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

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This is a great picture. But where were you when you took it? It looks like you are at an elevation somewhere.

This is the super zoom photopass they have off to the right side of the Hub, the cameras are on top of the building. I should probably post the zoomed in version too so you can actually see us!

I wouldn't have recognized him. I wouldn't have bothered him, either, unless, of course, he made the first move.
The closest we came to "famous" people at WDW was when we were taking the Keys to the Kingdom tour on the same day that they were filming an episode of The Middle. We saw three of the main characters walking around backstage near their trailers. Patricia Heaton ignored our group but Neil Flynn and Charlie McDermott were friendly and waved at us.

Oh no way, that is so cool! I think i would have preferred not to recognize Josh than to have totally lost my cool when he came over. Oh well, at least I can say he spoke to me!

 

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The first time back would feel like an eternity for sure!!!!

It seriously felt like forever, we just wanted to get on the bus and get to MK! I'm glad the wait wasn't any longer!

Hilarious

I was totally embarrassed after I yelled that, but then the girls in front of us were all excited about it that I was like, ok I guess I'm kind of cool...

I'm not cool.

I am sorry you out on a picture. I am not very good with celebrities either.

It's crazy how shy I suddenly got! I'm normally not shy these days, but my goodness, I reverted to my 8 year old self that day. Who knew seeing a celebrity (if he even counts) would do that to me!

 

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Day 3, Part 2: Um, There’s Still 40 Minutes Til the Park Opens…What Do You Want to Do?

After our close encounter with Josh….

…we still had about 40 minutes before the rides opened, so we made our way closer to the castle to get some more pictures and to start our search for the 50th statues! These were so much fun to find!













I searched around for the Tink statue, but could not find her anywhere! (Don’t worry, found her with the help of a very concerned CM later in the trip, but that’s a story for another day!)

We also got some pictures of ourselves with the statues!



My mom randomly decided to squat for a picture with the chipmunks, which I found to be just a little too funny, like was she trying to be chipmunk size?



At least mom was a good sport about me laughing at her choice of pose and couldn’t stop laughing about it either!

I have no idea what my mom is laughing about here, but I do love how happy she looks in this picture!


And of course we got more pictures of ourselves in front of the castle!




Finally at around 8:40 we got into the growing crowd on the bridge to Liberty Square.

I was really impressed how much personal space everyone there was giving others, like 2-3ft between groups, made the wait in the heat (how is it already so hot that time of morning??) not quite as bad!

Next up: Day 3, Part 3: How Tall Do You Feel Today?​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I love all the statues. I'm honestly shocked that they haven't put together some kind of scavenger hunt/map like they do during various EPCOT festivals. I'd love a way to track if we found them all. I don't even need a prize! So refreshing to see them without a ton of people around them. I'm looking forward to returning on a less busy day to hunt for them.
Very cool to have a Josh sighting as well!

 

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I love all the statues. I'm honestly shocked that they haven't put together some kind of scavenger hunt/map like they do during various EPCOT festivals. I'd love a way to track if we found them all. I don't even need a prize! So refreshing to see them without a ton of people around them. I'm looking forward to returning on a less busy day to hunt for them.
Very cool to have a Josh sighting as well!

Totally agree, we missed a bunch of the statues simply because we didn't know which ones were there! It really would be awesome if they had a map similar to what they do in Epcot to mark off the ones found and to know what ones are in each park. I can't wait to go back to find all the ones we missed! May sneak in a January or February trip to check out FARTS (hehe) and do some more statue hunting!

Yeah, it was cool to see Josh up close and I guess technically speak with him, as tongue tied as I was Seems like a nice guy, was really impressed he got into the photopass picture with the girls in front of us!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I have no idea what my mom is laughing about here, but I do love how happy she looks in this picture!

That is a very fun picture of your mom. It's nice to see her enjoying the trip.

I was really impressed how much personal space everyone there was giving others, like 2-3ft between groups, made the wait in the heat (how is it already so hot that time of morning??) not quite as bad!

Did that continue throughout your trip or just that morning? We didn't see much social distancing when we were there at the end of September.

 

[VAtink]

That is a very fun picture of your mom. It's nice to see her enjoying the trip.

I love how overjoyed she looks, she was having such a blast!

Did that continue throughout your trip or just that morning? We didn't see much social distancing when we were there at the end of September.

For rope drop it didn't, all the other parks we rope dropped there was zero personal space waiting for the park to open. I was really surprised though that in most of the lines people were giving more space than in pre-pandemic days, usually stood a few feet behind us. I kept joking with my mom that people were distancing in lines better this trip than they were in April when distancing was actually required!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Lovethe golden statues. I can't wait to find them all. i know it's a small thing but still fun.

 

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Lovethe golden statues. I can't wait to find them all. i know it's a small thing but still fun.

They are so awesome! We had so much fun trying to find them in all the parks. I can't wait to head back to find the ones we missed.

 

[snikki]

I’m am seriously at your whole josh experience. That’s something that would happen to me.

I love your mostly empty morning at MK. I hope to do the same for our MK morning. Get there super early and take it leisurely before rides open up.

 

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Day 3, Part 3: How Tall Do You Feel Today?

We last left off with us waiting on the bridge to Liberty Square for the park to open. Finally at 9 they started the opening procedure and walked us slowly, very very slowly, to another line of CMs standing across the path in Frontierland.

They held us at this next line of CMs for about 7 minutes, but at least the CMs here were doing their best to entertain us with dad jokes!

They also mentioned that Thunder was down that morning.

Finally they walked us back (slowly again) towards Splash, but veered off to the right to take us along the boardwalk. I was a bit confused why they took us this way until we saw that a crowd coming from Adventureland ahead that looked to be getting to Splash before us. But as we got closer we saw they were held on the bridge in front of Splash so those of us coming from the boardwalk could get into the queue first. Phew!

As we entered the queue, the CM at the entrance was announcing totally deadpan: “Those with children, if you feel your kids are 40 inches they can ride.”

So of course I made the comment “good thing I feel like I’m 41 inches today so I can go on!”

The ride was essentially walk-on at this point, we ended up on the second boat of the day. I think we were in the last row, our pictures never showed up and Disney hasn’t gotten back to me about all the missing pictures yet, so I may post those pictures later if they ever appear.

Once off splash we saw that Thunder was up and running and headed over there. This was basically a walk-on as well at that point, and the CM put us in the second to last row, so score for not having to ask for the back of the train!

Thunder felt, I guess faster? Like I was catching some air this ride which I never have before. It was so much fun!

When we got off Thunder we saw that Splash was still posted as a 5 minute wait, so of course we headed over there again!

It ended up being a walk-on again as well. When we got to the loading area I saw we would be in the last row again, so I asked the CM assigning rows if we could wait for the first row, and he happily goes “you don’t even have to wait! Head to row 5!”

At first I was all “but 5 isn’t 1…” and I think he saw my confusion and goes “5 is the first row in the second loading zone.” Ohhhhhh. Duh. I’m gonna blame lack of coffee that morning for not being able to figure that out.

We actually ended up getting the boat completely to ourselves! There was one group right behind us in the queue, but the CM put them in the last row of the boat in front of us instead. Yay for our own private boat! I really wish Disney would find our pictures from this ride since I love the ones where we’re the only ones in the boat!

My mom did get a picture of me on the ride, so here’s proof we did ride it!



Next up: Is Everyone in the Park at Haunted Mansion?​

 

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I’m am seriously at your whole josh experience. That’s something that would happen to me.

Haha, yeah I certainly do not know how to play it cool!

I love your mostly empty morning at MK. I hope to do the same for our MK morning. Get there super early and take it leisurely before rides open up.

Fingers crossed you have a nice low crowd morning! It is so nice having about an hour before the park opens to explore Main Street, find the 50th statues, and get pictures. Worth getting there early for!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

The rope drop experience sounds intense. I am not remotely a morning person so I am not sure I will experience it first-hand but it definitely seems like there are some clear benefits.

 

[VAtink]

The rope drop experience sounds intense. I am not remotely a morning person so I am not sure I will experience it first-hand but it definitely seems like there are some clear benefits.

Yeah, it can be a bit nuts, just wait until I get to the HS morning! I was seriously expecting punches to be thrown that day! I actually really miss the way they opened back in April where you could go straight to the ride and just wait in the queue instead of being held in the hub. Felt a lot less chaotic and a lot less stressful!

There can be advantages, it is nice having most rides be walk-on for the first hour or so, but I feel like the advantage isn't as good as it used to be. It seems there are a lot more people rope dropping nowadays so the lines are building faster. Since my mom and I are both early risers we'll stick with it, but I think if we were more night owls we'd probably skip the rope drop and wait til the end of the day for the short waits.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We like to ride Peter Pan and then head to Adventure at rope drop. We can ride a lot of rides before the crowds get there. It sounds like you hit it perfectly.

 

[VAtink]

We like to ride Peter Pan and then head to Adventure at rope drop. We can ride a lot of rides before the crowds get there. It sounds like you hit it perfectly.

I kind of wish we started in Adventureland one of our mornings this trip, we never made it on JC since by the time we made it over there the line was longer than what we were willing to wait. Oh well, next trip! We did do a pretty great job that morning at MK, I'm so happy we got to get on Splash twice with no wait! I can't wait to get back and see what it's like with the 30 min early entry for resort guests and genie+!

 

[VAtink]

So I’m looking into doing a quick trip back to Disney sometime in the next six months. I have a voucher from a cancelled trip that expires in April, and it’s for like $400 so I totally don’t want to lose that money and I figured what better way to use it than another trip to Disney! Plus I kinda want to take a mini practice trip to try genie+ firsthand so on our big F&W trip next fall I’m not struggling to learn the system. (…and I just realized I’m Disney’s ideal guest…adding an extra trip just to figure out the new overly complicated system they have put in place )

But here’s the thing, I cannot decide when to go. Originally I was thinking January to check out FARTS, but the weekend I was planning is the opening weekend and I’d prefer to avoid that and the assumed crowds that’ll bring in. I could go later in January or even in February too, so FARTS is still on the table, but then I was talking to my mom about it and she recommended going in the spring again for F&G.

Now, I love F&G, but I’ve been itching to check out FARTS (I just love this acronym). The thing is though, if I go during the winter I only have enough vacation time to go for 4 days, but if I wait until the spring I could go for a full week. UGH, the choices!

So, anyone have any recommendations on which to do? ​

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Now, I love F&G, but I’ve been itching to check out FARTS (I just love this acronym). The thing is though, if I go during the winter I only have enough vacation time to go for 4 days, but if I wait until the spring I could go for a full week. UGH, the choices!

We love FARTS. And I do think it's not as busy as Flower and Garden. But the first weekend will be busy with vloggers and all. I mean you can't lose with either!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Day 2, Part 2: That’s a Lot of Cheese! *Part 1

We last left off with us on our way to Epcot for our first taste of F&W for the year!

We headed out of the YC and made our way over to Epcot. I’m glad we took the Uber to the resort so we could get in earlier. I believe we got to the park right around noon.

Our first stop was the store at the IG to pick up the Remy map and put money on my gift card. It was a quick stop and soon we were on our way to our first food booth!

We decided to start over in Germany and then make our way back towards IG stopping at any of the booths that interested us. We also wanted to start knocking off some of the Emile’s Fromage Montage cheese items, which is why we started at Germany.

Epcot was pretty crowded this day, although being a Friday afternoon during F&W it wasn’t all that surprising. And France was just a madhouse, so many people there with the Ratatouille preview, so we made our way quickly through there.

At Germany we both got the schinkennudeln from the cheese crawl and found a picnic table to eat at.




Gotta get the pics!

This was really good and surprisingly not as heavy as expected which was great since it was way too hot for something heavy! This ended up being one of my moms top dishes of the fest! It was pretty high for me too, but I don’t think it quite made it to the best of this years fest.

After we finished our food, we headed into the Germany pavilion to check out the shops, and to more importantly, try some wine! We had a fireworks cruise booked for later in the week and wanted to bring wine with us, and decided to taste wine in Germany, Italy and France to find a good bottle, you know, basically do our own version of the wine walk.

We ended up ordering samples of the pinot noir and the Lemberger. We took our samples out to a little table just outside the door (love how many tables they have back there these days!) and enjoyed them while taking in the atmosphere of the pavilion. We even got to see the cuckoo bird come out! Anyone know why it comes out at 5 after the hour? Seems like a random time…









Also just noticed the time on the clock is 7:05 which was what time it was in Germany while we were sitting there! (was 1:05 in the afternoon for us). Never noticed this detail before!

Also had a good view of the hidden Remy from our table:


The wines we tried were delicious, and we couldn’t decide which one we liked better, so we ended up buying a bottle of both. I do love that nowadays we can just take the bottles with us and don’t have to come back later in the day to pick them up at the entrances to the park. We did get a stern warning each time we bought a bottle this trip that we would be removed from the park if we opened it while in the park. We had no intention of opening it in the park, but I can totally see people doing that, especially with the prices of the mini wine samples at the food booths!

Once we had our wine, we slowly made our way back towards IG, finding all the Remy’s along the way. I do like how they are further back into the countries this year than they used to be, it’s nice to go explore the countries we haven’t before!

When we got to Italy, we decided to swing by the store where we picked up a bottle of Limoncello as well. Apparently I was in the mood to lug 3 bottles of alcohol around the park with me.

Next up: That’s a Lot of Cheese! *Part 2*​

Everything at the Germany Pavillion was excellent this year! I agree with your assessment of the noodles (I’m going to mess up the spelling so I won’t even attempt it). Loving this TR!

 

[Bama Mom]

Now, I love F&G, but I’ve been itching to check out FARTS (I just love this acronym). The thing is though, if I go during the winter I only have enough vacation time to go for 4 days, but if I wait until the spring I could go for a full week. UGH, the choices!
​

This past March was my first time being there for F&G and I loved it. My upcoming trip falls during FARTS and I am so excited because it's my first trip during this festival. I always love seeing everyones photos and reading trip reports from during FARTS. Basically I have no advice since I haven't been to FARTS yet but I would probably choose FARTS if I were you just for the fact that it would be something new.