The Magic Kingdom dressed up for the holiday
This was going to be our first ever Food and Wine Festival trip. Although we are not really wine drinkers, we have been looking to try some new foods - and getting our kids to try some too (they can't have chicken nuggets every meal!) DD#1, who is now 8, agreed that she would try new foods as well.
With the kids in tow and it being a relatively short trip, we didn't plan for any of the special F&W events. We did however manage to score a one-bedroom villa at the Beach Club Villas, so we were an easy walk over to Epcot any time we wanted. We did book a couple of ADRs (Sci-Fi Dine-In and Cape May breakfast). Also, given time constraints, we planned to skip Animal Kingdom on this trip - our next trip will be longer and at the Animal Kingdom Villas and we'll definitely be hitting AK then.The Magic Kingdom dressed up for the holiday
We once again booked flights on JetBlue out of Boston, with a direct flight leaving a little later than last time so we hopefully would have less of a rush. We were still scheduled to get to Orlando before noon. We also booked another vehicle from Payless as it was easily $100 less than the competition.
Everything went great getting to the airport, and we boarded on time for our plane, "Blueberry". However, we stayed put for a while, and some maintenance engineers came on the plane - apparently the intercom phone at the back of the plane didn't work, and they were replacing the handset. We ended up taking off about an hour late because the attendant at the back of the plane couldn't talk to the front of the plane.
We arrived in Orlando about an hour late as well, got the Payless shuttle pretty quickly, and had to stand in line for a bit to get our car. I don't remember what it was, but it was plenty big for the four of us and our bags - not cramped like the van last time with 6 people.
From there we had planned to get something to eat on the way in as well as stop at Winn-Dixie for some supplies. Our intention was to go to the new Fuddruckers on 535 first that was somewhere in the vicinity of the Goodings plaza, although we didn't know for certain where. We couldn't find any sign for it though, and ended up at Winn-Dixie. We got our supplies, and were ready to give up on Fuddruckers and go to McDonalds instead, but I drove back into the Goodings plaza itself, and there it was - no signs at all and not visible from the road. But we got good burgers.
After that we headed straight for the Beach Club Villas. I've forgotten our room number, but it was on the 4th floor midway down the "stem" of the Y that the building forms, and the view was towards the world showcase facing towards Morocco and France, unfortuantely and an angle such that we couldn't see any of Illuminations.One of the views at the Beach Club Villas
As soon as we were settled, it was time to hit the parks. Our first port of call would be...Disney's Hollywood Studios. We had heard that weekends were pretty crowded for Epcot for Food and Wine, and figured we'd wait before going over there.
