Trip Report Blisters! Why Did it Have to be Blisters?! A 2019 Flower and Garden Report COMPLETED

Hello Disney Friends! Welcome to the "Trip Report That Almost Wasn't Posted". More on that in a minute. Now for the details:



Who: Me @LisaBelle and my sister, Tina @TangledTina
What: Tina's 50th Birthday Celebration
When: May 28-June 2, 2019
Where: The Contemporary Resort

How this trip came to be:
In 2016 Tina and I celebrated my 50th birthday by running the runDisney Princess 5k. You can read that trip report here. We knew that we wanted to take a sister's trip for Tina's birthday, but she hadn't decided what she wanted to do. We considered sitting on the beach, a cruise and visiting a new city. Then in July of 2018 our families went on a joint vacation to WDW. That TR is here. That trip had lots of bumps in the road and left Tina wanting another dose of Disney magic. In November of 2018 she called me up to discuss her birthday trip. The conversation went something like this: Tina: How would you feel about spending my birthday trip at Walt Disney World? Me: I'm calling to book it right now! :hilarious:

Because we were experiencing Flower and Garden for the first time we wanted to stay at an Epcot resort. Tina chose the Beach Club and we spent the winter months dreaming of lounging at Stormalong Bay and walking into Epcot via the International Gateway.




Fast forward to about 3 weeks prior to our trip. I received a phone call from Disney saying that they were overbooked at Beach Club and we needed to switch resorts :banghead:. Because of the inconvenience they would discount the price on a monorail resort! After some discussion we decided on the Contemporary. We'd stayed there with our families in July, but we had stayed in one of the Garden Wing buildings. It was a long walk to both the Contempo Cafe and the monorail so this time we wanted to stay in the main building. They were able to accommodate that request so we booked it.

Why this TR almost wasn't posted....
As soon as Tina and I returned from our WDW trip we needed to "finalize" (read completely plan and book :hilarious:) our next family adventure- a 2 week drive from Ohio to Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. With those plans made I spent June uploading all of my WDW photos, dealt with Disney concerning Memory Maker issues and finally got those pictures uploaded. Our family vacation took up 2 weeks in July and then it was time for professional development and preparing my classroom for back to school! No worries, I can write my TR on weekends for sure over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, right?! This school year has been crazy busy and suddenly March rolled around and I still hadn't started my TR. Too late now I thought. Flower and Garden 2020 had begun and I felt like no one would want to read about last year's festival when they could real about this year's offerings. Then COVID 19 came along and closed down our beloved Disney World :cry:! With that I decided that now might be a good time to finally post this TR!

So without further ado, here we goooooo!

Monday, May 27, 2019
Today was Memorial Day and my family did our usual cookout while I finished laundry and packing. We were flying out of the Cincinnati airport early Tuesday morning. I live closer to the airport so we decided that Tina would spend the night at my house to make the morning less rushed. Tina sent me this photo as she was packing. Tina had planned to arrive at my house in the evening, but due to laundry/packing issues she was running behind. Then the weather near her turned ugly which delayed her even more. There were actually tornadoes in Dayton that night. Luckily, they weren't close to Tina's home.



Tina finally arrived at my house between 11:30pm and midnight. We double checked our Magic Bands, plane check-in, flight time, etc. As we were discussing our outfits for the next day Tina asked my opinion on which shoes she should wear. She had bought a new pair of shoes that hadn't been broken in yet. They looked great with her outfit and they felt so comfortable when she tried them on that we felt like they should probably be okay. Remember this conversation.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Our flight was scheuled to depart at 8am. Because I don't like to be rushed I wanted to be at the airport by 6. This meant we needed to leave my house by 5:30. We woke up about 4:30am. We got dressed, drank a quick cup of coffee and were on the road to the airport by 5:35am. We parked, took the shuttle to the terminal, checked our bags and had made it through security by 6:35. On the way to the gate I sent this text to my family, all of whom were still sound asleep back home.



Tina and I took some airport pictures to pass the time until we could board the plane.



Time passed quickly and by 7:45 we were on the plane!



I channeled my inner J from @riverside's reports and read the safety instructions while we waited for takeoff.



We left the gate at 7:59. During the flight we looked over the Flower and Garden menus to prioritize our food choices for the afternoon. Our original plan was to drop off our bags and hop on the monorail to Epcot. During the flight Tina suggested that we drop off our bags and pop into the MK for a few photos and 1 ride before heading to Epcot. MK is always our first park, so I was excited to keep this tradition alive. Besides, who says no to MK?! Checking our progress.



Our flight was uneventful and we landed at 9:50, which was about 20 minutes ahead of schedule! We used the restroom and jumped in line for Starbucks. We both got a caramel macchiato to drink on the Magical Express.



We checked in with Magical Express and we were first in our line.



We boarded the ME at 10:35 and pulled out of the airport at 10:43.





At 10:47 we received our room ready text. We were super excited about this because we would be able to freshen up a bit before heading to MK!



At 11:07 we drove under the sign and felt like our vacation had officially begun!



Up next: The Contemporary
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
After exiting the tea cups we decided to walk over to the castle. Tina made a wish at the fountain.


Then we checked out the progress of the new walkways that were being built at that time.






We walked back toward Main Street, purchased a bottle of water and headed for the monorail to Epcot. I was so hot and sweaty! I'd never been to Disney in late May or early June and wasn't expecting the heat to be quite as intense as it was. Tina's feet were starting to hurt. The heat was making them swell and sweating wasn't helping. In hindsight, we probably should have run back to the Contemporary to change her shoes but we did not :(.



Soon we arrived at Epcot. Spaceship Earth was stunning against the sunny blue sky!




Our first look at the Flower & Garden views! I was so excited to see this in person. I'd looked longingly at photos in TRs over the years and couldn't believe I was finally there.


As we pulled into the monorail station I remember there being tons of construction, but for some reason I did not take any photos. We were through bag check and taking photos at 1:58pm. We made a quick stop in one of the gift shops to look for different shoes for Tina. We didn't find anything there, so we ran into Mouse Gear. She had trouble with the flip flops and slides they sold so she ended up buying some socks in hopes that that would help lessen the friction and keep her feet from blistering.









I'm really going to miss this fountain!


Our first Flower & Garden topiaries! Goofy is my husband's favorite, so I sent this picture to him.




By now it was almost 2:30pm and we were starving! We'd been up since 4:30 and hadn't eaten anything but a package of cookies on the plane.

Up next: Bring on the Flower & Garden Food!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
On to the food! We entered World Showcase near the Refreshment Port on the Canada side. We both wanted to try the Lobster Tail with Meyer Lemon Emulsion and Grilled Lemon from the Citrus Blossom. As I mentioned, we were starving so we each got one. The taste was great and I really loved the lemon emulsion, but the lobster was tough and hard to chew. We realized after we'd purchased our food that this was the booth where they were selling the very popular orange bird sippers :banghead: . I blame the heat and our near starvation! We decided not to get back in line for one yet. Looking back at the menu there were so many items we wanted to try. We wished we lived closer to WDW and had more time to try all the food offerings.





The lobster was a great start, but we were still hungry. We decided to split up and get 2 other items we wanted to try. We shared both of these items. Tina went to the Honey Bee-stro for the Honey Tandoori Chicken Flatbread with White Cheddar Cheese, Charred Vegetables, Clover Honey Sour Cream and Micro Citrus Greens.






This was yummy, it was light and the ingredients were fresh. My notes aren't great and I didn't write many specifics, but I remember that we enjoyed this.

I chose poutine from the Refreshment Port. It wasn't the Flower & Garden Poutine. This version had beef, beer cheese (I am obsessed with beer cheese) and french fried onions. It was delicious, but it was very heavy and it is served piping hot, so it wasn't the best choice when we weren't accustomed to the Florida heat.


I can't remember if we finished the flatbread, but I know we did not finish the poutine because it was so hot and heavy. There wasn't much shade and it was super hot. We'd chowed down on a variety of rich, heavy foods in a very short amount of time and now we weren't feeling very well. We quickly decided that we needed to learn how to pace ourselves better. We decided to take it easy and walk through the shops in Canada in order to cool down a bit. After a few minutes of air conditioning we felt better and headed to the United Kingdom.

It is actually sunny here in Cincinnati today :cool:. I am going to head outside to enjoy the weather for a bit. When I return, I shall continue my report.

Up next: United Kingdom and our first FP+ of the trip.
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Welcome! I wasn't planning to do a TR of our summer vacation, but I may add a smattering of photos if people are interested. I don't have those uploaded to Photobucket at the moment, so it may be a day or so until I can post those. Wyoming was mostly a drive through, but we spent the afternoon at the Cheyenne Frontier Days and attended our first ever Rodeo! We had a blast!
The daddy of 'em all! BUSY....they always have some great concerts, too. I went to one with Terry Clark, Charlie Daniels, Mark Chesnutt and...Rascal Flats maybe? It was awesome! I'm from the North Eastern part of Wyoming, but I went to college in Laramie, which isn't too far from Cheyenne. And that's a beautiful area to drive through...Laramie, Cheyenne, down through Denver or Fort Collins, Colorado. I'd sure be interested in pictures, but if no one else is, that's ok.
 

MegRuss626

Well-Known Member
Welcome aboard! We definitely need extra Disney on these days. I'm so sorry that you don't get to see Flower and Garden :cry: . 2019 was my first ever Flower & Garden and I really enjoyed it. Maybe they will extend the dates or fingers crossed for next year!

I said that to my husband about hopefully extending! Maybe they’ll add a month on since they’ll be closed for almost that long 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The daddy of 'em all! BUSY....they always have some great concerts, too. I went to one with Terry Clark, Charlie Daniels, Mark Chesnutt and...Rascal Flats maybe? It was awesome! I'm from the North Eastern part of Wyoming, but I went to college in Laramie, which isn't too far from Cheyenne. And that's a beautiful area to drive through...Laramie, Cheyenne, down through Denver or Fort Collins, Colorado. I'd sure be interested in pictures, but if no one else is, that's ok.

Wow! That sounds like a great concert. We left Denver in the morning and drove to Cheyenne. We attended the Rodeo, ate lots of food and shopped a bit. We left Cheyenne late afternoon and drove from there to Mt. Rushmore. I will round up some more pics and add them in as I go.

I said that to my husband about hopefully extending! Maybe they’ll add a month on since they’ll be closed for almost that long 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
I really hope they do that! It makes sense to me but I have no idea how their timelines work. I imagine they try to clear a lot of that out before the busy summer season.
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Wow! That sounds like a great concert. We left Denver in the morning and drove to Cheyenne. We attended the Rodeo, ate lots of food and shopped a bit. We left Cheyenne late afternoon and drove from there to Mt. Rushmore. I will round up some more pics and add them in as I go.


I really hope they do that! It makes sense to me but I have no idea how their timelines work. I imagine they try to clear a lot of that out before the busy summer season.
Ooooh,..mount Rushmore...beautiful drives around there, too. Devils tower, Custer...that's closer to where I grew up. We went to Mt. Rushmore several times a year and stayed in a tiny town called Hill City. It's literally just a street and it looks very old west. A lot to do in that area though! But what a long drive you made!!!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Ooooh,..mount Rushmore...beautiful drives around there, too. Devils tower, Custer...that's closer to where I grew up. We went to Mt. Rushmore several times a year and stayed in a tiny town called Hill City. It's literally just a street and it looks very old west. A lot to do in that area though! But what a long drive you made!!!
Yes, Mount Rushmore was beautiful! We had limited time and Mount Rushmore onward was the homeward bound portion of the trip, so we didn't see Devil's Tower, but we saw Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument. Then we drove to Wall and visited Wall Drug and then drove through the Badlands. We saw a huge herd of buffalo and the scenery was amazing! We did lots of driving on that trip!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
We always take a photo at the phone booths. It was way too hot to actually stand inside them that day.




We enjoyed the topiaries of our friends from the Hundred Acre Wood.






We also visited with Bambi, Thumper and Flower.





We wandered through the shops and came upon Mary Poppins! She was teaching several college age young men how to do the Step in Time dance! It was such fun to watch. Then it was our turn to meet Mary. I can't remember what we talked about, but it was fun to meet her.




It was almost time for our first Fast Pass so we had to backtrack to Future World. On the way we spotted another food that we wanted to eat. We were still pretty full so we decided to wait until after our Fast Passes. We waved at Figment on our way to The Land.



Our first FP of the trip was Soarin'. We sat on the left side so everything was distorted. I still enjoy this ride, but I hate the distortion.


We thought about riding Living with the Land, but standby was 30 minutes so we skipped it. We figured that we still had 2 more Epcot days to get it in, but we never did :(.
From there we headed over to The Seas. My family always takes a picture with shark so I sent this home to entertain the fam.


Up next: More of the Seas
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
We still had a bit of time so we meandered around the aquarium.






Then we visited Nemo.


We looked at the sculpture made from trash found in the ocean.

We visited Daisy on our way to our final FP of the day.




Hello Beautiful!




I tried to take some pictures of things that might not be there once Epcot has been reimagined.


Blurry, but I love the way the lights look in this scene.


We enjoyed the glimpse of our future.






Then we bid farewell to Spaceship Earth and headed out in search of more food :hungry:!

Up next: More food
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
We left Spaceship Earth and headed to the Flavor Full Kitchen. We shared a Mickey Tart Peanut Butter Mousse with Strawberry Jam and Boba Pearls. This was one of my absolute favorite desserts! Looking at the picture now I don't see any Boba Pearls. I guess they forgot those, but I didn't miss them because this was so delicious! It had a great peanut butter to jelly ratio. I loved the crunchy tart and it was cool and refreshing.


Now that we'd had dessert we were ready for another entree! We headed to the Northern Bloom in Canada for the Seared Scallops with French Green Beans, Butter Potatoes, Brown Butter Vinaigrette, and Applewood Smoked Bacon. This was also delicious! I loved the flavor combinations.


Next we headed toward France. They were testing the Skyliner at the International Gateway.





We weren't full yet, so we stopped at the Fleur de Lys in France and Tina got the La Vie en Rose Frozen Slush with Grey Goose Vodka L'Orange, St. Germain Liqueur, White and Red Cranberry Juice. She really enjoyed this.

We also ordered the Tarte au Chevre to share: Goat Cheese Tart with Caramelized Onions on a flaky Pastry Crust. This was Tina's favorite dish of the entire Flower & Garden Festival! I liked it, but she loved it, so I let her eat most of this one!


We wandered around France checking out the topiaries and browsing in the shops. I bought a mini Eiffel Tower. Hello Kermit and Miss Piggy!




Beauty and the Beast is my favorite! I loved this topiary.


I'm pretty sure I got a Grand Marnier Slush to drink while we walked, but I have no photographic evidence of this! We walked to Italy and shared the Pomodori Verdi e Mozzerella: Fried Green Tomatoes, Mozzarella Cheese, Balsamic Reduction. It was very good. Sorry, for some reason I don't have a picture of this.

Our next stop was Japan for the Frushi: Fresh Pineapple, Strawberry and Melon rolled with Coconut Rice, sprinkled with Toasted Coconut, Whipped Cream with Raspberry Sauce on the side. This was one of my favorites! It was so cool and refreshing on such a warm day. Tina wasn't as big of a fan, so she let me eat most of this.


It was starting to get dark. Epcot had evening extra magic hours, but we knew that the food booths wouldn't be open, so we wanted to grab one last food. We enjoyed the scenery on the way to Germany.



We couldn't pass up the caramel corn at Karamel Kuche. We each bought a bag. So yummy!
Our final food stop of the night was at the Bauernmarkt in Germany. We shared the Toasted Pretzel Bread (another of my obsessions) topped with Black Forest Ham and Melted Gruyere Cheese. There was only supposed to be one per order, but there wasn't much cheese on the one they gave me so they gave me second one for free! Gotta love that Disney magic. This was one of my favorite festival foods! It was the perfect blend of cheesy salty goodness! If we'd shared one we probably would have been fine, but since we had 2 we both ate more than we needed. This was the food that pushed Tina over the edge. At this point she was uncomfortably full!






Up next: Gran Fiesta Tour
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
Now that we were completely stuffed, we worked out a game plan for the rest of the evening. Epcot had evening extra magic hours from 9-11pm. We knew that we wanted to ride Frozen Ever After and also thought that it would be fun to meet Anna and Elsa as Tina had never met them. Plus it's kind of an unwritten rule that you meet the sisters when you are on a sister's trip :joyfull:! It was around 8:30pm, so we decided to visit the Three Caballeros.





Poor Donald!


Hello Boys!


Then we headed over to Norway to meet the sisters.


We hopped in line and enjoyed looking around. I had never been in this venue. The last time I met Anna and Elsa was when they were still meeting guests at Fairytale Hall in MK. The theming was spot on, as always the details were amazing and there was so much to see. There were maybe 3 or 4 groups in front of us and we waited at least 20 minutes. We were the last guests in line and the cast members did a great job of not making us feel rushed. They were following us and closing up behind us, but they were chatting with us along the way.

















Lights for @Doc Disney !




Sorry for the overload of pictures of the queue! I'd never been in there before so I took tons!

Up next: Lisa & Tina meet Elsa & Anna
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...

We met Anna first.





Then Elsa. Both sisters wished Tina a happy birthday. One of them told us that in Arendelle on your birthday you get to eat one piece of chocolate for every year old that you are!





By now it was 9:30 so we headed over to FEA. The line was pretty long, we'd been up since 4:30am and Tina's feet were hurting so we weren't sure what to do. Because we'd been counting on riding FEA during extra magic hours we didn't have a FP+ for this ride at any point in our trip. Tina was a good sport and we decided to ride FEA and then head out for the evening.


I love this part. It always reminds me of Tangled though!


Our super flattering ride photo :hilarious:!


And with that, our first day was in the books! We headed back to the Contemporary, unpacked, showered, set our alarms and hit the hay so we'd be as rested as possible for our first full day at MK!

Up next: Magic Kingdom :joyfull:
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here are a few more topiaries that I forgot to include from day 1...







Wednesday, May 29, 2019 Magic Kingdom

I would like to give credit to Tina for supplying many of the photos included in this TR! I would like to note that I took fairly detailed notes about day 1 and zero notes about the rest of the trip :banghead: ! Luckily Tina took some notes and lots of memories come back as I look at the photos!

I'm not sure what time we woke up but I am guessing it was around 7:30. I am pretty sure that I ran to Contempo Cafe to get coffee for us and we ate granola bars in the room before walking to the Magic Kingdom. We were in the park and taking pictures in front of the castle by 9:07.





We discovered a PP photographer off to the side of the castle and stopped for these pictures. We've decided that we love this location and will definitely seek it out in the future. Still great shots of the castle, but with fewer people!







Hello Lovely!



Sister Selfie!



Then we got in line for the carousel. Neither of us had ridden it in years and seemed like a fun first ride of the day. I think the ride was ending and we had to wait for people to exit the ride and then we walked right on.











Up next: More carousel
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wednesday, May 2019 MK continued....

Tina took this artsy picture! If you look closely you can see us in the mirror.


A fun selfie!




Our next stop was one of my favs- Winnie the Pooh! Tina's notes say we got in line at 9:23 and were on the ride by 9:36.



We had some fun while we were in the queue.
















Dumbo is another family favorite, so we headed there next.






I love this selfie!





Up next: More Dumbo
 

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