Disney Day 4: 'Round the World

And off to EPCOT, obviously!! I absolutely love a good trip to EPCOT, and while the Magic Kingdom defintely has a warm spot in my heart, EPCOT runs it a very close second for favorite park, so getting to enjoy it with my muscle man made it even more awesome!

 Before we left for Disney, we had these amazing personalized maps sent to us from the mouse house! I think they're meant to be more of a keepsake instead of actually taken to the parks, but since me and my bestie have the parks memorized I thought we'd bring these to the parks so our boys would know where we were headed next (you can choose what attractions you want on your 'favorite' list and they are in yellow, the rest of the items are in blue)

Oh and did I mention the best part? Our vacation was smack in the middle of the best time of year to visit EPCOT, the annual Food and Wine Festival! So let's just say I'm glad it's a long walk around world showcase, because I definitely took advantage of all the amazing cuisine!

First up on my list though was a year 'round delight, the turkey and cheese with chipolte mayo!!  They have changed the kind of cheese and bread, and it's not as good as it once was, but wow it is still an amazing sandwich!!

And of course, we had to stop in and try some foreign coke products...Yes, I made my muscle man try beverly... he actually didn't mind the taste, but he definitely preferred the fruity mexican and japanese sodas they offer there =) I'm waiting for those 'mix your own flavor' machines to offer some choices like those now that some fast food places around here have the fancy touchscreen coke dispensers haha, I'm sure they would be quite the hit!  

 And finally we were off to world showcase, where the shopping, eating and drinking could commence! (I should point out at this point we didn't get to the park early, so it was well past noon before we started drinking haha!! And due to some medication I was taking, I settled with trying a little bit of everyone's drinks, since the pill bottles said not to drink, and I'm a lightweight at it is!)



 



 Thanks to the lower crowd volumes (at least before 5pm when the locals get off work and come to eat and drink!) October is a great time to see the characters and not have to wait in forever long lines! We randomly found Aurora in France and my muscle man was a bit star struck so we just had to go introduce ourselves =P  He's only ever met 'mascots' and cosplayers before, so the whole idea of a real character was a bit new to him, he was quite impressed by all the lovely princesses (and mice, ducks, and loyal pet dogs!) that we ran into.

I had intentions of getting photos of our food as we went along, but with a hungry (and slightly drunk) muscle man, that was pretty near impossible even when I did remember that I wanted to get a shot =P However, I did get one shot of this fabulous "off-the-menu-special" that was over in China I'd never tried, I think it was teriyaki chicken over rice that was really quite good, though I did miss the orange chicken a little bit. (we only ordered one entree each time we ate, then split it, that way we got hungry more often and could try more stuff!!!) And then it started getting dark, which meant it was time for the beer to take over! 

During the food and wine festival they have this amazing beer 'emporium' set up next to Germany, where they offer beer samplers for a pretty decent (for Disney at least) price. They had two different options for the 4 beer sample packs, so my muscle man got one, and my bestie's man got the other. And then we all compared which ones were the best! For me and mine, it was definitely this fruity mid-range beer, don't remember what it was, but considering I don't drink beer, it was pretty tasty! As for the beer man in the group, my bestie's boyfriend loved the dark, hoppy brews... yuck!

All that beer (mixed with all the grand marnier slushes, sake, and norweigian liqueur) had the boys feeling a bit more than tipsy, so we grabbed a little dessert and found a spot for the fireworks! I just love the music for Illuminations, which worked out great since I sat us right under a speaker lol! What a great day at EPCOT!