The 12 Days of Easter - Complete

[Grapesoda]

Loving the updates

[Jesslydevie1]

Great update, do u mind if I ask how much the fantasmic package is please ?

[SuziQz]

Another busy food day. Not sure about brown derby and your crazy salad!

[theCMG]

Originally Posted by Grapesoda

Loving the updates

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Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Jesslydevie1

Great update, do u mind if I ask how much the fantasmic package is please ?

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It's 2 TS credits on DDP for brown derby and about $58 and $17 adult/child I believe for the set menu out of pocket. The other restaurants offering it are one credit and cheaper oop. You also get the Fastpass for Fantasmic which doesn't count as one of the normal daily 3

Originally Posted by SuziQz

Another busy food day. Not sure about brown derby and your crazy salad!

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Lol it was an adventure, has to be done sometimes and I'd acquired bravery from a strong beer or two beforehand

[theCMG]

Day 9 - Magic Kingdom and Vineland Mall

Breakfast was initially an uber-early snack as DD and I were on track to hit a 7am rope drop at MK (no chance of DW who had her eye on a sunbed at a more civilised hour). I had a cereal bar and apple juice for DD. The real breakfast came a few hours and rides later at Casey's Corner. DD had a choc chip muffin:



I bought a coffee and ate cinnamon glazed almonds purchased on the way through Adventureland. The muffin was huge and enjoyed, pretty sweet and fresh in a synthetic kind of way. The nuts were very good, small almonds encrusted with cinnamon enriched sugar glaze and loads of them in the bag. We're not on the dining plan at this stage but they'd make a bargain snack credit.



I have to mention the morning service at Casey's Crawler as we now call it. They had no less than 10 people serving front of house and around 6 customers when we were there. The food came out through a hatch from the kitchen the second they requested it and yet they still couldn't serve customers in less than 5 minutes each. It was a display of the sort of dime bar ineptitude and indifference that I thought Disney immune to, a couple of people asked if they could have their pastries put into bags and were met with looks of genuine puzzlement. One server responded by just continuing to look gormlessly at the customer holding the tray for a further 30 seconds until she asked for her croissant. Honestly time stood still in there, I could go on!


Lunch - Liberty Tree Tavern, Magic Kingdom

We carried on through the late morning on some of the less heralded rides including a trio of park originals - carousel, tiki room and country bears. It saddens me a little when I hear people in the parks (often Americans) diss these attractions as they are a part of the parks own history and unique culture. Country Bears is still hilarious btw if you've never seen it, timeless stuff.

Today was a hot one and we were relieved to head into the Liberty Tree Tavern for some cool air and lunch. We ordered the usual drinks. DD ordered the pasta with marinara sauce which was pretty did tbh, looked like the pasta from Mac and cheese with a splodge of canned marinara on top, this sort of kids meal is not really on in table service as far as I'm concerned.



My meal was a lot better, the Angus chuck cheeseburger with bacon and cheddar and tavern fries. DD helped a lot with this but there was no need. The fries were more chip like and could indeed have come from an English pub, the burger was a little greasy but in a good way and all round tastes great with a little ketchup. I'd love to tell you how this compares with the standard Disney counter service Angus (the size and topping are almost identical) but haven't tried one yet to be able to make the comparison.



For Dessert we shared an ooey gooey toffee cake.



This is great if very sweet. The ice cream is just enough to cut through the toffee, fudge and other syrupy goodness around the cake. The cake itself has a slightly chewy almost meringuey texture to it while still clearly being a flat hockey puck shaped piece of cake. The dessert take some finishing and is a lot more food than it looks.

After this we cashed in the all important Ana and Elsa fast pass. Nice banter from Elsa who clearly enjoyed my flamboyant clothing choice for the day (nothing wrong with rocking a Hawaiian shirt and fedora combo). My dress sense was compared to Olaf at one stage, Elsa must have heard my theory that she's a Disney Villain. Ana was quieter but also a sweetie with DD. These two have a tough job with such highly strung expectations on them all day every day and no mask to hide behind so respect to them both.


Dinner - Bahama Breeze Fail Mk II

A couple of hours and one nap after getting back from MK we were back as a trio and out for the evening, starting of course with the obligatory trip to Walmart to buy calories and general tut. Our haul is below, a familiar tale of Oreo experimentation, sauce lust and weakness in the face of tenuous merchandising.



After hitting the mall hard for an Under Armour trolley dash (me) and a pillage of Skechers (DW and DD) we www supposed to go to Bahama Breeze. Fail! The schedule had got away from us and it was now a little late to head over to BB, get seated and served in time for DD. So we re-routed to Mcdonalds for a drive thru, much to DW's disgust. No pics here as I'm sure you all know what a Big Mac meal and a chicken McNugget Happy Meal look like, and good on you if you don't. Today's step count finished up at 22800, Future World tomorrow and we're going for our record.

[Juliemack]

Peanut butter Oreos? I'm in

[theCMG]

Originally Posted by Juliemack

Peanut butter Oreos? I'm in

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They were lovely

[theCMG]

Going back next year, I might have to finally finish this report off!

[MissFortune]

Originally Posted by theCMG

Going back next year, I might have to finally finish this report off!

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Ooh please do!

[theCMG]

bless you MissFortune for encouraging my dicey food photography and jokes that hopefully will have aged like a fine wine Carrying on as if the intervening 3 years never happened

Day 10 - EPCOT Future World

Breakfast was snacks from the Walmart shop, nothing exciting to report. It was then over to the International Gateway for rope drop and a power walk to Test Track, our first visit of the holiday to EPCOT's Future World. A good morning on the rides including Mission Space and (relatively) hidden gem The Sum of all Fears. We also enjoyed Living with the Land (stock phrases like look at the size of that potato and ooo ba na na) before a break for lunch at midday.

Lunch - Sunshine Seasons, EPCOT Land Pavilion

This place is a class act among quick service. Always seems to have tables, the service actually is quick and the menu varied and high quality featuring (still I assume) produce from the Land pavilion). This was one of the best meals we had all week.

I had Mongolian beef with noodles (fried rice the other choice). Good beef and a genuine depth to the sauce, full of classic Asian flavours notably ginger and soy, better than you'd get in many proper Chinese restaurants. Lots of carrot mixed in too plus loads of flavourful noodles.

DW went for rotisserie chicken with mash. This was again great and plentiful. First really good mash of the holiday, smooth with a proper buttery finish and tasty, slightly smokey chicken.

Another great dish, DW actually declared this the best meal of the holiday which was probably the sun talking but let's you know how much we enjoyed this.

DD was a tougher choice here as this does not offer your classic quick service kids menu and the main area where she's adventurous (Italian) is not covered either. In the end we agreed on an adults South Western chicken wrap which was stuffed with a sorts of goodies including chicken, tomatoes, tortillas, black beans, corn, lettuce etc.

She did a good job with this, eating half. The black beans were a little odd as they were smeared mainly over the outside and broken down into the appearance of a kind of mould which is a particularly unpleasant way to present it. I checked this out before she ate it and it was fine, all very fresh - we were lucky she didn't spot it.

We also had desserts, brownie for DD and Strawberry Shortcake for me:

Carrot cupcake for DW:

These all hit the mark. The brownie was rich but good, the shortcake fresh and full of fruit and fresh cream - the flavours and textures of a freshly made Victoria Sponge. This was a bit of an ordering blunder however, I had the shortcake on mind because it's the only dessert on offer at the Hoop de doo which we were doing that evening. Hoop de DOH! The carrot cupcake was dense and delicious, nutty and covered in cream cheese icing, DW had to box half of it up, we couldn't bring ourselves to leave it behind.

Bonus: Afternoon Snacks - EPCOT

After this great lunch we worked through our Fastpasses (how poor is Nemo? Crush is awesome though dude). It was then over to Club Cool for me to work through all of the flavours on offer instead of the Mickey Bars preferred by the other 2:

Indulge me here. All the Club Cool drinks rated in my order of preference from bad to good I've spared you the photos of small cups of bright drinks as Lord only knows which is which. The countdown:

At 8, proof that nothing with Veg in the title belongs in the soda aisle its Japan's VegitaBeta. Beta test this one more please because I can taste the bugs in it.

Number 7 and Brazil's Guarana Kuat keeps pace with their World Cup semi final humiliation. Keep the guarana for the weird health products please I'm trying to enjoy a holiday here.

At 6 not many people will be Craven this Beverley. Promise Me I won't have to drink a whole can of Italy's entry. I bet you all thought this would be last. Well it isn't but only just, it's pretty bitter in the Italian aperitif style.

Here's a drink that's in at 5, this may be why they're no longer alive. The Inca Kola from Peru is not going to outsell Pepsi any time soon. Was this the infamous recipe for New Coke?

At 4 it's green and sticky and one of Thailand's leading nightclub entertainers, it's Melon Frosty.

Breaking the top 3, the Greek economy may be knackered but at least they can drink lovely Pineapple Fanta. If an EU import ban kicks in grapefruit farmers can make their own Lilt.

Just missing out at 2, it may sound like a Glaswegian ordering a milkshake but Sparberry is the real deal. Raspberry cream soda, why aren't we all drinking it? Oh it's from Zimbabwe and Bob won't let us have any

And our number one, the undisputed King of Club Cool. Stand up if you're a Beliebor in Bibo. Smells like the melon Fanta and tastes a bit like the pineapple but better than either if you can deal with the extreme sweetness. A worthy champion completes a Southern African one two.

Moving on. Fuelled with lovely sugar we hit Soarin on a fastpass. Casey's Corner had briefly taken over the loading process (see Day 9) so we had to wait an extra 5 minutes per group while they scoured the queue for parties of 7 and one legged Inca Kola drinkers. Never has adding 2's, 3's and 4's to total 8 been so difficult, these cast members would not do well on Countdown.

After this we were flagging and started to head back. Not before we spotted a new arrival, only the EPCOT gourmet popcorn cart!

This is Buffalo blue cheese popcorn, God bless America. It was potent, fabulous for a few pieces - spicy with buffalo sauce and rich tang of blue cheese. DW and I both like the flavour but it was a struggle to eat more than a handful. I battled with it for a while before realising it needed a suitably robust beer for company. Pulling into Canada I originally thought of La Fin du Monde which sounded like it could handle the job but it was off so I had to go for the Ephemere, a less macho sounding option altogether. These two plus the Trois Pistoles I had at the Brown Derby the day before are all available on draft in Canada and definitely a winner (albeit pricey). The Ephemere was nice but as expected it couldn't handle the full on popcorn so I ended up leaving a little of the snack (not the beer of course).

By this stage we were in the UK and DW had picked up the usual Jamesons Diet Coke before (even prior to drinking it) performing one of her expressive and highly embarrassing dance routines to the British Revolution's version of Hungry Like the Wolf. We moved swiftly back to the hotel before anyone realised she was sober.

Dinner - Hoop de doo Revue

The evenings entertainment was over at Fort Wilderness for the Hoop de doo Revue dinner show. We thought we'd left plenty of time driving there but even with a car you have to take a bus at the resort so leave some extra time people, we were nearly late. The resort is pretty spread out on a rustic theme with the lights on the bus flicking on and off between stops to keep the light pollution down (it's unpleasant if you're on the bus however). Arriving at the fall this was pretty cool, a wooden hall with balcony that looks pretty authentic.

We had a great table front row middle and started work on the cornbread and salad bowls which were already on the table. The cornbread is that lovely Madeira cake like taste and texture served with butter, DW and I enjoyed this without the butter and DD hated it surprisingly. The salad is also pretty good here with tasty dressing and benefiting from the fact that the mutant Craisin was still almost a century from creation and therefore for authenticity purposes unable to be added to at least one salad served on Disney property.

DD drank chocolate milk (2 pints in total by my estimation before I cottoned on), DW and I were on diet coke. The alcohol options were quite limited, a couple of beers, wines and sangria if memory serves me right but it is all included for one price.

The main is served family style and consists of fried chicken, smoked bbq pork ribs, corn, mash and beans. I've included pics of the proteins here (the chicken having already been decimated):

The beans are larger than baked beans as recognised in the UK, these are the sort of thing typically found in barbecue places. Tasty in a sweet barbecue way with some shredded pork in there. Added a picture of these but not the mash and corn which look and taste exactly as you might imagine them (only to note that the corn is not on the cob and that the mash is the buttery smooth style normally served in Europe not the more rustic redskin potato stuff).

This was all pretty decent. DD ate barely anything having filled up completely on chocolate milk, falling out with me in the process as I tried and failed to slow her down. The chicken was KFC style some very big pieces and tender with the coating having a fairly neutral flavour. The ribs were a little more interesting, very pink smoked meat, fairly dry with some fat in there, these will not be to everyone's tastes. If you are into barbecue you'd probably enjoy but maybe not otherwise. I was the only one to eat more than a bite, like them but had to be careful in what I bit into.

Dessert was their famous strawberry shortcake. This was good but very sweet, personally I preferred the more cream and fruit based one from sunshine seasons at lunchtime but this was good too and more suited to a child's palate.

A bus and car ride back and we were home at the Beach Club. Today's step count was 17500, a lot lower than expected. Walmart snack stash discovery of the day, Mint M and Ms taste like little after eights (must buy more)! Tomorrow is the last full day before travelling home.

If I ever do this again the photos will get a lot more TLC