Trip Report Time for Flowers! Flower & Food (Garden) March 2017

Hello and welcome to my trip report! My hubby (Brad) and I returned a little over a week ago from a quick trip to the World to celebrate Flower and Garden, which we refer to sometimes as Flower and Food. It was my husband's first time at F&G, but I had gone a few times solo and we have done Food and Wine. So he was interested in how this festival would be.

So here's a little quick info:
Who: hubby (Brad) and myself (Amy)
When: March 3-March 6
Resort: All Star Movies (cheapest option, and all we need is a place to sleep)

Some tags to people who have read some of my other reports (I know I will forget someone, but everyone is welcome!): @figmentfan423 @Gabe1 @donaldtoo @betty rose @PacNWTigger @Tuvalu @fractal @JenniferS @bee @BuddyThomas @Mr Ferret 88 @MouseDreaming @PUSH @Wrangler-Rick @MOXOMUMD @MinnieM123 @Songbird76 @Cesar R M @prfctlyximprct @93boomer @Courtney6682 @MySmallWorldof4

Okay....Ready now....Here We GO......

So the vacation actually started on March 2, but late. I had parent-teacher conferences that night and our flight was early Friday morning so we decided to stay the night up in Minneapolis so we wouldn't have to get up so early. We only live about an hour- to hour 15 minutes away from the airport but we wanted to be close to the airport for that early flight. So when conferences got done at 8pm my husband was waiting outside the door ready to pick me up.

We spent the night in a Homewood Suites and connected to it was a Chevy's restaurant. All during conferences (which I only met with 8 parents that night in a span of 3 hours and I have 150 students) I was thinking about a margarita at Chevy's. So what did we do once we checked in? That's right headed over to Chevy's, it was a little after 9pm by then so at least we got late night happy hour! We also got their sampler platter which was pretty good.

With my margarita!
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After margaritas we went back to our room and watched the 10 pm news for a couple minutes and then headed to bed. Our flight was leaving a 6am so we were going to be up early!

Our journey to the airport was pretty uneventful (thank goodness) and security wasn't too bad, about a 15 minute wait. I had bought us mini-muffins from our grocery store at home so we had those and I had a coffee that was finally cool enough to drink once we started boarding!

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If you have flown Spirit before you'll know that they have their Big Seats Up Front for an extra charge. I think that charge is worth it for extra space, so I booked those seats for us. The flight was good we both slept a little, read magazines, and I listened to Disney podcasts.

Goodbye Minneapolis!
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Somewhere between Minnesota and Florida

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Hello Orlando! I was able to spot the Swan & Dolphin and Spaceship Earth this time from the air. I was pretty excited about it but I don't think it really shows up in my pictures.
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When we landed at MCO I saw a really big Air Force plane and I thought to myself "That's weird and so big. Hey wait I've seen that type of plane before when I saw..." and then I saw it....Air Force One. Our president was also visiting Florida. I'm not going to get political, but I think it is pretty cool seeing Air Force One. The only cooler Presidential experience I had was when I was near the Washington Monument and I was facing the White House and Marine One rose up off the lawn and flew right over my head. I saw AF1 before when we landed in Minneapolis a few years ago and it was exciting then (except for the 2 hour traffic jam we had because President Obama was touring the city) and I was excited this time too but now worried about the traffic. I had a fast pass to get to. Luckily this time we didn't have bad traffic as the president had already left the airport area.

Anyway, we got to our gate and because we were in the front we were off and to Magical Express pretty quick. I was a little nervous about the wait for ME especially after some people's recent experiences (@Tuvalu ) but as we arrived it wasn't bad at all. The total time of check-in, boarding, and leaving was about 10 minutes. Excellent!

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We have arrived HOME!
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Walt even welcomed us on the METV!
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
count me in as well!

I have not heard of an airline going down to 40 lbs per checked bag
It will not be long until they weigh carry on and then after that.....

If they start weighing me I might have to stop flying!!!!


Max

Thanks for joining in! The Spirit airline is known for it's cost cutting measures, it charges for a lot of "extras", including carry on bags. The 40 pound thing is kind of strange but supposedly it saves gas. As for weighing carry on bags, I flew on Hawaiian airline from Kona to Honolulu a couple years ago and they weighed our checked and carry on luggage. Our carry on bags were over the weight.
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
If they start weighing me I might have to stop flying!!!!

:hilarious:

Fly Jet Blue like I do. You can eat all the donuts you want, and they won't charge you extra for weight! :joyfull:

As for the comment @ajrwdwgirl shared about Delta, I also stopped flying them years ago for the same reason. They kept changing flight times if you booked a few months ahead. Found it really frustrating, and finally switched over to Jet Blue and like them much better.
 

Courtney6682

Well-Known Member
I rarely have a window seat on flights as I usually pick the aisle. I like to get up and move around (aka visit the restroom) and I don't want to keep asking people in my row to get up. But there were just two seats in my row so hubs had the aisle and I took the window and I don't mind making hubs move! :) Actually there was enough room in our row for me to get out without making him move. So anyway, I guess I picked the right side (which was the left side) to see the sights.

Good to know for our August trip!! Left side it is!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
:hilarious:

Fly Jet Blue like I do. You can eat all the donuts you want, and they won't charge you extra for weight! :joyfull:

As for the comment @ajrwdwgirl shared about Delta, I also stopped flying them years ago for the same reason. They kept changing flight times if you booked a few months ahead. Found it really frustrating, and finally switched over to Jet Blue and like them much better.

I hear so many good things about Jet Blue, I wish they flew out of my airport. :(
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
So continuing on into Epcot.....

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Brad really liked the flower towers in the entry way, so he stopped to smell them.
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I'm a Figment fan so I was really happy to see this topiary. Part of me thought it should have been over by the ride.
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We stopped for this photo-op and we like that you could actually stand by the sign.
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Since we had only had some mini-muffins at about 5am we were pretty hungry and we were headed into World Showcase to start trying some of the Flower and Garden food booths! But first we saw some pretty butterfly topiaries.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Our first stop was to the Northern Bloom booth in Canada. Brad wanted the scallops (i'm not a seafood fan so that was all his but I did steal a couple beans). I got the beef, although he stole a beef chunk and I let him have the mushrooms. And we got the Nanaimo bar trifle, but I ate most of it, and it was delicious. He enjoyed the scallops and the beef was really good too.

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Just a closer look at the trifle....:hungry::hungry:
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Next stop was the UK.
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We decided to share the pear cider brined corned beef and cabbage. Neither of us like cabbage that much so we were planning on just eating the meat, well the cabbage was really tasty.
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Then we wandered around the pavilion.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
I love the Fresh Epcot pic. Gosh it looks so warm and sunny. Haven't felt warmth or seen the sun in a bunch of days/weeks. :coldfeet:

That trifle looks soooo good! :hungry: On my list for May.:)

I know what you mean about warmth. We may not have had your snow but we had cold temps. It was not fun this week walking outside to 5 degree F temps. We did have sun most of the days this past week.

Oh the trifle was one of my favorites! I was sad that we never made it back to that booth to get another one. A word of advice...do not share it! Keep all that goodness to yourself! :)
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
As we continued on our journey of our extended lunch....the next stop was France. I really liked the onion tart last year and I was looking forward to having it again. I had even bought a couple last year that I took home with me. I even tried making it at home, it wasn't the same. And on a visit to Trader Joe's they had what looked like the onion tart from this booth in France, it however was vile. So needless to say I was very excited to see it was back at Flower and Garden this year. Did it live up to expectations??????

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I really like this announcement post in France, it reminds me of ones I saw with real announcements in Paris.
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We did a couple of photo pass shots in France. The photo line was short just one couple finishing and then another couple and their toddler. Well the couple with their toddler took forever. They wanted shots of them, shots of the toddler, shots of them with the toddler, then the adults separate! :rolleyes: Maybe I was just anxious for the onion tart....
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The onion tart was ........
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very tasty! We shared it, with the thought that we would come back another day, sadly we didn't. So I have the recipe in my Epcot Festivals cookbook, so I may attempt it again this year. I might even plant the herbs that are supposed to be used for it so I can use fresh herbs.

Just a couple pictures of around the pavilion...
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It was time to head back to Future World and start using our fast passes. We had a 12:30 to 1:30 fast pass for Spaceship Earth so we were in the middle time for that so we headed over.

We took the pretty path back. Brad said that what he was looking forward to most about Flower and Garden was seeing the flower quilt between Future World and World Showcase. He had enjoyed my pictures of it that last couple years that he was excited to see it for himself. He said he was not disappointed.

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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
The monorail was my enemy this trip. We would get just past the point of a good photo op spot and I would have my camera put away and there it would come...:mad: Anyway, I still think this was a pretty good pic with my best guy, flowers, and Spaceship Earth!

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We also stopped at the Flower and Garden shops on the bridge area. It was really windy so I bought myself some cute ears to keep my hair back. We also stopped for a photo pass.
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Time for Spaceship Earth, Brad said he would try to stay awake this time. And he did. We also stopped a couple times, so I took those opportunities to take a couple pictures. I hadn't been planning to. I thought it would be cool to stop at the Roman scene and we did just in a spot that wasn't looking at anything worth taking a picture of.
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We always try to make crazy faces for our picture on Spaceship Earth. I think I succeeded. Brad didn't take a picture of his, he sat in the row behind me.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Alright just one more post for today....after our journey through the history of communication we headed over for a fast pass I was not willing to skip at all. A fast pass for Living with the Land. I absolutely adore the green houses and since it was Flower and Garden festival, this ride fit the theme. And coming to these green houses during the winter, and living in cold Wisconsin it just makes me love the plants even more. :)So I don't have a lot of commentary for these pictures except to say it was all so lovely in there.

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MinnieM123

Premium Member
The monorail was my enemy this trip. We would get just past the point of a good photo op spot and I would have my camera put away and there it would come...:mad: Anyway, I still think this was a pretty good pic with my best guy, flowers, and Spaceship Earth!

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Aw heck, who needs the stupid monorail to go by in the background, when you already have a wonderful, smiling photo of Brad in front of all those gorgeous, colorful flowers? This photo is perfect, just as it is!! :)
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
The onion tart was ........
My favorite food from last year! So glad they brought it back.:hungry:
When my DH and I were dating, we took our first trip together to Disney during Spring Break '96. I only just realized it was during one of the first years of the festival. They had a strawberry trifle that year that I still cannot forget.:) I remember constantly going back for more. Wish that would be brought back.:happy:
 

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