wendinator

Took a break from the fam and from chicken nuggets and went to Citrico's for their 30% AP discount before 6:30/after 8:30.
All of the food groups represented here - bread, butter, and wine.

My server made some recommendations for each course and I managed to ignore her suggestions each time.
You can't see any evidence of tomatoes in this photo but this is a tomato salad. I don't see it listed on the current menu online so I don't remember what all was in it but I enjoy the balsamic, cheese, prosciutto flavors.

For my main I had the scallop risotto.

The portion was much bigger than I expected and I ate every bite of it.
Unfortunately by this point even though I ordered dessert I couldn't finish all of my key lime pie.  Nice little bit of sorbet and cookie in the bottom right corner.

And I'm embarrassed to admit how long it was before I noticed the deliberate Mickey in the bottom left corner.

I was the first table to be seated for dinner service and I was looking forward to a quiet adult meal so I was a little disappointed when a family with two young kids showed up. But man were those kids ever well behaved! I saw the Mom drinking a glass of champagne so I told my server that I wanted to pay for her glass. They weren't able to put it directly on my bill, but took it off theirs and gave it to me separately. At some point while I was stuffing my face, the family's server must have told them that I'd paid for it and she came over to say thanks. I told her I appreciated well behaved kids and that parenting well is hard and they're obviously doing a great job. She told me that it meant a lot to her because they'd had a tough year with one kid having challenging medical issues and the other one being autistic. I hope they had a great vacation.

Stopped in at the Nomad Lounge for a leisurely bite before a Rivers of Light fastpass.
I was looking forward to getting those cold rolls again but... nope. Menu has changed and they're gone. There's pad thai in its place, but I didn't think I wanted anything that heavy considering it was 1000° outside. So I went back to my old standby of the fish tacos.

They seemed smaller to me than the last time. Still good though.
Random side note that has nothing to do with the Nomad Lounge. I went to the Rivers of Light FP seating area and saw it's seating on stone benches. Wow did the stone ever hold onto the August sun's heat! I had well toasted buns by the time the show was over. I was glad I had my thin zip up hoodie to sit on.
And you know those dispensers of insect repellant they have scattered around? The people sitting in front of me availed themselves of some of it... then grabbed onto their Disney Parks shopping bag... that promptly shed its blue ink ALL OVER one woman's hands. She looked as blue as a Na'vi. I had a few wet naps in my purse so offered them to her, which she gladly accepted. It took some of the blue off, but I bet she could still have convincingly posed for Photo Pass pictures as a Na'vi until she got to proper soap and water.
They had people selling $3 bottles of water in the stands but I bet they could have made a killing selling Mickey bars. I would have done anything for ice cream that night but had nobody to hold my spot in order to go get one.

Went to Geyser Point with my sister for lunch on our departure day.
It's outdoor seating, which wasn't a great idea at noon at the end of August. It was HOT. I saw there were ceiling fans above us that weren't on so I asked our server if they could turn it on for us... Nope. Not working.
In choosing where to sit I scoped out a spot that was close to an electrical outlet because I was working that day and needed some power for the laptop. Put my plug into the outlet and... nothing. Outlet wasn't working either.
Anyway, I ordered the grilled portobello salad.

I should  have taken a picture of the whole plate/bowl thing because it was funny the way it was all clustered at one end with lots of empty plate.  This doesn't look like much but the quinoa was very filling and I liked the balsamic and veg.
My sister had the bison burger (no photo) with a gluten free bun and was very impressed.
I'll need to go back here another time when it's not so hot and when I don't have to work!

Does that mean I would have to buy pajamas? 

TL;DR: Photobucket is evil and stupid now, use Imgur instead.
So Photobucket, a site a lot of you use to host pictures here on the site, is currently committing corporate suicide by preventing people from using their service for exactly what they've been using it for since forever. To post pictures from Photobucket here on Fort Fiends, the fine folks idiots at Photobucket have decided that you need to pay them $400 American dollars a year for the privilege.
That's dumb. And it's going to break a lot of links here on Fort Fiends. I wish there was something that we could do about that, but there's really not, from our end. Everyone's posts that link to Photobucket are going to break, unless they pay, which I wholeheartedly do not recommend.
WHAT DO I DO?, I hear you ask. Here's what you can do:
1. Go download everything you can from your Photobucket account, while you still can. I'm hearing horror stories of people whose accounts are being locked for "violating your free Photobucket account's terms of service" for third-party linking. Once your account has been locked, you apparently can't get to your photos until you pay up, which again DO NOT GIVE THIS DUMB COMPANY YOUR MONEY.
2. USE IMGUR. Imgur is my image host of choice, because it was built for hosting images. That's what it does, and it doesn't charge its users to do it. They're at imgur.com, and I'd write up a whole thing on how to use it, but I don't really have the time at the moment. They're pretty easy to figure out, though. I'm confident that you can do it- you certainly can if you were linking from Photobucket before.
3. Once your previously-hosted-on-Photobucket pictures are now on Imgur, you'll have to manually edit your old, broken posts to point to the new ones. This is the part which will be tedious, and hard, and unfortunately nobody will do it.
I'm not going to put too fine a point on this: This sucks, and it sucks a lot. It's going to decimate our Trip Reports forum, which is very image-heavy. I am filled, at this moment, with righteous anger at the morons at Photobucket who thought any of this was a good idea. 
TL;DR: Photobucket is evil and stupid now, use Imgur instead.

I claim PBR!
Pandora Bragging Rights.
The TCD gang hit up a Castmember preview of Animal Kingdom's brand new land yesterday, May 3rd, 2017.
We received these tickets through the efforts of TCD Twin #2:


As you can see, our designated time slot was 6 pm- 8 pm.
The plan was to meet up at Nomad Lounge at 5 pm, have a drink or two, then mosey in to the preview.
But, Twin #1 received some intel from a CM friend earlier in the day letting her know that they were having severe technical difficulties with the new Flight of Passage ride, and that capacity was severely reduced.  For today, they were handling that by passing out paper FP's to the preview guests as they arrived for their time-slots.  There were not enough for everyone, and when they were gone, they were gone.
So, instead of that drink, we decided that we needed to line-up at 5.
We arrived around then, and headed to the check-in area, which is along the path leading into the new land.
Guess who was guarding the line?
Lou!
I saw him before he saw me.
I told the girls: "watch this," and I walked past the Lou and the other guards without showing my ticket.
They didn't know what to think.
Then I said hello to Lou.
It was good to see Lou.  He is doing well.  He confirmed what we had heard about the paper FP's. so we lined up.
One good thing was they started to let us in early- the line started to move around 5:30, and we moved on to the bridge leading into Pandora.
Here are some of the new light fixtures:

And a very themed wall on the bridge:

We scored our FP's for what we thought was a good time slot:

With those FP's we were able to make a plan.  We assumed that we would be let in at 6.  We would head straight to the boat ride, get that done, and then head to Flights of Passage.  It was a solid plan.
They had paper maps for us:

Looking back on the bridge:

Another look at the themed wall:

This is the small group of folks that were ahead of us- those black walls are the actual entrance to the land.  That big fake plant you see behind the walls is some kind of important landmark/photo op.  I don't have any more information on it, as we charged past it on our way to the boat ride:

This area is apparently called the Valley of Mo'ara, which is a place on Pandora.  The actual story isn't entirely clear to me, and there isn't much signage around explaining exactly where we were, or how we got here:

To everyone's surprise, they didn't hold us until 6.  They let us in at 5:27 pm.  Sweet!  Here we go:

Everywhere you can see in this new land is themed and decorated.  The landscaping is lush and beautiful, and has alien doodads added everywhere:

There is no mention of Disney or Mickey Mouse anywhere in this new land- we are on the property of Alpha Centauri Expeditions (ACE), so their name and logo is on the trash cans:

More scenery- it was all very beautiful and impressive:

The big deal in this new land are the floating mountains.  I've watched them put them up for the last few years, and it was hard for us to believe that we were now finally seeing them from the viewpoint of this new land:

A little later in the evening, Twin #1's CM friend met up with us and told us some interesting tidbits about the new land.  One thing she told us is that this restroom building is the only structure in this whole area which is a remnant of Camp Mickey Minnie:

This Face Painting Station/Merchandise stand is along the main path to the attractions.  I guess they are planning on face painting being a big thing here:

A couple of shots of the floating mountains as we continued our walk to the river ride entrance:


The river ride queue is very themed:


We zipped right through the queue and onto the ride. We saw a big switchback area in the queue which tells us that they anticipate some long waits for this ride.  Fortunately, it was a walk on for us.
I put my camera away for the ride.  There are already hundreds of photos and videos of the ride floating around the internet, including some posted by Disney.
I will share that we all loved the ride.
I have read criticisms that it is short and boring.  I don't think those criticisms are fair. This is supposed to be a calm, peaceful, beautiful ride through a jungle on another planet.  It is not a thrill ride, and they didn't try to force some fake story into the attraction.  It's just a ride on a boat where you get to see beautiful scenery, hear interesting sounds, and even smell some scents.  In my opinion, they did a great job.
Since we were let in early, we had some extra time before our FP return time. Which was awesome.
The plan now was to go and find the bar and have a drink since we missed out on our pregame at the Nomad Lounge.
Twin #2 knew where the bar was, because she had already been in that area of Pandora twice for CM-only food previews.
Sorry, but here's another floating mountain shot:

And here's some rocks.  Nobody makes fake rocks better than Disney:


They say that this place is going to be awesome at night.  I want to come back and see what it all looks like when these lights are in use:

There are all kinds of pathways leading through the land.  And there is something to see along all of them:

There are little nooks and crannies in the rocks.  Hey, is that a Na'vi?:

Looking up:


More path scenery:


There is a lot of water in this new land. I think all of the waterfalls are cascading in to a river that winds under and along the paths, so there are bridges sprinkled around, and lots of areas with multiple levels:

More waterfalls:


More fake rocks:

Finally, the bar:

This is a good place to stop, as I have a bunch of photos of the theming around the bar, and then have a long-ish story to share about our visit to Flights of Passage.
TCD

My family and I have been to WDW many times, and with the exception of the first time I went with my wife (then fiancé), we have always stayed at the fort. The first time i went to WDW, we stayed at POFQ, which was great, but with the kids the fort and it's cabins have been the best fit.
We stayed at the cabins back in February, and since I knew I had a convention coming up in Orlando in April, my wife and I upgraded our week-long park hoppers to annual passes. We haven't taken more than a weekend trip away alone since we had kids, so this was a nice break in advance of our upcoming 20th anniversary. I had booked a room at the Wilderness Lodge for our stay, since we wouldn't be bringing the kids along this trip (many thanks to my SIL for staying with them last week). Don't worry, there is a trip to the fort in here too.
At the time, all I could get was a standard room, parking lot view. Meh. I called a few weeks ago to see if we could get a better room, and managed to get a courtyard view, so at least it was an improvement.
Monday morning we saw the kids off to school and headed for the airport. After a speedy flight, we arrived at MCO ahead of schedule.

Picked up our rental car, and off we went. It wasn't long before we were on property and headed to the resort.

Since I had checked in online, and we hadn't received our text yet, we checked our bags with bell services and decided to head out to Geyser Point for lunch. As we were walking through the lobby I got the text that our room was ready, so we headed over to check-in and get our bags, and I also wanted to sign us up for the express transportation.
Well, color me surprised.
Somehow, our standard room got upgraded to a club level room, with a Magic Kingdom fireworks view. Never having stayed in club level before, we had no idea what to expect, and were surprised when the desk said someone would be right down to escort us up.

And, what a view it was.

You'll also notice the new Copper Creek Cabins below. More on those later.
Buttons and the Old Faithful Club hours:

There were some complementary pins in the room as a gift, due to the ongoing construction at the Lodge:


Complementary chocolates, and a 'private dining' menu also:


The room was certainly spacious:


The detail on the headboards was pretty cool:

As we were waiting for our bags to be brought up, we took a walk down to the Club Lounge for a tour:

Snacks!


Beer on tap!

Coffee bar:

Lounge:


Killer view:



Our bags arrived, and we unpacked and headed out to check out the pool and Geyser Point, but not without a last look from the balcony.

LOTS more to come!

It has been written on other threads that the theming of Wilderness Lodge is changing somewhat with the upcoming DVC additions. One of those changes is that Silver Creek Falls, the main water feature at the resort, will be renamed Copper Creek Falls. That change made my family sad, as we have a history with Silver Creek Falls, as I'll explain below.
You see, both my wife and I are from a small town in western New York called Silver Creek. And both of my parents grew up there too. So imagine our surprise when we made our first ever trip to Disney with our kids in 2001, during which we stayed at the WL, and stumbled upon this sign.

Those 3 girls are 21, 19 and 17 now.
Six years later we had begun RVing and camped at the Fort with my parents. We took the boat over to the Fort to show my parents the sign, and continued what has become a tradition to get family pictures in front of the sign on every trip to Disney.


Fast forward....most recently, INC and I got a picture in front of the sign while on a date. We also stayed at the Lodge before our cruise on the Wonder this year.

And on our trip to the Fort a few weeks ago, I got one last picture in front of the sign of my parents, who spent part of the week with us. My Dad turns 80 next month.

I figured that might be the end of the story, as the retheming of the Lodge is proceeding at a rapid pace and will be completed before we return to WDW.
But that's not the end of the story.
Wondering what would become of the sign, I contacted the GM of the Wilderness Lodge to tell her about my family's history with the sign and our love of both the Lodge and the Fort. We traded some emails, and she assured me that she would try to find out what would be done with the sign as construction continues. I last heard from her a few weeks ago, and had not received an update since.
Until today.
A large box arrived at our home today. So I opened it.

Mabel is curious too.


Can you believe it? I was blown away. Also included in the package was a beautiful print of Silver Creek Falls, a WL magnet, and a very nice note.
I've heard of pixie dust but this is something else.
Do you now understand why I hate Disney so much? [emoji1]

I'm still laughing about the dried grapes on the vine. I'm pretty sure I could find some in my car from the last time we had a picnic.

After a failed attempt in January I finally made it to Casey's for their "first pitch". There was some fantastic singing, and free Cracker Jack, but they didn't actually throw a ball. I'm not sure whether they just didn't do it because there was nobody around, or whether they don't do it at all anymore.
Here's the singing.
And here's the Cracker Jack we got.

For anyone who cares to go, it was at 10 am.

The charcuterie board looks good. I also like your improvisation when you got in the jam (sorry).

INC and I really enjoyed this place when we stopped by a couple of weeks ago.
I recommend the fondue and pretzels.

I also had the Moscow mule, and INC had something the bartender created for her.

And the donuts are good but we both prefer the ones at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando.

Coincidentally, the bartender was on our cruise the next day and we ran into her a couple of times.
Sent from my handheld doohickie

Mom and I went to the Territory Lounge twice on our most recent trip. We like that it's usually quiet, you don't need an ADR, and there tend not to be kids.
On our first visit I started with a Moscow Mule. Yum.

We then ordered the charcuterie board.

That's mustard on the little spoon, some kind of jam in the small jar, and a nice bunch of bread that you have to pull apart.
Here's the cheat sheet for the meat.

We didn't have a knife for the jam and didn't think to ask for one, so just used the other end of a spoon from Mom's coffee. Of course we thought this was funny.

On our second visit I got a Blue Moon. Our server (Katie) let me try some of the wheat beer they have on tap but it turns out I like Blue Moon better.

Mom went for a "Wilderness coffee" which she quite enjoyed.

This time we got two things - first up is the caprese flatbread. I was expecting this to be more basil/mozzarella but... it wasn't.

And we ordered the soy chicken wings. I prefer the sweet ones at Kona but these were still good.

And at the end of it all they brought us warm towels for our sticky fingers.

 

Poor guy was hoping to see some Stormtroopers in March of the First Order, but instead all he saw was the Moons of Endor.

I took this picture on Friday at DHS for TCD. I know how much you like KOS (kids on shoulders) so wondered how you might feel about AOS...
 

 

I've got a few more photos to share from our afternoon visit to the festival, and that will be it for now.  I hope to get back there before it ends, though.
We left off with us checking out the galleries in the Odyssey building, and hearing the beginning of the aromatherapy presentation.  Had we wanted to, we could have stood in the back and listened to the presentation, but it wasn't something that we were particularly interested in.
I hadn't looked at the schedule for the presentations they're doing in the Odyssey Center, but I wouldn't mind attending some of them.  The watermelon carving one was probably interesting.  It's cool that they are including such a big variety of presentations, and that most of them appear to be free.  The Odyssey Center location is much more convenient to visit than the old Wonders of Life pavilion that they use as the headquarters for the Food and Wine and Flower and Garden Festivals.  Plus, it's always interesting to me to get to visit a space that is normally off limits to guests.
We had done a bit of research about the food being offered at the festival, and we all agreed that we were interested in the cronut trio.  Again, we weren't sure where it was being served, but we saw people with them at the Odyssey pavilion, so we figured this must be the place.  We were right, here's the menu for what they were serving here:

A closer look:

I think guests have been uncertain about what's being served at each location.  I noticed that they had samples on display at some of the food booths, and they had samples out here too:

That's the cronuts, flatbread, the dessert palette, and another one of those fake pop tarts.  I didn't know they had the fake pop tarts at more than one booth.
We tried the cronuts- I don't have a photo of ours, but our serving looked exactly like the sample.  We were all surprised by how much we liked  all of them!  It's an expensive item, but we all got a couple of bites out of each cronut, so it wasn't as skimpy a serving as it appears.  We also tried the strawberry beer, since it's from a brewery near us.  I didn't notice the Neapolitan beer flight on the menu until after we ordered our single beer.  It would have been fun to try all three of those beers together, and we all thought it was a clever collection of beers.  However, the strawberry beer didn't have any detectible strawberry taste (or even smell), so maybe it wouldn't have been so fun after all.
On this trip, the only festival food we sampled was the fake pop tarts and the cronuts.  We liked what we had.  If you want to know more about all of the food offerings, you should check out the Disney Food Blog- they have photos and descriptions of everything: http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2017-epcot-international-festival-of-the-arts/
My general observation about the food is that it is all more expensive than what they've served at the Food and Wine and Flower and Garden Festivals, but the servings are a bit larger, and they are definitely fancier offerings.
We were told to show up at the America stage for the Broadway show 15 minutes before show time.  So, it was already time for us to start heading that way.  We exited the Odyssey pavilion, and started around the World Showcase the Mexico way.
It was a beautiful Florida winter afternoon- the temperature was in the high 70's, and it was breezy.  I really enjoy walking around Epcot on days like that.
Since this was a Saturday, and a Festival was going on, we expected to see some drunk groups with matching t-shirts.  But, we only saw two.  Both were groups of women.  One group was camped off to the side of the China pavilion, and they looked whipped.  And it wasn't even 5 o'clock yet.  The other group must have started later. They had t-shirts with a Disney font that said "Just Drunk."  We didn't get it.  I thought it might be a bridal party, and the "Just Drunk" was a play on "Just Married," but the twins didn't think so.  They didn't have another explanation for what the shirts were supposed to mean.  Does anyone?
There was a very large group of Brazilians in Epcot that afternoon. But, it was older Brazilians, and they were spread out in smaller groups.  We heard no chanting.
There were display tents all along the walkway around the World Showcase.  We kind of looked at them as we walked around.  It seemed like everything on display was Disney related art.  It would be fun to stop and look at some of the tents, but we didn't have time for that at the moment. 
Near Germany, we came across this random artist creating with chalk:

We watched her for a couple of minutes.  It was interesting to watch her go.
We didn't see any other artists in action that day, but I imagine they were around.  I also should have mentioned that there were performers on the stage behind the big fountain on the main walkway, and we also saw some "living statues" on display there.  I thought it was great that these small displays of various art forms were scattered around Epcot for guests to stumble upon.
I took this photo just to show what a beautiful day it was:

Just before we reached the America pavilion, we encountered one of the Festival photo ops.  I don't remember them having anything like this for the other Epcot Festivals, so this was fun, and none of them had long lines:

This is great for passholders since we get "free" photopass photos:

We knew that there was a photopass backdrop like this one that depicts the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, and we figured it must be right around the America pavilion.  We were going to look for that before reporting to be seated for the 5:30 show, but as we approached the stage at 5, we could see that they had already begun seating guests, and it looked like all the seats were taken!
Not cool.
We were told to not show up until 5:15, and our tickets said we had guaranteed seating.
But, it looked like we were too late.
We headed to where we were supposed to report- on the Japan side of the theater- and there was a CM there checking for those with reserved seating stickers.  But, it looked like we were out of luck:

It turns out I was worried for no reason.  There was a large section right in the middle of the theater that they were holding for us.  These were probably the best seats we have had for anything in this theater:

We were in front of those dumb trees they have in the seating area, so our view was unobstructed, except for the fat head of the guy in front of me.  We had a nice breeze here, and it was very pleasant to sit and look at our view of the stage and World Showcase:

I guess this would be a good time for me to disclose that I am an uncultured swine.  I hadn't actually paid attention to who it was that we were going to see perform today, and even if I had, it wouldn't have made any difference to me, since I don't know anything about Broadway.  I've been to New York City many times, but I've never attended the theater there.  Over the years, Mrs. TCD has dragged me to our local performing arts centers to see some touring productions of various plays, but it's not my thing, and I have avoided that kind of thing as much as possible.  Some of you may recall an incident which has become a family legend when I took my oldest DD to see Les Mis when we were in London, and I thought that the play was over and that we could leave when it was really only the intermission. 
I was only here because all of the TCD girls take after their mother, and are pretty classy.  I don't know why, but the twins love Broadway, especially when it's Disney related.  Still, since I was about to see a show, I figured I'd take a look at the program.
As you can see, the way this is set up, they have the same performers for two weekends, and we would be listening to Ashley Brown and Josh Strickland:

I had never heard of either of them.
The show started right at 5:30 with a live ensemble.  Ashley and Josh came right out, introduced themselves, and launched right into singing two songs from Beauty and the Beast.  The first song was the title song.  The second song, I had never heard before.  After it was finished, Josh and Ashley explained a bit about how Alan Menken, the original composer, had written several new songs for the Broadway production, and how Beauty and the Beast was Disney's first Broadway play, and ran successfully on Broadway for 13 years.  I didn't know that.

In between songs, the singers told us about how Alan Menken had been hired to write the music for the Little Mermaid, and started what is now known as the Disney Renaissance- he also worked on Aladdin, Hunchback, and a lot more Disney movies and plays.
After Beauty and the Beast, Josh sang some songs from Tarzan.  He was the original actor who played Tarzan on Broadway.  He was a great singer.

Then we heard a couple of songs from the Little Mermaid.
Next, Josh told us that Ashley was the original Mary Poppins on Broadway, and she sang a couple of songs from that play:

To my surprise, I really enjoyed all of this.  It was cool that we got to hear the original actors from the Broadway productions perform their songs.  They were both great singers, and the band was very good too.  It is enjoyable to listen to people with such talent.
During their presentation, Josh and Ashley made a point about how this is the first time Disney has hosted a Festival of the Arts like this- where the focus is on visual, culinary and performing arts.  It was here that I finally understood what this Festival was all about.  Before then, it seemed like a lot of random things, but now I see where they're going with this- it's about celebrating all forms of art.
Over the course of the half hour, Josh and Ashley did a pretty good job of providing the history of Disney on Broadway.  That led in to a discussion of the next big production: Frozen.  And, they couldn't leave without singing that song:

You know what?
I didn't hate it.
I have been over Frozen for a long time now.  It's not that I hate it- it's just that there's too much of it in the parks at the expense of other great Disney franchises. 
But, I think this will be a huge success on Broadway.
That whole presentation lasted just a half an hour.  Which was just right for me.
There are four weeks left of the Festival now, and there will be two different performers next weekend, and then two new ones the weekend after that.
I wish I could see them all.
But, I'll be glad if I can get back one more time.
We will have to do standby though.
After the show, it was time for dinner.
We had agreed earlier to just do the Japan quick serve, and that's what we did.
We saw a drunk Viking and Canadian inside:

  It was a nice night to sit outside, and we got a nice table on the deck in the gardens.  It was very nice.
After dinner, we proceeded around the World Showcase, and ran into a familiar face at one of the booths.  The man seated on the left was one of the CM's who worked in the Animation Academy at DHS- Brian- he was working here on personalized signs:

As we walked along here, we saw all kinds of other booths with art- there was a whole David Doss tent, and a tent full of Star Wars art.  We definitely could have spent some more time looking at everything they had on display.  I hope to get back to do that.
On our way through France, we stopped and took care of something that I had promised the girls years ago- I told them that when they turned 21, I would buy them their first Grand Mariner slushee in France.  They turned 21 in May, and we have been to Epcot since then, but there has always been such a long line at the slushee booth.  There was a long line tonight, but we waited on it, and finally checked that off the list.  The bad news for me is that they really liked them!
From there, we continued our walk around the World Showcase.  At the base of the bridge near France, we ran into a friendly CM who was guarding one of the private VIP viewing areas.  He saw our stickers and asked how we liked the Broadway show.  We chatted with him a bit and told him how much we liked it.  He then told us if we were staying for Illuminations, we should come back and see him, and he would allow us into the VIP area.  Unfortunately, we were planning to get out of Epcot ahead of the mobs, so we had to decline.
Our last stop was the Land, where we cashed in our Soarin' FP's that I had made us the night before.  One good thing about the Frozen ride is that both TT and Soarin' FP's seem to be more available than they used to be.
For the first time, we sat in one of the side sections for Soarin, and personally got to see the distortion of the Eiffel Tower.  Boy, did someone goof on that .
We headed on out, and got out of Epcot ahead of the mobs.
Twin #2 headed to her apartment, and Twin #1 arrived back home by 10 pm.
It was a fun afternoon.
This Festival of the Arts was more fun for us than the Food and Wine or Flower and Garden Festivals.  The Food and Wine has gotten too wild and crowded, and the food offerings haven't changed much lately.  The Flower and Garden Festival is nice, but after a while, it gets boring looking at flowers and topiaries. The food there is too focused on including plants and flowers, and also hasn't changed much since they started it.  The Art Festival has a lot more interesting things to see and do, and the food offerings are very unique. 
The bottom line is that was all enjoyed the Art Festival way more than any of us expected to.
Hopefully, I'll have some more photos and content to add to this report before the Festival is over.
TCD

Late in 2016, Disney announced that there would be a new festival celebrated at Epcot.
Initially, all we knew was that they were calling in the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, and that it would run for six weeks, on weekends only, from mid-January through late February.
Details eventually were provided, but, honestly, I didn't pay much attention to them.  This sounded like a lame cash-grab to me, and I wasn't all that interested.
Epcot is in a pretty sad state with several large empty buildings, some badly dated rides, and almost nothing left in either of the Innovention venues.  Plus, in my most humble opinion, they wrecked both Test Track and Soarin' with the "upgrades" they did on both.  It's next to impossible to ride the new Frozen ride unless you want to wait in a really long line, or you're able to book FP+'s 60 days out.  So, we haven't been to Epcot all that much lately. 
But, some aspects of this Art Festival were intriguing to me, and I wanted to see it with my own eyes.  Also, Disney offered reserved seating to the Disney on Broadway performances for passholders, and I was able to get a reservation for the 5:30 performance on Saturday, January 21.  The TCD twins were available for an afternoon visit that day, so we went.
We only planned to spend the afternoon and evening at Epcot.  No park hopping or resort visits on this trip.  So we parked in the Epcot parking lot, which we don't do very often.  They have a lot of the parking lot blocked off for the big tents and bleachers that they keep up for the Disney and Princess marathons, so we ended up being directed to park way in the back of the Explore lot- like almost in the last row.  It ended up not being a big deal, as they had a tram right there for us, and we were able to board and head to the entrance right away.
When we arrived at the tram drop off, they dropped us off in a new area, and we saw that they had added some new bag check tents and scanners.  Here, they had every single guest go through a metal detector, which is the first time I've seen that done at Epcot.  Based on how things were set up, it looks like that's how things will be done from now on.  The lines were a bit long here, but it wasn't too bad.
We were able to use the Passholder line to enter the park.  Since Twin #2 doesn't currently have a pass, she had to go in one of the regular lines.  She greeted Twin #1 and I as we made our way in to the park- the regular line was faster.  LOL.
We picked up one of the Festival passports, and headed on it.
Our first stop was to check on the animation class that they're holding in the old Vision House area of Innoventions.  That was also where they were distributing the stickers for the reserved seating for the Disney on Broadway performances, and I was able to pick up our stickers for that (only one person had to check in, so I got three stickers-one was supposed to be for my older DD, who is a passholder, but since she wasn't with us, Twin #2 was able to use it).  As far as I have been able to tell, there is no published schedule for the animation classes.  We stopped by there to find a long line, and learned that the next class was full. The class after that would be in about an hour from now.  The CM told us that the classes were scheduled for every 45 minutes, and he told us that if we arrived at about 20 minutes before the next class, we would probably be fine.
In case you're interested, here's what the admission stickers look like for the Broadway show:

So, we had about an hour to kill.  Twin #1 wanted to try one of the fancy pop tarts they're selling, and both twins wanted to paint on the giant paint by numbers mural, so we headed off to find those.
We stopped for the photo op on the way in to the World Showcase:

The Festival passport wasn't very useful in locating where the various activities and food items were located.  We didn't pick up an Epcot map, so maybe that information is on the map, but it's not in the passport.
We found the paint-by-numbers mural over by the walkway that goes toward the Imagination pavilion.
It's a simple set up- they have a giant paint by numbers mural set up, and supposedly it's going to look like the mural depicted in this banner when it's done:

They did a good job making this simple and efficient.  You stand in a line, which moves quickly, and a CM gives you a small container of paint and a brush.  The paint container has a number on it, and you're turned loose to go paint four squares of that color:

This was the second weekend of the Festival, and quite a bit of progress has been made already:


I got yellow, and painted the squares next to the brown squares here:

The twins got different colors, and painted other squares.
It only took a few minutes to participate, and it was strangely fun.
Here's a look back at the mural-you can see that guests are having fun with it- I'll bet it's going to be done by next weekend:

I hope that they put the finished mural on display somewhere.  I am interested in seeing what it looks like in the end.  Somehow, I doubt it will look as good as the banner, but I think it will look OK.
The have two bins at the end to drop off your paint container and brush, and you get a free postcard showing a part of the mural artwork:

There was another mural being painted across the lake- Twin #1 said this was being painted by a professional artist.  We meant to check on that later, but we ended up running out of time:

I snapped a photo of the grass along the lake, because I know in a few weeks this will all be huge flower beds for the Flower and Garden Festival:

The entry area to World Showcase is noticeably under-decorated.  There will no doubt be some giant topiaries in here for the Flower and Garden Festival:

They were selling the pop tarts in the booth next to the World Showcase entrance, so we got a couple. These go for four bucks, which is about three bucks too high.   I thought they were real pop tarts, but they're actually a sugar cookie made to look like pop tarts.  They were good, but very, very sweet:

We headed back to the animation class, and got there about 15 minutes before the next class was set to start.  That ended up being too late, and it meant that we had to wait another hour until the next class.  I suggested to the girls that we skip it, but they wanted to do it.  So, the new plan was to check out MouseGear for a bit, then come and wait for the next class.  And, that's what we did.
We came back about 45 minutes before the next class was set to start.  There were already 10-15 people in line, and I would guess that the class was full and the line cut by about 30 minutes before the class was going to start.  I am not sure if every day will be that busy, but it was on Saturday.
Here we go:

We were big fans of the animation class when it was offered at Hollywood Studios.  Upon entering this room, it was obvious that this event was a less fancy version of that class.  In Hollywood Studios, they provided an 11 x 17 piece of paper and a fancy sketching pencil with no eraser.  Here, we got and 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper, and a number 2 pencil with the eraser pulled off:

There were probably only 5 or 6 Castmember instructors who worked at the animation class in DHS, and we eventually got to know all of them.  We were hoping to see a familiar face here, but the instructor was not anyone we had seen before.  She was nice and friendly, though:

Tabula rasa:

The instructor wasn't like the instructors at the DHS animation class.  There were no helpful hints- we just dove right into drawing, and she went fast.  By the second or third step, I could see the train wreck coming:

The instructor zipped through her drawing- telling us what to do along the way- again without any helpful hints:

You can see the instructor's drawing up there on the screen- she drew a pretty good Daisy Duck:

But I ended up with this:

The twins didn't do as bad as I me.  Twin #1's is on the left, and Twin #2's is on the right in this photo:

We all agreed that Twin #2 won this round.
The class was fun, and we probably try to do it again if we get the chance.  But, it's not as good as it was when it was offered at DHS.
Next on our agenda was a visit to the old Odyssey restaurant.  They are using it as the Festival headquarters, and there are some art exhibits in there that we wanted to see.
The first gallery of art we looked at in the Odyssey was about six or so paintings by Herbert Ryman.  You've probably seen his artwork around before- he's famous for creating a lot of the concept art for Epcot.  I'm pretty sure the mural that we had painted was based on one of his paintings.  The set-up for the gallery creates congestion,  and I wasn't able to get any good photos of the Ryman paintings.  But, there was more artwork on display inside the Odyssey, and this is art that you can buy. 
I don't know why, but I like to look at some of the expensive paintings that they have on display at these Festivals.  For example, here's one:

Interesting, right?
But, I always wonder who would buy something like this, and where they would put it.  Especially when you look at the price tag:

They have a poster that they're selling for the Festival.  I kind of like it.  But, it's $50 unframed:

With Twin #2's 40% merchandise discount, it would only cost us $30 for one of those.  I thought about it, but I don't know where I'd display that if I had it.  So, we passed.  But, I still like it.
Let's look at a bit more art.  This is nice, right?:

And, it's only $2900:

I'm guessing that the Donald Duck in the British phone booth painting there on the end was painted by the same artist who painted the Goofy painting:

Sorry, my photo of the price tag for the Donald painting is blurry, but I think it's also $6300:

When we entered the Odyssey, there was a line of guests outside who were waiting for something.  They were all let in to be seated as we poked around inside:
 
I am not sure how it works for these classes- whether you need to sign up ahead of time, or what.  I know at the Food and Wine and Flower and Garden Festival, there are a lot of classes that require payment and registration, but I'm not sure if this one did.  But, here's a free tip- you can see and hear everything from the back of the room if you want.
A little while after those guests were seated, a lady came out and welcomed them, and asked if they were ready to learn how to make chocolate fondue.  Cool, we all said to ourselves, we like chocolate fondue.  But, the lady was only making a joke, as she quickly corrected herself and said that she was there to teach everyone about aromatherapy.  That was nowhere near as interesting to us as chocolate fondue.
On the other side of the room from the Herbert Ryman display, they had a display of some of Mary Blair's artwork.  This was interesting to us all, as we've heard of her.  We know that she created the look of the Small World attraction, and that she designed the giant mural in the Grand Canyon Concourse of the Contemporary Resort.  But, none of us know much about who she was or how it was she came to work for Disney.
This sign at the beginning of the display tells a bit about her:


I found this all very interesting.  Especially about how much Walt Disney liked her art.
It was the same deal in her gallery- very crowded.
And there was other art for sale on display near the Mary Blair gallery.
I liked this watercolor:

But, I did not like the price:

Twin #1 practically went nuts over this painting, as she does for any Jungle Cruise related item:

I'd love to buy that painting for her, but the price is too rich for my blood:

I thought that this wooden mosaic was cool:

I failed in getting a photo of its price tag:

Next on the agenda was to try one of the food items they were selling here at the Odyssey.  We didn't know this is where they were selling it, but there was one item that we had all agreed ahead of time that we were interesting in trying, and it was for sale here.  I have another batch of photos to share, so I'll share those in a new post, and start with the food item we got here.
TCD

I'd heard good things about the Tipsy Ducks in Love - though presumably not from the Fort Fiends! - and decided to try one last weekend.
The price is now $8.95 + tax, so it came to $9.54, which isn't really all that much worse than the rum & coke I had at Rose & Crown. Also note that the 45¢ increase in almost 5 years isn't too bad, especially compared to how much the price of my afternoon tea has gone up in the same amount of time. ($10!)
Anyway, the bourbon pour was generous and fortunately they've done away with the whipped cream (I would have asked them to leave it off).
Since I don't drink coffee I can't compare it to other iced coffees but boy this was tasty. I assume it's pretty much an iced mocha with a buzz and I won't think about how much sugar is in it. I thought I'd taken a picture of it, but really it looks the same as what you saw above. I only have a selfie with me holding it, and I think your life is complete without me sharing that.

It's pretty close- here's an excerpt from my post describing my first visit to D-Luxe Buger:
I planned to include a rant about the prices they charge here, so I took a photo of my receipt- $50 for three burgers, one order of fries and one shake.  It would have been more if we each ordered a drink:

But here's something that will come as a shock to you- I am not going to rant about the prices they charge.
How can I pick on D-Luxe burger when they charge about the same for the much lower quality burgers at the Disney quick serve locations in the parks?  A couple of prominent examples:


Yes, I can rant that Disney food prices are ridiculous.  But, I can't say that D-Luxe Burger is as big a rip off as some of the other Disney quick serve places.  At least the food and atmosphere here is really good.
Here are is the large order of fries that we shared, and all six dipping sauces.  When I ordered, I asked the CM if it would be OK to order two dipping sauces since we weren't sure which to order.  She said it was OK to order all six.  So, I did:

The six sauces are: Garlic Ranch, Horseradish; Chipotle Mayonnaise; 3 Mustard and Honey; Buffalo Blue Cheese and Curry Ketchup.  We liked all of them.  I really liked the Horseradish sauce.  The girls didn't like the Curry Ketchup as much as the rest of them, and I agreed with that assessment.
So, there are a couple of places that charge $15 for a burger with fries- add a soft drink for $3.50 and tax, and you're pretty close to $20.  At D-Luxe, a large order of fries was plenty for three of us to share.
TCD

I hadn't really been to Disney Springs since its relaunch so that was last night's project. I didn't want a lengthy meal so was looking for some quick serve. Blaze Pizza had a pretty long line up, plus I've been having grilled cheese for lunch every day this week so I thought maybe another plate of bread wasn't exactly what I wanted. So off I went to D-Luxe Burger.
I ordered their classic cheeseburger, regular fries with curry ketchup, and although I really wanted a milkshake I figured I'd already ordered two days worth of calories... and also a shake is $7 which seems like a lot.
They give you a table finder puck so you can sit wherever you want. It was a nice night so I sat outside, and there's a specific area on the table where the puck has to be placed. My food arrived pretty promptly.
Sorry about the flash for this picture but it was pretty dark outside. Here's how my burger and fries arrived - in a big paper bag.

Unfortunately the best thing I can say about the food here is that the portions were big. The burger was just OK, and the fries were somehow chewy? Almost like they'd been made from very old potatoes. I liked the curry ketchup though - there wasn't enough for the amount of fries they give you. Also it looked like my table hadn't been cleaned/wiped in quite some time.
AP discount here of 20% so the burger, fries and a soft drink came to $15.58.

I had a few little missions to do at Epcot tonight and everyone knows that a woman on a mission needs sustenance. After debating my options with my sister via text message, we settled on the Garden Grill. I pulled in the parking lot at about 5:30 and was able to make an ADR for 7:20.
I checked in almost half an hour early at 6:50 and they seated me a bit before 7. I think I'd been to the Garden Grill once before when I was a kid, but that would have been a VERY long time ago. The place seemed really loud to me. But maybe I'm just old.
Anyway, this is an all you care to eat, family style place. They started me off with salad and rolls.


I didn't want to fill up too much on this stuff, so I didn't eat a roll until much later, and I only picked at the salad (ate the radishes, cucumbers, bacon, and a bit of lettuce). I'm not quite sure what kind of salad dressing that was supposed to be - no particular flavor stood out to me.
Then they bring out the main event - a skillet with turkey & gravy, pot roast, sausage, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and what I assume was cranberry sauce though I didn't eat any of it.

I stashed the sausage in a Ziploc bag for tomorrow's lunch, but I ate almost all of everything else shown here. The meat was tender and flavorful and not dry. The beans were cooked well. The mashed potatoes weren't as good as the ones I had at Rose & Crown but they were still passable.
They also bring some sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar and some mac & cheese with goldfish crackers on top.

I couldn't finish all of this but I sure tried.
For dessert they were bringing out some kind of mixed berry cake (cobbler?) thing - I'm not entirely sure what it was. I asked my server if he had something that was a) smaller and b ) preferably chocolate. He came out with this piece of cake which I'm sure is standard issue WDW chocolate cake but it was exactly what I had in mind. (It looks bigger in the picture than it really was.) He even offered to bring me a second one in case this one wasn't enough.

20% AP discount here so it came to $38.34 including tax (but not including tip). Soft drinks are also included.
Almost forgot to mention that this is a character meal. Pluto, Mickey, Chip & Dale all made the rounds. (And maybe Minnie? I forget.) I was pretty focused on eating so mostly just waved at them and they moved along to other tables with families instead of solo diners with a Ziploc bag of sausage.

I saw a YouTube video where someone made cream cheese stuffed pretzels. I admire their ambition but it looked like way more work than I'd ever do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ci05hRcSpk
 
Yes! And they're served warm. <drool>

I had a few little missions to do at Epcot tonight and everyone knows that a woman on a mission needs sustenance. After debating my options with my sister via text message, we settled on the Garden Grill. I pulled in the parking lot at about 5:30 and was able to make an ADR for 7:20.
I checked in almost half an hour early at 6:50 and they seated me a bit before 7. I think I'd been to the Garden Grill once before when I was a kid, but that would have been a VERY long time ago. The place seemed really loud to me. But maybe I'm just old.
Anyway, this is an all you care to eat, family style place. They started me off with salad and rolls.


I didn't want to fill up too much on this stuff, so I didn't eat a roll until much later, and I only picked at the salad (ate the radishes, cucumbers, bacon, and a bit of lettuce). I'm not quite sure what kind of salad dressing that was supposed to be - no particular flavor stood out to me.
Then they bring out the main event - a skillet with turkey & gravy, pot roast, sausage, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and what I assume was cranberry sauce though I didn't eat any of it.

I stashed the sausage in a Ziploc bag for tomorrow's lunch, but I ate almost all of everything else shown here. The meat was tender and flavorful and not dry. The beans were cooked well. The mashed potatoes weren't as good as the ones I had at Rose & Crown but they were still passable.
They also bring some sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar and some mac & cheese with goldfish crackers on top.

I couldn't finish all of this but I sure tried.
For dessert they were bringing out some kind of mixed berry cake (cobbler?) thing - I'm not entirely sure what it was. I asked my server if he had something that was a) smaller and b ) preferably chocolate. He came out with this piece of cake which I'm sure is standard issue WDW chocolate cake but it was exactly what I had in mind. (It looks bigger in the picture than it really was.) He even offered to bring me a second one in case this one wasn't enough.

20% AP discount here so it came to $38.34 including tax (but not including tip). Soft drinks are also included.
Almost forgot to mention that this is a character meal. Pluto, Mickey, Chip & Dale all made the rounds. (And maybe Minnie? I forget.) I was pretty focused on eating so mostly just waved at them and they moved along to other tables with families instead of solo diners with a Ziploc bag of sausage.

I went to the Lunching Pad today for the first time since the cream cheese pretzels were removed and then came back. Ordered my usual frozen Coke and this time it came with a Mickey straw. I don't remember how much a frozen Coke was the last time I got one, but let's assume that since you now get a Mickey straw that the price went up.
Pretzel was $4.79 and frozen Coke was $4.69.

Today was my first time going to Skipper Canteen - I went for lunch.
Since you can now get alcohol here, I figured I'd have a beer. I liked the notion of the souvenir mug (you can buy it separately from the drinks that are featured with it)... until she brought me one and I saw it was a thin metal that wouldn't be suitable at all for hot drinks. I ended up not getting it.

They start you off with "Ethopian celebration bread" with honey. The honey was nice but the bread didn't seem very fresh. I didn't eat much of it unfortunately.

Instead of getting an entree I thought I'd get two appetizers. It seemed like a good idea in theory but it turned out to be too much food and I ended up carrying my leftover noodles for the rest of the day.
I ordered the S.E.A. Shu Mai and they were really tasty.

 

I also got the Shiriki noodle salad - "rice noodles, edamame beans, mushrooms, green mango, and cucumber tossed with a sweet chili sauce". There was a little bit of spice to this. I would have been happy to have more veggies in this - it felt like it was mostly noodles.

 
As someone here suggested (I think?) the books on the shelves are well worth checking out. These ones in particular had me laughing.


 
20% AP discount here on food, but it was still a $31 dollar lunch including tax and tip. (Beer, noodles, dumplings.)
My server was a lot of fun. If you like the corny jokes at the Jungle Cruise, you'll like the corny jokes here.