Since this was the last day of the International Food and Wine Festival, Epcot was the natural choice for our first day. We always have a tendency to go there first, anyway. We heart Epcot!
Before we headed to Epcot, though, we had a 7:30am breakfast at Ohana. We LOVED Ohana's breakfast! The eggs...well, I think they must use pixie dust, but Cousin Amanda said it's just half and half. All I know, is I don't normally like scrambled eggs, but I loved these! The rest of the food was really good too, as was the character interaction. This is definitely one we plan to do again!
Cinnamon Raisin Bread on the left, Pineapple Coconut Bread on the right.
Some of the freshest fruit we've ever had. And the Lilikoi juice, which we both loved!
Biscuits, bacon, sausage, potatoes, and those wonderful eggs!
And, of course, Mickey Waffles!
For those who don't know, the characters at this breakfast are Mickey, Pluto, Lilo, and Stitch.
When I called about some ADR's before our trip, she added my birthday to every meal, plus I wore my button most of the week (they told me to wear it all week!) I know some of you out there are against this, but the CM's I spoke to all said they encourage it, so I did. At Ohana, they brought me a cupcake and a card signed by all the characters.
I do have to say, I think I was really fortunate as far as my birthday went. I finally stopped wearing my button because we had too many cupcakes already! I truly hope everyone who celebrates their birthday there has as magical a time as I had!
After breakfast, we walked over to the TTC to hop on the Epcot Monorail. It was a beautiful day! I have to say, though, by the time we got through the gate at Epcot, my feet were already killing me. I did not wear good shoes this day! We took some pictures in front of Spaceship Earth and the Food and Wine festival display.
In the courtyard, we saw....
Stitch was out as well, but since I just saw him, I didn't go see him.
We rode Spaceship Earth first. It was nearly a walk on. I love this ride. I know many people think it's boring, but I happen to think it's a fascinating ride. Next we walked over to Test Track, which had a 60 minute standby wait. No, thank you! We grabbed fastpasses for later. As we were walking back over to Innoventions, I took a look at the wait times. Nemo was showing 90 minutes!
I am convinced that must have been a typo, because it was showing only 5-10 minutes the rest of the day.
We breezed through Innoventions East, then headed over to the Imagination pavillion. As we passed the Fountain of Nations, here's who we saw:
We walked over and rode Journey into Imagination. I love this ride, but then, I was never fortunate enough to see the original. I've watched it on
YouTube, and I think I would have loved that version, too! After this, it was time to use our Test Track fastpass, which ended up not being fast at all. They moved us right to loading area 3, but I think the CM must have either been new or not paying attention, because she let Group 1 go, then Group 2, then Group 1 again. Then we got to go. We both love this ride. It's a lot of fun! Here's our picture:
After this, we backtracked over to the Land (we do this a lot!) We rode Living with the Land, then grabbed a fastpass for Soarin'. This was at 1:30pm. Our return time was for 6:05pm. I'm surprised they had any fastpasses left, though, considering we waited so long, and they were so busy that day. The standby wait was 65 minutes.
We were starting to get hungry, so we headed over to the World Showcase to start sampling some food. I will say, everything we had was good! We tried to take pictures, but we kept forgetting (this seems to be the theme of the entire week!) So I will tell you everything we tried, but you will only see pictures of some of the items.
We started at Santiago, Chile, where we had a Corn and Cheese Arepa. It reminded me of a very yummy cross between cornbread and polenta with cheese on top. Next we headed over to Athens, Greece, where we tried the Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatiki. We love Greek food, and this did not disappoint!
We skipped Montreal, since we had an ADR for Le Cellier later that night. But we did see "O Canada!" for the first time. It was such a beautiful move, and Martin Short was funny! On the way, I snapped this:
Next up was Wellington, New Zealand, and a Lamb Slider with Tomato Chutney. YUMMY!
After that was Cork, Ireland. We had the Kerrygold Cheese Selection: Aged-Irish Cheddar, Dubliner and Ivernia Cheese with Apple Chutney and Brown Bread. The cheeses were pretty good. The bread was a little dense for my taste. I didn't care much for the chutney, but Jon loved it!
At Cork, we also had the Lobster & Scallop Fisherman's Pie. Oh my goodness, this was heaven in a bowl!!! It was so creamy and yummy.
After that, we took a few pics in UK.
At this point, we started heading back the other direction (see, we backtrack a lot!) I was dying to ride Maelstrom (one of my favorite rides!), and we had a 3:30pm date with Kim Possible in Norway. As we made our way towards Mexico, we stopped in Buenos Aires, Argentina and tried the Beef Empanada with Tomato Salsa. It was very good, but VERY spicy and very hot temperature wise. I can usually handle spicy, but this was a little much for me. If you were walking by that day and saw someone choking and beggin her hubby for the water bottle with tears in her eyes, that was me!
We also had the Grilled Beef Skewer with Chimichurri Sauce and Boniato Puree, which we both really enjoyed.
After I recovered, we walked through the Mexico pavillion. It's so beautiful.
We rode the boat ride, which I normally enjoy, even if it is a little (okay, very) cheesy. I did not enjoy it this time, though, because there was a group of four women behind us, and one of them was speaking very loudly (first on her cell phone, then to the others in the group) in a language I could not understand, but it sounded like Spanish. You could not even hear the music. This was the first of a couple of times this trip that I wish I had the nerve to speak up!
Because of this, we haven't been able to even think about our trip next year, which may now be cancelled. It's made me too sad to even look at my pictures or think about Disney at all. However, things are starting to look up, and he had a very promising conversation with his manager about another team that may have a spot for him. So we are feeling a little bit better now. We now return you to your regularly scheduled trip report.
), the Prime Rib, and the Chocolate Mousse. I had the filet (HEAVEN!) and the Maple Creme Brulee. We also shared a side of really good Mac and Cheese.
...I have to do more of them when we get back...
She said, "Oh, how princely". I'm not sure she knew what to think. I asked him later why he did that, and he wasn't sure either. I don't think he even realized he did it until after it was over. What a guy!! After meeting Cindy, we were taken upstairs to our seat. Our server was Sir Aaron. He brought us our plate of bread and our fruit. Both were very good!
Next, it was on to the Carousel of Progress. We both love this ride, and tend to sing along with it. Then it was on to Astro Orbiter for our first ride ever. I had been nervous about this ride because I'd heard it was a tight squeeze for Pooh-sized people, but we had no trouble at all! We LOVED it!! I think it was about a 30 minute wait. Jon even took pictures on it.
