Aw, my Frose went back to being Rose - 2019 Food and Wine Adventure! RL Update 4/22!

Sounds like a fun day so far! I really love the boat from MK to the Grand! I only took it for the first time this year but it is so convenient!! Sucks about the rest of your transportation luck lol that seems about par for the course in Disney though šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚

That boat is so awesome, definitely prefer it over the monorail to get to GF! So true about the transportation, it wouldn't be a true Disney vacation if we didn't end up waiting forever for monorails, buses or boats!
 
Stinks that your transportation luck kinda went downhill! But sounds like a nice time in Epcot- minus the longgg line for that one booth!
 
Day 3, Part 3: Food and Spirits Pairing with Robert Irvine!

We ended up arriving at World Showplace around 2:15, and found a line had already formed. My mom was a bit annoyed we didnā€™t get there sooner, Iā€™m not sure whyā€¦.we paid for the event and were guaranteed a seat, so getting there earlier would just mean more time standing around waiting. Oh well, we donā€™t always have to agree!

Soon after we arrived a CM came through the line to check us off the guest list. When checking in I always spell the first few letters of my last name since it can be tricky, well this time it was funny because the guests behind us heard this, so when it was their turn to check in he goes ā€œwe also start with an s!ā€, and the CM jokingly asked the guests behind them if they were also an S last nameā€¦.they were not, but close, I think T?

Anyways, it was pretty funny, but you probably had to be there! :rotfl2:

At 2:30 they started to let us in. As we filed in we were greeted with a mixed drink, and then were shown to a table. We had a great table and shared it with a family of three. They were super nice and we had a fun chat with them. We also took pictures of each other. I love when people offer to do this, itā€™s nice to get pictures with both my mom and I in them without having to find a photopass photographer!







The event started once everyone was seated. The host came out and it was Pam. Now Iā€™ve never experienced her at any events, but Iā€™ve read a lot of stories on here about her and how annoying and drunk she can get, so I prepared myself for some drunken annoyingness. Iā€™m happy to say, she wasnā€™t too bad. She did talk a lot about herself, but it wasnā€™t awful, and when Robert Irvine came out he totally took over. I can see with some people who arenā€™t very assertive she could totally run the show, but he was awesome and totally shut her up!



Now, I donā€™t watch food shows, so I really didnā€™t know who Robert Irvine was, but my mom loves him so we booked this event. Iā€™m so glad we did, he is so much fun! We were laughing the entire time! Iā€™m actually interested in watching his shows now!

Anyways, during the event he did a bit of a cooking demo, but the focus was really more on putting on a show. He had audience members taste olive oil and then grapeseed oil. He actually picked a poor guy and poured both oils directly into his mouth from the bottle! That must have been so gross. He then asked the guy what the difference was between the two. The guy had no idea, so Robert found a different audience member to try, and once again he couldnā€™t quite figure out what the difference was. Well, apparently olive oil has flavor and grapeseed oil doesnā€™t. Also, olive oil, even extra-virgin, isnā€™t only olive oil, itā€™s a blend. Definitely made me want to go buy some grapeseed oil for cooking!

After the oil portion, he went on to talk about salt, and the guy assisting him (apparently part of his show too? Seriously I need to watch it one of these days!), ended up throwing a huge bowl of salt on the ground! HA! The CMs standing watch were horrified, or at least pretended to be! I wish I took better notes on this day, itā€™s been too long and Iā€™ve forgotten a lot already, but I believe he was all against using salt while cooking.

The entire event felt like a comedy show, not a cooking demonstration, which I personally loved. They did show how to cook the meal, which was lamb, but that was such a small portion of the event. They also did a demonstration on how to make the drink we received upon entering. The drink was ok, but I wasnā€™t a fan of the cinnamon. I think without the cinnamon it would have been a lot better!

The meal itself was amazing! That man knows how to make a really good lamb.



Now, if youā€™re keeping track, youā€™ll notice this is day three of mom having lamb for a meal. Will this trend continue?

Now before the event, I had mentioned to my mom that often the chefs will meet people after the event, and she 100% wanted to do that. We meet a chef every year, so this seemed to be our chance for this trip. Unfortunately, at the end of the event they said that he would not be meeting there, but was scheduled to meet at I believe the Port of Entry store in like 30 minutes. Since my mom really had her hopes up to meet him, I agreed to head over there to meet.

We made our way over and found a line already formed, so were ushered outside to get in line. It took a while for Robert to show up, about 20 minutes, but once he did the line moved fairly quickly. Even though we were outside, we were only about 10th in line, so it went fast.

It was a great meet, he is really a genuinely awesome guy. He asked what I did and I told him, and he was so impressed! People are always either shocked, or crazy impressed, (or both) when they find out what I do. He also signed both my momā€™s and my menu from the event, with personalized messages for each of us. On mine he wrote ā€œDebbie, You Rock!ā€ Yes Robert, I do.



I did feel a bit bad for my mom, she was a tad upset he never asked her what she does for a living, but she did get a chance to thank him for all the support he gives to our troops, and how it means so much with my dad being a veteran. So in the end all was well.

After our meeting, we made our way back to the YC for a much needed nap!

It appears, according to my pictures, we stopped at Canada on the way out to pick up the filet mignon and some beer? Haha, 100% donā€™t remember that!



Iā€™m sure it was good!

On the way out of the park (for real this time), we swung by Rose and Crown because I had noticed on MDE our reservation time for dinner had changed from 8:00 to 9:00 and I wanted to confirm that was accurate. The CM at the booth said he was pretty sure it was correct, and said to show up at 8:45 to be seated. Alright, not bad, more rest for us I guess!


Up Next: Illuminations Dining Package at Rose and Crown!
 
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That's so cool you met Robert Irvine! I've never watched his shows, but he was on Worst Cooks of America one time I think and he was funny! He reminds me of my dad so I always enjoy watching him lol. Sounds like you had a blast!
 


That's so cool you met Robert Irvine! I've never watched his shows, but he was on Worst Cooks of America one time I think and he was funny! He reminds me of my dad so I always enjoy watching him lol. Sounds like you had a blast!

He was so funny during the demonstration. He's has one of those personalities where you feel like you could just be best friends with him. So glad we got to meet him!
 
Sounds like a fun event and so cool that you got to meet Robert Irvine!!

It was a great event. I wasn't so sure about it beforehand, I had read very mixed reviews on these shorter seminars, and with it being so short I didn't think there would be a whole lot involved. Good thing I was wrong! It was so much fun, although I think having a very entertaining chef helped! He was awesome! Meeting him afterwards was an added bonus. He spent a decent amount of time talking to each group he met with, it seemed like he was really just enjoying meeting all of his fans.
 


All caught up, i am way behind around here lately!

That is a lot of rounds on BUZZ, i am sitting here wondering do you ride again? You also rode splash a good amount too!

Oh Robert Irvine how fun! He did one of his shows in our town!
 
That's so cool you got to meet Robert Irvine! He was hilarious when he was on Worst Cooks in America.

It was super cool to meet him! I was impressed how much time he spent with each group, he really seemed to be interested in chatting with everyone.

So, if you don't mind sharing, what do you do?

I do protective design, basically designing structures to resist the effects of explosions. I also run the local office of my company, which tends to throw people off since most think I'm way younger than I really am! :rotfl:
 
All caught up, i am way behind around here lately!

Awesome! I've been behind too, I've been meaning to post the next part for weeks now!

That is a lot of rounds on BUZZ, i am sitting here wondering do you ride again? You also rode splash a good amount too!

Yeah, we really got into Buzz this year. My mom wanted to get galactic hero again, and I wanted to just get it! Haha! Splash is by far our favorite ride, so we try to ride that as much as possible. I mean, is it really a trip to the Magic Kingdom if you don't leave soaked in Splash water?

Oh Robert Irvine how fun! He did one of his shows in our town!

Yeah, he was great! He did a show in my area either the weekend before our trip or the one afterwards....I kind of wish I had gone to that too!
 
Day 3, Part 4: Illuminations Dining Package at Rose and Crown!

We had a fantastic long rest this afternoon. We were so tired we didnā€™t even bother heading to the pool. It was just what we needed though, I think we were still recovering from the previous day!

Around 7:20 we started to make our way over to Epcot. I was worried being a Friday night that it would take forever to get in, we have bad memories of a previous trip taking about 40 minutes to get into the park on a Saturday evening! This time was nothing like that, and was amazingly fast, even faster than the other morning! Since we got in so quickly, we didnā€™t really know what to do with this extra time. So our first stop was to check over at Rose and Crown and make sure the CM from earlier was correct with the reservation time. She confirmed he was, and to show up no earlier than 8:45.

We had quite a bit of time to kill, so made our way over to France. Epcot was pretty packed, but not nearly as bad as a Saturday evening, so it wasnā€™t too bad making our way over there. We did some shopping in France, and I inquired about the Wine Walk since Iā€™ve been wanting to do that. Turns out they donā€™t have the Wine Walk during F&W. Bummer, I was really looking forward to it!

Once we wrapped up in France, we made our way back to the UK for some more shopping. My mom loves tea, so we stopped in the Twinnings store, and ended up picking up a bunch of tea for her. It was still really early once we finished our shopping there, only about 8:00, so we headed to the back of UK and watched the band for a little bit.

After about 15 minutes I was ready to find a seat, my feet were so tired, so we made our way to the area near World Showplace and found an empty bench. We sat there for a while just people watching. One fun thing to note, the crowds totally move in packs! There were times when it was wall to wall people walking by us, followed by minutes of hardly anyone walking by. It was kind of fun to see. I see a lot of talk over in the MNSSHP forum about the whole zag when others zig concept, and it was cool to see that it really is something that happens. Also explains why you see so many reports where some people say a park was packed the exact same day others say it was empty!

Anyways, moving on! At 8:40 we headed back to Rose and Crown to check-in, and found everyone else was already there and some already being served! So it looks like you can check in way before 8:45ā€¦.oh well.

I believe we were the last people to be checked in, so ended up at the ā€œdreadedā€ gate table. I had read some really awful reviews of this table, so wasnā€™t too happy that itā€™s what we were given. Also, oddly enough, there was a group at the two tables next to us who could have easily fit at the table we were given since we were given a huge circular table big enough for at least 6, yet they were divided between two small tables. Just seems odd Disney would waste two tables for them, instead of putting them at the big table together, and then have been able to book an extra party for one of those tables. Seems like a missed opportunity to make some more $$!

We settled into our table, and Iā€™m happy to report, we did not experience any of the issues others have. Most of the problems reported have been people on their way to the restroom going through the gate, but the table is kind of in front of the gate, so guests eating there had to keep moving to let people through. Well, the table was so big, that neither my mom or I were in the path to the gate, so it wasnā€™t be an issue. Plus, throughout the evening only two people went through the gate, so it wasnā€™t like there was constant traffic.

Soon after sitting our waitress came over and took our drink orders. We both started with snakebites. It took a long time for our drinks to come out, about 20 minutes.

Our waitress eventually came back to take our food orders too, we both ordered the soup and the salmon.

The food came out a LOT faster than the drinks, I think itā€™s because it was brought out by runners instead of our waitress.

Our waitress, while really nice, did leave a lot to be desired. I think she had more tables than most, she was waiting on 4-5 tables, while the other waiters seemed to have only two or three. So there ended up being a lot of waiting throughout the night. It was a bit frustrating to see other tables able to get multiple rounds of drinks while we were waiting for our waitress to show up with our first round!

The soup came out about the same time we got our drinks, so we enjoyed them together. The soup was fantastic! I wanted to lick the bowl.



We quickly finished the soup, which was delicious, and then spent some time enjoying our drinks. We ended up finishing our water and wanted to order more but our waitress was nowhere to be found.

Soon our main dish came out. I didnā€™t want to start eating without having any water at the table, I was feeling really dehydrated at that point, so we sat and waited for a while for our waitress to finally come back.

Finally, about 30 minutes later, our waitress came back to ask how things were, so we told her we needed more water, and ordered more drinks. We both ended up getting the red wine this time around.

This time fortunately she was faster, and a few minutes later we had our water and wine!



Finally it was time to eat!

The salmon was delicious, but it was huge! I couldnā€™t finish it. Which actually was probably good because I seem to have come down with food poisoning later that night! Odd since my mom was fine and had the same food, but maybe I just was unlucky and my food got contaminated somehow.

While eating our waitress stopped by again, and we ordered preemptive drinks since we knew it could take a long time!

At this point it was around 9:45, so getting close to the show. Our dinner plates were cleared, and almost immediately our desserts were brought out. I was busy setting up my camera on the railing to record the show, so didnā€™t get a chance to eat any of the dessert before the fireworks started, but that wasnā€™t an issue, I was pretty full anyways and could use a break!

A few minutes before 10:00 CMs came around and took down the umbrella, they were so apologetic about it, I guess theyā€™ve gotten a few complaints! We didnā€™t really care, we didnā€™t need to look at each other during the show! We did get a fun picture of under-umbrella cheers!



Illuminations was awesome as always. I found it really hard not to cry knowing this was one of the last times Iā€™d be seeing it! Iā€™m also so happy I got my video of it, we had a great view!



You may notice in the video that the wind was blowing directly at us. Yeah, that was unlucky! Throughout the show ashes from the fireworks were falling on us and into our food! Now that I think about it, I wonder if some of the ashes on my food was what made me sick later that nightā€¦.

Even with the smoke and ashes blowing on us, we still loved the show and loved the view. It was so awesome to have seats, wine, and no crowds to view it!

Once the show wrapped up, we ate our dessert plate!



These were really good, it was hard fitting them in though, that was a lot of food! Our waitress came over again while we were eating the desserts, and I inquired about the wine we had ordered earlier, and she admitted she forgot, but ran to grab them right away, and came back impressively fast with it!

This was my favorite part of the night. We usually like to hang out in Epcot for a while after Illuminations to let the crowds clear, and also listen to Tapestry of Nations and talk about all the fun we had that day. It was so nice being able to do this while enjoying some yummy desserts and a nice glass of wine! We ended up staying there until 11:00!

So in the end, even though we didnā€™t have the best service, it was still a fantastic evening. I would definitely do this again. Being able to watch the fireworks without the crowds, while enjoying some delicious food makes this 100% worth it.

Now unfortunately, as mentioned previously, the rest of the night wasnā€™t fantastic. Around 1:00 that morning I got ridiculously sick, and finally after hours of suffering I woke up my mom and asked if she had any medicine I could take. Thankfully she has a full-on mom purse complete with medicine for any ailment, and had a bag full of Tums! So I took those, which helped a bit, and tried to fall back asleep. I think in the end I did, but it wasnā€™t until later in the morning, so not exactly a restful night. Well, itā€™s Disney, I should be used to lack of sleep! (even my previous TR title was based on this!)


Next up: A Morning with the Animals!
 
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I'm sorry you got sick after your meal. It sounds like it cleared up quickly, so that's a good thing. About three years ago, my son-in-law ate something at Chef Mickey's that didn't set well. The poor guy spent a day and a half in the bathroom and missed out on some fun park time with the family.

I really wish I could have made it to see one of the last Illuminations. Your video turned out great.

And yes, your job is pretty badass!
 
The event sounded nice even though it didn't go perfectly. It's one of my Disney pet peeves that they advertise a check-in time but then let you check-in early but you have to just like know that you can. :confused3 :confused3

Sorry to hear you got sick that night. Hope it didn't last long!
 
I'm sorry you got sick after your meal. It sounds like it cleared up quickly, so that's a good thing. About three years ago, my son-in-law ate something at Chef Mickey's that didn't set well. The poor guy spent a day and a half in the bathroom and missed out on some fun park time with the family.

Thanks, and sorry about your son-in-law. Definitely not a fun thing to go through, especially while on vacation!

I really wish I could have made it to see one of the last Illuminations. Your video turned out great.

Thanks! It was nice to be there for the final show, and a total surprise! We seem to always book trips in time for final fireworks shows. We were there for the final Wishes as well! I wouldn't be surprised if we're there for the transition to the new show next year as well! :rotfl2:

And yes, your job is pretty badass!

Thanks! Badass but exhausting!
 
The event sounded nice even though it didn't go perfectly. It's one of my Disney pet peeves that they advertise a check-in time but then let you check-in early but you have to just like know that you can. :confused3 :confused3

Yes! We were especially annoyed because they told us not to arrive before 8:45 and that if we would, we wouldn't be seated. So yeah, to show up right on time to find everyone else already seated and eating really bugged us.

Sorry to hear you got sick that night. Hope it didn't last long!

Thanks, fortunately it didn't last too long. I was still feeling a bit off the next morning, but by lunch I was feeling a lot better. Just a rough night!
 

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