Epcot Food and Wine Festival

A Delicious Time at the Festival of Food & Wine ;)

A few weeks ago, my husband and I visited Epcot in Disney for the yearly Food & Wine Festival. We went last year for the first time and absolutely loved the experience. With Disney under 3 hours away from us, weekend getaways are only a hop, skip and jump away!

Before I go on about the actual festival, let me just redirect the focus on this blog a bit. I created this travel blog as a way to obviously track our travels. So often we go somewhere, have an absolutely amazing stay at the hotel, or tried the most delicious key lime pie we've ever had, but when it comes time to repeat that experience, we can't seem to remember the details. So, in lieu of keeping a giant binder of pamphlets and business cards, I have chosen to embrace technology.

Ok, back to our vacation! Matt booked the Quality Inn on Orange Blossom Trail - http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-orlando-florida-FL036?promo=gglocal/. The hotel was conveniently located and the grand total for 2 nights came out to around $116.00. Overall, we were really impressed with the Quality Inn. The room was clean, room service immaculate and the Disney parks were only 15 minutes or so away by car. The only negative was that the hotel was unavailable on Hotels.com so Matt had to book on Priceline. Not that I have anything against using Priceline, but Hotels.com does have a promotion where if you book 10 nights with them, you get a mini freebie.

We decided to leave for Orlando after work on Friday so arrived around 7:30/8:00. We were debating between walking around Downtown Disney - http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/destinations/downtown-disney/ - or visiting the Orlando Premium Outlets - http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet.asp?id=17. We chose the later and after a mini absolutely bargain deal at Fendi, I couldn't be more happy with our decision. We have been to the outlets several times now, and similar to TJMaxx, it's really hit or miss. Sometimes you can find phenomenal deals and other times, nothing. Hey, every now and then a girl is entitled to treat herself. :)

On Saturday, we spent the bulk of our time at Epcot for the Food & Wine Festival. We had high expectations walking through the gates, reminiscing our our great time last year. This year most certainly didn't disappoint. We arrived at the park (be prepared to dish out $14.00 for parking by the way) around 10 AM. By noon, we had pretty much visited every "country" once and had already indulged in numerous international dishes and drinks. Here's a menu of the different countries for 2009: http://wdw2.wdpromedia.com/media/wdw_nextgen/CoreCatalog/WaltDisneyWorld/en_US/Media/InternetMediaType/Event/FoodWine2009/FY09_FWFINALMAP.pdf/. The countries/dishes that really stood out to me that we dabbled in were: Germany-Sausage on a pretzel roll and Blue slate reisling, New Orleans: Spicy Cajun crawfish (delicious!), France: Braised short ribs and mashed potatoes, New Zealand: Seared sea Scallops, and Greece: Greek salad.

Around noon, we decided to take a break from eating and take a mini tour of the Animal Kingdom Lodge - http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/animal-kingdom-lodge/. Years ago, Matt and his family stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and he really wanted me to see the hotel since it's just a bit too pricey for us to ever realistically stay in. That being said, we took the free Disney shuttle directly from Epcot to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. For about an hour, we just walked around the premises and enjoyed all the views of the animals. Hands down, this was one of the nicest hotels I have ever seen. The pool in itself would have been worth the cost to stay there.

We later returned back to Epcot and spent the evening enjoying the rides and other attractions. A new attraction was the Segway Experience. Here, visitors actually were able to drive a segway back and forth with the help of a Disney employee. Epcot also offered Segway Tours throughout the park for an additional cost. It was pretty amazing how accurate the segways work with body movement. We also rode the Mission Space ride at the Intense Level. I am never doing this again. It was my second time on the ride in the past 2 years, but my first time genuinely feeling sick as I exited the ride. Never again. One ride that I would highly suggest would be the Crash Test ride.

On Sunday we spent a few hours at Disney Quest - http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/destinations/downtown-disney/entertainment/disney-quest-indoor-interactive-theme-park/. Whether you are a kid or an adult, I cannot say enough good things about this park. My husband and I had an absolute blast and left because we had to with time constraints rather than being bored. There are so many activities and games ranging from Astro Blast (think bumper cars with ammo), to classic arcade games to designing and experiencing your own rollercoaster. They even had an activity where you can create and take home your own toy. Very cool.

All in all, it was a spectacular trip. Disney always has a way of reminding us that we're still kids at heart. :)

---

---