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

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Flower and Garden is ten times better than FARTS in my opinion.

Haha, so in the end things worked out for the best!

Since you can pick from any deluxe resort, have you decided which one you are going to stay at?

This is such a tough decision! We definitely prefer being in the Epcot area, but with a free stay maybe it would be fun to check out somewhere we haven't been? I guess a lot will also depend where there is availability the week we want to go since it has to be in a standard view rooms and those can be hard to come by.

 

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Happy Holidays! Sorry about the home repairs and trip cancellation. I am getting pretty nervous about the virus stuff too -- I have both a Jan and a Feb trip planned. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait and see. I'm so ready for this COVID stuff to be over (as I'm sure everyone is)! Wow on a free stay! That's amazing!! I'm trying to remember - was it you who had an unusable balcony due to construction? That would be a bummer. As you know, I absolutely adore Yacht & Beach Club but holy hannah have the room rates gone up. Have a merry Christmas and I'll look forward to some updates once you can get behind the tree.

Thanks! Yeah, it's annoying having so much break around the house at once, but maybe I'll have a nice long many year break now until something else break! (fingers crossed!)

I am a tad jealous you have a Jan and Feb trip coming up, but yeah, the virus stuff these days is definitely concerning. I too really can't wait for all of this to end! Hopefully your trips go on as planned and you have an amazing time!

The free stay is pretty remarkable! Yup, I was the one with the balcony issues. I think the thing that got the response was this was the third trip in five years where they put us in a room right where the construction was going on, so I guess our bad luck finally turned into good luck! We still totally LOVE the YC/BC, so definitely not giving up on them anytime soon! Just hope that we get a long break from being put in the construction zone now.

 

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Well, I fell behind. December is always way way way to busy for me. But I am all caught up!

I know the feeling, both November and December were so busy they felt like combined they were only a week long! Ready for things to slow down a bit in the New Year.

That sucks.... Our appliances are on there last legs as well. I keep talking nice to them so they last past the holidays and our trip!

Oh no! Hopefully the sweet talk will get them to last well beyond the holidays!

See, I need to figure this out for our trip. I think we might need to skep the nighttime shows if it is super crowded. That sounded perfect!

It is so nice not having to stake out a spot and be crowded in, plus having some dessert and wine to enjoy during the show is pretty awesome!

Wait! They let them through without having proof of tickets! That is crazy! I get letting people into the fastpass line but... the whole park!

That's a good point, I didn't even think about that! I was just so relieved that they finally moved on so we could scan in! They did scan their magic bands, so maybe they could see they had tickets just not confirm they were connected to the right person?

Some people really are!

Seriously, I'm just glad the group I spoke to was cool about it. I usually hate saying things, but I hate people cutting more so I couldn't hold my tongue any longer!

I am always glad to hear that there is still some customer service around still!

I was, and still am, totally shocked at their response. This is like old school Disney customer service, and I'm loving it!

 

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Day 5, Part 2: Babies Everywhere!

Happy New Year Eve everyone! I finally got my camera out from behind the tree and have some updates ready, wahoo! This may be a 3+ update day, gotta make up for the last few weeks of no new updates. Now back to the show!

After our ride on FoP we headed over to the safari. There was a short wait, only about 5 minutes before we were on! We did have to share a row with another family, which was a bit awkward since there were three of them and it was a very tight fit in the row with 5 adults!

It was a good safari, and we got to see a lot of baby animals! They were unfortunately all on the opposite side of the truck, so I didn’t get good pictures of them on this safari, but I have some good ones of them coming up on a later day this trip!

Of course we saw plenty of other animals too!







After the safari we headed over to EE, and were thrilled to find it was a complete walk on!



It was still empty after the ride, so we went again!



Once again it was still pretty empty after that ride, so I opted to ride again, but this time my mom sat out since she couldn’t handle another ride on it so soon!



After my solo ride the line was starting to build so I decided to go find my mom and move on. So I went over to the seat in the shade I had left her at, only to find that she wasn’t there anymore. Hm.

Knowing my mom I couldn’t imagine she would have wandered too far off, so I did a lap around the area in front of EE but couldn’t find her anywhere. Maybe she had to use the bathrooms?

So I did another loop and then I had a thought, she probably went to one of the viewing areas to see me on the ride! So I headed over to one of the viewing areas and sure enough, there she is! She was getting a video of the ride when I found her, she thought I was still on the ride at the point, so I surprised her when I tapped her on her shoulder! She was a bit upset she missed getting a video of me on the ride, she even tried to convince me to ride again to get a video this time around. I declined though since the line had started to build and I wanted to check off the final ride that day before it's line got long as well.

Our next stop was Dinosaur, which was also a complete walk on at that point, wahoo!



Next up: Someone Got Up on the Wrong Side of Bed Today​

 

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Day 5, Part 3: Someone Got Up on the Wrong Side of Bed Today

We last left off with a ride on Dinosaur. After the ride we were done with rides for the day, and it was only 9:30! Talk about productive! Since we had time to kill, we decided to go get some photopass pictures!





The only other thing we wanted to see that day was the bird show, it was still early at only around 9:45, but we didn’t have much else we wanted to do and they would start letting people in for seating at 10 for the 10:30 show, so we figured we might as well just go wait.

We ended up chatting with a few of the CMs at the entrance to pass the time, they were all really great to chat with and it was a fun way to pass the time.

At about 9:59 a family came up to ask when the next show was, and the CM told them 10:30, so they decided to wait as well, and a minute later when the let us in, that family pushed in front of us to be the first ones in! Seriously? Ugh, sometimes I hate people.

Anyways, we head in and at first I wanted to sit in the front row but saw they had reserved markers on them at the ends and didn’t know if that meant the entire bench was reserved, so to be safe (we thought) we sat a row back. Well about a minute after sitting down, this CM comes over to us and in the most condescending way goes “What, do you think you’re special, do you think you deserve to sit there? Well YOU DON’T!” He literally yelled “You don’t.”

We were so taken aback, what on earth??? So we moved to another row, looking around before we moved to see if we had just missed the reserved signs, but no, there were absolutely none on that row.

No idea what that CMs problem was, clearly someone got up on the wrong side of bed that day, and it really left a bad taste in our mouths for the rest of the show which was really disappointing. Like, I would get him saying something, albeit in a nicer way, if we had sat in the reserved seats, but he seemed to just have the desire to yell at someone that morning and we were the unfortunate target.

Then, the icing on the cake, a few minutes after the show started, that same CM leads this huge group of very tall people and instructs them to sit in the row directly in front of us where we had been sitting, and gives us the nastiest smirk as he does so. We were so mad at his attitude towards us, it was just ridiculous. Before leaving the park that day we did stop at guest relations to let them know about him, we’ve never done this before, but that guy had no business being in a guest facing roll.

Anyways, sorry about such a bummer post! The show was good, although being the second time seeing it in 5 months it wasn’t as funny as the first time around. My mom loved it though since it was all new to her!

After the show we stopped at the Dug and Russell statues to get pictures!





Next up: Keeping Up Tradition!​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I'm terrified of birds so have never/will never see that show but *** with that CM? Holy crap that sounds awful. I haven't been on Dinosaur in so long -- must correct at next visit. I think I've told the story that my first ride was after a long break from Disney and I'd done no research (nor apparently did I read warning signs). I was expecting a nice slow ride like Universe of Energy. But I still like it.

 

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I'm terrified of birds so have never/will never see that show but *** with that CM? Holy crap that sounds awful. I haven't been on Dinosaur in so long -- must correct at next visit. I think I've told the story that my first ride was after a long break from Disney and I'd done no research (nor apparently did I read warning signs). I was expecting a nice slow ride like Universe of Energy. But I still like it.

My thought exactly! He was so rude, I've never had a CM speak to us even remotely like this before. I'm wondering if maybe he normally wasn't guest facing and just didn't know how to act. It was nuts. Glad it's not even close to the norm!

Haha, I can't imagine the shock of Dinosaur going into it expecting a ride like Universe of energy! That must have been extra thrilling!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Haha, I can't imagine the shock of Dinosaur going into it expecting a ride like Universe of energy! That must have been extra thrilling!

I can only imagine the photopass photo. I didn't even know enough to look for or get that. But somewhere someone has what must be a very funny ride photo from ~2006.

 

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I can only imagine the photopass photo. I didn't even know enough to look for or get that. But somewhere someone has what must be a very funny ride photo from ~2006.

*immediately runs to find 2006 Disney photo album* Sadly, no funny Dinosaur picture. Bummer!

 

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Day 5, Part 4: Keeping Up Tradition!

After getting pictures with Dug and Russell, it was still pretty early, too early for our lunch ADR, so we went to walk the Gorilla Falls Trail. I distinctly remember taking pictures on the trail, but cannot find them anywhere. So weird! So sorry for no pictures!

It was a good walk through, spent a good amount of time watching the gorillas playing around. There was one younger one who was definitely a bit of a rambunctious one who kept sneaking up on the big male gorilla and then running away every time the older one turned around. It was super funny to watch!

After wrapping up on the trail it was still too early for our lunch so we popped into the Dawa Bar to get a drink and relax before our reservation. I ended up getting the Lost of Safari, and it was delicious!



We grabbed a table by the bar and enjoyed until it was closer to our lunch reservation.

Finally a bit after 11:45 we made our way over to our yearly ADR tradition, Tiffins! We really love this place so make sure to eat here every year.

We arrived at 11:50 and were able to check in immediately, which we were grateful for since they weren’t scheduled to open until noon. I requested a table in the totem pole room, and they happily obliged.





We ended up at a table in the corner with a booth seating on one side and chairs on the other. This seems like useless information, but throughout lunch they kept trying to bring another party to come sit at the table next to us that shared the same bench, and due to the layout of the table would mean the person sitting on the bench side would be sitting only about 18” from me, which even pre-covid would be annoyingly close. Fortunately every party they tried to seat there declined the table, which I appreciated, wasn’t that thrilled to sit that close to the next party for an hour or so! The weird thing is the room was only half full, there were plenty of other tables to seat people at, no idea why they were trying to put them all right on top of each other!

Anyways, for lunch I ended up getting the surf and turf, and my mom had planned on getting the butter chicken, but when they went through the specials that day one was lamb so of course she got that. My mom love lamb, so this was an easy decision for her! And of course we got the octopus appetizer to start!







For drinks I got the cabernet sauvignon flight and mom got the beer flight.





It was all delicious! We really love eating at Tiffins.

We were surprised that once again they didn’t give the returning customer gift, we had hoped that the last visit was just a fluke it was missed, but it looks like they really just don’t do that anymore. Oh well. They also didn’t give the Joe Rhode artwork card this time, so I guess they really are making some cuts.

After lunch we headed out of the park for our midday break. When we got to the bus stop we saw that per usual there was a huge line for the YC/BC bus. I don’t know if we just have awful timing or if they don’t have enough buses running for the YC/BC, but there is always a line for that bus while the other lines are empty.

Anyways, I digress. We decided instead of getting into line, to hang off to the side and see if the YC/BC bus came first or if the BW bus would. Within about 3 minutes a BW bus ended up pulling up, so we hopped on that one (which had no line) and were on our way! We actually ended up taking the BW bus back all but one time this trip, their buses came so much more frequently than the YC/BC bus. Glad it’s an easy walk from the BW to the YC!

On the walk back we got some pictures!



We love Jellyrolls, so of course had to get a picture in front of it!



Next up: We’re from Pensacola and Speak Portuguese​

 

[Wood Nymph]

That CM was really rude. I think is was good that you reported that behavior.

The weird thing is the room was only half full, there were plenty of other tables to seat people at, no idea why they were trying to put them all right on top of each other!

I hear a lot of good things about Tiffins. It is odd when they try to put guests close together in an empty restaurant. I like that the covid protocols have caused the restaurants to space there tables out a bit.

After lunch we headed out of the park for our midday break. When we got to the bus stop we saw that per usual there was a huge line for the YC/BC bus. I don’t know if we just have awful timing or if they don’t have enough buses running for the YC/BC, but there is always a line for that bus while the other lines are empty.

I wonder how many of those people really want to go to the International Gateway instead of the resort.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

I feel like the bus service leaving AK is always so terrible. Or maybe the wait just seems like forever because I'm usually sweaty and exhausted. I think AK is my favorite park these days -- particularly while EP is in transition and missing the international CMs. Tiffins is such a great restaurant, although that seating situation doesn't sound ideal. I think they try to cluster tables to make life easier on the servers but it's so annoying as a diner.

 

[suse66]

Anyways, we head in and at first I wanted to sit in the front row but saw they had reserved markers on them at the ends and didn’t know if that meant the entire bench was reserved, so to be safe (we thought) we sat a row back. Well about a minute after sitting down, this CM comes over to us and in the most condescending way goes “What, do you think you’re special, do you think you deserve to sit there? Well YOU DON’T!” He literally yelled “You don’t.”

What in the world????? That CM was WAY out of line!

No idea what that CMs problem was, clearly someone got up on the wrong side of bed that day, and it really left a bad taste in our mouths for the rest of the show which was really disappointing. Like, I would get him saying something, albeit in a nicer way, if we had sat in the reserved seats, but he seemed to just have the desire to yell at someone that morning and we were the unfortunate target.

That is just terrible.

Then, the icing on the cake, a few minutes after the show started, that same CM leads this huge group of very tall people and instructs them to sit in the row directly in front of us where we had been sitting, and gives us the nastiest smirk as he does so. We were so mad at his attitude towards us, it was just ridiculous. Before leaving the park that day we did stop at guest relations to let them know about him, we’ve never done this before, but that guy had no business being in a guest facing roll.

Absolutely, that situation needed to be reported. There is no way it should ever have happened.

It was a good walk through, spent a good amount of time watching the gorillas playing around. There was one younger one who was definitely a bit of a rambunctious one who kept sneaking up on the big male gorilla and then running away every time the older one turned around. It was super funny to watch!

I love the gorilla trails!

We ended up at a table in the corner with a booth seating on one side and chairs on the other. This seems like useless information, but throughout lunch they kept trying to bring another party to come sit at the table next to us that shared the same bench, and due to the layout of the table would mean the person sitting on the bench side would be sitting only about 18” from me, which even pre-covid would be annoyingly close. Fortunately every party they tried to seat there declined the table, which I appreciated, wasn’t that thrilled to sit that close to the next party for an hour or so! The weird thing is the room was only half full, there were plenty of other tables to seat people at, no idea why they were trying to put them all right on top of each other!

Such a pet peeve of mine!! We had the same thing happen at Jungle Cruise where we were out right beside a group of 8. I really should have asked to move as we felt very uncomfortable.

Anyways, I digress. We decided instead of getting into line, to hang off to the side and see if the YC/BC bus came first or if the BW bus would. Within about 3 minutes a BW bus ended up pulling up, so we hopped on that one (which had no line) and were on our way! We actually ended up taking the BW bus back all but one time this trip, their buses came so much more frequently than the YC/BC bus. Glad it’s an easy walk from the BW to the YC!

I often did that as well. It's weird that they don't run the BC/YC bus more often, especially when it is serving 2 resorts.

 

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That CM was really rude. I think is was good that you reported that behavior.

It was kind of ridiculous how rude he was, I've never experienced anything like that before! I did feel a bit guilty about reporting him, but in the end I'm glad we did.

I hear a lot of good things about Tiffins. It is odd when they try to put guests close together in an empty restaurant. I like that the covid protocols have caused the restaurants to space there tables out a bit.

Yeah, it was crazy they kept trying to seat people right next to us when there were plenty of tables that were more spaced out available! I wish they would keep some of the spacing they had previously, it's much nicer to dine at a place where the tables aren't on top of each other!

I wonder how many of those people really want to go to the International Gateway instead of the resort.

I never thought of that! That may be why the line was so long, especially since it was a little bit before park hopping time. I'm just happy that there was no line for BW, and that bus came first! One of the best things about those resorts is how easy it is to walk between them.

 

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I feel like the bus service leaving AK is always so terrible. Or maybe the wait just seems like forever because I'm usually sweaty and exhausted. I think AK is my favorite park these days -- particularly while EP is in transition and missing the international CMs. Tiffins is such a great restaurant, although that seating situation doesn't sound ideal. I think they try to cluster tables to make life easier on the servers but it's so annoying as a diner.

Totally agree on the buses from AK. There have been times we've waited for what seems like hours, it's just so hot there and I swear there is hardly any airflow. In reality it was probably only like a 20 minute wait, but it felt like forever!

We really love AK, especially Tiffins (and Nomad). Epcot is still our favorite, even though it's a mess right now, but AK is a close second. We love the trails, and especially the benches in the aviaries to sit and just people and bird watch for a nice break. For a Disney park it's pretty relaxing!

The seating was annoying this time around at Tiffins, but fortunately the people they were trying to seat there refused the table and the food was fantastic!

 

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What in the world????? That CM was WAY out of line!
That is just terrible.
Absolutely, that situation needed to be reported. There is no way it should ever have happened.

Yeah, we were pretty upset by this whole interaction. I hate making complaints, but for this we just had to, that was no way to treat guests, even if we had made a mistake and sat in reserved seats!

I love the gorilla trails!

It is so great, actually both trails are pretty amazing. We love just wandering them and taking it slow. Such a great way to spend some time.

Such a pet peeve of mine!! We had the same thing happen at Jungle Cruise where we were out right beside a group of 8. I really should have asked to move as we felt very uncomfortable.

Yeah, I don't understand the trying to squish people in when it's not busy at all, it seems so silly!

I often did that as well. It's weird that they don't run the BC/YC bus more often, especially when it is serving 2 resorts.

It is really odd, more often than not we'd be heading toward the bus stop in time to see a BW pull away, only to have a new one pull in less than 10 minutes later. All the while not a single bus has arrived for the YC/BC. I may be wrong, but I thought the YC/BC had the greatest number of rooms of all the deluxe resorts, so I don't understand why they don't have more buses running to them.

 

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Day 5, Part 5: We’re from Pensacola and Speak Portuguese

We last left off getting back to the YC from a morning at AK. We were pretty tired from the early wake up and were ready to rest!

Unfortunately, rest was not something we would get. We got back to find the workers outside power washing our balcony. Ugh. Mom was able to nap a bit, I turned on the tv and the resort music was relaxing enough to help her fall asleep, but the noise outside was too much for me. So I just caught up on trip notes and started going through our photopass pictures.

It was a short break, and around 2:30 we were heading out again, this time to Epcot!

We decided to continue our hunt for Remy’s. We started in the UK and looked everywhere, ended up doing multiple loops around the pavilion, and couldn’t find him anywhere! Finally I pulled out the Remy map only to see that there was no Remy in the UK this year!

So no luck finding Remy, but we did find a photopass photographer!





After getting our pictures we swung by the Tea shop so mom could pick up some tea.

We then made our way towards Mexico looking for more Remy’s. When we got to Mexico mom started to feel really overheated, so we turned around and headed into the Odyssey for some AC and to check out the Epcot Experience. Unfortunately, the AC didn’t seem to be working since it wasn’t very cool in there, so we only stayed for a few minutes watching a bit of the Epcot experience presentation.

I recommended that we head to the front of the park to ride SE for a longer break in hopefully actual AC and to get off our feet for a bit, and mom thought that was a great idea, so we headed that way!

SE was a total walk on at this point, and it was a great break from the heat! We also couldn’t stop laughing at our pictures on the ride this time!



After the ride we went to get photopass pictures at the front of the park. We ended up having the same photographer I had in April who likes to tell people Disney only allows him to do 2 magic shots per guest, but he likes to do more, all the guest has to do is ask! We got a bunch of them from him this time.







After those we got in the line for the tiny world picture. While in line we started to hear thunder and the sky started getting really dark. One of the CMs working the tiny world picture came over to warn us we may not be able to get the picture, the second the rain started they had to cover the equipment. So we told him we understood, but were crossing our fingers and toes that the rain would hold off until we were done.

Well, apparently we have lucky fingers and toes, because we were able to get the shot!



While getting it the first drops of rain started to fall, and the second they got the picture they covered up the camera and rushed off with it. What great timing!

Within about 30 seconds the sky opened up. We ran to the nearest shelter, SE!

We ended up getting on the ride again to avoid the storm and didn’t want to get drenched running somewhere else.


Another winner

Since we had just rode SE just a few minutes prior, we decided to have some fun this time and see if our Portuguese lessons have been working, so when it came time to select a language, I picked Portuguese!

Now, I thought that it would only be Portuguese on the screen, I had no idea that the entire narration of the ride would also now be in Portuguese! I can tell you with certainty now that the Portuguese lessons are not working.

I also slipped when picking where we were from and hit Pensacola FL instead. It became a running joke that we were now from Pensacola and spoke Portuguese (not very well).

It was probably the most I’ve ever laughed on SE. I could pick up a handful of words, and from knowing the ride so well I had a good idea of what was being said, but my goodness they spoke so fast it was hard to even hear the words being said!

We got off the ride in a fit of giggles, people around us must have been very confused what on SE was THAT funny!

Next up: More Food and Wine Goodies!​

 

[Wood Nymph]

After those we got in the line for the tiny world picture. While in line we started to hear thunder and the sky started getting really dark. One of the CMs working the tiny world picture came over to warn us we may not be able to get the picture, the second the rain started they had to cover the equipment. So we told him we understood, but were crossing our fingers and toes that the rain would hold off until we were done.

Well, apparently we have lucky fingers and toes, because we were able to get the shot!

That is a really cool picture. I've never heard of the tiny world picture. Was this only during Flower and Garden?

It was probably the most I’ve ever laughed on SE.

I've been tempted to choose a different language, too, to see if it changed what kind of a trip you would have. But it would be a little annoying to have the entire narration in a language I couldn't understand.

At least you had a good time.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Ugh on no Remy in the UK. I love the scavenger hunts but sometimes they're really hard to find! Or perhaps my sipping and snacking prevents me from focusing enough. That tiny world shot is so cool!

 

[VAtink]

That is a really cool picture. I've never heard of the tiny world picture. Was this only during Flower and Garden?

I love the tiny world pictures! I'm not actually sure about when they have them. I think it may be year round, but I may be wrong. We've gotten them years ago at different times of the year, but no idea if that's the case anymore.

I've been tempted to choose a different language, too, to see if it changed what kind of a trip you would have. But it would be a little annoying to have the entire narration in a language I couldn't understand.

At least you had a good time.

Haha, it was very shocking to have the whole ride be in Portuguese! We really figured it would only be the words on the screen, not the whole narration, but it did make for a very funny ride!