Category Archives: Disney

Disney, Travel

December 30th, 2017 – Part One

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Every great trip report starts in the days leading up to actually going on a trip! Feel free to skip to the next post, we don’t get to Disney until then… I knew that the week leading up to this trip would be really busy, so we had decided to skip Christmas this year – which broke my heart a little bit since I love decorating so much (I’m typically that person who has multiple trees…). We spent Christmas Day at my mom’s house (where she once again spoiled us by buying us a red KitchenAid stand mixer – something I’ve been eyeing up for years despite the fact I don’t cook), and had a wonderful turkey dinner. On Boxing Day, we did a bit of shopping, although it was mainly last minute things we needed for the trip or pet supplies to last while we were away. We then went to the Olive Garden for unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks haha. December 27th, we both had to work. Since we had been trying to eat through the food in our fridge, and hadn’t bought any new groceries we again went out to eat that night – this time at Famoso. It’s a fantastic Neapolitan style pizza place and on Wednesday nights their prosciutto-wrapped mozza balls are on special – so delicious. We also had a coupon that expired December 31st, so we basically had to go eat there that day haha.

December 28th, we both worked again all day. We had started setting what we needed to take in our spare bedroom a few weeks earlier, but I started seriously packing on this day. December 29th, I was up early to check us into our flight. I was hoping to score an upgrade to first class for a small fee, but no such luck.  Luke had to work again that day, but only a half day. It was my scheduled day off, so I took advantage of that and packed like a crazy person! We had so much stuff to take due to this being a two week long trip and lugging all our wedding stuff, so I had to be very creative in how I packed to make sure nothing would get broken and our suitcases stayed underweight. The pets were all really helpful while I packed…

Eventually, I was satisfied that everything was packed and I wasn’t forgetting anything, so we drove our dogs out to my best friend’s house. She was going to be watching them for the first few days (and my mom would be checking in on our cats and degus) before my co-worker Scott moved into our house on January 2nd to act as our pet/house sitter. The worst part of any trip for me is saying goodbye to my puppies

Luke went to sleep at a decent time, while I stayed awake because I decided I needed to clean our house. I think I was just excited/nervous for the next two weeks haha. It was pretty late by the time I finally went to bed. My mom was going to drive us to the airport the next morning, so we had told her our plan of leaving our house at 5:45am. At 5:52am, she called my phone and woke us up – Luke’s alarm didn’t go off. So, it was a pretty frantic few minutes of pulling on clothes, grabbing our last minute items to be packed (cell phone chargers, etc), and then trying to load all our luggage into my SUV as quickly as possible.  To make everything even better, this was the weather…

yep, it felt like -47oC with the windchill – which meant we couldn’t load up my Rav4 the night before because we had things which could freeze.

Luckily, we had built in a bit of a buffer so we knew we would be fine, but Luke and I like to be at the airport very early for any flight – it’s the one thing in my life I’m always early for haha. About halfway to the airport Luke realized he had forgot his Brita water bottle in the garage, he had set it down to lift a suitcase into the SUV, and he was pretty sad about it. Florida water tastes disgusting, but those Brita bottles really work well to mask the taste! It was too late to turn around, but luckily we had actually bought a bunch of those bottles to put into our welcome bags for our wedding guests, so I told him he could steal one from there so he wouldn’t be without on this trip.

We arrived at the airport, hugged my mom goodbye and headed inside. Typically when we fly, we book the cheapest flight, but for this trip we decided to spend the extra money and fly direct. There’s actually only one flight per week that goes from Edmonton to Orlando direct, and it’s only on Saturdays. Initially, our trip was going to be from January 2nd – 13th, but once we decided we wanted the direct flight, we extended our trip backwards to December 30th.

We checked in and dropped off our four giant suitcases. I was a little nervous watching them disappear on the conveyor belt as my wedding dress and Luke’s suit were inside one… We were going to take our wedding day outfits as carry-on, but we already had so much to carry, and we decided to take the chance that it would all work out – after all, we were flying direct and our wedding wasn’t until the end of our vacation.

The security line for the US departures was the longest we’ve ever seen it. We had our boarding passes scanned, and then everyone was being directed to the left to join the snaking line. However, I was randomly selected, and asked to step to the right. Luke was told to stay with me, since we were travelling together. I had to place my carry-on suitcase on top of a table, and a security lady opened it up and looked inside. I had nothing to hide, so these additional screenings never bother me. Once she was finished, she told us to follow her and she escorted us to the front of the line. We easily saved 20-30 minutes in line just by being randomly selected! Go us! The rest of security and customs was a breeze, “Where are you going?” Walt Disney World. “What is the purpose of your trip?” To get married!

December 30, 2017 – Part Two

Disney, Food Review

Plaza Inn – November 11, 2017

One of our repeat meals from our previous trip to Disneyland was at the Plaza Inn for breakfast. We again had a reservation for first thing in the morning on the Saturday we were there, and were able to enter a fairly empty park. We checked in to the restaurant, paid up front for our meal (a requirement here – also, hurray for AP discounts!), were handed our Plaza Inn pins and were led to our table. Along the way, we ran into my favourite, Eeyore, so naturally we had to stop for hugs.

We also found some chipmunks before I even had a chance to take off my sunglasses, so we took some selfies 🙂

Chip, Dale and Eeyore loved Luke’s shirt, and made a big deal out of it haha.

Of all the character meals we’ve done at Disneyland and Walt Disney World (and it’s actually quite a few), none of them compare to this one for number of characters. Most character meals have four, sometimes five characters – this one typically has nine or ten. We had already seen three before even sitting down.

The food here is pretty basic breakfast fare. It’s a buffet, but the cast members tend to serve you, you just let them know what you’d like.

I had a made to order omelet with bacon, ham and cheese to start. I tend to stay away from eggs, they don’t always agree with me, but I just can’t help myself when I see an omelet station! I also had a glass of apple juice.

The omelet was obviously fresh, as I watched it being made. It was more eggs than I wanted to eat, so I didn’t finish it all, but I did enjoy it. There was a lot of bacon and ham, and a generous serving of cheese on top.

I grabbed a second plate with some bacon, ham and a piece of chicken-fried steak with country gravy.

This stuff was all ok. Nothing was spectacular, but I don’t eat come to Plaza Inn at breakfast for the food.

Luke’s first plate contained hash browns, sausage, scrambled eggs and bacon, along with a yogurt/granola/berry parfait and a small plate with a chocolate pastry and some fruit.

Again, this was all ok. Disney bacon is always good. The hashbrowns weren’t great, but everything else was fine.

Our first visitor to our table was T-I-double-Gah-er, who was his usual bouncy self!

Next up was a villain, Mr. Captain Hook.

Max was next (Luke’s faces are hilarious in these pictures)

One of my favourites, Winnie the Pooh stopped by to see us next.

Eeyore then stopped by, and even though we had already taken pictures with him when we first entered the restaurant, we had to get some more 🙂

The 8th character we saw was the Fairy Godmother

We noticed we had time before the next character stopped by, so we headed over to grab more food. I grabbed a slice of french toast and a Mickey waffle, and a small plate of fruit (strawberries, watermelon, orange slices, grapes and honeydew melon), along with a little jello cup. Luke grabbed a second plate as well, but I have no idea what he had since I forgot to take a picture.

I like the french toast here, I had it last time we ate at Plaza as well. It’s nothing special, but the warm syrup is a nice touch. Mickey waffles are a classic staple when eating breakfast at Disney, and they all taste the same. I’ve realized over time that I might be allergic to honeydew, it always makes my mouth feel funny so I only had a small bite of that. I enjoyed the rest of it though.

I decided to run to the bathroom, thinking I had enough time before Piglet made his way over to our table. However, the bathroom is outside of the restaurant, so I just missed him by the time I got back. I saw Piglet about to head outside to visit with the people out there, so I ran over and managed to get a few selfies with him.

Minnie Mouse is technically the host of this meal, but she was not making her way around the restaurant and instead was standing outside by the main entrance. They were having guests get their picture with her before entering the restaurant, and then coming around trying to sell those pictures. Don’t even get me started on how much this bothers me – I paid $1500 for my Premier Annual Pass, over $30/person to eat breakfast, and now you want me to pay another $30 for a picture with Minnie Mouse. No, just no. This is taking the greed to a whole other level. I did insist on stopping to get a picture with Minnie before we left, and I asked the photographer how to get our picture. He kept telling me I would need to pay for it but I kept resisting, but eventually he let me know that I could go to the Photopass store on Main Street and they would be able to load my pictures on to my account for free since I had photopass included with my annual pass. So – anytime a Disney restaurant wants you to purchase photos, mention this and see if the cast member will confirm that this is an option.

The total cost of this meal was $62.28 after tax. This included a 15% discount thanks to my annual pass.

Disney, Travel

January 29, 2017 – Part Two

Enough time had passed by the time we re-entered the park that we were able to go grab another Fastpass, this time for Buzz Lightyear (and for a time frame that we were almost in already!).

We used the Star Tours fastpass we had grabbed earlier in the day, and by then we were already in our window for Buzz, where Luke beat me as per usual.

The sun had set by this point, so we went to check out the castle all lit up.

We decided to grab another Fastpass, this time for one of my favourites, Big Thunder Mountain

We still had some time to go before our next fastpass, so we went to Fantasyland to go on some of the classic rides – Snow White’s Scary Adventure, Pinocchio’s Daring Journey and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

It was our first time going on Mr. Toad – that ride is ridiculous, one scene literally depicts Hell. We had just made it out of Hell when the ride broke, we could hear the people behind us laughing and yelling out that they were stuck in Hell.

Of course, I had to stop for a picture on the ride vehicle located outside the entrance. I also have no idea how to pose for pictures…

Another ride we had never been on at Disneyland was Alice in Wonderland, so that’s where we headed next. It was much better (and longer) than I was expecting- I thought it would be similar to the rides we had just come from, but apparently it has actually undergone a few refurbishments. It’s by no means what I would consider an E-ticket ride, it was just better than I thought it would be.

As we exited the ride, the Main Street Electrical Parade was going by. We had watched this parade on our first trip to WDW, and weren’t really overwhelmed by it, so we made no effort to see it on this trip.

We were finally in our window for Indiana Jones, so we walked across the park to go on that. It’s such a great ride, the attention to detail is spectacular.

Luke decided he could use a snack, and bought himself a Dole Whip float. He ate it while we walked over to Pirates of the Caribbean, and by the time we were getting ready to board our boat he had finished it.

Once we exited Pirates, we were in our window for our Big Thunder Fastpass. I love the California version of this ride so much!

By the time we got off the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness, the park was getting close to closing time, so we headed out and caught an Uber back to our hotel.

Disney, Travel

January 29, 2017 Part One

We were a little slow moving this morning, and slept in a bit. When we arrived at the park, we entered California Adventure first. The first thing we did was grab a Fastpass for Soarin’ for later that day.

We didn’t have a ton of time before our dining reservation, so we checked wait times and went to the Mickey Fun Wheel (stationary, of course- none of that moving car for me!). I used the zoom on my real camera and got some pretty cool pictures of the mountains in the distance, and a fake mountain much closer (almost all of my pictures are just taken with my phone, which was an iPhone 6 at the time of this trip)

After our short stay in the park, we headed out and walked over to the Disneyland hotel for a reservation at Goofy’s Kitchen

We once again entered DCA, and went to use our Soarin’ Fastpass.

After our trip around the world, we entered a short stand-by line and rode California Screamin’

hopped over to Disneyland and grabbed a Fastpass for Star Tours a few hours later.

From there, we headed to the Star Wars Launch Bay to meet Chewbacca and Darth Vader. I get the biggest, cheesiest grin on my face every time I meet Chewie haha…

We were hanging around afterwards, checking out the Star Wars stuff when a cast member came over, commented on our tshirts and then handed us a card with a picture of Bobba Fett and let us know he had seen him hanging around back by the cantina.

We headed back there, where there was a cast member standing by a nondescript door. We just hung out for a bit, waiting for Bobba Fett to appear but after standing around for about 10 minutes we went over and asked the cast member what time he would be showing up. The cast member smiled at us and pushed a button we hadn’t noticed, and within a minute Bobba Fett had emerged. Apparently we had to ask about him.

It was really cool to meet a rare character like that!

We finally headed back outside after spending well over an hour in the Launch Bay, where we ran into some Stormtroopers.

We decided we wanted to meet another character, so we checked the app and decided on Belle.

We were getting close to our dinner reservation in Downtown Disney, but we ran over to grab a Fastpass for Indiana Jones first.

Our supper that evening was at Naples, which I really enjoyed.

Next: January 29, 2017 Part Two

Disney, Travel

January 10, 2017 – Part Two

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We decided we still wanted to do a few more things in the park, so we put our phones away and headed over to catch the train out to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We’d never been out there before, and wanted to check it out. There isn’t a lot out there, but I loved the goats and the sheep haha

Rafiki was also out there doing character meets, so of course we had to jump into that line!

After saying goodbye to the goats, we headed back to the main park on the train. As we were walking by, we realized a Birds of Wonder show was just about to start, so we headed in and watched. I didn’t take many pictures, and instead just enjoyed the show (although I did get this one)

We decided to head over to Dinoland.

We jumped in the stand-by line for Primeval Whirl, which was only about a 20 minute wait.

I don’t love this ride, but I don’t hate it either. Crazy Mouse coasters are kind of all the same…

Tri-Ceratop Spin was practically a walk-on, and it was something we’d never been on before, so we headed there next. It’s basically just the Dumbo ride with dinosaurs.

            I have no idea what is going on in this picture, but it makes me laugh….

We were getting a little hungry by this point, so we went to check out Flame Tree BBQ.

Also, this sitting area is so pretty!

We stopped for more Tree of Life pictures since there were no lines…

Our third Fastpass was to meet Mickey and Minnie. We had originally planned on doing the Wild Africa Trek today, which is why this Fastpass was so late in the day – we didn’t want to be rushed. After cancelling the tour, we decided to just leave our fastpasses as they were.

Minnie was so excited when she saw our Just Engaged buttons. She started gesturing to ask when we got engaged, and started jumping up and down when we told her it had happened only a few hours earlier. We ended up with cute pictures from this meet and greet 🙂

We checked the MDE app for wait times in the park, and headed over to Expedition Everest and hopped in the stand-by line.

A wait time under 20 minutes for Everest is a huge yes from me every single time!

We also grabbed a Fastpass for the Safaris a little later, so that we could go on it at Twilight.

This was pre-Pandora and pre-Rivers of Light, so most people were still treating Animal Kingdom as a half day park. By this point, it was after 5pm and the crowds were thinning out. We checked wait times again, and headed back to DinoLand to get into the stand-by line for Dinosaur – I believe it was under 10 minutes until we were loading the ride.

We then noticed a 10 minute posted wait time for Expedition Everest, and since it’s my favourite ride, we headed back over to Asia (we were putting some kilometres on today!)

We got off, and immediately decided to get back in line haha.

Luke didn’t think his stomach could handle three rides on it back to back to back, and that was our fourth time on it that day, so we said goodbye to my favourite ride and walked back to Africa to use our Twilight Safari Fastpass.

My review of that – meh. Most animals are already in their enclosures, it’s hard to see the ones that are still out and it was pretty underwhelming. I wouldn’t go out of my way to ride the Safari at that time of day.

While we were walking back through Africa, Luke’s dad called him (Luke had tried calling earlier to tell him we were engaged but his dad was working). Luke sat down on a bench to talk to his dad, and I went to check out Zuri’s Sweets Shop and picked out some treats for us.

We caught a bit of the Tree of Life Awakening, before heading out of the park and catching a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our late supper reservation at Saana

After our meal, we called an Uber to take us back to Saratoga Springs.

Disney, Food Review

Nomad Lounge – January 2nd, 2018

It was really cold, and really packed on this day, so we decided to take a break at Nomad Lounge. Of course, there were no tables inside, but we found a 2-top table outside against the railing. Luckily, the railing is quite high, so it provided some relief from the cold wind and it wasn’t too terrible sitting outside.

The drink menus are really nice here, designed to look like a travel journal. It has a really interesting drink menu, with lots of options you can’t find anywhere else. I actually took pictures of each page, so enjoy a million pictures of it:

Luke wanted alcohol, so he ordered the Snow Leopard Salvation: snow leopard vodka, belle de brillet pear liqueur, mint and lime juice topped with ginger beer $12.50

We both liked this, even though it was strong. Luke likes ginger beer more than I do, but I’d probably say vodka is my alcohol of choice.

I wanted something non-alcoholic, so I went for the Hibiscus Henna – watermelon, hibiscus and lime juice $5.75

This was really good! Not too sweet, filled with flavour and was a really fun, bright pink colour. Even Luke, who hates watermelon, gave this drink a thumbs-up.

We wanted to share something from their Small Plate Menu, so we ordered the House-Smoked Kobe-Style Brisket Poutine – steak fries, house-made mozzarella, pan sauce $12

This is a small serving (hence the name, ‘small-plates’), but was very good! I’m not typically one who likes steak fries, I prefer my fries shoestring style, but these were cooked well and were not soggy like some larger-cut fries tend to be. The smoked brisket was really tasty, as was the mozzarella. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the “pan sauce”, but it complimented everything very well! We did dump it over everything, they just bring it out separately so nothing gets soggy (and I forgot to take a picture once we had dumped the sauce on). Being Canadian, I like to think I know what a good poutine is – this is definitely not a traditional poutine, but it is something I wouldn’t hesitate to order again!

While we were sitting there nursing the rest of our drinks, I saw a server walk by with the churros from the dessert menu, and I decided that I needed them in my life – so we ordered Churros – served with vanilla crema and chili-strawberry $9

This came in the cutest little serving dish! It was basically the equivalent of two and a half churros purchased from elsewhere in the parks (which are typically $5/each) – so this was actually a good deal! They were warm, which is a must for a good churro in my books, and covered in a very generous layer of cinnamon. The sauces were very good as well – which surprised me since I normally think churros are delicious enough on their own. The chili-strawberry was the consistency of a runny strawberry jam, but then it did have a spicy chili kick at the end. The vanilla crema was a runny vanilla sauce, and definitely my favourite of the two options.

Total cost for our bill was $40.52 after using my Tables in Wonderland card, or $33.45 excluding the auto-gratuity.

Tables in Wonderland original cost: $150                                                 Break Even Point Before this meal: $118.03                                         Savings this Meal: $7.85                                                                                         Total Until Breaking Even: $110.18

Predicted food budget: $2631.67 (does not include tip)       Estimated Cost of this meal: $115.55 (original plan was Tiffins) Actual Cost: $7.57 (Flame Tree) + $33.45 (Nomad Lounge) = $41.02 Over/Under: Under by $74.53                                                           Remaining: $2102.43

Disney, Travel

January 10, 2017 – Part One

The alarm went way too early this morning, I just wanted to keep sleeping (especially after all the drinks we had the night before). But, we pulled ourselves out of bed, got ready and called an Uber to take us to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for breakfast at Boma! This was our first time seeing AKL, what a beautiful hotel!

Once we finished up with breakfast, we caught a bus to Animal Kingdom- such a quick drive from the hotel! I was really excited about being able to see the progress being made on Pandora – I had not seen the movie Avatar at this point, but I was still excited about the new land being built, it sounded amazing.

Since the park had already been open for about half an hour, the line for security was not bad at all, but the line to scan your Magicbands was backed up a bit. No worries, we just went to the far left and entered Rainforest Cafe, cut through the gift shop and scanned our Magicbands with the cast member at that entrance – which never has a line! It’s one of my favourite Disney Park hacks 🙂

We stopped for a few Photopass pictures in front of the Tree of Life.

We were getting close to our fastpass window for Expedition Everest, so we headed over there. Here’s what our day was going to look like (minus the Wild Africa Trek, we had cancelled that a few days earlier for a full refund).

After going on my favourite ride in the park to see Disco Yeti, we started slowly making our way over to the Africa section of the park. Oh right! Proof we went on Everest (and in the back seat!):

We decided to stop for the Baloo and King Louie meet and greet, we had really enjoyed it the year before.

                                 I was pointing out to Baloo that he was on the record we were getting the characters to sign.

And then, we got engaged.

I know, you were expecting a big lead up to it, if you’ve read my trip report this far you know I can be wordy. But, don’t worry, I’m going to let Luke tell this part of the story.

We began making phone calls, first calling our moms, then my grandmother who was in the hospital at the time (and passed away less than 2 months later)- who laughed and gleefully proclaimed“I knew!”. It turns out, instead of being traditional and asking my dad to marry me, Luke had snuck out of the house on our last trip to New Brunswick under the guise of ‘going for a run’, and instead ran to my grandma’s house to ask her permission for my hand in marriage. I consider myself a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anyone’s permission to marry whomever I want to, but this gesture of asking my Nanny really meant a lot to me.

Luke called his sister and texted the other one (she was out of the country at the time), while I called my Dad.

We actually had a Fastpass for the Safari that we wanted to use, so we headed over there and used that at the very end of our fastpass window.

After our Safari, I kept checking the MDE app but our pictures of Luke proposing had not shown up yet, so we headed out to the Photopass store located by the main gate. Once we explained what the pictures were of that we were missing, the Cast Members assured us that they would find them. It only took them a few minutes to locate our missing pictures, and then they even printed one off as a 5×7 for us free of charge 🙂

We had called our immediate family, but we decided to start texting extended family and our friends to let them know we were engaged. We found a spot on a bench and sat there for the next hour and a bit just letting the world know our happy news – our phones were going crazy with text messages of congratulations. It was a really amazing experience, sitting beside my fiancé in one of our favourite places in the world, feeling such an outpouring of love from all the important people in our lives.

We had purchased a FuelRod at the beginning of this trip, and we definitely got our money’s worth out of that thing just on this day! I think by the end of the day, we had swapped it out 4 times because we spent so much time on our phones haha. We typically only swapped it once/day, and only because I tend to take a lot of pictures.

Next: January 10, 2017 Part Two

 

Disney, Travel

Disneyland – February 27, 2016

It was definitely not in our plans to visit Disneyland during 2016, but then Luke won an in-game contest at an Oilers games, and the next thing we knew we were being flown to Anaheim, put up in a nice hotel and given a private tour of the Ducks’ arena, along with sixth row seats for a game between the Ducks and Oilers on a Friday night. The next day had no scheduled events as part of the prize, so while the other contest winners went shopping, went to the beach, slept off their hangovers, etc, Luke and I knew exactly where we were heading – Disneyland for the day!

We didn’t have a ton of time to plan for this trip, he won the trip and we were in Anaheim less than two weeks later, but we did manage to make an early breakfast reservation at the Plaza Inn, and a lunch reservation at Blue Bayou. The night before, we were informed that we had the chance to meet some of the Oilers in the lobby of our hotel in the morning – so sorry Minnie Mouse, we cancelled our breakfast with you!

I have the original Awkward Connor picture hahaha

After meeting some of the team, Luke and I caught a taxi and headed over to Disneyland for the day 🙂 Since the 60th Anniversary was still on, I made him stop for pictures by the sign

We both purchased one-day park hoppers and decided to start on the Disneyland side.

 

We immediately headed to Space Mountain, because we were really looking forward to seeing the Star Wars overlay of the ride (Hyperspace Mountain). We grabbed Fastpasses for that for the afternoon, then decided to find something to eat for breakfast. The Tomorrowland Terrace was re-themed as the Galactic Grill for awhile, so we were intrigued by some the the “Star Wars”themed food options.

Once we got a bit of food in our bellies, we checked on wait times on the app and started walking across the park. Of course, I had to stop for a churro along the way – you just can’t go to Disneyland and not have one!

We decided our first ride of the day would involve joining 999 Happy Haunts (one of our favourites!)

We then walked over to a non-existent line and went for a journey through the 100-Acre Woods.

By the time we finished celebrating with Pooh and his friends, it was time to check in for our lunch reservation at Blue Bayou!

  • Blue Bayou review

Once we finished up our fancy lunch, we headed back over towards Tomorrowland. We stopped to assist Buzz Lightyear in his quest to defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg (we were not Galactic Heros…).

By this point, it was finally time to use our Fastpasses for Hyperspace Mountain! This was worth the wait – it was amazing! The theme lent itself so well to the ride, the music was perfect, the images of the Tie-Fighters and X-Wings flying around you were awesome – we both loved this!

We decided it was time to hop over to DCA. We went and grabbed a Fastpass for Tower of Terror for later that night, then stopped in A Bug’s Life Land to go on some of the rides with minimal wait times.

 Francis’s Ladybug Boogie

  Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train

We headed over towards Paradise Pier, which is so pretty!

On our previous Disneyland trip, we had grabbed a Fastpass for California Screamin’ but I chickened out and refused to get on it. This time I promised Luke I would get on it – and I did! And, go figure – I loved it!

We walked over and had a sample of sourdough bread and learned about the Mother Dough at the Boudin Bakery Tour. We decided it was time for a snack by this point, plus our feet were starting to hurt, so we headed into Ghiradelli and ordered a Banana Split – vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream paired with sliced pineapple, sliced strawberries and fresh homemde hot fudge finished with fresh bananas, whipped cream, chopped almonds and a cherry. We knew this would be more than enough to share.

We found an empty table outside and sat down. We took our time eating, discussing how happy we were to be able to spend a day at Disneyland.

We caught a bit of the Pixar Play Parade (which we had watched in its entirety on our previous trip)

We headed back over to Disneyland to use a Fastpass we had grabbed earlier in the day for Indiana Jones. For some reason, I didn’t take any pictures of the queue, despite it being the most amazing queue line of any ride. It was as amazing as we remembered, the attention to detail is so fantastic.

We then left the park and headed back over to California Adventure in order to use our Fastpass for Tower of Terror.

After we were seated on the ride, the cast member asked if anyone was experiencing TOT for the first time – no one raised their hand, everyone had been on it before. This ended up being the best group of people we’ve ever been on Tower with (even to this day, 4 Disney trips later – yes, I’m that slow at getting these trip reports written haha). Every single person was laughing as the ride dropped, and it was so enjoyable.

After our great ride, we realized we were feeling a little hungry, but we wanted something quick so we headed over to Award Wieners.

  • Award Wieners review

Once we finished eating, we said goodbye to California Adventure and headed back to Disneyland again. The castle was all lit up with the 60th Anniversary decorations, and looked beautiful.

We just stood for awhile taking it all in, before going to grab a spot to watch the second showing of the Paint the Night Parade. We actually ended up waiting about half an hour, but we were getting tired and just enjoyed sitting down on the ground for a bit.

Eventually, the parade reached us – and wow! I’m honestly not a huge parade person, but I enjoyed this one so much! It was really stunning, with all the lights and the incredible parade floats and the performers – I’m looking forward to being able to see this parade again one day. It was worth the half hour wait of staking out a spot.

Once the parade was over, it was late and we’d had a long day. We felt we had covered the parks fairly well, and even though the park was still open for another hour or so, we decided to call it a night and called an Uber to take us back to our hotel.

 

 

 

Disney, Food Review

Festival of Holidays – November 13th, 2017

We had one tab left on the Sip and Savor pass, and Luke had been eyeing up a certain item, so I encouraged him to visit ‘Grandma’s Recipes’ and get the Sweet Potato Pie, $4.50.

I didn’t try this, so I will allow Luke to describe it:

It tasted like a butter tart, it was fluffy and sweet. The tart shell was as it should be – crispy. I’d never had a sweet potato pie before since it’s not really a Canadian thing – but butter tarts are!

Disney, Food Review

Festival of Holidays – November 11, 2017

We still had tabs left from my Sip and Savor pass, so we decided to enjoy samples from the Festival of the Holidays food booths as our supper.

Luke stopped at the ‘Winter Sliderland’ booth and grabbed a Roasted Turkey Slider – with cranberry sauce, $7.50

This did not look like it was worth $7.50 – I was happy to have the Sip and Savor Pass! Luke liked it though, and was pleased with the amount of turkey on it, but it tasted more like deli-style turkey. I’m not a fan of cranberry sauce, so I didn’t try it. Luke described it as good but not great.

My first stop was at the ‘Chips, Breads and Holiday Spreads’ booth to get the Chorizo Queso Fundido – with house made tortilla chips, $6.

This was really good! I don’t always love chorizo, but it was awesome  paired with the queso in this, since it took the edge off and made the chorizo taste less spicy. This was probably my favourite item from the food booths, and it was a generous portion.

The top is the Turkey Slider (see review above). The centre was another one of Luke’s picks, the Nashville Hot Fried Turkey – served with dill pickles $7, from the ‘Spicy Celebrations’ booth. I didn’t try this either, but apparently it was really spicy. Luke loves spicy food, so he was excited to actually get something with kick (so many foods will be advertised as spicy, but it turns out to be fairly tame and mild). 

The bottom was something I was really excited for – the Beef Short Rib – with smashed potatoes and gravy, $7.75, from the ‘Joy to the Sauce’ food booth. Yum! This would be that queso’s biggest competition in my favourite food booth item from the Festival of Holidays. It was tender and flavourful, and the potatoes and gravy were a great accompaniment. I love beef and potatoes though, so it doesn’t take much to make me excited haha.

The ‘Making Spirits Bright’ booth had caught my attention, and I decided to treat myself to a Mimosa Flight, $16. This thing was pretty expensive, but oh so delicious! There were three different mimosas included in the flight – White Cranberry: Chandon Brut sparkling wine and white cranberry juice, Pear: Chandon Brut sparkling wine, pear purée and Blood Orange: Chandon Brut sparkling wine, blood orange purée. The orange was by far my favourite, but I thoroughly enjoyed the other two as well. The cranberry one just tasted like Ocean Spray White Cranberry juice, and that’s probably what it was (with a bit of cheap wine added, of course), but it was still good. I’m not usually a pear fan, but I had no trouble drinking this mimosa haha.

We had another great experience with the food booths, and we were both full without feeling too stuffed.