Taste of Food and Wine Festival
At 5am, Qi’ra decided it was time to get up for breakfast. You see, we’ve created this monster as 4 days a week, my husband gets up at 4am for work. I got up, fed the dogs, and got ready for the day. At 6:25am, I left to take Qi’ra to her breeder’s house as I don’t really want to board her given she’s intact and a show dog. She has a first time dam with pups on the ground so we decided against Gantu being there. When I returned, my husband had already gotten his truck loaded up with everything but our boys so I walked them and we headed to their boarding facility.
We dropped them off at 7:40am and hit I-75 after a quick gas station stop. I had a breakfast of champions with Twix bars and a Coconut Berry Redbull while I drove to WDW. Mr. Dis_Yoda had an Amp and Trail Mix.
On the road, I got a push notification around 9:30am that our room was ready so when we arrived at 10:45am, we parked at Bay Lake Towers and got settled in the room. Not a bad view for “standard” although I do wish that there were stairs you could easily access to take to the ground floor since we are only on Floor 2.
It was then off to EPCOT. We decided to drive rather than deal with buses and we were happy to see how close we were parking. I was shocked to see people wasting money on Preferred when it was a 3 row difference.
Temperature Check and Security were a breeze and upon arrival at EPCOT, we headed to the World Showcase for our lunch of Taste of Food & Wine Festival.
Walls Everywhere!
First booth we stopped at was for
Hawaii where we just got alcohol as why not? It wasn’t too strong but can you really go wrong with vodka and pineapple juice? The cup was cute but no way was I going to carry that for the next few hours so it was tossed when we were done.
Aulani Sunrise: Vodka, Dole Pineapple Juice and Grenadine
The next booth was the
Citrus Blossom as I knew if I was going to be drinking, I needed something decent on my stomach. This was eh. The chicken was very dried out and bland so when a bite didn’t have aioli or the greens, it wasn’t very pleasant. I finished it as I knew at least it was something to keep me going but I wouldn’t get it again.
Crispy Citrus Chicken w/ Orange Aioli and Baby Greens
Next we walked over to the World Showplace to see what fun they had in those booths.
World Showplace
First stop for us was
Desserts and Champagne. I wish my husband told me he was only going to try some of his choice as we could have ended up splitting. The cake pops were very rich and we each could only have about half of our respective choices. The Whipped Cream Vodka on top of the Frozen S’mores was not very well mixed but who doesn’t like doing shots at noon on a Thursday?
Liquid Nitro Chocolate Cake Pop w/ Crumbled Twix
Liquid Nitro Chocolate Cake Pop w/ Crushed M&M’s
Frozen S’mores w/ Whipped Cream Vodka
We then visited the
Apple Orchard where we were both pleased with most of the charcuterie and cheese plate even if we have zero idea what they actually were cheese wise. The Raspberry Lemonade cider was wonderful as well.
Charcuterie and Cheese Plate featuring Burton’s Maplewood Farm Applejack Brandy Barrel Aged Maple Syrup
3 Daughters Raspberry Lemonade Dry Hard Cider
That said, we kinda failed at enjoying anymore of the festival after this booth. I would have gotten stuff from France but no one was manning the booth when we walked by. The heat killed our appetites for more as we walked the World Showcase heading over to do some rides. At Frozen, we had about a 20 minute wait 6 of which was watching them do a ride cleaning cycle with the spray. We were next to ride after that occurred which unfortunately meant the seat was very wet so I walked around EPCOT with a wet butt the rest of the day. It happens!
Frozen Selfie
Troll Selfie
As we entered Mexico, we caught a random Princess encounter which was cool to see.
Princesses
After a ride on Journey into Imagination, my husband was tired, it was the hottest part of the day so we decided it was a good time to visit the DVC Lounge for the first time ever. We knew we could get some caffeine and relax for about 15/20 minutes in the AC. It isn’t a full mask free relaxation station but you can take them off as you are enjoying your free soda. The tables are far enough from each other as well.
DVC Lounge Free Soda