"There's only ONE Wreck-It Ralph!" Our Oct 2012/F&W TR *3/11 FINAL update!*

[kdka421]

Oh my gosh, that steak is GIGANTIC!!! I think it might be bigger than my head.

Overall, the food sounds incredibly delicious though. I think if DH and I are ever able to sneak away for a date night in WDW, we might have to give it a try!

I know, the steak is as huge as it looks! I couldn't dream of eating that, and even DH struggled towards the end, but he managed to finish! My little filet was more than enough for me.

Your dinner looks and sounds wonderful. The Yachtsman is the last Signature restaurant I have on my radar (well, I haven't done Vic & Albert's yet). My DH has a milestone b-day coming up next October, so I am going to plan for it then. I am not a huge steak fan, but I do enjoy a good one every once in awhile.

Your dress is very cute. GF cufflinks - can't imagine why your DH would not want those.

You should definitely give it a try, I'm sure you'll love it! Are there any signatures that you've skipped just bc you're not interested for whatever reason, or will this mean you've tried them all? Be sure to make the occasion to try V&A's sometime too! We did that last trip, and WOW it was awesome!

Thanks for the compliment LOL I don't know why anyone would want those cufflinks, except maybe someone who had the initials GF! The 'F' was more prominent than the 'G', so at first we were excited because our last name starts with an 'F', but then we saw the 'G' and realized that made no sense, haha.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

It looks like you had a lovely dinner at Yachtsman. What a hunt for cufflinks though! Who would have known? lol I love the GF so I would have been okay with those ones lol

 

[kdka421]

Day 5:

Day 5 brought us back to Epcot! Now, we had originally wanted to avoid Epcot on the weekends. This was a Saturday, and Saturdays during the F&W Festival are notoriously crowded, so we had read. However, when planning our trip, we found out about the Party for the Senses event, and both instantly wanted to make sure we did that...and it is held only on Saturdays. So since we don't get Park Hoppers, we had no choice but to schedule Epcot for this day. However, we had already tackled most of the F&W festival earlier in the week, hoping that if the crowds got to bad, we could avoid the World Showcase entirely if need be.

When we got to Day 5, we decided to go a step further, and took a slow start to the morning/day since we had already tackled so much of Epcot. We slept in, work up at 8:30, and then just relaxed around Coronado Springs for a little bit. Aaron had some homework he had to get done, I think he was studying for a Greek exam (yes, I mean that literally!), and while he did that I took a nice peaceful walk over to fill up our mugs. The grounds were so quiet, just a few conference guests and regular park guests out and about, and a fair number of folks getting breakfast in the dining areas, but outside always felt really relaxing.

At 10:30am we finally headed out to Epcot. On our way in, we stopped to get 2 sets of Photopass pictures done - one right inside the turnstiles, then another one just inside before Spaceship Earth. The second photographer was great, he posed us a few different places (facing the ball, sitting down by the sign, etc) and I really like how these pictures turned out.

Next, we went straight to pick up some FPs for Soarin. Then, we were getting hungry for a snack since our lunch reservations weren't til about 2pm (later lunch because Party for the Senses didn't start until 7:30). So, we stopped to get a snack that had caught my eye on the previous day when we were already planning to eat around the world - cinnamon/sugar almonds from a stand in Future World. These were perfect!

Next, we wandered back over to the Festival Center to ask when/where/how to check in for Party for the Senses that night. They said you could do it right at the entrance to the event, at the World Showplace, starting a few hours beforehand. We then took another trip on Mission Space (orange side this time), and then took our first ride (this trip) on Spaceship Earth. I don't think we went on it last trip either, so that was interesting to do again. We could already see that the lines were starting to build a lot more than earlier in the week...the line for Spaceship Earth wasn't ridiculous, but it was a solid 15 minutes or so.

By this point it was getting close to our lunch reservations, which were at Via Napoli! So we started to make our way into the World Showcase (we actually headed over a little early since, surprise surprise, we were getting hungry!) And boy, were the crowds nuts! This was exactly what we had predicted. Whereas earlier in the week, we at most waited behind 2 or 3 parties to get food at the booths, by early afternoon the lines were already dozens deep. We were glad to avoid that!

As we got to Italy, we saw something totally unexpected! Doing some promotional filming in Italy was Vanna White!! She was just filming some ad spots, or something like that, for Wheel of Fortune. Really cool to see the crew set up, so we watched that for a while, since we were still a little early anyways.

Continued in next post...

 

[kdka421]

Day 5, continued:

We had just left Vanna White, and we headed to lunch at Via Napoli! This was our first time eating here, and I was really looking forward to it. First of all, the restaurant was beautiful. We had an adorably sweet waitress, and the atmosphere was just really nice. For our lunches, Aaron opted for the lasagna verde, and I chose the Carciofi pizza (white pizza, cheese, artichoke, and truffle oil). Aaron's lasagna was pretty good, but WOW the pizza was out of this world. It had a nice crisp crust, and just great flavor. Aaron seriously regretted not getting a pizza. We also asked for some bread and oil (they don't bring it out automatically). Then, dessert, which neither of us had a hard time deciding - I had already settled on the zeppole, and Aaron chose his favorite, tiramisu. We both devoured our deserts. I can't speak for the tiramisu (not my favorite), but the zeppole again were just fantastic; fluffy and not too heavy, not to sweet but then delicious in the chocolate and whipped cream. YUM.

After lunch, we headed back to Future World the long way clockwise through the WS. The crowds were still crazy, of course. We happened to pass the World Showplace entrance, and they already had the check-in set up, so we got our wristbands while we were there, which saved us some time later.

When we got back to FW, we headed to the ride of Aaron's choice - Captain EO. I would have been content to never see this again, LOL, but he thinks it's wonderful. After that, it was finally time to use our Soarin FPs that we had picked up when we entered the park, so we did that. Then, we really felt like we'd accomplished everything, but we still had a fair amount of time to kill, yet not enough time to head back to our resort before turning around to head back for PFTS. So we wandered around and did a few various things like the Coke tasting, and Aaron spent some time talking to the Chevy CM stationed outside of the closed-down Test Track, while I took some pictures of the monorail, and some cute squirrels (one of whom was adorably eating all the marigolds off this plant).

Coming up next - our review of Party for the Senses!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Wow it really looks like it was busy! How cool that you got to see Vanna! Via Napoli looks amazing, I'd really like to try it out some time.

 

[khertz]

World Showcase looks NUTS!! Hopefully the party was worth battling the crowds. It does sound fun! Pretty cool that you were able to see Vanna White recording.

Mmmm, I LOVE Via Napoli!!! The 4 cheese white pizza is my favorite there. So delicious!! Wish I was having some now...

 

[kdka421]

Wow it really looks like it was busy! How cool that you got to see Vanna! Via Napoli looks amazing, I'd really like to try it out some time.

Mmmm, definitely try it out, and I highly recommend the pizza!

World Showcase looks NUTS!! Hopefully the party was worth battling the crowds. It does sound fun! Pretty cool that you were able to see Vanna White recording.

Mmmm, I LOVE Via Napoli!!! The 4 cheese white pizza is my favorite there. So delicious!! Wish I was having some now...

It sure was crazy crowded! But yeah, some interesting stuff happened that day, with the party and with seeing Vanna!

Merry Christmas everyone! I'll post my next update after the holidays. Wishing you all a very merry time with family and friends!

 

[kdka421]

Day 5, continued:

[I didn't forget y'all! Finally I'm back with another segment. Enjoy!]

Party for the Senses! As I mentioned earlier, when we found out about the F&W festival, and then heard about this event, we both knew in an instant we wanted to do it. It's the only F&W event we did, we didn't do any of the other seminars or anything like that. This attracted me because you got to sample lots of different foods and beverages, as well as see the Cirque du Soleil performances. So we booked tickets for this; deciding to just get the "cheap seats", the general admission, since the event was already relatively expensive!

I had done some research, reading past reviews of the event, etc - so I knew it was advised to get there early. The event is in the Millennium Showplace, which I hadn't been in since the Millennium celebration. I had read about the "running of the bulls" at the beginning of the event - and that's exactly what happened. Everyone rushed in to make sure they got a seat; looking back, it didn't appear to be necessary...I saw plenty of tables, and I don't recall anyone being forced to stand and eat. Maybe they had added additional tables this year, I'm not really sure. We got to the waiting area earlier than we needed to; which led to some boring waiting around. Aaron thought it was pretty awkward how we were all corralled in the center with the other general admissions, while people who had paid for the better seats had a nicer waiting area to the side with high-top tables and beverages.

When they finally let us in, everyone stampeeded in to find a table. There was a weird confusion where they had a bunch of employees blocking off the first set of tables, tell everyone to move past them; but it turns out they weren't actually reserved for anyone (which is the impression they were giving), they were just trying to help the flow of traffic and "save" those seats for latecomers. Very poorly handled, I thought. So we moved with the crowd to the back of the space, and found an empty table, and took a moment to get situated.

There were a ton of stations all around the room, which was set up quite beautifully. We weren't close to the stage at all. The middle tier seats were right by the stage, and the highest tier was behind them, with a private bar, etc. The only benefit to the reserved seats would have been to not have to wait with the "masses"; and they had seats by the stage, but anyone could walk over and watch from there as well.

They gave you plates and wine glasses before you entered; the wine glasses were needed whenever you wanted a beverage, but you picked up plates at each station, so I'm not really sure why they gave you plates to begin with. We didn't end up using them, and they cleared them away at the end of the night. We did get to keep our wine glasses, which were a nice souvenir. We decided on a divide and conquer approach, with each of us heading somewhere different to pick up samples for each of us to try.

Shortly into the event, we had two young women ask if they could join us at our table; of course that was fine. Their names were Erica and Kirsten. The four of us hit it off immediately; we had a lot to talk about with each of them. Erica works for Disney, not in the parks but in an HR/recruiting type capacity, so we had fun talking with her about her experiences at Disney. Kirsten lived in the rough area of Virginia where we had lived for about 5 years, and Erica actually grew up in the same approximate area where I grew up and where we currently live! A small world As I said, the 4 of us clicked, and that is truly what made the night a lot of fun. With the two additional people, we were able to leave one or two people at the table with our stuff, while the rest of us went to get food and drinks.

That said, here's my summary/review of the event:
The food was pretty good; but there was absolutely no way to tackle all of it, and because of that you kinda left disappointed. There was stuff we wanted to try, but because of lines, etc, we couldn't. I personally think it would have been better to have a smaller selection, and an actual chance of trying it all in the ~3 hour time period. I was impressed however with the overall quality of the food, and the types of items that were available. It wasn't just common ingredients like chicken or beef, but plenty of variety including duck, octopus, rabbit, pork, etc...

The Cirque performances were really disappointing. I had never been to a Cirque show before, but I know enough about them. They did 3 5-10 minute acts during the night. The first was a standard Cirque act where they are falling out of the windows/roof/etc of the house, and bouncing/walking back up. That's entertaining. But then the second act was a juggler, which I don't feel is unique to Cirque at all, and then the third act was a woman who did a flexible-acrobatic type routine, which was impressive yes, but again, didn't scream "Cirque du Soleil". So all in all, I don't think this is a major selling point of the event. [Which is too bad, since it was one of the major reasons I booked this.]

The overall feel and treatment of the event left Aaron with a bad taste in his mouth. The amount we paid for the event could get you a nice five-star restaurant dinner. However, this event does not have a five-star feel, at least not for the general admission. He hated the waiting and the running for a seat. And then once the event was over, they basically flicked on the lights, and actually literally had guys with those lighted wands trying to usher you out of the room as quickly as possible. Again, awkward.

In my opinion, I had a great time because of the company. However, that was pure luck. Had they not sat with us, I think I would have left much more disappointed. And honestly, we would not ever do this event again; it just wasn't worth it to us. We'd both much rather have taken the money and had a nice calm dinner at V&A's. Oh well, live and learn.

Pictures of the event will be in the next post.
Our next day was Hollywood Studios! Stay tuned

 

[kdka421]

Party for the Senses pictures:

Note: the food pictures were really difficult to get, because of the lighting. Eventually one of the girls had the bright idea to shine the light from her phone onto the food while I took a picture. Brilliant! Sorry for the overall poor quality though.

The Millennium Showplace, and crowds waiting for the event to start:

Food:

Overall look of the event (the last few pictures are after the event was over and they turned the lights on):

Me, Kirsten, and Erica (yes, I felt quite underdressed compared to them!)

 

[kdka421]

Hi again everyone! Sorry as always that life is getting away from me, and there just never seems time to sit down and write. But I WILL finish this, even if just for myself. I love having this written record of the trip.

Day 6: Hollywood Studios

Day 6 was our first and only day we spent at Hollywood Studios. We also had a unique situation occurring on this day - the day before, Aaron's Aunt, Uncle, and cousin were arriving at Disney for a vacation of their own! We didn't know this until a few weeks prior to our trip, so once we found out that our trips would overlap, we discussed to see if we could coordinate a visit at all. We live in NY and they live in NC, so we don't see each other often, so we did want to make it a point to at least see each other once; however, we didn't want to turn it into a situation where either group felt obligated to stick together, interfere with the other family's plans, etc. So, we planned to meet up on this day for lunch, and then see what happened.

We got on the bus at 8:47 (oops, about 30 minutes behind schedule, we were hoping to get there before rope drop). We got there just after 9, the park had already opened, and we headed straight to Rock 'n Roller Coaster. My last trip I barely convinced myself to give this ride a try, and it's a good thing I did, because I loved it. We grabbed a fastpass, went on RNRC once (FABULOUS), went over to Tower of Terror and rode that twice in a row, then it was already time to use our RNRC fastpasses. So we already had 2 rides under our belt on my favorite two rides in the park. I can't say enough about how much I love Tower of Terror - the theming of that ride has it tied, in my mind, with Splash Mountain for the best two rides in all of Disney.

With a good start to the morning, we didn't really have much of a game plan. So we wandered over and picked up FPs for Toy Story, which were already out to mid-afternoon. We then wandered over to the Animation Courtyard, where we tried to get into the animation class, but they had just filled up that session. So instead we watched the animation video in the animation theater (I hadn't seen that in years, Aaron never had, and I had forgotten...it's not that interesting, lol). Then we went to see the Muppets, first walking through the Streets of America, where they already had the Osbourne lights hung (not lit yet, of course). We also got a few photopass pictures taken:

I stopped to take this picture in the hallway of the Muppets, and after I took it, I looked at the picture, and said something like "Ha, that's awesome." A CM heard me and inquired what was so awesome...I showed her the picture and explained that a few nights earlier Aaron had dressed as the Swedish Chef for the Halloween Party, and she thought that was the coolest thing and made me tell that to another CM nearby I love good CM interactions!

After the Muppets, it was just before Noon, when we had planned to meet up for lunch. So we headed over to Sunset Boulevard, where we met up with Aaron's family. I thought that would be a good place to meet because there are a number of different options (burgers, sandwiches, pizza, etc), and that worked out well. Aaron's cousin has some food restrictions, which we do not have, so it was neat to see firsthand how well Disney does with that - they sent out a manager to go over the restrictions with them, and made sure everyone was happy with what was chosen. This is the only time I've seen this myself, and just as I've always heard, Disney was awesome in this situation.

I had my mind set on trying the Mac&Cheese/bacon/truffle oil hot dog from Fairfax Faire - it was pretty darn good. I liked that it came with chips, and I believe a cookie as well for dessert. Aaron ended up getting a basic cheeseburger, and said it was pretty good too. We had a nice lunch and a great time catching up with family and hearing about their trip so far.

After lunch, we were all thinking about going to see Lights, Motor, Action (Aaron and I wanted to see it because we had heard it might be removed with the possible DHS Cars land), so we all went over to see that together. This was the first time we had seen it since they replaced Herbie with Lightning McQueen; eh, whatever... neither one particular was of interest to me. The show itself though really is pretty cool, and it's a great view from those seats!

After the show, we wanted to get a photopass of the whole family together, although I didn't know where any were other than the ones by the sorcerer's hat. I ended up asking a CM and they pointed us to the photopass photographer in the Star Wars area, which was a little random, but it worked! We ended up with this fun picture:

[Continued in next post!]

 

[kdka421]

Day 6, continued:

First, we stopped at another photopass photographer - these pictures weren't great, but this was the best of the bunch:

Next, I wanted to be sure to catch the Little Mermaid show. Aaron hadn't seen it before, because it was closed for renovations the last time we were there. It was really fun to see that again, and I think Aaron thought it was better than he had expected. We also explored some of the shops:

Next, we headed over to One Man's Dream, specifically because Aaron wanted to see the video, but also he likes looking at all the exhibits as well. WELL...we got in there, and Aaron's reading all the plaques, and it's not really my thing so I'm kinda browsing around but just kinda standing around. And all of the sudden, I felt something brush my toes (I was wearing flip flops), kinda like you might feel a leaf or something blow against your foot. Well, whatever it was, I looked down, and realized it was a little SNAKE!! YIKES! It was skinny like a worm, but most definitely a snake (yes, inside the pavilion!). I am not one to yell or flip out in that situation, but I feel like I jumped a foot in the air due to the surprise. The snake crawled away quickly under a little panel in the wall. Once I calmed down, I went to tell a CM what had happened - she was an older woman, and was very sympathetic and surprised! She called some other CMs and explained to them what had happened, and next thing I know, they were ushering people because the attraction was having "technical difficulties" - haha!

Since we couldn't see the movie then, we decided to head over and use our Toy Story Mania fastpasses. It really is a fun ride, but it's too bad the line usually is as long as it is, it would have been nice to have been able to ride it more than once. I'm pretty sure Aaron got the higher score, as he usually does, oh well. After that, we went back to One Man's Dream (open again!) and finally got to see the video about Walt Disney. After the movie, we were getting hungry again, so we headed back to Sunset Boulevard. We both chose Fairfax Faire this time, with Aaron trying the chili/cheese dog, and I opted for the chicken/ribs combo. I had heard it wasn't as good as Flame Tree BBQ -- and how could it be?! -- but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. It was nice for a change.

Before dinner we picked up FP's for Tower of Terror, but by the time we were done, the ride was down, so we couldn't ride it again right then. So instead we just wandered around for a bit, and we also picked up FP's for RnRC, and then went in at 6:30 to wait for Fantasmic. We were a little early, but that never hurts when it comes to Fantasmic. Aaron's family came to meet up with us - and before we went in, they mentioned that they had FP's for Toy Story but they thought they wouldn't do it since "it sounded like a kid's ride". Well we convinced them it wasn't and that they should go ride it! So they went to do that, and we saved seats for them until they were done. They, of course, were glad that they gave it a try. I realized that we weren't usually in the Fantasmic stadium while it was still light out, so it was neat to see the area in the daylight. They have added since the last time we were there some before-show "entertainment", some guys who went around telling jokes and things like that, kinda lame, but nice to have something to pay attention to. The show was at 7:30, and we enjoyed it as always.

After Fantasmic, we just barely made it to use our RnRC FPs (ride #3). We then were able to ride ToT with our FPs from earlier, since the ride was down during the FP return period. However, since the ride had been down for so long, both the regular line and the FP line were quite a wait. The standby line was 70 minutes at that point, and it got longer later in the evening. But even the FP line, we waited probably 20-30 minutes. We found out that one of the two banks of elevators wasn't operating, so that was slowing things down quite a bit. We decided it wasn't worth waiting in that FP line again, unfortunately, but 3 times was still a success.

At this point we were in evening magic hours - the park had closed at 9, but was open until midnight. We went over to Star Tours and rode that twice in a row, it was basically walk on, which was nice. Aaron then decided he wanted to try the Great Movie Ride, which I think we had ridden once before, but he didn't really remember. We waited for probably about 20 minutes, which was unfortunate, since the ride isn't that great IMO! Oh well. At that point it was 10:40...we were getting tired, and basically felt we had exhausted all we wanted to do, so we headed back to CSR for the night. And on our way out, we caught a street artist drawing Donald with water.

Coming up next - day 7 was a CRAZY day. It had some HUGE highs, and some significant lows. We did a lot of new stuff, and then got thrown for a major loop. I can't wait to tell you all about it!

 

[khertz]

What a great day in DHS! I used to love the days of running back and forth between RnRC and ToT and riding them over and over. So fun! That's pretty great that you were also able to spend some time with family that you don't get to see very often.

 

[Duzzygirl]

The *Party for the Senses* sounded very interesting. The venue looked beautiful!

I hadn't even realized Herbie had been replaced by Speed. It's cute, but I liked Herbie. lol

Looking forward to Day 7!!

 

[kdka421]

What a great day in DHS! I used to love the days of running back and forth between RnRC and ToT and riding them over and over. So fun! That's pretty great that you were also able to spend some time with family that you don't get to see very often.

Those sure are two amazing rides! And it is fun to see how many times you can ride a given ride in one day (while still getting other things accomplished as well). It was definitely awesome to see family too - and I'm so glad it worked out that we were able to meet up for a few things, but then still get our own agendas accomplished.

The *Party for the Senses* sounded very interesting. The venue looked beautiful!

I hadn't even realized Herbie had been replaced by Speed. It's cute, but I liked Herbie. lol

Looking forward to Day 7!!

Party for the Senses definitely was interesting. I hope I portrayed it well - we did enjoy it, even though I said we wouldn't do it again. Just one of those things you couldn't really know how you feel about it until after experiencing it.

Thanks for chiming in, I can't wait to write up Day 7. Hopefully soon, maybe this weekend!

 

[hobbs6799]

I am loving your reviews and all your pictures.

Loved your costumes! The Swedish Chef was always mine and my sister and uncles favorite. We used to love the Holiday Muppet Show (not movie) where the Swedish Chef would chase the chicken around.

I am so glad you posted pictures of the Epcot crowds. We will be there in October and plan on doing the F&W. I will make sure we hit Epcot no later than Thursday.

Thanks for taking the time to do this great review.

 

[fizbobunny]

Another great day at Disney!

 

[kdka421]

I am loving your reviews and all your pictures.

Loved your costumes! The Swedish Chef was always mine and my sister and uncles favorite. We used to love the Holiday Muppet Show (not movie) where the Swedish Chef would chase the chicken around.

I am so glad you posted pictures of the Epcot crowds. We will be there in October and plan on doing the F&W. I will make sure we hit Epcot no later than Thursday.

Thanks for taking the time to do this great review.

Thank you!!
I'm so glad my review can be helpful! I felt I was prepared for what the weekend crowds would be like, but even so I was surprised! Have an awesome time at F&W! Please let me know if you have any other questions I might be able to answer.

Another great day at Disney!

Thanks!! Any day is a good day at Disney

 

[kdka421]

Day 7: Magic Kingdom

Day 7 was supposed to be our last full day at Disney. Our plans for this day included spending the day at the Magic Kingdom, and we had a dinner reservation for Narcoossee's. We also had a special event planned for that evening. Well, a few of those things I just mentioned did not happen, as I've already indicated through my trip report; and something that we couldn't plan for, did happen. So, ready for all the surprises to be revealed?!

Our day started off normally. We caught the bus at 8:30, and actually made rope drop for the very first time of our trip! Oops, haha. Anyway, it was nice to catch it this time. We weren't near the very front of the crowd, but we still caught the train station show. By this point in the week, temperatures had dropped quite a bit from where they were earlier in our trip - it was funny to see the cast members lining Main Street wearing long jackets and gloves, while most of us tourists (from colder climates!) were still wearing t-shirts and shorts! The temperature shift was really nice in my opinion - we actually were comfortable in jeans, and then by the evening it was cool enough to wear a light sweater, and it was a nice break from the Florida heat!

It was Aaron's turn to choose where to start, so he picked his all-time favorite, Space Mountain. We headed there and walked right on, which is always fun! This was the last time I rode Space Mtn. that trip though...as I've already said, I don't enjoy having to brace myself through the whole ride. After Space we rode Buzz Lightyear, walked right on that as well. While we were on the ride, it stopped for about 3 minutes or so...and I happened to find one of the targets that gave major points. While we were stopped I maxed out my points to 999,999 which was exciting! Aaron kept jerking the car around though so I didn't end up with a very clear picture of my score. Oh well.

Next, we crossed the park to Fronteirland to catch a ride on both Big Thunder and Splash Mountains. The line was still short for Big Thunder - and virtually non-existent for Splash. It was still "cold" enough that people weren't too excited about getting wet yet. Didn't bother us! We walked right on, and we had a boat all to ourselves. Very fun

Around 10:15am, we wandered over to the entrance of New Fantasyland/FLE. We had gotten in during the Halloween party for a little bit, as I've previously mentioned. However, we had heard before our trip that this day, 10/29, was the first day they were going to open Be Our Guest restaurant to the public. So we went over, and the sign was up that the area was closed, and there were a bunch of CMs directing people away, answering questions, etc. We walked up to them, and I asked one something like "I heard there was a chance Be Our Guest might be opened today...is there any chance we might be able to get in when it opens for lunch?" The CM gave us a standard response, something like "Well we can't say when it is going to open.......but hang on a minute." She went to talk with another CM, and then came back and asked us "Is it just the two of you?" We responded yes, and then..........she she said we could go in! We actually were allowed into the FLE area even though right then it was mostly just those who had a castmember preview pass or something like that. What major pixie dust! [Around lunchtime, I noticed there was a brief period where they did open it up fully to the public, but it wasn't for long]

We took the opportunity to explore the area in the daylight, which we hadn't gotten a chance to do during MNSSHP. They also had a few things open that weren't open during the party, such as a beautiful gift shop. I really wish we could have bought this set of dishes, they were just so beautiful! I also loved these pens that had tissue paper roses at the top. We tried out the Le Fou's brew at Gaston's Tavern - a very sweet, refreshing drink, basically tasted like frozen apple juice. Also, before they started serving for lunch, they had the entrance to Be Our Guest open so you could go in and take a look around. Absolutely gorgeous! I also took a few daytime photos of Maurice's Cottage, although we did not go do the Belle show again or the Little Mermaid ride again. We did, however, go to Ariel's Grotto and meet Ariel. She was adorable, and we had a really fun interaction with her.

[Review of Be Our Guest lunch in the next post]

 

[kdka421]

Day 7: Be Our Guest lunch

Finally, I think a little before 11, a line started forming for lunch at Be Our Guest. We waited in line, and they started letting people in a few parties at a time. Once we were let in, we again waited in line inside. It was definitely a little disorganized, you could tell there were a lot of kinks that still needed to be worked out. They had to ask how you were paying (dining plan, credit card, etc), then they assigned you a rose (pager), then directed you to a kiosk where you would order your food. There were a lot of CMs around helping people out with paying, etc. We ordered our food, then you were directed to go sit down, and the rose acts as a locator, so they know where to bring your food. They had to tell us, and many others, to go sit down or at least put down our stuff somewhere so they'd have a place to bring our food! We were allowed to sit in (and visit) any of the 3 dining rooms. We ate in the main ballroom, which was absolutely beautiful. The snow effect in the windows was fabulous. The music box room was also gorgeous, and would be another wonderful place to eat. The paintings on the walls (which aren't movie stills, they are like "future" scenes of Belle and Beast and crew) were gorgeous as well. The West Wing room was also amazing to see, but personally I wouldn't choose to eat in there because it was so dark. The rose was another amazing effect!

Our food was decent - not the best meal we've had, but enjoyable nonetheless. I had the croque monsieur sandwich and fries, and Aaron chose the braised pork which was a huge portion and really hearty. We each got cupcakes for dessert - I got the triple chocolate and Aaron chose the lemon meringue. Aaron also tried the potato leek soup, and that was probably the biggest disappointment - a little bland, and weirdly also they had no crackers or bread available to go with the soup. All in all, this was a very unique dining experience, and I'd definitely recommend it.

Coming up next - a hectic afternoon, and a lot of changed plans...

 

[MEK]

I know I'm a little behind on your TR, but I really enjoyed your last update. You got some great pictures in Fantasyland with some really nice details. I was over there in October, but never got to see the inside of Be OUr Guest. Very nice. My DH and I have an ADR for dinner there in June and I'm really looking forward to it. Is that a line of people waiting to get in the restaurant?

I love all the stained glass inside. Very nice. Sorry the potato leek soup was a bust. That sounds like one of those things which could turn out very bad if not prepare properly.

Fun update. Thanks!