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!

Candy, more candy and bizarre foods

Well this is coming to you from 35,000 feet, somewhere between Orlando and Los Angeles. In flight internet, a marvel of the modern world. So where did I leave the Disney adventure?

I think I left it somewhere near candy. Lottttttts and lots of candy. See, I went to mickeys not so scary Halloween party.

Not everything is open, but they only let so many people through the door, so the rides that are operating have almost no wait. Not surprisingly, the most popular ride was the Haunted Mansion. There were "dance parties" scattered around. A 'villain mix-n-mingle' near the castle, and a monster dance party in Tomorrow land (if you look closely you can see some of the Monsters Inc characters dancing away with the kids).

Everyone was given a bag and a map. You searched the parks for glowing orange orbs.

The orbs mean candy! If you were really lucky you found one of the 2 candy trails, which were a 500 meter or so stroll where every few meters there was another cast member handing you candy. Now, I was cool with the little kids getting a bit excited and pushing in front of me. I don't take issue with that. What I did take issue with though was the grown ups, people old enough to be my parents, pushing in front of kids and then not waiting for the cast member to get the candy, actually just grabbing it themselves and shoving it in their bags. The worst part of that was I twice saw very young (teenage looking) cast members get reprimanded by mangers for letting it happen. Really not cool.
Earlier in the day I had learned that Disney orders the equivalent of 2 tonnes of candy for each of these parties. There was everything from craisins to snickers to three musketeers to skittles to tootsie rolls and something called a whopper. Which I tried and it is nothing but a poor mans out of date malteeser. They went in the bin.

There was a special parade that night - led by the headless horseman! We were the treated to a special light show at the castle.

This was followed by the boo to you fireworks (man that song was a pain to get out of your head!).

The stroll back to the bus was a killer. I had been at the Magic Kingdom since 8am, it was now 10:30pm. My feet were contemplating a revolt, and I can't decide if I was over tired, or if it really was a man in a Fred Flinstone costume sitting next to me on the bus ride home...

I took what is called a "Keys to the Kingdom" tour earlier that day. It was one of the more fascinating things I have done in a long time. It is for adults only (for reasons that will become obvious) and we were taken around the park for five hours by a cast member named Claire who was so amazingly passionate about her job that you could not help but getting caught up on her every word. We learned all about Walt and his brother Roy and the thought and imagineering that went into Walt Disney World. We got the secrets of two of my fav rides and then got to try to find those secrets on the ride itself. We even got to go backstage and down into the tunnels that are under the Magic Kingdom. We even learned things like why the rubbish bins were where they were (which was more interesting than it sounds). I can't tell you more than that, because we were asked not to say or write anything that may be seen or heard by a child and "spoil the magic", nor could we take pictures, but it was an absolute highlight.

Another highlight came on Friday morning. I dragged my tired feet out of bed, and hit Epcot for a "Kitchen Memories" lunch - a lunch where a well known chef cooks for you and tells you about their food memories. Mine was with Mr Bizarre Foods himself Andrew Zimmern.

We were all slightly terrified about what he would make us eat - and he didn't disappoint. First course? Frogs legs!

They were tasty, and I ate the whole thing! Main was a little less challenging, his fav prawns, and then for dessert we had his family berry crumble. We got to meet him and have a chat afterwards and it turns out he is super keen on a show in PNG - he has already tried twice to get there.

That evening I went to the other end of the scale and went to the 3D dessert party. This is a party where they feed you dessert. And nothing else. Because after the candy fest the night before I needed more sugar.

My fav thing of the night (and apologies for the crappy pictures - it was really dark) was the ice cream and cake hot dog.

We finished the night with fireworks - complete with 3D glasses that made Mickey Mouse explode out of every firework. Coolest trick ever!

When I got home that night the housekeeping staff had been at it again with the towel animals. There was a ray in my bath tub!

I also got a chance that evening to go to an Air Supply concert. Nothing like a big "all out of love" sing along with aging rockers. There should be an age limit on leather pants though. Just sayin.

I finished up today with a few more dishes from the food and wine fest. I even ate the escargot. Snails AND frogs legs in one day. The French would be proud.

Sadly, it is now time to go home. Though the fun part of going home is getting to start planning the next adventure. Until next time, thanks for reading, I am always so pleasantly surprised when I see the hits on this site :)

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