sherryberry

Wow! Thanks for sharing! I might have to pick up a cap when we go back in January. As much as I love my okefenokee cap, I really like the one for the Fort also.

So are you going on October and than back in January?

or

are you going in January and then back in October?  

 

 

We go this coming up October and then again in January 2018. So, we'd be within that six-month period to use all 7 of our days.

I wish I had a No Way Jose right now! Yum!

We talked about buying the annual pass before our October trip. My sisters bought five-day tickets for that trip. Kenneth and I go back in January to camp. We'll have the dogs at the campsite with us, so we may not do parks too much. Now I'm thinking that the 7-day ticket might work out pretty good for us after all. We can use the five days in October and have two days left to use in January. Luckily we've still got time to decide (and to save some $$$).

What a great trip! Shardi, I'm glad you're doing better. How awesome that you enjoyed the entire day at Castaway Cay and the rain held off until you got back on the ship. Thanks for writing the trip report. I enjoyed it so much!

I was a Navy brat so we had SOS quite often, but in our case it was for Dinner and it was made with Ground Beef. I always loved it that way and it was never too salty.  I have also had the chipped beef version and it always seems too salty..... go figure.

Here's the kind we had growing up on the Navy Base:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sausage-or-beef-s-o-s-stuff-on-a-shingle-152508

 

My dad was in the navy for 20 years and I don't remember him mentioning SOS. I just looked at that recipe you posted and realized that's his famous sausage gravy that he made on Saturday mornings (had it on biscuits)!

That's cool! I've never noticed those portraits hanging in there!

Awesome! Great to see another TCD trip report! I don't know that I could have handled the crowds on opening day, but I'll gladly watch from where I am.

I'm on vacation now and almost planned a trip to the Fort, to take our new little camper, but we had too much to do at home this week. So, it's a staycation for us. We don't head back to Disney until October, so I'll learn as much as I can from your trip report on navigating Pandora. We'll probably buy an annual pass on our next trip, so we'll actually start visiting the parks again.

You had me at love story! I'm definitely in! And you're a great writer!

I'm very late to the party, but here! Love the Rocky pictures! And the bunny fondue was adorable! That crowded loop looks so uncomfortable to me - I don't think I could handle that. Thanks for another trip report!

Great report! Tent camping really is a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun! Glad you enjoyed.

Yes... the gators however, look like they might be a bit too close for comfort     

Ooh, seeing gators is a plus for me! I look for the gators when we go by there, on the way to Disney (along I-75), and almost always see a couple from the road! We recently stayed at Stephen C Foster state park (in the Okefenokee swamp, in south Georgia). One reason was for the gators and the other reason was the dark skies at nighttime for star-gazing. Didn't get in a canoe there but I might next time. Saw a lot of babies in the canal, and then saw mom - who let us know it was time to move along!

On our last trip, we went to chef Art Smith's Homecoming (or is it Homecomin'?) restaurant. I really wanted to try the hummingbird cake, but opted for the banana pudding since it wasn't on the menu - I didn't want to miss my chance to have it. I figured I would try the hummingbird cake on my next visit. I googled the recipe for the hummingbird cake during our drive home and found an article from Disney food blog. We came home from work the other night and whipped it up! It's really yummy. I thought I was doing something wrong because the batter ended up being really thick - I had to spoon it into the pans instead of pouring it in. The cakes are fairly dense (it's a heavy cake), but still very moist. I didn't want to run out of frosting for the outside of the cake, so I skimped between the layers a bit. Next time, I'll use more frosting between the two layers. I would definitely make this cake again!

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2017/01/10/disney-recipe-hummingbird-cake-from-chef-art-smiths-homecoming-in-disney-springs/

Chef Art Smith’s Hummingbird Cake

Chef Art Smith’s Homecoming Florida Kitchen and Southern Shine

Cake Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups chopped ripe bananas

1 cup drained crushed pineapple

1 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup (4 ounces) finely chopped pecans (optional)

Frosting Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter at room temperature

1 pound confectioners’ sugar (about 4 1/2 cups, sifted)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Make sure you position racks in the center and bottom third of the oven.

2. Lightly butter two 9-inch round cake pans, sprinkle evenly with flour and tap out the excess. You can also line the bottom of each cake pan with rounds of parchment paper, then flour the pans and tap out the excess.

3. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, stir or whisk the bananas, pineapple, oil, eggs, and vanilla until combined. Do not use an electric mixer. Pour into the dry mixture and fold together with a large spatula just until smooth. Do not beat. Fold in the pecans. Spread evenly into the pans.

4. Bake 30-35 minutes until the center of cakes spring back when pressed. Transfer the cakes to wire racks and cool for 10 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the racks (remove the parchment paper now if you used it). Turn cakes right side up and cool completely.

To make the icing:

Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until combined. On low speed gradually mix in the sugar, then the vanilla to make a smooth icing.

To frost the cake:

Place 1 cake layer upside down on a serving platter. Spread with about 2/3 cup of the icing. Top with the second layer right side up. Spread the remaining icing over the top and sides of the cake.

The cake can be prepared up to 1 day ahead and stored, uncovered in the refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.

Serves 12

Were you there for the DVC party? How was it?

Yes, that's why we were there. There seemed to be a pretty good turnout. I think the longest line I saw was a 40-minute wait at the Mine Train, so really not too crowded. They did have free food, which is always a plus for me, even if it's something as simple as chicken nuggets, hot dogs, veggies, etc. They had a lot of different characters out and that really seemed to be a hit with a lot of people because there were some long lines for that. They had a special fireworks show that night at midnight. We enjoyed seeing a different show and it wasn't so full in the park that you couldn't find a good spot to watch it. We did have a good time and I would love to do some more of the DVC events at the other parks this year, but I don't think it will work out with our work schedules. If you have the chance to do it you should. I mean it's free - why not, right? [emoji2]

Today we tried the Homecoming restaurant at Disney Springs. There were a few different things we wanted to try so we just split everything. We ordered three appetizers and were going to try a couple of desserts, but had to cut it back to one dessert to share. We couldn't finish everything but I had to try a dessert from there.

We had the Church Lady Deviled Eggs. They were topped with bacon. I love deviled eggs and these were good, but they don't really seem much better than what we make at home. So, I probably wouldn't order these again. I would eat them again if someone in our party wanted to order them.

We also ordered the bunch of puppies. They come with pimento cheese and jalapeño jelly.

I really liked these. The hushpuppies have pimentos in them. The way I ate them was to split them open and then spread some pimento cheese on and then the jalapeño jelly on top of that.

And the last appetizer we had was the Thigh High Chicken Biscuits. We thought this might be a good way to get a taste of the fried chicken and the biscuits. They also drizzle honey on the chicken and top it with a bread and butter pickle. This was so yummy. This was actually the only item that we were able to finish today.

And finally, to end the meal - we had banana pudding for dessert. This was not on the dessert menu. I remembered Emeril eating this on his show and banana pudding is my death-row dessert - I HAD to try it! We were going to try the hummingbird cake also, but knew there was no way we could make a dent on both desserts. It took a while to get the pudding to our table. My guess is that they assemble them as they're ordered. This thing was way bigger than I expected. Which is good, because it's not cheap! The dessert was very, very rich - a little richer than I like. The pudding was very runny and I really had to dig for bananas. It was topped with a marshmallow cream that was toasted on top. It wasn't bad, just not what I'm used to in a banana pudding.

We ate at Bongos the other day (the big pineapple at Disney Springs). This was a first for me, but it has been a really long time since Kenneth ate here. I have to say that this is now a favorite for me.

I had the Award Winning Cuban Slow Roasted Pork. It was served with black beans and white rice. It's very similar to the pork carnitas that my sister makes (and almost as good). And I'm a sucker for black beans and rice. All of this at Bongos had really good flavor.

One of kenneth’s favorite sandwiches is a Cuban. He ordered the midnight Cuban. It has pork, ham, pickles, mustard, and Swiss cheese on it - just like a regular Cuban. The difference here was that they used a sweet bread instead of Cuban bread. I had a few bites of this and I would order this in the future. The fries here were some of the best I've had at Disney. They're so crispy - I kept stealing them off of kenneth’s plate.

We also had a side of sweet plantains (they taste like bananas to me when they're ripe and sweet). I eat them with my meal and Kenneth tends to eat them as a dessert.

We saw a lot of smoke behind Be Our Guest last night. I'll have to try to get one of the pictures loaded that Kenneth took. We assumed something had caught fire because it was A LOT of smoke and it smelled like a campfire.

I'm glad for the DVC party. Our APs expired. We've moved down the road and are in Alabama these days. But we were able to line up a doctor appointment for my wife for today here in Orlando and are surprising the kids with the DVC party.

I'm mostly excited for the rare character meet and greets.

Is anyone else going?

We'll be at the one next week! I'm excited for it, since we stopped buying annual passes!

Goodness gracious, man! That's a lot of tents!

It looks like a fun place. We have a coworker (that actually lived right up the street from us) that moved to that area. She loves it there!

I'm going to have to look into this. I remember back in they day, looking for a pink flamingo to paint purple. Is there are standard fiend sign? 

Here's my fiend sign. I usually just park it at the end of my site, by the road. I've met a few people from here, because they saw the sign as they were looping.

Awww, I'm so sorry to hear that. I feel bad that you were frightened by it. You could have taken your air mattress and blankets and set up in the comfort station. If I learned anything from our latest trip to the Fort, it's that mostly everyone is completely chill. I never met anyone that wasn't, I only know they exist from this forum. 

It was really loud. It woke me from a sound sleep, that had been induced by two different rx sleeping medications. Even so, I loved going back to sleep to the sound of it. Not even sure how long it lasted because I did fall back to sleep quickly. 

What loop were you on? 

 

We were on the 1700 loop. We rode our bikes around several loops and looked for fiend signs, but didn't see any. We recognized some of the people on our loop from past trips. We would have run to the comfort station or got in our truck if we thought the storm was getting too dangerous. One of my biggest fears is tornadoes and I was mostly scared that something like that might develop from a bad storm. We stayed up for a couple of hours until we knew that the storm was totally gone. The storms we experienced in the past were mostly strong winds and lots of rain. That gets a little scary because the sides of the tent are coming in towards us, lol.

I love storms in a tent. I know it's not a safe place, but I enjoy it anyway. 

Because we have a pop up, I always check the canopy above us when we get to a site. If any branches looked iffy, I would ask for another site, or move the camper to a location of the site not directly in the path. 

We had a good thunderstorm last week, in the middle of the night, at the Fort. I knew we would have been safer to move to the comfort station until it was over, but didn't want to get out of our cozy bed. Just said a little prayer and went back to sleep. 

That storm last week scared me pretty bad. We were in a tent and I think it was about 1:00 am when it got cranked up. My sister was texting me from Georgia to check on us. The wind was enough to wake me up about 30 seconds before my sister started texting. She's real good about keeping an eye on the weather when I'm camping (I'm the baby so she's always worried about me). We got dressed and ready to bolt if we had to. I was shaking like a leaf from fear. The worst part was how loud the thunder was and how bright the lightning was. But, we do tend to experience at least one bad storm on most of our trips. That was the first one that rattled me like that, though.

Wow! 50 years! Happy Anniversary! And they are super adorable!