A Foodie Celebrates 40 TR (Sept. 28-Oct. 7, 2012) - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Where: BCV/AKL split stay
When: September 28 - October 7, 2012
Who: Shayne (that's me!) and DH David
Why: My 40th birthday celebration. My birthday was on 9/11, but we wanted to celebrate at F&WF, so we delayed our trip until 9/28.
Day 1, Friday 9/28; Part 1: Here we go!
The last 2 weeks before our trip were absolutely crazy at home -- work, kids' homework, Cub Scouts, peewee football -- I was losing my mind. And that meant I didn't get to pack a single thing into my suitcase until the night before we left! I was up until 1:30 a.m., then fell into bed only to have the alarm rouse me at 4:30 a.m. We were out the door at 5:30 and arrived at the airport at 6:20 for our 7:25 a.m. Southwest flight. We checked 3 bags and went through the long security line.
There were 3 young women who were close to missing their flight and were asking each person/family in line if they could move ahead in line. I didn't mind moving aside, as we had plenty of time and I've been in that situation before, and it's a terrible position to be in. The lady in front of us let them pass, but chastised them to "leave the house earlier next time." I guess she hadn't had her coffee yet.
We got recombobulated after passing through security and started toward our gate, when we realized that we had lost the folio from the gate agent with the numbers/bar codes for our checked bags. We returned to the security area, where I knew I had seen it in an outside pocket of our backpack after it went through the scanning machine, but couldn't find it, even after a TSA agent helped us look around. Oh well, we'd just have to hope our bags didn't get lost.
We had paid for EBCI on Southwest and got assigned boarding positions A25 and A26. David had only flown Southwest once before, and wasn't really a fan. But our growing disillusionment with United (we were former Continental loyalists) along with much cheaper airfares for this itinerary meant we were flying Southwest this time. Not long after we got to the gate, it was time to board. We walked on and easily found an aisle and middle seat toward the front of the plane. Our plane was wi-fi equipped, which was kind of cool. The flight was uneventful AND we arrived 17 minutes early. Score! By the time our feet hit the ground in Orlando, David was sold on Southwest!
I was tired, so I stopped at Starbucks in the terminal at MCO before making our way to DME. We entered the line for DME at 11:00 and were on the bus at 11:05! We departed MCO at 11:19 and stopped first at POR. Lots of people got off here, so it took a few minutes to get underway again. Next stop was Boardwalk. Here, we saw a family -- grandparents, mom and preschool DD -- waiting on our bus to arrive with a cocktail in hand. Soon, a young, fit, clean cut man got off the bus (I'm guessing military) and was greeted with hugs and kisses, gleeful shouts of "Daddy!" and the aforementioned cocktail. It made me smile to see such a happy family reunion at such a happy place!
We finally got to BC at noon and went to the online check-in area. Our room wasn't ready, but we got everything else squared away, including my birthday button. When the CM pulled out her Sharpie, I was hoping she had nice handwriting. She tried to make my name look fancy, though, and it ended up looking like "Shayze" instead of "Shayne." Oh well, either way, it was still celebratory!
We checked our bags with Bell Services and walked to B&C for lunch. We got in with no wait and had Maria as our server. We had her back in December, I think, and I liked her a lot. There is a revamped menu at B&C, so I tried the Bacon Angus cheeseburger with a cherry Coke and David had just a plain burger.
WARNING: This TR will include lots of food porn!
We ordered a No Way Jose for dessert -- I can't go to B&C and NOT get one! -- and Maria dimmed the lights and turned on the rotating light like they do for a Kitchen Sink, brought me a birthday balloon, and had everyone in the restaurant sing "Happy Birthday" to me.
With our tummies full, we were ready to head to the pre-race expo to pick up our race packets for the Tower of Terror 10-Miler (for both of us) and the Happy Haunted Trail 5K (for David). Dedicated event buses were running from BC to WWS, and we had just missed a bus. After about 15 minutes, another bus came and drove us out to WWS.
We got our race packets, t-shirts, and commemorative pins. I also bought a finisher's t-shirt (hoping that I would, indeed, finish!). Of course, I couldn't resist some shopping while we were there, as the whole place is full of different kinds of running merchandise. I saw a cute sparkly Minnie Mouse running skirt, and I thought that would be fun, so I bought it. Then I realized that I had forgotten to bring a headband to absorb sweat. As luck would have it, Bondi Bands -- the brand I wear -- was there AND they had a red band with white polka dots.
Soon I realized that running without my normal running shorts would mean no pockets. So I found a running belt that was red with white polka dots and would hold my phone and other stuff I needed during the race. Look at me! Suddenly I had something approximating a costume!
While at the expo, David got a text saying that our villa was ready. So after I shopped to my heart's content, we caught a bus back to BC and headed to our room.
Great arrival day! Nice to have the details of getting your packets for the run squared away and score some fun shopping, too. B&C sounds like a perfect first meal for a 40th b'day celebration.
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Sounded like a smooth travel day, despite the lack of sleep.
Yep, look at you - you bought yourself a costume!! A stinkin' cute one too! Looking forward to seeing that photo too, as well as more food porn! That burger is soooooo delicious....
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Great start! The burger looks yummy but that sundae looks absolutely scrumptious! Can't wait to see you running "costume".
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingfamily1129
Great start! Can't wait to see all of your running gear!
Coming up soon!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Great arrival day! Nice to have the details of getting your packets for the run squared away and score some fun shopping, too. B&C sounds like a perfect first meal for a 40th b'day celebration.
Yes, it was a relief to get all the running stuff squared away. Great meal, but I regretted it a little bit that evening -- I don't normally eat like that and my tummy let me hear about it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great start Shayne!
Thanks for reading!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
Great Start!!! I'm already drooling over the food porn!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What a great start to your trip report! And as for lots of food porn? Bring it on!
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoJayMom
Great start! I am with the others: Love the food porn
Quote:
Originally Posted by taylan1
Great Start! Love food pics so keep them coming!
More to come! I seriously took about 5x more photos of food than there are photos of David and me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disney_duke
Sounded like a smooth travel day, despite the lack of sleep.
Yep, look at you - you bought yourself a costume!! A stinkin' cute one too! Looking forward to seeing that photo too, as well as more food porn! That burger is soooooo delicious....
I'm not normally a "run-in-costume" kind of chick, so this was definitely a spontaneous thing for me!
Quote:
Originally Posted by shazza
Great start! Can't wait to hear about the races.
Not long, though I'm getting ready to post an update to finish up Day 1, then I'm leaving town for work, so I probably won't get to the races until sometime over the weekend.
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We got Villa 445 and our DME luggage was already there when we arrived. We called Bell Services to get the bags we had checked in upon arrival, our Owner's Locker, and our Garden Grocer order.
The luggage I wrote about in my PTR
Once all that stuff was delivered and we had unpacked, we headed out to Epcot! First stop was Guest Relations to redeem our AP vouchers. That didn't take long and soon we were in the park.
It had rained earlier in the day, so we stopped at the gift shop at the International Gateway to buy ponchos, just in case the rain returned. But, for the time being, the rain had given way to the sun, and we noticed a beautiful rainbow!
We were excited to be at the F&WF for the first time. The lines were all pretty long, given that this was the first day of the festival, and we hadn't planned to visit any booths today, as we assumed it would be very busy. But as we passed the Dessert & Champagne booth, we noticed the line was short, so we got in it. I had read the DFB guide to the F&WF on the plane ride to Orlando, and I knew this booth was serving a Moet & Chandon champagne that is the first sparkling wine designed to be served over ice. It is called Ice Imperial, and it was really quite good! Not too tart and not too sweet -- very refreshing!
From there, we headed toward the Festival Center, which is located in the old Wonders of Life pavilion. But on the way, we noticed the line for Mission Space was really short, so we detoured over there for a mission to Mars on the orange side. The posted wait time was 15 minutes, but we walked right on. We got paired with 2 guys who had obviously been having a good time at the FW&F.
As the pre-show wore on, we learned that they had never ridden MS before. They started to get nervous about the risks posed by "enclosed dark spaces," but we assured them it would be ok and that there was "space sickness" bags in case things really got bad.
Once we got on the ride, they lost their minds with excitement. As we started to take off, one of them started shrieking, "Oh my God! How do they do that?!?" And this continued with every new thing that happened. I was laughing so hard I was crying. It was a fantastic way to start our vacation.
We finally did make it over the Festival Center. We looked around the wine shop where this bottle caught my eye and tickled my funny bone.
We picked up our F&WF passports, which have a place for you to get a stamp from each country's booth that you visit. Then we went to check out the Chase lounge, which was available for all Chase debit and credit card holders. We flashed our Disney Visa to get in, and found a small but comfortable room with iPads and free soft drinks and water. It was a nice place to cool off and get out of the heat.
After we had cooled off, we headed to the Stockpot Shop in the Festival Center to browse the F&WF merchandise. I bought a festival cookbook and a bad made of recycled 2011 F&WF banners. I had heard these sell out quickly, so I wanted to be sure to get one right away. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of anything I bought!
We had a 7:00 ADR at Via Napoli, so we went there next. We started with the arancini (fried risotto balls). I had spaghetti and meatballs, and David had an individual pepperoni and sausage pizza (which I failed to take a picture of, for some reason).
I was really quite full, but David insisted I needed dessert, so we ordered a tiramisu to split. Before that arrived, our charming server, Salvatore, brought me a free birthday dessert, which was a lemony sort of cookie with whipped cream. The wait staff came over and sang to me in Italian.
After dinner, we realized we'd be arriving back at the America Gardens Theater just in time for the final Night Ranger concert of the evening as part of the Eat to the Beat concert series associated with the festival. I'm an '80s music fanatic, but David not so much. So I was surprised when he agreed to find a seat in the theater to enjoy the concert. It was clear the band was having a blast and so was the crowd. They sang "Sister Christian" second-to-last and the whole crowd sang along.
Then David wanted to stop off to browse the Mitsukoshi store in the Japan pavilion. Ummm, okay. Our kids love Japanese anime stuff, and he said he wanted to get some preliminary ideas about what to buy them as souvenirs. We looked at some different t-shirts and other items. Then we found the monorail dishes that they use for kids' meals at Tokyo Dining. We knew our kids would go crazy for these (they had hoped to get them at Teppan Edo last December, but couldn't), and there were, of course, only 2 left. So we went ahead and bought those. Finally, David agreed that we had spent enough money for one day and that we should head back to the villa.
When we arrived back at the room, I gasped in surprise to see a pretty "Princess" banner hanging on our door.
We went inside and I found a trail of rose petals leading to the bedroom -- don't worry, this will remain family friendly! On the bed, there were 3 hat boxes, a framed certificate proclaiming me an official princess, a poem from the Fairy Godmother, a box of chocolate, a princess wand, and a princess sash. There was a balloon bouquet by the window and a bouqet of roses in a vase on the desk. SWOON!!
The hat boxes contained: (1) a small glass bottle and mirror compact, (2) a silver necklace with a crown charm, and (3) a white pillow underneath a tiara!! Not just any tiara -- a giant tiara. Like one any girl (or 40 year old woman) would be giddy to wear!
You can't see the tiara too well here, but don't worry, it makes plenty of future appearances!
The in-room celebration had been the reason that David was delaying our return to the villa. Disney Floral told him that we absolutely had to be out of the room from 7-9 pm so they could set everything up. What a wonderful way to end the first evening!
Up next: Would my tummy be able to handle a nighttime race?
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I was up until 1:30 a.m., then fell into bed only to have the alarm rouse me at 4:30 a.m. We were out the door at 5:30 and arrived at the airport at 6:20 for our 7:25 a.m. Southwest flight. We checked 3 bags and went through the long security line.
The flight was uneventful AND we arrived 17 minutes early. Score! By the time our feet hit the ground in Orlando, David was sold on Southwest! 
We entered the line for DME at 11:00 and were on the bus at 11:05! We departed MCO at 11:19 and stopped first at POR. Lots of people got off here, so it took a few minutes to get underway again. Next stop was Boardwalk. Here, we saw a family -- grandparents, mom and preschool DD -- waiting on our bus to arrive with a cocktail in hand. Soon, a young, fit, clean cut man got off the bus (I'm guessing military) and was greeted with hugs and kisses, gleeful shouts of "Daddy!" and the aforementioned cocktail. It made me smile to see such a happy family reunion at such a happy place! 
Oh well, either way, it was still celebratory!
-- and Maria dimmed the lights and turned on the rotating light like they do for a Kitchen Sink, brought me a birthday balloon, and had everyone in the restaurant sing "Happy Birthday" to me. 
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Pixie Dust
looks absolutely scrumptious! Can't wait to see you running "costume".
PassPorter Guide Author
And as for lots of food porn? Bring it on! 
,
As we started to take off, one of them started shrieking, "Oh my God! How do they do that?!?" And this continued with every new thing that happened. I was laughing so hard I was crying. 
It was a fantastic way to start our vacation.
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