(Updated 6/1) Save the Art! - Jan 2024 Trip Report

[kclark9830]

Welcome back!

 

[dizneedoll]

Cute pics with Alice! She’s my favorite character! Glad you guys had a good May trip too!

 

[Araminta18]

Ohhh, I love those ears! They are so cool!

I really wish they would have photopass photographers at the photo ops, last time I went to FArts it was a solo trip and I was bummed I wasn't able to do most of them.

Thank you! Yea, I agree - they should have photographers at all the photo ops! They have them at some, but it would be nice at all of them. Or at the very least some kind of phone stand!

Weren't you cold? I was there that week and froze all week until Friday!

It was a bit cold in the mornings but honestly mostly I thought it nice! But then I prefer being cold to being hot

Welcome back!

Thank you!

Cute pics with Alice! She’s my favorite character! Glad you guys had a good May trip too!

Thank you! I've never met her before and it was super fun.

 

[Araminta18]

Also guys - Trevor has a work trip to Paris (hopefully ) in about 2 weeks, and I'm gonna tag along cause Paris. We've booked 2 nights in the Disneyland Hotel and I was able to score a fancy dining reservation at La Table de Lumiere - I'm so excited! Here's hoping his work trip doesn't get canceled and it actually happens!

Wandering Around Future World - Mon Jan 15, 2024 (part 3)​

We decided to head over to Creations Shop to look around a bit, so we passed through the new center section (which I love the music for, by the way - such a good music loop!). We of course had to stop and get some pictures.


I love this magic shot with Figment. Also Trevor wanted me to point out his shirt - "It's Gonna Brie All Right" - because we were planning to have brie later in the day.

Also look what I noticed!

So cute to have the manhole cover basically be SpaceShip Earth. Also forgive me if this is a thing I notice every time and put in every trip report.

We ducked in to the shop and ended up buying the Marvel Santa hat for Trevor. We still had a bit of time, so off we went to Club Cool.

Gotta get my raspberry soda! Viva from Moldova. So yummy! We skipped Beverly.

As we left Club Cool, we saw one of the booths set up in the area between Creations Shop and Creations Cafe and while it wasn't "open" per se, it was open enough that we could walk through, so we decided to look around.

Love that dress picture with the splatters on Sleeping Beauty's dress.

This was also the booth with all the fancy carved tables:

If we ever won the lottery this would absolutely be one of the signs - look at it! Belle and the Beast are dancing! So neat. We loved looking around at all these.

Then we figured it was time to head over to meet Figment!

Pretty SpaceShip Earth picture - just so nice to see this view without construction walls. Over by Figment we found a photographer, so of course we stopped:

The lighting was all weird with the clouds but it made for a pleasant time.

And because I didn't remember that you could go right to the Figment meet and greet, we decided to ride the ride:

It was only like a 5 minute wait. Cause of course.

I do like the theming in the queue area - the flubber robot!

 

[Araminta18]

How Many Characters Can We Meet Before Noon? - Mon Jan 15, 2024 (part 4)​

More Figment queue theming:

I wanna go in the Flubber Storage!

The ride was fine - I definitely plug my nose so I don't get the skunk smell, and I'm a nice wife 'cause I warned Trevor too. Then, we got off and into the dump area, which was really our goal - the Figment meet and greet! Trevor went to Disneyworld when he was little little with his family and met Figment, and there's a picture of him just wailing while meeting Figment, so we figured we needed to recreate it. The line looked kind of long, but we only ended up waiting about 10 minutes - not too bad!

That's Trevor's version of crying...too bad I don't have the original to put in here!

Hi Figment!

And we got super lucky - Joy wasn't out meeting while we were in line, and checking the app she was supposed to come out at 10:30, so I was like huh, we could just jump right over to her meet and greet, since there was basically no line. It worked out! Right as we finished Figment, we went and got in line for Joy (we were the second group) and then just a minute or two later we saw this:

Hi Joy!


Joy has so much energy y'all - I love it:

I told her about my button (it's my Up button that says "Adventure is Out There") and how we were looking forward to the Festival. Super fun - and super fast! Its fun to meet characters when there is basically no wait.

We looked through the gift shop there for a bit and bought a pin, and then headed outside and the jumping fountains caught our attention for a bit:

The fountains are super cool - I like them a lot.

At this point it was about 10:40 - the booths again don't open til 11, and the one artist who was first on my list wasn't scheduled to do signing until 12 noon. So we still had a bit of time. What did we do?

Well we ducked into that Pixar Short Films building and saw the Mickey and Minnie meet and greet - in their Disney 100 outfits! The line was kind of long, but since we didn't have anything else to do, and it was their special Disney100 outfits, we decided to hop in line.


This ended up being a 20 minute wait (despite the line having fewer people than the Figment line did), but then we had a fun meet and greet:

Trevor always tries to film the meet and greets but sometimes it doesn't work...like this time where they pulled him into it immediately (as opposed to some of the meet and greets where its more for me and so Trevor will film me meeting the character for a bit before jumping in at the end for a photo). It was a fun meet - I think we talked about their fancy outfits that Minnie made, and how I needed fancy jewels too? I don't actually remember...oops!



Such fun, and cute outfits - so fun to get to meet them in those outfits before they go away.

We finished up at about 11:05 - the booths were all officially open! What did we decide to do first? Well, the closest thing - the paint by numbers mural!

It was definitely a bit crowded, even though it had just opened up.

 

[Araminta18]

It's Time for Art! - Mon Jan 15, 2024 (part 5)​

So for the mural you had to get in line to get your cups of paint:

It was kind of a long line! The tent up there is where you get the paint. But after 6 minutes we had our paint:

I asked for the pink

Then you hop in line again to get a spot at the mural itself - we waited 5 more minutes then had our spots!


It only took a minute or two to do, which was good 'cause it had started to sprinkle.

Still had to get our selfie! Such a fun activity - I love that they do this. We forgot to circle back and see it more filled in, but we saw the bookmarks, so that's a win.

At this point I couldn't resist heading to the art booths. The first stop was the booth with art by JC Richards - he had this castle series and I was in love.

Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

Tangled and Beauty and the Beast!
Aren't they so pretty? There's also Sleeping Beauty which you think would be my favorite but it was super green and more villain-y so I didn't love it as much as I thought I maybe would. I didn't take a picture of the Little Mermaid one but he has the undersea castle too. I was also super excited because he'd had the bigger paper versions on his website but they'd all sold out, so I was super excited to see these new editions. Trevor and I talked it over and lost all self-control - we ended up buying 3 - Snow White, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast. We went back and forth on Tangled...I'm still kind of back and forth on it - it's pretty but so dark.

Anyways, website if you're interested: https://disneyfineart.com/collections/jc-richard

So we bought those three and were gonna come back at 12 for the artist to sign. Woohoo!

Ok, more art pictures of what we saw while browsing:


I thought about getting this one...it's the DisneyWorld mansion! But decided against it, since we bought the three castle pieces.

Isn't this a cool Cinderella piece?

Up next, food and more art!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

Welcome back!

It does look very hot in Florida right now… the highs at the end of this week are projected to be in the mid-90’s! I’ve been to Florida three times in May (twice during Memorial Day weekend) and I never remember it being so warm! I’m glad we’ll have a stroller full of cooling gear (fans, cooling towels, etc.) so I melt at noon instead of mid-morning.

You had such an excellent start to your morning! So many good character interactions and wonderful photo-op pictures! It’s odd they don’t some sort of camera stand, but it probably cuts down on the lines - the influencers would have a field day with a camera stand!

 

[kclark9830]

I love that decorative table!!! I want it!

And oh, Paris! We went to Paris and London last spring. We had such a fantastic time, though we didn't go to Disneyland. Here's a picture just for fun!

 

[Araminta18]

Welcome back!

It does look very hot in Florida right now… the highs at the end of this week are projected to be in the mid-90’s! I’ve been to Florida three times in May (twice during Memorial Day weekend) and I never remember it being so warm! I’m glad we’ll have a stroller full of cooling gear (fans, cooling towels, etc.) so I melt at noon instead of mid-morning.

You had such an excellent start to your morning! So many good character interactions and wonderful photo-op pictures! It’s odd they don’t some sort of camera stand, but it probably cuts down on the lines - the influencers would have a field day with a camera stand!

Bummer it's still hot! But yea, get your cooling gear and you can do it! Have a fantastic trip!!

That's a good point about the lack of a stand cutting down on lines - I'll take it!

I love that decorative table!!! I want it!

And oh, Paris! We went to Paris and London last spring. We had such a fantastic time, though we didn't go to Disneyland. Here's a picture just for fun!

View attachment 861565

Isn't it so pretty? I want it tooooooo.

Oooh that's awesome! I love that picture!

 

[Araminta18]

Spice Road Table Lunch (and how many artists can we meet in less than 2 hours?) - Mon Jan 15, 2024 (part 6)​

First food booth of the festival - Deco Delights! We got the Neapolitan Dessert Trio: Chocolate tart, vanilla bean cheesecake, and strawberry mousse.

Trevor liked the cheesecake - he thought itwas just the right amount of cheesecake, sicne it tends to be really rich and big slices are a lot, but this was a good size. I liked the strawberry one - it was fresher than I thought. The chocolate was also good, but chocolate is usually yummy.

We then ended up looking at more of the art - this one caught my eye:

Cause I love Haunted Mansion and the ballroom scene is my favorite. I was looking for a print, but they only had the wrapped canvas, and Trevor's an enabler so we bought it. The artist was there so we got to meet her and have her sign it, which was super neat. We'd had it shipped home, cause no way was I carrying that around.

Then back over to the booth with the castle pictures! There as a bit of a mixup with the signing times, but the artist showed up pretty quickly. He was super nice - it was fun chatting with him as he signed the pictures.

Honestly, that was one of the main things I wanted to do this trip, so already off to a really good start!

It was a about 12:20 pm, and we had a lunch reservation at Spice Road Table (the dining package for the Broadway concert) at 12:40, so we headed over to the Friendship boats to cross the lagoon. We could have walked - the weather was actually pretty good, after the brief sprinkle at like 11 (when we were doing the mural), but with the boats being right there...might as well!

Once across the lagoon, I realized that there was a signing going on! I'd bought some of her art the night before and had brought it with me, so since she had no line, Trevor and I stopped quickly. This was Josey Tsao-

Hard to see the art, but she did three super cool pieces of the Haunted Mansion, the castle, and the Electrical Parade. It was fun to meet her and chat a bit - she was so super nice. Honestly, meeting the artists is such a fun part of the festival - I love it.

Then, lunch time! We got checked in and seated pretty quickly, out on the patio.

Nice view!

For the dining package, we got a tagine to share, and then we each got to pick 2 small plates. We had a surprisingly hard time narrowing down our options! It all looked good. We were doing a lot of googling hoping there were reviews and pictures...but there's not a ton for Spice Road Table, weirdly enough!

The tagine - this was yummy, but then I really like couscous. interesting vegetables.

We ended up settling on the
Tiropitakia: cheese-filled phyllo, cucumber-tomato relish:

Trevor's not a huge cheese person so this was basically all me and it was DELICIOUS. A+. I wanted more.

Then Trevor got the Spicy Shrimp: chili, garlic, peri peri sauce.

He says it was good but very spicy - combo of seafood and spicy is a no go for me so I didn't try it!

Then the hummus fries: citrus-chiptole, preserved lemon.

These were sadly a bust - the texture was off and it just wasn't good.

Finally, the Pomegranate-chili crispy cauliflower: red pepper aleppo sauce.

These tasted like orange chicken from Panda Express! The flavor was good; we just would have wished the pieces of cauliflower were smaller so you get more of the breading and sauce. They were huge!!

 

[Araminta18]

All the Artists! - Monday, Jan 15 2024 (part 7)​

Then, dessert! With this dining package we also got a dessert platter to share:

It was a walnut cake, baklava, and then a cherry cookie called Ergolavos The walnut cake was fine, you can't go wrong with baklava, but the star of the show was that cherry cookie thing! I was expecting it to be hard and crunchy which is not how I like my cookies but it was just a tiny bit firm on the outside and then soft and chewy on the inside with a really nice cherry flavor. So good! Highly recommend.

Overall, it was a good lunch, but we were definitely paying for the reserved seats for the concert - it was like $50 a person and I think we got $67 worth of food. But worth it for us - and to find out about those cookies! We actually stopped by the little snack booth they have outside and bought a couple of them to go.


Ok, it was about 1:45 pm; the plan for the next little bit was to find artists and have them sign artwork! With you know, stopping for pictures and stuff on the way. I had made a whole schedule spreadsheet with what artists where signing when/where, and so the next artists I wanted to meet all started at 2 pm, from Italy to America to Morocco and France. So we decided to head over to Italy, taking pictures and enjoying the booths.

They did have a photopass photographer for this one, so that was cool. This was our serious shot.

The booths were super fun - I love looking at all the art (I realize that's a shock to folks. )

Isn't this one pretty?

Then we made it to Italy! The artist Scooter had done a pretty Sleeping Beauty piece that I really wanted, so we got that one and hopped in line to get it signed.

As I'm sure you're sensing as a theme - he was sooooo nice! So personable and fun to talk to, and so sweet to sign the picture. Isn't it pretty? I love Sleeping Beauty.

More pictures! And with a photographer too, which I appreciate.

My best Mona Lisa, while Trevor is over there screaming.

My turn to scream while Trevor Mona Lisas. Aren't these so fun? I love it.

Next up was American Adventure - there was a new collection being released designed by Lewis Whitman called Madly Mischievous. It's super cute (like a bust of Hercules covered in paint splatters thrown by Pain and Panic), so I bought a pillow and got him to sign it.

The pillow says "here comes trouble" with the Cheshire Cat as the O. Cute!

Sorry, I'm sure this is getting repetitive but the takeaway is meet the artists - they're so fun! And yes, the rest of this post is meeting more artists. Next up? Dylan Bonner!

He did these beautiful lush pieces of Padme from Star Wars, and Anastasia, and the Evil Queen. Though this was where my weather luck started to turn and the TR title comes from - I was waiting in line to meet Dylan (he had a bit of a line) and Trevor left to go pick up a piece of merchandise (an Avengers water bottle) from Disney Traders at the beginning of World Showcase. And then it started to sprinkle. And then it started to rain, but by that point I was under the umbrella and wasn't getting wet - phew! You can see the rain on the table there in the foreground.

But the rain kept picking up, and I needed to get my art signed! So I popped on my poncho and headed for the next line - for Ann Shen. Guys, Ann is just the absolute sweetest thing - she was taking time with everyone despite the rain and even though she was under the umbrella she was still getting a bit wet. Still, she was so sweet and kind. I ended up waiting about 20/25 minutes to meet her, and by that time (despite my poncho) I was pretty wet. However, I'd brought all the art in a ziploc bag to keep them dry just in case and poor An had to like flip through my whole ziploc bag of art because my hands were soaked. Had to save the art! Keep it dry!

Really awkward selfie! But seriously, such a sweetheart and so kind. It was a fun experience, despite the rain.

 

[SoloStitchGirl]

This is so cool! I’ve never been to Festival of the Arts and now I really want to go!

 

[Araminta18]

This is so cool! I’ve never been to Festival of the Arts and now I really want to go!

It's such a fun festival! I hope you get a chance to go

 

[Holly]

I’ve never been to the festival either but I’m planning to bring my artsy teen/college aged kids in 2025. I’m loving your report so far! It’s giving me some context for what the festival is.

 

[Araminta18]

I’ve never been to the festival either but I’m planning to bring my artsy teen/college aged kids in 2025. I’m loving your report so far! It’s giving me some context for what the festival is.

Ooh have fun! I'd go back every year if I could. If you have any questions let me know

 

[DLo]

I am finally going during Festival of the Arts next year . The only festival I haven’t been to yet . Your report is getting me more excited about being able to go !

 

[jrmint427]

Also guys - Trevor has a work trip to Paris (hopefully ) in about 2 weeks, and I'm gonna tag along cause Paris. We've booked 2 nights in the Disneyland Hotel and I was able to score a fancy dining reservation at La Table de Lumiere - I'm so excited! Here's hoping his work trip doesn't get canceled and it actually happens!

That is so exciting! I hope the trip goes through, would love to read a trip report from Disneyland Paris!

Still had to get our selfie! Such a fun activity - I love that they do this. We forgot to circle back and see it more filled in, but we saw the bookmarks, so that's a win.

That looks like such a fun activity, your report is really making me want to go to Festival of Arts.

We then ended up looking at more of the art - this one caught my eye:

I love that so much!!

 

[disneyAndi14]

We were there for only a couple days this year so only touched the surface of all the beautiful art. I love all your choices! I love the HM and the artwork is beautiful

 

[Araminta18]

I am finally going during Festival of the Arts next year . The only festival I haven’t been to yet . Your report is getting me more excited about being able to go !

Oooh have an amazing time!! I'm sure it's hard to tell, but it's definitely my favorite festival.

That is so exciting! I hope the trip goes through, would love to read a trip report from Disneyland Paris!

Thank you! Me too...knocking on all the wood, but so far so good!

That looks like such a fun activity, your report is really making me want to go to Festival of Arts.

It's definitely one of my favorite FARTS things - if you ever get a chance to go, definitely make time for it!

I love that so much!!

isn't it pretty?!

We were there for only a couple days this year so only touched the surface of all the beautiful art. I love all your choices! I love the HM and the artwork is beautiful

the artwork is always so fun!!

 

[Araminta18]

Epcot Afternoon - Monday, Jan 15 2024 (part 8)​

After meeting the adorable Ann Shen, I headed just across the walkway over to Ashley Taylor. Her line was longer than I expected with the rain, but not too bad - really it just moved slowly because she was taking time to really chat with folks. Trevor joined me right as I got in line to meet Ashley...poor guy forgot to take a poncho with him and was just a bit wet! And the nice thing was that it mostly stopped raining by the time it was my turn (which was good cause I had totally jinxed us with the rain - Lewis Whitman had asked us back at the American Adventure pavilion if we were having a good day and I'd said that it was supposed to rain but hadn't so yea we were having a great day! Guess when it started raining? Literally as I finished saying that. Oops!)

Anyways, my turn! Ashley was again super sweet and friendly - just great to chat with. I love her art! My hands were still pretty wet so she was kind enough to pull out all my postcards and sign all four (also shout out to the CM with her who went and found like SO MANY towels to dry stuff off). I forgot to put in the last post that Ann Shen, when I told her I was going over to Ashley next, went through my baggie and found Ashley's pieces and put them right on top for Ashley. So sweet!

We ended up talking about Disneyland Paris - don't ask me why, I don't remember.

So overall, a productive, if somewhat damp afternoon! In case you're curious, I did (with the help of all the artists) successfully save the art - no water damage. Yay! It was about 3:30, so we decided to head back to the room (the long long walk) and take a break before the 5:30 concert. Had to stop for a picture, of course -


We made it back to the room by like 3:45, and slept for about an hour. We got up at about 4:45 - goal was to get ready, and head back into the park to get some food and (shocker) get some more art signed, before getting to the theater at like 5:15 (as Disney recommended).

View from right outside the exit door/staircase by our room. Too bad we don't play volleyball!

The desire path - the shortcut across the path directly from the door to the sidewalk!

We were back in the park by 4:50 pm. Best room ever! We stopped at the Vibrante & Vívido booth, and got the Chorizo and Potato Empanada with turmeric aïoli and annatto aïoli, as well as the Coconut and Passion Fruit Smoothie.


We didn't stop and eat yet though - we kept moving to the artist signing, cause her booth was like right there. It was Yesenia Moise:

She did a really fun Anastasia piece, as well as a fun Darkwing Duck piece. Again, so fun to meet and get her to sign her artwork. She was so nice. (Also notice Trevor with the smoothie and the empanada in his hand. )

Then, we made it to the theater! We'd done the dining package and so we had the reserved seating, but they'd only reserved the first 3 rows on the left side of the theater, so by the time we got there at 5:05, we were still pretty far over to the side.

Not horrible, just further over than I would have wanted.

Now, food! Trevor really liked the empanada - I liked the flavor but it was a bit too spicy for me. The coconut smoothie though was really good - we both loved that! And since we had a bit of time, I ran up to the America booth and got the duck and dumplings - there was no line! Awesome!

This was good, though the dumplings were a bit dry. Solid dish, not amazing, but it was good.

Sated with our snacks, it was time for the show! Who were we seeing?

Caissie Levy and Patti Murin - the original Elsa and Anna in Frozen the Musical on Broadway!