"Our Camera is broke but the Trip Report Must Go On" F&W Trip Report Begins - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I'll post the second day later tonight when I get home. Melissa, I LOVE FOOD FESTIVALS. I really am craving going to a good seafood one. If you hear about one in our Southeastern corner, let me know!
As a small tease, I must say that the shrimp at the Melbourne, Australia booth was my favorite thing of all time. Oh and the alcohol intake by me almost quadrupled on Sunday. hahaha
I have to tell you. I was REALLY disappointed that we didn't get to meet either! We made it to the park around 10:00 - as we checked out that day and the computers were down for a bit at luggage check-in and one suitcase was a just a bit too heavy . I thought I'd show the airline with their one suitcase rule (or pay out of nose for two) and bought the BIGGEST luggage that was legally allowed. Well, I have to remember to pack the LIGHTEST stuff in the luggage! LOL
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Matt, you and Bethany need to make a trip up to Charlotte next year for the Shout Festival. We've been twice and had a blast both times. Great food, great fun!
There's a seafood festival in Nags Head that I really want to go one year. It's in the spring, like April or May... We want to get down to it at some point. I just love the Outer Banks.
And I'm sure there are some in Charleston at some point during the year. I'll keep a look out
After the sour taste of the camera issue from the night more, I asked Bethany if she was up for a change of plans. I asked if she wouldn’t mind taking Audrey to the Magic Kingdom early in the morning before heading back to the Food & Wine Festival. She readily agreed. I know Audrey is a baby and doesn’t realize everything that is going on, I felt bad for the little tyke. She was a pretty good baby all day on Saturday. She loves to be stimulated so I thought a short Fantasyland trip would be very enjoyable to her! I’m a softy sometimes. We got to the Magic Kingdom about 20 minutes before opening and we lined ourselves up with the right entrance path. As soon as we got into the park, we headed straight to Fantasyland. We have all been to Fantasyland so I’ll spare you the play by play. I will say though that Audrey loved the rides. She hardly made a sound and just looked left and right. I think she loved the colors in Pooh the most but Peter Pan was the ride where she was the most alert! After we finished in Fantasyland, we just walked around a bit. We saw a photopass lady and we decided we needed some photos. I’m really happy in how they turned out!
Our sleeping girl. I bought her the Stitch. I'm thinking that Mestitch will approve.
Bethany is looking so awesome after giving birth in late June!
The Photopass lady asked would we like to kiss. She obviously hasn't seen our wedding photos. We kiss constantly. LOL So we puckered up!
Here's our sig pic. LOL maybe you don't want us too smooch that close. I dunno.. haha
Well, this was a quick update, I’m sure I’ll get the rest of Day Two up tonight. It’s almost done!
Coming up next: More Food, More Alcohol, More Food, More you get the idea…
Just like the update for yesterday, I want to thank Bethany immensely for her detailed memories! Her posts will be in red again and mine will be in blue!
We left the Magic Kingdom and decided to take the monorail over to Epcot to save time! We got in the park at about 11:00am and headed straight back to World Showcase. I’m’ think that to truly decide who loves World Showcase more Matt and I issue a challenge to Melissa and Andy. Hahahaha The winner gets a certificate saying they are the true World Showcase Masters. The losers have to go to Hollywood Studios and stand in front of the Toy Story Mania fastpasses machines for 5 hours. The chances of escaping without injury are nil. Hahaha kidding. We’d love to see you guys and all the other passporters one day.
Okay after Matt added more money to the giftcard, we started the second day with Montreal, Canada. I did not try any of the desserts the day before, so I was excited to get on them this day.
That’s what she said. Woo hoo Michael from the Office reference!
Matt….Matt…Matt…Anyways, I had the maple custard topped with almond crumble and it was AWESOME! Almond and custard is not really Matt’s thing so I was not able to convince him to try it, but I was incredibly pleased with it. Matt ordered the cheddar cheese soup which he said was good but it was pretty hot and heavy for the weather. He did not want to finish it, so I tried it and ended up finishing the rest of it. I worked at a restaurant in college that served cheddar cheese soup and I never liked it, but the Canada booth really rocked their version of it out!
Yeah, custard is not my bag. The soup was good but I was in the mood for meat…. Must…resist…Office…reference…
Matt Norris! Hahaha okay it was funny. From there we moved backwards to Istanbul, Turkey. I ordered the Manti with yogurt sauce which was fantastic. Matt did not see anything he wanted to try, but I let him try a bite of mine. I was impressed he liked it because it was not something he generally would be willing to try. I was really excited that I was 3 for 3 with loving everything I had tried so far. Matt even made a joke that we were being boring for liking everything! Not to worry, we did try some things later in the day that invoked rather passionate revulsion!
The next country on our path was France and I was pretty excited about this booth since we had such a great experience at the French restaurant on our last trip. Matt decided to be brave and try the escargot, while I went safe and ordered the milk chocolate crème brulee. Strangely enough, Matt liked the escargot while I thought the crème brulee was the most disgusting thing I had ever had. Ok, perhaps it was not that bad, but my expectations were high and it fell really short of them. Matt and I love to watch Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsey and as I tried to eat it I heard his voice cursing out the chefs who made the stuff. It tasted like Nestle Quik and was incredibly runny. It tasted so horrible that I almost wanted to spit it out as soon as it was in my mouth.
I was one of the pickiest eaters ever as a child. I never ate vegetables, I hated most Southern food, and frankly I was too scared to try things. As an adult, I still won’t eat some things (I so don’t like casseroles) but I try things now. I decided that this was a time to try something like escargot and I actually liked it! It was pretty good. I was quite proud of myself!
We skipped past Louisiana and Morocco since we had been there the day before and headed for Wellington, New Zealand. Matt did not order anything since nothing called out to him, but he said he would try the lamb slider on a brioche roll that I decided to get. The roll was good, I will give them that, but the sauce with the lamb slider was foul. It tasted absolutely funky and if I thought the crème brulee was not good, this was ten times worse! It was so bad that I did not want Matt to even try it, but I think curiosity got the better of him, either that or he thought I was being dramatically extreme in my reaction. His opinion of it mimicked mine; it was terrible.
Hahaha, remember when as a kid somebody would say something was gross and you wanted to taste it or see it? Yeah, that really didn’t go away as I grew older. Her reaction was so repulsive that I had to try it. It was so weird tasting. hahaha
Thankfully the next country was Japan; something we knew would be safe and tasty. Matt ordered a Kirin Ichiban beer to help take out the nasty slider taste and I went for the California roll. I lived in Japan as a child and ate seaweed and eels and other traditional Japanese food, but I wanted something calm after that slider. I am not sure if it was because my stomach was mad at me for putting in the previous combination of bad food, but the safe California roll was not safe for me that day. Something about the fish eggs in the roll really upset my belly. Matt, Audrey and I ended up hanging out in our quiet, shady spot next to the large Japanese store. Epcot was not as easy of a place to feed Audrey as the Magic Kingdom, and it also was much harder to get into cool spots, so we were happy to have that spot for her to eat and us to escape the heat.
Nobody better sit in our shady spot. Hahaha. We love that place. I enjoyed my beer. It was tasty!
After a short stop at our Japanese alcove, we got up and walked over to San Francisco, USA. Matt wanted some red meat and ordered the seared beef medallion with cheddar cheese polenta and I was excited to see strawberry shortcake and the dynamite vineyards merlot. I am not a wine expert, I usually drink microbrewery beer, but I decided to try the merlot and really enjoyed it! Since I had just fed Audrey I knew it would be safe to have a little bit, but I played it safe and did not drink the entire sample. Matt loved the beef medallion and I agreed it was really tender and tasty. He did not try the polenta because he does not usually like mushy food, but I am a big fan of it and I tried it. I have never tried polenta before, so I have no idea what it generally tasted like, but this reminded me of cream of wheat with gravy. It was not bad, but I prefer my cream of wheat with sugar and butter so it felt wrong, haha! As for the strawberry shortcake…the strawberries were fresh so that was good, and it looked pretty, but that is as far as it went for positives. One of the things we noticed about the food and wine festival was how many of the foods were made ahead of time. Obviously a lot of the foods could not be prepared on site, but some places were better than others about storing the pre-prepared foods versus those made at the booth. San Francisco was not one of the latter. The shortcake was dry because they were exposed to air instead of being covered. They also saved time by using whipped cream in a can which tasted really oily.
I was getting pretty bummed that so many of the things I chose were do disappointing so I decided to skip a booth and give my tummy a break. The next one we stopped at was the Hops and Barley where Matt got the New England lobster roll. He thought it was “not bad” but it was one of the more expensive items at Epcot so he would not have ordered it again. I know Matt also got a Samuel Adams beer here, but I do not know which one, just that he thought it was good!
I believe it was the Festival Brew. Again, it was tasty! (this is a pattern for me for the rest of the evening)
Hahaha believe him. He was living the high life. Matt really wanted to try the pepperberry prawns on the barbie with sweet potato hash from Melbourne, Australia. I got the Wattleseed Mousse. Man, I just love mousse!
We also had stopped at Bologno, Italy to get another Virgin Primavera so I was fine with drinking that. Matt loved the prawns; he even went back for more later in the day! He let me try the hash which I thought was really dry and in strips like regular hash which was just too bizarre for me, a big fan of the sweet potato.
Those prawns were AMAZING. I think I bought 3 maybe 4 helpings as the day went on. By far my favorite food. Oh and she forgot that I got another Italian sausage pizza at Italy. Hmmm, maybe my kidney problems the week before were a blessing. I dropped 10 pounds in a week. I think I ate it all back.
After Australia we headed to Cape Town, South Africa. A few years ago Matt and I went to eat at Boma and while we loved the food, it tore our bellies up. Because of that, I was a little leery of trying something so exotic, but I loved the smells coming from the booth so I ordered the bobotie with mango chutney and Matt went with the Durban spiced chicken with coconut milk-infused root vegetables. I thought the bobotie was the worst thing I had there. The texture of the meat was like tapioca pudding in an omelet that tasted like strong spices I did not like. This time Matt trusted me and did not try it himself. The taste was so intense that even my Virgin Primavera could not cut the tingling it left on my tongue. Matt had a much better experience with his chicken. I even tried some of it and loved the unique taste of the Durban and coconut. It even cut out the taste of the bobotie nasties!
Yeah that bobotie was just nasty looking. I even thought about not kissing you the rest of the day. Why would I want to smooch somebody who ate that stuff?
As if you could actually hold out. I don’t think either of us could go fifty feet without a smooch.
Touche.
Touche.
From South Africa we headed to New Delhi, India. I was really eager to try the mango mousse and I was so happy it was as delicious as it was. It was incredibly sweet like mangos are and the mousse was creamy and cool. I enjoyed it so much that I had a hard time putting it down even though it was quite rich. It was the best thing I had on the entire trip!
Our last trip before we took a break for rides was in Shanghai, China where Matt got a Tsing Tao Beer.
I did? Man, I love me some Tsingtao but I was so busy trying other things, I forgot about that. Oh and soon after that I finally got a Mojito. It was good but no Grey Goose Slush. Thanks to Princess Sharon and others for the repeated praise of it!
We went and rode Grand Fiesta Tour next and walked around inside the Mexican Pavilion. Here are a couple of photos from inside the pavilion that a photopass photographer took.
I think we then went and rode Journey into Imagination because Bethany is such a Figment fanatic. Audrey is just like her Mama and she seemed to enjoy it too.
This has been a long update so I’ll stop it for now but we haven’t left Epcot yet. We have more to come! Here are some pics from the day though! We used our cellphones this day. Not great pics but better than nothing!
Awesome Oktoberfest pin!
The Escargot from France
One of many beers I drank.
The Maple Custard from Montreal
The Cheddar Cheese Soup from Montreal
The Manti with Yogurt Sauce from Istanbul
The Creme Brule from France
Lamb Slider on a Brioche Roll from Wellington, New Zealand
California Rolls from Tokyo
Kirin Beer from Tokyo
Beef Medallions w/ Cheddar Cheese Polenta from San Francisco
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. I thought I'd show the airline with their one suitcase rule (or pay out of nose for two) and bought the BIGGEST luggage that was legally allowed. Well, I have to remember to pack the LIGHTEST stuff in the luggage! LOL
-Amanda 
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