Trip Report COMPLETED: "What is Mickey hiding from anyway?" ACE GANG REUNION

abzoo · Jan 31, 2015

Sandurz said:
Ahh yess I picked a good time to come back and read some TRs. Love catching a good one while it's still being posted! Fun read so far. Looking forward to the rest!

Big fan of adding the goofy unrelated templates to the various Photopass pics. "We're Engaged!" had me cracking up.

Thank you! And the engagement photo is definitely my favorite. I printed it out and mailed it to Megan with the instruction to hang it on her refrigerator!

HakunaMatata89 · Feb 1, 2015

awesome pics, sounds/looks like you girls had a great time

abzoo · Feb 1, 2015

Thursday, October 23.
Epcot Day. Much eating and drinking around the world.
Also, Megan's last day.

The beginning of the end.

Started the day off by looking at my phone and realizing it was already 8:50 and I had forgotten to set an alarm the night before. Apparently no one else set alarms either. Off to a great start!

I rushed to get ready and then Megan and I headed down a few minutes before everyone else so I could make sure that she was all set for DME pickup the next day. We went to the concierge desk and guess what?

no such reservation exists. I got incredibly frustrated about this because weeks before our trip, I called WDW to set up the Magical Express. The 3 in our group who needed it flew in together but each had separate flights out. After staying on hold for a while, a very nice but terribly under-informed woman took FOREVER to figure out how she could handle my request. Then as she was just about done with the process, the call cut me off (It wasn’t my phone connection-- the Disney phone system took me to the survey that they try to make you do at the end of the call). I had called back and eventually ended up on the phone with someone else who seemed able sort things out efficiently. Imagine my delight that after that hour-and-a-half-long ordeal over the phone, the DME situation still had not been sorted out. So I had to waste even more of my time getting things figured out at A of A, needing to repeat all the flight information that should have already been recorded. Ugh. I told the rest of the girls to leave without me but they said they were fine with waiting. That nearly ruined my day. We got a delayed start to Epcot thanks to waking up late and this setback but once we were in the park, I was happier.

I don't remember what was happening but I guess Kelsey and I decided to wander away from everyone else and have our own photo shoot. In this one, Val finds us out and photobombs. Then we took yet another "point at the ground and look surprised" Magic Shot. At this point, Stitch is not even a little bit surprising.

By the time we entered and took pictures, it was about time for our first FP+ so we headed to Test Track.

This was the first time I’ve ever done the whole car-creating process as I usually ride single rider. Cassie and I designed this lovely car, which we decided should be named Lumpysaurus.

It definitely looks like I'm about to elbow that man in the head. Yikes. Let it be known that I did NOT end up hitting him with my flailing limbs.

So after riding, we ended up spending too much time playing with the Chevrolet post-ride stuff-- in particular, the goofy webcam-quality photo shoot areas.

We're just experts at posing.

So by the time all that was done, it was time for our next FP+ over at Mission Space. There was practically no wait for that anyway but oh well.

Cassie decided that she didn't want to ride MS so she went to ride Test Track again as a single rider. That worked out since there were 4 of us riding and we wouldn't have to split up. We chose the green level.

abzoo · Feb 1, 2015

HakunaMatata89 said:
awesome pics, sounds/looks like you girls had a great time

We had the greatest time! Thanks for reading!!

FlaggNL · Feb 2, 2015

abzoo said:
Thank you! And it's great to see your countdown is now much lower again since you decided to come back in October!

Yeah still countingdown

But it goes faster than you can imagine. Specially since we have the upgrade to Port Orleans

abzoo · Feb 2, 2015

After our riding rides was over, we were about ready to hit up the World Showcase for some Food & Wine Festival. But first things first, we had to hit Club Cool, of course.

The Coolest Club of all the clubs.

Kelsey's face looks like she might be experiencing a bit of the Beverly aftertaste. haha.

So our pace for the day was pretty relaxed. We decided to kill some more time before we made it to World Showcase and continued to make good use of our Memory Maker... and were once again given this Magic Shot.

nope. not impressed. I asked the photographer if we could try a different one and we ended up with this one, which is perhaps my favorite picture of the entire trip!!

Love it!

Our "children" photobombing

As you can see, we stopped at almost every PhotoPass stop.

abzoo · Feb 2, 2015

Alright, here goes with Food and Wine Festival 2014!

Photo credit for this whole post goes to @ValVal-- She has always been the "mom" of our group, making sure that everything is documented with pictures galore. :happy:

That has worked out very well for all purposes of this trip report!

First stop: New Zealand

Kelsey had the Steamed Green Lip Mussels with Garlic Butter.

Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney :hungry:

. So delicious. I ended up getting one of these for myself later on.

Next up: Mexico

Rib Eye Taco and Mango-Strawberry Margarita

Gotta love everything that's going on in this photo. Especially Cassie cheering us on. ¡Olé!

After Cassie finished her drink, we went on the only ride in the World Showcase. Woo.

FlaggNL · Feb 3, 2015

And off course still a great TR! What about the ACE?

mrdrift · Feb 3, 2015

Sorry to hear that you had such a rough start to the day. It seems that that start din't effect your group to much because it seems that everyone is having a wonderful time at Epcot. All of the photos shows how much fun all of are having at Epcot with all the playing around with the Memory Maker photos enhancements. The Mexico pinata with the 4 of you is really cute. Following along.

abzoo · Feb 3, 2015

akayw0718 said:
"We went on the only ride in world showcase." Welp. That hurt.

Honeydukes!!! I want to eat it all!

I love Men in Black. And I really like the Dr. Seuss dark ride.

Food! Eat all the food!! I'm going to be down for Flower and Garden - pumped to eat all the food!

My bitterness about the lack of Maelstrom isn't getting any better. As far as Honeydukes goes, I learned from a trip a couple years ago that I shouldn't buy anything from there because I feel the need to save the candy instead of eat it because it's special or whatever. hah. Men in Black is awesome. I haven't been on the Dr. Seuss ride in a long time. I should do that again soon.

I need to find a time to drive down and check out Flower and Garden fest this year.

It looks like we have May trips that will overlap! My sister is coming around Memorial Day and we're hoping for a 24 hour day.

abzoo · Feb 3, 2015

Alright, so moving on from Mexico, we bypassed the Norway pavilion. I noticed that my head is in the bottom of this photo. This is the face I make pretty much every time I pass Norway and think about Maelstrom being gone. It's just really dumb that they couldn't wait until Food and Wine was over to close the ride.

Next stop: China

Val got chicken potstickers and Kelsey and I shared the Beijing duck in a Steamed Bun with Hoisin Sauce. Pretty good. As you can see, there's lots of onions just thrown on there.

I don't remember what the rest of us were doing but Val sort of wandered off on her own and took some photos.

Stalking Mulan.

Pretty view of the American Adventure and Italy across the World Showcase Lagoon. Val's rocking the wearable gift card.

Made a stop at the Singapore Marketplace for some Seared Mahi Mahi with Jasmine Rice and Singa Sauce.

Sandurz · Feb 3, 2015

So how'd you feel about value from F&W kiosks compared to the normal Disney dining/snack experience? It always hurts to tally your food expenditures normally...does stopping at a number of different places for smaller portions turn out better? Especially given the fun exotic/quasi-gourmet stuff they put together it seems like it could go either way.

abzoo · Feb 4, 2015

Sandurz said:
So how'd you feel about value from F&W kiosks compared to the normal Disney dining/snack experience? It always hurts to tally your food expenditures normally...does stopping at a number of different places for smaller portions turn out better? Especially given the fun exotic/quasi-gourmet stuff they put together it seems like it could go either way.

Good question for sure! It really does depend-- some of the offerings at various kiosks actually were pretty good values for Disney but a lot of it was still too much to pay for such a small portion. It's all so tempting but that tiny taco I got from Mexico was $5.50 and, while it was tasty, it's still a lot to pay for one small item. Some of the portions out there were much more filling for the same price or less.

In general though, I would say that if you go to Food & Wine Festival and are eating those snack-sized portions as your meal, you're going to be spending more money than just eating at a normal quick service-- especially if you're tempted by all the beverage options on the menu boards. If you're comparing to table service dining, then F&W may give you more value for your money.

I'll also say that the first time I went back to Epcot after F&W was over, I was definitely missing some of the options they had a few weeks before. I think that the festival certainly enhanced the Epcot experience for my friends.

mrdrift · Feb 4, 2015

Boy seeing all the different options of food that you have shown us is making me really hungry. Keep them coming

!! Great pictures from China. Following along.

ValVal · Feb 4, 2015

Ok wow more new posts than i was expecting haha
1) i really love the balloon magic shot
2) thanks for my photo cred since i def took 95-98% of the pictures from that entire trip haha

3) the mickey with the fork throwing colors in front of him looks suspicious....
4) HA! :hilarious:

i didn't notice your face in my norway pic until now haha
5) @least i SAW MULAN- i distinctly remember thinking "omg no one is here to see this!" & while i can't recall what exactly everyone else was doing in china I'm guessing it bored me (maybe u guys were talking about where mulan normally takes photos??) & i was more inclined to explore so i silently took off-which to be honest sounds like me

haha
6) I LOVED THAT WEARABLE GIFT CARD

-it honestly made purchasing sooooo much easier (which is probably kind of dangerous)haha
7) with F&W sharing portions made it nice to try the foods out a little without having to spend as much money on ALL the food, like the mahimahi kelsey&i shared. It helped going into F&W knowing we were going to be spending most of our time&money :greedy:

eating food in Epcot that day. It's much cooler to get foods u normally can't around disney then sticking with the quick service food at all the disney parks. ESPECIALLY since we were there for soooo long towards the end of the trip i was sick of disney quick service food haha
8) *food dreams of brazil, puerto rico, crounuts, limoncello margs, & sparkling sake GEL*

abzoo · Feb 4, 2015

ValVal said:
Ok wow more new posts than i was expecting haha
1) i really love the balloon magic shot
2) thanks for my photo cred since i def took 95-98% of the pictures from that entire trip haha
3) the mickey with the fork throwing colors in front of him looks suspicious....
4) HA! i didn't notice your face in my norway pic until now haha
5) @least i SAW MULAN- i distinctly remember thinking "omg no one is here to see this!" & while i can't recall what exactly everyone else was doing in china I'm guessing it bored me (maybe u guys were talking about where mulan normally takes photos??) & i was more inclined to explore so i silently took off-which to be honest sounds like me haha
6) I LOVED THAT WEARABLE GIFT CARD-it honestly made purchasing sooooo much easier (which is probably kind of dangerous)haha
7) with F&W sharing portions made it nice to try the foods out a little without having to spend as much money on ALL the food, like the mahimahi kelsey&i shared. It helped going into F&W knowing we were going to be spending most of our time&money eating food in Epcot that day. It's much cooler to get foods u normally can't around disney then sticking with the quick service food at all the disney parks. ESPECIALLY since we were there for soooo long towards the end of the trip i was sick of disney quick service food haha
8) *food dreams of brazil, puerto rico, crounuts, limoncello margs, & sparkling sake GEL*

1) It's the best. So glad we didn't settle for just another Stitch photo!
2) 95-98% of the F&W pics are yours BUT

You can't take all the photo cred for the trip though since i do have hundreds on my phone and a bunch from my camera. And then we have the 800ish Memory Maker pics... I should send you some of my pics/videos.
5) I think Kelsey and I walked over by the garden shady area. Megan at least took the opportunity to sit down.
6) Successful b-day gift! Huzzah!
8) Yes to all of the above. :hungry:

abzoo · Feb 4, 2015

Next up: Germany

Megan and I both got the Roast Bratwurst in a Pretzel Roll. I'm already a fan of the usual bratwursts you can get in the pavilion but these were different. The brat was skinnier and the pretzel bun was delicious as well. Not too adventurous of a choice but oh so tasty.

We continued into Germany to look around a little bit.

Look! The people of the miniature town are also celebrating Food & Wine Festival!

Poland was next

Cassie got the Kielbasa and Potato Pierogi with Carmelized Onions and Sour Cream-- pretty good but nothing all too special.

Then, Italy!

Megan with her Bosco del Merlo Prosecco, Val with her Filetto di Pollo, con Fungi al Marsala and the Frozen Margarita with Limoncello!

Mmmmm that Limoncello margarita was one of my favorite things about F&W. I didn't get one for myself until later though. Kelsey asked at the counter how sweet the margarita was and they poured her a sample into a mini glass-- it was a very sizable sample too! And yes, it was pretty sweet, but also tart and refreshing-- perfect for a long day of being in the sun, as there isn't too much shade in Epcot.

Cassie and I wandered to the waterfront, stealing Val's camera and then Kelsey joined us (and I stole her margarita sample)

Trying to make plans with our Festival passports. We were pretty serious about getting stamps from each of the food marketplaces. If one of us was ordering food, the rest would usually pass off our passport to get stamped. When we decided that we weren't interested in the offerings from any kiosk, we went up to the registers to get a stamp anyway. It was definitely one of our favorite things to do that day.

ValVal · Feb 5, 2015

abzoo said:
1) It's the best. So glad we didn't settle for just another Stitch photo!
2) 95-98% of the F&W pics are yours BUT You can't take all the photo cred for the trip though since i do have hundreds on my phone and a bunch from my camera. And then we have the 800ish Memory Maker pics... I should send you some of my pics/videos.
5) I think Kelsey and I walked over by the garden shady area. Megan at least took the opportunity to sit down.
6) Successful b-day gift! Huzzah!
8) Yes to all of the above.

2-YES you DOOOOOOO esp. talking mickey-olivia is dying to see it hehe

StephK · Feb 6, 2015

Great trip report! I loved the detail on MNSSHP, am planning to go this year and cannot wait.
Following along

SeaweedCupcake · Feb 6, 2015

Just caught up to your trip report! It's awesome! I love your costumes but I think your Megara was the best! The painted toms are awesome I bought some frozen themed ones from a local artist and I wore them when I met Anna and Elsa. They also loved the shoes. Following along!