January 2017 at Saratoga Springs

I'm wandering the Magic Kingdom alone again today. In the spirit of things like the monorail crawl and eating or drinking around the World Showcase, hubby is doing a roller-coaster crawl. After our lunch at Kona Cafe he boarded a bus for Animal Kingdom and will use the single-rider line to ride Expedition Everest. Then he'll join me here at MK to use his Seven Dwarfs Mine Train FP but due to large crowds will likely have to pass on Big Thunder and Space Mountains - I just passed Space and the standby line is over two hours long. Next he'll bus to Hollywood Studios and use the single-rider line to ride Rock'n Roller Coaster, then finish up with Mission Space at Epcot, the closest thing that park has to a coaster. If he arrives here at MK early enough he will be able to use his FP for Splash Mountain before doing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

Meanwhile I'm mostly wandering MK because there's a fairly large crowd today - there's a 30-minute wait for the People Mover!

Most of this week wasn't bad in terms of crowds. I said earlier that the crowds were larger than I expected this time of year, but I expected light crowds. Today was the only really bad day. I am a firm believer in going when crowds will be average or better.

Tomorrow is departure day. Amazingly, I am not at all sad to head home. It was a good week and now I get to plan April. This will include a midweek day when hubby can attempt his roller coaster crawl again. This time I'll start him at MK with FPs for all three coasters, then he can park-hop to AK for Everest single rider and DHS for Rock'n Roller Coaster single rider (or a fourth and fifth FP if that's doable. And if he feels the need to include an Epcot thrill ride even though there are no roller coasters, he can finish up with Mission Space. Today he only managed the three coasters I mentioned earlier and didn't have time for Epcot at all.

I will do a proper trip report back home where I won't have to type with my thumbs.

Unfortunately that was our final day. I have no idea why MK was so crowded on a Saturday in early February and not a holiday weekend. Even the CMs were surprised by the size of the crowd.

Day 2, our first full day, which we spent at Epcot and included a few hours touring with Alicemouse and Mr. Mouse (as I said earlier, henceforth known as the Mice).

Hubby and I got a late start Monday morning and didn't arrive at Epcot until nearly noon, missing our Spaceship Earth FastPass, but thanks to the new and improved My Disney Experience app I was able to reschedule it on my phone with no difficulty at all. Disney is now taking security even more seriously than before; we had to go through metal detectors after using the no-bag entrance to Epcot. I think over the course of the week we were sent through metal detectors all but maybe two or three times we entered a park. Got to the point where we just started emptying our pockets of metal stuff as we approached the entrance. Once past security we were pleased to discover the new Passholder gates, one at each park, which made getting through the gates a fair bit faster most days.

Alicemouse was taking an animation class in the Odyssey building and it was scheduled to end at noon, but the class ran just a bit late so we arrived while she was still animating. Mr. Mouse found us wandering the building and pointed Alicemouse out in the class (I had looked but not noticed her). We chatted a bit until the class was over, then hubby got the savory croissant donut sandwiches from Painter's Palate, the food booth inside the Odyssey building. I had a taste and liked both the tuna and the chicken salad (the third was cream cheese, which I don't eat), but I was not crazy about the cronuts. They were a little too crunchy for me. Hubby loved them, though.

Next up, at E=AT^2, hubby got a drink called deconstructed breakfast (the alcoholic version), which was a chai shake with maple bourbon tea, candied bacon, and a waffle crisp. It was interesting but after one sip I did not feel any particular compulsion to get one of my own. I didn't get anything at this booth, but the Mice got all three of the savory dishes here, which were something called a "classic Reuben" that had Reuben ingredients but was more a deconstructed Reuben in my opinion; a BLT with crispy pork belly, tomato jam, a poached egg, and nothing that resembled lettuce; and a Cobb salad with smoked duck, avocado mousse, bacon, and blue cheese - that's the dish called "eggs" in my photos because I forgot what it was supposed to be when I resized and renamed the photos. I will let Alicemouse describe these items in her trip report. They all looked interesting (see photos below) but none of them really appealed to me.

Next up was El Artista Hambriento (The Hungry Artist), which featured Mexican flavors. Hubby got the flank steak Guarache (which I call a tostada in the photo because, again, forgot what it was called when I was Photoshopping). I didn't get one of my own because it had queso fresco, but I nibbled some of hubby's avoiding the cheese and I really liked this dish. The Mice got this and also the choriqueso taco.

At the Cuisine Classique booth hubby and I got the braised beef short rib and seared red snapper to share. The short ribs were delicious; the snapper was good but not nearly as good as the ribs. The Mice got the short ribs and poached pear to share.

At the Artist's Table hubby got the pan-seared scallop. I didn't notice that in my photo the parmesan crisp is completely hiding the scallop, sorry about that. Hubby liked this dish well enough, but to me it didn't look remotely appealing and I normally like scallops. I got the roasted pork roulade, which did not taste as good as it looks. I mean, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't really tasty. The Mice got the scallop and the Belgian sipping chocolate flight, which is supposed to had white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate, but Alicemouse asked for all dark chocolate.

In between all the eating we and the Mice also checked out the art activities. We saw a couple of different artists at work, a woman who was reproducing a famous masterpiece in chalk and a man who was working on...something, and I can't really tell what it was from the photo of the Mice chatting the guy up. There were numerous canvas tents set up all around the World Showcase displaying art for sale, much of it quite impressive and some of it quite affordable. Hubby and I bought a couple of different pieces as gifts for friends. And they also had photo opportunites - put yourself into a famous work of art! We posed for a couple of them, see below, and just because I could I Photoshopped two photos into one. We had a little fun with these photo ops. Yes, hubby and I were personally responsible for showing George Washington where to cross the Delaware River.

After we and the Mice finished eating the scallops and pork roulade, hubby and I had to head back to Norway for our Frozen Ever After FastPass (we came around the Mexico side and made it as far as the American Adventure with the Mice). Since the Mice only had the one day to explore the Festival of the Arts, they continued on their way while we backtracked.

I posted earlier that the new Frozen ride was cute but not wait 75 minutes cute. Seriously, folks, if you (or your prepubescent daughter) MUST do this ride, use your Tier 1 FastPass on it. It will be easier to do Test Track and maybe even Soarin' on standby, trust me. Since we tend to visit Epcot more than once per trip, we will probably FastPass this thing again.

At this point we had our Living with the Land FastPass still an hour away and our rescheduled Spaceship Earth after that, so we decided to check out the Test Track single-rider line. The line was short, so we did it; although we didn't get to ride together we were only a few cars apart. Once the ride was over we checked out the Chevy vehicles on display, and I drooled over a new Corvette - my fantasy car since I was a teenager, but I am too practical/cheap/broke to ever get one. (Broke because we spend all our disposable income on Disney vacations and cruises.) The Chevy guy (I assume these folks are Chevy employees and not WDW CMs) would've been happy to set us up to buy one, but I am not in the market for any car at the moment. I did, however, verify with him that the Vette does indeed come with a MANUAL transmission standard, as any proper sports car should. Dang, I would love to at least test drive one.

Since we had to walk past Spaceship Earth to get over to Living with the Land, we decided to check out the standby wait. It was only five minutes, so we hopped right on. For fun we chose to hear the narration in French. Hubby minored in French in college, although he's quite rusty; I know a little but while my reading comprehension is, well, not that great, I can't follow speech very well at all. Fortunately we've ridden Spaceship Earth so many times I was able to figure out at least some of the French.

Now I started to play FastPass roulette. Or maybe craps. Not sure what gambling comparison would work best. I changed that Spaceship Earth FP to Figment, but when we arrived at Living with the Land we discovered the ride was temporarily closed. So I then changed both Living with the Land and Figment to The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk with Crush. Of course we had a bit of a wait until the new FP windows opened, so we sat a bit in the Sunshine Seasons seating area and I Facetimed with Robynprincess (and her prince) just for the fun of it. I walked her along with us to The Seas building and then brought her along on the Nemo ride; we lost signal amid all those huge fish tanks but had a nice long chat nonetheless. After that we were able to walk right into Turtle Talk, no need for the FastPass, so I juggled again and got us a new Living with the Land FP. Turtle Talk has been updated to include characters from Finding Dory, so be sure to catch it next time you visit Epcot.

Back in the Land pavilion we finally got to ride Living with the Land (didn't really need those FastPasses). Then, wonder of wonders, we discovered that Soarin' had only a 20-minute standby wait, so we got in line. I had only done Soarin' once before, nearly two years ago when Robynprincess and I did a week at WDW together without the menfolk. I had always avoided it due to motion sickness issues; Robyn talked me into trying it, but I discovered that while the motion of the ride vehicle didn't bother me, the motion in the film did so I had to do most of the ride with my eyes closed. Bummer. So I had only done the original Soarin' once. And now I was going to not watch the new version. Only I realized that the motion of the ride vehicle gave me a pretty good idea of when it was safe to look at the screen - when the chair is really rocking, eyes closed; when it's mostly still, take a quick peek. So I think I got at least a glimpse of everything. It was pretty cool. I'll ride this one again even if I can't watch most of it. Oh, and a warning - do not take pieces off your seat. You get scolded by CMs if you do. I tossed a bit of the seat on the floor because it was uncomfortable, but a CM made everyone wait while I put it back.

Based on what I'd read online about the food offerings at the Festival of the Arts, I didn't think we could spend the whole day grazing the festival food booths, and I was right. I think there were maybe half a dozen dishes that really appealed to me, and a couple of them weren't as good as I'd hoped they would be. I probably could've found two or three additional items I might have liked if I'd really studied ingredients lists and such. A big part of my problem is that, this being an arts festival, the food had to be artsy, and artsy lends itself more to desserts than to savories, and I am just not a big fan of desserts. I might like one dessert, but not half a dozen in one day. The visual/graphic arts represented were more interesting, the galleries, the visiting artists, and the tents housing art for sale. We didn't catch the performing arts, which were limited to Broadway stars singing Disney show tunes. This is the festival's inaugural year, so I hope that in the future they can expand on the performing art offerings, maybe including other kinds of music as well as dance, theater, and cinema. I mean, this is Walt Disney World, how can they not include cinema at some point?

Anyway, since I didn't think the food offerings would be sufficient to substitute for both lunch and dinner, I made a Spice Road Table reservation timed to have us in the restaurant for Illuminations. We like Restaurant Marrakesh across the walkway in Morocco but prefer Spice Road. Hubby got the Moroccan lamb sausage appetizer and the lamb sliders with hummus fries, while I stuck with just small plates, getting the hummus and olives with pita bread and the fried calamari. I shared with hubby and also had one piece of his sausage, one slider, and a hummus fry. It was all delicious, but the lamb sausage was a bit too spicy for me. My favorite, I think, was the lamb slider, although the pitas were warm and tasty and the calamari crispy and tender. I had mint iced tea with my meal and hubby had coffee. It was a very cool day by Florida standards; I was wearing a jacket but hubby didn't realize how cool it would be and was only wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

I thought a 7:40 reservation would get us in early enough to get a good table, but all the waterfront tables were already taken. We ended up on the other side of the terrace area, but not all the way back. We should have been able to have a half-decent view of Illuminations, but the large party at a table near ours decided to get up and stand in front of our table so they could see better. Thanks, folks. The photos below show what our view could have been and what it actually ended up being. The standing people would not have been half as annoying if they had picked spots and stood still so I could work around them, but they kept wandering back and forth talking to each other and whatever.

Since we were at the back of the World Showcase, hubby suggested that we walk to the Beach Club and catch a Disney Springs bus, since the Disney Springs bus stop is quite close to Saratoga Springs. Or so we thought. We didn't know the Disney Springs bus stop had been moved from the end of the Marketplace section clear over to between the two new parking garages. And by now the temperature was around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (maybe 10 degrees Celsius?) and hubby was absolutely freezing. I suggested waiting for a Saratoga Springs bus instead of walking, but that was a mistake because we just missed one SSR bus and the next one was a long, long time coming. But finally we made it back to our room and had nice hot cups of tea in bed.

Next up, Animal Kingdom and lunch at Sanaa.

Yes! All of that Epcot stuff happened on Monday, January 30.

So on to Tuesday, January 31. Hubby woke up well before I did and walked to the Carriage House to set up payment of our Magic Band charges on some Disney gift cards he purchased (at a discount from our warehouse club so we save a little money). After that he walked to the Speedway (former Hess) station across the road from Disney Springs to purchase a case of bottled water and some cigarettes. (And after he had just bragged to the Mice about quitting the previous day as he walked past a smoking area at Epcot without stopping to puff a little. I think he's quit and unquit about a dozen times in the last couple of years. At least he keeps trying.) By the time he returned I was awake and he was a bit tired from hauling 24 bottles of water in his backpack! I don't know whether there was a 12-pack at the Speedway but that would've been the better option; we ended up not using all the water.

We intended to get a late start Tuesday because our first stop was Animal Kingdom Lodge for lunch at Sanaa, which I have already described. We caught a Disney Springs bus and then an Animal Kingdom Lodge bus and arrived just a bit early. We did manage to get the last available window seat so were happy to be early. In addition to the entrees already pictured here, hubby got the dessert trio and talked me into getting the stone fruit samosas. I'd said I didn't want dessert because I wanted to save room for a snack at Animal Kingdom later in the day - the new food court in the Africa section intrigued me - but hubby said he would eat them if I couldn't so I relented. Glad I did, they were delicious and so tiny they weren't at all filling. Three little triangles of fried pastry filled with peach and with just a bit of peach sauce. I will order them again, and hubby didn't get so much as a bite! Sorry, but no photos of dessert.

After lunch we caught a bus to Animal Kingdom, arriving before 2:00. Our first FastPass wasn't until 3:30 (Finding Nemo: The Musical), so we had a bit of time to kill. We checked out the character spot where Russell and Dug usually hang out, but it was Russell only. No offense to Russell, but it's more fun with both of them, so we passed on by. We walked past Dinoland but didn't bother walking through; that section just doesn't appeal to either one of us, and hubby wasn't interested in riding Dinosaur. He did Expedition Everest in the single-rider line while I trained up a nearby Pokemon gym and placed, I don't know, probably one of my dozen or so Vaporeons in, although it might've been my Snorlax. After Everest we checked out Flights of Wonder, which we hadn't done in ages, can't even recall how long it's been. On our way back to Finding Nemo hubby did Everest single rider again, then we enjoyed the show. The crowd was so large for the show that people were vulture-trolling for empty seats near the front (where we were since we had FastPasses). One dad was allowing his baby to run around a little to burn up energy and keep him occupied, and once when he went to chase after the kid a couple of people tried to steal his seat! His wife chased them off, but man, those seat-hunters were pretty ruthless. Of course the show was wonderful as always, one of our favorites.

We were scheduled to finish the day with two FastPasses in the park's Africa section, so first we walked through the new food court area, which was mostly closed that late in the afternoon but which I think I will hit for lunch on our next trip. Inside the food court we saw Rafiki's train pass by and headed over to take a ride, but that late in the afternoon it was only bringing folks back from Planet Watch, not taking people over, so no ride for us. Instead hubby bought a Coke and I bought a sangria at the bar and we sat and listened as three women sang and played drums.