(Updated 4/16) Gonna Have to Buy a New House! - Jan 2025 TR

[piglet1979]

We made our way into the park, and over to France to get some breakfast. As we crossed the bridge I noticed this little easel down there by the water - it's a painting of the friendship boats!

I am pretty sure years ago this was part of the Phinies and Ferb game they used to have. I kids did the game a few times when they were younger.

 

[Araminta18]

I love your enthusiasm and I am super jealous! I can't get my husband excited about Disney, no matter what I do. You're a lucky gal.

Aw, thank you! I am a lucky gal - though it helps that Disney owns Star Wars and Marvel, which Trevor enjoys. Maybe one day your husband's interest will get piqued!

 

[Araminta18]

I am pretty sure years ago this was part of the Phinies and Ferb game they used to have. I kids did the game a few times when they were younger.

ooooh that would make sense! That's cool - I never did that one though we did do a couple of the Duck Tales games this time around. They're really fun!

 

[Araminta18]

Meeting Ashley Taylor - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 4)​

4 minutes after leaving the room, we were in Epcot. Or rather Trevor was - I got tagged by security. Womp womp.

Nah it was fine - I just love the "new" security so much that I'm always personally offended when I have to stop and get my bag actually checked!

Anyways, we headed over to France - Trevor hopped in line for the France booth, despite the LONG line:

The line is way outside the stanchions, and then winds around inside. Woof. Saturday + a nice day after bad weather? LONG LINES.

I kept going to the booth where Ashley Taylor was signing and that line was hardly shorter!

Ashley is under that umbrella - there were 3 switchbacks inside the stanchions, and we were outside them. I shouldn't complain though - Ashley is awesome and deserves all the attention.

30 minutes later, Trevor joined me in Ashley's line with food from the France booth! Also 30 min - woof.

He got 2 of the Crème de Brie en Petit Pain: Warm creamy brie in a house-made bread bowl, cause last couple times we've only gotten one bread bowl and OBVS we should get one each. In the other hand he got the Escargot en Chocolat: Chocolate mousse flourless cake, citrus coulis, almond-chocolate coating, and dark chocolate decoration. The snail decoration thing broke.

Then lastly, Pithiviers de Canard et Volaille, Sauce Canard: Puff pastry with duck, chicken, onions, mushrooms, cranberries, and duck sauce

The duck pastry thing was interesting, but kind of weird. Trevor and I each liked different parts - I liked the middle bit with more filling, whereas Trevor liked the edges with less filling by more pastry. So that worked out.

The brie bowls were delicious, 10/10 no notes, except they should be bigger.

The pastry escargot snail thing I liked - there was mango jam/jelly in the middle which was good. Trevor doesn't like fruit jellies in his chocolate so he didn't love that part but the chocolate was good. Overall, a win.

So yea, that's the optimum way a food booth can happen - good food and all of it interesting. It helped pass some of the waiting in line time. By the time we finished the dishes, we had one last switchback to go to meet Ashley.

35 minutes later, it was our turn to meet Ashley! She was super sweet and kind, and signed all the things - including the tapestry!

Yay! We had a good conversation - she told us about the Anna piece she did, which is a partner/complementary piece to the Elsa one Ann Shen did. Apparently she's been wanting to do a piece about Anna for a long time, but Disney wouldn't approve it without Elsa 'cause they didn't think people would want it without Elsa. So when Ann Shen mentioned to her this year that she was thinking of doing an Elsa piece, Ashley was like have I got an idea for you!

Ashley also had a Mary Poppins piece and I heard her tell the group in front of us that Disney told her she could do that piece but to have a backup ready because apparently Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke have approval over Mary Poppins art generally (something like that - I missed the specifics) and Julie doesn't approve much 'cause she feels like she's passed the torch to the new Mary Poppins movie and wants the focus to be there. I missed part of the rest of the story (sadness!) but apparently Ashley included some kind of quote in the request and Julie approved it! Yay! Also explains a bit why there's not a lot of Mary Poppins art.

So yea, I think that tells ya something about me - I'm not willing to wait in line for rides usually but I'll absolutely wait super long for artists. And it was worth it - both the wait and coming to Disney a day early!

After meeting Ashley, we walked over to America to get another piece signed - the artist had 10 min til his signing was done and we were like meh might as well. It was David Doss - he does a bunch of art about/at Disney World, and we had him sign the Boardwalk print we bought. He was nice; not super talkative (so no picture) but nice.

After that, we decided to head to Communicore Hall to look at the Broadway exhibit, by way of the Friendship Boats. We had good timing - they were loading the boat right as we got there! No waiting.

Trevor's moment of zen.

He figures if I can take a picture of him, he can take a picture of me.

As we were walking over to Communicore Hall, we passed the chalk art! It had the shadow of the fence on it, but still - super neat.

Partners statue!

We got distracted heading to Communicore Hall because they had photopass photographers out with the photo ops! Last year I never saw photographers, just the photo ops out, so with photographers there we of course had to stop.

Mary Poppins!

 

[Araminta18]

From Films to Broadway - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 5)​

More photo ops!

The CM told us to pose like the penguins and I apparently don't know how that works cause I knocked into Trevor before realizing which way I was supposed to face. Oops.

Then the Sleeping Beauty photo op! This one was my favorite, and the photographer was great, doing lots of poses with everyone.



Very reminiscent of the movie - I'm dancing with the animals and Trevor looking on I had to keep my bag on cause its a Sleeping Beauty bag...seemed appropriate.

Then over to Communicore Hall, where we ended up walking ALL the way around cause we saw the exit but weren't sure where the entrance was. But the bright side of walking all the way around is we found the Moana photo op! We also had a lot of fun with this one.



Looking off to where the water meets the sky!

Doing some wayfinding!

Then, finally, the Broadway exhibit. I love Broadway musicals so Broadway + Disney is like an intersection of all my favorite things, and I was so excited for this exhibit. Fair warning - lots of pictures, but I only have room for 2 in this post:

Giraffe from "The Lion King"!

They then had set up a costume work bench, with costumes and such from the Lion King, but the part that made me laugh was the boombox with the "Binford" sticker -

Anyone else catch that reference?

 

[Zaranthenia]

From Films to Broadway - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 5)​

Anyone else catch that reference?

I was at Festival of the Arts in late February and I totally missed this reference, what a fun catch! I love me some Home Improvement

 

[Araminta18]

I was at Festival of the Arts in late February and I totally missed this reference, what a fun catch! I love me some Home Improvement

yay Home Improvement! I wonder if they put this sticker on just for the exhibit or if it was real...but either way still fun!!

 

[Araminta18]

Broadway Exhibit Photos - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 6)​

This post and most of next is just going to be the Broadway exhibit photos...sorry!!

They had a large area about the Lion King costumes:


Isn't this Pumbaa puppet/costume amazing? Crazy!


Fun fact - Lion King is one of the few Disney shows on Broadway I've never seen.

In the center they had some fun props from various shows:

This is the Beauty and the Beast rose, I think from the new National Tour that's gonna launch this summer.


Frozen!


Jasmine's costumes! Across the way from Lion King was the Aladdin exhibit about those costumes. So neat!

Trevor and I split up when we look at exhibits, so I wandered around and the CM grabbed me to re-enact the simba lift!

so fun

More Aladdin costumes:

(And more other costumes there on the side and behind...coming soon!)


Katharine's costume from Newsies!! Semi deep-cut there.


Little Mermaid and Simba costumes.

 

[Araminta18]

More Broadway Exhibit! - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 7)​

Jack Kelly's costume from Newsies!


They had a couple of these dioramas/models of the sets - this was from Mary Poppins! So neat.


Anna and Elsa! And even neater when the original Anna and Elsa were doing concerts during the festival.


Hercules! Apparently this is premiering in Germany...I wish I could go!

They also had a little gift shop there at the exit of the exhibit, including Figment all dressed up for the show:

I was slightly disappointed that the gift shop just included Festival merch and no merch from these Broadway shows! That would have been neat. But it's probably for the best, considering the hit the wallet was already taking.


Olaf! And Mary there in the center!

Not gonna lie, I was disappointed that there wasn't very much from Mary Poppins or Beauty - those are my two favorite Disney musicals. But it was neat to see all the various costumes and props, and just some love for Disney on Brodway.

I found Trevor and we did a few more photo ops:


Did a genie come out of the lamp? We'll never know!

Overall, we really enjoyed that - this is what Communicore Hall should be used for! And the exhibit was fantastic. Good job Disney!

At this point, we were a little bit hungry, and we had a (long-expired..oops!) boarding group for Guardians to get to, so we headed over to Deconstructed Dish to get some dinner! I was going to grab a seat while Trevor waited in line, but I got a frozen cherry icee while I waited.

I'm a sucker for icees (as evidenced by our last Nov trip to Universal.. ) but especially with a figment cup!

The wait for the food was about 15 minutes - we got everything at the booth. First up, the deconstructed strawberry mint julep.

Last year this was NOT good - super super medicinal. This one already looked better - it had a red tinge even before we reconstructed it, which it did not last year. Maybe we just got a bad one last year? Cause this one was really good - definitely not medicinal at all. We enjoyed it.

 

[Araminta18]

Deconstructed Dishes and the Best Ride in Epcot - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 8)​

More deconstructed dishes! First the BLT:

This was good - also better than last year (at least I thought so). The bacon/pork belly was hard to cut but not tough to eat, weirdly enough. And the flavor was lighter than last year - I really liked it! Trevor didn't think it was as improved, but I liked it.

Then, the deconstructed key lime pie:

Very light and refreshing - the fake key lime is a bit heavy but the fruit really helps cut it. We just wished they had a few more raspberries - they were almost a calming flavor for the key lime, which is funny cause usually raspberries are really tart.

Overall, not sure if we just got lucky with the dishes this year, or if Disney actually made the dishes better, but deconstructed dishes were definitely hits this year!

Next up, Guardians! We got in line at 5:35, and by 6:15, had made it to the first preshow room - so 40 min in line. I'd guessed 45 min so pretty close. But then as always, the preshows - blargh. And the teleportation room was weird - people pushed open the middle door, so then people tried to push open the first door, but there was a CM there at the first door and they pushed back and kept that first door closed, so everyone just streamed through the open middle door. It was so weird! I've never seen a CM in that area before, and especially never seen a CM push the doors back. That preshow room is so badly designed. But on the bright side there weren't any people backed up into that room/funnel area so that's nice?

We made it down to the loading area and were waiting one extra cycle for row 9, when all of a sudden the people in the car had to get off and back in line. I guess the side we were on went down. But it was only about 3 or 4 min before they walked everyone on that side over to the other side, and let us on. Row 9!

so overall, 67 min to get on the ride. Not great, but not horrible!

We decided to be sleeping for the photo - honestly this time is one of the better pictures to have us face the camera!


Trevor always likes taking a picture at the end of the ride - so blue!

Also, just for @VAtink, we got Disco Inferno.

After the ride, we took some pictures:



Then, over to the park area, where we got luck and caught some of the Rainbow Connections show!! Yay!

If you watch from this side the pillars all light up in time with the show, and with appropriate colors!

I love it so much.

And after the show, we got lots of pictures taken (I know, you're all surprised):


Figment! Sort of?

 

[Araminta18]

The Wilderness Must Be Explored! - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 9)​

And this last one turns the lights on Spaceship Earth into Mickeys!

I like these types of effects.

At this point we were getting a little bit hungry, but our dinner reservation wasn't until late. We figured we'd make our way back to the room and then see if the restaurant could seat us early - we were going to try the Cake Bake shop!

So we headed back across the bridge, looking at more of the chalk art.


Leigh does awesome chalk art.

They even had a photographer out at the end of the bridge (close to the lagoon), with the Festival of the Arts signage, so again, had to stop.

Figment!

But as we were walking towards Canada, we passed the Rob Kaz art booth, and we got sucked in. There was a picture of Carl and Russell from Up at a Wilderness Explorer booth in Animal Kingdom which first caught our eye (SO CUTE!) and then we saw he had two pieces, both of Galaxy's Edge. One of Galaxy's Edge in the day with all the characters, but then one of it at night with all the lights! We got sucked in and bought all three. Oops.

He was signing them so of course we had to get them signed. This was really where Trevor was like "yup that's it, we have no wall space, gonna have to buy a bigger house".

We felt a bit sheepish, but also not cause the art is so neat. And then as we kept walking the Deco Delights booth had NO line at all, and considering how long every line was that we'd seen that day, we grabbed the almond frangipane cake.

This was good - veeery dense. Trevor only got a fork, no knife, and it was more resistance than you'd think, trying to cut it with just the fork. But it was good - the raspberry jam was really strong, and we both actually liked it better without the raspberry - just the almond flavor. Honestly, almond, chocolate and raspberry is an interesting mix that I didn't super love. But the bites with just the almond were my favorites. And it was a good size slice of cake, especially for festival food.

We kept walking back and stopped a bit in the UK to look at their merch, as well as get a photo op with Tinkerbell!



We made it back in the room just after 8 pm, dropped off the stuff, and grabbed our coats cause it was a bit cold. We could see the movie they were showing on the beach from our balcony!

I think this was High School Musical.

Our reservation wasn't til 10:15, but we figured we'd head over anyways to see if they could seat us earlier. If they could great, if not we'd head back to the room. So off we went! Trevor had perked right up, now that it was nighttime - he's definitely more of a night owl!

6 min after leaving our room, we were walking up to the Cake Bake Shop:

Great location!!

 

[Araminta18]

Cake Bake Shop - Saturday Jan 25th 2025 (part 10)​

They were super nice and said they were optimistic they'd be able to get us seated in 30 min or so. We ducked into the bakery part of the bake shop:

It's crazy over the top! I love me roses and such as much as the next girl but wow.

It's also VERY EXPENSIVE. I meant Trevor and I do tend to somewhat ignore budgets at Disney but for reals - $36 for a keychain!? Bonkers. And yes I realize the irony of saying this in the very next sentence but we bought several cake slices, cause they all looked so good. But they packaged them up to go and we got a cute little bag to carry them in.

We kept wandering down the Boardwalk and spent some time watching one of the entertainers:

It was so fun - the Boardwalk entertainers are top tier. and bonus to be sitting while the show was happening.

And in a spot of good timing, right as the show finished up, we got the text from the restaurant that our table was ready. Woohoo! It was 8:55, so way earlier than our reservation. We got seated in the main room, in a table in the center. Right underneath the unicorn animatronic. And yes, you heard that right - unicorn animatronic.

It kind of looked like a carousel with the unicorn on top.

They had a nice little note on the table for our anniversary:

Super cute!

For drinks, I got hot chocolate:

There's gold sprinkle dust in it! It's not sipping chocolate, just regular light/frothy hot chocolate. With pink whipped cream.

Trevor got the Petunia Punch:

Petunia punch is Lemonade and lemon-lime soda flavored with guava. It had a really strong scent, but it was good. Also per the menu, you could have gotten it served in a "souvenir porcelain swan cup $63.99". The drink itself was only $5.99, so the cup would be $58!!! Bonkers.

We also ordered the truffle fries as an appetizer:

These were really good, especially with the garlic dip. I don't usually like truffle but these were good.

The service felt really slow - this could just be me and Trevor eating fast but it took 20 minutes for the drinks to come out, and then another 10 or so for the fries, and then another 20 for the entrees.

I got the croque madame - I love croque madames. I'd ordered it with the salad but they inadvertently did it with fries so they brought me a HUGE arugula salad on the side. Normally I'd be content with the fries but everything was so rich I felt like I needed some greens!

Trevor ordered crab cakes:

Trevor thought these were really good - a nice bit of spice but not spicy. And the lemon had a net over it to catch the seeds so that's how you know it's fancy.

We left at about 10:30, with a total bill of $145 including tip. For two drinks, fries, and two entrees, that felt steep. Especially because while our waiter was very nice, the service overall was only middling (slow, my water glass never got refilled, etc). The food was good, but not that good for the price. So yea for us, this was basically a one and done. But I was glad we got to try it. We were reserving judgement on the cakes until we tried them.

Such pretty packaging! It was gonna be breakfast.

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 17877 steps (7 miles)
Ride count: 1 (Guardians)
Annual Pass Savings: $206.60 (good thing the Bride piece let me put my AP discount on that! )

 

[VAtink]

. And the teleportation room was weird - people pushed open the middle door, so then people tried to push open the first door, but there was a CM there at the first door and they pushed back and kept that first door closed, so everyone just streamed through the open middle door. It was so weird! I've never seen a CM in that area before, and especially never seen a CM push the doors back. That preshow room is so badly designed. But on the bright side there weren't any people backed up into that room/funnel area so that's nice? ​

That first door broke when we were there! One day it was working, the next it didn't open automatically with the others, so everyone just pushed through when the other doors opened. The second day of it not working they stationed a CM on the other side to yell at people pushing it open, which was kinda stupid/dangerous since there was a crush of people behind the first group trying to get through so there was nowhere for them to go but through the door! They really need to put the CM on the teleportation side instead of the other side or at least put a sign or barrier to keep people from using that door.

Also, just for @VAtink, we got Disco Inferno.

HAAA!!!!! I'm starting to think everyone is lying to me that this song is even on the ride....

 

[Araminta18]

That first door broke when we were there! One day it was working, the next it didn't open automatically with the others, so everyone just pushed through when the other doors opened. The second day of it not working they stationed a CM on the other side to yell at people pushing it open, which was kinda stupid/dangerous since there was a crush of people behind the first group trying to get through so there was nowhere for them to go but through the door! They really need to put the CM on the teleportation side instead of the other side or at least put a sign or barrier to keep people from using that door.

HAAA!!!!! I'm starting to think everyone is lying to me that this song is even on the ride....

Ooooh that makes sense. Still crazy though - that's kind of how we felt, being pushed into the door that we couldn't go through. And yea they should have put the stuff on the teleportation side. Or just fix that whole preshow stuff all together - Trevor hates it so much LOL

Dangit you've figured it out! A massive disboards conspiracy against VAtink

 

[Araminta18]

Lazy Epcot Morning - Sunday Jan 26th (part 1)​

The next morning, the day dawned slightly cold but sunny! We got up around 8am, and decided to enjoy a leisurely breakfast on our balcony.

Only just a wisp of a cloud in the sky!

Trevor went down to the market and got us eggs and milk and a powerade, so that we'd have something besides raspberry champagne cake.


Breakfast at Disney just hits different!

The cake was really good, actually - mostly tastes like vanilla, but then as we got deeper into the cake you could taste the champagne and the actual raspberries! I think that was my favorite part - not raspberry jelly or jam, but actual raspberries. Yum. Overall it was really light, and Trevor was thinking that in the summer this would be super nice and refreshing. Less refreshing this morning 'cause it was cold outside, but still good. We ended up eating basically all of it because it was so light. The Gideon's cake slices are about the same size and those we almost never finish 'cause they are so rich. That being said, I don't think it was worth the $22/$23 dollars - it's worth the $12/$14 that Gideon's charges but not $20ish.

Overall a nice breakfast - it was a bit chilly on the balcony 'cause we're in the shade, but that's probably normally a good thing, to be in the shade! Just was a bit cool this morning. Even so, nothing like eating on your balcony looking at the lagoon and knowing you have a whole Disney day ahead of you. We also saw the pool CMs out having a dance party!

We left the room at 9:30, without a real plan besides heading in to Epcot and wandering a bit til food booths and art booths opened at 11 am. And of course, Epcot came through! We saw Belle out meeting in her winter cloak, with a short line, so we hopped in and got to meet her.

We talked about her painting and how Chip paints his brothers and sisters. So fun!

Then we just kept wandering around World Showcase. We looked in the America pavilion at the Native American exhibits they had there - those were super neat.

They had regular exhibits but then some neat interactive videos where members of tribes talked about their heritage and things they created. It was really well done! We almost never go into this pavilion, so it was neat to see. Someday we may even do The American Adventure show. We would have done it today but the next show wasn't for like an hour and we didn't want to hang around for it.

We were still a bit cold but the sun came out, which helped a bunch. We decided to walk over to Germany and see if Snow White was out meeting and greeting, cause we were wearing Snow White and Grumpy shirts! On the way, we found Mickey and Minnie!

Not super hidden, but super cute. I love these little touches.

We also grabbed some hot chocolate, cause again, still slightly chilly. And we didn't want to carry jackets cause it was definitely gonna warm up - just had to get through the morning chill.


We stopped and looked at the model train and the city -

They have little Festival of the Arts banners up! The train itself wasn't running but still fun to look at.

Grumpy and Snow White shirts, in the Germany pavilion!

When we got to where Snow White meets, she was not out, sadly. Normally she is out that early but today the CM was saying that she wouldn't be out until 11:45. Oh well! Sometimes that's how it goes. I did take a picture with her FARTS portrait though:

 

[Araminta18]

Food Booth snacks! - Sunday Jan 26th (part 2)​

As we kept walking we saw little boats/canoes on the beach there by the Outpost! We'd never noticed those before, so that was fun:

Such good theming - ya gotta pay attention at Epcot man!

We made it over to China cause we had like an hour til 11 when the food and art booths opened, so the plan was to play the Duck Tales adventure game! But first, picture:


This was our first time playing the Duck Tales game, and it was really a lot of fun. Lots of interactive things to see react as you play on your phone. I put together some of the clips we took as we played:

It was a fun way poke around the pavilion - it made me think of the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game I used to love to play at Magic Kingdom. So sad that game ended - RIP SOTMK!

After completing the adventure at the China pavilion, we made our way back to Japan, cause we wanted to start there with food. But first, more pictures!


Love those signs.

We basically rope-dropped the food booth and got almost everything they had. First, the Okinawa Lemonade: Lemonade mix with Shikuwasa Citrus.

This was really good! Brighter and less tart than regular lemonade - not quite orange juice but more in that vein. We really liked it!

Next up, the Taiyaki: Crisp, flaky fish-shaped pastry filled with sweet red bean served with whipped topping and blueberry popping boba.

1. The tray is like a boat and 2. the cream is like the water!! So cute. As for taste, the red bean paste confuses my palate. Its beans, but also kind of sweet? and then the pastry is good and sweet, so my brain is like "is it sweet? is it not sweet?" So confused! I thought the whipped cream also made it more weird cause the whipped cream is SO sweet but then it's still beans. Trevor though thought the blue whipped cream helped make it less weird - he thought the texture was the weirdest part and the whipped cream smoothed that out, while for me the taste was the weird part. Anyways, I'm glad we got it - it was definitely interesting.

And then last but not least, the Wagyu Bun: Steamed bun filled with American wagyu beef served with Japanese karashi mustard sauce and violet shiso sauce.

This was delicious - the bao was soft and fluffy, the filling was yummy, and the sauces were great. I don't know if we liked it quite as much as the brie bowl, but it was definitely up there! Yum.

Then, we headed to America for more food! We got everything at this booth:

• Deviled Egg Trio: Pimento Cheese, Green Goddess, and BLT
• Chicken “Pot Pie” with smoked cheddar mornay sauce, roasted vegetables, pickled mushrooms, wasabi peas, and sherry-chicken jus served open-faced on flaky pie crust
• Hummingbird Cake: Banana and pecan cake dipped in cream cheese icing with caramel sauce and warm pineapple compote

These were all fine, but not as good as like the drink and bao bun at Japan. Starting with the deviled eggs: one is pimento, one is BLT and the other is green goddess. The first hard part of the deviled eggs was eating only half so Trevor could have a bite too. But very quickly we realized the big problem: normally, deviled eggs you take out the hard boiled yolk from the middle and then mix that up to be the filling. But here they had cut a hardboiled egg in half - LEFT IN THE HARDBOILED YOLK - and then put the filling stuff on top. So it wasn't really deviled and it made it SUPER dry. Boo. Especially 'cause the fillings were actually not bad at all - we liked all of them. The pimento one was a tiny bit spicy but good; the Green Goddess was good and really bright, and then the BLT was sweet but really smoky bacon. It was all good flavors but it would have been so much better if the yolk had been taken out, cause having the hard boiled yolk just in there made it so dry. The problem was the dryness, not the flavors. Such a bummer.

Next, the chicken pot pie. It's like an American tostada? It has wasabi peas on it, which I'd never seen before and I thought they were frozen or moldy or something for a minute. This was also a bigger portion than I expected, which turned out to be a bummer cause I didn't really like it and Trevor did but didn't want to eat a whole huge thing. I did like the bites on the edge with just pastry crust and chicken, but not the center bit with all the weird portions, but to be fair I don't like pot pies in general. Trevor said if it were a cold day he'd like the pot pie better, but at this point the sun had come out and warmed us up. He did like the wasabi peas - he decided he'd get some at home to put in his pot pies that he makes at home! I still don't understand pricing - here's 1.5 eggs for $10, but an open faced huge pot pie for $5. *shrugs*

And then last, the cake! They always have some kind of version of this cake but it changes from year to year. I don't like it 'cause I don't like nuts and there were nuts in the cake or the frosting. Trevor liked it a lot though.

We had good timing - while we were sitting down eating, the line got SUPER long for that food booth so we felt pretty good.

Then, over to Germany to meet Snow White! We did end up having to wait for about 30 minutes, but it wasn't horrible. And it was fun to watch all the little kids ahead of us. The girl right in front of us was adorable when she met Snow White - basically petting the fabric of Snow's dress to feel the texture, and touching her bow...so cute!

When it was our turn, she told us how Grumpy doesn't like people to know he's nice, but she saw him brushing knots out o the deer's fur. We just can't tell him we saw him. And then Sleepy swept up all the dust piles and then took a nap in the pile - I asked if sweeping the dust made Sneezy sneeze and she said yes, but that's why his chore is to do the laundry outside.


She didn't really key in on our shirts too much, like I thought she might, but it was still lots of fun. I'm glad we waited.

 

[Araminta18]

Characterpalooza! - Sunday Jan 26th (part 3)​

After meeting Snow White, we decided to do the Duck Tales adventure in Germany, since we were right there. That was also lots of fun - I especially liked that one of the interactive things was that you go to the model train area, and then when you click the button, the clock tower lights up and then eyes on the model people turn red and they raise their arms up. It's kind of freaky, actually - especially for the people who were just looking at the model train and had NO IDEA what was going on when I was clicking the button. I did it like 5 times just cause it was so funny to watch people's reactions. I didn't get a video of that, but I did film some of the other effects - the last one was my favorite!

As we finished the adventure, we were walking by America when I saw a character attendant just hanging out in that little alley to the side of the America pavilion so I was like OOOH let's just sit and wait right there, cause a character attendant hanging out usually means only one thing: characterpalooza! And I was right - about 2 minutes later, we saw a bunch of characters coming out from backstage!

Goofy, Smee, Donald, and Baloo! Not a lot of people seemed to notice that they were coming out, so we got to meet them all, which was lots of fun.



#1 Duck!




So fun - we met all four of them in about 10 minutes. Not bad at all!

Good times - definitely keep an eye out when you're near the America pavilion. If you see a character attendant, just hang out there and you can meet a bunch of characters!

I also got lucky and got boarding group 81 in the 1 pm drop for Guardians, but when I went to check and see what boarding group they were on, it looked like the ride was down temporarily...darn. We'll see how that goes!

As we were deciding what to do next, we heard an announcement about the Animation Academy at the America Gardens theatre, and drawing Wall-E characters, so we decided to do that. I think it's the first time ever doing Animation Academy, now that I think about it. They weren't letting people in to sit down quite yet, so I hopped in the line and to avoid Trevor baking in the sun and sucking all his energy, he headed over to the Vibrante and Vivido booth to get the smoothie. But when he got there, look at the line!

Super long. Trevor eventually had to ditch the line 'cause he wouldn't have gotten the food in time to make it back to do the Animation Academy - after 20 minutes he still hadn't ordered the food yet. Oh well! We'll get back there (or will we.... )

At Animation Academy, we got a great seat near the front:

And we were ready to draw Eve!

 

[Wayland10]

Then, we headed to America for more food! We got everything at this booth:

• Deviled Egg Trio: Pimento Cheese, Green Goddess, and BLT
• Chicken “Pot Pie” with smoked cheddar mornay sauce, roasted vegetables, pickled mushrooms, wasabi peas, and sherry-chicken jus served open-faced on flaky pie crust
• Hummingbird Cake: Banana and pecan cake dipped in cream cheese icing with caramel sauce and warm pineapple compote

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These were all fine, but not as good as like the drink and bao bun at Japan. Starting with the deviled eggs: one is pimento, one is BLT and the other is green goddess. The first hard part of the deviled eggs was eating only half so Trevor could have a bite too. But very quickly we realized the big problem: normally, deviled eggs you take out the hard boiled yolk from the middle and then mix that up to be the filling. But here they had cut a hardboiled egg in half - LEFT IN THE HARDBOILED YOLK - and then put the filling stuff on top. So it wasn't really deviled and it made it SUPER dry. Boo. Especially 'cause the fillings were actually not bad at all - we liked all of them. The pimento one was a tiny bit spicy but good; the Green Goddess was good and really bright, and then the BLT was sweet but really smoky bacon. It was all good flavors but it would have been so much better if the yolk had been taken out, cause having the hard boiled yolk just in there made it so dry. The problem was the dryness, not the flavors. Such a bummer.

My husband is STILL salty about those eggs! He insists that they were NOT deviled eggs and it’s misrepresentation! We went to Jock Lindsey’s the day after Epcot and got their deviled egg and fried chicken dish (which was delicious), and he even complained indignantly to the waitress about the Epcot eggs!

 

[Paulaparm]

I’m so glad that I had heard about the eggs before we got them! They definitely are not true deviled eggs! But they were good (but, yes, on the dry side)

 

[Araminta18]

My husband is STILL salty about those eggs! He insists that they were NOT deviled eggs and it’s misrepresentation! We went to Jock Lindsey’s the day after Epcot and got their deviled egg and fried chicken dish (which was delicious), and he even complained indignantly to the waitress about the Epcot eggs!

Your husband is 100% right! Definitely misrepresentation LOL

Jock Lindsay's does have good deviled eggs! They know what they're doing. but also that's hilarious that he complained to the waitress. I love it!