Stop Throwing Tissues on Me! – September 2023 Food and Wine Fest Trip Report! (Updated 2/12!)

[KPeterso]

Once again we got September (why do I get this song so much?), but I’ve seen that being September 21st, they played this song all day, so I guess at least this time there is a reason I keep getting it!

We were in Epcot on 9/21 and according to my notes, I also got the song September that day. I honestly was not sure if I had ever had the song before.

 

[VAtink]

I sure hope Disney is listening because you're not the only one who is passing on purchases because you don't want to lug them around all day. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why that's not back yet ... it seems like such a no-brainer to me! And also, we all hate the walls!!!! That they're surprised by that is hilarious. Hurrah for finding seats in the shade. Sweet of you to run and get the food. Your mom is a trooper. I'm exhausted with two 'good' legs.

YES! Every CM we mentioned it to said that they are getting so many complaints it hasn't been brought back. I really hope Disney finally gives the guests what they want! (or at least something they want)

The expressions some of the suits made when I said that was hilarious, I guess they're a bit out of touch with reality on what guests want to see in the parks, oddly they haven't figured out construction walls are not what we want to see!

Oh yeah, anything to help my mom out I'm happy to do. Plus we didn't want to give up that table, getting one with seats and in the shade at food and wine is a rarity!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

You had such wonderful CMs that morning (well, minus the yucky person at Test Track - good grief ). I know you put in room requests, but did you also do online check-in? I used online check-in on my last two trips (and loved it!), but I don’t know if it would be better to check-in at the desk to get better room locations…

I remember your awesome view from the BC/YC thread, but I look forward to more pictures of your room!

What a lovely morning in Epcot! You were so productive and even enjoyed a nice break. I can’t wait to see the start of your Food and Wine selections!

 

[VAtink]

You're getting lots done and fast.

We definitely were, which is funny because we kept saying it would be a more laid back trip with my mom's injury. Oops!

I have not bought stuff just because I don't want to lug it around. Disney really is missing out on not have the ship to resort service.

This 100%! We would buy so much more if they shipped it to the resort!

Great plan to have your Mom hold your shaded table while you get the food.

Yeah, we didn't want to give up that table, and keeping her off her bad foot was good so she could keep going later in the day!

 

[VAtink]

Absolutely love following along with you. It's amazing what I glean from Trip Reports' little suggestion tidbits. Believe me....I'm always so grateful.

Aw thank you!!

The CM who was rudely impatient when you tried to help your mom out of the vehicle needs to be reported. And honestly, I'm not usually a complainer anywhere...especially at Disney.

Yeah, I was really taken aback by that, like if she wasn't moving or couldn't physically get out of the car I could see the CM coming over asking if we needed help, but my mom was on the move, just a tad slower than usual. So ridiculous!

I have R.A. and stupidly did FAR too much walking this trip and really paid the Flare pain price. I could not have done several rides without my daughter giving me extra hand support getting out of some of the deep vehicles.
No one said one thing, as they should have done with you & mom.

Exactly, so crazy she said something!

Favor: Could you please explain Ride Stacking in a nutshell? My brain seems not grasping the correct way. I looked at your example and was concerned that your Day in two spots claims you are overlapping reservations?
That's not a problem???

Of course, well I'll do my best, I feel like I could write a whole dissertation on it and Genie+, but I'll try to keep this succinct.

First of all, I've found it much easier to stack rides with Genie+ in the afternoon, in the morning by the time we can book our second ride it's already too late in the day, but if we book rides for the afternoon it usually works out really well. For instance last year I booked Slinky right at 7 which gave me a return time of like 4:25, and then an ILL for Rise at like 5:00. Then two hours after HS opened I started monitoring the return times of other rides at HS, and once they got late enough I booked my next ride for like 5:30. I kept doing this every two hours and ended up with a handful of rides booked between 4:25 and 6:30. Being able to have overlapping return times is the one thing I actually like over FP+, but you do have to be a bit careful with your bookings so you don't end up running back and forth over the park, and you want to give yourself enough time to ride and get to the next one, although they do have the grace period of ~15 minutes after your return time expires which helps.

So what I try to do when I'm stacking is have the return times of overlapping rides be about 30 minutes from each other, in my mind that's enough time to get from one ride to the next, but close enough there's not really any down time between rides. Now with DAS, the reservations you make the day of do not expire until park close, so there is no rush to get to those rides, so we usually leave those for last, or if we're going to be walking by that ride and we have time we'll hop on it then.

I hope this helped, if not let me know, I feel like there is just so much that can be written about all of this!

This trip I had DAS, Genie+ and LL a couple of days and I admit I did a lousy job of planning. My (adult) daughter could care less (been there a gazillion times and loves walking and walking so didn't mind my lousy job. But I wish I knew what I was doing and felt like I wasted money.

ONLY if you are able, I would love to get your tips.

Haha, of course, let me know if you need any more info beyond what I typed above. Hopefully this helps!

 

[VAtink]

Did she have any trouble with continuous loading rides like Haunted Mansion? I know someone who fell when getting off HM because the CM's wouldn't slow the line down.

Fortunately she did ok on those, but I was really worried. She seems to struggle the most where there is a larger elevation change, like on TT or Pirates.

That is good Disney math and you did a great job using it.

Haha, gotta love Disney math!

 

[VAtink]

I know I would buy a lot more stuff if they brought back shipping to the resorts. And the walls?? WHY would the suits be surprised????? Come on people.

Right?!? Sometimes it really seems those in charge are completely out of touch with reality!

 

[VAtink]

We were in Epcot on 9/21 and according to my notes, I also got the song September that day. I honestly was not sure if I had ever had the song before.

Yeah I saw in some facebook Disney groups that they only played September that day, but I have no idea if it's true. I'd like to think it is because that's pretty cool, and even though I get September most of the time, it is my favorite, so I can't really complain!

 

[VAtink]

You had such wonderful CMs that morning (well, minus the yucky person at Test Track - good grief ). I know you put in room requests, but did you also do online check-in? I used online check-in on my last two trips (and loved it!), but I don’t know if it would be better to check-in at the desk to get better room locations…

Yeah, the CMs at the YC were amazing, the one at TT not so great. At least it was just one bad one, the rest for the trip were all great!

So we don't usually do online check-in, we've had some issues in the past with it not recognizing the credit card we want on file, so we just go to the desk nowadays. Although in the past when we also had not done it our views were not great with a garden view booked, so I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes.

I remember your awesome view from the BC/YC thread, but I look forward to more pictures of your room!

So I don't think I got pictures of the inside of the room (need to check), but I have a ton from the balcony!

What a lovely morning in Epcot! You were so productive and even enjoyed a nice break. I can’t wait to see the start of your Food and Wine selections!

It was a great morning, I can't believe how much we did! Plus it was nice having time to sit and rest a bit before diving into all the food!

 

[DVCjj]

Aw thank you!!

Yeah, I was really taken aback by that, like if she wasn't moving or couldn't physically get out of the car I could see the CM coming over asking if we needed help, but my mom was on the move, just a tad slower than usual. So ridiculous!

Exactly, so crazy she said something!

Of course, well I'll do my best, I feel like I could write a whole dissertation on it and Genie+, but I'll try to keep this succinct.

First of all, I've found it much easier to stack rides with Genie+ in the afternoon, in the morning by the time we can book our second ride it's already too late in the day, but if we book rides for the afternoon it usually works out really well. For instance last year I booked Slinky right at 7 which gave me a return time of like 4:25, and then an ILL for Rise at like 5:00. Then two hours after HS opened I started monitoring the return times of other rides at HS, and once they got late enough I booked my next ride for like 5:30. I kept doing this every two hours and ended up with a handful of rides booked between 4:25 and 6:30. Being able to have overlapping return times is the one thing I actually like over FP+, but you do have to be a bit careful with your bookings so you don't end up running back and forth over the park, and you want to give yourself enough time to ride and get to the next one, although they do have the grace period of ~15 minutes after your return time expires which helps.

So what I try to do when I'm stacking is have the return times of overlapping rides be about 30 minutes from each other, in my mind that's enough time to get from one ride to the next, but close enough there's not really any down time between rides. Now with DAS, the reservations you make the day of do not expire until park close, so there is no rush to get to those rides, so we usually leave those for last, or if we're going to be walking by that ride and we have time we'll hop on it then.

I hope this helped, if not let me know, I feel like there is just so much that can be written about all of this!

Haha, of course, let me know if you need any more info beyond what I typed above. Hopefully this helps!

Thank you IMMENSELY!!! Great information.
I’m very grateful.

 

[VAtink]

Day 2, Part 3: First Taste of Food and Wine!​

We last left off resting at a table waiting for the food booths to open. Last year many of them opened around 10:30, so I was hoping they would open early again this year, but sadly they waited until 11 on the dot to open. Oh well. While waiting I put in a mobile order for the Donald candy corn sipper from connections café. I really wanted it last year, but never bought it, so I wanted to make sure I picked it up this year.

Around 10:50 I took a stroll over to the fry basket, which was the one booth of the three we wanted to try that morning I couldn’t see the queue where we were sitting to see if a line had formed, but at that point the queue was empty.

By the time I got back I saw a line had formed for Flavors from Fire, so I decided to head over there to wait in line.

Finally 11:00 struck and it was a quick wait to order and pick up the food. Here I got the corned beef and picked up the swine brine for my mom. I brought these back to the table and headed over to the Fry Basket to get the next food items.

I was shocked when I rounded the corner and saw the line, it stretched all the way back to TT! Yikes! Should have done this one first!

I got in line and it was a longer wait than I’d like (obvs), but was only about 20 minutes, so could be worse (got much worse just two days later! ). Here I got the pickle fries and the yucca fries. I again ran back to the table to drop them off. I had wanted to sit and finally eat something, but I was getting close to the end of the pickup time for my mobile order, so once again I ran off, this time to connections café. There was a short wait for my order, but soon I had Donald and a cup of coke in my hand and made my way back to the table. It was FINALLY time to enjoy!



We decided to just split everything this trip so we could try more items.

I loved everything we got this round, the pickle fries were delicious, a welcome addition! Also, I just got an air fryer, and one of the recipes it came with is fried pickles, so I will definitely be trying these at home too! The swine brine was shockingly good, we’ve avoided it for years since it just sounded gross, but it was actually really good!

As we were finishing up with the first round of food, I saw the line had died down for Coastal Eats, so headed over there to grab the crab cake and the cape codder.





The crab cake was really good, we had seen reviews saying it was super salty, but we didn’t find that to be true at all, and we both are super sensitive to salt (one of the reasons I typically can’t stand bread…yes, I'm weird, bread is too salty for me ). The cape codder was good, but super strong, which I knew from getting it last year, but clearly good enough to get again!

Next up: Saying Goodbye to Soarin' Over the World, For Now.​

 

[disneyAndi14]

You all have the same taste as us, minus the impossible burger! I loved the corned beef with cheese dish and the Yucca fries were delicious. We wanted to try the pickles but thought we would save it for another day (spoiler we never did)
I had that drink last year from Coastal Eats and it was strong and good!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I got in line and it was a longer wait than I’d like (obvs), but was only about 20 minutes, so could be worse (got much worse just two days later! ).

That is a really long time to wait. Was Epcot crowded that day?

The swine brine was shockingly good, we’ve avoided it for years since it just sounded gross, but it was actually really good!

It sounds very gross. What exactly is a swine brine?

The Donald Sipper is adorable.

 

[VAtink]

You all have the same taste as us, minus the impossible burger! I loved the corned beef with cheese dish and the Yucca fries were delicious. We wanted to try the pickles but thought we would save it for another day (spoiler we never did)
I had that drink last year from Coastal Eats and it was strong and good!

That corned beef was really good! We got a massive serving of it too which I appreciated! Sorry you missed the pickle fries, hopefully they'll bring them back next year!

 

[VAtink]

That is a really long time to wait. Was Epcot crowded that day?

The crowds were not too bad this day, pretty much typical weekday F&W crowds. I think that booth may just be super popular, or they may have been understaffed that morning.

It sounds very gross. What exactly is a swine brine?

Doesn't it?!? My mom really wanted to try it this year, I was willing to try a sip, and I'm glad I did, it was shockingly good! Apparently it's made with bourbon, apple cider, and mustard.

The Donald Sipper is adorable.

I agree, I love it. I was so sad I didn't pick it up last year, so when I saw he was coming back this year I made it a priority to get one early in the trip!

 

[VAtink]

Day 2, Part 4: Saying Goodbye to Soarin’ Over the World, For Now​

After finishing up our first round of food booth food, we were already into our return time for our prebooked DAS for Soarin’, so we headed that way.

It was a short wait, and soon we were loading. We were in 3C, but in the two closest seats to 2, so not the worst view.

After Soarin’ we discussed what we wanted to do next, and both agreed to make a lap around WS to check out food booths before heading back to the YC to see our room (our room ready text had come in by then).

As we started to make our way over to WS, we saw Pooh was frolicking in the grass by Imagination, so headed over there to say hi!

Of course, just as we arrived he left to take a break.

Oh well, since we were there I decided we might as well check out the Mickey meet in that area, so we headed over that way, only to find out that Mickey stopped meeting there! (only for apparently a few days, saw recent posts that he’s back).

Welp, failing at characters this day! So we started to make our way to WS again, but once again saw Pooh come out, so headed over there to say hi, again.



He’s so cute.

After saying hi to Pooh, we once again we headed off to do a loop of WS, but just as we got to the intersection of FW and WS, my mom commented that maybe we should just head to our DAS for Remy and head out. I was also starting to feel the heat and early wakeup so agreed that it would be smart to just take the short way to France, ride Remy, and then head out for some rest.

So we made our way over to France, of course we stopped on the way for pictures!





We headed into the LL queue and I was shocked to see there was absolutely no one in it! It was literally just my mom and I! Last trip even in the LL we typically had at least a 20 minute wait, so to the be the only ones in line was so weird, yet awesome!

Now, usually the first day in Epcot we’ll pick up our favorite bottle of wine from Germany to bring back to the room, but since we decided to take the short way around WS, we didn’t get a chance to pass it this day. We still wanted to pick up some wine though for the room, so we decided to go try some in France instead.

We made the quick walk over to the wine bar after Remy, and were thrilled that it was empty, so we started talking to the CM about the wines. We wanted to make sure the one we tasted, we could also get a bottle of. While we’re asking this, suddenly a line forms for the bar. And to make matters worse, the group that got “in line” behind us kept trying to shove their way in front of us. Ugh, so annoying.

So we ordered some wine to taste, but meanwhile another CM started to help the group who was trying to wedge themselves in front of us. It was so awkward, especially since the CM who was working the registers was the one helping us, not the other CM, and it seemed she was the only one who was working them, so the group who tried to get in front of us even tried to cut us in paying, but fortunately the CM just ignored them shoving their credit card at her. Seriously, some people.

We took our drinks outside to enjoy in the shade, and decided on one to buy. We then headed back into the store and grabbed a bottle of it and checked out. Of course by then there was once again no line.

We also picked up the Remy wine stoppers, I got one for myself, and one to give my mom for Christmas.

At that point we were getting super tired and really wanted to check out our room so made our way to the exit. On the way we stopped at the store at the IG and picked up all the goodies I had seen earlier in the morning.

Also, just have to say, I love the burger coasters, they are so cool!

Once we finished up our shopping we made our way back to the YC. We swung by bell services on the way to the room to give them our room number and have them bring up our bags, then made our way up to room 2091.


​

https://flic.kr/p/2paz2Qj

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

This room was amazing. The view was phenomenal, it was a short walk to the elevators and lobby, and it was quiet! The hat trick of hotel rooms!

We spent some time unpacking before heading down to the store to pick up stuff for the rest of the trip. We got some fruit and muffins for breakfast, the reusable mugs, some milk, and some oj, and of course some grapefruit beer. After the quick shopping trip we got changed and heading to the pool to float for a bit.

While floating I was telling my mom how lucky we’ve been with the weather so far, looking out over the pool area there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Buuuuut then I turned around, and woah, big crazy dark clouds were moving in!

After seeing those clouds, we decided to get out of the pool and dry off for a bit. While sitting there a lifeguard walked by and someone sitting near us asked about if they would close the pool soon, and he assured them that no, the storm was to the east of us so the pool wouldn’t close.

Well, he was wrong. Less than 5 minutes later they closed the pool!

It was ok though, we had our chance to cool off and were ready for some down time, so we made our way to the room to shower and rest a bit.

The storm never did actually hit us, but I guess it was close enough to close the pool.

While mom napped, I sat out on the balcony enjoying the view and some grapefruit beer while jotting down some notes in my journal.



Next up: An Evening in Epcot!​

 

[VAtink]

Also, kinda random, are the photopass lenses free and available to everyone these days without purchasing Genie+? I thought it was a glitch the other week that I could use it, but it's still available...

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Wow, what a great room! Gosh I love the Yacht Club! Fun afternoon in EPCOT. Having Soarin' Over California back is so nice. It's so great to be able to enjoy without the distortions -- I cannot believe that no one in imagineering or wherever realized that using vertical landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or Taj Majal would be problematic. I love the wine shop in France, but it can definitely get a little hectic. My favorite story from there is I once saw a woman literally lick the overflow from her champagne off the counter. Yes - she leaned down and licked the counter. And this was before noon (as in I can't even give her the excuse of drinking all day in the sun) and post COVID (aren't we all more aware of germs?). I think about her every single time I go in there.

 

[VAtink]

Wow, what a great room! Gosh I love the Yacht Club! Fun afternoon in EPCOT. Having Soarin' Over California back is so nice. It's so great to be able to enjoy without the distortions -- I cannot believe that no one in imagineering or wherever realized that using vertical landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or Taj Majal would be problematic. I love the wine shop in France, but it can definitely get a little hectic. My favorite story from there is I once saw a woman literally lick the overflow from her champagne off the counter. Yes - she leaned down and licked the counter. And this was before noon (as in I can't even give her the excuse of drinking all day in the sun) and post COVID (aren't we all more aware of germs?). I think about her every single time I go in there.

The room was absolutely perfect, I think this may have been the best room we've had in Disney (and we've had some actual water view rooms)!

I love that Soarin' over California is back, I really like that version better. I too don't understand how no one realized how bendy the Eiffel tower would appear, like it seems like something that should have been thought through!

And EWWWWWW! What on earth was that woman thinking? That is so gross.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Oh well, since we were there I decided we might as well check out the Mickey meet in that area, so we headed over that way, only to find out that Mickey stopped meeting there! (only for apparently a few days, saw recent posts that he’s back).

We have met Mickey twice in that spot inside of the Imagination pavilion. Both times it was unexpected and both times we were the only ones there. I hope they keep Mickey there.

This room was amazing. The view was phenomenal, it was a short walk to the elevators and lobby, and it was quiet! The hat trick of hotel rooms!

That is a great location! We had the room directly across from your room but hiding behind that big shrub. You can't see the fireworks from that side of the courtyard.

The storm never did actually hit us, but I guess it was close enough to close the pool.

That is the big disadvantage to SAB. They have to close it when lightening is ten miles away, or some such parameter. That is why I will usually go to the Admiral pool if my husband isn't going to join me. He likes SAB but mostly only goes in the lazy river.

While mom napped, I sat out on the balcony enjoying the view and some grapefruit beer while jotting down some notes in my journal.

I love the grapefruit beer and often drink it while DH naps.