Oct. 2015 Disneymoon for F&W with Premium Package and free dining with two days of Universal and RPR

[KiniShakenBake]

So forgive me, because I really am quite awful at getting photos of the things that we eat. I'm not a foodie, and don't really do photos of my food very well. I've included all the photos I can and have, without oversharing our honeymoon. If you're not so keen on posts without a ton of photos, this has few, and it won't be getting any more.

We *just* got back from our Disneymoon.

Our trip had a fixed set of dates attached to it. DH laughed at me a lot as I compulsively scheduled thises and thatses so that we had a minimal amount of rushing about to get to the next ADR or the fastpasses or the culinary demonstrations. Everything was planned to be as easy a transition as possible, while maximizing all of the things that we had going for us as the result of our timing.

1. We had to go between 10/22 and 10/30.
a. 10/23 - 25 were better rates for annual passholders than the end of the trip at the Royal Pacific Resort, which was where we stayed at Universal.
b. 10/25 was the start date to free dining that fell during F&W, and no other discounts were available to us at the Boardwalk, so we got dining thrown in for the same price as not. While many are quick to point out that free dining is not free, we were absolutely thrilled to enjoy dining without concern for cost as an extra perk of scheduling. Because we wanted to go for F&W and one can only eat so many meals in any given time span without exploding, I went ahead and scheduled us into as few table service meals as I could manage and still use all the credits. Darn. That meant three signature meals: Yachtsman and Narcoossee's for four of our table service credits, then finished with a visit to Le Cellier on the last day to use the last pair, and paid out of pocket for the other meal.
c. We also managed to lay our Disney time right over a Sunday to Friday span, which meant that while we didn't get to do any of the cool seminars on weekends, we also got to completely avoid Saturdays at F&W, and really maximize use of a Premium Package perks as much as possible. We worked it hard. Free dining plus Premium Package was a SWEET combo thanks to the transaction payment point and the quickservice to 3 snack conversion option. See my post on that below.

We wore our Honeymoon buttons for both places while we were there, and definitely had pixie dust sprinklings all over the place. It was really nice. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, congratulated us. Minnie was probably the funniest.

10/22 Day 1: Redeye flight to Miami, then on to Orlando
10/23 Day 2: RPR and Islands of Adventure, Confisco's
10/24 Day 3: RPR and Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios, Cowfish, Leaky Cauldron - And Hubby gets a Power Pass!
10/25 Day 4: Universal Studios, then Islands of Adventure, then a transfer to Boardwalk Inn, and an evening at Epcot
10/26 Day 5: BWI, Hollywood Studios, Yachtsman Steakhouse, plus Epcot and Magic Kingdom in dress clothes!
10/27 Day 6: BWI, Wild Africa Trek, Animal Kingdom, YC/BC Spa, and Narcoossee's plus Happy Hallowishes Fireworks - Bonus: Info on QS plus Premium Package Conversion
10/28 Day 7: BWI, Sleeeeeeep In. Epcot for F&W lunch and culinary demo, and Magic Kingdom until 1am
10/29 Day 8: BWI, Sleeeeeeep In. Epcot all day, including culinary demo and Illuminations Dessert Party
10/30 Day 9: BWI, F&W Festival, Le Cellier for a walk-up lunch and Home

I tried to keep the honeymoon stuff mostly out of it, focusing instead on the Disney and Universal parts. It is light on the photos, because neither of us is particularly good at taking them, and the memory maker ones are great for us, but not so much for you.

Also, I'm putting more granular information behind Spoiler tags, so if you're interested in that level of granularity, such as how the Disney Dining Plan worked with the Premium Package this year, then you can read it. If you're not, then go ahead and skip it.

HERE WE GO!!!

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 1: In which we finally get to go on our long-awaited honeymoon.

We decided to spend the day noodling around home, and take the entire day before our 11:30 pm Redeye from Seattle to Miami. We slept in, got donuts and coffee at our favourite shop, took our time packing and getting the house ready for the house-sitter, and playing with the pups we knew would miss us.

Around about 5:30 pm, we were climbing the walls ready to go. The house was clean, bags packed, bed had clean linen on it, and house-sitter note of five pages was ready to go. I'm a substitute teacher, so leaving good sub notes is rather a passion of mine.

We ended up taking a cab to the local park and ride to hop the bus to the light rail, and then to the airport for a relaxing time through security.

For dinner, we found the food court at the airport quite wonderful, and finished it with a creme brulee at Anthony's, which is the swankiest restaurant serving there. It was delightful. We did not get a photo until we had cracked into it, so I'll spare you the partially eaten food photos.

Now, in my infinite "wisdom" I had thought that we would sleep on our redeye flight. I always sleep on them! No problem. Hubby hasn't usually had a problem either. This flight... Um... Well, we didn't really sleep much at all, and we were exhausted!! By the time we landed in Miami, we were a little grouchy. Read on!!

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 2: In which we spend far more time than we planned in Miami, debate renting a car, reach the Royal Pacific Resort, and check out Islands of Adventure including Confisco's.

Miami, I am positive you are a nice city. Unfortunately, I do not want to spend four hours with you, delayed at the airport while American Airlines gets their act together to get us a new plane so we can get on with our Honeymoon.

We had a hydraulic leak on one wing, and they kept us on the plane for an hour and change while they figured out that the plane was going out of service today, then delayed our flight while they found us a new plane. The new plane was much smaller, and we were lucky to get onto it. Thank goodness, because we were done being in airports or on planes.

Breakfast was bagels, bananas, and Starbucks.

Now, normally I have super-low expecations of nearly anything that HMS Host runs that is branded under a premium brand. It's just not as great as you might expect. Starbucks makes a tricky product, believe it or not, and they make it exceptionally well or they make it again. Getting espresso mixed with the right timing makes the drink, and these ladies did a phenomenal job. I very much enjoyed that mocha, and could not have been further away from home to get it. Well done, Miami International Airport Starbucks!!

By the time we got back to the gate, we had missed the gate change announcement and had to figure it out on on our own, and the gate agents were practically hostile to us. I called our travel insurance company to find out what they could do for us to get us to our final destination, because that was partly why we paid for it. They couldn't do anything until six hours into a delay, but after that point they would kick into high gear.

I determined that we would know by 1 if we were renting a car to drive to Orlando (3.5 hours) or if we were going to be on a plane, and that was our drop-dead. Either way, we'd be at the Royal Pacific Resort by 4, a full 5 hours after we'd planned to be there and well into our first day at Universal. Boo. Hiss.

We got on that 1pm flight. And everything else went smoothly. Next time, I'm going to try for a non-stop flight. Far fewer opportunities to screw up.

I had booked MEARS transport from the airport, and that went flawlessly. We got to the resort and were wearing our honeymoon buttons. They didn't know it was our honeymoon and quickly scrambled to get us the cutest honeymoon card, which had the signatures of the desk staff and a voucher for a free drink from one of the on-site bars.

Our room was absolutely gorgeous. My photos certainly wouldn't do it justice. We were in tower 1, the renovated one, and the wall covering on the wall behind the bed was a beautiful orchid on white. Just beautiful. The beds were comfortable. It had a proper shower in it, a nice garden view with a lot of privacy and a view of the water out the window.

One thing we immediately noticed was that the air conditioning units in both the RPR and then the Boardwalk were central, not wall-units that made a ton of noise. We found that refreshing and very nice.

We relaxed for a bit and then headed over to Islands of Adventure to poke around. After riding Spiderman and seeing Hogsmeade a bit, we found Confisco's for dinner, which was an unremarkable dinner, if good. Hubby had the Walk Blank burger and I had the turkey club. The balsamic mayo was really good. We liked the artichoke dip. I also had a margarita. If I find photos of that meal, I'll upload them. We had three different cameras with us and used all three.

We wandered back for an early night, because we were exhausted after nearly no sleep the night before. As a parting gift, however, we got to get onto local time WAY faster because we went to bed at about 9pm local time, and got up at a normal time the next morning. Bonus, I suppose. The next day, we tried for a sleep-in and failed pretty miserably. Read on!!

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 3: In which was enjoy our freestyle cup to the max, share a cheapish lunch, and make full use of our Unlimited Express Passes, Hubby gets a power pass, and we eat Cowfish Sushi for dinner.

When we went into the park on Day 3, we immediately headed into the closest Freestyle cup seller location to re-up our Freestyle cup that I had so purposefully picked up in July and used the heck out of then. Half the price to re-up it, vs. taking another one home? SURE!

We also trotted over to the guest relations counter and upgraded hubby's two day pass (I apparently clicked the wrong button on UT!) to a power pass for a grand total of $26. Easy, peasy. We wanted to go the next day, and that was the cheapest way to do it.

We opted not to get the photo service at Universal, because we got it at Disney and theirs is so much more comprehensive. We took photos here and there, and got some fun ones at Hogsmeade, but generally didn't do much photography at Universal.

The Unlimited Express Passes were great. We rode Minion Mayhem, MIB, Simpson's, Transformers, Spiderman, and Dragon Challenge with them, as well as a few more, I'm sure, over the three days we were there. I definitely recommend: If they have lockers available at the ride, assume that they will not let you take anything on the ride, at all, and put everything in them the first time. This lesson brought to you by a Freestyle cup stuffed in a locker at the ride gates on MIB and a return trip to the lockers at Dragon Challenge to put a Cell phone and wallet into another locker. I'm going to skip the ride reviews in specific, but will say that Universal and Disney really play to their strengths, and it shows their foundations. I used spoiler tags to keep my elaboration from detracting from the trip report.

Spoiler: Comparison of Universal vs. Disney Theming Strengths

Universal is a movie company, first and foremost. Their strength is innovating movies and getting those special effects right. They do it incredibly well in their rides, using 3 and 4D where necessary, using dark rides and simulators in many of them, and really mixing up the types of simulators they use. It's different from The Simpsons, to Transformers, to Gringotts to Minion Mayhem. They have a few other types of rides thrown in, and some are similar to others, but I went expecting an interactive movie type experience, not necessarily a Disney-esque experience. Universal can't really do animatronics the way Disney can, and they don't really have the space to do them anyway.

Disney, on the other hand, has the space, and built an empire on animatronics and animation telling stories, so their theme parks and rides play to that strength incredibly well and consistently. To see what I'm talking about, check out One Man's Dream at HS, and you'll really understand why, in this age of phenomenal video effects, Disney has chosen to stay with animatronics even on refurbished rides and new rides like Seven Dwarves Mine Train or Expedition Everest.

Lunch was at the Leaky Cauldron, where we looked at the fish and chips and said to ourselves, "Selves, that's too much food if you get two of them." Ourselves said, "But one really isn't enough..." We agreed and asked the TM if there was a limitation on the child's menu, and were thrilled to hear that there wasn't. We ordered one adult and one child version of the fish and chips, which was the absolute perfect amount of food for the two of us. The lovely TM at the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron also noticed Hubby's video game shirt from work and knew the game well, then congratulated us on the honeymoon, and told us to tell the TMs at the cash registers that he said we could have congratulatory butterbeers complimentary. Yay for honeymoon extras!!! Love us some butterbeers.

For dinner, we ate at Cowfish Sushi and Burger bar, which I enjoyed immensely last visit, when I was at Universal on a solo side-trip after a conference in July. I was looking forward to returning.

Hubby got a burger and I got the sushi plate. Both were phenomenal, and the salmon was really nicely flavoured. I wish I'd gotten more of that and less of the Yellowtail.

We headed back to the hotel for an early evening, and spent a bit of time in the hot tub enjoying some dessert and a drink from the Bula Bar.

Notably, we chose not to eat at any of the restaurants on the property, as the menus weren't as compelling to us as others around, or the restaurants weren't close enough to where we were when wanted to eat. I'm sure Royal Pacific has delightful restaurants. We just chose not to eat at them.

We also opted not to do room service because it wasn't worth the money to us in terms of cost and meal delivery. 22% gratuity on top of a delivery charge for an overpriced breakfast isn't our idea of a great way to spend those dollars, and we don't really want to eat that much that early in the morning anyway if it is the right amount of food for those dollars. It just didn't work for us. The same held true at the Boardwalk.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 4: In which we continue our romp about Universal, Uber our way over to Boardwalk, pick up our premium passes, and start to revel in the goodness that is the Food and Wine Festival on the Dining Plan

On the morning of Day 4, I wanted to hit Diagon Alley during those Early morning Entry hours that came with our resort stay. Hubby agreed, and we wandered on down after our breakfast of coffee and pop tarts. A very barren and empty citywalk awaited us. It was kinda cool. We reveled in the quietude of it.

When we got to Diagon Alley, we decided to take photos with Stan Shunpike. He and his pal, the Shrunken Head, had a mighty good time.

We went on Gringott's again, since the line was short, and it got stuck halfway through, which was kinda cool since I'm really into the stagecraft of what each park does and how they do it. I LOVE seeing behind the curtain. It got stuck, but good, too. We had 2nd breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron and shared a plate of breakfast potatoes and eggs. Hom nom!

Then we thought that going to Islands on the Hogwarts Express would be a splendid idea. Until it wasn't because the line was insane. So we trekked back through the park and went out to proper front gate and went back that way. This plan was superior because we're pretty sure we gained time on those folks at the back of the HE line. We'd already ridden it both ways anyway, and I fell asleep the night before on it. So relaxing.

We rode Dragon challenge, and then Forbidden Journey, and then decided that we had ridden enough gut-wrenching rides in a two-hour span. Both of us being great with roller coasters and thrill rides, we realized that lines and waits serve an important function to allow the system to recalibrate again before wrenching. Downside to the Express pass, I suppose? It also highlights the true lack of "filler" in Universal's parks. It's food or thrillers, and very little in-between unless you really know what to look for and expect.

We wandered on back to the Royal Pacific Resort, and hailed an Uber to take us to Disney. Uber ride was free thanks to my promo code and credit card combo. Our driver was an off-duty Disney driver, so he was super-helpful.

We arrived at the Boardwalk and were SO excited to get there, finally. Our room was ready, so some helpful gentlemen who seemed to be training for how to greet Club Level guests gave us the Club Level greeting and escort to our room, which was just down the hall from the Innkeeper's Club. Our room was overlooking the central parky area and had a view of the boardwalk and the lake. Beautiful, until we heard the horn on the boat honking every twenty minutes. We eventually learned to tune that out.


I was surprised at how humid the weather was, as the last time we were here the weather was not nearly as humid, and just glorious the whole time. We were both past the point of heat grumped on a regular basis, and had an earnest conversation about the feasibility of rope drop attendance at various parks on various mornings with a mid-day interlude in the hotel room for park switch at the high heat of the day. We agreed to give it a go and see what happened. I, however, was hungry. We had skipped lunch at Universal because who would eat there when the Food and Wine festival beckoned?! Not us!!

Onward to Epcot for our first foray into the Food and Wine Festival and to pick up our Premium Package credentials and goodie bags so we would be ready on Monday for our first day of being waited on hand and foot.

I really, really had my eye on the lamb chop in Australia, so we headed there first and I got one. It was super-good. Moist and as I would expect. I also used a snack credit to pay for it. Yay DDP. This is the theme of our F&W experience, BTW. YAY! DDP and Premium Package!!!
Those are salt and vinegar potato chips on top of it. Who would have thought to put those together?! Not I. They were amazing.

Then we headed over to the cheese booth for their offerings. I got one of each and was so hungry I forgot to take photos. Sorry.
The fondue had a lack of balance between bread amount and cheese amount. I don't really want to drink my fondue, and I ran out of bread far too quickly. Bah!
The cheese trio was good, mostly.
And the Guava Pannacotta was very gentle and very good. It's a drinkable dessert.

After hitting the festival center for our premium package pickup, we went back to the hotel, got our refillable mugs, and relaxed for a bit while we waited for a friend of mine to head back out into the festival. We really, really needed the down-time at that point, and I was finally fed.

After a couple of hours of literally chilling out, we headed back out into the parks and took our refillable mug with us. Even though it's not refillable in the parks, FYI. During F&W, for Chase cardholders, you can refill from the freestyle machine as many times and as often as you want. I think we paid for about four nonalcoholic drinks in six days, in all parks, total. And that includes water.

With friend, we went to France, where she and I split an Escargot Croissant. SUPER good.
It mimicked mushrooms very closely, in both flavour and texture, and was very rich and creamy. I enjoyed it intensely.

Hubby had the Creme brulee, which I never did manage to photograph and we had four of them over the course of the week. Whoops.

We also hit the Chase Lounge for beverages, and then Scotland for the Scallop and the Pancake with Salmon. All were good.
The Scallop was a bit dry, but the Spinach au gratin below was really really good.

We headed into Future World to hit Chew Lab, and got one of everything for each of us, except the Smoking Hibiscus, which my friend got and let me try.

Holy mackerel. We did not get a single photo of any of it because we ate it so fast and it was so good.
Those nitro truffles... Oh dear gracious. Heavenly!!! The Salmon and Steak were perfectly prepared, and delectable. The smoking hibiscus drink was a little sweet for my taste, but good. If you eat the hibiscus too soon, be prepared not to feel your tongue and lips for awhile. They do not screw around with that nitrogen.

We left just before Illuminations and bid our friend adieu after a beer at Big River.

We went back up to our room to find that we had gotten turndown service, which was wholly unexpected and did not happen the rest of the time we were there. We think that someone was a little overzealous during turn-down.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 5: In which wore our complementary Cards Against Humanity T-Shirts to Hollywood Studios, first experienced the goodness of the premium areas, and had our first experience with the Yachtsman Steakhouse, then went to Magic Kingdom all dressed up to meet Anna and Elsa and ride the Carousel.

So we have these awesome t-shirts that we got from the Penny Arcade Expo a few years back when Cards Against Humanity came out. They are a black T-shirt for him that says "My plan for world domination begins with __________." And a white one for me that says "Stormtroopers." They can really only be worn as a set, and WHERE BETTER?! than our honeymoon at Hollywood Studios where we can celebrate the fact that they're all about Star Wars.

We got photos at the Monsters, Inc character meet, and I did TOT on my own. We rode Star Tours and the Great Movie Ride, and then sought out some food, which we were doing our best to avoid anywhere but signature restaurants or Food and Wine.

After lunch, we wandered around a bit and got in line for Toy Story Midway Mania, then decided that we could not really handle that line at that time, and did not want to wait until 2:35 for our Fastpass, so we left and did not redeem that fastpass.

We got MANY compliments and comments on our shirts that day, throughout Studios. We also got commentary in Epcot, and more from other guests, too. Many thought it was absolutely hilarious that those were the complementing shirts we chose for our honeymoon. Lots of people had Disney-esque shirts. We were unique, and with shirts we got for free from a video game con three years ago!! Go us.

We went to Epcot for back to Epcot for an interlude and our first Premium Package Area experience. Wow, what a worthwhile way to invest in the F&W experience over a nice, long duration. Sure, we could have done one of the lunches or something, but hubby doesn't drink, so those wouldn't be nearly as beneficial for him. This benefited both of us equally and really enhanced our experience all the way around. We had seating, shade, and service for each and every premium area. What's more? We were eating with the same people all week because we all got the Premium Package, and they were pretty cool people!!

Spoiler: DDP + Premium Package Details that may or may not be relevant in 2016

When they officially announced that Quickservice credits could be used to get three snacks items in the same transaction as of June 1, 2015, that was great. Lots of people loved this. Then they continued the practice of making Food and Wine items snack-credit eligible. Cool!

We had a free dining plan with our room. This was perfect. Ten free items?! We can totally do that. If we wanted enough of the items from the booth, maybe we could even do a Quick Service credit and get that booth covered for free. Places like Canada make that a great value!! I was totally sold on this concept at this point.

Then we bought the Premium Package, and that just really made it SO much better, because it changed the point of payment to the Premium Area registers instead of the Kiosk Registers from Monday through Thursday, Noon to Eight. This. Was. Huge. Now, where we could previously only choose items from Canada or Ireland, but not both, to get our three snacks for a Quickservice credit, now we could choose from both and get all of the most expensive things from both booths put into one transaction, paying for it with a quickservice credit.

This was especially wonderful in the Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia, and Mexico area - where I had a Lamb Chop, Venison Loin, and Beef Skewers, all from different booths, and all on the higher end of their booths values, all for one QS credit. Our best spend was two Canadian Filets and one Cheese Plate from Ireland in one QS credit, giving us $19.25 of value out of that one credit. Most came between $15 and 18 per credit. We had our drinks from the Chase Lounge, and anything Alcoholic was covered with our gift card for cheap things/flights and our Premium Package entitlements (eight, and I made sure to spend all of them for those pricey Cocktails. Things were looking really good. And... all of those Quickservice and Snack credits came with our room reservation thanks to the Free Dining promotion. Whoa.

We had a few things in Epcot and then went back to our room to shower and change for dinner. Since we were going to two signature restaurants in resorts, we both brought dress clothes for nice dinners, which made for some nice photos later on, too. It was fun to dress up for dinner, even though people around us were in shorts and T-shirts. I feel like wearing park clothes when you're ordering a $75 meal is just not our thing.

At the Yachtsman, they greeted us with special menus and let us keep them. They explained the menu and our server was fantastic. I got the Rib eye and Hubby got the Filet. They were both exquisite. We also ordered the Truffle Mac and Cheese, which is the recipe that we bought an entire book to get because it was so good.


The steak pictures don't do them justice, at all. They were beyond amazing, and leagues above any other steak we had, all week, anywhere. Notably that includes Narcoossee's and Le Cellier. We shared the Creme Brulee for dinner (shocking, I know).

Since we were all dressed up, and we had time to spare, and Magic Kingdom was open until 11, I said "Let's go to Magic Kingdom!!!" This was a poor idea because of the heat, but that's okay, we got over it and continued on.

We took photos at Epcot on our way through to the Monorail, then got photos with Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, and Cindrella during Wishes. We also got on the Carousel and rode in our nice clothes, and I got some bride mickey ears for the photos, because fun!!!

Homeward to Boardwalk, we went, exhausted, after getting trapped behind the second run of the MSEP for awhile and deciding to enjoy it instead of being grumped by it. The heat was truly oppressive.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 6: In which we go on the Wild Africa Trek, enjoy the Festival of the Lion King, skip every single fastpass, relax for the afternoon, have steak and lobster(s) for dinner, and enjoy Happy Hallowishes.

We dragged our happy butts out of bed for one last 6am get-up, ate our pop tarts and drank our coffee on the way to Animal Kingdom, and met our merry band of fellow adventurers for the Wild Africa Trek at 8am. Wow. How Abbe and Marc were so perky so early in the morning is a mystery to me. They were phenomenal, though. Hilary, also!

There were seven people on our Trek. They give you water bottles full of bottled water, a name tag, and a little keeper for any sunglasses you may have. Then they take everything else away from you and you put it in a little locker. Believe me, you do NOT want to take any of that on the Trek. Just take what they give you and enjoy the fact that they're doing all the photography.

We also got put into these fine full-body harnesses with keeper cables on the back, used to harness us to rails when we were on the overlook points.
That bar in the back is the attachment point for those keepers. They kept us from falling in with the hippos and the crocodiles.

We walked through the back areas of Animal Kingdom for about an hour, then joined up with our Savannah driver and the special vehicles for the driving part of the tour. We went all over the Savannah and got to ask any questions we wanted, including about what was real and what was perhaps simulated for purposes of discussion and education.

After our tour of the Savannah, we stopped at the Boma, which is the hut you see in the distance at the end of the Kilamanjaro Safari Tour, off to the right. They served is a beautiful boxed breakfast meal and it was delicious. I ate the flower, and I forget what it was.

After the Trek, we wandered out to find that they were seating for the Lion King. We popped in and watched that show, very much enjoying it, and then headed out to Rafiki's Planet Watch to see live scientists in action.


Tapping on the glass could disturb the scientists!!!

Then we headed back to Epcot for a little bit more noshing.

We had the Canadian Filets from the Canada booth (Gasp!) and a cheese plate from Ireland. Hubby got the lava cake from Ireland. YUM!! It was really more like drinking chocolate syrup with brownie bites in it. Thanks to the premium areas, we sat down, used one quick service credit for both filets and the cheese plate, paid for the lava cake, and had it all done within about ten minutes. HEAVEN!!! No lines, heat or misery. This was my first test of this quick service credit to snacks from multiple kiosks using premium package areas to do it, and it worked flawlessly once the CM figured out how to do it.

It was a relaxing afternoon.

We went back to the hotel to change clothes back to our fancy clothes, then off to Narcoosee's for our second signature dinner. Remember that I had attempted to minimize the number of table service meals we had because we wanted to enjoy food and wine for as many meals as possible. I was totally successful at getting two great options in Yachtsman and Narcoossee, and then we walked-up to Le Cellier for our third.

For dinner, we opted for the 2 lb maine Lobster for me, and the surf and turf for him. He doesn't eat a whole lot of fish at all, and no shellfish, so he was confused when I threw the lobster in with his steak in the order. When I told him it was the same price with or without the lobster he agreed.

I don't get lobster very often. Okay, hardly ever. When I do, I certainly don't have the option to try two different cooking methods side by side. This night, I did. Over 1 lb of lobster meat was my dinner, and it was amazing. For the record, butter poached is my preferred cooking style over steaming. It produces a much more tender piece of lobster.

His steak was good, but not as good as Yachtsman or later Le Cellier. He had three filets this past week, and loved it.

We watched the electrical water parade when it came by, which was cute and fun. I've never stayed at a Magic Kingdom Resort, so it was really fun to see, but the best part was that I'd planned dinner's end to coincide with Happy Hallowishes, because I Love. LOVE Choreographed fireworks. Because of the time period we went to Disney, we had not two, but THREE shows we could see. We had no interest in the party - just the fireworks, so a well-timed dinner made that possible.

We watched Happy Hallowishes from the deck, and the music was piped in on cue. It was wonderful!!!

The Almond cheesecake was divine, but the Chocolate torte we could leave, and did. It was too bitter for us and too much like a cake.

The boat back to Magic Kingdom was horribly delayed and we were tired, but when we did get back it was a nice early night, and an end to the frantic scheduling of the first six days. The next three were all whatever we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do it, with fastpasses to support touring plans if we wanted them, or not.

Over the course of our week, we actually skipped and cancelled more fastpasses than we redeemed. It just wasn't what we wanted to do that day, and that was fine by me.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 7: In which we finally slow down, sleep in, and most of the schedule is in pencil instead of pen

I was a bit remorseful that I'd scheduled so many frantic days, when I really thought I'd done a good job of not overscheduling us. Whoops. Good news: We had three days to recover while still at disney, and two of those were Premium Pass days. Boom.

We spent most of this day at Epcot, focusing on our Premium package entitlements and enjoying the food and wine festival. We got into the park through IG inadvertently early, so I got the French Bakery breakfast I had been hoping for but had let go in favour of sleeping in.

This is the breakfast of champions. French champions. Chocolate Croissant, Merengue, and the surprising addition of a creme brulee. It's like ice cream for breakfast at our house. Seriously. I do not know why we love it so much, but we do.

We noodled around and headed toward Future World, and noticed that the line for Soarin' was 40 minutes. Cool!! So we got in it, and ended up right behind a nice family who told us all about row 1. Gem of information!!! Apparently the skies opened up and the lightning and thunder closed the F&W Festival down shortly after it opened while we were on Soarin and Living with the Land. I loved Living with the Land, by the way. As someone who is VERY interested in sustainable agriculture and ways of growing food that maximize our use of the land around us, that was one of the highlights of my trip. I really wanted to do the Behind the Seeds Tour, too, but I'll do that next time. The Sky Pumpkins were my favourites.

When we got out of Soarin', it was still raining, so we went ahead and bought Disney ponchos for ourselves, thinking we could do the festival in the rain. We're from Seattle, after all. Rain is our way of life. Um. Not this rain. We hunkered down in a gift shop and waited for it to pass, and bought two cookbooks while we were at it. Then we resumed our enjoyment of the premium areas with lunch!

We had lamb chops, venison loins, empanadas, chilaquiles de pollo, margaritas, that wonderful Sugar cane fizz in DR, and way more than I can even begin to mention. If it looked good, we ate it. I was doing all the math to make sure we used all of our credits, entitlements, and dollars the most efficiently. Just to keep things simpler, we did get a F&W gift card and put money on it, so that dollars came off the gift card, entitlements were tabs, and credits were on the magic band. That way there was little room for error as to which thing I was paying with. It was not uncommon for me to have three or four transactions in a premium area to get all of the things we wanted.

We also wandered past the Chase lounge twice to refill our cups. An excellent benefit, if I've ever seen one.

At about five, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom for our evening in that park, and planned to close it down at 1am at the end of the extra magic hours that night. We paced ourselves well, and ended up using all three of our fastpasses for Space Mountain, Seven Dwarves, and Wishes that night. We both agreed they were excellent options.

Dinner was an unfortunate choice, for sure. It was the Columbia Harbour House. Fine food. It held body and soul together. That's about all either of us could say about it.


Since I grew up at Disneyland, and I attended the last MSEP at Disneyland as a teen, I've got a very, very soft spot for this particular parade, so getting to watch it twice was pretty special for me. I cry every time I see it, because it is tied to such an important piece of my childhood.

After MSEP, we headed over the 7 Dwarves again to find a line wait of 40 minutes ?! how could that be? Just as we were about to wander off to somewhere else, hubby noticed that the line changed to 20 minutes and we popped into the MB scanning line. HUZZAH!!! We rode again. Go us. Then we did Peter Pan's flight, and Haunted Mansion, POTC and It's a Small World. One our way out of the Haunted Mansion, I asked if we could go the long way around through Tomorrowland on our way out of the park, and he agreed. We went past Buzz Lightyear and it was open, so we went on it, and had a great time. As we were leaving the park, we got to see the Goodnight Kiss.

It was a magical end to a magical day.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 8: In which we spend the morning gawking at the animals at Animal Kingdom, followed by the remainder of our Premium Package, and Extra Magic Hours at Epcot

We started our morning slowly and gently again, reveling in the wonderful morning. Coffee really is better now that they have vanilla creamer available in the lobby coffee areas. SO much better. One of us went to get coffee each morning and it was just divine. We never once touched our in-room coffee maker.

I had made our fastpasses for Animal Kingdom, starting at 9:05 for Kilamanjaro Safari. We moved them when we realized that wasn't going to happen, but we weren't thrilled with the time we got in the afternoon. I decided to either bag it, or figure out something to do with it when we got to the park. The bus from Boardwalk was horribly delayed, however, and took us on the weirdest route, ever: past Blizzard Beach. NO joke.

When we got to Animal Kingdom, they were more than happy to fix any fastpasses that had been missed because of the bus, and I asked them if they'd be willing to move mine as well for the inconvenience of hanging at the bus stop for what seemed like forever, plus the bonus stop at Blizzard beach. They did.

We had a great time on Expedition Everest, met Donald, picked a Dinosaur's nose, played in the petting zoo, and went on safari. At the petting zoo, I learned that one of their goats has allergies. I gave him a hug because allergies suck.


From Rafiki's planet watch - Primate Pellets!


Safari elephants.

At around 2, we headed back to the Boardwalk for our mid-day transition and rest before heading back into Epcot for our evening of Dear gosh all things Premium. We ate MORE food at premium areas. Morocco, Brazil (Dear gosh that pork belly will have me dreaming of it for months to come), France for the Beef and another round of Escargot, and of course some Creme Brulee. The Sangria at Mexico is worth talking about, and the Chilled coffee was phenomenal.

The premium areas really were something that we appreciated more and more as the week went on, partly because hubby really isn't a fan of elbow-to-elbow crowds. We LOVED sitting down and enjoying the company of others who were similarly inclined, and we all agreed the Premium Package areas were delightful. We even had a visitor one day:

"Hello! I would like to Premium Package with you!"

We had our included culinary demonstration of Pastry with the pastry chef from Jean-Georges restaurants, which was phenomenal. He made a butterscotch pudding with warm caramel sauce and a whipped creme fraiche. Good gracious was it amazing.


Hom. Nom.

We puttered around the World Showcase some more, winnowing our snack and quick service credits as much as possible before our Illuminations sparkling dessert party. There may or may not have been a few more pork bellys from Brazil in my belly by the time we got there.

The dessert party was wholly underwhelming, except for the location and the lack of the crowd. We would NEVER have chosen to do it on our own, being the horrible dessert dissenters we are. The worst part was that they were potentially great desserts with abysmal preparation. Soggy churros, undercooked baklava, and just generally uninspired anythings. I enjoyed the champagne but neither of us really embraced the dessert selections. Thank goodness the champagne was free-flowing. It was a part of our premium package, though, so we premiumed it up.

After Illuminations, we went back to Future World, bid adieu to our premium areas, and rode Test Track together.

We went back to the hotel after riding Test Track for the second time that day, and doing Nemo and Friends.

 

[KiniShakenBake]

Day 9: In which we fight with the Screen Door staff about shipping, wander down to Epcot for one last day of F&W and some rides, and sadly board the Magical Express for the trip home.

We woke up and got moving, eventually, knowing we had to be packed and checked out by 11. Packing was a challenge, so I got right on shipping stuff home to ourselves.

On Day 8, I had stopped by the Screen Door to inquire about the feasibility of shipping a bottle of wine back home. The helpful clerk told me that it was no problem. I could ship anything under $75 home for about ten dollars. GREAT!!! I left, quite merry at the discovery. I'm from Washington and California, after all - we can ship anything anywhere, apparently, including wine. It didn't even occur to me that this CM might be wrong.

The morning of Day 9, I trotted down to the Screen Door with my bottle of wine to ship home. The CM there looked at the bottle of wine and said there was no way I could get that out of Florida by shipping. Full stop. I asked her why someone yesterday told me it could be done for $10. She wasn't sure, but she was also one of the most annoyingly slow people to do anything. Anything at all. She did tell me that they could ship "anything else" we needed to ship home and that there was a free shipping deal right now, so I could take advantage of that. GREAT!!! (see the theme emerging?)

So I frustratedly took my wine back up to our room, and picked up the rest of the contents of our premium package: wine glasses, magic bands, bags, my Universal Orlando mug, our mickey ears, and a couple of bags of toiletries to donate to the shelters when I got back home. PERFECT! or not.

When I got down to the Screen Door, the same maddeningly slow clerk told me "We can't ship that home. It's liquid, and none of it has a bar code." Um... What? Were you not the same person who JUST told me that I could ship ANYTHING ELSE but liquor home???!?! The worst part was that it was mostly stuff that I got from Disney! It just didn't have a bar code because it wasn't sold at a retail location: Premium package contents and shampoos and conditioners, as well as some mickey ears both regular and bride varieties.

Cripes. They called a supervisor who indeed would not accept anything for shipping without a bar code because they didn't know how much it cost and couldn't insure it. I was ready to hit the roof. I went ahead and shipped my two cookbooks and photo frame home, but I was spitting nails over the severe miscommunication that had me bringing tons of stuff through the hotel multiple times to try to ship on misinformation each time. Unbelievably awful service.

Hubby, when I got back to the room the second time with all the stuff, realized that something was terribly wrong, and did everything he could to make it better, including finishing all the packing with all of the stuff that I couldn't get shipped.

We got down to the front desk and I had reached another local friend who we left the wine for, with a note giving her phone number and mine, and an estimated pickup date. We had given the first bottle to the local friend who met us on Sunday. Thank goodness for local friends, I suppose. I'm less than thrilled with the outcome on both of those fronts, however.

We had now gone far too long without coffee and breakfast, so we headed off back into the parks for some breakfast and coffee. Turns out that the iced coffee with a shot of Bailey's was a nice touch for my morning. Hubby had an iced coffee as well, sans alcohol. We got more pork belly and cheese things in Brazil for one of our last two quickservice credits, and went off to our fastpass to meet the characters at Epcot. Mickey and Minnie were so much fun!!!

Soarin' was great, and then we did Mission Space on standby for Green, which was a silly short line.

Taking a chance that something magical might happen, we stopped into Le Cellier to see if we might be able to use our last two table service credits there, paying for the other meal out of pocket. We did not have a reservation, so we asked sweetly if there might be any openings for a two-person table for lunch. They checked and looked and found one for us, and just as they were about to seat us, a family of four was turned away for walk-up because they were completely full. I felt bad, but we got a table for two. Lunch was amazing, and it was the second best filet hubby had all week. We shared the Maple Creme Brulee dessert as a last dessert to the honeymoon.

We finished it up with one last pork belly, but did not want or need anything else for our last Quickservice credit, so we got some candy at the gift shop and a treat for our house-sitter.

We headed back to the Boardwalk and headed off on Magical Express.