Trip Report Been Back for 10 Months, what better time to write the TR...

ArtieJim · Sep 17, 2014

Day 7 - Part 4:

How cool is that Cozy Cone pool cabana? We liked that the pool areas (the big pool and the quiet pools) all required some sort of key to enter, whether it be your room key card or MagicBand. It also felt like the Cars section of the resort went on forever (as you can see).

ArtieJim · Sep 17, 2014

Day 7 - Part 5:

That does it for our time in the Cars section. As we were walking on to the next section we turned and saw this:

Although the Little Mermaid section was not next for us because coming up was the section for my favorite Disney movie:

Man, I love Lion King. I was upset there wasn't as much going on in this section as there was in the Cars section, but I get it (but don't approve).

ArtieJim · Sep 17, 2014

Day 7 - Part 6:

For this next section we got a little carried away, but I hope you can understand. This area was a good deal larger than the Lion King section:

Dinglehopper anyone?

Snarfblat?

From what I read through other people's TRs on this site it seems that Ursula is one of the favorite villains, so that's for all of you.

ArtieJim · Sep 17, 2014

Day 7 - Part 7:

There's the princess.

And then we ended up back near Lion King because Zazu made an appearance.

As did the Serengeti. And then, just like that, we were at the Finding Nemo section:

All of these sections were really awesome and really well done.

ArtieJim · Sep 17, 2014

Day 7 - Part 8:

Watch out for the big idiot coming out of the kiddie slide!

After all the eating I'd done during the week I'm glad I fit through that slide.

That was it for our time at AoA. We decided to take the walk back over the bridge to Pop since it didn't make sense to take forever to get back any other way. We were able to get some fun shots on our way back. This is to the right on the walk back over that bridge:

And this is to the left:

Oddly enough we only got a few shots of the 60's area and not either the 70's (where we had to walk past to get to our section) or the 80's our section (our section).

Something we found a bit odd was that the 50's, 60's and 70's had their own section but the 80's and 90's were a shared section. The 50's even had three buildings (as did the 80's and 90's), that's a lot of buildings for one section, but that seems to be the way it goes on the far end sections for the value resorts.

That's all for tonight, hope you enjoyed all the pictures. Come back tomorrow when we head back to the parks and a special signature dining experience. Thanks again for reading!

ArtieJim · Sep 18, 2014

Day 7 - Part 9:

We had already decided to ditch the seminars (one was sparkling wine, the other tequila, it was for the best) and decided to just head to Epcot a little bit before we went our ADR. We didn't want to be drunk at dinner, since it was supposed to be a nice one after all. Ah, hello beautiful:

What a peach. Forget the suite in Cinderella Castle, but a suite in Spaceship Earth and I'd be a happy man. SSE wasn't the only one looking good:

How you doin? Is there any way someone can sign up to spend time in this thing?

I'd like to walk around in this thing, throw on some waders and just hang out. Eat some fresh cranberries. That'd be a lot of fun, especially in the middle of Epcot. Who's with me on that one? Now, since we were having dinner at the Swan and Dolphin we decided the reason to go to Epcot was to go in the main entrance and exit through the International Gateway. Of course, we couldn't step foot in the WS during F&W without stopping for some sort of refreshment. After all, it was very muggy that night (that's why I hadn't put on my nice shirt yet):

Alex decided to start our nice night by getting a nice drink and decided to go with another glass of the Moet & Chandon Imperial, because why not? And I realized this was one of the only place I'd yet to have a beer when it came to the F&W booths so I went with the Pyramid Weiss Cream Beer:

That color up there is pretty standard for a weiss (wheat) beer, if a little bit darker than most. Then again, it all depends on what the addition is to the weiss beer (certain fruits will be lighter than that above) but they don't stray far from either end of the spectrum, with this being the darkest weiss I'd seen. This was pretty tasty, and quite refreshing. I expected a thick beer (like Genessee Cream Ale, even though that's kind of a crappy beer. Any old school beer drinkers reading this? That one's for you guys!), but this wasn't very heavy. And with the "Cream" in the title I also expecting something too sweet, but to me it was just right. Well played, I've yet to be disappointed by Pyramid (if any one is ever in Seattle and going to a Mariners game they have a great little micro-brewery/restaurant set up directly across from the ballpark, great way to spend some time before a game out there).

Would you guys be surprised if I said that was all we had to drink in Epcot? Well, don't be, because it is... well it's all Alex had, I had gotten one other small beer, but nothing to write home about and nothing I hadn't had already. In no time we were through the IG and on our way to the Swan and Dolphin.

When we made it to this junction we were a bit unsure:

Now, we'd eaten at Yachtsman on our last trip and we all know where to find that delicious place. All we needed to do was take a right... But we had made our ADR and it was time to go left. So, left we went.

I still don't understand how that fish is supposed to be a dolphin. There's no dorsal fin for crying out loud.

ArtieJim · Sep 18, 2014

Day 7 - Part 10:

We made it! But, there was certainly a little ways to go:

Getting closer!

We made it!

Come on! There's no way that's a dolphin! It's a straight up fish, I refuse to believe anything else. Since we showed up with some time to kill before our 6 PM ADR, we decided to grab a drink at Todd English's bluezoo. Alex is a big fan of all those cooking shows and he's been on a few, so why not. To be he's just a guy that looks like Morrissey but isn't, so whatever.

We didn't get a picture of the full menu but we did get shots of the part of the menus for what we ordered. Here's Alex's:

She described this drink as very sweet and very strong. Like, too sweet. Given the ingredients, I can understand why it was as sweet as it was. I had a sip and wasn't much of a fan. Also, vodka, meh. This drink was on the "modern" cocktail page, the drinks the bar created themselves. As for mine? I'm more old school:

I love gin. After bourbon and rum, it's my third favorite spirit. As for the bitters and honey syrup, yes please. I'm also always interested to try some foam. This foam was much better than that strange frozen foam I had on my beer the first night over in Japan. This was nice and sweet. The drink had a nice hint of sourness, but nothing over powering (nothing like a whiskey sour or something like that). All in all, I say stick with the classic cocktail page. Can't beat the classics. The menu is mostly seafood (and mostly overpriced), so I don't think this is a place we'd ever eat, but it's definitely worth a stop in for a drink or two if you have time to waste.

Once we finished our drinks we decided to head upstairs so we could check in for our meal at (if you haven't figured it out by now, what's taking so long?!) Shula's. We had made an ADR here for our very first trip a few years before this one, but when we found out that it wasn't part of the Disney Dining Plan, we scrapped it and went elsewhere. This time, we were sticking with it, we really wanted to give it a try, especially since we loved Yachtsman so much (it was actually a little tough for us to make this ADR over Yachtsman again, but we were happy we tried it). When we got to the check in booth we were told there was no wait (we were there at exactly 6 PM). As we were lead to our table we noticed that other than the two of us there were three other dinners. One table looked like it was a table of two businessmen and another table was one gentleman dining by himself. Good for him, treating himself to a nice dinner, that's the way to do it. We were seated and our dinner began. So, enough typing, here we go:

If you aren't aware, they put the steak menu on this football, given the darkness, it's almost impossible to read. Alex had me hold it more so we could get a picture of what the 'menu' said:

Definitely a cool thing to do, especially given the fact that it's freaking Don Shula's Steakhouse. What's a fancy meal without a fancy drink?

The Extra Point. Why not stick with the football theme? And there's nothing wrong with some tequila every now and then. This drink was mixed nicely, you really couldn't taste the tequila, which if you're just trying to enjoy the drink, is a very good thing.

ArtieJim · Sep 18, 2014

Day 7 - Part 11:

Here's a quick back story for what Alex decided to order, when it came to a drink. Not long before we left for this trip Alex discovered that she had a new favorite cocktail. The French '75. It's a basic cocktail, it's a base of champagne, topped with gin, a small splash of lemon juice and a small sugar cube all mixed well so that the sugar is dissolved (although given the acidity of the champagne and lemon juice, that doesn't take long). I will say it's a pretty tasty drink. Since we were at a nice steakhouse Alex decided to ask if it was possible to get a French '75, even though it wasn't on the menu. But again, a nice steakhouse, a drink like this should be no problem. The waiter said it wasn't an issue, wrote down what was in it after asking just to double check and then brought back this...

Um. Thanks? When she tasted it the face she made is something I'm glad I'd not seen before, nor seen again. "That bad?" I had to ask. "I think there's chambord in here." If there's one thing Alex hates in her drink, it's chambord. A quick sip and it was easy to tell that instead of gin there was chambord. Chambord and lemon juice. We think the issue was that when the waiter said, "right, it's a champagne cocktail" they had a template in mind. It was... not good. But, being a good sport, she drank it, after all it was only in a flute, so there wasn't much. We didn't want to be rude so when the waiter asked how it was we said, with big smiles, "it's very good, thank you." I feel bad about that because if any one else were to ask for this drink I think we did them a major disservice. We had put in our food order when our drinks came, so not too long after we got our drinks my appetizer arrived:

I'm a big fan of oysters, but knowing that I had a well sized steak coming as an entree so I decided to just go with the only half a dozen. These oysters were pretty damn good. It was unfortunate I only did order half dozen. It's always great to get an order of oysters and when they arrive see that they're full sized oysters, not little dainty oysters. Delicious. As for sides Alex decided on the Sauteed Mushrooms:

(I don't eat mushrooms, so theses were all for her.) We decided to go with the Potato Gratin as a shared side:

It's a little blurry because we didn't want to use the flash (there were other diners) and it was so dark inside the restaurant. We actually couldn't get over just how dark. As for the entree, I know I've said before that we try as often as possible to order different entrees, but this time we both decided to go with the Cowboy Ribeye:

Great looking sear on the steak, but again, apologies that the picture isn't better. We only took one picture since we both ordered the same dish. The above picture is mine because I got a small side of hollandaise sauce (as I always do at steakhouses, because, honestly, I don't like steak that much. I don't appreciate a steak by itself). Have I mentioned that it was really dark in this restaurant? Like, as dark as the cavernous sections of the Splash Mountain queue (the fake inside rock part, whatever you want to call it), if not darker. The strangest part of our meal was when our steaks came out. Alex likes to order her's on the rarer side, and I always default to medium rare. When we got our steaks, our waiter asked us to cut into the middle of the steak to check that the cook was correct, Alex and I looked at each other a little confused when he asked us to do this because 1) this is an insane thing to ask patrons to do IN A STEAKHOUSE and 2) it was really friggin dark. I think he saw the confusion on our faces so he said, "Oh, I have this" and pulled out A PEN LIGHT. A G-D PEN LIGHT. So we cut into the middle of the steaks, like he asked, he point the light at where we cut we said, "yep, looks great" and that was that. Nothing shatters one's confidence in a steakhouse more than being asked to cut into the steak to check the cook of it. It was a strange experience. They steaks, taste wise, were pretty darn good, there was no arguing that. I only ate about half of mine because I was definitely saving room for dessert. Dessert, was none other than Key Lime Pie:

And what's a piece of pie without a tall glass of milk? I was happy they were able to oblige me in this request (we were recently in Key West and when I ordered a glass of milk in a restaurant to go with my key lime pie they told me they had no milk. Really? No milk? What do people put in their coffee?)

And since Alex decided to keep taking pictures of me while I was eating, I told her to make sure she got a good one of this:

How's that for a nice picture? The waiter saw us taking all sorts of pictures, and saw that we were dressed up (which, why wouldn't we be? It's a nice restaurant), so he was kind enough to take a picture of us:

This is actually one of the better pictures we have of the two of us from this trip, especially since it wasn't very easy to find Photopass people this time around. And, that is not my first drink of the night. It was very tasty, don't judge me! Plus, we were off to MK after this, so I figured I'd get a couple in.

That's it for me for tonight. At some point this weekend I will finish this day, we were in for another long night at MK before this night was through. It was the last night of our trip, so we had to go out with a bang! Thanks again for reading!

ArtieJim · Sep 21, 2014

Day 7 - Part 12:

After Shula's we took the (longer than we expected) bus ride to MK so that we could spend our last night the way any last night should be spent. We were lucky to get A PhotoPass photo of us when we first got into the park:

We really did not put our FastPass+'s together well today. As I mentioned earlier in this TR, Alex and I had booked two seminars (not FP+, but plays into the poor planning on our part) that we ditched. On top of those (booked for 2 PM and 4 PM), our first FP+ was the day was at the Town Square Theater at 5 PM for some character photos. This FP we decided to ditch as well, the more we thought about it the more we realized there was no way that we would be able to manage a 5 PM FP at Town Square for the photos there, then make it to Shula's on time for that 6 PM ADR. So, we decided to just do our own thing, we weren't going to let those times dictate our day, especially not our last day. There were two FP+'s that I refused to miss though. The first being at 8:35 for Wishes.

Our first order of business was getting to the check-in for this, we were cutting it a little close since check-in started about half hour before the FP time and we had a good deal of people to get through to get to the check in spot. Our only issue during all of this, not many of the CMs knew where the check-in spot was. One person we asked said it was to the left of the hub, another said he thought it was on the left, a third at least told us she just didn't know where to check-in. Turns out the first one we asked was correct, it was to the right. Finally, we had made it though, we plopped down on the grass at the Rose Garden area for our VIP viewing of Wishes:

Yeah, we're a little obsessed with The Magic, the Memories and You projection show. We could sit and watch it all night if it went on non-stop. We were happy that we had our seat where we did (and again, it wasn't an actual seat, just plopped on the grass, in the future we'd bring a blanket if we do this again) because the area was pretty darn crowded:

All those people sitting are in the FP+ viewing area, it's not until the group of dude standing up there that there is the gate that separates the FP+ area from the general viewing area. The FP+ area was packed, so, we were happy that we got in toward the end of the check-in time. We may have had a lot of people in front of us, but since we were all sitting and would all be looking up it wasn't an issue, it did help when everything was over because we were able to get up and just walk out, no waiting in a long line just to keep our night going around the park. Here are some photos of Wishes for you all. Tink is always the toughest to get:

ArtieJim · Sep 21, 2014

Day 7 - Part 13:

And just like that, Wishes was over. That was it. The last firework show we'd see on our trip. It's one of those incredibly bittersweet things that happens on every WDW vacation. As for the FP+ viewing, would we do it again? Yep. Why not? It's free, you get a good spot, it's not too crowded and they MAKE you sit. You mean I don't have to stand up even longer after a day of walking around/standing up? I'm good with that. It's worth a try, so why not, if you really enjoy Wishes, why not give it a try just once? If you don't like it, go back to trying to find a spot somewhere else that you prefer, it's just so much less hassle to not have to struggle through the crowd.

ArtieJim · Sep 21, 2014

Day 7 - Part 14:

As we were pointed toward the exit of the FP+ area, we were all pretty much funneled in one direction, and really, it's the only direction there should be in MK at night really:

Look at that sea of people! We decided since we had some time to kill before our next FP+ check-in we'd do the one thing in Tomorrowland that we hadn't done yet (one of the only things anyway, I was refused a spin on Carousel of Progress, the greatest ride there is):

That's right, we decided, why not have a good laugh?

I love that Roz is one of the Monsters of Comedy, she's the best. We knew we'd be cutting it a little close since we had to check-in soon, and we were at the front of the line, so we thought we were in good shape. The fact that Wishes had just ended, they must have a show waiting to be seated, and we'd be right there. Unfortunately, this is what we were face to face with this:

We stood there for a solid ten minutes, after the tenth minute we realized that we couldn't wait any longer. We still had the show to sit through even if the doors did open right then, we bailed on the line and went to go check-in for our next FP+ time, but first, how could we resist more pictures of the Castle? Well, we couldn't, and it was on our way:

This was our spot for the next little while for our FP+. I was really excited for this one, it didn't take much convincing but I was able to get Alex to agree to using our third FP+ of the day for the special viewing area of the Main Street Electrical Parade! We'd never seen this up close, I think the only time I can even remember seeing the entire thing is when we had the Wishes Dessert Party viewing on the night of Christmas when we were in WDW for the trip before this one. That viewing area is way over in Tomorrowland, so I can barely call it being able to watch the MSEP. That viewing area is way over by the Tomorrowland Terrace dining area, but if you haven't done it and you have the chance next time you're down there, definitely do it. It's well wort the price, I'm pretty sure I raved about it in my last TR.

That does it for me tonight. Come back tomorrow when I finally wrap up Day 7, I have some solid Electrical Parade photos for you guys, and some fun Princess stories that go along with some of them. Thanks again for reading!

mrdrift · Sep 22, 2014

Wow day 7 was pretty spectacular from your report.You sure did get lots accomplished in just one day, nice pictures of Downtown Disney, Art of Animation , Epcot and Magical Kingdom. Love the dinner report. Following along.

ArtieJim · Sep 22, 2014

Day 7 - Part 15:

The FP+ viewing for the Electrical Parade is by the Friendship statue nearest walkway that leads to Liberty Square (Haunted Mansion Square), so it's pretty much right toward the end of the Electrical Parade. I think we were probably only two of about ten people that had decided to go with the FP+ viewing for the parade this night because we bunch of space all to ourselves. Didn't have to try and look over anyone, we were right against the rope, so we were all set:

Do I have to point out how great it is to have the Castle directly behind all the floats in this parade? This FP+ was totally worth it. I was having such a great time.

ArtieJim · Sep 22, 2014

Day 7 - Part 16:

I'm sorry to say that the next group of pictures aren't as good as the last. They are still fun though and you get the idea:

We got a little carried away with the Cinderella shots, but who wouldn't? Act like you wouldn't!

ArtieJim · Sep 22, 2014

Day 7 - Part 17:

I really love the Main Street Electric Parade. Even posting these pictures now I have the song in my head. I also wouldn't stop humming the song the rest of the night, to which Alex was ready to kill me.

ArtieJim · Sep 22, 2014

Day 7 - Part 18:

I was a little obsessed with this last one. As for the Electric Parade, that was about it. Alex admitted that it was a lot more fun and a lot better than she expected. I had a great time, I was so happy that we did this. A couple of the princesses were impressed with the way we were dressed, especially considering one of them said something along the lines of "find me after the parade" to me, I guess she didn't see Alex standing next to me. Nothing wrong with a little extra Disney magic!

We really didn't know how long the parade was going to be, but since it started at 10 PM and the park was closing at 11 we were hoping it wouldn't take too long so we could get in a ride or two before the park closed. Seeing that the parade was a little bit longer than we expected we only had time for one ride. Did we want to power walk it over to Thunder Mountain? Try and beat the crowds and cross the hub to make it to Buzz? Or should we go with the easiest option and slide on over to Haunted Mansion? But what about Pirates? We quickly ran through the options in our heads, weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that I was going to go find the princess that propositioned me and I'd meet Alex back at Pop. Wait, what? We decided to do something we had yet to do this trip. PHILHARMAGIC! This show is so much fun, and we actually don't mind waiting too long in this queue, mainly because of this guy:

We actually got shuffled into the bigger waiting area pretty quick, so we didn't get a chance to get a shot of more of these which we were hoping to. Oh well. Unfortunately, this was the only other picture we had to show for it:

Not even a picture of Donald's butt at the end! How unfortunate. I'm afraid to say that I hope they never change or get rid of this attraction because I'm almost positive I said that about the Backlot Tour earlier in this TR and what happened last week? They announced that it's closing at the end of this month FOREVER! I say how great the Maelstrom is earlier in this TR and how I think they should keep Frozen separate from the Norway pavilion/WS and what do they do? Announe they're shutting down Maelstrom forever in favor a Frozen ride. So, let me just say, I really like Mickey's PhilharMagic. It's a lot of fun.

That does it for Day 7, our last full day of the trip. The last full day is always upsetting, but we had so much fun. Thanks again for reading! This TR will soon be over! At least it's not taking several month like my previous TR did. Until next time!

ArtieJim · Sep 23, 2014

Day 8 - Part 1:

And here it was, the last day. Waking up on the last day is always so unfortunate, having to make sure that everything is packed up and you haven't left anything behind before leaving the room FOR THE LAST TIME! Man, it stinks. Dragging those bags over to the Magical Express area is always such a pain too, but at least you don't have to worry about them later on. We decided the best way for us to spend the final hours of our trip was to do what we had done the majority of our trip: enjoy the Food and Wine Festival. Considering we had no lunch plans this seemed like our best bet. One of the few spot we'd yet to try out was our first stop (as it was technically not even in the loop of the WS, just outside):

I decided to go with the Abita Fall Fest. I'm a big fan of Abita Brewing Company so I found it hard to say no to this option.

This was a nice refreshing beer I don't know what it is about fall seasonal beers that really do it for me. I love this time of year. As for the Craft Beers booth, they had plenty of taps, which made me a little upset I didn't frequent this stop more often during our trip, but the beers they were pouring were pretty heavy on the ABV, a couple of those and it would have been lights out before we reached France. Check them out though:

That last picture is the tap for the Abita Fall Fest that I had. You can usually tell their taps because they almost always have that fleur-de-lis on top since they're down in Louisiana. After this we took the short walk over to the Scotland booth to check another untested beer of the list:

The Innis & Gunn Original it was:

This definitely had a hint of scotch flavoring to it, making it not for me. I'm a huge fan of whiskey, bourbon, but I just can't stand scotch. If you like scotch, give this drink a chance, but, again, not for me. Nice booth though:

And I've never been to Scotland, but I guess this is a common thing to see while you're in the country:

I have to be honest, I'm not sure why I started writing tonight. I wanted to get at least one post in, which I accomplished. Thanks for sticking with it, come back tomorrow when I do finish this TR. Thanks for reading this one post!

LindsayLoves · Sep 24, 2014

Just made my way through this thread and it makes me want to hop on down for Food & Wine in a few weeks. Great photos and details that aren't I think I might be able to sell my non-Disney loving husband on this trip if I show him the Scotland menu with the Glenfiddich flight on it (all the beers available don't hurt either).

As a French 75 fan I am appalled when bar tenders can not properly make or execute this drink. Recently on a cruise I had a bartender at the "Martini Bar" where the French 75 was on the menu shake up all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, and another bartender at the same bar make it with vodka. :banghead:

joshsprincess921 · Sep 24, 2014

I live about 45 minutes from Abita. We like going down for the tour sometimes, lots of fun, plus I love me some Abita beer!

I noticed we haven't seen any light fixtures in awhile!

mrdrift · Sep 24, 2014

Electrical parade pictures turned out great. Save a beer for the rest of us. Following along.

Trip Report Been Back for 10 Months, what better time to write the TR...

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