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

[Mary Pops In]

Sorry you had such lousy weather. We arrived the evening of the 23rd and I thought my sister was going to cry over how "cold" it was. When we left town it was -22°, so I was overjoyed that it was "warm".

Your room was beautiful. As you said, the natural light made it special. I will have to ask for end rooms.

You mentioned that Farts is your favorite festival. Is that because of the food or a combination of everything they offer? I was interested in seeing the art. Sadly, all the booths were sold out of the smaller prints and I opted not to purchase the postcards. I did buy a Thomas Kincaid Christmas canvas, though.

I'm looking forward to following alon̈g to see what other adventures you get yourselves into.

 

[VAtink]

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

Haha, to each their own, right?

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

Yeah, the silver lining to the ick weather while we were there, at least the first few days....no lines!

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

Aw, I'm sorry! Did you by any chance get the night shot with the paintbrush and the neon Figment? We tried to get that one but they kept telling us that one was discontinued, but it was definitely one that Disney had just put out on social media. We got the Mickey version, but not figment.

LOL you'll be famous!!

Haha, now if only Disney would pay me for my cameo so I could afford another trip sooner!

 

[VAtink]

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 grilled cheese is probably one of my favorite festival foods of all the festivals, it's just so incredibly good!

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!

Right? It was so weird, but yeah, maybe the manager was just having a rough day. We definitely needed a drink after that! And thank you, that picture with the penguins is one of my favorites from the trip!

 

[VAtink]

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.

Ohhhh, I didn't know that! I also realized that the following week was the CM service party at MK, so perhaps another reason he and all the other suits were around then.

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!

I know, I keep looking! If you see it please let me know!

 

[VAtink]

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!

Yes! I still find it so odd they had two versions, and exchanging/returning shouldn't have been such a big hassle. Oh well, at least I got the one I wanted!

I love the Figment magic shot!

Thank you! It's really cute, they had some fun ones for this years festival.

You should have told them I can be in the promo, I love this wine!

HAAA! I should have! I could have done a full review on our favorite wine for them!

 

[VAtink]

Sorry you had such lousy weather. We arrived the evening of the 23rd and I thought my sister was going to cry over how "cold" it was. When we left town it was -22°, so I was overjoyed that it was "warm".

Thanks! Yeah, I mean it was 9 degrees in DC when we flew down, so the 40s weren't all that horrible compared to home. I just wish it wasn't so rainy, at least Wednesday had a decent dry break, but Thursday it just rained and misted all day which got old very fast!

Your room was beautiful. As you said, the natural light made it special. I will have to ask for end rooms.

We loved that room so much, I never realized how nice the end rooms could be, but we'll definitely try to get one again!

You mentioned that Farts is your favorite festival. Is that because of the food or a combination of everything they offer? I was interested in seeing the art. Sadly, all the booths were sold out of the smaller prints and I opted not to purchase the postcards. I did buy a Thomas Kincaid Christmas canvas, though.

It's a combination of everything. I love seeing all the art, we could spend days just browsing all of it. Then there is all the other things for the festival like the chalk art (which I'm so impressed with, those artists are so talented!), the fake chalk art of the characters around Epcot which is a fun activity to try to find all of them, the paint by numbers is fun, the performances are amazing both the Broadway and the ones at the festival stage, and of course the food is so good. I think it helps it's cooler too, so we can spend more time enjoying everything before getting overheated, and we can eat more of the food!

Sorry they were out of the smaller prints when you went. There were some booths where I don't know if they just didn't do smaller prints or if they sold out where I would have bought a smaller one if they had them, but silver lining is that saved me some money!

I'm looking forward to following alon̈g to see what other adventures you get yourselves into.

Thank you! I can't wait to get into more of the fun!

 

[VAtink]

Day 1, Part 5: Back to Epcot!​

We last left off taking an afternoon break back at the Boardwalk to finish unpacking and to rest a bit.

After a nice long break in the room we were ready to head back to Epcot around 5:30.

At this point the weather had gotten worse than earlier, it had become a more steady rain and there were some strong gusty winds making it feel even colder, so it was pretty miserable out. The good news is, Epcot was pretty much empty due to this gross weather, which was actually really nice since we were usually the only people in the art booths while browsing so we could actually see everything and really spend time admiring all the art. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once we got into Epcot, our first stop was over to ride Remy with a DAS we had booked earlier in the day. I’m glad we got on this evening since this ride would go down a lot the remainder of our trip. Actually a lot of the rides seemed to struggle this week, Spaceship Earth was closed almost the entire time we were there and other rides were down a lot more frequently than we’re used to seeing. Maybe the cold was impacting them somehow?

Anyways, Remy was super fun as always!

After the ride we decided to browse some of the art booths. I ended up getting a large print of the festival poster with the characters in the 1980s costumes in front of SE, I also got some smaller prints as well, one of the Orange Bird, one with Remy, and a set of postcards of prints I loved but couldn’t justify buying all four of the large prints, they were the ones with the monorail in Epcot, Pirates, Jungle Cruise, and the Main Street Electrical Parade. And bonus, the artist was there that evening and signed them for me!










The weather just kept getting worse as the night went on, by the time we were done browsing a bunch of the art booths it had turned into a torrential downpour and the winds had gotten even stronger. We decided we needed to go indoors somewhere to get a break, so opted to head over to Morocco since the food booth there is indoors and they have some indoor seating.

On the way my mom kept trying to open her umbrella, but was having trouble since the button needs to be pressed fairly hard to get it to open. Well, at one point I look over to see her trying to open it, but for some reason she had the umbrella aiming right at her face, so if it opened it would have hit her right in the eye! I quickly grabbed it from her to avoid her from giving herself a black eye!

We eventually got to Morocco, and not surprising, we were the only ones there. We quickly ordered the chicken kabob and the avocado-coconut custard tart. We grabbed a table inside and settled in to enjoy our food.





At this point my stomach was being a bit grumpy (think I was still feeling the food poisoning from the previous night) and all that sounded appealing was very light food like veggies and some lean meat, so the kabob fit the bill nicely. I did try a bit of the tart, and my goodness that thing is good! If my stomach was feeling better I would have gotten my own!

While eating we discussed what we wanted to do the rest of the evening. I was still a bit hungry, but really didn’t want anything too heavy. The weather was also getting worse by the minute, so we decided to start making our way out, and we would stop at any food booth that had food that appealed to me. We also decided we wanted to pick up some chocolate to enjoy with the wine we had picked up earlier.

So our first stop after Morocco was Japan to browse the store there. I ended up picking up some new chopsticks since my dog keeps eating mine, we got the orange KitKats (so ridiculously good), these chocolate covered pretzel sticks, and mom got some green tea.

Goodies in hand we continued towards the exit. We checked out the various food booths we passed, but they all had super heavy items that didn’t really appeal to me that evening. We eventually made it to the IG an no luck with the food, but we figured we could swing by the Boardwalk Deli on the way to the room to see if they had a salad I could grab.

Before leaving the park, we popped into Les Halles to pick up some chocolate croissants for breakfast the following morning.

It was about 7:30 when we left the park, so earlier than we originally planned, but we were frozen and wet and frankly tired of being out in the rain and super gusty winds!

On the way back we stopped at the deli and thankfully they had salads, so we each got the mixed berry salad with chicken. We then swung by the front desk to request more towels since our room only had two bath towels and no hand towels. We also requested wine glasses.

Requests made, we made our way back to our room. A few minutes later the towels and wine glasses were dropped off. We had a nice relaxing evening in the room enjoying the salads, wine, and of course some of the chocolate we bought in Japan. Most important, we were dry!



Next up: Another Rainy Epcot Morning!​

 

[Wood Nymph]

It was about 7:30 when we left the park, so earlier than we originally planned, but we were frozen and wet and frankly tired of being out in the rain and super gusty winds!

I'm impressed with how much you got done in the cold, rainy weather.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I LOVE the artwork you bought. I've been eyeing that Remy print as well. I hadn't seen the postcards and am adding that to my list. Also now on the list are orange kit kats. And I love knowing that you can request wine glasses in the room!!

 

[MommaKetch]

Once we got into Epcot, our first stop was over to ride Remy with a DAS we had booked earlier in the day. I’m glad we got on this evening since this ride would go down a lot the remainder of our trip.

Oh wow, I'm glad you were able to get a ride! It's a good tip not to save the best for last at WDW because it might go down.

And bonus, the artist was there that evening and signed them for me!

LOVE this about FArts! I also love the art you chose.

opted to head over to Morocco since the food booth there is indoors and they have some indoor seating.

Very good to know! I always think festival food and trash can tables

I quickly grabbed it from her to avoid her from giving herself a black eye!

OMG, she is lucky you were watching!

We quickly ordered the chicken kabob and the avocado-coconut custard tart.

Looks delish! I will add it to my list of things to try this weekend.

we got the orange KitKats (so ridiculously good),

Also adding to the list! So cool. I will bring some home for DD and DS.

It was about 7:30 when we left the park, so earlier than we originally planned, but we were frozen and wet and frankly tired of being out in the rain and super gusty winds!

You both are troopers. I don't know if I would be brave enough to go out in that weather.

We also requested wine glasses.

SMART! Another perk I was not aware of, but it makes sense for a Deluxe Resort to provide those if needed.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

Ah....yes.....I remember that day. It was so gross! We were in AK and had saved EE for the end of our day riding it like 4 times in a row in the rain. We were cold and soaked getting on the bus around 5:30pm. We went back to our rooms at YC, changed clothes, and then went to Crews Cup for a warm meal and a nice glass of wine.

I had no idea you could request wine glasses from mousekeeping? I am going to file that little knowledge nugget for next trip!

My DD23 LOVED those avocado tarts --and the lamb kabob-- from Morocco as they were allergy safe for her minus the aioli on the lamb. She ate there 3 times!

I agree there seemed to be a lot of rides having extended down time that week. Luckily, we rode both SE and Remy during the first half of our trip. On our last day in the parks, the 24th, we had a LL for RnRC but it went down and it turned into an anytime pass but we were leaving DHS for EP. After riding Soarin, I stopped at a blue umbrella and the CM was able to change my anytime pass from DHS to EP. That evening, we went to Remy to use the anytime pass as our last ride of the trip and.......yeah, it had JUST went down and CMs said they had no estimate for reopening as they were waiting on the maintenance team. LOL. That LL was not meant to be used

 

[Simba's Mom]

Were those salads at Boardwalk Deli as good as they sound?

 

[VAtink]

I'm impressed with how much you got done in the cold, rainy weather.

Me too! We had such a long list of things we wanted to check out at the festival we pushed through the gross weather. I'm glad we did, it was really nice getting to check out the art in the booths while there was no one around, when the weather got nicer later in the trip those booths were packed!

 

[VAtink]

I LOVE the artwork you bought. I've been eyeing that Remy print as well. I hadn't seen the postcards and am adding that to my list. Also now on the list are orange kit kats. And I love knowing that you can request wine glasses in the room!!

Thank you! I love the Remy print, it's so cute. Those orange KitKats are so good, we ended up buying another bag later in the trip so I could have some at home too!

And yes! We didn't know we could get real wine glasses in the room until our trip in Sept/October when we asked for extra cups so we could have wine in the room, and the CM at the desk suggested they bring us actual wine glasses so we didn't have to drink out of plastic or styrofoam! When we asked at the Boardwalk this trip originally the CM said he didn't know if they could do it, but then he pulled up the things they could request and sure enough wine glasses were on the list, he was surprised too!

 

[VAtink]

Oh wow, I'm glad you were able to get a ride! It's a good tip not to save the best for last at WDW because it might go down.

Me too! Yeah, it's definitely good to get on the rides you really want as soon as you can, especially rides that go down a lot. Remy seems to always go down a few times we're in line during our trips, it's kind of wild!

LOVE this about FArts! I also love the art you chose.

Thank you! And yeah, it is so cool to be able to meet the artists and get them to sign their art for you!

Very good to know! I always think festival food and trash can tables

haha, I mean I feel like at least one meal at a festival needs to be on a trash can to really experience that festival. Just be warned, there are only like 4 tables indoors at Morocco, although there are a few more just outside (also with seats!)

OMG, she is lucky you were watching!

Right?!? I'm glad I caught it when I did!

Looks delish! I will add it to my list of things to try this weekend.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this, it wasn't too sweet, just sweet enough! (I hate super sweet things)

Also adding to the list! So cool. I will bring some home for DD and DS.

They are so good! Later in the trip we also got some chocolate in Norway with hazelnuts, and that was also really good!

You both are troopers. I don't know if I would be brave enough to go out in that weather.

Haha, we had so much we wanted to do we dragged ourselves out into the rain! I'm glad we did, it was nice not having to deal with crowds and lines!

SMART! Another perk I was not aware of, but it makes sense for a Deluxe Resort to provide those if needed.

Right! We just learned about it in October when at the YC, the CM suggested he send up actual wine glasses to our room when we requested extra cups for our wine. I had no idea that was an option! Even this trip when we asked the CM at the Boardwalk for the wine glasses he didn't think they had them, but when he pulled up his list of items that could be sent to the room, they were on there! He was surprised as well!

 

[VAtink]

Ah....yes.....I remember that day. It was so gross! We were in AK and had saved EE for the end of our day riding it like 4 times in a row in the rain. We were cold and soaked getting on the bus around 5:30pm. We went back to our rooms at YC, changed clothes, and then went to Crews Cup for a warm meal and a nice glass of wine.

Oh, that sounds like a nice evening! Yeah, that night was just so gross outside with the wind and the rain.

I had no idea you could request wine glasses from mousekeeping? I am going to file that little knowledge nugget for next trip!

Right? We just learned this back in October! Even the CM at the Boardwalk this trip didn't realize we could, but sure enough when he looked at the list of things that could be sent to the room, wine glasses were on it!

My DD23 LOVED those avocado tarts --and the lamb kabob-- from Morocco as they were allergy safe for her minus the aioli on the lamb. She ate there 3 times!

The avocado tart was so good, I was really surprised, I didn't expect to like it so much! The chicken kabob was great, I'll need to try the lamb one during our next trip!

I agree there seemed to be a lot of rides having extended down time that week. Luckily, we rode both SE and Remy during the first half of our trip. On our last day in the parks, the 24th, we had a LL for RnRC but it went down and it turned into an anytime pass but we were leaving DHS for EP. After riding Soarin, I stopped at a blue umbrella and the CM was able to change my anytime pass from DHS to EP. That evening, we went to Remy to use the anytime pass as our last ride of the trip and.......yeah, it had JUST went down and CMs said they had no estimate for reopening as they were waiting on the maintenance team. LOL. That LL was not meant to be used

Yeah, there was a lot down this week, we never got to SE, but at least we got on Remy! We also were about to get onto Remy right when it went down, literally assigned rows and about to get into the vehicle. We got the anytime LL to use, but never did. Oh well, at least we got on it earlier in the trip!

 

[VAtink]

Were those salads at Boardwalk Deli as good as they sound?

They were really good, nice and fresh and light. My mom ended up getting it again later in the trip it was so good!

 

[aboveH20]

Quick question. What’s the latest on plastic bags at gift shops? In photos it looks like you have some of the “oldies” not the ones for sale. It’s been a while since I’ve done any souvenir shopping but there’s a couple things I’m considering this trip.

So enjoy your relationship with your mom and your travel compatibility. Write on!

 

[VAtink]

Quick question. What’s the latest on plastic bags at gift shops? In photos it looks like you have some of the “oldies” not the ones for sale. It’s been a while since I’ve done any souvenir shopping but there’s a couple things I’m considering this trip.

They still have the old free plastic bags, got both the blue ones with the castle, and the clear ones that just have Disney something written on it. I saw the reusable ones for sale as well, can't remember if they were everywhere, but I did see them.

So enjoy your relationship with your mom and your travel compatibility. Write on!

Aw, thank you!

 

[DVCjj]

SO happy you did another Trip Report. Not only do I adore your Trip Reports as I travel a lot with my adult daughter, but you were there the EXACT time we were there. We were across the street at BCV. We almost were at BWV and it would have been fun to meet you in the lobby. Would have loved to have met your mom since I'm the mom on my trips!

The weather was horrendous and I'm from the frozen tundra of the Midwest! Wow!