What is This Wet Stuff Falling on Us? September 2021 Food and Wine TR! (RL Update 10/2!!)

[VAtink]

I've said before but I can't believe they didn't make some official activity out of finding all the gold statues. That Stitch one is awesome!! Love the Haunted Mansion but that part between the stretching room and boarding your doom buggy gives me anxiety. YUCK. There has to be a better way.

I know, what a huge missed opportunity!

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the squeezing all the people in the stretching room even before the pandemic, and now it really feels wrong! I do love it, the ride felt so off back in April without it, but I wish they could do it without squishing so many people in there.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Going the first week of February for four nights.

We will be there Feb 6 to 10. Will we overlap?

I got a root beer float. Think it had been about 15-20 years since I’ve had one of these!

I rediscovered root beer floats when we dined at Beaches and Cream. I used to drink these ages ago, and I still love them.

We also swung by the Emporium on the way out, and wow, it was insane in there! I have never seen it so packed! So we quickly left and headed out of the park.

The Emporium was a madhouse when we were there the week before Oct 1st. Everyone was looking for the 50th Anniversary merchandise. The funny thing is that when we were at WDW last week we saw very few people wearing 50th anniversary shirts.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Wow, that is so cool, and what a talent! I can't even sing in English

I’m sure you can! Then again it is Monday, so who am I kidding I’m lucky I’m even awake right now

 

[VAtink]

We will be there Feb 6 to 10. Will we overlap?

So close! I leave on the 5th.

I rediscovered root beer floats when we dined at Beaches and Cream. I used to drink these ages ago, and I still love them.

They are really good! I'm not sure why I hadn't ordered one in so long, but I'm glad I finally did!

The Emporium was a madhouse when we were there the week before Oct 1st. Everyone was looking for the 50th Anniversary merchandise. The funny thing is that when we were at WDW last week we saw very few people wearing 50th anniversary shirts.

Ugh, I swear half the people who go to Disney these days are only there for merch and intagram photos! That being said, I do hope there is still some 50th stuff around when I go, would like to get something 50th!

 

[VAtink]

I’m sure you can! Then again it is Monday, so who am I kidding I’m lucky I’m even awake right now

Haha, so true, it's afternoon and I'm still not fully awake. Ugh Mondays.

 

[VAtink]

Day 3, Part 5: Can We PLEASE Move Park Hopping to Noon?

We last left off heading out of the MK. We made our way over to the boat docks and got in line for the boat over to the Grand Floridian.

It was a short wait, maybe about 5 minutes, for a boat to arrive. The line was pretty long we luckily made it on!

The trip over to GF is super fast and in no time we were disembarking and heading over towards the main lobby. Now, originally our plan this day was to eat lunch at the GF to kill some time before we could park hop at 2, but since we just had ice cream at the MK, we weren’t really hungry. Since we had a ton of time I decided to swing by Gasparilla and get a beer and then sit out on the porch and just people-watch and enjoy the drink.

It was a good way to spend some time, but didn’t spend enough time! So we headed inside next and did some shopping at Basin. My mom loves the soap there, and I’m obsessed with their sake soaks, so we got all that fun stuff. It was still way too early for hopping after shopping, so we went to the new seating area where the band used to play and just hung out there for about 30 minutes until 1:30ish.

Finally I figured it was close enough to 2:00 that we could start heading over to our next park!

We made our way over to the monorail and got there right as one was arriving, yay for good timing! We stayed on around to the TTC where we hopped off and made our way to the Epcot line. Our luck with timing ended here and we had about a 10-15 minute wait for the Epcot monorail. Good news is, this wait got us closer to the time we could actually enter Epcot!

We actually ended up arriving at Epcot right at 2:00, so perfect timing!

Once in, we headed to the left and made our way through the maze of construction walls to our next cheese crawl food booth, Flavors From Fire! We both got the corned beef corner route from the cheese crawl. I had this back in 2018 and wasn’t a fan back then, it wasn’t so much the flavors, but more because it was just a tiny piece of meat and a ton of chips. So I was willing to try it again this year, and I’m happy to say the ratio of ingredients was MUCH better. This was actually really good this year! I also grabbed a glass of the zinfandel.

It was super crowded in Epcot, but it was a Saturday so we expected it. We know better than to go to Epcot on Saturday during F&W, yet somehow we always end up in Epcot on Saturdays during F&W.

Since it was wall to wall people around the Flavors from Fire food booth, we took our goodies and made our way to the bridge between FW and WS and ended up sitting on the planters to enjoy our food.



After eating we were overheated and getting tired, so decided to head out and back to the YC for some downtime in the AC.

NEXT UP: So THESE Are the Garlic Pull-Apart Rolls! ​

 

[Wood Nymph]

We find the 2pm park hopping to be very annoying. They should at least let Epcot be noon instead of 2pm so people can eat lunch at the booths.

Sundays are crowded at Epcot, too. It is so funny to find it packed on a Sunday and empty on a Tuesday.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Day 3, Part 5: Can We PLEASE Move Park Hopping to Noon?

We last left off heading out of the MK. We made our way over to the boat docks and got in line for the boat over to the Grand Floridian.

It was a short wait, maybe about 5 minutes, for a boat to arrive. The line was pretty long we luckily made it on!

The trip over to GF is super fast and in no time we were disembarking and heading over towards the main lobby. Now, originally our plan this day was to eat lunch at the GF to kill some time before we could park hop at 2, but since we just had ice cream at the MK, we weren’t really hungry. Since we had a ton of time I decided to swing by Gasparilla and get a beer and then sit out on the porch and just people-watch and enjoy the drink.

It was a good way to spend some time, but didn’t spend enough time! So we headed inside next and did some shopping at Basin. My mom loves the soap there, and I’m obsessed with their sake soaks, so we got all that fun stuff. It was still way too early for hopping after shopping, so we went to the new seating area where the band used to play and just hung out there for about 30 minutes until 1:30ish.

Finally I figured it was close enough to 2:00 that we could start heading over to our next park!

We made our way over to the monorail and got there right as one was arriving, yay for good timing! We stayed on around to the TTC where we hopped off and made our way to the Epcot line. Our luck with timing ended here and we had about a 10-15 minute wait for the Epcot monorail. Good news is, this wait got us closer to the time we could actually enter Epcot!

We actually ended up arriving at Epcot right at 2:00, so perfect timing!

Once in, we headed to the left and made our way through the maze of construction walls to our next cheese crawl food booth, Flavors From Fire! We both got the corned beef corner route from the cheese crawl. I had this back in 2018 and wasn’t a fan back then, it wasn’t so much the flavors, but more because it was just a tiny piece of meat and a ton of chips. So I was willing to try it again this year, and I’m happy to say the ratio of ingredients was MUCH better. This was actually really good this year! I also grabbed a glass of the zinfandel.

It was super crowded in Epcot, but it was a Saturday so we expected it. We know better than to go to Epcot on Saturday during F&W, yet somehow we always end up in Epcot on Saturdays during F&W.

Since it was wall to wall people around the Flavors from Fire food booth, we took our goodies and made our way to the bridge between FW and WS and ended up sitting on the planters to enjoy our food.



After eating we were overheated and getting tired, so decided to head out and back to the YC for some downtime in the AC.

NEXT UP: So THESE Are the Garlic Pull-Apart Rolls! ​

The only park we could understand being 2 pm when we were there was EPCOT as when we were there it did not open until 11. Everything else could easily be noon or 1 or staggered.

 

[VAtink]

We find the 2pm park hopping to be very annoying. They should at least let Epcot be noon instead of 2pm so people can eat lunch at the booths.

Totally agree. Of all the changes lately, this is the one that we really can't stand. We love doing a morning at one park then heading over to Epcot for lunch, hope they change it before next years F&W so we can do that again!

Sundays are crowded at Epcot, too. It is so funny to find it packed on a Sunday and empty on a Tuesday.

It is crazy the difference between weekdays and the weekends! We always say we'll try to avoid the weekend crowds, but rarely do, there's usually some food item calling to us that we have to pop in even for just a bit!

 

[VAtink]

The only park we could understand being 2 pm when we were there was EPCOT as when we were there it did not open until 11. Everything else could easily be noon or 1 or staggered.

Haha, Epcot is the only one we want to open earlier I get with it opening later it makes sense to hold off the hopping til later, but we love doing lunch at the food booths, so unless we make Epcot our park for the day which seems like a waste of a morning, we can't do lunch there these days. I just really hope they either remove the hopping restriction, or move it a bit earlier. We could even handle a 1:00 lunch, but 2:00 is a bit too late for us.

 

[VAtink]

Day 3, Part 6: So THESE Are the Garlic Pull-Apart Rolls!

After a nice long break we showered and got ready for our dinner.

We really lucked out with this reservation. Originally on our ADR day there was hardly any availability this evening around the YC, and we wanted to stay nearby, so the only thing I could find an ADR for was Ale and Compass at 8:30 at night. This wasn’t ideal, as noted earlier my mom gets hangry if she doesn’t eat at regular intervals and an 8:30 dinner would lead to a very very hangry mom. Well, about a month before our trip it was announced that Yachtsman Steakhouse was finally reopening, so the day the ADRs went online I went and grabbed one! Yay!

I made reservations for right at 5, we were hoping with a super early dinner that it would be less crowded in there. We weren’t 100% comfortable eating indoors with tons of people around just yet.

So at 4:55 we headed out of our room and down to Yachtsman. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet, but our room was super convenient to get to the lobby, it was basically just at the end of the hall at the top of the stairs from the lobby, so it only was like a two minute walk to get down there. If it weren’t for the construction outside, the room would have been pretty awesome.

Anyways, I digress.

We arrived at the Yachtsman Steakhouse just before 5 and checked in. They took my phone number and told us we could wait in Crews Cup because all the seating in the hall was full with others waiting for their reservations. We ended up sitting in the little hall between Crews Cup and Yachtsman for about a minute before I got the text our table was ready.

We ended up with a great table against the window. After settling in we ordered a bottle of petite Syrah to share. I checked out the menu on my phone, but since my mom doesn’t have a smart phone, and thinks the text on mine is too small to read (even if I blow it up), she asked for a paper menu which our waiter happily brought her.


I swear I get this picture every time I eat here!

After a quick peruse of the menu, we both ended up ordering the filet mignon, I got the potatoes au gratin with it and mom got the mashed potatoes. We also got the mushrooms and asparagus to share.

The waiter came with the bread service soon after, and I was so excited to try the garlic pull-apart rolls after I think it was @2xcited2sleep mentioned them in my last TR!

These 100% lived up to the hype. I ate TWO of them waiting for our dinner! Not the smartest idea, but my goodness they were amazing! Our waiter was fantastic and saw how much we loved them and brought us out a new basket full of them!



Finally our main course came, and it was all amazing.


The butter and roasted garlic, yum!




My potatoes au gratin, these were delicious!







I am seriously drooling posting these pictures, now I want dinner and it's only 3:30 here!

It was so much food, we had no chance of finishing it, so we got it doggy bagged! Our waiter even threw in some extra rolls for us! He was really amazing.

While eating the place did fill up, but at least for the majority of the time we were there, there was no one sitting at the tables next to us. Glad we had the early reservation!

After dinner we made our way back up to the room to watch some football and enjoy some limoncello. It was a great evening, and glad we got to bed early since we once again had an early morning the following day!

NEXT UP: Well, That Didn’t Go as Planned.​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Yay!!! I'm so glad you enjoyed the rolls and dinner overall. We dined there this last trip as well and loved it. So good and so convenient when staying at Yacht Club. Service is always great there. It used to be that you could order just the rolls at Crews Cup (for a fee) but not sure if that is still true now that they are serving the full menu vs. a lounge menu. Now you have me hungry too and it's 8am!

 

[Wood Nymph]

Your dinner at the Yachtsman looks delicious. That was a big serving of mushrooms.

 

[VAtink]

Day 4, Part 1: Well, That Didn’t Go as Planned

Once again we were up nice and early this morning, although I think it was closer to 6 this morning.

Today was our HS day, and I was so excited for mom to see RotR, and I couldn’t wait to see the MMRR preshow.

We slowly got ready and enjoyed some coffee, and at 6:55 I settled in for the countdown to 7 for the BG. I first verified my phones time was accurate, which it was, then watched and waited. I decided to do what I did in April and count down once it hit 6:59 and hit Join right when I hit 60, it worked well then and even gave me a moment to pause in disbelief back then.

Well the clock hits 6:59 and I start counting and I’m in perfect timing since I hit join just as the clock turns to 7, and I’m shocked to see that omg, the BGs are already gone! What on earth?!?! I hit join as the clock was turning 7, how ridiculously fast did the BGs sell out this day, 0.001 seconds??? I couldn’t believe it, I kept refreshing thinking something had to be wrong! Sadly no, the BGs were really gone the second it turned 7.

Now I’ve already been on the ride, but I felt awful for my mom who was really looking forward to going on it. I had told her it was super easy getting a BG back in April so I figured we’d easily get one today too. Oops! It was hard breaking the news to her, she was pretty upset, but I did my best and it just didn’t work out this time. At least next time we go we don’t have to deal with this BG nonsense anymore!

Slightly dejected, we finished getting ready for the day. I also put in a mobile order for lunch to pick up at I think 11:30, at least we weren’t going to have a hangry mom this day!

We headed out around 7:30 and decided to walk over to HS. We arrived a bit before 7:50, made it through security and ended up being first in line at the tapstiles.

They let us in right at 8 and we hustled it down Hollywood Blvd. There were a few groups who outright ran, this ended up being dumb because they ended up holding us at the HS arch. They ended up holding us there until 8:30, so it was a pretty long wait, and people kept trying to push their way to the front of the crowd waiting, it was very annoying.

Finally at 8:30 they let us loose, and my goodness what a *bleep* show. There was so much pushing and shoving, it was nuts. Finally, we turned the corner into TSL and the CMs tried to funnel us into a line along the fence to get on Slinky, but most people just ignored them and ran ahead to cut in further up. It was just so disorganized, not a fun way to start the morning. This is why we are actually really excited for genie+, we will definitely use that to ride Slinky so we don’t have to deal with the madness of rope drop anymore!

Anyways, we ended up on the second train of the day, not too bad! This is such a fun ride!



After Slinky we headed over to MF:SR, I wanted to follow the touring plan I had in April because it worked out really well and I made it on most rides with little to no wait.

We got to MF:SR to find a line, noooo! It was only about a 15 minute wait though, so not bad, but not as nice as being the only one on the ride like I had in April!

Once we got to the preshow we ended up hanging out in the back of the room, we’ve had good luck when we’re one of the last groups to exit the preshow room to get the pilots, and once again this trick worked for us! Wahoo!

There were only three of us on our ride, my mom, me, and this guy who was really nice, and a HUGE star wars fan so was pointing out all these details to us which we never would have noticed on our own. He kept apologizing for it, but I reassured him it was actually really awesome to find out all these new details!

The ride was once again a blast, and we did a much better job piloting it than before, we even lined up perfectly behind the train a few times! Once again we got off the ride in a fit of laughter!

Next up: Our Own Private Photoshoot! ​

 

[VAtink]

Yay!!! I'm so glad you enjoyed the rolls and dinner overall. We dined there this last trip as well and loved it. So good and so convenient when staying at Yacht Club. Service is always great there. It used to be that you could order just the rolls at Crews Cup (for a fee) but not sure if that is still true now that they are serving the full menu vs. a lounge menu. Now you have me hungry too and it's 8am!

They were so good, thank you for mentioning them! I need to find a recipe so I can make them at home.

Good to know about Crews Cup. I hope they go back to the regular lounge menu there, and really hope they open again for lunch...those rolls and a cold beer sound like a perfect lunch!

 

[VAtink]

Your dinner at the Yachtsman looks delicious. That was a big serving of mushrooms.

It was such an amazing dinner, everything was delicious! That was a huge serving of mushrooms, and they were awesome, went great with the steaks. Really all the sides were pretty large, it was nice though since we ended up using them as meals over the next few days.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I used to fail at getting a boarding group for RotR trip after trip until I started to use a few tips from the Dis members. Basically, doing a download test to see which is faster, wifi or cell data and using time.gov for the exact time. All of that doesn't really matter anymore, although you will be logging on at 7am to buy Individual lightening lane for the ride (or use rope drop). It is nice that this ride now has a standby line if you don't want to spend $15 - although that is worth it.

We did Slinky Dog at rope drop during our October trip. We were off the ride in less than 20 minutes, did a quick ride on TSM, then over to MF:SR at 9:06 - before the regular park guests made their way to the ride. That went pretty fast.

 

[VAtink]

I used to fail at getting a boarding group for RotR trip after trip until I started to use a few tips from the Dis members. Basically, doing a download test to see which is faster, wifi or cell data and using time.gov for the exact time. All of that doesn't really matter anymore, although you will be logging on at 7am to buy Individual lightening lane for the ride (or use rope drop). It is nice that this ride now has a standby line if you don't want to spend $15 - although that is worth it.

Yeah, I should have done the download test, oh well! Just glad I don't have to worry about boarding groups anymore. That was way too stressful to start the day like that!

We did Slinky Dog at rope drop during our October trip. We were off the ride in less than 20 minutes, did a quick ride on TSM, then over to MF:SR at 9:06 - before the regular park guests made their way to the ride. That went pretty fast.

Wow, nice job! I'm impressed you essentially made it on three rides during the early entry time. Need to try that on the next trip!

 

[VAtink]

Day 4, Part 2: Our Own Private Photoshoot!

After MF:SR we decided to get some photopass pictures.



The second photopass we stopped at had the BEST photographer. He ended up spending about 15 minutes with us getting so many pictures. We were joking around with him that it was our own private photoshoot!







The best part was, we got the baby Yoda one!



I was so bummed in April I never found this one so it was my must do this trip, I’m so happy we got it and got it with the best photographer ever!

After wrapping up with the photos, we headed over to TSL since I saw that TSMM was posted as a 5 min wait. By the time we got there the wait had jumped to 15 minutes, but it didn’t look bad so we hopped in line. About 2 minutes after joining the line the wait time jumped to 30 minutes. Seriously Disney, stop doing this to us!

Good news is, it only ended up being about a 20 minute wait, so not horrible.

We had a blast, and once again I beat my mom! Usually she is ahead for most of the game and I only pull ahead at the very end with the fast shooting, but this time I was in the lead the whole time. Finally getting better at this game!

After TSMM, we decided to head over to MMRR. I had been watching the wait time and it had recently dropped down to 45 minutes from over 60, so we figured it was a good time to head over. I expected it to be similar to April where the posted wait was like 20 minutes longer than the actual. I was wrong. It ended up being a 37 minute wait. Oh well, at least only about half of it was out in the sun this time!

The ride was fun again, but afterwards my mom agreed that we shouldn’t wait more than 20 minutes for it again. I was just happy she got to ride one of the new rides this trip!

We were off MMRR around 10:30 so had a bit of time before our mobile order lunch, so we decided to check out the stores in the front of the park. We ended up checking them all out and I made a list of the things I wanted to pick up, but since I didn’t want to lug all the purchases around with us we agreed to buy the items as we were leaving the park.

Next up: Day 4, Part 3: A New Favorite Lunch Spot​

 

[Wood Nymph]

The best part was, we got the baby Yoda one!

The baby Yoda picture is really cute. We had a Photopass shoot with some poses that should have had an image added, but they never put them it.

We had a blast, and once again I beat my mom! Usually she is ahead for most of the game and I only pull ahead at the very end with the fast shooting, but this time I was in the lead the whole time. Finally getting better at this game!

I have the opposite - I usually lead and my husband takes over the lead at the end. My downfall is always the rings.