Food & Wine & the Mouse

I'm not always on holidays, I swear. I know, hard to believe me when I say that whilst I am on holidays...

Anyway, that aside, this time around I jumped on four planes and flew 21 hours to get from Port Moresby to Orlando. As a single unbroken journey, it's long. Really, really long. I was wide awake the whole way to LA. I hit up the movie selection on the plane. Note to self, don't watch movies with the words 'dying girl' in the title on a plane. I sobbed through the dinner service. The flight attendant called over the purser (exact words '2K is a mess') who in turn made sure I had an ample supply of tissues and made some film suggestions from the comedy section. For the rest of the flight the crew referred to me as 'the crying girl'. Ate the worlds most expensive doughnut at LAX (AUD$9.70 or PGK21) and then managed to sleep the whole way to Miami. Turns out you see some weird things flying on Halloween. Like this woman at LAX...

She also put on fluffy flamingo slippers after security (TSA mustn't like fluffy slippers...).

Fianlly made it to Orlando, and headed out to Walt Disney World first thing the next morning. Turns out daylight savings ended the night I arrived, so got an added bonus of an extra nights sleep (and puzzled looks at breakfast when I apologised for being an hour late...).

Day 1 was a Magic Kingdom day. It was also the final Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party. Now here is my question, why must all women's Halloween costumes be the slutty interpretation? I think I saw the slutty variation of every Disney Princess that ever lived. There was also slutty angels and Devils, slutty villains, even a slutty butterfly (which perplexed me a little). Where I drew the line was seeing a kid that couldn't be more than 10 or 11 wearing a slutty Alice in Wonderland costume. Child services should be called at this point. There were some great costumes. Steampunk Tinkerbell was awesome, and there were lots of families where Mum was the 'before' shot (provincial belle, Cinderella in rags etc), Dad was Prince Charming, and the little girl was the Princess version of Mum. Lots of families doing the Inside Out thing too (bizarrely Dads were all Anger...).

The best part of the Halloween parties is the trick or treating. You go find an organge orb in the park like this one

And they give you candy. Lots of candy. This is MY candy.

So far I've only eaten one. Mostly because I had already overdosed on sugar. Like this guy.

The whole park was decked out for the event, however I am assured it will all be Christmas decorations by the weekend.

The evening was capped off by fireworks at the castle.

15 hours in my feet and I crashed into bed, only to get back up today to do it again. I had breakfast at the drive in theatre at Hollywood Studios.

Followed by several hours riding Toy Story Mania (new high score - 190,800!). Then it was time to head to Epcot for the International Food and Wine Festival.

This year, you can buy a tasting pass, which gets you 8 dishes of your choice and reserved seating at that nights concert (they have one act a day who do three shows a night).

Food choice were tough today - it was a billion degrees. I saw two older people collapse during the course of the day and at least one baby that was so overheated it looked like it had been boiled. It was not pleasant. 

I found the cheese booth and tried a trio of cheese...

Next up, needing something cold, I headed to the Chew Lab for their liquid nitro dessert. It was okay, others were raving about it, but I've never been a fan of chocolate ice cream (seriously).

I hit up China for some chicken pot stickers...

Then some kielbasa at Poland...

A croissant stuffed with snails from France...

Then a festival fav, the Canadian cheese soup (which is surprisingly spicy)...

And then finally, on the recommendation of Melissa, I tried the Farm Fresh booth loaded Mac and cheese, which was a winner.

Still got tons more to try when I head back on Thursday.

The concert tonight was Boyz II Men. They are well and truly past the boyhood stage at this point.

I spent some quality time cooling off hiding in the on site aquarium (it's airconditioned, I didn't try to hang with the Sharks - just to be clear). I was there for feeding time to watch the fishies mob the poor handler trying to feed them all. There is a diver in there somewhere...

They have an Australia booth, which I will be boycotting. Two things. Firstly, we eat PRAWNS. WTF is a 'shrimp'? It has no place on the menu at an Australian booth. Also, what is 'yellow cake' and what is it doing in a lammo? Sponge is what you put in a lammo...

Time to head back to the hotel and the comfort of airconditioning (and get accosted on the monorail ride home by a hyperactive five year old dressed as Princess Jasmine who wanted to tell me all about her birthday - parents were a little embarrassed about her harassing a stranger and apologised profusely). Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom day. Goodnight!