so they could crash early. Now their bedtimes are later and they can handle a little more schedule irregularity. So the afternoon breaks coupled with late nights was a much better fit this year.

So we headed for the exit. On the way out, we saw a CM with a pin trading lanyard and stopped to look at his pins. He only had about 4 pins, and none of them appealed to the kids, but he pointed across the entrance plaza and said, “over by the strollers, they have a whole bunch of pins.” Curious, we walked across to see. The CMs weren't wearing lanyards at all. What kind of trick was this?! But Dave asked, and one of the CMs went back to the back and brought out this stroller, covered with a gazillion pins! A secret pin trading stroller! This was very exciting.

This CM seemed a little grumpy about going to get the stroller when we first asked about it, but either our kids won her over with their enthusiasm or she just remembered that it's her job to look happy.

The kids did some trading, and then we hopped on the tram and made our way back to Pop.

We hung out in the room for awhile, and then Dave decided to take the kids to the pool for a bit while I took a nap (I was a little jealous of all the napping Dave had done while Ari was sick). Then I decided to take a shower while they were gone, totally forgetting that Dave hadn't taken a room key with him. Oops. I got out of the shower to the sounds of Dave pounding on the door. He and the kids were standing outside, dripping wet, and he already had talked to someone about coming to let him in, and had to go find whoever that was to tell them never mind. Sorry Dave!

Oh! This was also the day that we came back to our only two towel animals of the trip. I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of them. They seem to have been left in direct response to a note the kids left for our mousekeeper, inviting her to take the unopened package of gluten-y cookies from the other night. They'd left the cookies where we left the tip every day (along with the tip; we didn't leave cookies instead of a tip!), and Ari wrote a note that read, “Dear Rosa—please take these very good dairy free cookies. From, The ___ Family.” I was kind of hesitant about him leaving the note, because Ari's handwriting doesn't look like a kid's at all—he has this very tiny, very neat printing. I thought kids leaving cookies was cute and fun, but grown-ups leaving them would be...weird, and it wouldn't be at all clear that a kid wrote the note. But I guess she didn't think it was too weird, since she took the cookies AND left towel animals in their place (the towel animals were right where the note and cookies had been). Now I ran into Rosa later in the trip, and it was clear she spoke pretty much no English, so I'm not sure how she even figured out what the note said or that the kids were giving the cookies away. Maybe it was her day off on cookie day and someone else was there. Or maybe someone translated the note for her. Or maybe she can read English much better than she can speak it. Who knows. Anyway. Cookies—gone! They could tempt us no more!

We had a Boma reservation at around 6 that night, and we still had a good bit of time before that, so we decided to make another Downtown Disney stop on the way. We needed to look for a couple of friends' birthday presents, something for our housesitter, and we wanted to pick up some breakfast stuff for the next day at Babycakes.

Dave had seen this building (the funny round one back there) on the way to urgent care and wanted me to take a picture of it because he thought it was the same building as in "Architecture Colors," this board book we used to read to the kids. I didn't think it was, but we checked when we got home, and it is!

Exciting! Anyone know what that building is?

At Downtown Disney (where it was much easier to get in and park on a Monday afternoon than it had been on Friday night), we went through the World of Disney (where I always feel claustrophobic and sensory-overloaded) and then on to the Lego store. We were hoping to find a birthday present for one of the kids' friends here (his party was the day after we got back), but we had no luck. Milo and Gus decided to get some make your own minifigures, though.

And we overheard a dad there talking to his kid who was also named Milo! Observation: 90% of the boys at Disney World are named Landon. Another 8% are named Aidan. So not many Milos. But this is actually the second trip that we've run into another Milo. The other one was at 'Ohana, on our second trip, I think.

Then we ran over to Babycakes for doughnuts, and by then it was getting close enough to our Boma reservation that Dave was getting nervous (because Dave was NOT going to risk missing our Boma reservation), so we headed back to the car.

Next up: Boma of course

 

[BerrysGirl]

I'll have to tell DBF about the secret pin trading stroller. That's a really neat idea and he's really gotten into pin trading recently!

I hope you get to see the rest of Finding Nemo someday... it's my favorite!

 

[gallmcduck]

Your trip sounds great so far, good to hear that everyone was well again and you made your le celiier ADR, that restaurant. Secret pin traders Looking forward to reading about boma

 

[fromscratchmom]

Dave had seen this building (the funny round one back there) on the way to urgent care and wanted me to take a picture of it because he thought it was the same building as in "Architecture Colors," this board book we used to read to the kids. I didn't think it was, but we checked when we got home, and it is!

Exciting! Anyone know what that building is?

Oh! I'm totally jazzed to see that. We used to read that to our kids too! Tell your hubby I said thanks for sharing!

Now I'm sitting here hoping someone knows what it is and speaks up.

 

[kokotg]

I'll have to tell DBF about the secret pin trading stroller. That's a really neat idea and he's really gotten into pin trading recently!

I hope you get to see the rest of Finding Nemo someday... it's my favorite!

We meant to ask at the other parks' stroller rentals to see if they had the same kind of thing, but we never remembered at the right time.

We'll have to make sure to do Nemo next year!

Your trip sounds great so far, good to hear that everyone was well again and you made your le celiier ADR, that restaurant. Secret pin traders Looking forward to reading about boma

I think Le Cellier made it onto our list of favorites now, too. It was so nice and relaxing in there.

Oh! I'm totally jazzed to see that. We used to read that to our kids to! Tell your hubby I said thanks for sharing!

Now I'm sitting here hoping someone knows what it is and speaks up.

Ari's google powers are stronger than mine, because he found it! It's the "Team Disney" building, according to Wikipedia, "the administrative headquarters of the Walt Disney World Resort." It also claims to have the largest sundial in the world. Wow. who knew? And how funny that I'd run into another Architecture Colors fan on my trip report .

 

[fromscratchmom]

Ari's google powers are stronger than mine, because he found it! It's the "Team Disney" building, according to Wikipedia, "the administrative headquarters of the Walt Disney World Resort." It also claims to have the largest sundial in the world. Wow. who knew? And how funny that I'd run into another Architecture Colors fan on my trip report .

haha. My DD13 is far more internet and computer savvy than me in general. And she remembered the book when I insisted on showing the kids your post.

I think there is a connection between us thinking-outside-the-box kind of parents and some really nice or cool results in the kids. DD13 was just telling me the other day how when she is at a home school camp-out or at her other big camp-out she gets to do each summer and an adult asks the kids what they want to do when they grow up they all have real answers and they are all different; architect, civil engineer, nutritionist, massage therapist, etc. And when she is hanging out with a certain set of cousins they all respond to the same question with, rich, rock star and famous.

 

[Fantasyland Mom]

That cracks me up about the cookies! Unless, of course, she didn't understand it at all, but was really hungry.

I totally know what you mean about the names! We kept hearing Landon and anything with "ayden" in it--Cayden, Jayden, Brayden, Aiden, etc. But we DID hear two Brynns and a Sawyer! We've only ever met one person with Julia's name before, and none with our other kids' names. Another Disney first!

 

[fromscratchmom]

That cracks me up about the cookies! Unless, of course, she didn't understand it at all, but was really hungry.

I'd imagine she could recognize her name on it at least, plus anything that is clearly sitting with her tip...

 

[kokotg]

I'm picturing it now...Rosa eating our cookies before she could stop herself, because they looked SOOOO yummy, and then, realizing in horror what she'd done, quickly making a couple of towel animals in hopes we'd be so delighted by them we wouldn't even remember our cookies

 

[shan23877]

Great update!

That's too funny about the names. When we were at our childbirth class for Maddie the woman teaching the class asked what everyone was having and what they planned to name it (seemed like a terrible idea to open up that can of worms in a room full of pregnant ladies). We were the only couple not having a boy, and 5 of 6 of them were planning to name the little boys Aiden! I realize that Madison is very unorigional, but she's named for my grandmother, so we were pretty set on that.

 

[CathrynRose]

It never turned up. Much like Dave's hat. There seems to have been some kind of strange vortex or something opened up at Pop this year, sucking in all our stuff.

I'm enjoying your report.

Lemme ask you something - I saw from your "view" outside your POP room, you were in the 80's. And then I saw your above statement.... was your maid named "Rosa". We kept missing things, little things, every single day. By the 4th day (and we stayed 12!) I called Housekeeping and told them we didn't want any service.

And I had to drive to Wal Mart for basketball shorts, and plain t-shirts for my 16 y/o son.

 

[laura74]

I just discovered your TR and I'm enjoying the gluten free reviews. Several years ago I started breaking out in hives and the only thing that offered relief was skipping gluten. I've been ok for the last several years so I'm not sure what that was all about but I do know how difficult it is to avoid eating bread, especially at breakfast! At least they now have more options for you. I've noticed the gluten free aisles at the grocery store are a lot bigger now.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Yay on seeing the pin stroller!

Lol at Dave and the kids being locked out of the room

Also on getting towel animals - so that was the trick

 

[CathrynRose]

“Dear Rosa—please take these very good dairy free cookies. From, The ___ Family.” I was kind of hesitant about him leaving the note, because Ari's handwriting doesn't look like a kid's at all—he has this very tiny, very neat printing. I thought kids leaving cookies was cute and fun, but grown-ups leaving them would be...weird, and it wouldn't be at all clear that a kid wrote the note. But I guess she didn't think it was too weird, since she took the cookies AND left towel animals in their place (the towel animals were right where the note and cookies had been). Now I ran into Rosa later in the trip, and it was clear she spoke pretty much no English, so I'm not sure how she even figured out what the note said or that the kids were giving the cookies away.

I missed this, the first time around. It was Rosa. Hmph.

Strong perfume, older. Yeah. That was her.

ETA ~ I was in 7240, and my g/f was in 7239. We probably crossed paths. I was there from 9/18 - 9/29.

 

[kokotg]

haha. My DD13 is far more internet and computer savvy than me in general. And she remembered the book when I insisted on showing the kids your post.

Our copy is still on a shelf in our living room; it's one of the few board books I haven't been able to part with. My youngest is five, though, so we're not TOO far out from board books yet. Maybe I'll read Architecture Colors to my grandchildren one day

That cracks me up about the cookies! Unless, of course, she didn't understand it at all, but was really hungry.

I totally know what you mean about the names! We kept hearing Landon and anything with "ayden" in it--Cayden, Jayden, Brayden, Aiden, etc. But we DID hear two Brynns and a Sawyer! We've only ever met one person with Julia's name before, and none with our other kids' names. Another Disney first!

I know one other Julia about the same age--my cousin's little girl. No Brynns or Sawyers that I can think of, though!

Great update!

That's too funny about the names. When we were at our childbirth class for Maddie the woman teaching the class asked what everyone was having and what they planned to name it (seemed like a terrible idea to open up that can of worms in a room full of pregnant ladies). We were the only couple not having a boy, and 5 of 6 of them were planning to name the little boys Aiden! I realize that Madison is very unorigional, but she's named for my grandmother, so we were pretty set on that.

I think Aidan kind of snuck up on a lot of people; it wasn't popular until recently, so a lot of people having their first kids don't really realize how many other Aidans/Aidens/Aydens/etc. there are out there these days. And, of course, a lot of people just love the name and don't care if it's popular or not. I think it's a great name; it's just funny how it's exploded over the past decade or so.

I'm enjoying your report.

Lemme ask you something - I saw from your "view" outside your POP room, you were in the 80's. And then I saw your above statement.... was your maid named "Rosa". We kept missing things, little things, every single day. By the 4th day (and we stayed 12!) I called Housekeeping and told them we didn't want any service.

And I had to drive to Wal Mart for basketball shorts, and plain t-shirts for my 16 y/o son.

oh no! That's not what you want to deal with on vacation! She was Rosa, or at least that's what the card in our room said. We don't have any evidence that our losing stuff was anyone's fault but our own, though. We're not really the best about keeping up with stuff (well, I am, of course, but not SOME people in my family. A certain other grown-up in my immediate family, for example, just lost his NEW ugly hat today, at Six Flags )

 

[kokotg]

I just discovered your TR and I'm enjoying the gluten free reviews. Several years ago I started breaking out in hives and the only thing that offered relief was skipping gluten. I've been ok for the last several years so I'm not sure what that was all about but I do know how difficult it is to avoid eating bread, especially at breakfast! At least they now have more options for you. I've noticed the gluten free aisles at the grocery store are a lot bigger now.

Glad the gluten reactions stopped for you! That makes things a lot easier. Yeah, breakfast was the toughest meal; at home we alternate chex cereal and protein shakes most of the time, but neither of those really works when you're traveling (or at least when you're traveling without a fridge).

Yay on seeing the pin stroller!

Lol at Dave and the kids being locked out of the room

Also on getting towel animals - so that was the trick

I guess it's one trick, anyway Really, I think we've only gotten a creative mousekeeper one year. It seems to be mostly luck of the draw!

I missed this, the first time around. It was Rosa. Hmph.

Strong perfume, older. Yeah. That was her.

ETA ~ I was in 7240, and my g/f was in 7239. We probably crossed paths. I was there from 9/18 - 9/29.

We probably did! We were 7247 and...the one next door (I had to ask the kids; I didn't remember either of the numbers)...I can't remember how the numbers work--if odds and evens are separate--sounds like you might have been just a few doors down from us!

 

[CathrynRose]

A certain other grown-up in my immediate family, for example, just lost his NEW ugly hat today, at Six Flags )

I wonder if Rosa was there.... ?

We didn't really have any evidence of it either. I even said to my son "You probably didn't bring (this shirt, that shirt, these shorts, those shorts)" but, no kidding, by the 4th day when we called he had the pair of shorts he had on, and one other pair....that's it.

And the shirt situation... I don't know what he had or didn't. But to prove me wrong, he stuffed all his clothes into his suit case, and it was just above half full.... a case that we struggled to close, on the way down.

That's why I called and just said no service. I figured we'd get towels, make the beds, no big deal. And I didn't wanna make accusations, when it didn't make any sense. KWIM?

Ugh. I hate to think that's what happened, but yuck.

Alright - back to your report.


ETA ~ My son made light of it all, thankfully. At the end of the trip when I was concerned about luggage space with what we had bought, he goes "Oh, we'll have room since half my wardrobe was taken......" Funny, but not. LOL!

 

[kokotg]

Chapter 20: Boma

Boma is Dave's favorite restaurant anywhere, not just at Disney World. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get away with planning a Disney trip that didn't include Boma even if I wanted to. But really I like Boma pretty well, too (I should mention here that I pretty much eat like a five year old much of the time. Actually, I'm a good bit pickier than my own five year old. So I am not wowed by Boma's selection of exotic soups and all that like Dave is. But I don't mind spices most of the time, so I can fill up on meat and potatoes and fruit just fine at Boma). The kids have inherited Dave's love of Boma...although, really, I think they just like buffets and have heard Dave talk about Boma so much that that's what they think of when they think of buffets.

Usually we get to Boma early enough that we have a few minutes to hang out looking at animals before our pager goes off. But this time we...got lost. I guess things are different this year than last, with the new villas and all...anyway, somehow we missed our turn off to the main building and wound up in a parking deck before we finally found someone to give us directions and get us pointed in the right direction again. Dave was freaking out. He hates being lost at all, and being lost AND late for his Boma reservation was the worst thing ever.

But, finally, we made it, only a few minutes late for our reservation:

At last!

And then Ari started melting down. Milo and Gus pretty much never complain about not eating gluten. Ari...complains a lot. But sometimes he's perfectly okay with it and stays cheerful. And then sometimes he'll work himself into a frenzy of grumpiness, and it just spirals out of control and he can't seem to get over it. This was one of those times. Before the meal even started, we'd had stern talks and threats to take him back to the hotel. I was handling most of this because I didn't want anything to spoil Dave's special Boma lovefest. So Ari and I were both in bad moods by the time we sat down.

Our server came over to take our drink orders and told us the chef would be out to take us around and show us what we could eat at the buffet. The chef showed up very quickly and walked us around. Most of the stuff was already gluten-free...I'd say at least 70% of it. The chef would just point to each dish and say either “this is good,” or “this is not good.” There was meat, and potatoes, and fruit for me, so I was all good. Dave was disappointed about a few things he couldn't have, because he likes to try pretty much everything at Boma, but there was still plenty for him to eat. Milo and Gus had chicken drumsticks and mashed potatoes from the kids' section, and tried a few things from other places in the buffet, and they were happy with that.

Ari was not happy. Not at all. He was tired of chicken. He didn't like the chicken they had in the adult buffet, which had some kind of spices on it. He grudgingly agreed to have some of the roast, but he wasn't happy with it, either. He mostly wound up eating mashed potatoes and fruit, I think. He had his (angry) eye on the pasta with red sauce and the macaroni and cheese in the kids' section.

Example of unadventurous eater's plate

Somewhat more adventurous plate

He cheered up a bit when we got to dessert. The chef had told us they had gluten-free zebra domes in the back and that we just needed to ask our server for them when we were ready. Which we did, and got this:

Pretty! Five zebra domes and, mysteriously, only four brownies

A couple of the regular desserts were also gluten-free. I had these little peanut butter things:

And then some kind of fruity thing. I don't remember what it was. Everyone except me loved the zebra domes. Too much sweet, not enough chocolate for me. But the peanut butter thingies were really good.

I look back on this year's Boma meal as a really tiring experience. But of course we'll be back. For Dave. Maybe we'll leave Ari at the hotel next time.

Next up: Hollywood Studios

 

[kokotg]

Chapter 21: Monday wrap-up and new things

We went back to Pop, hoping very much that Ari's mood would improve by the next day, because we had a very long day planned. Rope drop at Hollywood Studios and staying all the way through to Fantasmic at 8:30. Would we make it?!

New things:
1. First time eating at Flame Tree Barbecue
2. First time walking the Cretaceous Trail
3. First time seeing The Secret Pin Trading Stroller
4. First pin trading, period!