2019 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival: Second Visit

Date of Visit: May 4, 2019

For our second visit to the 2019 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, we focused on the areas at the beginning of the World Showcase. Our first stop was the Citrus Bloom, where we tried the lobster tail, which we liked the taste of, but found hard to get off the shell as tends to be the norm for lobster...

Next we stopped at the Honey Bee-stro. Mik enjoyed the honey-peach cobbler freeze and the chicken flatbread.

Nearby we checked out the Goodness Garden Butterfly House. There's lots of butterflies to see, but not that interesting to us because it just seemed like they were mostly flying by the netting trying to get out.

Next we stopped by the Gardeners Terrace where Minnie's Garden Party is going this weekend only. Here we picked up the button they were giving out and also tried the fried green tomatoes at Arbor, which Mik didn't like, but I got them mainly for me and I liked them except the paprika oil does make them spicy.

Our last stop was dessert from Pineapple Promenade. Mik had the pineapple soft-serve ice cream and I had the desert violet lemonade (sadly my flower blew away as I was carrying the items back to Mik).

On the way out of Epcot to park hop over to Magic Kingdom, we stopped for a photo because Mik wanted one with his Darth Vader socks for Star Wars Day. We were going to do a photo in Hollywood Studios earlier in the day, but we were just done with the park after discovering that we couldn't use our Toy Story Mania fastpass because the wheelchair accessible vehicle was down.

Destination Info:
2019 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival
Lake Buena Vista, FL

2019 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival

Date of Visit: May 2, 2019

Every year we talk about wanting to go to the Flower & Garden Festival again. We'll go next year turned into five years since the last time we went mainly because we started doing an annual extended family trip every January (once it was February) and then it just seemed too soon to go again for the Flower & Garden (or we were doing Destination D for our just us WDW trip for the year).

As we started our day in Hollywood Studios with Toy Story Mania fastpasses, we entered Epcot between the UK and France pavilions. After hanging out in the gift shop by the entrance for the rain to let up, we decided to start in France where Mik had one of his favorites from before - the duck confit. We also enjoyed the chilled cucumber soup.

Next we enjoyed a key lime tart and a watermelon cucumber slush (my favorite thing we had today) at Florida Fresh between France and Morocco.

Next Mik had the shredded beef brisket with smoked potato from The Smokehouse in American Adventure. He didn't particularly enjoy it, but we did like the sunflower topiaries with Mickey and Minnie.

After the brisket, Mik was full so we just strolled through the rest of World Showcase making note of what we might want to try later this week. Of course, we also strolled through Mik's favorite part of Epcot - the Romantic Road in Germany.

We also enjoyed checking out the various topiaries with my favorite being Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Destination Info:
2019 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival
Lake Buena Vista, FL

Disney's Hollywood Studios 30th Anniversary

Date of Visit: May 1, 2019

I did want to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios on the 30th anniversary, but I originally thought it would be October 1 like Magic Kingdom and Epcot and was going to do a birthday trip with Mom and Mik. By the time I realized it was actually May 1, we had already booked our 2019 just Mik and I trip to do the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival and arrived on May 1 and it was too late to make changes to arrive April 30. In the end, though, arriving at the park around noon still worked out great and I even had time to bring Mik back to the room and go back for my 5pm fastpass for the Aliens that he let me book instead of Toy Story Mania for once because he sometimes doesn't want to go to the parks our first day as he's tired from the flight and sitting on the plane.

We were happy to get the 30th anniversary button when we went in the park (I also ended up with an extra when I came back later, but they seemed to be done with them when I was leaving the park around 6). They also handed out posters when you left the park, which are nice, but not sure if they will survive the trip home, although our Mary Poppins ones from Destination D did okay by rolling them around a Pringles can and as usual we did bring one of those as a snack so they might.

Mik's number one priority for the 30th anniversary was the special food. In particular, we both wanted to get the lightsaber churros.

We also had fun going to a couple of the special photo ops with props for the 30th. Mik was kind of done for the day by then and also still needed to get some new sunglasses, so not the best photos, but he did at least try for me and they didn't all end up horrible.

Destination Info:
Hollywood Studios
Lake Buena Vista, FL

Walt Disney World - Disney's Wilderness Lodge: Storybook Dining at Artist Point

Date of Visit: January 8, 2019

The day before our annual family trip I was reading the latest DVC magazine and discovered that you could meet Grumpy as part of the character dining at Artist Point. I was surprised to find I actually could get a reservation for one of the days on our trip and we went back and forth on whether we would keep the reservation or not because it was also the day we had booked the character breakfast at Chef Mickey's, which was something we overall preferred to keep. In the end, we cancelled our dinner reservation in Disney Springs for later in the week and went for a splurge dining day. It particularly made sense to not push this back to try next year since this year we stayed at Boulder Ridge Villas and we have not enjoyed our experiences getting to dining where we're not staying.

When Mik got the menu, he thought he needed help opening it because it looks like it's through a loop, but it's actually just a magnet.

We really enjoyed that the appetizers were shared as that meant we got to try them all. For the appetizers, Mik's favorite was the Hunter's Pie.

The winter squash bisque was also fun in the little cast iron bowls.

For his entree, Mik enjoyed the Magic Mirror Slow-braised Veal Shank.

The desserts are also shared, which in the end we really appreciated because it meant we didn't choose something that sounded good and end up disappointed as we didn't really enjoy any of them.

The meal ending with The Hunter's Gift to the Queen (cracked maple popcorn and ganache hearts) was not a disappointment, though, and good highlight to end the meal.

Overall we really enjoyed this character dining experience. Of course, the best part was Mik meeting Grumpy. Kirsten, Nora, and I also enjoyed visiting the Evil Queen.

Destination Info:

Artist Point at Disney's Wilderness Lodge

901 Timberline Dr
Orlando, FL 32830

Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail 2018

Date of Visit: November 13, 2018

Another trip a few years ago we had wanted to check out the Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail, but never got around to it. This year Mik wasn't really convinced to check it out, but since we stayed at Saratoga Springs it was an easy walk over to Disney Springs for his favorite of a pretzel dog at Wetzel Pretzels and by promising we would only stop if he wanted to take photos I got him to agree to do the trail on the way back to the resort. In the end, he loved it and even had me take some photos as it was easier for me to get some of the angles he wanted.

Beauty and the Beast Tree

The Little Mermaid Tree

Frozen Tree

Mulan Tree

Villians Tree

Dumbo Tree

Star Wars Trees

Mik with Star Wars Tree - I got in trouble for not getting all the lightsaber trees in the photo, but then he also didn't want to wait for people to get out of the way for me to have done it that way.

Peter Pan Tree

Mary Poppins Tree

Alice in Wonderland Tree

Fantasia Tree

Toy Story Tree

Overall we really enjoyed checking out the different themed trees. The timing of going right as it was getting dark was perfect as there weren't too many people and it was easy to take our time and get photos of what we wanted. It being early in the holiday season might have also contributed to the low crowds, but just, in general, it seems Disney Springs in more enjoyable before dark basically because people are mostly in the parks instead.

Destination Info:
Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail
Lake Buena Vista, FL

Epcot International Food & Wine Festival 2018

Date of Visit: November 12, 2018

We actually planned to go to the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival last year, but had to cancel our trip due to a hurricane. This year we didn't plan to go and ended up catching the last day of it as it seems like it ran much longer this year than normal.

We started at The Cheese Studio with Braised Beef 'Stroganoff' for Mik and Cheese Trio for me. The stroganoff ended up being Mik's favorite.

Mik also really like the seating area by The Cheese Studio as he could actually use it, unlike the high tables they mainly have available around the festival.

Next Mik had the Liquid Nitro Chocolate-Almond Truffle and I had the Twining's Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea and Chocolate Shake from The Art of Pairing.

At the Austrlia booth, we shared the Grilled Sweet and Spicy Bush Berry Shrimp, which was my favorite of what we tried.

Finally, we tried the Warm Indian Bread with three dipping sauces. Mik mainly liked it for the bread, but did also like the coriander pesto dip.

Before leaving we made sure to stop at the Festival Center to get our passholder magnet and check out the chocolate sculptures (and get our free Ghiradelli square because not like we didn't still have leftovers from the Disney Cruise last month...).

Overall glad we at least got to experience the festival a little this year. Really wish we could've come four days during it, though, and got the passholder cutting board!

Destination Info:
Epcot International Food & Wine Festival
Lake Buena Vista, FL