"It's a 5 - gimmie more!" - A Food and Wine Trip Report Oct 16-20. (Final Update 2/9/14!)

[Teetah]

Overall, the room was great. In fact, it felt like a huge waste of space. I never once sat on the couch or turned on the TV in the living room. We used the table to eat breakfast and store our crap but that was it. The kitchen we did use to cook our eggs, and we also had hot oatmeal that we had brought from home, but a full kitchen was overkill for this purpose. The balcony I went out on to take a picture and other than that never used it. The tub we didn’t really use either. We enjoyed the king-size bed, but I don’t mind a queen.

Back to the trials of the MB locks, though. So once the woman from housekeeping left, I called up front to try and resolve the issues with the room key (MB). They tried to reset it over the phone, but no dice. They said we would have to come back to the front desk. We decided we didn’t want to go all that way and then have to come back to the room, so we unpacked our meager stuff, freshened up a bit, and then was planning to take a bus back to the main area – after which we would go back to Epcot. (The bus routes made traveling this direction much easier.) However, as we were heading out, a golf cart with two repairmen showed up, and they wanted us to go back up to the room. They were trying to change out the battery, when yet another person showed up (bell services type-guy perhaps?). When they were unable to determine anything wrong with the door lock, we had to go back to the front desk. There CMs were all very accommodating and helpful and ASSURED us that our MB would now open our room key. I asked for a phone # in case we got back to the room later tonight and still couldn’t get in…which they provided.

Overall, I want to say this was not a great experience, but the CM were all very friendly and helpful at trying to solve the issue. It was disappointing to spend our afternoon break dealing with this, but at least it wasn’t a totally inconvenient time. (i.e. first thing in the morning.)

Stay tuned for the next update!

I do sometimes feel like some hotel suites have wasted space. It drives me nuts because I would have preferred bigger furniture or a bigger bathroom. I would be interested to see how many people use things like "entryways".

I am sorry you had so much MB trouble! We checked in the same day as you and when we got there, all their MB systems were down. Ours were already activated, so we had no trouble. I wonder if the computer issues were part of why you had trouble??

 

[Teetah]

As we entered Epcot, we decided the easiest thing to do to meet up with “Teetah” was to just head back to the festival center/Wonders of Life. They had about 10 minutes left in the Mixology seminar, so we just hung out looking around the gift shop. (Didn’t care much for the offerings this year, so didn’t buy anything.)

When “Teetah” and her DH got out of their class, we finally got our first DISmeet! We stopped and chatted, and decided to head towards Germany for some beer. So, we headed back to World Showcase past Mexico, Norway and China.

We stopped at the “Farm Fresh” booth we tried previously for another beer/wine, before moving on. We stopped at the South Korea booth, and DW and I got a Kimchi Dog with Spicy Mustard. Somehow I missed out on a picture of this one, but honestly we didn’t care for it very much, and both rated it a 2. DW also got a Black Raspberry Wine that she liked quite a lot.
Next up was the Africa booth, where we tried the South African Bobotie with Turkey and Mushroom.

FINALLY, we made it to Germany. We wanted to try a little of everything here. Teetah and DW headed to the food booth, while the boys headed to the Brewers Collection booth. I decided on Flight #2.

These neat little trays not only gave you a place to hold your beer, each slot was numbered so you know what beer you were tasting. Here is how I rated them (of course this is based on my tastes, so your results may vary). Altenmunster Oktoberfest – 3. BraufactuM Roog – 4. BraufactuM Darkon – 2. BraufactuM Progusta IPA – 3

Meanwhile on the food side – we both got an order of Schinkennudeln (Pasta with Cheese and Ham).

This is a very basic German cheese noodle dish, but it was done excellent, and DW and I both loved it. DW in fact gave it a 5 and came back later in the trip to try it. I gave it a 4, even though cheese noodles are totally on my 5 list, it is such a basic meal I couldn’t quite bring myself to give it a 5.
Proof of our DISmeet!



At this point, we discovered that “Teetah” and her DH had never been to Karamel Kuchen. We had to rectify that immediately. Anyways, I had seen a Caramel Bacon square on the Disney Food Blog, and I just HAD to try it.
DW got a regular caramel square which was very soft and delicious:

Here is the Caramel Bacon square. It is not really laced with a large amount of bacon, only a bit of the smoky bacon flavor. This was so, so good.

Our friends tried the Caramel and sea salt square as well as a caramel apple.

Unfortunately by this time the evening was slipping away from us. We had a FP+ to watch Illuminations, and it was getting on 8:30 PM, but we had time for one last stop – Poland! Any good Buffalonian would need to stop here!

We tried the Kielbasa and Potato Pierogi with Carmelized Onions. This is more standard fare for DW as she makes this all the time as a Ukrainian- American. We thought the ones here at Epcot were just OK, not as good as what we get at home, so therefore rated it a mere 3.

I would like to go on record by saying that this was so fun!!! It will be my goal in the future to try to get a Dismeet or two on every trip!!

The German food booth was awesome. I do agree on the basic-ness of the noodle dish, but still nice to eat something simple and delicious. I stinking loved that Kielbasa - but we don't eat such fare that often. If you eat better Kielbasa at home - I would like for you to ship me one next time you have those. Please and thank you.

Thank you for taking us to Karamel Kuchen!!! I know it wasn't a booth, so we appreciate the time you took to take us there!

You both were super nice and way fun! You may also tell your wife that it was really nice to sneak in a little girl time on this trip! Plus, anyone who introduces me to such caramel delightfulness is my forever friend.

 

[Teetah]

So I was having trouble with the quoting feature, so I just finished reading through instead of replying after each post. I am so sorry for your loss...I hope things are starting to calm down for you..

In regards to your day at DHS, we tried to get into the Art of Animation drawing class and we too had trouble. I as so disappointed. This was my first visit to that part of DHS and to miss it stunk for me. But it will be at the top of my list for the next visit - I am glad you made it in!

When you read my report (that I will get to writing here soon), you will see that we were right with you on several food opinions you have here!

Looking forward to the rest of your report!

 

[Teetah]

Last post, I promise. I have now realized two things I have misspoke on. First, the Kielbasa. That wasn't what I was remember - it was the brat at Germany. That is what I remember loving!

Secondly, the day we met up with you wasn't the day we went to WWoHP! I am completely remembering the order of things incorrectly now that I am looking at notes. We actually spent the afternoon resting then Tim had to work for a while!

I blame age and alcohol for my poor memory.

 

[skier_pete]

First off, so sorry to hear that about your step-dad. That's really terrible, especially around the holidays.

Thanks for the sympathy. It's been a rough go lately. I have not had a lot of time for the DIS (I know - THE HORROR), thus my lack of posting, or even I am SOOOO far behind on your TR I am afraid to even try and catch up.

Lots of good F&W eats today. Y'all definitely made the most of your F&W time! I love the idea of timing some of your snacks with the World Showcase entertainment. I'll admit, I was skeptical about the flag show in Italy, but it actually looks very cool in your photos. We will have to make sure we stop for that next trip. And the Voices of Liberty are always a treat.

The flag show was a lot of fun. We really wanted to try and see ALL the shows around WS, but didn't really come close.

Wonder who that could be??

I don't know too much about their music (I am too old to have been a Hanson fan!) but their beer was pretty good.

I would like to go on record by saying that this was so fun!!! It will be my goal in the future to try to get a Dismeet or two on every trip!!

As above, sorry for the slow response, life has been crazy. Hope you get a chance to catch this..

We really had a great time with you two, and wished it could've been a little longer. DISmeets to me are nice, because they don't have the pressure or expectations of spending time with family. You hang out for a few hours, and then go your separate ways. That said, if we are ever there at the same time again we would be happy to spend more time together!

Thank you for taking us to Karamel Kuchen!!! I know it wasn't a booth, so we appreciate the time you took to take us there!

Oh, when you said you hadn't been there - we COULDN'T just walk by. Just about my favorite thing in World Showcase.

You both were super nice and way fun! You may also tell your wife that it was really nice to sneak in a little girl time on this trip! Plus, anyone who introduces me to such caramel delightfulness is my forever friend.

You know, this goes double for us. We so rarely get to spend time with someone else at WDW without also our child around, it was really wonderful having "adult" time!

Last post, I promise. I have now realized two things I have misspoke on. First, the Kielbasa. That wasn't what I was remember - it was the brat at Germany. That is what I remember loving!

The brats in Germany are really good. We didn't try it this year, but have in the past! Basically, everything in Germany was wonderful.

Secondly, the day we met up with you wasn't the day we went to WWoHP! I am completely remembering the order of things incorrectly now that I am looking at notes. We actually spent the afternoon resting then Tim had to work for a while!

I blame age and alcohol for my poor memory.

Aw, you are too young to blame age - that's my excuse. I'll give you the OK on the alcohol though! Smart that you took notes. I can never bother. It's why I try to take lots of pictures - those are my notes. This TR is going to rely on that most heavily going forward!

 

[skier_pete]

Sorry for the slowness of my updates. We were in Arizona until January 3rd, and having been out of town for 17 days on short notice meant that things were sort of in total chaos when I returned, so it's been tough to get back to the TR. The only good thing is the below was already written, so I figured I would just post it.

We left off with us having spent the morning in WS, and we then headed over to do another beverage and culinary seminar.

First up was the 2 PM beverage seminar:



Today’s wine tasting was from Palm Bay International, which represented Chilean and Argentinean vineyards.





We actually didn’t much care for these wines, they were all reds, and a little too heavy for us. We were actually based on our previous experience more looking forward to the culinary seminar, and this didn’t disappoint. The seminar was a dessert seminar and the chef was Carl Bertka from “Roy’s” which I guess is a fairly famous restaurant in Sarasota. You can see the dessert description below.



First they presented us with a sparkling wine (also from Argentina) which should have gone with the dessert.





The chef described this dessert as a pre-dessert usually served before a richer dessert and he believed in mixing three flavors within anything he prepares. In this case, the 3 flavors were mango, mint, and coconut. As before, they did a demonstration of some of the preparation, in this case the mango custard.





I have to admit, that we are probably not likely to make this desert at home, as it required getting a foam machine with Nitrogen cartridges. It WAS quite tasty though. For some reason, perhaps the light color, I couldn’t get a good picture of it!



Coming out of the second seminar, we had planned to ride Mission:Space to see one of our friends, Matt, that we met on the ABD trip last year and now works at the parks. He was doing line control at the FP+ entrance., so we only really got to talk with him for about a minute before getting on the ride, but there wasn’t really an opportunity to talk longer. If you’re reading this Matt, sorry we didn’t get to chat more!

We had decided to try something new to take advantage of being DVC members. We had wanted to take an afternoon break, but we knew that if we headed back to the resort we would be losing a lot of time in transit. So, we decided to take advantage of the “pool hopping” feature of being a DVC member, and we headed over to the Boardwalk hotel to take a break by the pool. On the way, we passed through the “Craft Brews” booth in the old Odyssey pavilion. I had to laugh at the “Craft” brews, because all of them are available commercially and were all ones I've tried at home, whereas many of the ones at other booths are much more "craft". The foods were likewise nothing special, but we ordered “Muffeletta Pinwheels with House-made pickles” and I got an Abita Purple Haze since that is one of the beers on the list that I like the best.



They were kind of ho-hum, and we rated this a 2. From there we walked around World Showcase (which by this point was VERY crowded) and out the International Gateway. We decided to walk to the Boardwalk, which probably took under 10 minutes.

So, the rules for DVC pool hopping are that you have to provide your DVC member card and I.D. Not surprisingly though, no-one ever asked for it. We went to the rest-rooms and changed into bathing suits and picked a couple of lounge chairs off to the side. I went for a brief swim and tried the slide. While the slide is pretty nice, the pool itself wasn’t much to write home about. It was fairly small, and the chairs were right on top of eachother. (Better than the value resorts, but not even as nice as POFQ, POR, or CBR, and certainly not as nice as the AKL pools.)
We stayed there for about an hour and a half and probably took a brief nap in the shade before changing into fresh clothes for the evening. We then headed back into the park. We stopped at the first pavilion we came to…





I ordered the Gruyere Cheese noodles (don’t feel like typing out the French name) while DW ordered the Beef Bourguignon.





I have to say, both of these surprised us. The Cheese noodles were very, very tasty, while the Beef was sort of blah. We both rated the former a 4 and the latter a 2. I also, for the first time, tried the Grey Goose Vodka Citron drink…



This drink is pretty legendary, yet somehow we’d never had one. I have to say the reputation is pretty well deserved. A great flavor to it and a nice amount of alcohol, I enjoyed it even though I did share it with DW.

Very important to DW is to stop in the perfume shop in France, so that’s what we did next. I joined her, she apparently goes in here enough that she knows one of the employees by name: Lulu. She showed me a scent for men that I liked pretty well, but for $85 I didn’t think it was worth it. I think DW bought something, but I can’t tell you what it was.

Continued in Next Post...

 

[skier_pete]

By the time we were done with the perfumery, we had to head over to “Eat to The Beat”. We did make one stop on the way trying food in “Morocco”.



We bought one of everything and headed over to the concert.



The Kefka Pocket was the better of the two choices, had a nice flavor and we rated it a 4. The Spicy Shrimp roll was not as good. It was indeed spicy, but not really with a great TASTE. The best of the bunch was the baklava. Admittedly, it tasted like baklava but it was really good! We’ve always liked the Baklava at Tangerine Café.

We got to the pavilion for the concert and found that the reserved seating was right in the front. Before the show started, I went out and got us a couple of wines to mark off the “Block and Hans” but also got a cream cheesed stuffed pretzel – one of the more unherald great snacks of Disney Parks.



So, I haven’t mentioned it, but our “Eat to the Beat” band was the 80s hair band…



When talking about seeing them, DW and I were like….well there’s “Sister Christian” and then there’s...um…. Truthfully I was unsurprised to see that they were actually a hard rockin band that played loud, with pretty much the only exception being “Sister Christian”. I give these guys a lot of credit though – they came out and played with enthusiasm and played up for the crowd.









The show was typical about 40 minutes long, and honestly we would’ve probably left after they played their hit, but we were so far up front we thought it would be rude. At the end of the show, we weren’t done with our day because we wanted to head over to Jellyrolls! One last booth though to cover the ones at the back of the park…Japan!



DW got the Teriyaki Gyozo Bun. I didn’t get a picture, but it wasn’t very good and we rated it a 2. Finally we made it over to Jellyrolls (this time we took the boat). They had the stage all prepped for Halloween between the last time we were there.



I wasn’t sure about going two days in such short order, but there was enough unique songs played that it was still fun. They only had three guys there that night, but they managed to rotate and play some really fun stuff. (I particularly liked the “Schoolhouse Rock” medley and also their rendition of “All About the Base”

We got there before 9 PM and we stayed until almost midnight, and while we were having loads of fun we know we had to leave before dropping from exhaustion. After all we had one more day to make it through.

We headed out to the bus stop, and while waiting, a group of about 10 women (and 1 guy) came out from the Jellyrolls. Shortly after, a bus pulled up that was dropping people off. The group asked the guy if he could drop them off at their hotel. All of them were going to either OKW or SSR. The driver said he could do that, so we joined in on the ride back to the resort instead of going to DTD. I don’t know if this ended up being faster (we had a few stops first) but it took about 30 minutes to get back. We were again out until close to 1 AM for the third consectutive night. Just one more day to make it through. Will we drop before the end??

 

[PrincessInOz]

That special seminar looks great. I don't think that I would make any of it at home either. Nitrogen chilled icecream is very in-vogue here at the moment. I'm finding more and more shops opening up making one-serve ice cream batches for a lot of money.

What great looking blissful bites. Looks like you had a great musical evening; with the EttB and JellyRolls. 30 minutes to get back to your resort sounds like the standard time?

 

[skier_pete]

That special seminar looks great. I don't think that I would make any of it at home either. Nitrogen chilled icecream is very in-vogue here at the moment. I'm finding more and more shops opening up making one-serve ice cream batches for a lot of money.

What great looking blissful bites. Looks like you had a great musical evening; with the EttB and JellyRolls. 30 minutes to get back to your resort sounds like the standard time?

Yeah, it was way too complicated a dessert for at home. DW showed enthusiasm in finding out how to make it, but I can't imagine even her taking the time for it.

Ohh, the food and music were so much fun. I've said it before...if you don't know how to have fun as a adult at Disney...you are doing it wrong. We were definitely doing it right.

The bus ride itself was 30 minutes, and we had to go through about 5 stops between OKW and SSR before getting to ours. The night before at Jellyrolls we had caught a DTD bus.

The DTD from Boardwalk goes directly to DTD and probably takes less than 10 minutes. The walk from the DTD bus stop to our room was about 5 minutes. So, it really would have depended on how much longer we would've had to sit waiting for a bus. It could've been 5 minutes, in which case waiting would've been faster. However, in my view you always take the sure bet.

 

[skier_pete]

Getting up in the morning was HARD. We weren’t particularly in a hurry to get to the parks. We really only had one goal in the park before heading for more food and wine, and that was to ride Test Track. So, really we just wanted to get checked out and get to the park by around 10 AM. So we got up and packed up our stuff and called for Bell Services to bring our bags to the main part of the resort. (The super sad moment where you have to leave your room was even worse leaving that gigantic 1-bedroom villa – the likes of which we won’t be likely to see for quite a while.)

After dropping off our bags, we went to the Springs bus-stop to catch a bus for Epcot. Again we had poor morning bus karma, but not as bad as the day before. We just missed an Epcot bus, and had to wait about 20 minutes for another one. We spent the time talking to the CM that was tracking the buses. She was in the College Program, and we were talking with her about her experience – hopefully we didn’t distract her too much from whatever her job was.

We got to the park about 10:15 am and headed for Test Track single rider line. In hindsight, we should’ve set up the FP+, but we didn’t oh well. We didn’t end up on the same car, and by the time DW gets off I missed my picture, but here’s hers:



It was now time to head once again into World Showcase. We had about 10 booths to go, which we were thinking might be hard to fit in without getting full. We had until about 3 PM before we have to head back to the hotel to catch our bus back to the airport.

Somehow, we had kept skipping over Mexico on the East side of World Showcase, so our first stop was to knock that one out.





We got a ribeye Taco and a Sweet Corn Cheese Cake, as well as a Mango Strawberry margarita.



A more artistic version of that shot.



These were all really good. The ribeye taco wasn’t anything special though, and so it only got a 3 rating, but the corn cheesecake surprised us and was quite delicious. The corn texture was unusual but it still had that sweet cheesecake flavor. This was definitely a 4. The margarita was of course excellent.

After that, we made our way the OTHER way around the world showcase.

First up, Scotland…home of Connor Macleod, Merida, and Haggis.





Sorry Disney, it is NOT possible to have “Vegetarian Haggis”! Of course, we wouldn’t have tried it had it been REAL Haggis. Instead we went with the Sea Scallops with Spinach Cheddar Gratin and Crispy Bacon.



While we are usually leery of scallops prepared en masse, this was actually prepared very well, NOT overcooked. The spinach gratin leant a nice flavor to the dish, and you simply cannot go wrong with Bacon. This was a 4 out of 5!

The other dish we had was the dessert “Cranachan”, which was a dessert with layers of raspberry, toasted oats, and whip cream. We actually didn’t care much for this. While it looked good, it was fairly bland and we both gave it a 2.

Though not pictured, I also tried the “Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer”, which I can’t remember at this point, but I gave it a 4 so I must’ve liked it!

We walked by Hawaii for the moment because the line was very long. Instead, we went for more desserts! That’s Champagne and Dessert!


We got the Dessert Trio, which we remembered really liking last year.



This year the group was a mixed bag. The one in the center – Passion Fruit Coconut Creamsicle – was the favorite, with me surprisingly giving it a 4 (I don’t really like coconut or passion fruit, but I thought the flavors mixed well) while DW gave it a 3. The Chocolate Expresso Opera Cake (right) was like OK by DW and rated a 3 as well, but I thought it was awful. Too dry and too strong Coffee-flavor, I gave it a rare 1. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. The Blueberry Lime Cheesecake roll rated a 2 from me and 1 from my wife, probably the lowest rated thing we ate the whole trip. This just did not work for us.

Once we’d tried these 3 things, we were going to head to the very popular (and musically loud) Puerto Rican booth. But with very long lines, I suggested to DW that she wait in line there, and I would head back to the Hawaii booth.





I like when I see the more traditional spelling of Hawai’I, but I always wonder if we should be saying HA-WA-EE-EE. Neither of us are big fans of Tuna, so I chose the Kalua Pork Slider. I also got a Big Wave Golden Ale, since I hadn’t had a drink in nearly 15 minutes.



The beer was great, not too light but also not too hoppy. I also thought the Kahlua pork slider was fantastic. A very tender and tangy pork flavor, the pineapple chutney was not overpowering, nor the Spicy Mayonaisse. I gave this a rare 5 out of 5. DW agreed for the most part, but wasn’t quite in “Gimmie More” territory, so rated it a 4.

I couldn’t go back and get another though, as there was more food to try.




Puerto Rico had several choices, but DW selected the Carne Guisada con Arroz Blanco (Braised Beef with Rice). She also got a glass of Gasolina Sangria (she likes her Sangria).



The booths at this point are seriously crammed together, we haven’t even made it to the Canadian Pavillion yet! The next stop was the Greece booth, a definite favorite of ours in the past.





DW loves Spanokopita, but we also decided to try the Griddled Greek Cheese and the Chicken Gyro with Tzatziki sauce.



The Spanokopita was tasty and typical of the dish. We rated it a 4. The Chicken Gyro was also solid, and DW gave it a 4 while I gave it a 3 because I felt like I’ve had better. However, the dish we REALLY loved is the Cheese:



Yup, it’s just a chunk of partially melted cheese. But, OMG was it good! The honey and pistachios added just a little bit of sweet flavor to the savoriness of the cheese. I would’ve loved some more of this if we weren’t already getting SOOO full!

At this point, we’d hit 6 booths and were getting a little full. So we decided to slow down a bit. We saw that it was almost time for the lumberjack show.
Now, maybe you will want to take away my DIS card for this, but I never really thought much about “Off Kilter”. I know they were an immensely popular band amongst many people, but we had never really ever stopped to listen to them, and so don’t have an opinion one way or another. I will say I never thought they really matched particularly well with Canada, as I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada and I’ve never seen a Celtic Rock Band there. Celtic Rock Band actually screams “Boston, MA” to me.

So, I was sort of interested in the lumberjack show. Even though this group wasn’t Candian, lumberjacks are big part of Canadian heritage and the show could’ve worked well.



Unfortunately, the show was pretty awful. They did some competitions, which were mostly either boring or short or both. At the end the match was tied, and they just kind of left. So, I’ll say I still side with the “Off Kilter” crowd – bring them back, they have to be better than these guys!
We were then going to check out the O Canada movie, but first you may remember we were trying to replicate pictures from our early trips to WDW.



Across 17.5 years of time…





The trees behind us are much more filled in, as am I! I think it's all that food I've eaten over the last 5 days. (I don't have a good excuse for my hair.)

We went back to the movie, but we JUST missed the start, and didn’t want to stand around for 20 minutes waiting for the next one.



So instead, we broke down and got a beer cheddar soup from the Canada booth and a couple of bottles of water, as it was getting really, really hot.

Not much left, To be concluded next time?

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great last day. Sad, but your food grazing is fantastic!

Love the pictures of the two of you at Canada.

 

[franandaj]

You guys got some impressive food booths in.

As far as the aging shots. I'm going to say the same as ours.

Didn't we look great back then?


However, aging is better than the alternative!

 

[Teetah]

I love the throwback pic and recreation - so fun! What a great memory to have!

Ok, so I completely disagree on the Blueberry Lime Cheesecake Roll! We LOVED it and wanted to try to figure out how to do it at home - and try mixing other flavors! I'm not typically a huge lime fan, but I did like this a LOT! I'm with you on the dryness of the chocolate dish - but I do like a strong coffee flavor with chocolate, so it was more mediocre than bad for me. We liked the Creamsicle, too!

Right there with you on Hawai'i - we had the same beer and pork slider - both so awesome! We never did get into Puerto Rico - long lines every time we went by and we were line-spoiled by that time. Greece was good, but honestly, it tasted like the Greek restaurants at home. Scotland was great for us...what I remember anyway...because that is when memory lapses start...we tried all those aged Glenfidditch Scotch samples...

Last days are the best and the worst!

 

[skier_pete]

Great last day. Sad, but your food grazing is fantastic!

Love the pictures of the two of you at Canada.

Thanks! It was a little sad, but we also would've probably died if we'd continued at the pace we did for that trip, so either way we needing stop!

You guys got some impressive food booths in.

As far as the aging shots. I'm going to say the same as ours.

Didn't we look great back then?


However, aging is better than the alternative!

Agree. I can handle the getting older, but those before and after pictures really brought home my (over)weight. I remember back then thinking I was fat, but I've packed on 30 lbs since (20 of it in the last 3-4 years). Not happy with it, and hopefully determined to take some of it off. Probably unlikely to get back to my mid-twenties weight - I like food and drink too much these days - but GOT to drop 15 lbs. We'll see how it goes. DW is also dieting so that'll make it easier (better when both halves are working at it).

I love the throwback pic and recreation - so fun! What a great memory to have!

Ok, so I completely disagree on the Blueberry Lime Cheesecake Roll! We LOVED it and wanted to try to figure out how to do it at home - and try mixing other flavors! I'm not typically a huge lime fan, but I did like this a LOT! I'm with you on the dryness of the chocolate dish - but I do like a strong coffee flavor with chocolate, so it was more mediocre than bad for me. We liked the Creamsicle, too!

Right there with you on Hawai'i - we had the same beer and pork slider - both so awesome! We never did get into Puerto Rico - long lines every time we went by and we were line-spoiled by that time. Greece was good, but honestly, it tasted like the Greek restaurants at home. Scotland was great for us...what I remember anyway...because that is when memory lapses start...we tried all those aged Glenfidditch Scotch samples...

Last days are the best and the worst!

My wallet couldn't handle the scotch, even if my stomach could.

To each his own taste, that's for sure. Not everything can be as universally appealing as Karamel Kuchen! I'm sure there's even people that don't like that place, but I don't want to know them.

 

[khertz]

Well, at least I made it back before you finished up! I have been seriously neglecting the internet in general these last couple of weeks...

All of the eats look really good. I think I would get plenty of enjoyment just sampling all of the desserts at the F&W booths! Just reading the descriptions is making me hungry!

I love the recreation of the Canada pics. How things change over the years! Since DH and I took our honeymoon to Disney, I imagine it will be fun to do something similar in 10 years or so.

 

[Pesky]

Love your TR and so appreciate the food shots and info on the seminars and entertainment. And they lost the lobster roll for THAT? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I sold DH in part on the food and wine festival because of his beloved lobster rolls. Sigh. Bad move, Disney, bad move. Can't wait to hear the rest!

 

[skier_pete]

Well, at least I made it back before you finished up! I have been seriously neglecting the internet in general these last couple of weeks...

All of the eats look really good. I think I would get plenty of enjoyment just sampling all of the desserts at the F&W booths! Just reading the descriptions is making me hungry!

I love the recreation of the Canada pics. How things change over the years! Since DH and I took our honeymoon to Disney, I imagine it will be fun to do something similar in 10 years or so.

Neglecting the internet? Fer shame! We took several pictures to recreate, but only managed a couple of them in Epcot. Maybe next time.

There are still some good desserts to come!

Love your TR and so appreciate the food shots and info on the seminars and entertainment. And they lost the lobster roll for THAT? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I sold DH in part on the food and wine festival because of his beloved lobster rolls. Sigh. Bad move, Disney, bad move. Can't wait to hear the rest!

Welcome! Thanks for joining in. The seminars, especially the culinary ones were definitely worth it. They even had a coloring table in the back of the seminar area in case someone dragged their kid in with them, so you can even do them if you have a child. Just give em a seat and an IPad.

I have to say we always really liked the Lobster Roll. And that was coming from a New England background where I would get really fantastic lobster rolls. (The ones at WDW were NOT fantastic.) Hopefully if enough people complain they'll bring it back. I also wonder if the issue was mostly cost. They were up to like $7.75 for that little lobster roll, maybe they didn't want to breach the $8 mark.

 

[skier_pete]

Hey everyone. I haven't quite gotten this TR finished, but as I head into the 7-month mark for our next trip, I have started a Pre-Trip Report on that new trip. I know PTRs tend to be a bit dry, but I would be thrilled if y'all came along and checked it out. (Yup, I'm using southern charm to lure you in - even though I'm a yankee. )

Anyways the link is HERE.

 

[Tinker326]

You are doing a fantastic job of eating your way around Food & Wine. I am highly, highly impressed!

I have plans to eat cupcakes around all of Disney in a few weeks.. that's close to the same right?

Also lovin' the throwback pics. That's such an awesome idea... maybe someday I'll dig some out and do that in a trip report!

 

[skier_pete]

You are doing a fantastic job of eating your way around Food & Wine. I am highly, highly impressed!

I have plans to eat cupcakes around all of Disney in a few weeks.. that's close to the same right?

Also lovin' the throwback pics. That's such an awesome idea... maybe someday I'll dig some out and do that in a trip report!

Gosh, I'm not sure I could WDW cupcakes too much. The frosting is usually way too sweet. If I have one a trip that's enough for me. But I would say there are worse things to do.

I scanned a bunch of pictures, but I think we only did 2 throwback shots. I wish we'd done more! I always wanted to do it with childhood pictures, but I only have ONE childhood shot from WDW. Not sure why since I went quite a few times.