Oops, We Forgot to Leave Our Weather at Home! A Fantastic Festival of the Arts 2025 TR! (Updated 6/1!!)

[SimplyGoofy]

I’m sorry about your flight delays (and even more sorry for your early-morning Uber stress!), but glad it worked out in the end. I know your mom doesn’t love catching a rideshare by herself so it worked out well that you could go together!

And WOW, what a gorgeous room! I’ve gotten a corner room at Riverside (the two windows are nice!), but the double balcony in that calm-looking part of the Boardwalk looks LOVELY. I love the video you added - it really helps show the layout and location of your room!

 

[VAtink]

Following along! What a crazy day of travel for you! Glad all ended well with an early check in and a fantastic room.

Thanks for following along! Yeah, it was a lot of delays, and the driver not showing up was super stressful, but thankfully everything worked out in the end!

I’m headed to FArts in a week and starting my split stay at BWV! Looking forward to the festival food, and shopping the art. I feel you on the first floor room, not my fave. I once had a 1BR BW view that was one of the few on the actual boardwalk. Zero privacy, and it butted up against JellyRolls. I expected to hear music late into the night, or rowdy customers coming and going, but surprisingly I didn’t. Room was freshly renovated and lovely. Will be interesting to see how the renovated rooms have aged in a years time. Sorry to hear yours was looking worn.

I always wondered if the rooms adjacent to Jellyrolls were noisy, that's good to hear they weren't! I had the option to stay in a Boardwalk room on the DVC side in September, but opted not too since I was worried about the noise.

I hope you have an amazing trip, and have fun at FArts!

 

[VAtink]

I’m sorry about your flight delays (and even more sorry for your early-morning Uber stress!), but glad it worked out in the end. I know your mom doesn’t love catching a rideshare by herself so it worked out well that you could go together!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad it all worked out well in the end. I was really worried about getting my mom to the hotel, originally she was scheduled to come in on Wednesday, and not only did she not want to Uber, she didn't want to hire a car service either. She was just going to find a taxi. Fortunately she changed her flight to be Tuesday instead so we were able to head to the hotel together!

And WOW, what a gorgeous room! I’ve gotten a corner room at Riverside (the two windows are nice!), but the double balcony in that calm-looking part of the Boardwalk looks LOVELY. I love the video you added - it really helps show the layout and location of your room!

That room was so beautiful, it was super quiet, and I loved the location, it almost felt like small garden style apartment complex. That plus all the natural light made it one of our favorite rooms we've stayed in!

 

[VAtink]

Day 1, Part 3: Finally Back at Farts!​

We last left off making our way to Epcot.

Our first stop, per usual on our first day, was the store at the IG to browse festival merch and pick up the scavenger hunt maps.

I was surprised that they hardly had any festival merch there this time, they only had the spirit jerseys, tumblers, and the passholder shirts. I had wanted to get the passholder shirt, and was worried they’d be gone since I saw on Facebook they were out of all but extra smalls a few days prior to the trip. So I was happy when I saw they had all the sizes, however I was also confused since I saw online that the shirts were embroidered, but the ones at this store were not. I figured that they had run out of all the embroidered ones and just restocked with the cheaper screen print ones, which while not ideal, I still liked the shirt so got it.

Purchases in hand we finally made our way to the food booth I was most excited about, Pop Eats!

I have been raving about how good the grilled cheese is there to my mom so I couldn’t wait for her to try it out for herself.

Now, this day was a dreary rainy cold day, which really helped with crowds to the point that there were basically no lines at the food booths, so we quickly got our grilled cheese, then made our way to the picnic benches in the new grassy area (also empty thanks to the drizzle). We found a bench that was relatively dry thanks to the semi-cover so settled in to enjoy our food.



The grilled cheese was once again amazing! I love love love this dish!

Once I finished my grilled cheese, I left mom at the table and ran over to the Craftsman’s Courtyard where I picked up the Beef Wellington, the Mussels, and the Nitro Oatmeal Stout.







Now I had high hopes for the beef wellington, I had the previous version at this festival before and loved it, and this new version also looked good.

Well, sadly I wasn’t a huge fan of it. The croissant was just too much and didn’t meld well with the other flavors on the plate. The beef was good and the sauce and mushrooms were good, but it was so overpowered by that massive croissant. I ended up just eating the beef and sauce and leaving most of the croissant.

The beer I got on the other hand was delicious!

My mom really enjoyed the mussels, even though they were very messy to eat.

After finishing up the food we had a chore to take care of. This day they released the new passholder magnets, and since the park was dead due to the icky weather, I figured this would be a great day to pick them up, so we made our way over to Creations.

Sure enough, we got there and saw there was basically no line for the magnet pick-up, so we went and got them. Happy we finally got passholder magnets!

After grabbing the magnets we decided to do some shopping since we were in the store already.

Next up: Why Do We Keep Confusing Everyone at Disney??​

 

[Simba's Mom]

How did you find out about the Passholder magnets? I activated and Annual Pass about 4 months ago, but I never received any notification about the magnet. I just happened to be in Creations, buying a Passholder T-shirt, when I saw this very long line. Being nosy, I asked, and that's when I first heard about the magnets. Was I supposed to have signed up somewhere? Or did the fact that I have a Sorcerer's Pass make me ineligible?

 

[VAtink]

How did you find out about the Passholder magnets? I activated and Annual Pass about 4 months ago, but I never received any notification about the magnet. I just happened to be in Creations, buying a Passholder T-shirt, when I saw this very long line. Being nosy, I asked, and that's when I first heard about the magnets. Was I supposed to have signed up somewhere? Or did the fact that I have a Sorcerer's Pass make me ineligible?

I found out via social media, I'm in some passholder Facebook groups, and the official Disney passholder Instagram page posted about it as well. There is also the passholder buzz section of the MDE app, but I rarely get info there.

 

[precious pixie]

I'll take a blustery day with low clouds! Still was better weather then you or your mom would have had at home Hooray for getting the magnets!

 

[Simba's Mom]

I found out via social media, I'm in some passholder Facebook groups, and the official Disney passholder Instagram page posted about it as well. There is also the passholder buzz section of the MDE app, but I rarely get info there.

Thanks for the info. I guess I need to investigate these things-didm't know about Passholder groups on Facebook, never looked at Instagram, and I didn't even know about the "pass holder buzz section of the MDE app. I'm really "out of the loop!"

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I love that grilled cheese and soup combo as well. And such a fun presentation. What a bummer that the beef wellington wasn't great. And speaking of bummers, I am a HUGE fan of the scavenger hunt at every festival and always get the map ... except the last two festivals I've skipped it because the stencils are not at all compelling or "worth" the $10. I guess it makes sense for the arts festival but hoping they do something different for F&G. Yay for getting the magnet!

 

[VAtink]

I'll take a blustery day with low clouds! Still was better weather then you or your mom would have had at home Hooray for getting the magnets!

Oh yeah, it was in the teens at home, even though it was chilly it was definitely much warmer in Disney!

 

[VAtink]

I love that grilled cheese and soup combo as well. And such a fun presentation. What a bummer that the beef wellington wasn't great. And speaking of bummers, I am a HUGE fan of the scavenger hunt at every festival and always get the map ... except the last two festivals I've skipped it because the stencils are not at all compelling or "worth" the $10. I guess it makes sense for the arts festival but hoping they do something different for F&G. Yay for getting the magnet!

That grilled cheese is so good, I need to try to recreate it at home! Yeah, I was upset about the beef wellington, I really liked the previous version too, hopefully they'll bring that one back.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the stencils. I even commented to the CM when we picked up our prizes that I was sad they didn't have the paintable statues this year, and she said she's been hearing that a lot!

 

[VAtink]

Day 1, Part 4: Why Do We Keep Confusing Everyone at Disney??​

We last left off getting our passholder magnets in Creations then decided to browse the store a bit.

I grabbed the festival journal and pen (going to be great for taking trip notes!), and saw that in this store they had the passholder shirt too, but these were the embroidered ones! Since I would rather have the embroidered one, I grabbed one to exchange for the screen print one I had bought at the other store.

Normally I’d do mobile check-out, but since we wanted to exchange shirts we got in line.

The CM at the check-out was SO confused about the different shirts. At first she thought the one from the other store wasn’t a passholder shirt, but then upon closer look realized they were the same shirt, just one was embroidered the other wasn’t. She was also shocked that both tags had the same price! When she tried to make the exchange though it was showing the non-embroidered one was $5 less, which confused her even more since now she didn’t know how to do the exchange.

I suggested just refund the one shirt and we’d just pay for the new one, but she decided to call over a manager instead.

The manager eventually came over and seemed really pissed we wanted to exchange the non-embroidered one for the embroidered one. Maybe she hoped no one would notice they made that change? She basically scolded us for wanting to exchange it. Eventually though she told the cashier that she would just need to refund the old shirt and make us pay for the new one separately since the prices were different. But the cashier was still confused because the tag on the screen print shirt was the same price as the embroidered. So she kept pushing that, but the manager was on a completely different page and didn’t understand what the issue was, so they went back and forth for a few minutes before the manager finally realized the issue wasn’t us trying to exchange it anymore, the issue was the tags were wrong on the cheaper shirt. This whole thing took over 20 minutes, kind of ridiculous.

We did eventually exchange the shirt and made our way out of the store!

After that fun interaction we needed a break, but decided to take the long way out of the park so we could check out the food booths around WS and pick up our favorite bottle of wine in Germany.

On the way over we stopped for some photopass pictures!












Once in WS we quickly stopped at the Mexico booth where my mom got the Strawberry Fields Margarita, and I got the Floridita. Can’t stroll WS without strolling drinks.



I preferred the Floridita, it tasted more like a traditional margarita, the Strawberry Fields was super sweet so wasn’t for me, but my mom loved it.

We made our way around WS, not stopping until Germany. Here we popped into the store to pick up our bottle of wine.

Now, by this point I was exhausted from the early wake up and lack of sleep, so I was a bit oblivious to my surroundings, and because of this I seem to have walked into something Disney was filming by accident!

Once in the store I made a bee-line to the bottle of wine we like, but I didn’t notice the film crew and the CMs being filmed right in front of the bottles, so I just walked right into the shot. It wasn’t until I had grabbed the bottle and turned around that I saw all the CMs in suits standing around and the camera aiming at me. So yeah, there may be some Disney media coming out with me standing in the background awkwardly holding a bottle of wine.

On the same note, there seemed to be something going on with Disney execs that week, we saw a ton of Disney suits around the parks in large groups and even around the hotel, and I saw on social media that Josh was there that week. Not sure what was going on, but I am curious to know if I did make it into whatever they were filming!

Bottle of wine purchased we made our way out of the park and back to our room for a much needed nap! On the way out we stopped for another photopass picture!



Next up: Back to Epcot!​

 

[Wood Nymph]

On the same note, there seemed to be something going on with Disney execs that week, we saw a ton of Disney suits around the parks in large groups and even around the hotel, and I saw on social media that Josh was there that week. Not sure what was going on, but I am curious to know if I did make it into whatever they were filming!

That was about the filming. It would be fun to see if they kept you in the film.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Oooh, you might become Disney famous!! I'm curious what bottle is your favorite in Germany? I'm generally partial to the monkey rose. Ugh on the saga with the shirt return. Very bizarre they'd do two versions.

 

[VAtink]

That was about the filming. It would be fun to see if they kept you in the film.

I wish I had asked what they were filming, I'd love to find it to see if I made the cut!

 

[VAtink]

Oooh, you might become Disney famous!! I'm curious what bottle is your favorite in Germany? I'm generally partial to the monkey rose. Ugh on the saga with the shirt return. Very bizarre they'd do two versions.

Haha, that would be fun, I wish I knew what they were filming!

This is the bottle we like (we liked it so much my mom had her wine distributer get some bottles to give me for Christmas!):


Yeah, it's super weird they have two versions of that shirt. They also had two versions of the non-passholder shirt as well. At first I thought it was because they were running low on the originals, but now I'm wondering if maybe they're trying to appeal to more people? Like my dad hates shirts with embroidery on them, and my mom hates shirts with pockets, so they would have preferred the alternate versions of those shirts more. Who knows

 

[Araminta18]

Now I had high hopes for the beef wellington, I had the previous version at this festival before and loved it, and this new version also looked good.

Well, sadly I wasn’t a huge fan of it. The croissant was just too much and didn’t meld well with the other flavors on the plate. The beef was good and the sauce and mushrooms were good, but it was so overpowered by that massive croissant. I ended up just eating the beef and sauce and leaving most of the croissant.

Oh really? We ended up loving this version, though to be fair we did NOT like the previous versions LOL I do agree that the beef was really good

After finishing up the food we had a chore to take care of. This day they released the new passholder magnets, and since the park was dead due to the icky weather, I figured this would be a great day to pick them up, so we made our way over to Creations.

Sure enough, we got there and saw there was basically no line for the magnet pick-up, so we went and got them. Happy we finally got passholder magnets!

Nice! Most times we walked by the line was MASSIVE.

On the way over we stopped for some photopass pictures!

i'm so jealous you got that Figment drawing the heart - we tried like 4 times to get that one and no luck!

Once in the store I made a bee-line to the bottle of wine we like, but I didn’t notice the film crew and the CMs being filmed right in front of the bottles, so I just walked right into the shot. It wasn’t until I had grabbed the bottle and turned around that I saw all the CMs in suits standing around and the camera aiming at me. So yeah, there may be some Disney media coming out with me standing in the background awkwardly holding a bottle of wine.

LOL you'll be famous!!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Mmmm… that grilled cheese combo looks SO good. It seems to win raves from everyone every year. Your mom’s mussels also caught my eye - I’m glad she enjoyed them!

That’s so bizarre about the shirt. Perhaps that manager was having a bad day? There’s no reason your exchange/return should’ve taken 20 minutes. I think grabbing a drink and some fun pictures after that debacle was the right choice. I especially love the picture of you both posing with the Mary Poppins penguins!

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Finally caught up again. I know Josh was there for Asoka (I never spell her name correctly) day at Studios. I saw him in some videos as a surprise guest, along with the person who voiced Asoka for the animated series.

I really, really hope we see you in the background of something. I'm going to be watching all the social media and commercials REALLY closely now!

 

[disneyAndi14]

How frustrating with the shirt exchange, like it was your fault Disney bought both type of shirts and the price tag was the same, ugh! I’m glad you got the one you wanted!
I love the Figment magic shot!
You should have told them I can be in the promo, I love this wine!