February 8th - A Disney Date

Today I took my husband on a date to Disney for the day. I work pretty much all day on Valentines Day so this was my treat for him. We started our day at Raglan Road in Downtown Disney for brunch. We have never been there before and Jesse has been wanting to eat there for some time now. We were joined by some of our foodie friends to enjoy the show and the food with us. I'm apologizing now for the horrible photos. I forgot my camera at home and all we had was our cell phones.

While we waited for the others to arrive I had a Wyder's Pear Cider. I love ciders over beer and this was one I had not had before. It was pretty good and I enjoyed it.

Once inside we sat at the tables we had reserved, 105 and 106. They were the best seats in the house to watch the dancing and the band that performed. The waitress came by and took everyone's order. I ordered the Dalky Duo as our appetizer. These were batter dipped cocktail sausages that were served with a side of Dalky Mustard. For my drink I ordered a  Rekorderlig, which is a strawberry-lime cider. For my main course I went in deep with the Full Irish which consisted of sausage, black and white pudding (more sausage), bacon, a roasted tomato, mushrooms, two fried eggs, and roasties (roasted baby potatoes).

My husband ordered a sweet tea as his beverage and the Steak Sanger as his entree. 

During our meal we got enjoy the awesome dancers of Raglan Road and the band that played. This is when I really wish I had my camera on me. All of the food was phenomenal. Although I passed on my mushrooms because I'm just not a big fan of them, everything was just divine. I have to say however the most standout item from my meal has to be the Dalky Duo and the mustard. That makes it worth a stop any day in my book! 

We then headed off to Hollywood Studios since it is my husbands favorite park. He simply loves the drawing class they offer over in the animation building. For Christmas I got him and my daughter sketch books for when they go so all their drawings are in one neat little place. You have no idea how many pages of those sketches I have rolled up in my office and art room collecting dust. 

The Sorcerer Hat is almost gone!! Yay!!!

Anyways, getting back to our day, we rode Tower of Terror first since we had a fast pass to use for it. This one is probably my husbands favorite ride in all of Walt Disney World. He loves free-fall type rides.

After riding Tower of Terror I knew I wanted to head to Characterpalooza which takes place near the exit of ToT. We had about a half hour wait so we grabbed a bench in some shade and waited it out. Apparently characterpalooza is gaining lots of popularity over the past couple months as the crowds waiting for the gates to open are getting larger with every visit. The best little secret is spreading like wildfire it seems. When the gates opened up we took a quick glance around. I heard someone (taller than me) say "Ohhhh, Br'er Fox is out". So since I had not ever had the pleasure of getting his autograph and everyone else who was out were regular characters we met with the sly fellow himself, Br'er Fox.

After our visit with Br'er Fox we headed off to the Art of Animation building to take a drawing class. It was a short wait and we were able to fit right in. We got to draw Minnie Mouse on this visit. Who do you think drew her better?

Me:

or

Him:

I think mine's better if you ask me, hehe. After the drawing class there was just one more thing on our agenda for the day. I had to see the new Cinderella carriage from the upcoming movie. It is so stunning to see in person!

And with that our Disney date was over and we headed on home. My next Disney visit is on the 19th of this month and I know I'll be at Epcot for some part of that day looking for Mushu in China! 

Villains Unleashed!

Yesterday was Disney's Villains Unleashed event. A separate ticketed event that guests were able to enter the park at 5 p.m. and begin their villainous night. My night started just shortly after 5 p.m. I entered the park and headed over to the Indiana Jones area to pick up my credentials. Which ended up just being an over sized laminate PhotoPass card. I thought it was a cute idea verses the normal wrist band procedure. 

After I was done in that line I took a stroll around the back side of the park to get an idea of what characters were going to be where and their greet times. I knew Dr. Hamsterveil and Gantu were going to probably be one of the longest waits and Constatine. There were people already lined up for both at around the 5:45 p.m. mark. I ended up choosing to meet The Witch first and I got in her line at 7:00 p.m. Her meet started promptly at 8:30 p.m. I was fifth in line to meet her. They also gave out a bag of sliced apples as you left her meet.

After meeting The Witch I scurried over to the Star Wars area because Emperor Palpatine was on my "Must See" list. My goal was to knock out as many greets with characters I've never met before as possible. As I followed along with Kenny The Pirate and other people tweeting and posting wait times I started hearing "2 hour wait for this" "3 hour wait for that" It almost discouraged me. I'm walking by Darth Maul, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader and you can see the ridiculously long lines of people waiting to meet their favorite villains. I get to Sci-Fi Diner and see about 30 to 40 people in line. Seeing as this was considered a short line I jumped in and the line was moving very quickly. His set ended before I got in, but there was only about 10 people in front of me now and it would be 30 minutes before he came back. I decided to wait it out since I was so close and I came to meet characters! After a 45 minute wait I met Emperor Palpatine and two Imperial Guards. I count the Imperial Guards as 1 character since they are dressed exactly the same and do not have individual names.

Emperor Palpatine and The Imperial Guards were the only Star Wars characters I was after that night since all the others that were out and available I had met on previous occasions at Star Wars Weekends. I headed to Echo Lake to check out the status of the Hyenas. I saw that Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox were out and I asked the cast member at the front about the hyenas. She pointed to row of guests to her right and said they are waiting on the Hyenas and they will be out in 5 minutes. The hyenas line only had about 30 to 40 people in it. So with the knowledge I have of knowing it doesn't take 30 minutes to meet 30 guests I knew I would get in on the upcoming set. I met Banzai, Shenzi, and Ed and they were my favorite meet of the night. Very playful and interactive. Ed was just adorable.

As soon as I finished with the hyenas I noticed the line for the Br'ers was very short with about 15 people in it. The hyenas only had 3 minutes left after I met with them so I knew time was no on my side. After a 20 or so minute wait I met Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox.

My character count was now 8 characters met, and 6 of them were new to me meets. I was doing good. I let that bit of information keep my spirits up all the while I'm reading angry tweets and facebook comments about how lines are too long and people are only getting to meet 1 or 2 characters. I headed over to Streets of America to check out the Gantu and Dr. Hamsterviel situation. These two were at the top of my list that I really wanted to meet. Gantus line was closed for his last set and he was still meeting in his second set. The cast member informed me that Hamsterviels line was still open. I decided to go ahead and jump in. If I couldn't get both I would at least have one. It was roughly a 40 minute wait until I got to meet Hamsterviel and it was so worth it. He was adorable. I asked him if he'd like to take over the world tonight and he clapped with joy.

As I exited the greet I noticed the Gantu line only had 30 people in it. I thought to myself how odd it was that his line was closed off already when during a 30 minute greet with no autographs a character could easily meet up to 50 to 60 guests. So I lingered near the entrance to see if they would open his line up. Low and behold they did and I got in. 

Seeing how it seemed I was having some dumb luck or maybe it was me being prepared or maybe staying in good spirits about the event, I thought I would try my luck with Constatine. I had been hearing all night about how great his meet was and how worth it it was. Afterall it was the actual puppet from the movie and it was said that the actual puppeteer for him from the movie was the one behind the frog for the occasion as well. Well as with all luck it does eventually run out. I did not get in to meet him and it was now 12:15 a.m. I headed off through Streets of America one last time to see what was going on. The streets was practically empty with most of the guests still standing in line for stationary characters. I happened to come across some roaming characters that were not annoyingly crowded and I found guests that were more than happy to take a moment to take a photo for me. So I ended my character hunting adventure at Villains Unleashed with Foulfellow, Prince John, and Sheriff of Nottingham.

Character Hunting totals for the night were:

13 Unique Characters

9 New Characters to my book

The night ended with Maleficent bestowing a gift upon us that lit up the skies. Villainy in the Sky was hands down the best fireworks show I've seen at Walt Disney World, with Symphony in the Stars as a close runner up. The actress they had for Maleficent NAILED it and her performance brought chills to my spine. Overall I had a great time and I hope they decide to do more events like this. I will gladly go back and pay the premium again. All it takes is a little bit of planning and a positive attitude to have a great time. I'm sorry for those who did not enjoy their time there and were only able to meet one or two villains. I do agree I believe they oversold this event quite a bit and crowd levels were extremely high for such a short event with so much stuff packed into one night. It was impossible to do even half of the things there, but I went in having that expectation and knowing that I would not be able to do everything or meet everyone. I went in with a plan, I executed it and deviated where I needed to so I could make sure I had an outstanding time. On the way out guests were handed a large autograph card from the event plus a goodie bag with different things in it including 2 other autograph cards.