Wining & Dining Around the World~ An October 2013 TR w/pics~ UPDATED 2/11 (x2)!



Love the update. The Wine demos are one of my favorite things about Food and Wine. Not just the samples, which are great, but hearing more about the history of the winery and stories behind the different wines.

We have just moved to less than one year for our trip next Oct. DW has the countdown calendar on her desk and I get a picture each day!

Thanks! We loved the wine demos and wished we had time for more. I can't wait for our next F&WF trip in October. Hope yours is great!!
 
Hi Everyone!! I know I've been a bad trip reporter lately and have been MIA for awhile, but I'm back! :thumbsup2Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!! Between work and the holidays, things have been beyond hectic. So I figured before I get busy again with Christmas coming up, I'd send a few updates. Missing Disney like crazy, but we're in the midst of planning our spring trip, so we're excited for that.....

Now back to the show! princess:

Chapter 10: We've Never Had Australian Wine Before, so Let's Go to Another Demo!

At both of our tastings, the hostess kept mentioning the Ghardelli chocolate booth that was next to the Vineyard at the Festival Center. I decided to head in and take a peek at what they had. They had just about every time of chocolate you could imagine. I settled on a bag of the dark chocolate with sea salt caramel and it was AMAZING!! They also had this stand where you could fill a tin with as many chocolates as you could fit in it for $12. I decided to grab this for my parents as a gift, so DH and I strategically began placing the chocolates in the box. We somehow managed to get 33 in there which I thought was impressive. Until, we got to the counter and the CM asked us how many we were able to fit. She said that most people can get around 30-35, but a few people managed to get 55 in the tin. I was shocked until I found out it was because they bought all of the chocolates without any fillings in them (and we all know that's no fun :( ). They also accepted the AP discount which was great, too!

Since we didn't have anything scheduled for this afternoon, we decided to grab tickets for the 2pm Wine Demo from Treasury Wine Estates in Australia. I never had Australian wine before so I thought that'd be interesting. We about an hour to waste before that demo, so we headed over to La Cantina de San Angel for a quick bite to eat. La Cantina is my favorite QS restaurant in World Showcase! DH and I both ordered the Tacos de Pollo and they were great! We had gotten seats right by the lagoon which made for a relaxing meal and fantastic view of World Showcase!







Luckily La Cantina and the Festival Center are pretty close to each other, because we weren't done eating until 1:45pm and the demo started at 2pm.

Before long, we were back at our second home...The Festival Center!





The line for the demo was pretty long by the time we got there, so we didn't get front row seats this time. Oh well, we managed to get in the 2nd row though.


Our presenter arrived a little after 2pm and his name was Jerry Comfort. He had a great sense of humor. The Treasury Wine Estates is an interesting company. Not knowing much about Australian wines or the company, at first I thought Treasury Wine Estates was the name of the vineyard, but the company is actually comprised of over 80 brands of wine! Jerry then told us that the company began with the Lindemans Vineyard in 1843. He then began to tell us about all of the different regions that were suitable climates to grow grapes in Australia. Jerry talked a bit more about the company and then we began our tasting!


As with the Dreaming Tree Demo, Treasury Estates also featured 1 white wine and 2 red wines. Our first wine was the Wolf Blass Gold Label Chardonnay. This wine was produced in South Australia in the Barossa Valley. According to Jerry, it paired well with chicken, pasta and seafood dishes. It was the best of the 3 wines we tried at the Treasury Estates demo.



Next up was the Rosemount Diamond Shiraz. This wine was produced by the Rosemount Estate in South Australia. The wine was decent. I dont think Id buy a bottle of it, but it was good. DH liked it, but agreed he wouldn't buy a bottle of it.

The last wine we tried was the Penfolds Bin 8 Cabernet. Again, not a fan of Cabernets but I did try the wine and wasnt impressed. The people that were sitting at our table at the same expressions as me, so maybe it really wasn't that good, LOL. Jerry explained that all of the Penfolds wines have different bin numbers but that they didn't have any significance on the quality of the wine.

As the tasting was finishing up, Jerry mentioned that Penfolds came out with a new wine this year with a pretty hefty price tag. He took a few guesses from the audience members as to how much they thought it cost. Someone mentioned $50,000 and he said it was higher! Then someone said $100,000 and he said higher than that! At this point, I was thinking no way is wine worth that much, but I was interested to see how much the going rate was for this wine. It was, brace yourselves, $168,000 per bottle!!! That sure is a lot of Disney trips :rotfl2: Just in case any of you are interested in buying it ;), the name of the wine is the 2004 Block 42 and its a Cabernet Sauvignon. There were only 12 bottles of this wine produced last year (I wonder why!). If you're lucky enough to have $168,000 to burn on a bottle of wine, at least the winemaker hosts a special bottle opening ceremony for you at the location of your choice!


All in all, we weren't too impressed by the Treasury Estates Demo. We loved the Asti and the Dreaming Tree demos a lot more. Maybe Australian wine just isn't our thing :confused3


After the demo was finished, it was almost 3pm. We decided to head back to the Yacht Club, as we had a Not So Scary night ahead of us.....I wonder where we might be headed???


 
Chapter 11: A Not So Scary Night at the Magic Kingdom!



Im back, again! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! Cant believe how fast the holidays went by this year!


Weve already booked 2 out of our 3 trips to WDW for 2014!! Well be doing a 4 night stay at the Boardwalk Villas at the end of February and then a 2 night stay at the Boardwalk Villas at the end of April for the Flower & Garden Festival, before heading down to Siesta Key. Woohoo! Being the fact that it is 0 degrees at home today, these trips cannot come fast enough.:rotfl2:


It seems strange talking about last Halloween, now that Christmas has come and gone, but back to the report, we go!


Now where did I leave off. Oh, thats right. We had an evening full of not so scary fun ahead of us because we were headed to Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party tonight! pixiedust:


After our wine tasting at Epcot, we headed back to the Yacht Club for a quick break. DH took a nap for a bit, and I was outside soaking up the sun at Stormalong Bay! It was so gorgeous outside; how could I pass up the opportunity?






After a few hours outside, it was almost 4pm, so I made my way inside to get ready for the party. My intention was to get to the party by 5, but we were dragging our feet getting ready (too much sun and wine maybe, LOL).:rotfl2:


We were debating about taking the bus to MK or cutting through Epcot and taking the monorail, but ultimately decided on taking the bus. The one (of many) things I love about the Yacht Club is that they are the first pickup on the way to the parks (they head to the Beach Club afterwards). We usually had an empty bus (to start with) when we were heading to the parks. We made a quick stop at the Beach Club and we were on our way to the happiest place on Earth!




We arrived at MK around 5:30 and we got our wristbands and trick or treat bags for the party. We didnt have an ADRs tonight because I didnt want to take away time from the party, so we made our way to Pecos Bills for dinner. The place was packed. I dont think Ive ever seen it so busy. We each ordered a taco salad (sorry, no pics L), but it was really good. It was about 6:30 when we finished and we heard an announcement made that MNSSHP had been sold out for the night. Uhh ohh! Now, we were at a sold out MVMCP last year and the place was a mob scene after an hour or so. I was a little nervous that tonight would turn out to the be the same. But what we were going to do. We were there and would make the best of it!


It was 6:30 by the time we got done eating, which meant the party would be starting in 30 minutes. Ya! I already had an itinerary in my head about how our night would go- Characters, trick or treating, 2nd parade, and then rides. I never worry about riding the rides at MNSSHP or MVMCP because they are always there no matter what time of the year you go. Granted, the lines are generally shorter, but wed rather spend precious party time, doing party things ;)


Since the party was sold out, I figured we should probably go get in line for our 1st character of the night- Winnie the Pooh and friends. We made our way over and were shocked that we were the 2nd group in line. Before long though, the line was wrapped around the bend! I thought the characters would be out by 7, but they didnt show until 7:20. Well worth the wait though.


Arent they so cute in their costumes?








I was mad that the photopass photo never got loaded into our account, but luckily my camera one did! We got our photos and made our way over to Fantasyland.



The Mad Hatter was out, and didnt have a line so we grabbed a quick photo with him. Who said this party was sold out?!? LOL





We started the trick or treat trail over by Fantasyland and got a TON of candy. Literally half of the bag was filled just on that one trail (I think there were 4 stops). The CMs were really generous.


It was after 8 by now, and we knew the 1st parade was about to start, so we made our way over to Haunted Mansion. That is our one must do ride seeing the fact we are at a Halloween party!


On the way out of the ride, we stopped to get our picture taken in front of HM.





Looks like a hitchhiking ghost decided to follow us home!


We walked around for a bit and stopped at a few more trick or treat stations. By now the 1st parade was finishing and the place was a mob scene!

DH wanted a Dole Whip so we fought through the crowds over to get him one. While he was eating I walked around to see how long they lines were for Aladdin and Jack Sparrow and they were pretty long. DH met up with me and asked me if I wanted to wait, but I knew each line would have been 20+ minutes and I wanted to go stake my spot out on Main Street for the 2nd parade!
 


Chapter 12: Boo To You!

By now, it was 9:30 and it was time for Hallowishes! We hung out on Main Street right by the Emporium to see them.












As soon as Hallowishes was over, most of the people were starting to leave. Funny how that happens!

We stopped on Main Street to grab a picture with the pumpkins. Unfortunately, you couldn't see the castle in the background :(



Since we were in the Main Street area, I figured we'd stop at Town Square Theater to see how long the line was to see Mickey and Minnie.


There were only a couple of families in front of us, so we waited.



I love how all of the characters get dressed up for Halloween!



We walked out of Town Square Theater and were shocked at how much of a ghost town it was! There was hardly anyone there. I figured there was no sense in sitting on the curb waiting for the parade to begin, so we sat on a bench outside Town Square.



A few minutes later, I noticed a big, purple, strawberry smelling bear standing near Tony's. It was Lotso!




Lotso happens to be DH's favorite character, so I grabbed DH and went to go stand in line.




How could such a cute bear be so mean?



It was a few minutes before 10:30 so the parade was about to begin! We knew that the parade wouldn't arrive to us for a good 15 minutes but they did have other entertainment, leading up to the main show!




Before long, the Boo to You Parade sign was rounding the bend!




I'm just so amazed at the amount of detail that Disney puts into this parade.










I love seeing all of the characters that you don't normally see around the parks!













Time for the Villians!








It was so nice being able to see the parade without being 10 deep in line. (I would definitely recommend the 2nd parade over the 1st, because of the smaller crowds). It was so much more enjoyable.




As the parade was ending, we said our goodbyes to MK and made a mad dash for the buses.





Not before making a quick stop to see what the CM's were handing out- Halloween peeps!




We waited around for what seemed like eternity for a Yacht & Beach Club bus (it was really probably only 20 minutes), but it was late and we were both tired.



I saw a Boardwalk bus come and there was hardly anyone waiting in that line, so we ran over and got on that bus. We waited about 10 minutes for it to fill up and there was still no sign of a Yacht Club bus, so I'm glad we made the move. I ended up chatting the whole bus ride home with a lady who was at WDW on business trip (wish I could go on business trips to WDW!). She was returning in December with her husband and daughter, so I gave her a bunch of tips on what to see and do. I hope she had a great trip!



We got off at the Swan & Dolphin stop, and headed back to the Yacht Club, showered, and crashed!




At least we had a relaxing day ahead of us tomorrow!
 
Great party photos!! We've never tried one, but your photos are making me want to try one out!!
 
Chapter 13: A Day at Stormalong Bay!


We has such a late night at MNSSHP that I decided not to set an alarm today, and boy did it feel good! :thumbsup2 We originally had an ADR for Chef Mickey’s which I ended up canceling Thursday night because I figured we’d end up being at MNSSHP late, since we were only going to be going once. As a result, that left us with no ADR for breakfast. What would we do? Have no fear, the Captain’s Grille is here!


We leisurely left the room around 9:15am, and made that long journey down the hallway to the Captain’s Grille. LOL. :rotfl: The CM at the podium told us it would be about a 10-15 minute wait, so we put our name on the list and he handed us a pager. We sat down in the lobby and relaxed for a bit, before our pager started buzzing.



We had never been to the Captain’s Grille before and it was a nice change of pace from all of the character breakfasts. There were mostly the same breakfast items there that you would find at the character meals. They offered both a buffet and ala carte menu, but we opted for the buffet. AP members also get a 10% discount which was a nice bonus.




As soon as we finished eating we went down to Stormalong Bay. We cleared our plans for the day and decided to hang out by the pool all day, something we’ve never done at Disney. We’re usually always on the go, so it was nice to sit back and soak up the Florida sunshine! I figured in all of the times that we’ve stayed at the Beach Club, we’ve only hung out at Stormalong Bay a handful of times. DH got towels and grabbed us a few chairs and I headed over to the slide! IMO, the slide at Stormalong Bay is the best of all of the WDW resort pools. I think a few people might tend to agree ;)



532306_981209466443_1725538027_n.jpg


Our view from the beach area


After a few hours of laying in the sun and frolicking in the pool, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat at Hurricane Hanna’s. We both got the turkey subs and they were really good. When we finished eating, DH decided to go back to the room, and I stayed outside for a little while longer. I headed over to the bar and grabbed a drink. I got the Sunken Treasure (Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Midori Melon Liqueur, Tropical Juices and Sprite with a splash of Blue Curacao) and the bar tender was able to make it frozen, which was perfect on this warm day! I had been craving a grilled cheese all week, so I got that as a snack to go with my drink!



Needless to say we never made it to Hollywood Studios that afternoon which I was ok with, since we had gone on our September trip. We really enjoyed our day by the pool and plan on having those more often!




It was almost 3pm at this point so I made my way inside to take a shower and get ready for tonight. We were heading back to the Magic Kingdom tonight to be “guests” at one of the most sought after restaurants in all of Walt Disney World!
 
I'm here!

Love all your updates! I enjoyed reading about the different F&W events you participated in!

Love all your MNSSHP pics, so cute!!

It's nice that you made time for a pool day- especially since you could enjoy Stormalong Bay!

Can't wait to read more!
 
I'm here!

Love all your updates! I enjoyed reading about the different F&W events you participated in!

Love all your MNSSHP pics, so cute!!

It's nice that you made time for a pool day- especially since you could enjoy Stormalong Bay!

Can't wait to read more!

Thank you for joining in!! F&W is one of our favorite events at WDW! We had a great time.

Stormalong Bay is great! It's like a mini water park :)
 
Chapter 14: Be Our Guest


After coming in from a day of sun and relaxation at the pool, it was time to get ready for our last night at the Magic Kingdom :( I swear, with each trip that we go on, the time seems to go faster and faster while we’re there!


In any event, tonight we had a reservation at Be Our Guest! It is hands down, my favorite restaurant at the Magic Kingdom, and definitely in my top 5 in all of Walt Disney World. Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorite Disney movies growing up so you can see why I love the restaurant so much!


We made our way out to the bus stop a little after 5pm and there was only a handful of people on the bus heading to MK!



Before long, we were passing through the gates of the happiest place on Earth!



Our reservation was for 6:25pm and it was around 5:30pm at this point so we made our way over to Fantasyland and hung out there for a bit, before checking in at Be Our Guest.



The lady in front of us at the Be Our Guest checkin was quite irate at the fact that there was no seating available that night, and how everyone else in line was getting to go to the restaurant. Sorry, but it’s called an ADR, ma’am!! In any event, she stormed out of there and we were next. I felt bad for the CM that had to deal with her! The CM handed us our pager and we waited on the bridge for our name to be called.




They ended up calling us before our ADR time which was great. The CM asked us if we had dined at Be Our Guest before and I said yes, so we didn’t get a tour of the place this time, as she brought us directly to our seats. We were seated in the ballroom again which was fantastic!







A short while later our server came over to take our order. We ordered the usual- chicken provincial and I got the wildberry foam lemonade! We had fantastic service that night and our foods came out very quickly. While we were eating the Beast made his stroll through the ballroom on the way to the library. For some reason, we were done eating in record time, but we couldn’t leave before dessert!


We both ended up getting the strawberry cupcake. So yummy!



We paid and made our way over to the library to get our photo taken with the Beast. The line was pretty long, but they kept it moving as I don’t think we waited for more than 10-15 minutes.


Finally it was our turn!! I miss seeing the Beast with Belle in France in Epcot. I wonder if they will ever end up bringing Belle over to Be Our Guest?





As we left, we had a little photoshoot of our own at Cinderella's Castle-









We made our way down Main Street USA




and stopped at the Emporium before heading out.


Adios, Magic Kingdom. See ya next year!



Now, we were off to a night full of crowds at Epcot!
 
Love Be Our Guest! Glad you guys had another good experience at the restaurant! I agree, it would be nice if they ended up bringing Belle over to BOG to greet with the Beast!
 

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