Three days is never enough! - A quick trip to Flower & Garden - 4/29-5/1 - Complete!

brewhome

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Hi, everyone! I just got back a couple of weeks ago from a quick three day trip with my sister to check out the Flower & Garden Festival! As you can see in the title of this thread, three days is never enough... on the plane ride home, we regretted not staying at least another day. But, the good thing is that we will be back again in November for a six day girls trip, so that’s something good to look forward to!

This quick trip was planned only about forty days in advance. I bought an annual pass for the very first time this year since my hubby, sons and I went in January and we have the November trip coming up, and that AP card was burning a hole in my wallet! In mid-March I kept seeing info about the Flower & Garden Festival, and decided on a whim to book a room with the AP discount at All Star Movies for a quick solo trip from 4/29-5/1. I was able to book a ridiculously early flight down and a super late flight home so I could squeeze the most out of those three days. Bonus that my hubby had a $100 Southwest LUV Voucher from a delayed flight, plus I had Southwest Points... so it was a super cheap visit! Then, when I told my sis, she said she wanted to come, too! Woo hoo! And she bought an annual pass as well! So now we’ve started something... because I know for certain that we will want to renew our AP’s at the cheaper price. A trip or two a year sounds great to me!

In the course of the three days, we took NO pictures of ourselves... which is typical... but I do have some great pics of the scenery, the food, and the topiaries! So come on along with me as I relive our fun trip!
 
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Day 1 Morning - a ridiculously early flight and a morning at HS!

We were able to book a crazy early direct flight out of Buffalo at 5:15 am, so I packed up everything the day before, got up at 3:00, picked up my sis at 3:45, and we were p at the airport by 4:15. Security was a breeze at that time of the morning, and we were off on time and arrived at MCO at 7:45! We were greeted with an empty DME area... definitely a first for us! There were literally four other people there.

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Our bus did end up filling up, and our driver, Popeye, was great! We stopped at Coronado Springs to drop some people off and I snapped this shot of the new Destino tower... can’t wait to check this out when it’s open!

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We also stopped at Animal Kingdom Lodge but I wasn’t able to snap any pics from where I was sitting on the bus. Sis and I decided that someday, we will bring our hubbies and stay there for a couples trip. The guys will love sitting on the patio watching the savannah.

We made it to All Star Movies and checked in, but of course our room wasn’t ready yet since it was so early, so we checked out the main pool area, the store, and the quick service and it looked great! I had stayed at All Star Music several times but my sis had only stayed at moderates, and I was interested in what she thought of the over the top theming... and she loved it! We headed to the bus stop for a ride to HS! It was a gorgeous day, and we could already feel that it was going to be a hot one. The sunshine felt fantastic.

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When we arrived at HS, it was great that the new bus stops were open, as in January we used the temporary ones that were quite a walk. The new ones are much closer to the gates and nice and big with lots of shade. Sis activated her annual pass and in we went!

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We walked quickly to make our FP window for one of our very favorites... do you, recognize this fencing and neon sign?

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It’s Rock ‘n Roller Coaster! What a way to start our park day... screaming and singing our way through. It’s such a great ride. After that, we headed over to the Toy Story area. I wasn’t able to get a FP at 40 days out for Slinky, so instead we went on another one of my favorite rides...

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Toy Story Mania! A little glitch here... the FP line did not move at all for about ten minutes, which was weird... but then all of the sudden they opened up a different section of the queue and re-routed us. As we walked, we realized what happened - someone had thrown up in line ahead of us, and there was a cleaning crew swarming the scene. Thank goodness for those wonderful cast members that deal with the worst stuff! Sis and I had a great ride and I won, but only by 1,000 points! We need to up our game on this before our girls trip in November!

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We took a little time to check out the Toy Story area... Alien Swirling Saucers is so cute!

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And we can’t wait to get on Slinky Dog Dash on our next trip. My son and I rode it in January and loved it, and I know the girls will too when we come back. We did not go on either of these rides because the lines were forty minutes for Alien and over two hours for Slinky, and we weren’t in the mood to wait.

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After all this, we were feeling pretty hungry and thirsty, so we decided to check out a place we hadn’t been before - Baseline Tap House! We got a couple of margaritas, a charcuterie plate, and a big hot pretzel. We snagged a couple of seats inside and it was a great place to cool down and fuel up. The drinks were tasty - not too sweet - and the food was excellent! It was the perfect amount for us to share and we ate every bite. If you haven’t tried this place, I highly recommend it! Next time, I’m going to try a beer flight.

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I’ll continue our day in the next post!
 
Great report. Just the right balance of words to pictures.

Glad you added the picture of the food. I thought a charcuterie plate was raw veggies.
 
Looks great so far!! I like quick trips!! It seems like we get a lot done in spite of just a short time! On a long trip, I keep saying, we'll do that tomorrow or later in the week...and then we don't!!

Nice scores on TSMM!!! I can never get over 100,000!!

Baseline Tap House sounds good- your food and drink choices look delicious!!

Can't wait to read more!:thumbsup2
 


Great report. Just the right balance of words to pictures.

Glad you added the picture of the food. I thought a charcuterie plate was raw veggies.

Thanks for joining! The charcuterie plate was delicious! It was a great balance of salty, savory, and sweet.

Looks great so far!! I like quick trips!! It seems like we get a lot done in spite of just a short time! On a long trip, I keep saying, we'll do that tomorrow or later in the week...and then we don't!!

Nice scores on TSMM!!! I can never get over 100,000!!

Baseline Tap House sounds good- your food and drink choices look delicious!!

Can't wait to read more!:thumbsup2

Thanks for joining! I was surprised at how much we actually got done in three days... and we didn’t feel like we were rushing around too much, either. I think it helped that we’ve been there enough times before to know what we could skip, too. TSMM is one of my very favorites. I think the highest I’ve ever gotten was around 160,000 and my son still beat me on it!
 
Day 1 Afternoon - a little more at HS and some resort time!

After our delicious lunch at Baseline Tap House, we headed across the park to our last FP of the day, another of our favorites... can you guess what it is by this pic?

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If you guessed Tower of Terror, you’re right! It’s definitely one of our top five rides in all of WDW and we giggle like little girls every time we ride it! We decided while in line that we should never feel bad about it if our houses get a little dusty...

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We will just call it “ambiance”! Ha! After our free falling elevator ride, we decided to head over to one of our favorite shows... the Frozen sing along! If you’ve never done this, please - do it the next time you go. You don’t even really need to be a Frozen fan to appreciate the humor that the “Arendale Historians” bring to the show... they are absolutely hilarious! And the best part? It SNOWS!

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It was about 2 PM when we exited the show, and since we had been up since 3 AM, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel for a pool break. We had gotten our room text around 11:30 so we were excited to check out the refurbished rooms, too. On our way out to the bus, I snapped this (blurry) pic of the gondolas... I can’t wait to try these out in November!

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The wait for a bus to All Star Movies was the longest one we had the whole trip at about 25 minutes. We must have just missed one. Luckily, the new bus stops have plenty of shade and fans running, because it was about 88 degrees while we waited. We were glad to get to the hotel, and headed to our room in building 5 in the Love Bug section - a great location for a standard room! We were happy to see that our bags were already delivered, and the newly renovated rooms are really impressive! The addition of the queen size Murphy bed with a real mattress is fantastic. Here are some pics of the room... first, a view from near the door... queen size beds are so much better than the old full size ones! The storage for suitcases underneath is great. And there were eight pillows on the bed and one in the closet - plenty for everyone! The dresser is a really good size, too.

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This is the refrigerator/coffee station... plenty of room to store drinks and snacks. The drawer had all of the coffee/tea supplies in it.

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A view from near the bathroom... with the bed up, there’s lots of room to walk around. When the bed is down, it’s still not that tight of a fit. I slept on the Murphy bed and it was super comfy!

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The glass doors on the shower are nice, and the shower head is a waterfall style. It’s not in the pic but they did switch over to the larger refillable bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash right in the tub. I know some people don’t like them but they didn’t bother me at all.

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The bathroom area has a ton of storage - lots of shelves and the closet is slim but still holds quite a bit.

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After we unpacked, we spent a couple of hours relaxing in the pool and enjoying a cocktail... it was a great way to refresh and re-energize for an evening in Epcot, which I’ll share in the next post!
 
The first time we went to the frozen singalong, I had to drag DH. We expected 500 6 year old girls screaming/singing at the top of their lungs for 20 mins. We love it. Funny, cute show. And it seems a prime spot for nursing moms. Never saw so many contented babies at once. LOL
 


The first time we went to the frozen singalong, I had to drag DH. We expected 500 6 year old girls screaming/singing at the top of their lungs for 20 mins. We love it. Funny, cute show. And it seems a prime spot for nursing moms. Never saw so many contented babies at once. LOL

We saw a lot of Dads singing along! :flower:
 
Joining in! Fellow Buffalonian here :wave: (Well Niagara Falls but close enough!)

Those APs DEFINITELY burn a hole in your pocket! haha I actually booked our June trip with the same flights with SW but then ended up adding on two days because why not! (And like you mentioned I KNEW three days would not be enough!)

What a great morning in DHS though! Baseline Taphouse is my fave, glad you enjoyed it!

I have booked ASMovies so many times and then canceled recently lol I definitely need to get there at some point to check out the refurbed rooms! Super nice!
 
Day 1 Evening - our first visit to the Flower & Garden Festival!

After our refreshing pool break, we headed to Epcot for our first visit to the Flower & Garden Festival... and immediately loved the butterfly topiaries right at the front of the park!

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The detail and color in these is amazing.

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We meandered our way past Spaceship Earth and over towards Soarin’, where I had snagged a Fourth FP on the app. We found Daisy, and she was so cute!

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Then we took a little extra time checking out the penguin made of ocean plastic... there were lots of recognizable every day items in there.

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After our awesome ride on Soarin’, we headed up toward World Showcase and stopped at a couple of food booths. First up was a new booth, Flavor Full Kitchen, where we had roasted beets, cashew cheese and micro herbs with lemon-oil dressing, as well as citrus-poached salmon with ancient grain salad, roasted vegetables, and citrus greens...

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Holy delicious, we loved both of these! The crunchy stuff on the beet dish added just the right amount of salt, and the salmon was poached perfectly. What a great start! We also stopped at the Honey Bee-Stro booth and got roasted cauliflower with buckwheat honey carrot purée, wild rice pilaf, asparagus, honey-blistered grapes, sunflower brittle and coriander flowers (for some reason, my pic of this won’t load). This was also very tasty, with the exception of the asparagus, which was over cooked and woody. The cauliflower and sunflower brittle were excellent, though. And the portion size for each of these three dishes was huge! Usually during Food & Wine we split things four ways so we each get a few bites, and we can taste lots of different stuff. With only two of us, we realized we wouldn’t be eating as many different things this time around!

On our way towards Mexico, we stopped and admired some more topiaries... first up, those little scamps, Huey, Dewey, and Louie...

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And then another set of cuties, Chip and Dale...

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Then the scrappy Donald!

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All of these were just adorable. More to come in the next post!
 
Joining in! Fellow Buffalonian here :wave: (Well Niagara Falls but close enough!)

Those APs DEFINITELY burn a hole in your pocket! haha I actually booked our June trip with the same flights with SW but then ended up adding on two days because why not! (And like you mentioned I KNEW three days would not be enough!)

What a great morning in DHS though! Baseline Taphouse is my fave, glad you enjoyed it!

I have booked ASMovies so many times and then canceled recently lol I definitely need to get there at some point to check out the refurbed rooms! Super nice!

Hi, neighbor! I’m south of the city in the village of Hamburg...but I work downtown. Good choice in adding the extra days! We totally loved the Tap House and can’t wait to go back in November. And I definitely recommend Movies... it is so reasonably priced and the rooms are great. My sis also thought the bus rides were really convenient, too.
 
Hi, neighbor! I’m south of the city in the village of Hamburg...but I work downtown. Good choice in adding the extra days! We totally loved the Tap House and can’t wait to go back in November. And I definitely recommend Movies... it is so reasonably priced and the rooms are great. My sis also thought the bus rides were really convenient, too.

I'll get back there at some point! haha I was just telling my DH last night that there are SO many resorts that are my favorites that its getting harder to decide where to stay! lol we did have All Star Movies booked for one night during our December trip but with the holiday prices it wasn't much more just to rent points for Boulder Ridge so we decided to switch. Someday though!
 
I'll get back there at some point! haha I was just telling my DH last night that there are SO many resorts that are my favorites that its getting harder to decide where to stay! lol we did have All Star Movies booked for one night during our December trip but with the holiday prices it wasn't much more just to rent points for Boulder Ridge so we decided to switch. Someday though!

We rented Copper Creek points in January for the price of a moderate and it was awesome... Wilderness Lodge is amazing!
 
Following along
we will bring our hubbies and stay there for a couples trip. The guys will love sitting on the patio watching the savannah.
If you do stay here, plan balcony time. We've stayed Savannah view twice and skipped several plans because we were enjoying our time viewing the animals and drinking lot's of wine.

Baseline Tap House! We got a couple of margaritas, a charcuterie plate, and a big hot pretzel
Got my mouth watering
 
Joining in! Fellow Buffalonian here :wave: (Well Niagara Falls but close enough!)


Hi, neighbor! I’m south of the city in the village of Hamburg...but I work downtown


Hi guys!!:wave2: Lockport, NY here!!


Then we took a little extra time checking out the penguin made of ocean plastic... there were lots of recognizable every day items in there.

That's so neat! I didn't see this when we were there! I will look for it when we go to EPCOT next week!

Great pictures!:thumbsup2
 
Following. We’re bridging our tickets to AP’s when we go and I know they’ll burn a hole in our pockets, too. Great report so far. Can’t wait to read more!
 
Following along
If you do stay here, plan balcony time. We've stayed Savannah view twice and skipped several plans because we were enjoying our time viewing the animals and drinking lot's of wine.

Got my mouth watering

@thumper*, thanks for joining! Animal viewing with wine sounds fabulous!

Hi guys!!:wave2: Lockport, NY here!!

That's so neat! I didn't see this when we were there! I will look for it when we go to EPCOT next week!

Great pictures!:thumbsup2

@pattyw, hello, neighbor! The penguin is between The Land and The Seas pavilions. It’s super cool!

Following. We’re bridging our tickets to AP’s when we go and I know they’ll burn a hole in our pockets, too. Great report so far. Can’t wait to read more!

@Tinatheneedle, thanks for joining! I think the AP will be an addiction!

Joining in! Hope you get to return soon.

@Verstehen, welcome and thanks for joining!
 
Day 1 Evening Continued... a stroll around the World Showcase

We continued our journey up and into the World Showcase on the Mexico side... Mickey and Minnie greeted us on our way!

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It was time for us to hit our most anticipated drink of the trip at the Trowel & Trellis booth! We had seen a pic of it online and couldn’t wait to try it. It’s a Bloomin’ Blueberry Lemon and Ginger Tea featuring Twinings of London with Tito’s Handmade Vodka served in a Mason Jar, and we also got a Farmhouse Meatball with Lentil Bread, Spinach, Marinated Vegetables and Creamy Herb Dressing...

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Oh. My. Goodness. The drink was absolutely delicious! It wasn’t too sweet and it had tiny blueberries in the bottom - they would get stuck in the straw once in a while, but that made us giggle. We really enjoyed these, and the plastic mason jar is so stinking cute! The farmhouse meatball was vegan but you wouldn’t know it - the spices they used in the veggie meatball made it taste like sausage... definitely a winner.

We took our yummy drinks and wandered up to Norway, where took pics of some famous sisters...

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And a really goofy looking troll!

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We came across these adorable panda cubs in China...

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...and their mama watching over them...

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Then we stopped for a bit to watch the end of the Chinese Acrobat show. This girl was amazing - she was balancing on a board on top of a rolling cylinder, and she’d put bowls on one end of the board. She’d roll back a little and then would stomp her foot and flip the bowls up and off the board and right onto the stack on her head... two and three bowls at a time! It was super cool.

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We continued our journey and found Snow White and one of her seven boyfriends in Germany...

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We wandered through a few of the marketplaces on our way to our next stop, one of our Favorite pavilions, France! There we got a beautiful shot of Beauty and her Beast...

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By now it was a little after eight so we decided to get a couple of pastries from Boulangerie Patisserie to eat while watching IllumiNations. I forgot to take a pic, but sis got an espresso mousse and I got a chocolate eclair and they were both delicious. I love getting goodies from France. I’ll wrap up our evening at Epcot in the next post!
 

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