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

[VAtink]

Cloe here! Just joining in for what seems like a fantastic trip! Minus the room issues haha I think i missed the post where you mentioned you were given a free stay because I was just clicking the links at the end of each update! but thats awesome! Was that just from complaining about the room? Because that's awesome that Disney would make it right like that!

Hey! Haven't seen you around here in a while, although I have been watching your youtube videos, those are so good! Yes, we got a free stay because of the construction and a few others things that happened. Never expected anything to come from complaining, so was shocked at the offer, and gladly accepted!

Also in day 9 part 3 the one picture of you and your mom your are both perfectly situated in front of bushes and you both look like your hair has gone wild! haha

HAAAA! I had to look back to see what you're talking about and you are so right, that is hilarious! Never noticed it before!

When is your F&W trip this year?

We're going the end of September, the 23rd-2nd, and obviously cannot wait! We were hoping more F&W stuff would be back this year but it's not looking so good. Maybe next year! Are you guys doing a F&W trip this year?

 

[Wood Nymph]

First up was the magic shot by Hall of Presidents.

I love the picture with the headless horseman. It looks like you re standing next to the real version.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Love all of the magic shots. I am so excited for the Halloween party this year. It's been years since I've done it. I'm going to be singing Boo to You for the next four months, haha. Happy La Cava anniversary - the staff there are really great.

 

[Joy1127]

Hey! Haven't seen you around here in a while, although I have been watching your youtube videos, those are so good! Yes, we got a free stay because of the construction and a few others things that happened. Never expected anything to come from complaining, so was shocked at the offer, and gladly accepted!

HAAAA! I had to look back to see what you're talking about and you are so right, that is hilarious! Never noticed it before!

We're going the end of September, the 23rd-2nd, and obviously cannot wait! We were hoping more F&W stuff would be back this year but it's not looking so good. Maybe next year! Are you guys doing a F&W trip this year?

yeahhh i was and probably still arent allowed to be on here because I was promoting my yt which had a link to other business. ridiculous lol but im glad you still watch the yt!!

So awesome that they gave a stay. I always say as long as you are nice about it theres no reason to voice your displeasure! A youve paid a lot for a room that should be top of the line and b even if they dont do anything for you they can hopefully learn to not do it again to someone else!

Awe we're just a bit before you! We are disney 9/8, Disney Wish 9/9-9/12 and then back to disney 9/12-9/14! Squeezed a couple disney days in there around our cruise! haha

 

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yeahhh i was and probably still arent allowed to be on here because I was promoting my yt which had a link to other business. ridiculous lol but im glad you still watch the yt!!

Ohhh, I did not realize that. Sorry to hear, what a bummer!

So awesome that they gave a stay. I always say as long as you are nice about it theres no reason to voice your displeasure! A youve paid a lot for a room that should be top of the line and b even if they dont do anything for you they can hopefully learn to not do it again to someone else!

Exactly! I did make a point in my email to praise the CMs and also note things that were great, so I think having a healthy mix of "this stuff is great" and "this stuff could use a lot of improvement" helped. That or I just lucked out and had my email passed on to a very generous guest services CM!

Awe we're just a bit before you! We are disney 9/8, Disney Wish 9/9-9/12 and then back to disney 9/12-9/14! Squeezed a couple disney days in there around our cruise! haha

That's so awesome! I keep seeing new pictures and videos of the Wish and I want to go on it sooooo bad. Hope you have an amazing trip!

 

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Day 9, Part 8: Boo Bash Take 2, Part 4! (AKA that time my mom wiped out in Disney World)​

After riding Space, we swung by the trick or treat station at Monsters Inc, then made our way across to Adventureland for some more trick or treating.

Finally, we found ourselves back in Frontierland right by Splash. We heard the music start for the Maleficent cavalcade, so we stopped to watch, but a moment later the music turned off so we assumed we were too early.

There was a treat station at Pecos Bills, so since we were right there, we decided to pop in and do more trick or treating before the cavalcade.

I really wanted to see that cavalcade and get a video this time around, and we thought we had time before it started to stop at the ToT station in Pecos Bill's, but sadly our timing was off since as I exited Pecos Bill's I saw she had already gone by.

Not a big deal, we could cut through Adventureland to catch up with her on Main Street. So I turned around to tell mom this, only to see this couple had somehow cut between us as we were exiting, and my mom, rushing to get around them to get back with me ended up tripping on the step at the exit and totally faceplanted.

It was actually really scary to watch, she went down SO hard and actually bounced when she hit the ground and slid like 2 feet. I’m pretty sure I yelled something not Disney approved and ran over to help her along with about a dozen or so other people who saw her fall.

Now my mom is a trooper, and immediately bounced back up, even though one of the other guests who came to help was a doctor and told her she really should stay down. Some CMs came over too to help, but my mom is a bit stubborn and refused any help.

She kept saying she was fine, she did scrape her knee, but besides that she said she was fine, and frankly was annoyed at all the attention she was getting.

She insisted we move on and go to find a place to sit in the hub, so we headed over that way so we could watch the cavalcade and she could find a band aid in her purse for her knee (for some reason she didn’t want one the CM offered… )

It was nice to be able to see Maleficent again, but I was also really worried about my mom as well.



After the cavalcade passed, we made our way back to Liberty Square where I found a wall for mom to sit on while I went to the popcorn stand to pick up some popcorn, drinks, and some ice for mom’s injury.

We sat there for a while, and soon mom was starting to feel better and was able to laugh about her fall. It turns out this couple that was behind us apparently thought mom was moving too slow exiting the treat station so pushed around her, and she was afraid she would lose me in the crowd so tried to get back around them and didn’t notice the step and ended up tripping. So seriously people, wait your turn and don’t cut between family members!

Anyways! Around 12:10 we decided it was time to make our way out of the park. This evening they had a bunch of characters on the train station waving goodnight! I wonder why they didn’t do that the first Boo bash we went to that week.

Similar to the previous Boo Bash, we opted to sit on the planter in front of the YC/BC and BW bus stops to watch to see which bus would come first/be the most empty and once again the winner was the BW bus! So we hopped on and soon were pulling into the BW.

It was a short walk over to the YC and soon we were enjoying some Limoncello before crashing for the night.

Next up: A Cabana is Just What the Doctor Ordered!​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Oh goodness, how scary! So glad your mom was ok. I get on the BW bus to return to BC/YC a lot ... I wonder what it is that makes that route seemingly run faster/more efficiently? Maybe b/c it's just a single resort vs. the double? But it seemed faster even back when it shared with Swan and Dolphin. Who knows. A Disney mystery. Really looking forward to the Halloween party this year ... but not the buses at the end of the night.

 

[Wood Nymph]

She kept saying she was fine, she did scrape her knee, but besides that she said she was fine, and frankly was annoyed at all the attention she was getting.

Your poor Mom! That must have been both painful and embarrassing. I've had a faceplant and was glad that no one saw me do it. I'm glad that she was alright.

 

[VAtink]

Guys, I did something awesome this morning, I booked our first December family trip!

ANNNNND, the best thing is, we are splurging this time around since my dad is coming (first trip for him in a decade!) and we booked a two bedroom suite! I swear I could feel my credit card burning when I booked the room. We're staying at the AKL this time around, my dad isn't a huge fan of the parks, and we figured since he would likely want to spend a lot of time in the room, why not get a room with a cool view of the animals. It's also our first time staying club level, and we are overly excited about all the food from the lounge, the food at AKL looks really good!

I'm so excited about going in December too. I've been in December before, but it was with my college boyfriend, and we promptly broke up afterwards, so ready to try again without any of that baggage! I can't wait to see all the decorations, finally check out the festival of the holidays, and of course go to the Christmas party! Also, hoping for some slightly cooler weather than our normal September trips!

At this point we're skipping F&W for 2023 and doing this December trip instead, however my mom and I have agreed that if PFTS comes back next year we will book a long weekend just to go to that (and maybe the tequila lunch, we love that one!).

Ok, that's it for the RL update today, hope to get back to writing this report (and finishing it too) soon! ​

 

[VAtink]

Oh goodness, how scary! So glad your mom was ok. I get on the BW bus to return to BC/YC a lot ... I wonder what it is that makes that route seemingly run faster/more efficiently? Maybe b/c it's just a single resort vs. the double? But it seemed faster even back when it shared with Swan and Dolphin. Who knows. A Disney mystery. Really looking forward to the Halloween party this year ... but not the buses at the end of the night.

Thanks, yeah it was super scary to watch, and I'm so glad she didn't really hurt herself!

It is funny about the bus, we often find ourselves taking the BW bus back from the parks since it usually comes first and has a much shorter line. It really is odd! I guess YC/BC get the pool, and BW gets the better bus service?

 

[VAtink]

Your poor Mom! That must have been both painful and embarrassing. I've had a faceplant and was glad that no one saw me do it. I'm glad that she was alright.

Thanks, I'm so glad she was ok too! Yeah, I'm sure it was super embarrassing, which would totally explain her not wanting any help. I felt so bad for her, it was a scary fall!

 

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Today was ADR day!

It was actually a bit of a cluster, but apparently the system is having issues today which would explain the trouble I had! I've been commiserating over on the September thread (ie taking over the thread to complain ) but things are getting better now.

I started to try for ADRs a little before 6 since I've heard that sometimes they open before 6, that was not the case today, it waited until 6 on the dot to open for reservations. My first attempt was the fireworks package at Rose and Crown. I've read on here that they have been opening up reservations for that one late, so I wasn't too surprised there was zero availability even at day 60+9. After checking various days with that I moved on to the next one, which I didn't think would be super hard, but it was early in the trip so maybe a little harder to get. This was for Skippers Canteen before MNSSHP on the 25th. I wanted a time around 5, but the only time I saw available was 6:15. I ended up grabbing that since I knew I could likely go in a modify it to an earlier time later and it was good to get something booked.

My next reservations I thought would be a breeze, ha! First up was Steakhouse 71 on the 29th, again before MNSSHP. I figured being 60+6 I would have no trouble getting a reservation for around 5. Nope! Totally wrong, the earliest I could get was 6:30. Ok, not a problem, I booked it, again thinking I'd just go in later and modify it to an earlier time.

So far 1 no go and two at bad times. Off to a great start!

I next tried Tiffins for lunch, surely this would be easy, right? HA. Sadly nope, that was expecting too much from the system apparently this morning. It did show a good time when I first looked, 12:15, so I clicked that, but then it spun, and spun, and spun, and after a painfully long wait I got the message the time I selected is no longer available. So I tried again and now the earliest time was 1:00. Ugh. This is the day we're doing 4 parks in one day, so having the earlier time was kinda important to our schedule! Oh well, I once again booked it and figured I'd change it as well later!

At this point I was getting to way late in my trip, like 60+7 and beyond, so I figured there HAD to be availability at the times I wanted now. Right? Please???? So I tried for Via Nappoli, day 60+8, and once again no times available when we wanted to go! They only had 4:15 or 7:00. Ugh. So, once again, I selected 7:00 and hope to change that too.

If you're keeping score, we're now at 1 no go, and 4 at bad times. This was a completely new experience for me! Even back in the day when I thought dining reservations opened at 7 instead of 6 and was a full hour behind everyone else I had better luck!

But all was not lost, my last and final reservation was for Savor the Savanna, and surprise, I was able to book the time we wanted!!!! VICTORY!!!!

Ok, now that I had dining reservations secured it was time to wait in a complete state of panic for 7am to book the cabana. Since the dining reservations took forever (seriously didn't wrap up with booking until almost 6:30, the system was soooo painfully slow this morning) I didn't have too long to wait. So I made more coffee and settled in, and right at 7 I called.

I was a bit bummed my luck from last year didn't carry over and I had to wait on hold instead of getting a CM immediately, but fortunately the hold was only 14 minutes, so not bad, AND it gave time for the cabanas to be loaded into the system.

The CM I got was fantastic and was able to find the cabana we wanted on the day we wanted, wahoo! But then it was time to pay, so I gave her my card number, and uh oh, it was declined. Hm. So we verified the number and we realized she missed my middle initial, so we tried again with the correct name, but once again it was declined. What the...???

Ok, not a problem, I can book with my back up card. So I go dig that out and give the CM that number, and fortunately this one went through, phew!

The call wasn't that bad, but it was made more stressful due to the fact that for the last 3 days I've had some really bad connectivity issues with my phone, so the entire call I was terrified it was going to drop the call. Thank goodness it didn't, but while she was giving me the confirmation # of the cabana it did start cutting in and out, and we tried multiple times, but by that point the connection was really bad so I didn't get the full confirmation number. Ok, not a problem though, she said it would show up in MDE, so I would just get it there. So we hung up and I started to go through my ADRs and seeing if I could change some times already.

I was able to change a few, got Skippers moved to 4:55, and Steakhouse 71 moved to 5:55, so a bit better.

I then decided to call my bank, because there was zero reason for the cabana charge not to go through. Turns out, when you make ADRs, Disney "charges" your card $0, and my bank found that suspicious (even though I've done this every year for like 7 years....) and put a hold on my account! While I appreciate my bank looking out for me, it did cause some unneeded stress on an already stressful morning!

Once that was taken care of I was starting to calm down a bit. So I decided to check MDE to make sure the cabana confirmation # was there. Well, based on how my morning was going, you could probably guess that nope, no information on the cabana at all. Now I don't care if it shows up in MDE, but I do want the confirmation number, so once again I called Disney. This time I was on hold for about an hour, so not the worst wait time, and ended up getting another great CM. She was able to provide the confirmation number and she also said she added it to MDE. I haven't looked yet, I'm kinda over their system at this point, but at least I have the confirmation number!

Welp, that was my morning. Thanks to Disney IT for all the fun! Some people over in the September thread have noted that more times seem to be opening up later this morning, so I'll just have to keep trying for better times for our ADRs. Wish me luck! ​

 

[VAtink]

Second quick update....I got the Rose and Crown Fireworks package! We originally wanted it for Wednesday, but the earliest we could book was Saturday the 1st of October. This actually works out pretty well since we're doing the after hours party at Epcot this evening, so it'll be good to already be in the park, but being a Saturday during F&W it'll be especially nice to be able to watch the fireworks from seats away from the crowds!

I'm really surprised that the entire week was already completely booked for this, we've never had issues getting it in the past even earlier on in the trip, but I guess the word has gotten out about how nice it is to watch the fireworks without the crowds and with good food and drinks! ​

 

[Wood Nymph]

She was able to provide the confirmation number and she also said she added it to MDE. I haven't looked yet, I'm kinda over their system at this point, but at least I have the confirmation number!

I've heard that the cabana reservation usually doesn't show up in the MDE. The same with various tours. I would be interested to hear if that cabana reservation actually did show up in your MDE account.

The Savor the Savanna tour looks like a lot of fun. I might have to look into that one.

 

[MikeWsGirl]

My mom is the same age as your mom and my kids’ Dad is an emerg physician so all I could think was “Oh No!” when I saw your title. That would be so so scary. I’m glad your mom was ok. I hope she didn’t suffer any ill effects during the rest of the trip and didn’t end up with a stress fracture that ended up being discovered later. Or a concussion! Big falls can result in big injuries.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Finally found you guys again! I stopped getting various notifications so I totally lost some of the trips I was following! I am so happy I found this again! Love reading and catching up

 

[VAtink]

I've heard that the cabana reservation usually doesn't show up in the MDE. The same with various tours. I would be interested to hear if that cabana reservation actually did show up in your MDE account.

The Savor the Savanna tour looks like a lot of fun. I might have to look into that one.

Yeah, it hasn't lately, but I believe back in 2019 it did automatically show up in MDE. Lately the CMs have manually entered the information into MDE. The second CM I spoke with this morning did that for me, so now everything is showing up there. Phew!

We are super excited about Savor the Savanna, it looks really great!

 

[VAtink]

My mom is the same age as your mom and my kids’ Dad is an emerg physician so all I could think was “Oh No!” when I saw your title. That would be so so scary. I’m glad your mom was ok. I hope she didn’t suffer any ill effects during the rest of the trip and didn’t end up with a stress fracture that ended up being discovered later. Or a concussion! Big falls can result in big injuries.

It was so scary to watch, I was super concerned about her. I am amazed how quickly she bounced back up! Although the last time she fell on vacation she ended up breaking her foot, and that time she stayed down, so I guess if she bounces right back up she's fine...

 

[VAtink]

Finally found you guys again! I stopped getting various notifications so I totally lost some of the trips I was following! I am so happy I found this again! Love reading and catching up

Welcome back! Hope you enjoy the report!

 

[VAtink]

Eek, only 40 more days until our next F&W trip and I haven't finished this TR from last year! Oops! Ok, time to hustle and get this done, hopefully I can finish before we leave!​

Day 10, Part 1: A Cabana is Just What the Doctor Ordered!​

We were able to sleep in this morning, finally! Since the cabana didn’t open until 10, we had a nice relaxing morning enjoying our coffee and just resting.

Finally at 10 we headed downstairs to the pool where we checked in and were escorted back to the cabanas. Once again we got the cabana we wanted, #4! (we obviously knew ahead of time since that’s the one we booked).



We hung out a bit in the cabana, and took a quick dip in the pool, but not for long since we had plans for this morning. We decided to head over to Epcot for a bit this morning for lunch at the food booths before it got super packed (yes, once again we were going to Epcot on a Saturday, we clearly love crowds… ).

So at 10:50 we headed out and over to Epcot.

We were completely shocked when we got there to see the crowds, the lines to get in stretched halfway back to the BC! Ugh. Stupid Skyliner has totally ruined the IG.

It was also surprising they hadn’t opened yet that day, earlier in the week they let people in at 10:15, so no idea why almost at 11:00 they still hadn’t let people in when it was the same scheduled opening time.

Anyways, it ended up taking us 30 minutes just to get into the park it was that crowded back there. (again, hate you skyliner for ruining the IG!).

Once we got in the crowds thinned out as people rushed to the rides, but we were not there for rides this morning, nope, we were there for food (and drinks).

We made our way over to Mexico for our first, much needed stop, La Cava!

Unlike the previous day where there was no one in line, there was a very long line this morning (ah, joys of Epcot on Saturday). It took about 20 minutes for it to be our turn to enter and order drinks at the bar. It may seem silly to wait while we could have gotten drinks at the cabana, buuuut I really wanted my avocado margarita, so it was worth it to me!



Drink in hand we quickly made our way back out to WS and headed over to China where I got the beef bao bun.



This was delicious! I loved it.

After wrapping up at China we continued our way around WS. Just before we got to the next booth I wanted to try we passed an empty table with chairs (!) so I had my mom go hold that table while I ran to the booth to get food.

The booth was Kenya, and I got the beef dish there! Since the Alps were also right in that area, I ran to get the Raclette with ham for my mom as well.





The beef was really good, I loved the flavors. Mom loved the raclette. I haven’t been a huge fan of those, something about the smell of the cheese just turns me off from them.

As we were walking by Italy we saw a photopass photographer, so of course had to stop!



Our next stop on our tour around WS was the Rotunda Bistro! (btw, totally bummed this isn’t back this year we loved it!)

Here I got the crab parfait and mom got the mushroom flatbread again.





I have to admit, I wish I copied my mom and got the mushroom flatbread again. The crab parfait just wasn’t all that good, and I LOVED the mushroom tart (I so wish it came back this year). Oh well, it’s fun to try new things and sometimes they just don’t work out for ya!

Next up: A Rainy Day at the Cabana​