Oops, We Forgot to Leave Our Weather at Home! A Fantastic Festival of the Arts 2025 TR! (Updated 2/2!!)

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

I've determined years ago that the weather is Florida is usually predicted to be better than it will be. They predict warmer weather when it is really going to be cold. They predict drier weather when it is going to be rainy. And they completely forget to mention that a huge thunderstorm is going to hit that evening.

THIS!!! We use Weatherbug app for weather at home and when traveling. We kept saying this trip that whoever was inputting the weather for WDW must be high or inputting weather information for another city entirely or was just trying to mess with the heads of people on vacation. It was off almost every day. We never have this issue at home nor have we had this issue with other locales.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

VAtink - I think the travel gods were trying to tell you something that night/morning. You should have rescheduled your trip. Hindsight is 20/20!!

 

[VAtink]

Travel delays suck. But at least you have a direct flight with no connections. Flying back from Minnesota after Christmas this year, we had a delay and the connection was already a bit tighter than I like at Midway. Made it with 20 minutes to boarding because, as the flight attendant said before we took off on the first flight "The pilot promises to fly fast. But he also told me he was single yesterday which is a lie so..." That got us all laughing.

So true, it is nice that I have direct flights. Years ago I was bumped from a direct flight to a connecting flight, and barely made it, I don't want to deal with that stress again either!

And HAAAAAA, the flight attendants comment about the pilot is hilarious!

 

[VAtink]

I flew from Florida to Boston the day OF the inauguration and there were a lot of Northeast weather events that day. My friends who were on a different airline were delayed several hours. I wonder if part of it was a run off from that? Pilots and attendants timing out and needing to wait for their window to open. Either way, I would have also been panicking at 5 am with no ride in sight! The delay would have been a bit of relief!

Oh maybe! Yeah, that was quite the panic when my ride didn't show up, I'm so glad I finally got an Uber. Definitely need to reconsider these early flights.

 

[VAtink]

VAtink - I think the travel gods were trying to tell you something that night/morning. You should have rescheduled your trip. Hindsight is 20/20!!

Haaaa! Probably, but oh well, it was still fun, just a bit damp

 

[VAtink]

Day 1, Part 2: The Boardwalk May be Becoming Our Favorite Place to Stay​

We last left off heading from the airport to the Boardwalk! We arrived around 11:45, perfect timing to catch lunch at Farts!

I had gotten the room ready text earlier, shortly after I landed, but I was disappointed to see the room was on the first floor. We really dislike first floor rooms.

So when we arrived at the Boardwalk, we headed to the front desk to see if we could switch to a room on a higher floor. The CM at the front desk was new (earning her ears) with the CP and was so nice and helpful. She found us a room that was on the second floor, and bonus, it was available right away!

We made our way to the room, and quickly realized it was far far away from the lobby. It was actually the last room in the hotel. BUT, it turns out that was a good thing!

We ended up in room 2353, and being the last room on the hall we had balconies on two sides!

The room itself was beautiful, nice and spacious, and had so much natural light with all the windows/doors. Even with the long walk to the lobby, we loved this room.












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https://flic.kr/p/2qHHKXX

I feel like we keep getting so lucky with our room assignments every time we stay at the Boardwalk. The first time we booked a standard view room (back when those were a thing), and the room we got looked out onto the village green and boardwalk, and we could see the MK fireworks from our balcony! Another time staying here we got that massive upgrade from the deluxe room to a two-bedroom suite, and this trip we got this gorgeous end room with two balconies and pretty views. It definitely makes us want to stay here more!

I will note, even though these rooms were fairly recently refurbished, they were already showing a lot of wear and tear. One of the plugs in the bathroom was falling out of the wall, grout was peeling in the bathroom, some of the lights didn’t work, it was surprising! But nothing that ruined the room for us, just didn’t expect to see it this way already!

We spend a few minutes unpacking, then got our park bags ready and made our way over to Epcot!

Next up: Finally Back at Farts!​

 

[WDW-WOW]

Very excited to read your TR! Taking my first ever solo trip in 2 weeks (at the Dolphin) and plan to spend lots of time at Epcot.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

That room looks awesome!

 

[Wood Nymph]

The room itself was beautiful, nice and spacious, and had so much natural light with all the windows/doors. Even with the long walk to the lobby, we loved this room.

I can see why you loved this room. We've had a few corner rooms at the YC and BC that were similar and loved the extra windows.

 

[precious pixie]

What a gorgeous room! I'll be looking for the ends when booking there from now on. I use to mostly stay at BW with some AKL sprinkled in. Then became obsessed with YC or WL. I may need to think about revisiting BW for my next trip

Glad your travel troubles all worked out. I had a little chuckle about the frozen water pipes on the planes since that is always the hot topic when Elsa comes to town... Let it Drip

Looking forward to lunch at FARTs!

 

[PAsFab5]

So excited to hear about your trip! You Ladies always have the best time!!! We are leaving Friday for a week and hoping the “Florida deep freeze” is over!!!

Also one time my husband and I had a 14 hour delay over a tube in the bathroom sink of a plane they just could not get the right tube and no water no go so I felt your pain on that delay!!!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Beyond excited to see your new report and looking forward to hearing all about it. I know you live close to Reagan Airport and am devastated to be learning about the mid-air collision there last night. So scary, and senseless, and sad. Thinking about your community. Back to the happy place, really looking forward to hearing about your trip. Appreciate the heads up on different varieties of merchandise. If you have any must do food items, let me know a I hope to be visiting at least two more times before the end of the festival.

 

[VAtink]

Very excited to read your TR! Taking my first ever solo trip in 2 weeks (at the Dolphin) and plan to spend lots of time at Epcot.

Thank you, and thanks for following along! That's so exciting you have a trip so soon! I hope you have an amazing time and get to enjoy all the festival fun at Epcot!

 

[VAtink]

That room looks awesome!

It was such an amazing room, I feel like we really got lucky with it. We'll definitely request it when we stay at the Boardwalk again.

 

[VAtink]

I can see why you loved this room. We've had a few corner rooms at the YC and BC that were similar and loved the extra windows.

Having the extra windows and natural light is so nice! Plus when it warmed up a bit we had both doors open to get a nice cross breeze in the room, which felt great!

 

[VAtink]

What a gorgeous room! I'll be looking for the ends when booking there from now on. I use to mostly stay at BW with some AKL sprinkled in. Then became obsessed with YC or WL. I may need to think about revisiting BW for my next trip

It was such an amazing room, I never thought to try to get an end room before, but now that's all I want! We normally stay at the YC, but with the construction going on now we moved to the BWI and I'm so happy we did, it was a great stay!

Glad your travel troubles all worked out. I had a little chuckle about the frozen water pipes on the planes since that is always the hot topic when Elsa comes to town... Let it Drip

Yeah, not the best travel day, but it all worked out in the end!

Looking forward to lunch at FARTs!

The food this year was really good, I really think the food at this festival is some of the best of all the festivals.

 

[VAtink]

So excited to hear about your trip! You Ladies always have the best time!!! We are leaving Friday for a week and hoping the “Florida deep freeze” is over!!!

Ohhhh, you're going tomorrow, that is awesome!!! I hope you have an amazing trip! It looks like you'll have some decent weather too!

Also one time my husband and I had a 14 hour delay over a tube in the bathroom sink of a plane they just could not get the right tube and no water no go so I felt your pain on that delay!!!

Oooph! That is a crazy long delay! I'm glad the delay last week wasn't nearly as long, I can handle an hour or two, I'd be crying by hour 8!

 

[VAtink]

Beyond excited to see your new report and looking forward to hearing all about it. I know you live close to Reagan Airport and am devastated to be learning about the mid-air collision there last night. So scary, and senseless, and sad. Thinking about your community. Back to the happy place, really looking forward to hearing about your trip. Appreciate the heads up on different varieties of merchandise. If you have any must do food items, let me know a I hope to be visiting at least two more times before the end of the festival.

Thank you! Yeah, it's been hard with everything going on around here, the crash was about a mile from my house, it's so awful. We've been told to stay away from the shore since debris is washing up. It is so incredibly tragic, I never thought anything like this could happen, I'm still a bit shocked.

For the FArts stuff, there was SO much good food this year. The soft shell crab was surprisingly good, even though I really had issues with the looks of it. The fancy grilled cheese was great once again, especially on a cold day! We also loved the wagyu bun in Japan, the duck pastry thing and the bread bowl of cheese at France, the carne asada and the croqueta in Mexico, the avocado tart in Morocco, and the mushroom risotto in Canada. The only thing we tried that I didn't really like was the beef wellington, the croissant overpowered the dish and was so massive and I didn't think the flavor of it melded well with everything else in the dish. But everything else we tried was good. We ate at all but I think two of the booths, so a lot of very good food this year!

 

[MommaKetch]

Following along! What a crazy day of travel for you! Glad all ended well with an early check in and a fantastic room.

I’m headed to FArts in a week and starting my split stay at BWV! Looking forward to the festival food, and shopping the art. I feel you on the first floor room, not my fave. I once had a 1BR BW view that was one of the few on the actual boardwalk. Zero privacy, and it butted up against JellyRolls. I expected to hear music late into the night, or rowdy customers coming and going, but surprisingly I didn’t. Room was freshly renovated and lovely. Will be interesting to see how the renovated rooms have aged in a years time. Sorry to hear yours was looking worn.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Thanks for the tips on the food!! Added all to my list.