Monday, October 19, 2015

A Very Dapper Girls Getaway Trip Report - It's Arrival Day!

I can't believe this trip is over and it is time to start my trip report! The week was full of new experiences for us and I am so excited to write this trip report - so let's get started with A Very Dapper Girls Getaway! 



My trip actually started the night before we arrived at Disney because I took the red eye from Seattle. My first flight (the longer of the two and the official "red eye") I was seated next to Sasquatch, so sleeping was pretty much non-existent. I did get a little bit of sleep on the second flight, but since it was only a couple hours long that didn't do much for me. So to say I arrived in Orlando a bit sleepy would be an understatement but since I was on my way to Disney I powered through! Amanda picked up our rental car before coming to get me since she arrived about an hour before I did. It worked out perfectly! 

Before I knew it we were pulling into Disney's Boardwalk Inn. As you can tell from the photo, we arrived on a very wet day.
We booked a studio villa and could not wait to see if we got a refurbished one. Spoiler alert - we totally did! Our room was quite far from the lobby but there was a very handy backdoor right next to our room that worked great to get to the Boardwalk quicker. It was actually quicker for us to use the Swan and Dolphin boat launch when going to Hollywood Studios - which worked great for us. 
The remodeled studio villas will now sleep 5 with 1 queen bed, 1 sleeper sofa and a twin-size pull down bed. We thought it might be a bit cramped if you had 5 people but it is an option for families of 5! The remodel was done very well though. I think it was just what the villas needed. 




 

After we settled in we walked over to EPCOT to get in a couple rides and start snacking our way through Food & Wine Festival. Our first stop was the France Food & Wine booth to get Beef Bourguignon and, my favorite drink, La Passion Martini Slush! Both were amazing! 
Next stop was Brazil for some Crispy Pork Belly with Black Beans and Tomato - another great choice! So far we could not go wrong. 
We made our way around the world and next stopped in China to get Chicken Pot Stickers. These were pretty good but nothing that special. I liked the sauce. It had a nice spice to it. 
After stopping inside the Mexico pavilion for a margarita and a ride on the Three Caballeros, we went to the Farm Fresh booth where we got Loaded Mac n' Cheese. I think this was my favorite thing from Food & Wine all trip (though some cheese we got later on comes in a close second). They gave you a great amount of it too! Along with the Mac n' Cheese we got a Hard Cider Flight. Our favorite was easily the raspberry and we definitely did not like the pumpkin. 


It was time to take a little break from eating and drinking so we went over to Future World and rode Spaceship Earth. We also stopped into the Art of Disney store to decide what drawing we wanted to get to commemorate our trip. That actually took us longer than we expected but we love what we ended up getting. 

We didn't do much more Food & Wine Festival this night because we had plans to stop into the Tutto Gusto Wine Cellar for dinner. This was something neither of us had done before and it was a lot of fun. We each got a wine flight and we shared the Grande Antipasto Misto which is actually from the Tutto Italia menu. The platter was quite good but we did wish it had a little more variety in the cheese department (it pretty much had mozzarella and parmesan) and some more bread. 



Amanda was very excited!
We did not get dessert at Tutto Gusto because we had our sights set on something else - Warm Chocolate Pudding with Kerrygold Irish Cream Liqueur Custard from the Ireland booth. On our way over there we met up with Erin and Shannon, a couple of my fellow Glass Slipper Concierges, in Morocco. Always fun to meet up with my wonderful coworkers! After a nice little stroll with these gals we were at the Ireland booth! The chocolate pudding was to die for but small so we decided it was time to have our very first Croissant Donut from Refreshment Port! Oh man - this was so good. I could eat a dozen in one sitting...but that would be bad...right? 


As I had pretty much been up for two days we decided to call it an early night and walk back to the Boardwalk. It had been sort of rainy all day but the clouds parted and we got one spectacular sunset on our walk back. I just love the Boardwalk! 
Next up is our first full day including breakfast at Trails End, Hollywood Studios, and a fun night at the Polynesian Village Resort!