The Speed Walkin',Triple Split Stay,Holly Jolly Holiday**NEW 1/12 Last Day

[jenbear123]

Love it so far.

Thanks for reading

Completely enjoying your report..I've always dreamed of going at Christmas time

Oh you MUST go around Christmas time. It's incredible. It brings a whole new meaning to the holiday season. If you ever get the chance GO! Thanks for reading

Update coming soon!!!

 

[jenbear123]

This day I woke up with quite an upset stomach. The yucky fish I had eaten the day before was coming back to haunt me. I wasn't sick to my stomach or anything but I sure didn't feel like my normal self. I woke up around 6am and couldn't get back to sleep again. Just felt pretty rotten. Bubba finally woke at 7:30am and we ate breakfast in our room. I felt a little better with some food in my stomach. I guess I was just hungry after not eaten since 4pm the previous day! Not to mention I was a bundle of nerves still. Did I mention I don't travel well? Moving on....

We arrived at Epcot right on time to check in for our tour for 8:45am.

We were able to get early entry into the park, which was a nice perk. It's nice to not fight the crowds for once. We took advantage of this fact by taking some pictures in front of the lovely holiday topiaries as soon as you enter the park.

We sauntered over to Guest Relations to check in and got our name tags.

They spelt Bubba's (real) name wrong , which she had corrected right away. It's one of her BIGGEST pet peeves when people spell her name wrong. She has one of those names that can be spelt multiple different ways. To be fair, I would get annoyed too if people were always spelling my name wrong! So we were all checked in, ready to go but had to wait for the rest of the group. To pass the time, Bubba took a snooze.

Honestly this girl can sleep anywhere!

I took another trip to the washroom so I wouldn't have to go on the tour. I also took some time to eat an orange, which Bubba just had to take a picture of.

Not long after this, they started letting in guests at the main entrance. The sea of people came flooding towards us:

About 5 minutes later, our tour guide, Mary Anne, greeted us and the other people in our group. It was a very small group today, consisting mainly of people over the age of 55. Bubba and I were the youngest people (including the tour guide) on this tour. This was going to be fun The main reason we took this tour was so I could see all the backstage stuff that Bubba sees every day when she comes to work. I was really looking forward to seeing everything. The tour started off with the history of the park and all of Walt's ideas. Mary Anne was a very soft spoken tour guide. We were not given earpieces for this tour and even I was having a hard time hearing her over the background crowd noise and music at times. Finally, an older man in our group spoke up saying he could not hear her. You think she would've spoke na little louder, considering the demographic of people in her group (not to mention most of them had hearing aids). Some information she told us was wrong. Like the number of triangles on the Epcot ball. Bubba said that the number she told us was way off, apparently. Meh! Who am I to really care exactly how many triangles are on the Epcot ball. All I know is that there's a lot of triangles on that thing! Most of the things she told us I already knew from Bubba telling me. So there wasn't much "*****covered" about Epcot on this tour, for me anyway. Your experience may be quite different.

We were led all around Future World, stopping at Club Cool to get a quick drink. I steered clear of Beverly! Eventually we made it over to Soarin' but before we went on, the tour took a break. This allowed Bubba and I to grab a quick bite to eat at Sunshine Seasons. We shared some sushi and wasn't much to write home about. It hit the spot though. Sorry no pictures!

Once the group met up again after the break, we were taken backstage for our "celebrity" entrance to Soarin'.

Apparently when celebrities are in the park, they are taken through a different entrance for the rides. Go figure. We got to ride in row 1 and it was an amazing ride as always. I could honestly sit on that thing all day. So relaxing....

After Soarin' we headed over to Mission Space (was not given option to ride during tour) and finally Test Track. Once again, we were taken through the "celebrity" entrance to Test Track and enjoyed the ride.

The tour exited the way we came so we did not get to see the Photopass picture from our ride....

I was surprised all the "seniors" went on! Especially afterwards we found out one of the men had had triple bypass heart surgery. After the rides were out of the way, we ventured backstage to cast costuming, where all the employees get their work clothes. The place was HUGE! It was set up like a grocery store, with aisles labelled with what kind of job you do. It was really neat. What surprised me was that Mary Anne never reminded us about not taking pictures. When I went on the Keys to the Kingdom tour, our tour guide was VERY strict. Never failed to remind us. Just found that kind of odd. We also got to see the marina where the big globe for Illuminations is kept. Nothing spectacular. Overall, this tour was just okay. I mainly went on it because I wanted to see the backstage area where Bubba always goes. I think it could've been a much better experience if a) we had a better tour guide and b) a slightly younger demographic of people. We practically walked at a snail pace the entire time!!!


We finished the tour inside the China pavilion and we were getting hungry. We decided to try Chefs de France for a walk-in lunch. I was going to save this place for my trip in April but no biggie. They were able to squeeze us in no problem and got a seat right beside the window.

Our server was clearly new. She was nervous and didn't speak english very well. Which was fine since I was too hungry to get busy with chit-chat anyway.

It wasn't very far into our meal when this little guy rolled up beside me

I completely forgot about Remy!!! He was absolutely adorable. The interaction with the guy that brings him around is incredible.

For my meal, I ordered the French toasted ham and cheese sandwich

This sandwich was just okay. Nothing special. The salad was just that, a salad.

Bubba got the Mahi-Mahi sandwich (I think)

She complained that there was far too much bread and just ate the fish.

The food here was just so-so. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. I might try something different when I go back in April. Any suggestions?

Finished with our lunch, we headed towards Spaceship Earth, taking some photos along the way

It was so bright and of course I forgot my sunglasses back at the resort. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open for the picture

We saw this when we arrived at Spaceship Earth

As you can see, it was a complete walk on! At 2 o'clock in the afternoon!

The ride got stuck right when we reached the Renaissance era (I think)

We stopped almost long enough for both of us to take a nap! Although the repetitive music started to get annoying after a while....

After our ride, we left Epcot to head back to WL for a well deserved nap.


Day 2 TO BE CONTINUED

Stay tuned for:

Dinner at the Wave
Night at Epcot and Illuminations!

 

[MadilynnsMomma]

Great start and I really like that you use "Meh" - one of my favorite words!

 

[praisehisname]

Epcot looks so pretty dressed up for Christmas! I'm looking forward to hearing about your dinner at The Wave!

 

[redlight]

I love Remy. How cute! I also really like the picture of Bubba relaxing. How did she get nicknamed Bubba?

 

[jenbear123]

Great start and I really like that you use "Meh" - one of my favorite words!

I love that word too! Great minds think alike Not sure where I got it from though. My sister and I use it ALL the time.

Epcot looks so pretty dressed up for Christmas! I'm looking forward to hearing about your dinner at The Wave!

It was beautiful! I will tell you that The Wave is definitely a hidden gem. Stay tuned for full details

I love Remy. How cute! I also really like the picture of Bubba relaxing. How did she get nicknamed Bubba?

Funny story. I wrote about it in my PTR but will post it here to make it easier:

My Sister, Bubba. No, that's not her real name but that's how we refer to each other. Why? Well, one day we were both watching "Forrest Gump" starring Tom Hanks. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Forrest makes friends with a man named "Bubba" during the Vietnam war. We both found the name to be very funny and liked it even more when Forrest said it with his accent (I apologize to those from Alabama. Being from Canada, we are not used to the accent). Soon, we found ourselves calling each other "Bubba Joe" and "Bubba Jean", "Bubba" for short and the names have stuck ever since. People will look at us funny when we're in public when we start referring to eachother as "Bubba". It's priceless.

 

[redlight]

I was wondering if Bubba was from Forrest Gump. It's one of my favorite movies! I also use the word meh.

 

[jenbear123]

I was wondering if Bubba was from Forrest Gump. It's one of my favorite movies! I also use the word meh.

It was one of those movies I grew up with Woohoo for the use of the word MEH!

 

[jenbear123]

We woke up after a nice 2 hour nap to get cleaned up and ready to go for our lovely dinner at The Wave. I wasn't sure what to expect from this dinner as this restaurant isn't as popular as, say, Crystal Palace or California Grill. So I didn't have much to go on. Our ADR time was for 5:30pm and we made it to Contemporary right on time. At first we didn't know where the restaurant was inside the Contemporary but we didn't have to stray far to find it.

We checked in, were given a beeper, and took a seat in the lounge area

We took this opportunity to look over the drink menu. I wasn't planning on getting any cocktail drinks but Bubba had her eye on a "glowtini"

Before we knew it, our beeper was going off and we were taken to our table. Our server's name was Dan. Wow. He was outstanding. Not pushy whatsoever. He paced the meal perfectly. Just an overall outstanding server. If you ever go to the Wave, ask if Dan is working and request to be seated with him. You will not be disappointed. He even was able to suggest a good white wine for me. When it comes to wine, I'm a hard one to please because I don't like anything too dry but I don't like anything too too sweet either. Let's just say I gave Dan quite the task. I can't for the life of me remember what kind of wine I got but I'm pretty sure it was an Australian wine. Bubba got her fancy blue glowtini:

She also got a glass of wine. Oh my alcoholic sister No she's not really. She really only wanted the martini for the glowcube and to get a taste of it. Because she has that kind of disposable income to do that Dan, our server, was worried she didn't like when she had more than half of the drink left at the end of the meal. Poor guy. It was all good though.

She was all about her red wine. Can't remember what kind she got. All I know is that I did not like it as it was too strong and dry for me.

Bubba ordered an appetizer, which was the Avocado and Citrus Salad. We shared this between the both of us. It was just a salad but since I love avocado, I really enjoyed it. We polished the whole thing off.

For main course, we both ordered the Cinnamon-rubbed Pork Tenderloin

This was heaven (I'd use another term but I'm trying to be kid friendly here) on a plate. We both ordered it medium and it was done perfectly. It was absolutely delicious with the Apple Cider sauce it came with. Melt in your mouth delicious. It came with a side of spinach and something else. I think it was cornmeal something. I didn't care for it too much but Bubba loved it. She ate both mine and hers.

We both ordered a dessert. I got the Trio of Sorbets

From left to right: Lemon-basil, Pineapple and Strawberry

My favourite was the Pineapple. Lemon-basil was my least favourite but it would be a good thing to use if you ever wanted to "cleanse your palate". Overall, all three of them were quite good.

Bubba opted for the No Sugar Added Desserts

From left to right: Chocolate Mint Mousse, Fresh berries with Panna Cotta, and Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee

She ate the whole thing up with an Espresso to wash it all down.

At the end of the day, the total cost came to $102.78 including gratuity with TIW discount.

The Wave was a lovely meal. The food, service, and atmosphere were all outstanding. If you've never tried the Wave, you must give it a try. It truly is a hidden gem. Oh, and on our way out, we filled out a "Guest Fanatic" card for our server Dan. Basically it's a comment card. I highly recommend requesting to fill out one of these cards when you experience outstanding service. Your server will greatly appreciate it. More often than not, people only point out the negatives. Let's take time to point out the positive experiences we have!

With our tummies full, we went back to the car to change. Yes, we changed in the parking lot We tried to be as discreet as possible. Then it was Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it's off to Epcot we go!

We hopped straight over to The Seas, since we didn't get the opportunity to do it earlier in the day.

It was getting close to Illuminations time so we began heading towards World Showcase. First order of business was to grab a School Bread from Norway for breakfast the next morning.

It was about 20 minutes before showtime for Illuminations. Most of the good viewing spots for the show were taken. Normally on trips I am all about getting a good spot at least 45 minutes before showtime. But this trip was all about taking it easy and not stressing out over things (even though we did end up speed walking on several occasions....more on that later) We got a decent spot and waited for the show to start. Not long after the show began and this was our view.

Stupid pillar! We tried to shimmy over to get the pillar out of our view without blocking other guests. Our view turned out okay in the end.

As soon as the show finished, Bubba said "OKAY MOVE!" And she started SPEED WALKING towards the exit. I hardly had a moment to gather myself and nearly trampled little children. I also dropped my water bottle and had to run back and get it. It was a pretty funny moment. One of those "you had to be there" moments. We still had two hours before DTD closed, so we headed that way to get some shopping done. The best find of the night was this beauty at Tren-D:

That was the end of our night! We were beat so off we went back to our villa for pleasant dreams

Up next:

Wilderness Backtrail Adventure Segway Tour
Le Cellier Lunch
Osbourne Spectacle of Lights

 

[KatMark]

Oh...that food at the Wave looks wonderful (DH would love that pork). We never plan on "speed walking" but DH says I do it all the time...I keep telling him it is because he has short legs and he can't keep up with my long stride. Cute shirt at Trendy!

 

[MadilynnsMomma]

I don't know what I like more, this entry or what's to come!

It sounds like you have had an excellent time with your sister thus far and I can not wait to hear more about your adventures!

 

[redlight]

I love the glowtini. I'd definitely try it.

 

[Elevationist]

The Glowtini has been on my Must Do list since I first saw it here on the boards a couple months ago. DBF has a fascination with blue drinks, and I have a fascination with things that glow or sparkle, so it's an idea meal starter.

 

[Belle_373]

I’m sorry to hear your fish & chips weren’t very good at R&C.

I love the Canada shirts. Go CANADA!

Great photos of MVMCP! The Christmas decorations at MK are beautiful.

If you go back to Chefs de France I recommend the Macaroni and Cheese. It’s excellent!

 

[praisehisname]

Your dinner at The Wave sounded and looked fantastic! Glad you had such great service!

 

[jenbear123]

Oh...that food at the Wave looks wonderful (DH would love that pork). We never plan on "speed walking" but DH says I do it all the time...I keep telling him it is because he has short legs and he can't keep up with my long stride. Cute shirt at Trendy!

The food was really amazing. You must give it a try if you've never been. So funny about your DH not being able to keep up! That's like when my mom is with me. She's only 5'2 and the poor dear has to work double time to keep up

I don't know what I like more, this entry or what's to come!

It sounds like you have had an excellent time with your sister thus far and I can not wait to hear more about your adventures!

Thanks! This whole trip, I can probably say, was the best trip I've had yet. I only wish it had been longer. Stick around because there's LOTS more to come.

I love the glowtini. I'd definitely try it.

I'd suggest you try it! Especially if you like vodka It looks really pretty too.

The Glowtini has been on my Must Do list since I first saw it here on the boards a couple months ago. DBF has a fascination with blue drinks, and I have a fascination with things that glow or sparkle, so it's an idea meal starter.

Sounds like the Glowtini is a must do for you on your upcoming trip Billy. I expect a full report when you get back.

I’m sorry to hear your fish & chips weren’t very good at R&C.

I love the Canada shirts. Go CANADA!

Great photos of MVMCP! The Christmas decorations at MK are beautiful.

If you go back to Chefs de France I recommend the Macaroni and Cheese. It’s excellent!

It might have just been a bad batch of fish or something. I've gotten the fish & chips from the quick serve before and loved them! I'm sure it's the exactly same thing that's served at R&C. I wouldn't put it entirely out of the question to try again someday.

The Canada shirts worked out perfectly for the colours of MVMCP. It's a good way to find out how many Canadians are in the park! Every so often we'd be walking and people would yell "YEAH CANADA WOOOOT!"

I'll have to remember that about Chefs de France since I'm eating there again in April. Thanks for the suggestion

Your dinner at The Wave sounded and looked fantastic! Glad you had such great service!

It was outstanding I can't decide which one was better, The Wave or California Grill I'll let you be the judge when the time comes for that review.

Thanks for reading so far everyone!!!

 

[jenbear123]

You'll know what I mean by the title of this post when we get there

This was the half way point for the trip. I had reached the point on the trip where my body starts accepting "Florida's finest" drinking water, waking up at 7:30am is normal, and everything that had been planned for months is finally coming to reality. The feeling was great!

This morning we "slept in" until 8am. I had set aside some time to take an extensive photo shoot of the Wilderness Lodge and villas. I just love this place. It really does feel like home. Here are some of my favourites:

I never did see the geyser go off. One day I will see it...

We saw them putting this humongous tree together the first night we were here. Don't know how they do it but it looks great, doesn't it?!

I call these guys the guardians of WL.

Yup, I'm staying forever

I even took a video of the walk from the elevator to our room. I was that determined to document every detail of this trip I won't dwell on WL though. I'm considering writing a review with my many pictures over on the WL thread.

What I noticed was how well equipped the villas were. They had everything from cutlery to dish soap.

And even a toaster!

Of course Disney makes sure to document everything to make sure nothing goes astray

The only thing they did not have (or at least I couldn't find) were pots and pans. You get a stove in the room but how are you expected to cook anything?

Oh and in case anybody was wondering what the Mercantile offers as far as groceries and meds goes, here's a preview:

Once I had exhausted my camera, I returned to the room to find Bubba had packed everything up. I was sad to be leaving VWL but at the same time excited for the rest of the trip. Once we loaded up the car, we drove over to Fort Wilderness around 10:30am for our Wilderness Backtrail Adventure on a Segway Tour. (Wow that was a mouthful)

We were going to walk from WL to FW but didn't want to risk being late for the tour. Neither of us were familiar with FW grounds so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to figure out where we were going.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

 

[jenbear123]

We parked and went to the main building. It wasn't clear where we were supposed to go to check in so at first we lined up in the check-in line for people who were checking in to stay there. It was pretty busy that day at Fort Wilderness. (I'd say from then on, the crowds and amount of people everywhere started to increase.) To avoid waiting too long, I just asked a lady that was at the online check-in desk. She provided us with a map and said we had to go to the "Bike Barn". We could either wait for a bus or walk. Guess what we decided? We walked!

It took about 15 minutes to arrive at the Bike Barn. I was thankful that lady had given us a map. There were so many different paths, we would've gotten lost for sure.

We had some time to kill so we took a seat on a bench occupied only by this guy:

The scenery was quite peaceful

I've put FW on the list of places I want to stay after seeing the place. It really is quite serene. I'm a nature nut so this place was my haven.

Eventually about 6-7 other people gathered around for our tour and the check-in process started. They had us sign our life away and we were led inside the "Bike Barn" for training.

OH BOY! Remember the title of this post? Our assistant guide (the main guide was finishing up the earlier tour) was in charge of going over the safety guidelines and how to use the Segway. This guy spoke in monotone the. whole. time. He mumbled half his words that it was near impossible to understand what he was saying. Bubba and I were glad to have taken the Around the World on a segway tour on a previous trip as the training was MUCH better. This guy seemed to just rush through everything. Honestly, if I hadn't had previous experience with the segway, I wouldn't know what the heck I was doing. At the end of the safety video and incredibly boring orientation session, we were given headsets and a bottle of water. Then were led out behind the Bike Barn to get on our segways. Here we were introduced to our other tour guide (whom I liked much better)

The training on the actual segway lasted about 15 minutes and we were on our way to tour the Fort Wilderness campgrounds. Thankfully everyone was quite capable of controlling their segway (even after the crappy training) and we had a great time. I was ecstatic when we made a stop at Tri-Circle-D Ranch.

I wanted to make a stop here last April but we never got here. I'm going to try and get my mom to see the ranch next April. I know she would just love the horses.

The above part of the barn was sectioned off for Cast Members only so the entire barn isn't completely open to public. Also, the stalls are designed so you cannot touch the horses unless they stick their heads out over the door. This is probably for safety reasons. Being 5'6, I even had to stand on my tippie toes to see over the stall doors.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this tour for segway beginners (unless you're lucky and get better training than we did). I was confident on the segway going up and down hills, slaloming between pine trees but some early beginners may not have been comfortable doing this. If you don't care, then go for it! I would do the Around the World on a Segway tour at Epcot first before trying the monster wheeled X-2 segways. The tour itself was very enjoyable and you get to see lots of FW. It's a really good choice for those of you who have not or rarely been to FW. The main tour guide (who did all the talking) was great and very friendly with a sense of humour. We came out of it quite satisfied

COMING UP NEXT:

Lunch at Le Cellier
The Move to ASMusic
Spectacle of Lights Night

 

[redlight]

I'm picturing in my head the monotone mumbling of the Segway guy. LOL. It sounds like they are built for tall people (I'm a half inch shorter than you!)

 

[praisehisname]

The Segway tour sounds really fun. DH did the one at Epcot last time, and I bet he would love the one at FW!