Trip Report A Christmas in November, Food & Wine, Girls Trip!

samantha788 · Dec 10, 2015

After the parade we took our time heading out of the park, taking pictures and doing some shopping.

Phew! That was a long day filled with so many fun memories!!
Up next, Food & Wine and more Osborne Lights!

skyphotographer · Dec 10, 2015

samantha788 said:
I use a Nikon D3200 I love it!

It takes more than just a good camera to take GREAT pics. Kudos to the photographer!

samantha788 · Dec 11, 2015

skyphotographer said:
It takes more than just a good camera to take GREAT pics. Kudos to the photographer!

This made my day

Thank you SO much!

samantha788 · Dec 11, 2015

SUNDAY – November 8th
Now to the day that inspired this trip – the Food and Wine festival!

Two years ago a trip my mom and I took (actually with my cousin and her family) coincided with the first day of food and wine, so we got to experience it then and loved it. Then last year Emily and I spent a day there and again had a great time and couldn’t wait to go back. Emily and I had the Belgium waffles and would randomly text each other dreaming of these waffles. Really the best things we’ve had.
So one day when she was like we should go back to food and wine, I jumped all over it! Really becoming relentless about it and immediately started planning in my head
It all worked out when my sister and cousin had been wanting to go to!

SO! Food and Wine here we come!

Our first stop was at Craft Beers. Emily and I started here last year and felt we got a good grip of everything we wanted to hit, so we went with that plan again.

They didn’t have any passports so Michelle and I walked over to New Zealand and grabbed some for all of us. While in New Zealand we grabbed the mussels with garlic butter and breadcrumbs and brought them back to craft beers. Very good!!

In craft beers, we all had different beers, and split the snack mix and cheese dip. Yum! And typical Alyssa with food in her mouth haha.

Next we went over to Mexico! Last year, Emily and I split the tequila flight, and had the thought of “what are we doing, its like 11am” but it set our day off with fun and a reminder that this is vacation and its totally fine!!

So this year we did the same, splitting it 4 ways though

Also we split the Chilaquiles de Pollo – corn chips layered with season chicken, queso fresco, sour cream and cilantro. Again, very good!

We bypassed China, South Korea, and Africa to head over to the Brewer’s Collection near Germany. We got two beer flights for the 4 of us to split.

We found a nice table over in the shade and stayed here a long time relaxing and talking…this little guy didn’t move the entire time!

Our next stop was Poland for the kielbasa and pierogi! Delicious. I have to find pictures, I thought we took them for everything we had!

Then went to Italy, Emily and I shared a ravioli. It was good, big, but far from the best thing we had.

samantha788 · Dec 11, 2015

Of course, we were all looking forward to stopping in America!

We again got two beer flights to split between the 4 of us, and also two lobster rolls. We were all happy with the beer flight selections and the lobster rolls were SO good!!

Emily and I were SO anxious to get to Belgium and be reunited with our waffles hahaha. But Alyssa wanted to stop in Japan first and got the spicy hand roll and shrimp tempura roll.

This picture sums everything up for our food and wine time….Alyssa waiting in line haha

While she was there waiting, michelle, Emily and I went to take some fun pictures

Looking at this picture of Emily makes us laugh so hard…we are never put together and smiling/posing normal for pictures hahaha.

Keeping the suspension for Belgium, Alyssa and Michelle had to stop in Morocco for Baklava. I remember them being disappointed in it.

FINALLY BELGIUM!!!

I really can’t even count how many times over the last year Emily and I have talked about these waffles haha

Alyssa documented us reuniting with the waffles, and it was just as great as it was a year ago.
So serious! hahah

We also split the beer flight here which may have been our favorite out of all of them.

We were full and so happy from this point on, michelle and Alyssa started not feeling too well though…
Alyssa wanted to get the crème brulee in france, so we waited for her then walked towards England.

samantha788 · Dec 15, 2015

Emily wanted to see Mary Poppins and Tigger…both of her favorites conveniently meet in the same area! Alyssa and Michelle went inside for some downtime.

Unfortunately the times guide said Mary Poppins wouldn’t be out anymore today. Disappointed but we had the funniest time last year...

I know I’ve said a million times that last year was Emily’s first trip. I guess she didn’t realize you could actually meet all the characters. So knowing how much she loves Mary Poppins, I planned for us to walk by when I knew for sure Mary Poppins would be out. She freaked out when she saw her and then when I told her we would get to meet her, this is the face she made:

Forever one of my favorite pictures. She couldn’t believe it!

Back to this year…we got in line to meet Pooh and Tigger and who walks by but Mary Poppins!!

Since Emily met her last year, she decided we should stay in line for Pooh and Tigger

I love this Pooh and Tigger area, they were so much fun! Tigger just kept going backwards more and more. He wanted to backflip but didn’t want to get in trouble haha. The CM’s here were awesome too!! We were with them for a long time and they took great pictures!

I LOVE this one, they are the cutest!!

Alyssa and Michelle were waiting in the England shop. We also saw the family that was right in front of us was from the town next to us at home!! Small world

It was getting close to the time that we had FP+ in Hollywood Studios and were planning to hang around there for the Osborne lights.

Alyssa really wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go back to the hotel. Emily and I were on a roll so said we’d hang out in EPCOT/Hollywood Studios and meet them in Hollywood Studios later for the lights. They didn’t want to split up so we finally decided to take the boat over to DHS and use our Toy Story Mania FP then would go back to the hotel, rest a bit, and go back for the Osborne lights.
The boat was SO slow. This was the first time we had taken it from Epcot to Hollywood Studios, it was hot inside and really slow. I suggested walking but since Alyssa wasn't feeling well, she was happy sitting on the boat.

On our way out we ran into Pocohontos with nobody in line! She was cute but really felt like she had a script to stick to, she didn’t react to anything we said - Michelle telling her how much her daughter loves her and she was just talking about the trees or something haha. Was still fun though!

I think this is the only picture I took from our quick in and out Toy Story visit.

Back at the resort, Emily and I went to the lobby and sure enough they had the just engaged buttons!! The girl was SOOOOO excited, and thought the two of us were engaged…hah so she gave both of us buttons. She was so happy we knew we couldn’t burst her bubble. I told Emily she can hold onto mine until I’m actually hopefully one day engaged, then I’ll take It back and wear it

samantha788 · Dec 15, 2015

After a bit of down time, Alyssa and Michelle were feeling better so back to Hollywood Studios we went!

Typical…

DHS had EMH this night and since it was a bit later, it didn’t feel nearly as crowded as Friday night

20 years!

Hidden Incredibles!

Nemo

SNOW!

Baby Sinclair

Jack Skellington

Olaf!

samantha788 · Dec 15, 2015

Look at Mickey's cup

This series of pictures sums up Emily and I perfectly.

There are a few muppets hidden in here! Miss Piggy, Animal...

More Olaf!

Star Wars

Kermit and a not so hidden Mickey

Love the lights so much, it was really hard to say goodbye! I know I could have just stayed there the rest of the night, for Alyssa and I there is never enough time that we could have spent wandering around the lights.
Michelle and Emily wanted to get on Rock’n Roller Coaster, so reluctantly we left streets of America for the last time and headed over there. With a little wait, we were in and out in no time.

We had time for one more ride that night. Alyssa and Michelle wanted to do Rockn roller coaster again, I wanted Tower of Terror so we split up.
I tried so hard to get Emily to come with me to TOT, but I scarred her after last year.
We were in line and she didn’t know what TOT was, so in line she’s asking why are all these people screaming etc? I’m like you’ll be fine…It wasn’t until we were on that she realized what would happen.
I thought it was hilarious; she didn’t…and refused to go on with me this time as my punishment haha.

After this, we headed back to the resort! Michelle had to pack, she was getting picked up at 4am by DME :cry:

samantha788 · Dec 15, 2015

MONDAY – NOVEMBER 9

We woke up when Michelle left to say bye, so sad

then slept a little while longer.

We needed to check out of Coronado Springs and we were checking into Animal Kingdom Lodge since I was able to get a crazy good deal on a savannah view room and thought Emily would like it too.

Monday we were planning on going to MK for EMH in the morning, back to EPCOT, and ending at MK. Also we were meeting up with a few of my friends from work at EPCOT (more on that later)!!

As a CM, my main entrance pass had been blocked out at MK the entire trip (besides Thursday night) so I had been saving up my comp tickets. I had enough to use on this day for MK, but also was okay saving them for a future trip if we really we weren't going to put them to the best use.
We were all pretty exhausted so we took our time in the morning and decided to skip EMH at MK.

We packed everything up and drove over to AKL.

Bye Coronado Springs!

Hello, Animal Kingdom Lodge!

I had booked a standard savannah view room (also--- my magicbands never came for this reservation). So we go to the desk to check in and the CM is like ummm you are in a club level suite. And I was like huh?! Nope, definitely booked a standard savannah room. Then she said this must be a magical upgrade, which is pretty unheard of for a cast member 60% off booking! I was so confused haha.

A club level CM came over and took us upstairs to check in. I really couldn’t believe this; I kept saying they have the wrong people haha. Then we went through the whole check in process and they give us the info folder and it has a different last name on it. So I’m convinced now...they definitely have the wrong group!!

We went back to the car to regroup (our room wasn’t ready yet) and were trying to figure out what to do!! We were so confused.

We went back upstairs and questioned the name thing, they assured us that was our room even though that folder had someone elses name haha.

Finally feeling better, not like we were stealing someone elses room, we enjoyed some club level snacks.

We’re also 5 years old and ate more gummy bears than we ever should have.

After over doing it on gummy bears, we decided we’d drive to EPCOT do a little food and wine, meet my friends, hit our fast passes then drive back to hotel when our room was ready.

Now the story of my friends from work. Mel (left) is a meteorologist too…she works World News Tonight with David Muir. She is from Florida and always visits in November. We had talked for months about our trips overlapping but they weren’t planning on going to Disney at all. Then one day she texts me and says they figured they’d be able to make it to food and wine, stay over one night, it overlapped perfectly with our day.

Then just before we both left for vacation, we were talking to Rob (middle) he is the on air meteorologist of weekend Good Morning America and does some weekday GMA as well as World News, he was going to be in Disney over the same time doing a shoot for GMA! Watch the finished piece here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-neighbors-disney-world-surprise/story?id=35438364

We could not believe we would all be there at the same time and knew we would have to meet up!
Since we all had different people with us and different schedules for the whole day, we met at Spice Road Table for a little bit. It was so funny though having half of the abc news weather team in EPCOT at the same time. I'm all for relocating the weather team to Orlando!

After the meet up I had gotten a text about our room being ready so we went back to AKL to check out our suite…it was AMAZING!!

ksr99 · Dec 16, 2015

samantha788 said:
After Beauty and the Beast, we walked over to Rock’n Roller Coaster for our FP It was down earlier during our return time so we were glad it was up and running again after Beauty and the Beast!
Alyssa and Michelle love this one.

[

It was around noon and we were hungry, we walked all over looking at menus trying to figure out what we wanted for lunch.

GMA! my favorite sign (it's where i work )

Daytime Osborne Lights

We decided to pop into Mama Melrose’s to see if they’d seat us without a reservation, sure enough- they did with no problem!
We split appetizers, flatbreads and sangria. It was all SO GOOD too. It was our first time here and I would definitely make a point to go back.

When did you work at gma?

samantha788 · Dec 16, 2015

ksr99 said:
When did you work at gma?

I work there now! Have been a meteorologist there for about 3.5 years

LisaBelle · Dec 30, 2015

Had a fan girl moment when I recognized Rob in your photo! That was so cool that you were all able to meet up. Can't wait to see the pics of your suite!

Doc Disney · Dec 30, 2015

Finally got a chance to read your TR! Loving it so far...your pictures are amazing!!! I especially loved your Pooh and Tigger pictures they were so cute!!

samantha788 · Jan 1, 2016

LisaBelle said:
Had a fan girl moment when I recognized Rob in your photo! That was so cool that you were all able to meet up. Can't wait to see the pics of your suite!

they are coming!! trying so hard to catch up with everything else so I can finish this report

Doc Disney said:
Finally got a chance to read your TR! Loving it so far...your pictures are amazing!!! I especially loved your Pooh and Tigger pictures they were so cute!!

Thank you!! Planning a short Disneyland trip with my mom around a work trip in a couple months and have reread your report several times!

Doc Disney · Jan 4, 2016

Thank you!! Planning a short Disneyland trip with my mom around a work trip in a couple months and have reread your report several times!

[/QUOTE]

I hope it helps! Have you been there before?

samantha788 · Jan 6, 2016

Doc Disney said:
Thank you!! Planning a short Disneyland trip with my mom around a work trip in a couple months and have reread your report several times!

I hope it helps! Have you been there before?[/QUOTE]
I've gone a couple of times for a few hours here and there when I've been in LA for work just running around to see as much as I can haha this time i'm hoping to extend my work trip this time by a few days to actually spend some real time there and make it a little vacation

samantha788 · Jan 6, 2016

OKAY! Finally getting caught up and ready to finish the last of my report.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays and happy new year!!

We had gotten the text that our room was ready so we left EPCOT and went to check it out at AKL!

We were all running around taking pictures and videos, I don’t know how we got that crazy upgrade, but we are so thankful. That was such a treat for our last night of vacation.

View from our balcony!

that baby zebra! :inlove:

Blurry, but look at his tongue!

haha

Giraffes are my absolute favorite, to see them outside our room like that, just awesome!

High five attempt...

We spent quite a bit of time in the room then went upstairs to check out the club level offerings at that hour. An older couple invited us to sit with them since there were no open tables. They were the best! We talked and shared stories for a very long time!

samantha788 · Jan 6, 2016

Then we took the bus back to EPCOT, we were going to finish the side of Food and Wine we didn’t get to before and meet up with Mel again.

Emily and I overdid it on the gummy bears so weren’t too hungry Alyssa stopped in Canada and was in love with the filet mignon.

We also stopped at the farm fresh booth and had the loaded mac n cheese. AMAZING! That has become the “Belgium waffle” of this year for Emily and I, we only wish we had it sooner.

We also had the Chew Lab Nitro Chocolate Almond Truffle with Warm Whiksey Caramel. I had seen this on The Chew when they did a week in Epcot and HAD to have it. It did not disappoint! I wish we had more time on vacation, definitely would have gone back for more here!!

We teased Alyssa for all the food she was eating, Emily thought it was funny and I thought it was gross haha.

We also stopped in Mouse Gears to pick up a few things, unfortunately these guys couldn’t come home with us

Since we weren’t able to get back to the Magic Kingdom, I suggested heading to the poly to watch from the beach. Easier said than done…

Illuminations was starting so we figured we’d beat the rush to the monorail. We get up there and it’s down. They thought it’d be back soon so we waited it out for a little. No luck, we decided to race down and head over to a bus. ANY bus to take us to a monorail resort. I think they just opened another line for TTC buses so we got in line and were near the front. The line grew like crazy without the monorail, and we waited close to 30 minutes for ANY TTC bus to come! It was nuts. When finally on the bus I realize there is no way we’re going to make it to even the TTC for Wishes

we saw a bit of the end as we were pulling up. Since we took the adventure all the way over there, Emily and I decided to still go grab a lapu lapu (I’ve talked these up A LOT!!) and sit on the beach for a bit. She never has been to the poly so wanted to see it too. While on the beach Celebrate the Magic was starting, so we did get to see that from afar

Then we headed back to the TTC thinking we could take a bus from there back to our resort. I don’t know what I was thinking. After remembering that isn’t going to happen, we hopped on the monorail and went to MK to get a bus there. By now it was closing time at Magic Kingdom so the bus lines were long. We eventually made it on. The whole night turned into a series of transportation mishaps! Probably should have just gone back to the hotel after Epcot, but we weren’t ready for our night to be over! We also weren’t ready for the hours of transportation trouble.
Once we finally made it back to AKL we packed some things up and went to bed for the last time in disney world

sheriffwoody · Jan 6, 2016

I would totally be like Alyssa eating a lot :joyfull:

It's fun to try everything!

Also, I think we've all been there with the transportation hustle. It's like no matter what you try it's too long and complicated...oh well. Sounds like a fun night anyway!

P.S. just followed you on instagram so i can follow along next time you go to WDW or DL

yay!

samantha788 · Jan 6, 2016

sheriffwoody said:
I would totally be like Alyssa eating a lot It's fun to try everything!

Also, I think we've all been there with the transportation hustle. It's like no matter what you try it's too long and complicated...oh well. Sounds like a fun night anyway!

P.S. just followed you on instagram so i can follow along next time you go to WDW or DL yay!

Followed back!!

And yes! I wish I had the room to eat as much as she did haha I would have loved to try more! Needed more time

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