In the pre-covid world this weekend should have seen us flying into Orlando with Virgin Atlantic, and off to the Holiday Inn at Disney Springs and a fantastic fortnight of Walt DIsney World Magic, Universal excitement, I-Drive and Icon Park fun and shenanigans, shopping, eating, drinking and a bit of seeing the real Florida on Boggy Creek Airboat Rides. We were of course soooooo looking forward to being there and doing everything we’d planned and meeting up with friends and being back in our spiritual home. Such is life……. this year was not meant to be and so we plan on, and are in the process of moving everything to next year.
This week has also seen the cancellation of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, which was their 30th Anniversary, and which brings in lots of tourists to the Orlando area. Lots of good folks we know plan their whole Orlando visit round HHN and we are so very sorry for them and the Orlando tourist industry for this cancellation. We can kind of see why they have done it, we cannot see how they would have set it all up with social distancing required, but nonetheless it is a bitter disappointment. It’s going to be one hell of a celebration and super scary is our best next year. WDW already cancelled their Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and also a marathon event. The WDW Taste of Epcot Food and Wine Festival is sort of going ahead right now instead of late summer/autumn but it’s not quite as it normally is and there are not as many food and drink stalls. It still looks pretty great though and combines elements of the Flower and Garden Festival and the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. The new rules which mean you can’t walk around while eating and drinking in the parks right now, means the spontaneous see a snack you fancy so stop and try it right then and there has to be slightly adapted right now.
So 2020 is a year of adapting – adapting plans, replanning, moving, making do and trying our best and be happy and grateful with what we do have. With that in mind we planned ourselves two week’s of visits and things to do. We kicked off our holiday with a weekend stay at son and daughter in law Ashley and Tiffany’s house. It has been a cracking start to our holiday and next to being in Florida with them, being in Northamptonshire with them is the next best option.
We started our weekend with a catch up chat about life in general, their new house (new build and just moved in) so everything is super shiny and pretty and new and suits them very much. They are as happy as a happy couple with a cute little pupper – wishing them many many happy years there together! We went for a lovely walk in the warm sunshine to give Chip the pupper his exercise and then we settled down for our Orlando chat to record the vlog.
Subjects we covered – just about everything! Favourite rides, favourite parks, favourite foods, most surprising things, and we just chatted and chatted and chatted. Like we always do – head over to our You Tube channel to catch our full fun conversation. Chip makes an appearance, and all the way through us chatting you can hear his little claws tip tapping all round the kitchen floor, so it seemed only fitting to have him star in the video.
We started off by asking Ash and Tiff what the most surprising thing about Orlando was. They had both been there as young children but not since, so we wondered what had blown them away. Turns out pretty much everything had, but Ash immediately mentioned the supermarkets. How large they are, how much fun they are to wander around and what a huge variety of items you can purchase there. We often spend an evening in Walmart or Publix, looking at everything, buying lots of snacks and treats we don’t recognise, or don’t get back in the UK. We also buy giant size bags and packets of things, we definitely don’t see things that huge in the UK. We had a pretty fun afternoon that first afternoon of our vacation in 2018 – we had a huge shopping cart full of pretty random things that everyone had picked out for various reasons. We had a fridge and store cupboard full for the whole vacation and we went back numerous times for more snacks, soda, water, milk, souvenirs, make up and toiletries and we even called in on the evening before our wedding to get the flowers needed to make the button holes and my bouquet.
Ash and Tiff both mentioned the Epcot Food and Wine Festival which is a great favourite of ours as we have often travelled around the September and October time of year. They pretty much tried most foods and drinks available and we laughed about Tiff being “double parked” with one foot in one country, one foot in another and with a drink in each hand. Happy days. Ash said he thought they’d probably got a bench in Epcot named after them the amount of time and cash they spent there. There are so many good stalls and fabulous beers, wines, tequilas, champagne and drinks that are specific to various countries to try, you can get flights of beers, so you just get a little taster of a few different things, and the food portions are also little taster portions. Lots of specialities to try and it’s a great addition to the World Showcase at Epcot, which is already pretty awesome in itself, with lots of country appropriate foods and beverages to try – some of our favourites being the France pavilion – champagne and crepes, bread and cheese – whats’ not to like, and obviously the good old Rose and Crown in the UK pavilion. It’s all good!
Talking of food – oh we could have chatted about that all night. In fact having cut ourselves off from chatting about food Tiff rustled up an amazing Mexican feast which also made us think of Orlando and the Mexican pavilion. But back to our favourite Orlando food hotspots. Ash and Tiff enjoyed STK at Disney Springs – they said it was better than the London STK for service and food, so praise indeed. Wine Bar George, also at Disney Springs, got a mention too – we all love it there, why wouldn’t you. A vast selection of fantastic wines, cocktails and bar snacks. Excellent service and attention to detail, the bar staff remembered Ash and Tiff’s drinks from a previous visit that holiday, which is going above and beyond and makes you feel like they really care. Excellent work Wine Bar George. We had certainly planned to spend some considerable time there this visit – hopefully there’ll be a couple of bar stools available with our name on next year. Disney Springs in general Ash and Tiff really enjoyed, as did we all, shopping, eating, drinking, chilling out, wandering along and people watching – it’s the perfect place really to spend an evening, or a morning, or an afternoon for that! Many purchases were made at the Christmas Store – we all have Disney baubles on our trees come December.
Food wise the Longhorn Steakhouse also got a good mention – we do love it there and always have – and it was the venue of choice for our wedding lunch! We have always loved The Cheesecake Factory and we’ve clearly now converted Ash and Tiff too – the food here is awesome, the cheeseburger spring rolls being a particular favourite. Tiff thinks she may have had the Oreo cheesecake, cos you can’t go there and not order cheesecake even if you’re full enough to burst right?? Ash as always to the rescue to finish anything off. We think we all took our cheesecake slices home with us after eating a couple of mouthfuls and Ash perfectly described our ridiculous forays to the fridge for normal things like milk or soda, which always resulted in us opening the plastic cheesecake containers and sneaking a mouthful or two! Fun times indeed.
We reminisced about us discovering Joffrey’s Coffee in Typhoon Lagoon – iced coffee and yum yum. Ash and I (Tracey here at the keyboard today) both admitted that as soon as we’d had a bite of the soft, iced, doughy, chewy donut stick we wished we hadn’t opted to share one between the four of us – what a greedy pair. Ash and I also found our groove with the raspberry glazed Krispy Kreme donuts which we purchased by the boxful every time we went into a supermarket.
Turns out Tiff’s favourite place to eat was the good old Cracker Barrel and we’re delighted to hear it. It’s been our go-to breakfast place for many a vacation – so much to choose from and they are so accommodating. You can add extras and mix and match and its a good value breakfast too. We enjoyed lots of fabulous breakfasts there on our last vacation with all of us enjoying everything we had pretty much. Tiff was delighted to find she could add extra bacon to her pancake order, or hold the eggs and throw on some extra cheese and bacon bits to the hash brown casserole – what a treat.
We had a good old laugh about Volcano Bay, and water parks in general. We had fabulous day out at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon (Disney’s water parks), they are super family friendly and beautifully themed, but Universal’s Volcano Bay has raised the bar somewhat and we all said we’d wished we’d have spent more time there on our last visit. Looking at our itinerary for this trip we had planned an extra couple of visits to Volcano Bay to do just that – we spent a day there last time and barely touched the surface of it. We were so ride-centric to make sure we went on all the best slides and raft rides and the hilarious and quite scary at times fast moving river, that we didn’t take time to relax, enjoy some food and the wave pool and just the general atmosphere and vibe. Next year we will make sure we do that – can’t wait!
Favourite rides seemed to be Expedition Everest for Tiff, and in fact Animal Kingdom as a park in general for the overall look and feel, and Rip Ride Rocket at Universal for Ash – solid choices and right up there on our lists too. Hollywood Studios appears to be all of our favourite park – why wouldn’t it be! Dr Doom’s Freefall at Island of Adventure also got a mention just because of Tiff’s face – she was expecting it to go up slowly and then drop down but of course – spoiler – it does exactly the opposite so it was a real surprise to her and made us all laugh a lot! Her face was also a picture on the Starflyer. Tiff admitted to being more than a little terrified by that – high in the sky on a swing, with little chains to hold on to. We knew at the time she was scared – we looked back from our seat to see what her face was doing, and it was pretty much telling Rob she was going to kill him when we got down. Turns out a nice ice cold beer was enough to calm her down, after which Rob and I rode again we loved it so much. Star Flyer was also on our list for this time and we were going to try a night time ride this time – so 2021 Star Flyer we are coming for you.
Tiff was three when she first went to Florida – she remembers being in the queue for the Dumbo ride and then the beaches in the Keys. She also remembers her dad chasing her Minnie Mouse balloon down the beach because she loosed it. Ash pretty much only remembers the big McDonalds on International Drive – he was around 7. Rob of course remembers much more about that trip, riding the Idrive Trolley (they stayed on International Drive near to the McDonalds) and also going for a walk along Idrive when a thunderstorm struck – they shared a poncho for a little while until they realised they were as wet on the inside from being super hot, as the poncho was on the outside. Happy memories indeed – for all of us.
So we’re off to a flying start on our two week vacation – albeit not in Orlando. We’ve had a fabulous time with Ash and Tiff so head off to the You Tube video to catch our full chat and the laughing and silliness that occurred while making it – along with a cameo appearance from Chip the dog. He’s a cutie, you’ll love him. Please like us, subscribe to our blog and You Tube channel and share us with your Orlando loving friends.
Orlando we will see you in 2021 – stay safe and keep well for us. We will carry on our staycation and keep you updated of our whereabouts this week, we’ve got shopping, a visit to the vets with Kitty Boo, some National Trust walks, a hike up the Great Orme and a visit to Yorkshire to look forward to.
Have a happy week folks – whatever your amended, altered, revised, slightly limited plans and holidays now are for this year, whatever you shoulda, woulda, coulda be doing right now stay safe, stay well, be happy and kind and grateful. 2020 you will not break us!
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