We’ll Use Any Excuse To Go During the Holiday Season. Another food-focused trip report. 11/28-12/6 (Complete)

[mickey916]

Background: My DH and I were fortunate to be able to retire during 2022 at the age of 55. During that year we visited in April as part of my DH’s final business trip, in May with our two adult sons as a make-up trip from 2020, and then in December as our first ever visit for the holidays. In April of 2023 we took a month-long road trip through Florida, spending only a couple days in Orlando. Trip reports for those trips are in my signature.

Our next scheduled visit to Orlando is for eight days as part of another Florida road trip in April 2024. However, in September I discovered that Southwest Airlines was offering discounted flights for late November/early December. With leftover flight credits and the discount, non-stop roundtrip flights for both of us were only a total of $155.72. I suggested to my DH another trip to see the holiday decorations. It took a little patience on my part but eventually he agreed and said “Merry Christmas…this is our gift to each other.”

Since this was a bonus trip, we decided to stay off site. My goal was to keep the entire trip under $5000. I booked the Residence Inn, Flamingo Crossings through Undercover Tourist for eight nights at $923. I purchased 3 day tickets for my DH through Undercover Tourist and ordered a Budget rental car through them as well using their 50% deal. I converted my four day tickets I had already purchased through UT for April 2024 to an annual pass to save on parking and dining. I also started stalking the gift card thread to purchase enough discounted gift cards to cover our anticipated dining and LL costs.

We were 62 days away from our trip when we purchased our tickets so I had to put together quickly a list of ADRs which included a few favorites and some new places.

I hope you join me as we explore the holiday decorations and eat some fantastic food (and some not so great).

 

[mickey916]

Here’s where we ate (updated with links to specific posts):

11/28 Arrival Day: Jersey Mike's Subs
11/29 Epcot: Kringla Bakeri, Holiday Hearth, Bavaria, Regal Eagle, Noche Buena Cocina, Via Napoli
11/30 Magic Kingdom: Gaston's Tavern, Lunching Pad, Plaza Ice Cream, Tony's Town Square, Contempo Cafe
12/1 POFQ/Disney Springs/Poly: Scat Cat Cafe, D-Luxe Burger, the Ganachery, Gideon's Bakehouse, Captain Cooks
12/2 Animal Kingdom: Kusafiri, Eight Spoon Cafe, Tamu Tamu, Yak & Yeti
12/3 Wilderness Lodge/Monorail Resorts: Roaring Fork, Gasparilla Island Grill, 'Ohana
12/4 Disney Springs/Old Key West: Goods Food to Go, Jock Lindsey's Holiday Bar, Gideon's East End Market, Olivia's Cafe
12/5 Skyliner/Epcot Resorts: Boardwalk Deli, The Fountain, Landscape of Flavors, Sebastian's Bistro
12/6 Animal Kingdom Lodge/Disney Springs/POFQ: Boma, Everglazed, Sassagoula Floatworks

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

(Please delete my post)

 

[Newsies]

Congratulations on the retirement! Following along-- looks like you ate at some amazing restaurants!

 

[mickey916]

Congratulations on the retirement! Following along-- looks like you ate at some amazing restaurants!

Thank you! and thank you for following along!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Looking forward to reading your report!

 

[mickey916]

Looking forward to reading your report!

Welcome!

 

[VAtink]

Joining in! Our trips overlapped a few days, can't wait to read all about yours!

 

[Paulaparm]

Following along!

 

[happily single]

Following

 

[buteraa]

following!

 

[jrmint427]

Following!

 

[mickey916]

Joining in! Our trips overlapped a few days, can't wait to read all about yours!

Thanks for joining! It will be interesting to see if we had similar experiences!

Following along!

Welcome!

Following

Welcome!

following!

Welcome!

Following!

Welcome!

 

[mickey916]

11/28 - Arrival Day​

When I booked our flights the cheapest non-stop flight was at 6:50 pm on Tuesday, 11/28. It was torture to have to wait all day to head to the airport. I actually looked a bunch of times to see if I could bump the flight earlier but all the flights were much more money.

We decided to stop by Jersey Mikes on the way to the airport for an early dinner. My DH gets the #3 Ham & Provolone on wheat every time. It is by far his favorite quick stop lunch place.



I always try to change it up a bit. This time I got the #13 Original Italian on Rosemary Parmesan bread. There is a ton of meat on this baby.



We enjoy Jersey’s Mikes. The bread is always fresh and the meats are plentiful.

After our quick stop we finally headed to the airport, seeing Nibbles Woodaway along the way all decked out for the holidays.



Our flight was fairly uneventful. We left about a half hour late but that seems to be the norm lately.

Upon landing we went to Budget to pick up our rental car. This was our first time using Budget as my DH was always able to get discounted cars at National through work. Definitely a different experience. The line was short at the counter and we were told there was a Corolla for us in spot 12. We went to spot 12 and it was a Lexus…My DH went to the outside counter and the woman found us our Corolla….I thought we should’ve taken the Lexus….the staff at Budget wasn’t very friendly. It seemed as if we were annoying them. However the car was in great shape with only a couple hundred miles on it.

Finally we headed to our hotel, the Residence Inn, Flamingo Crossings, and got to drive through the gates welcoming us back home.



We were assigned the end room on the top floor, with a distant view of Epcot. It was a very nice room, quiet, clean and comfortable.







Up next…a day at Epcot, ending with me getting in trouble for “flashing”...

 

[suse66]

Joining in!

 

[Newsies]

Such a nice hotel room! So glad you made it there safely!

 

[mickey916]

Joining in!

Welcome!

Such a nice hotel room! So glad you made it there safely!

It was really nice! We've stayed a couple nights at Towneplace Suites at Flamingo Crossings and thought it was pretty good. We preferred the Residence Inn though. It's just a bit newer, quieter, and nicer. I've already changed our April stay to the Residence Inn (but secretly hoping for a decent discount to stay onsite).

 

[Newsies]

I've already changed our April stay to the Residence Inn (but secretly hoping for a decent discount to stay onsite).

Boy do I hear that Feels like Disney ran room & package discounts year-long last year-- we're already starting to see some Disney+ discounts pop up so hoping general public offers aren't too far behind!!

 

[mickey916]

Boy do I hear that Feels like Disney ran room & package discounts year-long last year-- we're already starting to see some Disney+ discounts pop up so hoping general public offers aren't too far behind!!

I'm keeping my eye out for 1/3 but I think that may be the Disney+ discount. That's a pain for me because I use a different email on my Disney+ and MDE/Passholder accounts.

 

[mickey916]

11/29 Epcot Festival of the Holidays​

A little backstory: Originally I booked a Candlelight Processional breakfast at the Garden Grill. My DH isn’t really a big fan of breakfast but he thought the cheesy potatoes and cinnamon loaf sounded good. One week before we were to go on our trip, DFB reported that the menu changed to breakfast pastries and skillet potatoes instead of cinnamon loaf and cheesy potatoes. I looked at the official menu in MDE and sure enough the menu had been updated with those changes. Now there wasn’t anything my DH was looking forward to on the menu. We decided to cancel our reservation figuring Ann Margret probably wasn’t going to be a huge draw so we could take our chances with standby. This not only saved us money but also gave us more potential room in our bellies for holiday treats. Turns out they’re still serving the cinnamon loaf and cheesy potatoes from what I understand even though the online menu is different. We ultimately are happy though with our decision to skip Garden Grill breakfast as we found lots of great treats to fill the void.

We started our morning with just a small breakfast at the hotel. I got “specialty eggs” (eggs with ham and chives) and sausage. It was your typical hotel breakfast, nothing special. The sausages were very good though.

My DH grabbed a yogurt and muffin. Again, nothing special.

We drove to Epcot, a short and easy drive from Flamingo Crossing and arrived about fifteen minutes before regular opening time. I had decided to purchase Genie+ which turned out to be mostly unnecessary but we wanted to make sure to ride Living with the Land at night. I booked Frozen as our first LL and bought an ILL for Guardians.

As soon as the rope dropped we headed to Soarin’ and Living with the Land. Soarin’ had a 15 minute posted wait but it was probably only 10. The Land was a walk-on. We backtracked to Spaceship Earth which was also a walk-on. We broke down several times during the ride and later in the day saw that it was temporarily unavailable. Glad we rode it when we did. It was now time for our LL at Frozen so we headed to Norway picking up an Olaf Scavenger Hunt sheet on the way. Before we rode Frozen we had to stop for a treat at Kringla Bakeri, Schoolbread, one of our favorites that we probably wouldn’t have room for had we eaten at Garden Grill.

It was so worth it! This one was better than ever! The bread was nice and soft and the custard was creamy and delicious. We also had a very nice chat with a CM from Pennsylvania who was clearing down tables. It’s so great to see CMs who love what they do.

We rode Frozen and I booked a LL for myself for Remy (too much motion for DH). We toured Norway searching for Olaf and then made our way back to Holiday Hearth inside the Odyssey Pavilion. There were many treats we wanted here (basically all of them) but we narrowed it down to three. The Odyssey Pavilion was practically empty with just a short line of people to see Santa and one or two other families at tables so we headed to a table to photograph and try our treats.

Salted Caramel Spaceship Earth cookie. This was our first time trying this cookie and initially we thought it was just okay. But, the more we ate it the more we enjoyed it! The crystallized sugar on the top added nice texture and the caramel was sweet without really much of a “salted” flavor. This was by far better than anything we had last year on the Cookie Stroll.

Apple Caramel Crumb Cake. This was absolutely delicious! The apple cake was soft with chunks of apples and the streusel on top gave it a nice contrast.

Chocolate-Covered Toffee Brittle. This was also excellent. It was a little sticky on the teeth but that’s what brittle usually is. We really enjoyed this as well. Here’s an inside look:

This had such a nice thick layer of toffee and just the right amount of chocolate. 3/3! So far the Festival of the Holidays 2023 was way better than 2022.

We headed back through Mexico to continue searching for Olaf, stopping in each country along the way. As we reached the bridge heading to the American pavilion, we were stopped by CMs blocking the bridge. As we waited the bridge went up to let in a few boats.

I honestly never even noticed the bridge there before. It was really cool to see.

After last year being less than impressed with the cookie stroll, we opted this year just to try a few cookies. We stopped at Bavaria for the Linzer cookie. Last year it didn’t have nearly enough raspberry filling but we wanted to give it a second chance.

It didn’t look as pretty as the vloggers version, as some of the sugar was smeared off when they served it to us. But, this cookie was wayyyyy better than last year. The sugar cookies were tender and sweet with plenty of raspberry filling. Now we understand the hype! One of the best sweet treats we had all day.

Up next…lunch at Regal Eagle, the Candlelight Processional with a surprise and my “flashing” story…