The Grand Poohbah Trip: Food & Wine Festival and the Grand Californian: COMPLETED 5/21/09 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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The Grand Poohbah Trip: Food & Wine Festival and the Grand Californian: COMPLETED 5/21/09
Thought we'd post our pre-trip report that we're calling "The Grand Poohbah Trip: Food & Wine Festival and the Grand Californian."
Ever since we left Florida and moved to Las Vegas, we've been catching up on trips to Disneyland - my old stomping grounds as a native Californian. We started out with Paradise Pier - moved up to the Disneyland Hotel and that was so good, we stayed there twice. Now we're finally staying at the Grand Californian.
If you read our last trip report, you know that we had an amazing dining experience at Napa Rose when we sampled the Chef's Menu. We could go there once a quarter. But this trip's main purpose is the Food & Wine Festival - our favorite time of year to be at Disney World. And the Grand Californian, of course.
We realize the festival is on a much smaller scale at Disneyland than at WDW, but we've booked more special events than we ever have before. And it all starts with our biggest event - the Winemaker's Dinner.
Friday: Winemaker's Dinner - Renowned winemakers present their award-winning vintages for your pleasure while Disneyland® Resort chefs prepare exquisite meals to pair with the wines, showcasing the flavors and nuances in each glass.
Saturday: Festival Wine Reception at Golden Vine Winery - a beautiful evening under the stars, sampling exquisite wines and enjoying mouth-watering hors d'oeuvres.
Sunday: Sweet Sunday (a favorite event of ours at WDW) - Begin your Sweet Sunday with a sparkling toast and a light buffet. Afterwards one of the acclaimed pastry chefs in our lineup will demonstrate how to make three signature desserts. You'll get an opportunity to sample these luscious sweets throughout the session.
It's going to be a jam-packed weekend and we're thinking we won't have much time for rides or the beach because we also want to soak up the pool and spa at the Grand Californian and maybe even get in a massage. We'd like to fit in a few rides, but I've been working long hours at the keyboard pounding away on an online Help system for work and pulled a muscle in my thigh (now how did I do that?) and it hurts to walk. Oh goodie! I'm just hoping, hoping, hoping I'm all better by then. But, if not, I'll have to crawl to these events because I'm not going to miss them.
If I am able, we'd like to at least catch the rides that WDW doesn't have because we're hoping to make it there in the fall for the WDW Food & Wine Festival. Can you tell we love food and wine? Woo hoo!
And... we're going to try to post updates on twitter - if we can figure out how to do that from our cell phone.
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Woohoo! Sounds wonderful! I wish I was going, too!
I am looking forward to hearing all about this trip. It sounds like an almost perfect dream trip (it's been a very long time--decades really--since I visited Disneyland so I would just extend it).
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Just found out we almost had dinner with Deb (Koma) of allears. She's at the Food & Wine Festival this weekend and went to the winemaker's dinner last night. That was our first plan but we rescheduled it for next weekend because we wanted to do the MacMurray Ranch Wine Dinner with Fred MacMurray's daughter hosting. Woo hoo!
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We're here! It's really busy for Food & Wine - so glad we booked several events. The first one is tonight. Enjoyed the pool drink service while we waited for our room at the Grand Californian. And love the view of DCA from our room.
For live updates and pics, you can follow us on twitter as two4disney.
I'm looking forward to reading your report - I'm curious as to whether my in-laws (wine snobs) would like going there for the festival...
Wine snobs would definitely love the Wine Dinners. Last night we dined with Hollywood royalty - Fred MacMurray's daughter Kate hosted the MacMurray Ranch dinner and told stories about Fred and Walt Disney. Wonderful night!
We're back! Had a wonderful, wonderful time. Loved the Grand Californian - the best service yet at a Disney resort. Thanks, Bill, for your cable tip - worked so well with the netbook and the internet connection was so handy. The Food & Wine Festival was a blast - met some great people and made new friends. Will start posting some highlights on our blog and hope to get the report started soon.
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