You Can Dislike The Color Teal, But You’re Wrong. A January TR! (Update 03/29)

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Flickr did this to me the other day, too. Everything kept saying Error Error Error, and I was so annoyed!



This is one of my favorite displays of Figment. I love him with the rainbows.



this is my choice too



You called it!



What??

Flickr and I definitely got into a fight. I'm glad it's better now, though. I adore the Festival of the Arts display. Flower and Garden always feels like my "favorite" festival because I go so often in the spring but Festival of the Arts is like it's made for me - rainbows, music, good food...

RIGHT? HOW DO YOU RUN OUT OF FOOD YOUR FIRST DAY? This seemed like an issue with one of their menu items for Flower and Garden this year too - I heard they ran out of the pizza at the booth the first day. What's up, Italy?

We were there during Festival of the Arts and regularly ran into large groups of cheerleaders as well. They weren't obnoxious or anything but they really filled up the monorail.

The only super "obnoxious" (loud, disruptive, but not at all rude to anyone) group of cheerleaders we dealt with was while we were in a line for the bus. But they were college-aged, either a cheer team or a dance team (I know some college dance teams have competitions in Disney that weekend as well). It was pretty late at night and I'm pretty sure they were a bit tipsy. Otherwise they weren't an issue. Honestly, outside of that one line where it felt like we would never get back to the hotel because we hit it at a bad time when they all had curfew, we really didn't notice the school groups the rest of the weekend!

 

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Part Three


We had been in Epcot for a few hour by this point and had been trying to figure out what we wanted to do about dinner. In the meantime, Spaceship Earth love!

We had been snacking for most of the afternoon so we didn’t want anything huge. D suggested we go to the Contemporary since a friend of hers and Liz’s was working on the lounge side of California Grille. He wanted to see Liz but his schedule didn’t really allow it and we could just get a snack and a drink at the lounge if there was any space.


While we were on our way we sent him a text on the off-chance he looked at his phone once we got there to say we were going to stop by and sent another to Liz’s other former roommate B to see if she could meet up once she was done with work for a drink. She agreed to meet up but didn’t really want food. We were, weirdly, hungry by the time we got in the car, and it wasn’t really a good time to try the lounge yet, so we drove over to Disney Springs first.


Why?


We decided to try out Chicken Guy! Or, as D called it, Mr. Chicken. It was really good, honestly. We really enjoyed it. We got the combo, which gave us a drink, three chicken strips, fries, and two dipping sauces. I ended up with the special sauce and BBQ.

Both were so good! Honestly, it was a great bit of protein and just enough that we wouldn’t end up getting an expensive appetizer or dinner at the lounge.


By the time we got to D’s car and drove over to the Contemporary we were cutting it close to the cut-off to get up to the lounge before Happily Ever After. It wasn’t super busy, though, so we were let right up and near enough to a window that we could enjoy HEA but not so close that the cold of the window. B was able to meet up with us a few minutes after we got there, so we were able to have a nice time just enjoying the night.

We ended up getting two rounds of drinks. The first one I got was a seasonal drink, the blackberry sour.

It was refreshing and deceptively easy to drink. I drank it slowly and managed to make it last through HEA.


Our server saw that it was my birthday so while we were distracted by fireworks he brought over two slices of surprise cake for us to share! (ignore how blurry this picture is, we all know how low the lighting in Cali Grill is).

I finished the night off sharing a slice of cake with B and having a second drink - a gin and tonic, which is my standard “I don’t really know what I want to have” drink.

We left around 10:30. Since MK had recently closed D offered to drive Liz and I back to our hotel room. We hit some traffic just outside of the All Star resorts, but were back by 11.

 

[xlsm]

oooh, you got some good light!!

a gin and tonic, which is my standard “I don’t really know what I want to have” drink.

SAME!! If I don't pick a cocktail from the menu, this is my go to, lol

 

[SweetSerenity]

I love both of your ear headbands!
Joining along.

 

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Chapter Three: 19 January 2019

Part One

The next morning, Saturday, was nice and warm. Liz and I were up with plans on getting to Epcot a little on the later side, getting there around 10 at the end of our Spaceship Earth FP.


The problem was, we were both super programmed from work so we ended up getting up and ready around 7 am. It was unusually warm for January – about 65 or so – so while I had plans to wear the same purple shirt Liz did (we were going to be obnoxious and wear matching outfits) I ended up ditching the plan in favor of a lighter shirt that didn’t cling. I didn’t want to have to continually tug at my top. One of my biggest pet peeves is when shirts start riding up. Since we were ready we decided to head on out right away instead of hanging around our hotel room. But first we needed some pictures of the hotel because we were staying in the best section of the hotel in our opinion:

We ended up getting to Epcot around 9 am, right when the park opened. Which was a little overwhelming. Everyone was definitely ready for the first “real” day of the Festival of the Arts. We had just decided to use our Spaceship Earth FP before we got breakfast while we were planning on the bus ride over, but that was dashed when I got an email saying our FP was changed and that Spaceship Earth was down.

We thought maybe that the walk up to the park and through security would be enough time to open up the ride but by the time we got up there, there was a row of CMs, a lot of them management. Spoiler alert: we didn’t get to ride Spaceship Earth at all. It was down that entire day.


Since our next FP was for Soarin’ we decided to head over to the land. Except we had a solid two hours before our FP. We had breakfast at Sunshine Seasons, our usual go-to:

I got a broccoli souffle that was alright. The whole wheat croissant was really good but I started eating it last and couldn’t get through it. Liz got and egg sandwich.


We decided to wander around once we finished. Livin’ with the Land’s wait was too long for us to wait, so we headed to the next thing we could think of:

Figment!


We got through Figment without stopping, which honestly is an accomplishment on that ride for me!


Then we kept wandering. None of the festival booths were open yet, so we headed to Spaceship Earth to see if it was open yet. It was not, but we still used the bubblegum wall to take some photos:

Then we headed to Mousegears. There was a girl at the counter and no one was around so I asked if I could get a birthday button. It came out so pretty!

We wandered as much as we could until the Festival Center finally opened.

Once that was open we headed on in. We wanted to look at some of the pins and other AP merch. I ended up getting an AP exclusive festival pin to add to my collection as did Liz, but since the line was moving so slowly (it was the only place to get the Festival exclusive magicbands and pins at that time - I don’t know if it changed after opening weekend or not - so everyone was in line for those) she ended up getting separated from me. I wear glasses and I’m not a huge fan of contacts because I have dry eyes and even the ones made for dry eyes aren’t comfortable to me. So when I’m in Disney I don’t change between glasses/sunglasses if we’re in a store. I’ll take my sunglasses off but I usually know my way around well enough to find people (I’m nearsighted, so for the most part I’m fine but finding people far away without glasses isn’t the best) so….it took me like 10 minutes to find her. Which, considering the size of the Festival center, is a little sad. My excuse is that everyone was wearing purple because all the purple stuff had just been released a few weeks earlier…..yeah…


Reunited, I realized the reason it was taking Liz so long was because of a couple things. 1 - the CM brought her over to a new register then realized she had no AP pins over there, so she apologized and had to go back to the register I had been waiting at to grab some; 2 - Liz was sending things back to our hotel room, which isn’t a huge thing (I had sent things back the day before) but because the register had just opened they were having issues finding the slips. The two CMs that were helping were super nice and apologetic. We weren’t on any sort of time crunch so no worries!


Our next and last FP was for Soarin’ between 11:30 and 12:30. We had always planned on going closer to the start of our FP time because Liz and I were meeting up with D and B to enjoy the festival and they were going to be in park around noon-ish. We got back to the Land, scanned our magicbands and were through to Concourse C quickly.

There was a fairly long wait in the concourse - 15 minutes or so - before we were let into the ride. We sat down, strapped in, the lights went off….


….and nothing happened.


We sat there for a while - close to 20 minutes. There was a point where they thought we would be moving so they unstrapped us, had us buckle back in so they could redo safety, tried to restart and...nothing.


We took a picture to send to the others who at this point were definitely waiting for us.

The people around us thought it was funny, which was good. We were eventually let off and had our bands scanned for new FPs, but we never used either of the anytime FPs we had. We decided after two failed ride attempts that maybe rides weren’t on the cards for the day.



We decided to just go and meet up with B and D after that. They were in the park already and we were ready to get our Festival of the Arts on!


So I’m missing a good chunk of our photos from this day because any photopass photos we took we scanned onto B’s magicband for ease...except then she and I forgot to connect our MDE apps. So…..I’ve got food? And some photopass photos that I scavenged from Liz’s instagram/Facebook.


Anyway, we started at Decadent Delight. We decided to go counter-clockwise around World Showcase because we always go clockwise. In fact, we had started clockwise the day before, so we figured it would be the easiest way to try more things without eating at too many of the same booths. Liz and I ended up sharing the Lemon and Blood Orange tart:

It was good, refreshing, though the base was difficult to cut. In fact I tried to cut it the first time and it almost flew off the plate. Oops.


Our next stop was to paint a bit of the mural. The line was long but they moved it fairly quickly and they were very efficient. There was a woman at the end of the line holding a bag filled with these sponge brushes:

So we were ready quickly! When we got up front the girl handing out colors let me choose what color I wanted. I picked this one:

It’s my favorite number and one of my favorite colors. I couldn’t resist!

We painted our sections of the mural and then it was time for our next booth - Deconstructed Dish.


I got the deconstructed breakfast, which was Twinings Spiced Apple Chai tea shake with cream bourbon and a garnish of waffle crisp and candied bacon. I really liked it, and since it was starting to get super hot (our only really hot day of our weekend) it was a nice reprieve from the heat.

D got the deconstructed reuben - shredded corn beef, thousand island dressing, pickled red cabbage, and a rye curl. She said it was pretty good but nothing to write home about.

Liz got the deconstructed BLT with crispy pork belly, tomato jam, and a soft poached egg. She really liked it and from the bites that B and D took of it they liked it too. I was too into trying to eat my melty shake.

Our next stop bypassed Canada as we had stopped there the day before. We instead headed to L’Art du Cuisine Francaise. I had been bound and determined to get the Frose here. It was frozen Cotes de Provence rose wine with Grey Goose vodka and peach puree. Since I had only had sweet things though, I decided to also get the Creme de Brie in a petit pan:

D got the same as me. Liz ended up getting the moelleux aux chocolats valrohna, which is just a chocolate lava cake, but she still got a frose as well.

We grabbed a standing table in the shade and people watched. The food from the France booth was so good! We super enjoyed it - even though we got brie EVERYWHERE. While we were there we got a kick out of the photopass woman at the picture spot. She was absolutely a blast, to the point that we got into the line to get our picture taken specifically by her. She was making up all sorts of stories for us to get us to pose. It was so great!

Afterwards we split up for a little bit - D, Liz, and I kept going on towards Morocco. B had seen a painting she wanted so she decided to run back to where it was and buy it before we ran out of time during the day.

 

[cadien]

I got the deconstructed breakfast, which was Twinings Spiced Apple Chai tea shake with cream bourbon and a garnish of waffle crisp and candied bacon. I really liked it, and since it was starting to get super hot (our only really hot day of our weekend) it was a nice reprieve from the heat.

I had this too! Couldn't pass up something called cream bourbon. Not a big fan of chewy bacon bits, but the rest was really tasty.

We grabbed a standing table in the shade and people watched. The food from the France booth was so good! We super enjoyed it - even though we got brie EVERYWHERE. While we were there we got a kick out of the photopass woman at the picture spot. She was absolutely a blast, to the point that we got into the line to get our picture taken specifically by her. She was making up all sorts of stories for us to get us to pose. It was so great!

I wish I'd thought of holding cocktails when we were at this photo! It's perfect!