MagicBands, MNSSHP, Must-Try Snacks, Food and Wine Festival-- a brief report!

[JennyMP03]

Hello everyone! After lurking these forums for several years and desperately pining to return to Disney World for five long years, I finally got my trip last week. I kept many things I'd learned from these forums in mind as we toured. I'm not going to make a long trip report, but I would like to share a few things that worked well for us and a few that didn't!

My trip crew was just my husband and myself. We were celebrating our fifth anniversary and wore our buttons every day. We received many congratulations, a free sweet cream cheese pretzel in Magic Kingdom, and a free coffee from the Polynesian!

MagicBands and FastPass+

I was immensely excited to test out this system. I enjoy planning and thought FastPass+ would work well for my husband and me. And the passes themselves did! I loved selecting them and being able to board everything quickly. Between FastPass+ and the paper FastPass system, we almost never waited in standby during the entire trip.

However, our MagicBands didn't work for FastPass+! My passes were still in the computer system, but the MagicBands didn't register them at all. We went to Guest Relations twice in an attempt to resolve the issue to no avail. Their guess is that when I linked my Halloween party tickets on My Disney Experience, it blocked the FastPass+. I've seen it advised on this forum and did it anyway, so allow me to reiterate now that I've learned my lesson the hard way: don't link your party tickets to MDE.

They sent the issue to a tech team, said they'd call us, and never did. However, the Guest Relations workers were very kind about it and gave us a few paper FastPass tickets for our trouble.

Their solution was to tell us to use our Key to the World to scan at each ride for our FastPass+. As the entire FastPass+ system is pretty new, many cast members had no idea this was possible. The people on Space Mountain gave us a very difficult time when we tried to explain that our passes were on our KTTW cards.

We learned to walk up and scan our KTTW card quickly in the queue without giving the cast member time to object. When it turned green and displayed our name and FastPass+ time on the screen, many of them said, "Wow! I didn't know you could do that without the bands!" They always permitted us to go ahead after that, but when I walked up and tried to explain first before scanning, it resulted in arguments as the CMs told me, "No, you can't use that card for the FastPass system." Not anyone's fault, I know-- just a new system that still has some issues to be resolved!

Overall, I love the FastPass+ system. Once we got into a rhythm of scanning our KTTW cards quickly to show that we had valid passes, it was smooth sailing and saved us a lot of time and running about after paper FastPass!

MNSSHP

We had a large amount of rain during our trip, and I was desperately hoping that the rain would hold off at least for MNSSHP. No such luck. As we stood in front of the castle watching the first Villains show on Tuesday, 9/24/13, it began raining and an announcement was issued that the show had to be canceled because of it. We tried to watch the second showing later and it began raining again. We never got to see it.

I can't pretend it wasn't frustrating being in costume with rain pouring down. But overall, we enjoyed the party! I was nervous about dressing up, but I was glad I did once I got there. I dressed as Snow White and was worried I'd be the only adult in a Disney Princess costume. So many adults are dressed up in all manner of costumes that you won't feel out of place. This includes the bus ride to MK, even if it's earlier in the evening before the party begins. The CMs called me "Snow" or "Princess" and I ate it up.

We watched the castle light show and Hallowishes from the Tomorrowland Terrace, a tip I'd read on this board. It was a great view! We sat to wait until the show began, then moved up to stand by the rail. Hallowishes was fantastic.

We loved the Halloween parade too, though the Headless Horseman couldn't ride due to the rain. We watched it near the Sleepy Hollow area because I wanted a Pumpkin Spice Waffle Sundae. This is one of the exclusive party foods. It was a long line to get one, but it was worth it! Very good. Not an overwhelming pumpkin flavor, and the powdered sugar was mixed with cinnamon.

We trick-or-treated near the end of the party. It had stopped raining by this point, thankfully. We're two adults with no kids, but no one was bothered by us participating-- plenty of other adults were doing the same. We both had our bags filled with candy and it was a fantastic experience to trick-or-treat in the Magic Kingdom!

We didn't collect any autographs because the rain slowed us down in many regards. We hoped to get the Seven Dwarves autographs during the first parade, but as it was raining at that time, many people were waiting for the second parade and in line for pictures during the first. Not a huge loss, but if you can wait, it's definitely best to get your MNSSHP tickets for a day when it's not scheduled to rain.

Food and Wine Festival

We've never been to FW before, but we were definitely looking forward to it. We attended the soft opening on Thursday, 9/26/13, and the lines were non-existent. A cast member we asked didn't even know there was a soft opening that day, but I'd seen it on Undercover Tourist's crowd calendars. Sure enough, the booths all began opening around noon. We had a wonderful day touring the World Showcase while trying various offerings from the booths.

I very much enjoyed the Kalua Pork Slider from Hawaii, the Kimchi Dog from South Korea, the Key Lime wine from Florida, the Italian Margarita from Italy, and of course the Cheddar Soup from Canada.

As I said, there were no lines at the booths and low crowds overall on Thursday. When we returned on Friday, there were queues winding around on both sides of popular booths such as Canada. We were so glad we took advantage of the soft opening!




Since this post is getting rather long, I'll share the snacks and restaurants we tried in a subsequent post.

 

[JennyMP03]

We visited during free dining and ate at the following restaurants:



Le Cellier dinner
The filet mignon with risotto and truffle butter sauce is so good. I don't usually like mushrooms, but it was fantastic. Likewise, the maple creme brulee is the best I've ever had. I don't usually like creme brulee either, but it's light like a mousse and the crunchy topping is sweet and doesn't have that "burnt" taste like some creme brulee does.

If you're going to use two table service credits at one location, I feel this is a good choice. It was perfect for a romantic dinner.


Akershus breakfast: I loved this so much. The pictures with Belle are wonderful, and we got to meet Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White, and Aurora during our meal. Ariel is my favorite, and I wore my Little Mermaid shirt and told her that she was my favorite when she came to our table. She was so sweet about it, and before she left, she hugged me and said, "Have a great day, Princess!" I know it's silly, but it made my whole day!

The food was all decent for a breakfast buffet. The bacon was crisp, the potatoes were savory. I had a few pastries and fruit from the cold bar. The cherry danish and chocolate croissants were very good. I'd read about the lingonberry muffin on the forums but didn't think much of it.


Ohana dinner: So much food. I get full quickly and allowed myself only two bites of anything. Even still, I was full before dessert ever came. I loved the chicken potstickers dipped in the peanut sauce. The peanut sauce was fantastic over the lo mein noodles or with meat dipped in it. I'm not huge on chunks of meat, but the chicken had a nice smoky grilled flavor.

I had a Lapu Lapu since I'd read about it here. It was delicious, but it was strong. Our dinner was late at 9:30 anyway-- between a long day, a late meal, and a strong rum drink, I was EXHAUSTED. I was falling asleep in the lounge while waiting for my husband to wash up after dinner.

It was all very good, but we both agreed it's just too much food for us. We probably wouldn't do it again, but I'd recommend anyone to try it at least once.


Sanaa lunch: This was one of my favorite meals. The restaurant is beautiful as is everything at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and it wasn't very busy as we scheduled our lunch for 2:20 in the afternoon. They gave us a table by the window per my request. I worried no animals would be out because it had rained heavily all day, but several zebra were grazing and came close to the windows. I loved watching them while we ate.

The food was excellent. We had the naan bread service, and I especially enjoyed the garlic naan. We ordered a red chile spread, jalapeno dip, and mango chutney as our dips. I wasn't crazy about any of them, but we both ordered the slow-cooked meats with rice as our meals and I liked using the sauce that came with them for the naan.

I had the butter chicken and spicy durban chicken as my two meats. They were both very good, though the durban chicken was a little spicier than I anticipated. I couldn't eat much of it, but the butter chicken and rice were more than enough to fill me up anyway.

We had the dessert trio. I didn't care for any of it except the chai cream, which was creamy and well-spiced. Very good!


Boma dinner:

I remember enjoying this on our honeymoon five years ago, but there weren't many things on the buffet that I enjoyed this time. The ribs and the peanut rice were okay, and the zebra domes are always good.

I always read about their soups, so I tried the carrot ginger and the chicken coconut curry stew. The carrot ginger is... interesting. It's sweet and thick, almost like a pudding. I didn't eat much of it.

The coconut chicken curry stew was pretty good. It was spicy with just a hint of the sweet coconut.

Overall, I just wasn't smitten with Boma this time.


Via Napoli:

I've read many good reviews of the pizza here and was excited to try it. It was just okay as far as I'm concerned, but my husband thought it was excellent. I like thicker crust and it was thinner than I anticipated. We had the pepperoni and four cheese pizzas. All the toppings were fresh.

We had the "ugly but good" sundaes for dessert. These are excellent with the tart cherry sauce they use.

 

[rmprhp]

Thanks for a great report! I was just about to link my ticket to MDE, you saved me! Also, did CMs pass out treat bags or do you need to bring something yourself for trick-or-treating?

 

[JennyMP03]

Thanks for a great report! I was just about to link my ticket to MDE, you saved me! Also, did CMs pass out treat bags or do you need to bring something yourself for trick-or-treating?

Oh, I'm so glad! Linking those tickets results in nothing but trouble!

We were given bags when we entered the park. They didn't seem very big at first, but we did get them filled up! You can bring a backpack or satchel or whatever suits you, dump your candy into it, and have your treat bag filled again if you want. We decided what we collected on the first round was plenty for us. It was all good candy, too: Twix, Hershey's, Sour Patch Straws, fruit gummies, Laffy Taffy, etc.



I wanted to mention the snacks/drinks I've read about here for years and finally got to try on this trip:

Drinks

• Lapu Lapu from Ohana: Very sweet and pineapple-y, but you can definitely taste the rum in it too. It was awesome, and it was very strong. Rum makes me drowsy, and I was close to falling asleep right there in the Poly lounge by the time I finished the drink and dinner.
  
• Eiffel Sour Slush from France FW booth: Super sweet and cherry-tart. It tasted good, but wasn't very strong.
  
• Italian Margarita: Wonderful lemon taste, but not strong at all.
  
• Grey Goose Slush: Again, very pleasant frozen lemonade taste, but it may as well not have had alcohol in it.
  
• Grand Marnier slush: My husband had this one, but I tasted it. He said the alcohol content was negligible, but he liked the taste. It's like orange dreamsicle. Sweeter than I would prefer.
  
• Pomegranate Margarita from La Cava in Epcot's Mexico: Now this was definitely a strong drink. I was quite relaxed when I was finished, and the taste was wonderful too: sweet and tart like pomegranate should be. The chili powder-salt rim was a great addition. Highly recommended to any margarita lovers.

Snacks:

• Sweet Cream Cheese Pretzel: Mine was fresh and hot, and it was fantastic. It's not TOO sweet, and the cream cheese isn't overwhelming. Just enough to go well with the chewy pretzel surrounding it. Given to me as an anniversary gift from the Lunching Pad in Tomorrowland, Magic Kingdom.
  
• Jalapeno Pretzel: This wasn't anything like I imagined, but it was wonderful and one of my favorite snacks. There were no actual jalapeno bits in it, but the bread was spiced with jalapeno flavoring. The cheese inside was a white cheese-- maybe spiced cream cheese? Not certain, but I'd definitely get it again. I found mine at a fruit and pretzel stand in AK, back in Africa near the safari.
  
• Karamel Kuche fresh Caramel Popcorn: Wonderful, and I'm not a huge caramel corn fan. Sweet and crunchy. Great to keep in my backpack and take a handful of throughout the day. Karamel Kuche in Germany, Epcot.
  
• Karamel Kuche Milk Chocolate Caramel with Sea Salt: Very creamy and rich-- a thick square of caramel with chocolate coating. I would have liked more sea salt. Good, but I think once was enough for me. Karamel Kuche in Germany, Epcot.
  
• Rainbow Kakigori with Sweetened Milk Topping: Not for me. I didn't like the texture of the ice, the cream was too thick and sickly sweet, and the flavors all mixed into a dark, unappetizing swirl. Available at a stand toward the front of Japan, Epcot.
  
• Carrot Cake Cookie: Very good. Soft, well-spiced carrot cake cookies, and the cream cheese inside was rich and sweet, almost like a buttercream frosting in texture. I couldn't eat very much of it at once. Not sure I'd want it again, but nice to try once. I purchased mine from the Villains boutique in DHS.
  
• Chicken Fried Rice from Yak and Yeti Quick-Service window: For a snack credit/price, this could easily be a full lunch. I couldn't eat all of mine. Decent fried rice for the cost. I'd get it again if I were over that way and hungry.
  
• The "Strike it Rich" sundae from Ghirardelli: I loved this sundae, as I thought I would. It was huge and I could only eat half of it. It was butter pecan ice cream swirled with warm fudge and butterscotch. I'd definitely get it again. Ghirardelli is located in Downtown Disney.
  
• Napoleon: I've never had a Napoleon before, and I think maybe it's just not my kind of dessert. I'm not a huge fan of the texture of the pastry or of custard in general, but my husband thought it was very good. Available at the bakery in France, Epcot.
  
• Strawberry Shortcake from Sunshine Seasons: Fresh berries and decent shortbread, but it didn't blow me away. More whipped cream flavor than anything else.

I think that's everything I wanted to share. It was a great trip overall despite massive amounts of rain and some MagicBand trouble. Thanks to everyone on these forums-- I've gleaned plenty of tips here over the years that made our time at WDW extra magical!