Trip Report The Worst Week: A December 2013/January 2014 Trip Report! *COMPLETE*

You all know the week I'm talking about.

The week that all the guidebooks and fan sites warn about...the parks are packed, Soarin' hits a 4-hour wait, and there are phase closings left and right. It's the week between Christmas and New Year's - the worst week to go to Disney World.

What kind of idiots would book a trip during this crazy, insane time??

Hi, I'm Shannon. Nice to meet ya.

See that guy in the picture with me? That's my husband, Will. He's sort of my favorite. WDW is my favorite place. I like to be in my favorite place with my favorite person.

But there's a catch. You see, this favorite person of mine is a teacher who coaches tennis. So for all of you that smugly say stuff along the lines of, "why not go during off-peak times," (is there even such a thing anymore?!) well, some of us can't. Seriously, like we wouldn't rather go during some random week in February or whatever??? In our case, it's summer or Christmastime for a longer trip. Those are the only options.*

We did the summer thing in June of 2011. It was hot and crowded, and Will swore we'd never do it again. The heat and humidity were too much. I agreed and set my sites on Christmas 2013 pretty much as soon as we got home from that hot, sticky trip. Yep, this trip had been planned (or at least thought about) for about 2.5 years! I'm ridiculous.

But this is where my crazy OCD planning began to shine. Right at the 11-month mark I had our resort reservation secured - no discounts are ever out for that time of year, but I was able to rent DVC points, which saved a RIDICULOUS chunk of change. We still had our APs and Tables in Wonderland card from earlier in the year, we booked flights on rewards points, and thanks to saving up our points on our Disney Visa we had just about enough rewards dollars to cover our food for the week. So as far as Disney trips go, this one was relatively cheap. And I of course woke up early at our 180-day mark to make reservations (19 ADRs! But would we keep them?! ) and grabbed some FP+ reservations at the 60-day mark or whatever. I also pored over the few Christmas-week trip reports on this and other Disney boards from fellow *idiots* like me, which were pretty hard to find...because most threads started with someone asking about traveling during this week didn't have actual USEFUL information, just snide replies along the lines of "cancel and book another week."* Um, thanks?

ANYWAY...I planned for and thought about this trip more than any other trip we've taken, and that's really saying something. But I'd say it paid off overall.

*Yes, I'm a little bitter about it. It just got really old to read how stupid people are for going during this time over and over. I promise the rest of the report won't be like this! Let's be friends?

 

[Ariel484]

I love it so far! The pictures are great!!!

Thank you! Thanks for reading!

 

[Ariel484]

We settled the bill and headed back to the resort for the usual nap/shower routine before changing and heading out to Hollywood Studios. Good news: I got to wear my Hidden Mickey dress.

Bad news: it was rainy and gross out.

Eeps! Cloudy!

Back for more Midway action! Woohoo!

This was our third and final Toy Story ride of the trip (not bad for the week between Christmas and New Year's ). This time we headed into the FP+ queue and the CM directed us in some special, secret way and we were on the ride in literally less than 2 minutes. Awesome! What was less-than-awesome was my score. I'm pretty sure it was my lowest Toy Story score of the week. Sadness.

Next up on the agenda was Tower of Terror...of course. Until next time, you awesome Tower!

When we got off the ride I also got myself a little souvenir...now the Tower is always with me. Love it!

It was still raining at this point, but we had one more FP+ to use this evening...

I think both of us would rate Fantasmic! as our favorite nighttime show at Disney. We managed to see it twice in 2009 and haven't seen it since then. With the times of year we go to Disney, it's just too hard to fit in a viewing since they've cut down on showtimes and the lines are always gigantic. So when I realized that we could get FP+ for Fantasmic! it seemed like a no-brainer. I'd read less-than-satisfactory reviews of the FP+ being used for Fantasmic! but I just wanted a way to avoid having to stand in line for an hour+ on Hollywood Boulevard. This seemed especially important since we were there are such a busy time.

So we headed to the entrance and were surprised to find no line at all. The CMs waved us in and we made our way to our seats, all the way on the left side of the stadium. Nothing was marked off, so we didn't get special or reserved seating and seemingly didn't skip the line or whatever. So I guess this would qualify as the other FP+ experience that wasn't super impressive to us on this trip...but I'm not sure I can accurately comment on how good or bad it was, because the one thing I didn't take into consideration was the fact that Fantasmic was running 2-3 shows per night this week. It seemed that we didn't need the FP+ at all because there weren't as many people as we expected. The crappy weather probably played a part in that as well. It does make me wonder if, had there been a lot of people there, we would have had seats saved for us as FP+ holders. Who knows.

We'd brought paper towels with us to wipe off the benches - it was still raining and by now we were wondering if the show would even happen at all. It was funny to listen to the family of 3 behind us talking - the mom REALLY wanted to leave and the dad and son wanted her to stick it out.

"We're never coming back here!" she declared, and the dad responded "that's what you say every year!" Silly lady.

So anyway...it continued to rain lightly, and eventually the show started. This was the first time I'd ever seen the Glow with the Show ears - so cool! They were actually a wee bit distracting - I was constantly trying to see what they were doing in relation to what was happening on stage.

"Imagination...dream a fantastic dream….uuuuuse your imagination!"

Gah. That music gets me every time. I love it so much it's my ringtone!

So Mickey comes out, dances around, shoots fireworks...applause, cheers, etc. Then the water screens come up with nothing on them...and Will and I look at each other, confused. Yes, it's been awhile since we've seen this show, but isn't there supposed to be something projected on those screens?!

Eventually both the music and empty water screens stopped, and we got an announcement that the show had been stopped due to technical difficulties. It was still raining and we were seriously doubting that the show would start again (the family behind us chose this moment to bag it). About 10 minutes later the show DID start again! Woohoo!

Everything worked properly this time (except that Mickey didn't shoot the fireworks out of his hands)...and then we got to the dragon scene.

"ROAR!"....and then darkness. Show has been stopped due to technical difficulties. And we, along with everyone else, finally admitted defeat and decided to bag the whole thing. Boooo!

So this was a pretty disappointing end to our day at Hollywood, but I can't say we were too surprised by what happened. It had been raining the whole time and I have to think at some point it just becomes unsafe for the actors to perform. Maybe someday we'll get to see Fantastmic! again! Maybe.

 

[Ariel484]

By now it was a little after 7PM, I think, and we were pretty well soaked and freezing. So we cut our losses and hopped on a bus back to the Lodge. We got cleaned up and headed downstairs for dinner at JIKO!

(Again, didn't bring the camera with me).

Jiko was surprpsingly crowded and we had a wee bit of a wait, so I ordered a cappucino from the bar. I still wasn't quite warmed up from being soaked to the bone at Hollywood Studios. After awhile we were seated and our server brought out two hot, rose-scented towels (love this!) along with a small amuse bouche...compliments of the chef as thanks for being guests at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Some kind of really dry, strong cheese (forget what it was) with apricots. The sweet apricots balanced the strong cheese perfectly. Yum! Apologies for the awful phone picture.

Again, I didn't bring my camera, so I'm going to cheat and use older pictures (you'll be able to tell the newer ones from the older ones as the newer ones are phone pictures, and thus are pretty terrible). I have about 4 sets of pictures from Jiko and they're almost all identical, so it seemed silly to take new pictures this time.

We ordered drinks (some kind of beer for Will, for me a glass of Black Pearl, my new favorite wine! ) and our server brought out some bread.

YUM!

For our entrees, Will ordered the Tangine Chicken: preserved lemon, artichokes, olives, cinnamon couscous, harissa and saffron jus. I don't have a pictures of that one, oops!

I ordered the same thing I always get at Jiko - the filet (medium) with mac and cheese. It came with some green beans instead of Brussels sprouts.

This is the 5th time we've been to Jiko and the first time where things were less-than-perfect. We both agreed that the flavors were awesome, as usual, but Will found more than a few grisly pieces of chicken (he actually spat out a few) and my steak was tough. We were so, so sad. Jiko has been our favorite restaurant at Disney for so long, and every visit up until this one had been pretty amazing. It wasn't a bad meal by any means, but it was disappointing compared to what we had been expecting.

For dessert we split an order of the Banana Bread pudding - raisin bread, custard, banana with Madagascar vanilla bean ice cream and Van Der Hum liqueur:

Pretty good, but not the best dessert I've had at Jiko (that would be the chocolate cheesecake with lavender - yes, LAVENDER - ice cream).

So in the battle of the Signatures on this trip, Citricos won by a landslide, followed by Jiko, then Artist Point. We'll definitely return to Citricos and Jiko, but Artist Point is off the list.

We didn't have anything on the agenda for after dinner. I think we just walked around and took in the detail of the loddy.

We also found our favorite piece of art that I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of (it's near the doors in between Boma and Jiko as you exit the lodge). It's a flag from Ghana that has some white figures standing with one red figure in the middle. This is the caption:

For whatever reason that struck us as pretty hilarious.

Eventually we headed back to our room. On the way we saw a family of 3 head into a door with this plaque on the outside:

When we got back to the room we did a bit of Googling and found that not only is this the Presidential Suite at Animal Kingdom Lodge, it's also (per this article) the most expensive room in Walt Disney World! I found that pretty shocking. You'd think the most expensive place would be at the Grand Floridian, Polynesian or the Contemporary...nope, apparently it was right down the hall from us. The more you know.



Coming up: Our last full day at Disney ...but we go out with a bang!

 

[Ariel484]

Day 7: Friday, January 3, 2014

Our last full day in Disney. Such sadness! I'm pretty sure this is also the last day I'd planned to go to the gym, and I ended the week with a giant goose egg in that department. 0 gym visits for the week. Oops! But at least by this point I was completely recovered from the awful cold. Small victories.

And look who has returned to our savanna...WITTLE BABY ZEBWA SQUUEEEE!

Zebra family! A group of 5 (a zeal of zebras I guess?)! I'm thinking the 4th one from the right is also an (older) baby zebra and the second from the right (sticking close to who I assume is the mom) is the youngest. Yay!

The best part of this was seeing the youngest zebra sort of run around all crazy and excited. This pleased us because the monster pup does the same thing at home (we call it "crazy dog" - he does it when we get home from work or last thing at night before he decides he's really tired and it's time to pass out). So beginning the morning with "crazy dog" was quite fun!

 

[Ariel484]

We'd originally had FP+ booked for the Magic Kingdom for this evening, but we realized our dinner plans would probably take up most of the night and we very well possibly wouldn't make it to the park later. So we'd switched things around the night before and re-booked everything at Animal Kingdom during the later parts of the morning. And I brought my camera! Yay!

We arrived around 10ish after a late breakfast at The Mara.

The weather today was sooooo much better than what we'd had on our first Animal Kingdom day! Cool, but DRY!

Our first stop this morning...

We had FP+...I have no idea what time they were for. 10:30 or 11 maybe?...who knows. I do know that we got into the Single Rider line first and had about a 15-minute wait. Then we used our FP+. I REALLY hate that the yeti doesn't work on this ride. I think we experienced the yeti swipe once on our honeymoon and haven't since then, but it's still a fun ride.

Phone picture...I wish this had come out better!

"Take your chances while the (disco) yeti dances!"

 

[Ariel484]

Next up was our FP+ for Kilimanjaro Safaris. I put the camera away and vowed not to take any pictures...but then our path was blocked by giraffes. Including ANOTHER WITTLE BABY SQUEEEEE. So obviously I had to snap away!

HI CUTIE!

They blocked us for a good 5 minutes and really could not have cared less. Silly giraffes!

After the safari we grabbed Mickey pretzels and started heading toward Dinoland. The night before we were sort of at a loss as to what to do with our third FP+ - Kali River Rapids was out as we weren't interested in potentially getting soaked, and as I said earlier in the report, we were super not impressed with Dinosaur. So our third choice ended up being for Finding Nemo: The Musical.

We headed to Asia. I'd thought about trying to get a walk-up at Yak & Yeti (the table service portion) since we'd canceled our ADR there earlier in the week, but our dinner reservation this evening was pretty early...so we ended up trying the counter service option for the first time in favor of having a lighter lunch. No pictures...but I know I got the kids meal of chicken nuggets and Will got the beef lo mein. My nuggets were fine but Will's meal was, I thought, pretty impressive - really generous portion that tasted decently good. We probably could have split that along with a couple of egg rolls or the chicken fried rice side. Next time.

Phone picture near Yak and Yeti...I thought the detail here was soooo pretty.

Nemo time! If I remember correctly as FP+ holders we were let in to the theater before the non-FP+ holders. I know some people hate this show, and I just don't get it. I love it!

After Nemo we headed back to the Lodge to shower, pack up a bit ( ) and get all gussied up in our finest.

Up next - a dinner of a lifetime, 2 years in the making!

 

[Betsyboo]

@Ariel484 I've been following along and love your report. One question about the drawing class at HS. Do you have to sign up ahead of time? Is it a certain time of the day? I guess that's two questions.

Also, after reading your TR I now HAVE to do the pick a pearl. Yay!

 

[Ariel484]

@Ariel484 I've been following along and love your report. One question about the drawing class at HS. Do you have to sign up ahead of time? Is it a certain time of the day? I guess that's two questions.

Also, after reading your TR I now HAVE to do the pick a pearl. Yay!

Hi, thanks for reading!

I'm not sure what time the drawing classes start (10:30 maybe?) but they run continuously throughout the day, every 30 minutes, until the park closes. You don't have to sign up, you just need to go to the animation building and get in line. The CM may cut the line off if the max number of people are there waiting.

Picking the pearl was super fun, I definitely recommend it!

 

[blackthidot]

You're really killing it with your pictures. Good job!

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

I love that you got a silvery-gray pearl! It's always something I've wanted to do, when we were there in May for our wedding..ask Mike we stood there for a good while watching because I couldn't decide if I really wanted to do it or not (I probably talked about it in my trip report)...and I ended up chickening out because I was too shy...so in May..that's it I'm getting one! I'll tell Mike it'll be an anniversary gift to me right?

I'm really curious to know those two rides you're talking about! I won't be mad no worries!

I'll raise my hand and say I'm a hater of Finding Nemo: The Musical. I'm just not a fan of the movie...it's weird when I watched it the first time I LOVED it...even bought the game for my game boy advance...then when I watched it again....I got bored really fast and couldn't stand it. And when I saw The Musical...didn't do anything for me either... I'm weird I know Sowwry

And I think I may know where the special dinner is!!!!! I am excited to read about it!!!!!!!!! HURRY AND POST!

 

[SarahBella82]

Cliffhanger!

Loving your report. Beautiful pictures from AK.

 

[Ariel484]

You're really killing it with your pictures. Good job!

Thanks!! Likewise!!

I love that you got a silvery-gray pearl! It's always something I've wanted to do, when we were there in May for our wedding..ask Mike we stood there for a good while watching because I couldn't decide if I really wanted to do it or not (I probably talked about it in my trip report)...and I ended up chickening out because I was too shy...so in May..that's it I'm getting one! I'll tell Mike it'll be an anniversary gift to me right?

That sounds like a great anniversary gift! You should totally do it, it was really fun!

I'm really curious to know those two rides you're talking about! I won't be mad no worries!

Hmm, maybe I'll tell you when I see you in a couple of weeks (!!)

I'll raise my hand and say I'm a hater of Finding Nemo: The Musical. I'm just not a fan of the movie...it's weird when I watched it the first time I LOVED it...even bought the game for my game boy advance...then when I watched it again....I got bored really fast and couldn't stand it. And when I saw The Musical...didn't do anything for me either... I'm weird I know Sowwry

NOOOOOO...haha just kidding. I just think the way they came up with the musical is so cool - adding songs for a movie that didn't have any, using the puppets, etc. I just think it's fun!

And I think I may know where the special dinner is!!!!! I am excited to read about it!!!!!!!!! HURRY AND POST!

Yep, you were spoiled via Instagram!

Cliffhanger!

Loving your report. Beautiful pictures from AK.

Cliffhanger indeed!

Thanks for the kind words on the pictures and for reading!

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

That sounds like a great anniversary gift! You should totally do it, it was really fun!

Hmm, maybe I'll tell you when I see you in a couple of weeks (!!)

NOOOOOO...haha just kidding. I just think the way they came up with the musical is so cool - adding songs for a movie that didn't have any, using the puppets, etc. I just think it's fun!

Yep, you were spoiled via Instagram!

haha Okay I'll try to remember to ask you And a couple weeks!!!!!

hahaha no worries I agree the puppets were really cool though and something different! I do miss Tarzan Rocks though....

 

[Lyear]

I've made it through page 5 and I'm really enjoying your report so far. I'm sorry you didn't have a great time at Boma. We've never been for breakfast, but for dinner it's one of our must do's each trip. I completely understand your rationale though. We always get the free dining, so (as has been mentioned) we don't feel it in the wallet as much. I did check the amount this past time and it was the most expensive meal of our trip.

I've never stayed at AKL but have been there multiple times for our Boma trips, and I love your photos from there. It truly is such a marvelous, detailed resort. It seems each visit there is something that catches my eye that I didn't notice before.

Being a camera novice, I'm not sure what lens you were talking about when you were taking the photos of the monorail resorts, or what it does, but the photos turned out really good.

We plopped down on a bench outside of LTT and I consulted the MDE app and found the one nearby attraction with a short wait time.

Five minutes later, we were in the Hall of Presidents.

Such a great line.

And finally, I loved your photo of the display at Boardwalk Bakery. Everything looked so yummy. Definitely adding that to our list of things to do on our next trip.

 

[Ariel484]

haha Okay I'll try to remember to ask you And a couple weeks!!!!!

hahaha no worries I agree the puppets were really cool though and something different! I do miss Tarzan Rocks though....

WOOHOO! It's almost time!!

I've made it through page 5 and I'm really enjoying your report so far. I'm sorry you didn't have a great time at Boma. We've never been for breakfast, but for dinner it's one of our must do's each trip. I completely understand your rationale though. We always get the free dining, so (as has been mentioned) we don't feel it in the wallet as much. I did check the amount this past time and it was the most expensive meal of our trip.

Thanks! Yeah, I know we're in the minority when it comes to Boma. I guess we're oddballs!

I've never stayed at AKL but have been there multiple times for our Boma trips, and I love your photos from there. It truly is such a marvelous, detailed resort. It seems each visit there is something that catches my eye that I didn't notice before.

Thank you so much! I totally agree that you notice something new every time. That's how I felt on this trip each time we set foot in the lobby.

Being a camera novice, I'm not sure what lens you were talking about when you were taking the photos of the monorail resorts, or what it does, but the photos turned out really good.

Thank you! It's an ultra-wide angle lens, so allows more of the scene to be captured in the photograph. It can also distort the photo a little bit. Here's a picture that sort of explains it...most of those monorail shots were between 10 and 20mm, where my normal "walk around" lens that covers most normal situations has a range of 17-50mm:

(source)
So you can see the widest photo (18mm) has the outlet/cord in it and the pink water bottle is a little distorted. I'm sure there's a better way to explain it but I think the above photo helps a lot.

Such a great line.

It's so true though!

And finally, I loved your photo of the display at Boardwalk Bakery. Everything looked so yummy. Definitely adding that to our list of things to do on our next trip.

It WAS. I love that they have expanded that place...I used to get claustrophobic in there!

 

[Ariel484]

After our little mid-afternoon break we headed to the bus stop and waited for an Animal Kingdom bus. I'm pretty sure we got some funny looks, seeing as I was in a dress and heels while Will was in his suit.

The bus came quickly and we were at Animal Kingdom in less than 10 minutes. We decided we'd take whichever monorail resort bus came first...I'm pretty sure we ended up getting on the Grand Floridian/Polynesian bus after a few minutes. Good thing it was a short wait as the temperatures were dropping! The high temperature in Orlando that day was in the 50s, which was chilly...but there was no way I was complaining as I knew the high at home that day was 11. Yowza!

We arrived at the Grand Floridian a little after 5PM and headed upstairs. Another guest was kind enough to take our picture. I wish this would have come out better...it's one of the very few pictures of the two of us from the entire trip. I NEED to do better on this in the future.

Our ADR was at 5:15, so right after the picture we wasted no time in checking in...

...at Victoria & Albert's!

As I said at the end of my last update, this meal was about 2 years in the making. You see, Will and I are not super great at getting one another gifts for holidays (birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's day, what have you). Trust me, it's not that we don't think these days are special...it's just that we're both REALLY hard to shop for, so in general we prefer to go out to nice dinners along with a show or something like that to celebrate whatever the occasion is. So at Christmas in 2011 I was very surprised when Will told me that he had indeed purchased a gift for me. I had to figure out what it was via a series of clues he'd set up scavenger-hunt style (going into it I was convinced it was a Vitamix blender, something I STILL really want!) and eventually the clues led me to two words: "Albert" and "Victoria." I was stumped.

I'm probably not alone in saying that while Victoria & Albert's has always been intriguing, it's never seemed like somewhere we'd ACTUALLY go. Because, well…$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Us going to this restaurant was so out of the realm of possibility in my mind that I couldn't wrap my brain around what those two words meant. What is Albert Victoria??!?!?!

At the time of this little "hunt" I was home and Will was not, so we'd been communicating over text message. I told him I didn't know what "Albert Victoria" was and he told me to flip the words. Eventually he came home and got it through my thick skull that my gift was a giftcard to put toward a meal at Victoria & Albert's. His idea was that we'd accumulate giftcards over the next few holidays, so by the time this trip came around the meal would be paid for. GREAT idea!

Originally I thought this would be the perfect way to spend New Year's Eve...until I remembered the Tables in Wonderland blackout dates - this meal alone almost covered the cost of the card, so if we had been handed the check on New Year's Eve and couldn't use Tables in Wonderland, it would have been incredibly sickening (sidenote: SO glad we had this meal when we did as V&A won't take Tables in Wonderland starting late this summer ). So we decided to make it the last dinner of our trip. And now, after 2 years of putting money aside $25-$50 at a time, we were finally here!

 

[Ariel484]

We checked in a wee bit early and were seated right away. I think we were one of two couples in the dining room at first (other larger parties arrived later and I think the dining room was half-full by the time we left).

Almost as soon as we sat down I had to get up to use the bathroom (which was, not surprisingly, super nice). When I returned Will informed me that while I was gone he'd gone ahead and selected our water from the water menu. Yes, that's right...the water menu. This is actually a thing. I believe he picked the house water with a pH of 6.5. Um...great choice?!

Once I sat back down a maid (not a server...a MAID) brought a small stool for me to rest my camera on. She was so discreet that a few minutes after she'd brought it Will wondered aloud where the stool was - he'd totally missed her slipping the stool next to the table. Sneaky maid! Will also informed me that when I went to the bathroom it took our maid about 10 seconds to swoop in and replace my napkin with a new one. She also pushed my chair in for me when I sat back down. It was pretty awesome. (Another sidenote: I just watched the "Mauro Magical Disney Vacation" special on the Food Network last night - the maid that checked them in at Victoria & Albert's is the very same maid I was just talking about in this paragraph! She was great!)

Our maid (I am totally kicking myself for not remembering her name - not the same one as above but our main server) then went over all of the requests we'd put in for our meal - no seafood, no veal, no mushrooms - and we both squirmed uncomfortably. Not because she made us feel weird, but because we both felt like picky children for even calling in said requests in the first place. Now that we're a bit removed from the meal I can say that if I had to do it again I'm pretty sure I'd still make the same requests, but it was clear from the start - even though we didn't have any food in front of us yet - that this was going to be an incredible meal and an incredible experience. We just got that vibe immediately. I REALLY hope we didn't insult anyone by putting these requests in. But like I said, our maid and butler (not server, BUTLER - again, forgot his name, arrrrrg ) didn't make us feel stupid for asking. That was one thing we really appreciated about this meal - we were convinced we'd walk in and everyone would take one look at us and burst out laughing, like "REALLY? You think you're good enough to eat HERE?" But nope...they treated us like adults the entire time.

Our maid recommended the wine pairing to go along with our 7-course meal, and I eagerly agreed - remember, I'm the wine dummy trying to get an education on this trip. Will declined and they brought out a beer and wine menu for him. I wish I'd taken a picture - coolest menu ever! It was actually a searchable app on an iPad. Eventually, to my great surprise, Will decided to go with the wine pairing as well. Now I need to note here, because it's come up in another thread recently - Will was NEVER pressured into the wine pairing or made to feel bad because he initially turned it down. He just ended up deciding that this was what he wanted to do for this meal. Just wanted to put that out there.

We received personalized menus that we were invited to take home with us (awesome souvenir!) and got a look at the vegetarian menu before putting in our orders.

 

[Ariel484]

And then...it was TIME. We were so freaking excited, I can't even explain it!

Course #1 was the amuse bouche and it came out with champagne - Piper Heidsoeck Cuvee 1785 NV Brut:

(That look on Will’s face is "OH MY GOD WE'RE HERE WE'RE HERE OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!" )

I'm normally not super impressed with champagne (probably because I stick to the cheap-o stuff ) but this was soooo delicious! Best glass of champagne I've ever had.

And the amuse bouche...there's no detailed description of this on the menu but I believe it was some sort of salad with hearts of palm (the first of a few things we'd eat during this meal that I'd never tried before):

Now, I need to put this out there upfront...I am no sophisticated foodie and I'm not sure what I put in this report will accurately convey just how incredible this meal was. Seriously, words cannot do it justice. But I'll try my best!

I remember the two of us taking a bite with those cute, funny little spoons, looking at one another and just sort of laughing. This little thing alone was AMAZING. So light and refreshing, and a great little preview of what was to come.

This course also came with bread. Not all of the courses had an accompanying bread. I remember this one being warm and pretty delicious.

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

Okay so I'm laughing histerically as I read this, because your experience was so similiar to Mike and I's with the stool and the tiny little spoons. We cracked up with them too. And a water menu?? I don't remember that part! and agreed on the TiW part, that meal pretty much paid for it! Bummed the price of it went up to $100....won't be purchasing it in May because I don't think I'll eat at enough places to justify it..

Looking forward to the rest of V&A's!

 

[SarahBella82]

Another cliffhanger!