"We've gone too far"-A sister trip with surprise guest Irma! Sept 2017 - Completed 4/16

Christmas at Disneyland - Food

This will be my final post on Christmas activities! Like last year, DCA hosted the Festival of the Holidays, which has yummy holiday inspired foods. Last year was disappointing as portions were small and overpriced and not too good. This year there were definitely some standouts.

Pretty much all the booths look the same:
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Joy to the Sauce:
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Apple Lemonade with Whipped Cream and Caramel - Yum, repeated
Beef Short Rib with Smashed Potatoes and Gravy - Favorite dish, repeated 2x!
Seared Salmon Filet with Lemon Caper Sauce - Yum, also repeated

Chips, Breads & Holiday Spreads
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Cranberry Pear Tart with Rosemary-infused Cream - Another winner and repeated (though I did pick out the cranberries:P)

Holiday Duets
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Macaroni and Cheese with Cornbread Crumbles - Fine, but the cornbread didn't really add anything; I would have just preferred toasted breadcrumbs!
Cookie Butter and Jelly Cheesecake - Bleh! So bad and a chemically aftertaste. Even though the portion was 2 cakes, I could only eat 2 bits of one! :crazy2:
Warm Chocolate Float with Whipped Cream and Brownie Crumbles - Fine, but they put my brownie crumbles in the drink which got caught in the straw a lot

Grandma's Recipes
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Beef Brisket with Brown Sugar-glazed Carrots - Not too good; meat was very fatty and carrots were underdone and no glaze on them
Merry Cherry Pineapple Punch with Assorted Jellies - Unexpectedly good and I liked the texture difference with the jellies! Felt like I was in the 70s or something!

Blissfully Braised
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Braised Pork Belly Adobo with Garlic Fried Rice
Braised Lamb Cheeks with Mediterranean Cauliflower
-I'm reserving judgment on these, as it was a mistake for me to get them! I don't like spicy, or Indian food...so...

Festive Holiday Extras
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Baked Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes - Not my favorite; I did like the burnt cheese flavor but wish that could have gone with the mac and cheese rather than potatoes
Pineapple Kesari with Golden Raisins - Took me a while to figure this out and ultimately decided I didn't like it. Sort of like a firm, but moist polenta, with very little flavor.
Sherbet Holiday Punch - Another meh. It was literally a scoop of sherbet ice cream with Sprite.

A Twist on Tradition
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Chocolate Yule Log with Candied Chestnuts and Clementine Compote - Not my favorite. Very flavorless and almost no cake.
Pumpkin-spiced Float Cocktail with Cream Liqueur, Vanilla Ice Cream and Pumpkin Seed Brittle - Not my taste, maybe someone else would have liked it more!

Winter Sliderland
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Holiday Ham Slider with Pineapple Relish - Lots of ham, which was very moist, even though it looked dry. Though did get a bit greasy.
Roasted Turkey Slider with Cranberry Sauce (mine ordered sans cranberry) - Yum, tasted like my mom's turkey soup in sandwich form. And huge amount of turkey!

I have a couple last things I may grab this weekend or next week, as well as a repeat of the Turkey slider:
Warm Polenta and Chilled Crab Salad
Green Bean and Mushroom Casserole with Crispy Onions
Frosty Frosé – Frozen Rosé, Blue Curaçao and White Cranberry Juice with a Mint Sprig


Other non festival foods:
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Gingerbread Funnel Cake Fries - Very disappointing; tasted stale and no gingerbread flavor

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Pumpkin Spice Bread Pudding - Just ok, not my favorite. No real pumpkin spice flavor either.


I should be able to return to September this weekend!
 


Ooo the booths you had there look better than the Festival of the Holidays ones we had here.
 
(I'm going to stop pretending to get any updates done on the weekend-just too busy! But hey, the LA Rams won! and won big! Looking forward to a home playoff game!)

Day 3 – "What are Chippendale dancers doing at Disney?"

This day and the next won’t have many photos as it was pretty much hang around the hotel due to park closures and curfews.

While we didn’t have alarms set, we ended up waking up around 9:30. Checked outside and it was already raining, which wouldn’t let up all day.
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We checked the in-room information and seems like the main building was still open with grab and go breakfast so we decided to check it out. Thanks to our room location and covered walkways, this is the longest patch of uncovered area we had to walk!

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We got into the lobby and came across a Chip and Dale dance party! Chip went chasing after an older lady to dance with her which was super cute. And then CMs tried to teach them the YMCA, but that’s when we headed in to grab something to eat. When I was talking to our parents about the dance party, my dad misheard and thought I meant Chippendales not Chip & Dale!

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The breakfast option was a Breakfast Bounty Platter To-Go [scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuit and roasted potatoes with your choice of beverage]. For $10 it wasn’t a bad deal! They also had an option with a pastry, fruit, granola bar and bottle of water for $6.

We were worried the food court would be a madhouse, but the lines weren’t bad at all! It was crowded in the seating area though so we decided just to take it back to the room to eat.
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The food was as expected. I liked the scrambled eggs and potatoes. The sausage link was much better than the patty the day before!

While eating we watched the end of Disney Movie #2: The Little Mermaid (I'm counting it as a full movie though because we did eventually watch the beginning either later that day or the next).
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Then Disney Movie #3: Tron Legacy (my sister had never seen it before).
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And then Disney Movie #4: Beauty and the Beast (animated).
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As you can tell, we had an exciting morning/lunch! For lunch we just had one of our packaged sandwiches, which was meh (the food court was open, but we decided to stay in the room).

Around 1pm, despite the rain, we decided to check out the hot tub, because, why not (we had seen other people in pool/hot tub area earlier in the day). We walked over and just as we got over there the lifeguards closed up everything! Oh well!

When we got back to the room they were showing the Muppets Pirate movie, so we skipped that in favor of a CSI Miami marathon.
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Throughout the day, I checked twitter and saw that Disney was really making the most of it with characters at all of the resort lobbies! The deluxes also had plenty of lobby activities, with trivia contests, a dog fashion show, and coloring (because their guests could safely move around indoors longer than Moderates/Values who had to walk outside). I know we had Chip & Dale, Pluto, and Donald. I took some screenshots of various twitter posts and here were my favorites:
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This was a video, but you can see Donald worked the runway!
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We toyed with the idea of getting an uber to another resort for dinner as based on my twitter feed the deluxes seemed to have awesome food at great prices! We finally decided that was pretty irresponsible, so stuck to POFQ, as requested by Disney!

We knew the curfew was going into effect at 7pm in Orlando (we would still be allowed to move around the resort, just not leave it), so around 6 we went down to the food court for a warm dinner. They had a couple options-pasta, pizza, hamburger, and chicken nuggets. It was all pretty much stuff that they had large frozen stockpiles of, but was better than cold sandwiches!

Both Lauren and I got the pasta, I got Alfredo pasta with meatballs and broccoli, Lauren got Alfredo with breaded chicken. Both were pretty basic cafeteria food but edible. Nothing crazy to write home about!

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We were going a bit stir crazy so stayed there to eat.

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Afterwards we headed over to the arcade, which was on Free Play, so it was pretty crowded! I think we got a couple games in, but the Star Wars option I wanted to try wasn’t working correctly. :sad:

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When we came out they were showing Moana on a big TV set up in the lobby (I guess Goofy and Donald had been watching previously but they left to meet other guests). They had plenty of free popcorn available and during “How Far I’ll Go” there was an impromptu sing-along from all the kids! We grabbed a couple bags of popcorn though and headed back to the room for... you guessed it...:happytv:

Disney Movie #5: Enchanted
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and Disney Movie #6: 101 Dalmations.
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I think somewhere that day or the next we caught the first half of Brave and full version of The Little Mermaid. We also tried to get the premier of Outlander to work streaming, but the wifi really sucked that weekend. I think a combo of the storm plus lots of people stuck in hotels trying to connect!
:offtopic:I had also hoped to find the first Rams game of the season to watch either on TV or streaming, but also couldn't get it to work, even though in theory I should have had access since I am a season ticket holder, but anyways, I relied on my dad texting me updates (though they did end up clobbering the Colts 46-9, which really should have been a clue as to how the rest of the season would go).

Around 8pm the winds really started kicking up and sometime before 9pm Disney enacted the stay-in-room curfew (originally it wasn’t going to go in effect until close to 11, although food court was closing at 7). Photos don’t really show how windy and rainy it was, but here is what I got. If you also look down to the “street”, you can see the water level was as high as the curb, so it was more like a canal. :fish:

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I think we turned off the lights around 11pm and were wondering what that night would look like. But before going to bed we did each pack an evacuation backpack (our laptops, change of clothes, water bottle, medications, etc) and put them near the front door just in case.

Cont... would we survive the storm - spoiler alert...we did! :cool2:


 


You guys sure got your fill of Disney movies! I'm sure it stunk being stuck at the resort but it sounds like you made the best of it and at least you were able to get to the food court and arcade for a change of scenery!
 
My Mom and Dad were stuck in New Orleans during Hurricane Ivan the year before Hurricane Katrina, so this all sounds very familiar! Looks like you were at least able to make the most of a little hotel entertainment.
 
Day 4, Part 1 – It would be really cool to see an alligator!

The next morning we woke up around 9am. Neither of us slept all that well the night before because the wind was insane! Being at a moderate meant our door went right to an outdoor walkway, so we could hear the wind pushing against it and trying to bang it open! But, surprisingly, we never lost power!
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We opened our windows and could see just leaves and branches everywhere! Because POFQ has so many trees, it definitely looked worse than some of the deluxe resorts, like Beach Club or Boardwalk! Some photos from outside our room:
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We both grabbed some of our mini-cereal boxes for breakfast and checked online to see news reports. Lots of trees down everywhere! And Disney was advising people to stay in their rooms, but as you could see people weren’t really listening. There were definitely still gusts of wind that could bring down precarious branches so you had to be careful. I did a loop of our floor but didn’t go downstairs. You can also see a huge tree had fallen down by the food court. Luckily it fell in the one direction that prevented it from damaging any structures! Literally, it probably would have caused a lot of damage if it had fallen into the building!
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I think we caught the first part of Brave that morning.


Around 11am, my sister pulled up her laptop to check some work things (it was Monday after all), while I decided to check out the property (there was a voice message saying you could leave the room, just to be careful, but the City of Orlando still had a curfew, so you couldn’t leave the resort). I do have to say, some parents just were not being responsible, letting their kids climb all over trees that had fallen over so they could get some fun photos! Originally CMs tried to yell at them, but eventually they seemed to just give up.

Some more photos:
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A streetlamp in the pool area fell over and damaged the fence and planter.
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One tree was perched on Building 1, so they had a CM standing there making sure people didn’t walk under it.
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The CMs were already all out in force cleaning up and I was impressed by how quickly they did so!
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One thing that was dangerous was when I came back to the building. The CMs were using leaf blowers to clean off the leaves and debris from the upper levels (these appeared to be regular CMs, not special clean up crews). I had gotten to the stairs and there was a lady there so we had some chit chat about everything, but the CM wasn’t paying attention and blew debris right off and into my face! A big rock/acorn/something hit me about half an inch from my eye! Other workers (from the actual clean up crews) happened to be walking nearby and really laid into him for not checking his surroundings. I was ok, but I think the workers went and tracked down all the CMs using leaf blowers and made sure they had someone else underneath them if they were on an upper floor.

When I got back to the room Lauren had given up on work and had started "lettering" - she does these all of the time and they are pretty impressive! If you're interested, you can check her instagram at: @lw_letters. She did a whole villain series at Disney (I think just using fancy markers, not watercolors) and put them up in the hotel room window (it worked out nicely with the window panes for POFQ windows; I kept meaning to get a photo from the exterior but it looks like I never did!
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Day 4, Part 2 - "Is there another hurricane?"

After I got back to the room I don’t have any photos/notes for several hours. I know we did start Disney Movie #7: Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
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And had our second sandwiches (though my sister thought the club one was gross). Around 1pm we realized they had reopened the food court around noon at both POFQ and POR (though with the limited menu). We decided to head up to Riverside since we hadn’t seen it yet. As we walked along the river path my sister went-"I hope we see an alligator! It’d be really cool to see an alligator!" I just stared at her and sped up!


It was a very pleasant walk and plenty of people were out and about!
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A tree down in the river
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The castmembers (specifically lifeguards) were in charge of children entertainment so there were plenty of hula hoops and games!
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We were hungry so stopped in Riverside Mill and picked up Chicken Nuggets with Fries and a pastry
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Then we decided to just make a loop around the property to check it out (if you followed my PTR you would know we were originally supposed to go with POR until I got a good deal with POFQ).
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Some drainage issue, which meant people had to "off-road" thru the mud on the side of the path!
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My sister got very confused at one point because she didn’t realize we were walking in a circle, she thought we were going in a straight line! I pulled up a map on my phone to help calm her brain!

And back to POFQ
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On our way over, we saw this sign so had to take a photo!
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I’m actually really happy we went with POFQ instead of POR. Now, that’s not because I disliked the look of POR at all. I thought it was very nice and I wouldn’t be upset to stay there, I just preferred POFQ. I am more of an “urban” person, who loves big cities, so POFQ had that feel to it. POR was also very spread out and had the multiple bus stops, which I could imagine would get annoying after a while. Also, during the rainy Sunday, it would have been a pain to get from a room on the far side of the property to the lobby/food court!

Plenty of clean up completed (I think it took a few more days before the stump was removed entirely)!
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We then decided to check out the hot tub, since we walked over and saw people in it. The pool itself was closed as a lifeguard explained they had drained a bit before the storm to account for extra rain water, then had to spend so much time cleaning it, they hadn’t been able to refill it to a safe level. The hot tub was a bust though. It was totally full (actually over the number of people limit), and wasn’t really heated. So it was like sitting in tepid bathwater, hip to hip with strangers. :crowded: :sad2:

Yeah, not very fun! We gave it 5 minutes then went back to the room!

for... Disney Movie #8: Mulan
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and Disney Movie #9: Monster’s University.
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Went ended up back at Floatworks for dinner. Because we were adventurous, we both got… Chicken Nuggets and fries! I know, crazy! But these fries were the thick kinds and were very good. I also really like the styling in the food court.

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After dinner I went to the front desk to get them to set up my Star Wars magic band properly (it wasn’t working for my room entrance, turned out even though I thought I had set it up online, it had never been fully registered). Got to witness Donald “helping” at concierge. All of the characters came walking past to go on break and I made sure to thank them all for helping liven the mood the past few days and they hugged me and kissed my hand.

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As the CM was working on my MB she and I suddenly looked up and realized, we were the only ones in the lobby! We were both like "did something happen? Is there another hurricane?" That had been the first empty moment in the lobby all weekend! Pretty funny!
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The CM was also very sweet (it was the same one who had checked us in 2 days earlier) and explained how almost all of the CMs working that weekend were also staying at the resort in empty rooms. But because she was on front desk duty she and another girl were actually sleeping on cots in the break room behind the front desk so when the most intense part of the hurricane passed over, they got to hear all the wind blowing like crazy against the glass walls in the lobby!
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Lauren and I went back to our room and caught some kids playing hide and seek outside-cute!
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And went back and caught…Disney Movie #10: Cinderella (live action)!
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We also discussed our plans for the next day. Originally that was going to be a rest/Disney Springs/Resort hop morning with MNSSHP evening. But we had missed our MK morning (originally Sunday), so decided to push it there. Because we had done all the main rides, we didn’t necessarily need to be there for rope drop (Disney had also added 1 hr of EMH in the morning). But then, my sister said she had really wanted to do Crystal Palace breakfast with Winnie the pooh, so I said, sure, if we can get a reservation! Plenty of times were available, but we decided to go with 8:15 that way we could finish and do more things in the morning. So, Disney veterans will realize, that means we were getting up at 6:30am and planning on doing MNSSHP that evening… yeah, probably not going to go well!


Cont… MNSSHP
 
Wow I didn't realize POFQ had all those downed trees. Definitely looks intense! I've slept through hurricanes before (even bad ones like Sandy) but we lived in an apartment then and we never got as much damage as houses. I'd be kinda concerned to be in Florida in such a hurricane! Especially with the wind and rain beating down outside. But Disney seems to handle things like this really well. Love all the extra activities they had and the characters too! I do like myself some Disney nuggets too! Your sister's handwriting is genius, I can't even read my own handwriring let along be able to do that kind of calligraphy. It's so pretty!
 
Wow, so many downed trees! I'm glad it wasn't any worse though. You guys certainly got through A LOT of Disney movies!

Your sister's art is beautiful, I love it!!
 
I remember seeing pics of POFQ after the hurricane here on the DIS and thought it looked like it had some of the worst damage of the resorts... other than Fort Wilderness. Glad you made it through unscathed... other than that acorn to the face, sheesh!
 
You made me want chicken nuggets now
You know, when I was going thru my photos (soon after the trip) I ended up getting a craving too, so the next time I was at Disney I decided to get some nuggets instead of other lunch/dinner! Unfortunately, mine were so hard and dry! I don't know if DLR doesn't make them as good as WDW or if I was on an off-day, but made me very disappointed!

Wow I didn't realize POFQ had all those downed trees. Definitely looks intense! I've slept through hurricanes before (even bad ones like Sandy) but we lived in an apartment then and we never got as much damage as houses. I'd be kinda concerned to be in Florida in such a hurricane! Especially with the wind and rain beating down outside. But Disney seems to handle things like this really well. Love all the extra activities they had and the characters too! I do like myself some Disney nuggets too! Your sister's handwriting is genius, I can't even read my own handwriring let along be able to do that kind of calligraphy. It's so pretty!
Yeah, I think because POFQ is so green and lots of trees everywhere, we had a lot of impact from the storm. I don't know if the Alligator Bayous in POR had more damage too because we stuck to the river path and also there was time for cleanup before we headed over there.

My sister does love the lettering stuff! It comes in handy when I need her to address a gift card/envelope! She usually takes up the dining room table with various watercolors and things spread out, which she always clears away for dinner, and then afterwards it all comes back out again!


Wow, so many downed trees! I'm glad it wasn't any worse though. You guys certainly got through A LOT of Disney movies!
We did see a lot, but it was mainly by keeping the TV on a lot. There was the one Disney channel which constantly played Disney movies, so we stuck to that since it meant we wouldn't have to make decisions! But we were also both doing other things-goofing on phone/computer, Lauren lettering, me logic puzzles, etc.

I remember seeing pics of POFQ after the hurricane here on the DIS and thought it looked like it had some of the worst damage of the resorts... other than Fort Wilderness. Glad you made it through unscathed... other than that acorn to the face, sheesh!
It did seem to get some of the worst of it! Eventually I'll post some photos of the treehouse villas at Saratoga Springs which look like they had a lot of impact too (trees still down almost a week later). I know Fort Wilderness campsites were cleared out before the storm, but I can't remember if the cabins were too. And the Treehouse Villas were also emptied.
 
Wow I didn't realize that POFQ had that much damage. LOL sis & gators, & no wake zone. The Rams slamming the Colts wasn't a surprise to anyone. I'm more surprised that we won the games we did I'm from Indy). Where is Luck it's still a mystery?
 

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