(Updated 1/5) How Bougie Can We Be? - Nov 2024 TR

[Araminta18]

Woo hoo, found your next trip report. I just got all caught up.

Yay thanks for reading!!!

 

[Araminta18]

The Hat Makes the Man - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 8)​

At this point it was about 2:15 pm, and while we were getting a bit tired, we had places to be! (Yes this was probably foolish on my part). I wanted to go to the outlets and then to Disney Springs, so we started to head out of the park. On the way we passed the still closed Wicked store but I didn't see this side of it before.

Faaaancy W up there.

Anyways! We left the park but had to stop and take a pic with the globe:

They had a Universal photographer out that morning taking pics of folks with the globe but the line was super long, so this would do!

Then we were planning to go catch an uber but we got sidetracked by the Epic Universe preview center. That was super neat! All the portals and then the model of the land is just...wow. I thought Trevor took a video of the model but I don't see it so I guess not. The pictures don't do it justice - just all the intricacies and such. I hope the real park is as cool as the model! They had merch though - Trevor tried on one of the Super Mario hats:

Itsa me, Mario!

But they had more hats so I made Trevor try them ALL on. I was dying laugh. Literally.



I don't even know which is my favorite. Maybe the toadstool? But honestly, all of them. We didn't buy any, but I had a GREAT time making him try them on. And he's a good sport.

After a bit we made our way out and then got sidetracked by the Universal Studios store - we had to redeem our bonuses (the wand that the gift card came with), and we of course got sidetracked by actual shopping. They had really cool postcards (I put them up like art prints) and then tea towels/kitchen towels with fun designs (like the Hogwarts letter or the Hogwarts Express ticket). So cool! And since we were on our way out to the outlets and Disney Springs, we had the merch sent back to our room. BEST PERK EVER.

We finally left and made our way to the parking garage, stopping of course to take a pic with the sign:


Man, Trevor's camera does good selfies.

It was about 3:30 when we got to the uber area in the parking garage. I called for an uber and it took FOREVER to find me a driver and then when it finally did it said the driver was 17 minutes away!!!! Are you kidding? The drive to the outlets was only like 10 min itself. So we canceled and Trevor tried calling on his uber account and not only did he get a driver super quick, the estimated arrival time was 1 MINUTE! Why does uber like Trevor better than me?!

We made it over to the outlets but it was a bit of a bust - nothing really caught my eye. So I left Trevor there to look around a bit more and I went over to the Crocs store! And guess what I found as I walked in:

Bluey crocs! I'd seen these advertised online but we're not really croc people even though we are definitely Bluey people so I hadn't bought them. But seeing them in person...I was getting sucked in! Trevor came and joined me a a few minutes later and yea we got sucked in. We bought matching Bluey crocs. Trevor almost got sucked in by the Harry Potter crocs but stayed with just Bluey. Yay!

We then called for another uber (this one came a lot faster ) and by 4:40 we were on our way to the Vineland outlets. I figured since the first outlets were a bust we could try here since it's so close to Disney Springs.

We passed this shop on the way and it just cracked me up. The Comic Sans font, and just the store title itself - Disney Gifts & Toys - Ice Cream Shop. All shops should have ice cream shops in them.

 

[bettertheangel]

Omg those hats are hilarious. Trevor seems like a good sport.

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Two votes for the faux monorail counting! and lego husbands unite!

oooh heading home is the worst. but trip reports is a good way to forget about it! How was your trip?!

Sorry for the delay in responding, we were super busy during Christmas and the New Year!

Our trip was AMAZING (seriously one of the better ones we have been on)! MVMCP for the first time - check! Seeing the Merry Menagerie for the first time - check! Seeing the Christmas overlays at Hollywood Studios - check! Last but not least a lovely lunch at Chefs de France in order to see Gary Sinise - check! I felt a little bad about leaving the kids at home for this trip, but we had a blast!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

​

View attachment 925270
Trevor was wearing his "Marty McFly and the Pinheads" t-shirt that he got from when we saw the musical version of "Back to the Future", so it was only appropriate to run into Doc Brown.

And then we saw the DeLorean! Had to take a picture.
View attachment 925271

LOL, our husbands seem to have a lot of the same interests. In addition to my husband being a Lego fan, my husband is also a HUGE Back to the Future Fan. We are going to see the musical next May, and actually bought a Delorean in Nov 2022. What did your husband think of the Back to the Future musical?

Here is a pic of my husband's pride and Joy....LOL

 

[Araminta18]

Omg those hats are hilarious. Trevor seems like a good sport.

Right? I was dying! And yes, he is a good sport The faces and acting choices though were all his

 

[Araminta18]

Sorry for the delay in responding, we were super busy during Christmas and the New Year!

Our trip was AMAZING (seriously one of the better ones we have been on)! MVMCP for the first time - check! Seeing the Merry Menagerie for the first time - check! Seeing the Christmas overlays at Hollywood Studios - check! Last but not least a lovely lunch at Chefs de France in order to see Gary Sinise - check! I felt a little bad about leaving the kids at home for this trip, but we had a blast!

No need to apologize! I feel that whole holiday thing so much. I'm so glad you had a great trip! MVMCP and Merry Menagerie? Awesome. Merry Menagerie is my absolute favorite holiday thing - I've got one of the stuffed animal puppets next to me now. How'd you like the Christmas overlays at HS? They kind of creeped me out - but that's probably just a me thing. Oooh I've never been to Chefs de France! Would you recommend it? And how was Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise?

 

[Araminta18]

LOL, our husbands seem to have a lot of the same interests. In addition to my husband being a Lego fan, my husband is also a HUGE Back to the Future Fan. We are going to see the musical next May, and actually bought a Delorean in Nov 2022. What did your husband think of the Back to the Future musical?

Here is a pic of my husband's pride and Joy....LOL

View attachment 926268

Oh my gosh that's so cool!!! Do you drive the Delorean around on like errands and stuff?! That's so neat.

Have fun at the show! Trevor liked the show - the effects and projections were SUPER neat and really well done. The added songs were fine, but nothing special, but it's definitely a show more for the effects than the music, and as your husband is a fan of the movie, I think he'll probably enjoy the show. It sticks pretty close to the movie.

 

[Araminta18]

Disney Springs - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 9)​

At the outlets close to Disney Springs we found a couple of things we wanted -- well Trevor wanted. Nothing for me, weirdly enough! But by 6 pm, we were at Disney Springs! We had dinner reservations at Wine Bar George at 8:15 and I also wanted to look at all the Christmas trees. And of course our normal goodies and shopping.

We did a bit of dividing and conquering - Trevor headed over to Gideon's to get in line cause we didn't know how long that line was, and I made my way over to him but stopping at the Art of Disney and the Marketplace, in case they had any fun art or anything. Trevor gets exhausted with shopping and we'd already almost hit his limit so this way I get to look and he doesn't have to. I didn't find anything, but it was fun looking around. I did get to see the traveling DJ in the Santa sleigh!

Not a great picture, but it's a fun entertainment option

Then I met up with Trevor over at Gideon's - he was basically at the front of the line! He got in line at 6:07 and we entered the store at 6:24 - not a bad wait at all! We even managed to get some of the pumpkin bread chocolate crumb cake, and they still had dark coffee cake available. Yay! We stocked up (well, we got 6 cookies, that's not toooooo many. For us. )

From there, it was time to look for Christmas trees! I'd picked up the maps from outside the Lego store as I was walking by and so off we went. Well after a quick stop into the Ganachery for chocolates.

We went to the main tree by the bus stops to start, cause I wanted to look at some shops down that way (combining trees and shopping! )


So big! And they had photopass photographers out at the tree - I'd never seen that before! And the line wasn't even super long so of course we hopped in. There were a couple people in front of us so we took advantage of the line to switch our sandals for our Bluey crocs!

Bluey!

The photos turned out pretty fun:





After pictures we kept going - I wanted to look in the Vera Bradley store which was conveniently nearby. But first, the trees right out in front!

Haunted Mansion!


This was the Annual Passholder tree, which also had a photopass photographer by it.

It's nice that they have the photographers out by the trees, I think.

And yes I did buy some things at the Vera Bradley store.

 

[Araminta18]

All Christmas Trees! - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 10)​

This post is basically gonna be all Christmas trees. We were on a mission to find all of them and put our stickers on the little map.

Pretty globes!

Moana! I think it was specifically supposed to be Moana 2 but I couldn't see anything on there specific to the second one.

Heart of Te Fiti!

Lilo and Stitch!

This was where I ducked in to Disney Style and found the new Belle spirit jersey that of course I bought. And the purchase with purchase was the adorable Chip and Dale christmas bag, so I got that too.


The Wish tree.


Tiana! That's a tea table set with desserts there at the bottom. This was also my time to sit and look at trees while Trevor ducked into the Star Wars store to look around. He didn't end up buying anything - he was a bit shopped out. I was just enjoying being off my feet and looking at the pretty trees!

Nightmare before Christmas! I didn't get a good picture of it but the tree topper is Zero and if you wave your magic band, he goes around in a circle - so fun.

As we kept going, we ran into the stiltwalkers!

Aren't they pretty? You could take pictures with them but there was a bit of a line so we just took a picture of them and moved on.


Guardians of the Galaxy - that's a cassette player there.


Lion King!

 

[Paulaparm]

Cookies! Yay! I am so excited that we get to purchase some of those cookies in just a little over two weeks!!

 

[Araminta18]

Cookies! Yay! I am so excited that we get to purchase some of those cookies in just a little over two weeks!!

It's not one of my trip reports without cookies!! YAY! I hope you love them!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

No need to apologize! I feel that whole holiday thing so much. I'm so glad you had a great trip! MVMCP and Merry Menagerie? Awesome. Merry Menagerie is my absolute favorite holiday thing - I've got one of the stuffed animal puppets next to me now. How'd you like the Christmas overlays at HS? They kind of creeped me out - but that's probably just a me thing. Oooh I've never been to Chefs de France! Would you recommend it? And how was Candlelight Processional with Gary Sinise?

I liked the neon lights of the Christmas decorations and thought that the Frozen show Christmas overlay was so cute! I would recommend Chefs de France. Our food was delicious and it was a really good deal with the CP processional package. Gary Sinise was great! We ended up adding a night to see him and I am glad we did so.

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Oh my gosh that's so cool!!! Do you drive the Delorean around on like errands and stuff?! That's so neat.

Have fun at the show! Trevor liked the show - the effects and projections were SUPER neat and really well done. The added songs were fine, but nothing special, but it's definitely a show more for the effects than the music, and as your husband is a fan of the movie, I think he'll probably enjoy the show. It sticks pretty close to the movie.

He drives it a few times per week. Thanks, I will let him know. I’m looking forward to seeing his reaction to it.

 

[Araminta18]

I liked the neon lights of the Christmas decorations and thought that the Frozen show Christmas overlay was so cute! I would recommend Chefs de France. Our food was delicious and it was a really good deal with the CP processional package. Gary Sinise was great! We ended up adding a night to see him and I am glad we did so.

ooh that's right - the Frozen show Christmas overlay is adorable! I just don't love the mid-century Christmas decorations they have... but at least it's something different!

Hmm, I'll have to see if we can fit Chefs de France in - maybe we do that instead of the Creperie for FARTS...hmmm... Also I sympathize with adding nights - I just talked Trevor in to adding a day to our January trip so I can meet one of the artists they have coming to the festival!!

 

[Araminta18]

He drives it a few times per week. Thanks, I will let him know. I’m looking forward to seeing his reaction to it.

nice! I would bet he gets lots of photos and excited looks I hope he loves the show!

 

[Araminta18]

Dessert, then Dinner! - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 11)​

Ok, it was about 7:40 and our Wine Bar George was at 8:15, so we were doing pretty good. Time to head back that direction. But we had to do a stop at Salt and Straw for ice cream, mostly 'cause I got a glimpse of the seasonal menu and saw that they had a flavor called: Parker House Rolls with salted buttercream - salted buttercream ice cream with buttery toasted rolls. That sounded so good to me!

We got kids scoops cause we were heading to dinner. This was the Parker House rolls - it was so good! I loved it. A bit of a salty buttery flavor with bits of roll in there - so good. Trevor however...well, this was his reaction:

LOL I about died laughing - poor guy. He said it was disgusting with flavors that should not go together and absolutely not in ice cream. He's wrong, but entitled to his opinion.

He went with the Salted, Malted, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

He's a big fan of cookie dough, but this wasn't his favorite. His first bite especially was super salty. Later bites were better, but he still wouldn't get it again. Trevor is not a salt and sweet person - he keeps trying it occasionally but has yet to find a combination he really likes.

We kept walking and found a few more trees:

Coco! I love the colors on this tree.

We also found the Treasure "tree"/display thing.

And in a bit of good timing, this one is right by the main big tree in the center there and we got here as just it hit 8 o'clock, so we got to see the snoap and hear the music that they do on the hour!

Merry Christmas! You can kind of see the snoap in the light right by/on that balcony.

Then, time for food! We got to Wine Bar George at 8:08 pm, and were seated right away. We were seated in a little corner table upstairs, with windows on both sides - we could see Gideon's out one side and Raglan Road out the other:

Kind of a nice little spot tucked away there.

We were hungry so ordered right away. We started with our standard drinks (the cherry smash and the orgeat lemonade):

These are so good - especially the lemonade. Trevor even bought a bottle of orgeat syrup when we were in Paris so that we could make something similar at home.

We ordered the Lamb Loin with celeriac & parsnip puree and baby carrots:

We're not really lamb fans, but it's Wine Bar George and this was one of the new small dishes on the menu so we went for it. When it arrived Trevor was like "did we get this before?" cause the presentation and sides looked familiar, but we hadn't - it just reminded him of the presentation of the pork pluma. And this was indeed delicious - good sear, super tender but also juicy (usually I feel like lamb is dry? but this one wasn't). And the carrots had this sweet glaze on them - they were super good! I'm not really a huge fan of carrots - they're just fine, but these were delicious. It was definitely our favorite dish of the night - not quite as good as the pork pluma (is anything?) but definitely up there.

We also got the k4 Ranch short rib with mashed potatoes, beer braise reduction, and crispy shallots.

So, overall this was good but I didn't love it. Trevor said it reminded him of a shepherd's pie with no crust, which I agree with. I think I always forget I don't actually like short rib - it's beef so I always think "yea i'll like it" and then it arrives and i'm like right, I don't like short rib. This was good - the beef was SUPER tender and literally melts - an excellent example of short rib. I just don't like short rib. LOL We'll see if I remember next time. Trevor liked it, but he likes short rib and shepherd's pie.

 

[Araminta18]

Back to Trees! - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 12)​

Then our last dish: Seared Porchetta Steak with spinach, pickled mustard seed, oyster mushrooms, burnt honey orange broth, and micro cilantro.

This was a huge portion. It smelled strongly of bacon which took me a minute to place (like I couldn't place it until I took a bite). The broth added an interesting depth, but really this wasn't our favorite. The porchetta was drier than I expected - getting a bite with some of the fat was better but still a bit tougher/drier than I expected. Trevor thought it reminded him of a honey ham, which I guess makes sense and why the broth was honey flavored. If you got a bite with the greens that changed the flavor too, which was neat - I assumed the greens were there for color but it was actually for flavor! (or both ) We didn't end up finishing it, partially cause the portion was just so huge - a half portion would have been better. Overall, not our favorite - as much as anything is ever a miss at Wine Bar George, this was a miss.

So yea, overall the lamb was our favorite, and it was amazing. Then the short rib which was more a problem of I just don't like short rib generally, and then the porchetta. I was also looking forward to getting the giant profiterole for dessert but we JUST missed it - they just redid the menu and took it off. Sadness.

We finished at a little after 9 pm. The plan was to finish the Christmas tree trail by getting the trees on the east side, which is conveniently where the uber pickup is. So we would just make our way down there stopping to see the Christmas Trees (and for me to do a quick blitz through World of Disney). Poor Trevor was tired and had looked at his work chat which he should not have done cause it stresses him out, so he was about ready to be done, but as he is a good sport was up for finishing the Christmas tree trail.

Ok, more trees!

This was the Toy Story tree, thought it's a bit hard to see.


Star Wars, obviously. I like the C3P0 topper.


Disney+ tree. I feel like Disney keeps taking stuff off of Disney+ while still trying to make it happen - what happened to that whole "everything Disney ever did would be on Disney+". Tree was pretty though.


Minnie Mouse tree!

We also ran into more snowflakes, these ones on roller skates:

Also gorgeous!


Disney parks tree! This was one of my favorites, I think. I liked the various icons in the tree - you can see Spaceship Earth there. I took a better picture of the topper cause it's awesome.

Also, Monorail!

This one was close to World of Disney so I blitzed through it and ended up getting some fun things. I got the Scarlet Witch spirit jersey (yay!) and a couple other things but then this caught my eye right as I was getting ready to check out:

Halloween Mickey wreath!!! I was psyched - I missed these on shopdisney so was super pleased to see it here. It is a bit big, but we figured we'd just ship it home. Though I forgot - when I asked at the register they said I'd have to go to the new Disney Springs shipping location over by the marketplace/Tren-D building. Forgot about that! But luckily it was still on our way.

As we left, we found that the Stitch in front that usually spits water was actually spitting snoap!

Back to trees:

Encanto! I really like all the light-up door decorations.

 

[Araminta18]

Delivery Already?! - Thursday Nov 14, 2024 (part 13)​

We needed only two more trees, so we cheated a bit and stopped in at Arribas brothers to get our "treat" for completing the map - it was a button. And we had to ask for some help - we could find one of the trees that was supposed to be by World of Disney, and when we asked a CM, it was because it was a tree IN ONE OF THEWINDOWS. Cheating! How were we supposed to know?

Cute but not what I was looking for when I saw the spot on the map!

We kept going and got the last tree:

Pretty! I think this one was just like toys/traditional, but I'm not sure. And the map doesn't tell me beyond the picture.

This was right by the shipping station so we ducked in there and GUYS. I can't even - instead of the normal flat fee shipping that Disney used to use, they now use UPS if you're shipping from Disney Springs, and it is EXPENSIVE yo. For the wreath (and ONLY the wreath) they were like "it'll be $42 plus the box (which will be around $15), but don't worry, you get an AP discount". How much is the AP discount? 5%!!! Are you kidding me? The flat fee shipping used to max out at like $40. So yea at that price I was like "nah, we'll fit it in the suitcase". Though I did start googling on the way back to the hotel and found that while Disney Springs has abandoned the flat free shipping, you can still do that through the parks or the resorts. So I was like we'll just wait til our last day and then we'll ship everything too big to pack in one big package. That's what we did - get your guesses in now for how much it ended up being to ship home the wreath plus several other large items!

We ended up being 10 minutes too late to make our own rice krispies at Goofy's Candy Kitchen, but that's ok, we got our Gideons. And since Goofy's Candy Kitchen is RIGHT by the uber pick up area, it wasn't out of our way to check. But it was our last thing and Trevor (and me really) were exhausted, so back to the hotel we went. The uber came at 10:24 (thanks uber receipts) and by 10:46 we were back at the hotel! It was a bit of a walk back to our room but when we walked in the room guess what we found? ALL of our purchases from earlier in the day! That was a pleasant surprise - they told us not to expect anything until at least the next day, but all the purchases, even the ones from like 3 pm at CityWalk, were already in the room. Brilliant.

Also, I forgot to say that despite wearing a Tower of Terror shirt, I was wearing Harry Potter Platform 3/4 earrings and I got so many compliments on them - not at Universal, but at Disney Springs! So that was kind of fun.

So yea, overall a very busy/tiring first day, but also lots of fun. I usually do good at not pushing us super hard but some days I kind of forget. This was one of those days. Poor Trevor! But the plan was to sleep in the next day, cause it was the first day/night of our Orlando Informer event!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 23017 steps (8.7 miles)
Ride count: 6 for Tiffany, 5 for Trevor) (Trollercoaster x2, Gringotts, Revenge of the Mummy, Rip Ride Rocket for Tiffany, Villain Con)
Savings at Universal (fancy gift card): $101.18 from AP renewal then $44.25
Savings at Disney (AP): $139.60

 

[Araminta18]

Swimming in Our Clothes - Friday Nov 15, 2024 (part 1)​

Friday morning dawned lovely. We did sleep in a little bit, and despite our plan to do Islands of Adventure today, we didn't rope drop - sleep is important! We ended up leaving the room a little after 9:30 and a boat pulled up right as we got there. Woot!


20 minutes later, we were on our way into Islands of Adventure, for adventure!

I do think its cool that you see the lagoon and the coaster and then the castle peeking up there.

We decided to go to the left, and start with Hulk! I tried the test seat (well the modified one) and had no issues, so off I went to try the real thing. Trevor was not interested. That express pass is awesome - I was up there pretty quickly, and just asked for a modified seat and got direct to row 4. The only complaint I have is that it's just one seat in the row that's modified - it'd be nice if the whole row was, cause smaller folks can still ride just fine in a modified seat. Oh well!

Once on, I realized that the seat portion of the test seat was a bit bigger than the actual seat. Like I didn't have any issue getting the restraint down or buckled, but the part you actually sit in was a bit smaller - had to like really shove my hips in. But once in I was all good.

It was a lot of fun! It did make me a bit dizzy with all the rolling but I had fun. I did think that maybe Trevor should try it - it's definitely not as fast as Veloci-coaster and not worse than some of the Busch Gardens coasters he's ridden. But also maybe not. They also have modified seating in row 1 so I figured during the even that night maybe I'd try row 1 later that night.

We kept going and ran into Dr Doom and the Green Goblin!

I was wearing my "Agatha All Along" shirt and it was purple so the Green Goblin was like "we match!" Dr Doom however was asking Trevor if he trained up/bulked up. Yay for no line character meet and greets.

Next up, we ran into the Spiderman ride! I honestly have no memory what any of the wait times were because we just used express pass and had super short wait times. I didn't really know what to expect with this ride, beyond knowing there were screens.

But I was pleasantly surprised! It was fun! The sync between the movement and the screens was really good, and I liked the mix of practical sets with the screens. The bit at the end where you go up was cool - I think you actually do go up. Trevor was laughing a lot at my reaction - I guess I had super low expectations and so was very pleasantly surprised.


We looked in the gift shop a little bit and kept going.

Had to take a pic here as we headed out of Superhero Island.

The next ride we ran into was Bilge Rat barges - we figured it was a lovely warm-ish sunny day, let's ride the water ride! That is also a VERY long queue:

But some fun theming.

We did see the signs saying you may get wet, but figured it was like the "you may get wet" on Splash Mountain signs. We should have realized something was up when we saw literally NO ONE else in line, and then we got our own barge. We'd wised up a bit and realized we may be getting VERY wet so we took a "before" picture.

We got SOAKED. At one point we went under a pipe that was like a foot in diameter that just DUMPED water on us. Like I have NEVER been this wet in real clothes before - it was like we'd jumped in a pool! Crazy!

The "after" picture. Trevor was all "i'm gonna dry off!" cause he had water-wicking shorts but mine were a bit more intense at retaining water. Normally I think those dryer things at theme parks are scams but we were definitely looking to use one here.