Thursday, October 30, 2014

October Trip Report - Day 1

October 13, 2014

Where would one start a trip to WDW for the International Food and Wine Festival, except in EPCOT? So naturally, that is where we will spend our first day.



Before we arrive at EPCOT, I get a message from a friend from high school who tells me that her son - who is on the WDW College Program - is at the entrance and I should say hi to him. However, as we go through the entrance, I look but he is not to be seen.

We arrive about 10:00 AM - we don't get to parks very early anymore - and will be meeting our daughter here at 11:00 so she can partake of some of the offerings at Food and Wine before she needs to be at work this afternoon. When we arrive, my wife does what she always does when we get into the park, and heads into The Art of Disney. I, on the other hand, stay outside to take some photos, including the one of Spaceship Earth which you see above.

When she is done we follow our (her) usual routine and stop at the pin station where she always finds a pin or two to purchase. From there we head towards - where else - Mouse Gears. As we arrive there, I get another message from my friend that her son - who had been on a break - was now back at the entrance, so I tell my wife to take her time in the store and I will meet her when she comes out. I go back to the entrance area where I do find the young man this time. I introduce myself to him (he was expecting me) and we have a nice chat. He is doing his second CP semester with the hope that when it is over he can get a full time position (he had been offered PT in the past) and get himself a place to live down here ... somewhat similar to what my own daughter had done.

Back to Mouse Gears where I gather my wife and head over to The Land where we will meet our daughter, and then use our FastPass+'s for Soarin' before heading off to World Showcase for our first taste of this year's Food and Wine Festival.





Although it is supposed to cool down a bit later in the week, today is another of those very hot Central Florida days, you know, a typical day at Walt Disney World.

We start with a short journey to the booths to the right before starting our counter-clockwise journey. Between the heat and my daughter's work schedule, it's around 1:00 when we decide to head back into World Showcase. We still have a few FastPasses to use, so we say goodbye to our daughter while we head to Test Track, our next FastPass on the schedule.

Once that is done, we have a bit of a wait until our Spaceship Earth FastPass is due, but since my wife is using a scooter, we decided to just go ahead and go through the wheelchair procedure, and not wait until our FastPass window.


That done, we head back to the bus and Pop Century, where we have some dinner at the food court before heading back to our nicely air conditioned room to relax and prepare for the next day which we will be spending at Disney's Hollywood Studios.




Sunday, October 26, 2014

October Trip Report - Prelude


Since the International Food and Wine Festival has been taking place in EPCOT, I have only missed it one year, and this year was not to be a second. Plans were made, as usual, taking into consideration when my grandson's birthday occurs ... and off we go!

October 10, 2014

The car is packed, and as soon as rush hour is over, we are on our way.

Everything is smooth sailing until we get close to Washington, DC - but that is always expected so we give it no thought. Traffic continues to be stop and go as we pass into Virginia, but once again, that is not very unusual and we thing nothing of it ... until it continues longer than it usually does. In fact, the traffic is so bad that we lose between 2 and 3 hours in stop and go conditions until it finally opens up. A combination of rain, construction, and accidents appear to have accounted for the logjam.

We end our day just over the border into North Carolina and stop for the night. Since bot my wife and myself are retired and have no time pressure due to a finite vacation period, I have given us an extra day of traveling more than we actually need so that we can stop early and make it an easy 1100 mile drive.

October 11, 2014

Back on the road, and today we leave the rain behind early in the day, and have a nice, sunny, traffic-free day of driving.

We arrive in Florida and decide to get to about St. Augustine before we stop for the night. Our reservations at Pop Century start tomorrow and we don't really want to get too close to Disney World today. At Palm Coast, we pull off Interstate 95 and look to get a room, but all of the rooms at the Holiday Inn Express are filled ... it seems that there is a soccer tournament in the area which has taken most of the available rooms ... but there is one suite left at the Microtel just down the block, so that is where we spend the night.

October 12, 2014

This is the day our reservation at Pop Century begins, and the plan is to meet our daughter in the lobby at 1:00 PM and check in. We also make arrangements to meet the representative from Randy's Mobility who will be providing us with an electric scooter for this visit. Both my wife and I have been having some major issues with a foot recently, and while I am going to try to walk as much as possible this trip, but my wife still needs to use a scooter.

Since we are only about 2 hours from WDW, we stick around until the 11:00 check-out time and make the last part of the trip. We arrive just before 1:00 and both Randy's Mobility and our daughter follow shortly. We check into our room in the Fifties section of the hotel.


As evening approaches, my son-in-law ... who was working today ... meets us and we head over to the Beach Club Resort where we have reservations for Cape May Café for dinner.

Back in the room my wife and I get some sleep - ready to head over to EPCOT tomorrow to start our week with a visit to the International Food and Wine Festival.