The Butter Consists of Butter - An October Mother/Daughter TR! (Finished 02/18)

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Hi everyone and welcome to what is going to be the TR for my shortest ever trip to Disney!

It took a lot for us to get here. From messing up our travel weekends accidentally to booking everything last minute we took we finally got to Disney and are now home!

Who are we, anyway?

Well, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Elle!

I've written a bunch of TRs in the last few years on both the WDW and DLR side. I currently have a Disneyland TR going here. I'm almost-30 and a teacher by trade - middle school English and Drama during the year and elementary/middle school Drama during the summer. I'm an Annual Passholder and love to take photographs and share them on my Instagram account @elleindisney just so I can have a place for them that's not a photo album. See that red camera in this picture? Yeah, that died this trip. RIP Nikon J1, you were an awesome camera.

So, this trip was super special to me for a multitude of reasons. The first is all about me. This was a little bit of a homecoming - my very first trip to Disney was when I was 11. I had just had surgery that summer and had finally gotten the okay from my doctors for the very first time that I could go on an airplane without worry so my grandparents surprised me. They took me to Disney for Halloween and because of that trip I absolutely fell in love with Disney.

This was also a special trip because it was a gift to my mother for mother's day/her birthday, which are a couple weeks apart.

This is my mother, whom I call Mum.

Mum is a middle school special education teacher who loves Disney about as much as I do. She and my dad have been going every year since I was in high school, sometimes with me but most of the time just the two of them. She's said every year that she wishes she could go to Food & Wine so this year I surprised her with tickets to MNSSHP and told her we were going for a weekend so she could experience both. Along the way, two of her best friends ended up planning a trip the same time as us, so we spent our mornings together and our evenings with them.

So come on along! It was a packed 3 days for sure and I can't wait to share it with you guys!

 

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Chapter Links

Chapter One: Travel Day

- Part One​

Chapter Two: Our Pre-Meal Meal

- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four​

Chapter Three: Boo To You

- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four
- Part Five
- Part Six
- Part Seven​

Chapter Four: Good Bye

- Part One​

 

[DisneyMichael]

Ooh sounds like fun!

 

[absolutmey]

Oh, fun! I love October TR's. Can't wait to read more!

 

[Lesley Wake]

following!

 

[dolewhipdreams]

Looks like a fun trip! I'm trying to convince my mom to do a mother/daughter trip with me in the spring!

 

[mamamelody2]

i'm in!

 

[ariane37]

Here! Sounds like fun!

 

[coloredimage]

Ooh sounds like fun!

Oh, fun! I love October TR's. Can't wait to read more!

following!

Looks like a fun trip! I'm trying to convince my mom to do a mother/daughter trip with me in the spring!

i'm in!

Here! Sounds like fun!

Welcome guys! Glad you're here, hope you stick around

 

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Chapter One: Travel Day


My first day began like most days begin - waking up at 5:30 on a Friday morning, excited otu of my mind.


Except most days I don’t have to go to work for it.


I was less than thrilled about having to go to work in order to get to Disney, and I was super stressed about it as well. See, Thursday I had realized that I was going to have to do a half day at work because I was not going to make it to the airport if I didn’t. I never got a confirmation email from my boss that my half day was approved or not, so I was kind of panicked basically until I got to work. One of the members of my team told me she was taking over for me the last two periods so I could leave, and I think I thanked her about five million times. I’m new to my team, but they all knew how important this trip was to me and I’m so thankful!


When I got to work at least the view was nice.

I taught two classes. This was an approximation of how I looked all morning:

I should have left work at 11 but I stayed until about 12:15 making sure my sub plans were in order and copies were made. I was almost bouncing by the time I got into my car I was so excited!

Except I wasn’t going to the airport yet. Womp. I drove to Worcester, where we were flying out of, and went to my spend the last few minutes of work with my dad. I was leaving my car at his building and he was going to pick it up the next day. Once he was out of work he left me alone to wait for my mother because he had to go run to the bank before he drove us to the airport. I got the text that my room was ready, waited until Mum got out of work and drove over to her side of the building to pick her up, and we waited.


And waited.


And waited.


It was getting close to 3 pm. For reference, our flight was at 3:52 and we needed to get to the other side of the city. Worcester is a tiny airport, but it’s not small enough to show up five minutes before the flight.


Apparently he had gotten stuck behind a bus, then at a red light. We piled into the car and hit the road.


Guys. We BARELY made it to the airport. We made it as they were boarding. I got into line for security while Mum ran to the bathroom quickly. There was a family in front of me, and a couple between Mum and I. The family was moving as slowly as humanly possible because they had never gone through security before and they were super early for their flight so they were in no rush and asking a million questions. The couple behind me was on my flight and were super upset that they had to go through security and couldn’t just go to the gate.


But we made it onto the plane!

We relaxed as the plane took off. Mum spent the time reading, taking pictures out the window, and listening to music. I ended up watching the Brooklyn Nine-Nine I had missed that week and then catching up on Bob’s Burgers. I was also trying to ignore the man sitting behind me, who was loudly telling the woman next to him (whom he didn’t know) all about his marital problems.

It was a strange flight.

But it didn’t matter because soon we were landing in Orlando, way faster than we had thought we would (6:!5, when we thought we would land at 7).

Neither Mum nor I had actually really eaten anything since breakfast that day so we decided to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts (the most New Englander thing we did this entire trip) and grab coffee and a sandwich to eat on the Magical Express (those of you who have read some of my other TRs may be less than shocked to find out that my coffee was gone before we got into the queue for our bus).


We go onto the bus at 7:07. It took about 40 minutes from the time we got on our bus until we finally left MCO, so we weren’t dropped off at Caribbean Beach until close to 8, then it took another 20 minutes for the Internal Shuttle to show up. I have it noted that we were in our room by 8:37.


We also go lost getting to our room, which is a theme for me whenever I stay at Caribbean Beach so that’s less than shocking.


We were in Martinique 2549, which was a corner room, facing the lake. We would have been right next to OPR if it wasn’t under construction and closed. It was, technically, the perfect room!

They gave us some literature on the construction. I took some pictures of it to share with my friends since it’ll affect our stay in AoA next year:

And because we were there during construction they gave us complimentary pins!

Once we had dropped our stuff I had mentioned to Mum that I was thinking of going to Disney Springs. I had originally planned to go to Epcot but we ended up getting into the hotel too late. Two of Mum’s best friends, P & R, were down for two weeks and they were in Disney Springs already so she had plans to meet up with them. We both decided to head out together and split up once we got there.


When we got there R & P were willing to get a drink with Mum but were super tired, so we told them to go home and we’d go do our own thing. We wandered around Disney Springs for a couple of minutes. Mum suggested Polite Pig because she knows how much I love bbq, but we settled on the Daily Poutine.

We got the regular poutine and we each got the fireball sangria, which was like mulled wine.

It was a nice, simple meal. I couldn’t eat all of mine because they give you so much but if you like poutine it’s really good. I love it, so I was pleased. In fact, while I was writing my notes up in the room when we got back my mother asked, “are you writing about the sangria? Did you say how good it was?” so I guess that was a hit for her too.


We actually hit it at a good time - there was one group in front of us and nobody behind us when we got there. When we started towards World of Disney the line was a good 10 people deep.


We watched a human statue for a couple minutes,

then headed into World of Disney.

We enjoyed walking through and looking at things. We found a scarf that P’s daughter would love so we bought it for her as a birthday present.


Once we were done in World of Disney we checked out the co-op but we were both tired so we headed back to the buses.


And then it started to rain.


Then pour.


We were soaked by the time we got into the bus line. And it took us 40 minutes to get a bus. We were frozen and wet on the bus but at least we were on there! We got back to our room by 12:05 and basically just collapsed into bed.

 

[Raeven]

Following along!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Guys. We BARELY made it to the airport. We made it as they were boarding. I got into line for security while Mum ran to the bathroom quickly. There was a family in front of me, and a couple between Mum and I. The family was moving as slowly as humanly possible because they had never gone through security before and they were super early for their flight so they were in no rush and asking a million questions. The couple behind me was on my flight and were super upset that they had to go through security and couldn’t just go to the gate.

Argh, that is so annoying! Especially when people are hurrying behind you!

 

[xlsm]

You know I'm in!!

So excited to hear how the trip went!! Your airport experience stressed me out, I'm glad you ended up making your flight. We had a close call when we headed home, the security line was almost an hour long wait at MCO. It was crazy.

 

[coloredimage]

Argh, that is so annoying! Especially when people are hurrying behind you!

I was bouncing. I was trying not to be in their space (I even chased after the mom when she accidentally left her snacks after grabbing her carry on) but it was making me so anxious!

You know I'm in!!

So excited to hear how the trip went!! Your airport experience stressed me out, I'm glad you ended up making your flight. We had a close call when we headed home, the security line was almost an hour long wait at MCO. It was crazy.

Yay! I honestly just ran to see if you had started a TR too once I saw that you commented lol!

It was the most stressful twenty minutes of my trip. It was actually worse than leaving for California a few years ago when we had all the construction delaying us. I actually almost sent you a message about it once I got on the plane but knew you were dealing with the Fall Carnival craziness. MCO was INSANE wasn't it? Oh, man, I feel like it was worse than April/May!!

 

[ariane37]

Guys. We BARELY made it to the airport. We made it as they were boarding.

Ah! I would have been freaking out in the car the whole way!!! Actually I did, this happened to us a couple years ago. We got there as they were boarding; it was a small airport close to us and when we ran in and started heading toward the JetBlue counter, the worker there said our last name because they were waiting for us. Happy they waited but it was embarrassing. Glad you made it

t took about 40 minutes from the time we got on our bus until we finally left MCO, so we weren’t dropped off at Caribbean Beach until close to 8,

This is what I dread and my DH despises; getting on ME and sitting. After having good luck for many trips, our last 4 trips we seem to have had experiences like you and he gets so angry, he keeps saying on our next trip we're taking a taxi. But then we end up on ME again.......

and we each got the fireball sangria, which was like mulled wine.

I'm a sangria lover and I did not know about this! Will have to put it on my list

Even though you were tired it still sounds like you had a nice evening in DS; better than hanging at the resort. Looking forward to hearing about your first park day.

 

[coloredimage]

Ah! I would have been freaking out in the car the whole way!!! Actually I did, this happened to us a couple years ago. We got there as they were boarding; it was a small airport close to us and when we ran in and started heading toward the JetBlue counter, the worker there said our last name because they were waiting for us. Happy they waited but it was embarrassing. Glad you made it


This is what I dread and my DH despises; getting on ME and sitting. After having good luck for many trips, our last 4 trips we seem to have had experiences like you and he gets so angry, he keeps saying on our next trip we're taking a taxi. But then we end up on ME again.......


I'm a sangria lover and I did not know about this! Will have to put it on my list

Even though you were tired it still sounds like you had a nice evening in DS; better than hanging at the resort. Looking forward to hearing about your first park day.

I've never been so late for a plane before! I hate it so much - it's so stressful. I've only really had one or two super long experiences with ME which I guess is pretty lucky all things considered, but it really kicked my enthusiasm to want to do too much since we basically lost an hour of our already short vacation .

I hadn't heard of the sangria until my mother saw the sign and pointed it out to me! We both really enjoyed it, and it was nice an autumnal without feeling ridiculous drinking it when it was 80

 

[coloredimage]

I ended up calling out sick from work today. I hate doing that but I definitely hit a wall this week and just needed some time to sleep and get rid of whatever I've been fighting all week. I fell asleep at like 7:30 Wednesday evening and even after about ten hours of sleep yesterday I still was barely functioning at work.

so, I put together an update for this trip report. I'll update my Disneyland one if anyone's interested later in the week, but it's a much slower section of the boards so I tend to forget about it. Oops.

Chapter Two: Our Pre-Meal Meal

Part One


After our travel day and late night, Mum and I were still on our normal schedule. I had said that I was going to set my alarm for 8 and we could make Epcot later than rope drop (we had discussed getting there for rope drop so we could try to ride Frozen but once we got into the room at midnight the night before she nixed that suggestion). I ended up getting up around 7:30 after a night of fairly restless sleep (my blutooth headphones turned off so I had to get up and fumble around for my regular headphones in the middle of the night) to go shower and Mum was already awake reading on her iPad, so by the time I was out of the shower she was ready and just waiting for me.

Now, as you look at these pictures, try and figure out which are from my iPhone (ie the majority) and which are from my camera that dies within the next twelve hours:

We ended up walking into Epcot right at 9 am!

While we were walking over to bag check Mum had asked if we could at least get a photo of us together in front of the Food & Wine sign. I reminded her that I have photopass so we could take whatever pictures she wanted. There happened to be a small line formed already for the photopass guy so we hopped right in!


Of course I had to take a picture of Spaceship Earth first:

And a monorail photo in honor of @xlsm

Then we got our photos:

Mum decided she definitely didn’t want to have to rush over to Norway and wanted to enjoy Epcot so our plan was to head over to Sunshine Seasons and see what they had for breakfast items. As we were walking though, I noticed the wait time for Spaceship Earth was literally non-existent. Like, 0 minute wait time.


Clearly, the only thing you can do at that point is go on, right?

Mum was spending this time texting R and P our plans so that we could meet up. We were spending the entire day together so we were trying to coordinate with them to find a good place to meet.


Except Mum cannot type and walk at the same time. So apparently her text she THOUGHT said “going to Spaceship Earth then Sunshine Seasons for breakfast” was a whole bunch of gibbersh with “une dome” as the only thing close to words. We kept calling it “une dome” for the rest of the weekend!


We enjoyed our ride through time then continued our walk over to Sunshine Seasons. There was a weird amount of nobody around for the majority of the day for us in Epcot for a Saturday, so we quickly got our meal and sat down. We chalked it up to it being the only day this weekend with no party at MK so more people probably headed there. Whatever, it worked out in our favor!


We both ended up with French Toast bread pudding:

I almost didn’t get this, because the French toast bread pudding I got at Flo’s this summer was overly sweet, but this one was great! I really enjoyed it as did Mum.


R and P met up with us while we were eating so they joined us at the table, though they had grabbed their meal at Starbucks because they weren’t sure if we would be done by the time we found each other.


World Showcase was opening up at this point so we headed on over, grabbing passports on the way.

Our first stop was the Hawaii booth for glasses of pineapple wine to celebrate the weekend:

We all really enjoyed it, and decided it was probably in our top things from the festival. It would make a great mimosa, it was nice and light, and not overly sweet.


We made it a point to take our time and walk around. So that clearly meant I had to take a picture of the topiary.

It also meant the R and P had to do something ridiculous in the background:

We took the opportunity to walk through the stores at the top of World Showcase. I found a gorgeous teapot that I ended up buying on the Parks app. I also found a small amount of 35th anniversary stuff left, including this hat:

Which I clearly got. It’s retro, it’s Epcot, and it’s adorable. I sent a picture of it to Liz and Jen and they both loved it. I also had to promise to get Jen something with the 35th on it for her because Epcot is her favorite park.


We headed into the Mexico pavilion (my favorite) and found some Dia de los Muertos statues:

Then headed down on a Grand Fiesta Tour.

We stayed on the left side of the pavilion mostly because the line for La Cava was already insane.


Mum pointed out these sugar skulls to me as we walked out, they’re so interesting to me:

We also popped over to Norway to see what the wait was like for Frozen. Only an hour but we wanted to eat more than ride rides so we nixed that. While we were having breakfast R had gotten his mocha all over his shirt so we stopped into the Helly Henson store to see if they had any shirts he liked. They didn't, but we did find Larry Dotson.

As we headed out we all decided we needed something that wasn’t sweet to eat. Nothing really appealed in China but the India booth definitely had appeal.

While R and P got into line Mum and I found a small patch of shade and got into it. I took the opportunity to show off my Disney pride:

I didn’t really want anything myself but I did have some of Mum’s. She got:

Pistachio Cardamom Bundt Cake with Chocolate Coconut Mousse. It was very dense but good if you like the flavors. I definitely could not have had more than a bite of this.


I also took some of R’s food, though do I have pictures of it? No, no I do not. He got the Korma chicken, which is something a friend of my family’s makes for us in the summer. It was good, not as good as homemade, but it hit the “not something sweet” spot.


Of course I clearly broke my own “I need something savory” vow five minutes later in Germany when I got Schofferhofer Pomegranate. I really have no recollection of it good or bad, so it’s pretty mediocre, not as good as Grapefruit. But hey, I tried it!

While I was in line to get my drink one of my mother’s former students who is now a CM saw my hair and went looking for my mother. They had a nice mini-reunion and I grabbed a quick picture of them together:

We then continued on our way around the world showcase, looking for food. My mother bought us some caramels:

And they were amazing as always. She also bought herself a little Steiff bluebird (she collects Steiff) that I do not have a picture of.


But we were hungry and hot and nothing sounded appealing at all except shade and sitting.


You know where there is great shade and sitting?


The little outdoors seating area in Japan.


We went over there to sit and R went to get us all something to drink.


He came back with this:

That’s the Tokyo Sushi Combo, Chicken Cutlet Curry, and chicken teriyaki.


This was exactly what we all needed! Protein, some carbs, and nothing too sweet.

We had about an hour and a half left to enjoy the festival before we had to go to our next park so we looked at our passports to figure out what we knew we wanted and then headed back into the wilds of World Showcase.

I mean, through the department store in Japan, clearly, because it's mandatory.

 

[coloredimage]

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone had fun today! I spent the evening watching Hocus Pocus and decided to update my TR

Part Two


We had just eaten our delicious meal in Japan and had made a plan on where we wanted to stop. We had shopped through Mitsukushi and managed to leave without buying the seven million adorable things that they have in the store.


Onward, towards adventure!


And, let’s be real, more food.


Okay, in my case more alcohol.


We stopped in Morocco, which is always my favorite booth for Food and Wine/Flower and Garden. Look, Remy! I adore Remy.

I kind of assumed my mother would get the baklava because she loves it so much, but we all ended up just getting the Mimosa Royale.

I really enjoyed this - it was light and refreshing and not overly alcoholic. It was a good after dinner drink.


Since there are bathrooms in Morocco, Mum and P decided to go wash their hands from lunch. R and I sat down at a table to wait for them. He very lovingly took this picture of me:

I didn’t know he did until he sent me a text with the photo with a super loving caption that didn’t make fun of me at all.


By the time everyone had washed up I had finished my drink, had given Mum hers back, and we were determined to finish our walk around the world. We needed to get back to the car within an hour so we were glad we only had a handful of countries left. There was one very important country for me to go to first.


Brazil.


In case you have never met me in person or followed me on instagram, I am kind of in love with Brazilian food. One of my college roommates (who is still one of my closest friends) is Brazilian and her mother used to send us food. And the one thing I have wanted since they released the 2017 menus is pao de queijo. Literally my favorite thing ever.


The line was long, and that seems to be how it was for almost every booth on the Canada-Morocco side of the park now that it was past 2. I’m guessing a lot of people coming in and starting over there. But I still got into it and waited anxiously.


The poor, not-Brazilian CM who took my order. I realize I am from New England and I speak faster than I think I do, and the poor CM was from China according to his nametag, but every time I ordered he stared at me, until he was finally like “Oh! Cheese bread!” and let me pay.


I wasn’t all that upset because omg look at these big, beautiful balls of cassava and cheese.

I met Mum, R, and P in France. I did not share my pao de queijo. Well, I think I may have let Mum have a bite, but everyone knew how important these were to me and knew that I was probably not going to share.


Also I ate them in like two bites because they’re about 80% air.


Mum and I had decided that our last drink was going to a Citrus Thistle from Scotland, while R and P both really wanted to get the ice wine from Canada so those were our last stops. We did, naturally, take our time to walk through the stores in the UK.


R, who had been searching for a shirt all day, finally found one in the UK, a really nice Mickey UK shirt.


We were running out of time so we decided to split up. Mum and I grabbed the Citrus Thistle for ourselves while R and J went over to Canada.

They ended up coming back to us and sharing the Citrus Thistles with us while we wandered back towards Futureworld, stopping so Mum could buy a Figment backpack and I could get the AP festival pin. By about 3 we headed out of the park and headed to the car R had rented so we could head to our next park and our dinner!

 

[Mich123]

I love that cheese bread, too! And it's gluten free, amazing!!!

 

[dolewhipdreams]

Mmmm the pao de queijo.... One of my mistakes was being too full by the time we got to Brazil so I only had room for two tiny bites! I must go back when I can fully appreciate them I'm glad you got to!