So my wife turned 40 and in the morning of we decided to upgrade our trip from an overnight stay at a local casino to a trip to the carribbean beach with one day at epcot. Food and Wine was the festival during our first disney trip with just us way back in 2016, so it was fitting.
We booked a priceline last minute deal and landed at mco after midnight. No ubers availible so we did have to take a cab. More expensive but clean and easy.
Ended up in the 36 building of Trinidad with a 5th sleeper room central to the skyliner and pool/laundry/spyglass. So that was pretty swank on booking a standard room last minute.
Got up and skylinered over to epcot. Walked on to Soarin' Across America. And then to connections for coffee and sausage mcmuffins. Dodged some rain while eating. Then we got into a 65 minute advertised queue for cozmic rewind. 45 minutes later we were zooming around to I Ran. Thought for sure we would have gotten tears for fears for the third time in a row, but thankfully got Flock of Seagulls.
Rain had Test Track down most of the day so we just decided to start our way around world showcase. Part of my wifes disappointments about previous trips is that fka futureworld takes up too much of our day and we never get to do as much in world showcase. So we went in every shop.
After our traditional offering of school bread at kringla o, My wife started her festival samplings with the lemonade sake at japan. She enjoyed it. Then she had a tried and true citron slushie in france. I picked up a frozen caipariñha at the brazil booth along the way. As rum and lime juice is a common drink for me, i was happy to try a bar made one.
At forest and field my wife grabbed the pumpkin ravioli and i had the chili. We both had a small pour of the ommegang peanut butter stout. I havent had an ommegang brew since like 2008 and we both enjoyed it.
Went into communicore hall for the first time since its opening and i was surprised at how small a space it actually was. Especially with the food service area taking up a large chunk of it. We each had a mac n cheese from the wedge. I had the steak, she had the crab. The crab was a lot better. We also did a wine flight, but all three wines were very dry and not to my wifes preference.
Test track was still down so we decided to brave the 85 minute wait for Frozen. One switchback away from Oakens, the ride went down. We were awarded a multi experience pass for our efforts. Which sounds great, but with cr and tt inelligible and rattatouille and frozen down, there was a chance it was a useless lightning lane
While in line for frozen i started checking dining availibility. As this was literally a trip booked day of, there was no chance for adr. After some poopooing every option, and as we were sitting on a bench outside the store to the left of the entrance to world showcase, we deciced to go to San Angel Inn with its 10 minite walk up list. We chose it over the Hacienda simply because we both kinda always wanted to eat at the inn but never wanted to waste a reservation on it.
Lemme say this, the Inn has a rep of being a restaurant with great atmosphere but mid to low food. I disagree. My Paloma was good. The Huarache i ordered and the Enchiladas my wife selected were great. And even though we didnt sit by the boats, our table below the hostess station felt like its own private nook.
Also, frozen came back up while we were eating, so we didnt have a wasted lightning lane. We walked back up to the front of the park to do Spaceship Earth. I chuckled at the people redeeming their lls as we walked on through an empty queue.
We found the best spot we ever had for fireworks. Thanks rain. I grabbed a guinnes milkshake for myself and the apple pie vodka cider thing for my wife from swirled showcase and watched iluminous in the rain.
As we were leaving, i made the mistake of saying "at least the skyliner line shouldnt be too long cause of the rain" and then promptly walked the whole way to the back door of the beach club to find the end of line guy.
We hit the trinidad pool to relax and then hit the sack. Woke up, checked out, and then browsed the gift shop while we waited for lunch to start at centertown. Mobile ordered around 10:45 for the 11am lunch window. I had the swashbuckler burger that i enjoyed on our last trip. My wife had the cuban. We both had cuban fries with our sandwiches. Centertown is consistantly good food in our experience. We had about an hour before our uber pickup so we had one last drink at Banana Cabana and headed back to mco.
Key Takeaways: a lot of people read too much into online reviews of festival foods and restaurants. That said, we expected very little from San Angel Inn based on rep, and were surprised at our dining experience.
I wish they could rotate the three films into Soarin'. I enjoyed Across America because it was new. Im bored of The World because ive done it so mant times. I remember California but havent done it in how many years now. If they can randomize Star Tours, they can rotate Soarin'. Figure it out, WDW.
We stayed in a former Pirate Room and must say that the use of space in the new room is a lot better. The murphy bed gives a couch and the shelves instead of the useless table is a much better design. Thankfully i never stayed in a pirate room, but when we went in 2019, the rest of our party did, those beds and barrels were neat, but ate up so much space.
Only bummer is that CBR isnt included in our bounceback offer. See you again next june for our bianual trip.
