Boo to You! Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!! In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I've decided to share with you our experience at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

Ean and I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP as I'll refer to it from now on) on Tuesday, October 13, during our anniversary trip. It was our last big hoorah before we left on Wednesday morning. We almost didn't go because we wanted to save up money to go to the Very Merry Christmas Party when we go to Disney in December. We did that last year and loved it. Ean has never done the MNSSHP, so he didn't know what to expect. Since he's done the Christmas party and loved it, we knew we wanted to do that for sure again. I did MNSSHP several times when I was younger with my family. It was always fun, but I knew that I loved the Christmas party more. However, a little over a week before we left, we decided the Halloween party was a must-do.

And I'm so glad we did!

We spent the morning in Magic Kingdom, then hit up Epcot one more time to get in a few more Food & Wine Festival eats, then headed back to our hotel to get ready for the party. I dressed up as a girl Darth Vader, and Ean was Captain America. It was a humid night so my hands were sweating like crazy in my gloves, and Ean was burning up in the Captain America suit, but I'm super glad we dressed up.

We made it to the park at about 6:30, and the party officially started at 7. We went to Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe for dinner and to formulate a plan for the evening. Our plan ended up working out perfectly, and we got to do everything we wanted.

Beautiful view of the Halloween Castle!

Main Street was all orange!

We started out by going trick-or-treating at all their treat locations. I know it sounds super childish that a young married couple in their 20's would dress up and go trick-or-treating, but there were SO MANY kids at heart there just like us. I promise you we weren't the only adults in costume getting free candy.

All the candy locations were marked with a big lighted Mickey pumpkin lantern. There were 15 locations in total. They were all listed in our party guide map, so we knew exactly where to go.

One of the treat locations' lantern.

Since we started with the candy, and most everyone else was doing the same, we had to stand in some long lines at times. They all went really quick, though. The cast members were really efficient in getting everyone through the line and quickly as possible. Since we were in Tomorrowland for dinner, we just started with the 4 Tomorrowland treat locations- Tomorrowland Speedway, Space Mountain, Carousel of Progress, and Stitch's Great Escape. They had the Carousel of Progress and Stitch's Great Escape closed down because the treat line went through the line of both those attractions.

After that we headed to Adventureland- Jungle Cruise (also closed during the party), the Tiki Room (which had two candy locations, one in the queue and one inside the attraction, where they had all the birds "alive" and singing), and at Pirates of the Caribbean.

After Adventureland, we hit up the candy stations at Frontierland, located outside of Splash Mountian and on the deck to Tom Sawyer Island. We then headed over to Liberty Square where they had a station set up on the dock next to the Liberty Square Riverboat.

From Liberty Square we walked over to Fantasyland to get the last few stations, located by Peter Pan's Flight, next to Under the Sea~ Journey of the Little Mermaid, and at Pete's Silly Sideshow (where characters are normally located). There was a Fantasyland treat trail that started in the Storybook Circus section of Fantasyland and connected to Tomorrowland. They had several different stations set up on that trail.

After completely filling our bags, we sat down for a rest in Tomorrowland to inspect the goodies and have a bite or two! You always gotta check out the loot after a successful trick-or-treating event!

While going around collecting treats, we saw so many character meet and greets happening with characters that are not normally out. We saw characters like Jafar and Jack Skellington, as well as classic Disney characters in their Halloween costumes. It would have been awesome to stop for a photo, but the meet and greets just didn't fit into our schedule for the evening. After all, we only had 5 hours to fit everything in!

Ean and I decided that we would head over to Storybook Treats in Fantasyland for a super special candy corn soft serve ice cream cone. It was a good choice, because it was delicious! It was just vanilla ice cream, but it was orange and white stripped. And the cone was filled with candy corn at the bottom! We both agreed that the treat was super tasty, but having the candy corn in the cone wasn't very practical. We both almost lost our ice cream while licking it, because it didn't have a firm base of ice cream in the cone. We were pleased, nonetheless.

Cute German costumes in the background.

Over at the castle stage, they had a new Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular show going on at 8pm, 9:20pm, 10:40pm, and 12am. It was a little after 9:20 when we finished our ice cream, so we headed over to the castle to catch the end of the show. Our plan was to view the 10:40 one, but this ended up working out much better for us. I couldn't really see it because I'm super short and everyone's kids were on their shoulders, but it was fine. I saw enough and I loved it. Hocus Pocus is my favorite Halloween movie!

Pretty decent view of the stage!

We were standing at the side of the castle, to the left if you're looking at it from the front. We were actually in a really good spot. Once the Hocus Pocus Spelltacular show ended, the crowd broke up a bit, and we were able to move closer to the castle so we could see the Celebrate the Magic show at 9:45. Celebrate the Magic is played on normal days as well. It wasn't a special party thing, but we've never seen it all the way through, and at such a good location, so we figured this was the perfect time. Celebrate the Magic is where they transform the Cinderella Castle into a "canvas of color" as they describe it. It's actually quite amazing and beautiful!

After Celebrate the Magic was the Happy Hallowishes firework show at 10. The normal firework show at Disney World is called Wishes, and they so cleverly titled this Happy Hallowishes in honor of that. Cute so cute. Happy Hallowishes was so good! Disney never fails to produce an amazing firework show. They're always incredible. This one was filled with lots of spooky Halloween tunes and darker colored fireworks and projections on the castle, like green, blue, and purple, complete with ghosts and pumpkins.

Once Hallowishes was over, Ean and I decided to run over and do the Haunted Mansion before the parade. Turns out everyone had the same idea. There was a 5 minute wait as we were approaching the attraction, but it quickly jumped to 25 minutes right when we got in line. It didn't take but maybe 10 minutes go get through the line, but right as we got on the ride and were barely even into the attraction, it got stopped. We still don't know why, but we sat there stopped for nearly 20 minutes. I was getting very anxious because I was afraid we'd miss the parade at 11:15! We ended up getting through with just enough time to find a parade spot, and we got a free fastpass that we were unable to use since we were leaving the next day.

We chose a pretty good spot to view the parade, kind of between The Diamond Horseshoe and Liberty Tree Tavern. The parade was coming towards us from the left (like from Frontierland going towards Fantasyland) which was perfect for us. We had a row of people in front of us, but where I was positioned, I could easily view the parade and take pictures while looking to the left because there were a bunch of strollers on the front row that way. There were many tall humans if I was looking to my right!

The parade was super cute. It's nearly the same as what I'd seen before years ago, but that doesn't matter. Disney's parades are always wonderful! I have the "Boo to You" song forever stuck in my head now, though! But that's okay. It's a price I'm willing to pay! I really love Goofy's candy float. It's probably my favorite!

MNSSHP overall was absolutely wonderful. We got in everything we wanted to do, saw everything we wanted to see, and rode the one ride we thought would be super appropriate for the night. Will we do this again next year? Absolutely! Everything was wonderful. They gave out amazing candy (and lots of it), offered lots of good food and sweet treats, it wasn't overwhelmingly crowded, the shows were all amazing- everything was just wonderful!

Room mirror selfie!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Desserts & Champagne

So I may have lied before when I said that the Cheese Studio was the only "non-country" booth we visited. We also went to Desserts & Champagne. It must have slipped my mind when I posted that before. Not sure how it could because our Desserts & Champagne experience was magnificent!

This booth was our final one of Monday evening, making it stop #6 of the day and #11 of the trip!

At Desserts & Champagne, we only enjoyed a dessert, no champagne (we had plenty of that in our room the night before!) There were many, many delicious things to choose from, but we decided on the Frozen S'mores. I'd had that a few years ago with my mom, and we loved it. It was definitely just as good the 2nd time around! Ean thought it was amazing! And I have to agree. It is made with Monin marshmallow syrup, which is so good. It was a chocolaty marshmallow drink filled with graham cracker crumbs and topped with graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate shavings. So much yum in one little cup!!

The champagnes they offered were Nicolas Feuillatte Blanc de Blancs, Moet & Chandon Imperial, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin "Yellow Label", Dom Perignon, Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial, and Nicholas Feuillatte Rose. It all sounds so super fancy. I feel like most people went for the desserts at this booth, which were far easier to pronounce, haha. Or maybe it was because the little tastes of champagne were like $13 each. The Dom Perignon was $32! It must be some darn good champagne for a little sample to cost so much.

The other tasty dessert options, besides the ever so wonderful frozen s'mores, included a chocolate cherry explosion (looked good, but maybe too chocolatey), a strawberry-basil champagne toast (looked like some strawberry pudding-like stuff on top of a beverage... also, not real sure about the strawberry basil combination?!), orange blossom brewery toasted coconut porter float with caramel ice cream, cream soda float with caramel ice cream (now that's more my speed!), and Guylian Belgian chocolate seashell truffles.

After we enjoyed our frozen s'mores, we rode Spaceship Earth, then dealt with our wine purchase ordeal (as I discussed earlier in my Scotland post...).

None of the parks were open real late on Monday night. I believe Epcot was the latest, and it stayed open until 9. We left around 8 and felt like we still had a whole night left. We went back to our hotel and ordered a pizza, drank some wine, and watched cable TV, something we don't get to do at home since we only get local channels that come through on the antenna. We watched some shows about tiny living, where people buy houses that are only a few hundred square feet, something we could never do! It was very fun and relaxing!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Germany

Since Ean studied German in high school (and one semester in college), he has a little love in his heart for Germany and really wanted to try their festival booth. Germany is also one of the countries always in Epcot's World Showcase, so we've tried German food in the area before. But you can't just pass up this booth!

Germany was stop #5 for Monday and #10 of the trip!

In Germany, Ean tried the roast bratwurst in a pretzel roll. How very German! It came with a side of spicy German mustard. I tried some of the pretzel roll with the mustard and that was good! Haha! Ean did say that he really enjoyed the bratwurst. I'd say that a bratwurst in a pretzel roll is super tasty, because ANYTHING in a pretzel roll is absolutely wonderfully delicious.

The German festival booth had the apple strudel with vanilla sauce that I had a few years ago when I visited with my mom. I wasn't in the mood for anything sweet at the time (which is honestly a rare occasion that happened too often this trip...), but I can say that from previous experience, it was delicious. The other food item that the booth had was Schinkennudeln. "Now, what in the world is that?" you might be thinking. I would be thinking the same. But luckily for me, my festival passport has a nice little description of Schinkennudeln. Basically, it's just a pasta gratin with ham and cheese. I looked up pictures and it looks delightful. But I don't eat ham so, no thanks!

Last time I was here, I tried one of the German beers, and it was good! This time, they didn't have any at the German booth, but I'm gonna guess, judging by the names, that some of the beers offered at the Brewer's Collection booth right next door were German. The Germany booth this time had a lot of wines. They had J&H Selbach Bernkasteler Kurfurstlay Riesling Kabinett, Selbach-Oster Mosel Riesling Spatlese, J&H Selbach Bernkasteler Kurfurstlay Riesling Auslese, and Kallstadter Kobnert Spaetburgunder (Pinot Noir) Spatlese Dry. And they had a wine flight. I couldn't tell you a single thing about any of those wines, or even how to say any of those names, but I saw a good amount of people getting the wine flight, so they must be good!

Germany is always a fun little place to hang around. I love the Karamell-Kuche shop! Ean actually went into the quick service restaurant in Germany, Sommerfest, and asked for a cup of water (they usually give smaller cups of water for free) and they gave him two LARGE cups of water for free! So that place definitely looks favorable in our eyes now. Of course, it could have just been the cast members working at the time that felt like being generous, and it may never happen again, but they made us very pleased with their service and we will be returning.

Kudos to Germany for just being all around awesome for us that day!

Food & Wine Festival: Mexico

Mexico is one of the "mains" as we call them; it is one of the main countries that is part of Epcot's World Showcase year round. However, that didn't make their festival booth any less desirable. That's why Mexico was our 4th stop of the day on Monday evening, and the 9th destination of our food adventure around the world.

At the Mexico booth, we got the tacos de camaron- battered shrimp tacos served with pico de gallo, pickled onions and chipotle mayonnaise. It seems like the festival this year offered a lot of spicy dishes. I feel like half the dishes we tried had some kind of spice to them! That's okay with us, though. We like a good spice. Sometimes I don't really enjoy foods that are battered because it makes them more greasy and seem very fatty. That wasn't the case with this battered shrimp. It wasn't greasy at all! There was a lot of pico de gallo and onions on the taco, which made it hard to split in half and hard to eat. The tiny taco had three pieces of shrimp and then a heaping amount of toppings. I'm not a pico de gallo fan, so it was a bit overwhelming, but the flavor of the chipotle mayonnaise covered up the taste of cilantro. Overall, the taco was delicious. I think the chipotle mayonnaise and the deliciously battered shrimp really made it amazing!

Mexico had two other dishes we could have tried. They had a chilaquiles de pollo, which was corn chips layered with seasoned chicken, queso fresco, sour cream, and cilantro. I'm sure that would have been good for all the chicken lovers out there, but it definitely wasn't appealing to me. The other dish was a pastel de elote con queso, which is a sweet corn cheesecake. I'm sure I would have liked that one! Pretty much anything with the word "cake" in it is appealing to me.

Mexico had a really awesome selection of alcoholic beverages. They had Dos Equis beer, a Mexican sangria, a guava margarita, and a tequila flight. Needless to say, Mexico was very popular for the drinks. Everybody seemed to love all of Mexico's offerings. Mexico was super crowded when none of the other booths were. Just that whole area of the park in general was more crowded. I think it helps that there are several very delicious restaurants in that area and a very delicious margarita stand that are all there year round. People love the Mexico pavilion!

Ean and I ate our taco up the stairs of the Aztec building they have in Mexico. The building that houses all the marketplace shops, the Gran Fiesta Tour ride, and the San Angel Inn Restaurante. It was seriously packed, there was almost no where to stand or even move. So we just went up the stairs and to the side, almost near the back, of the building and enjoyed our tasty taco in peace.

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Australia

Austrailia was our 3rd stop on Monday afternoon and our 8th stop of the trip.

For most of our stops on Monday, we got our food, found a shaded place on the sidewalk, sat down to eat, and stayed for a minute or two for a bit of people-watching. People-watching in Disney World is like another attraction. You never know what kind of wonders you will see. Monday was a surprisingly tame day. Nobody was drunk by 5pm, nobody was yelling curse words at the top of their lungs, nobody was stumbling around like crazy... Apparently the decent people decided to finally show up.

In Australia we decided to try the grilled sweet and spicy bush berry shrimp with pineapple, pepper, onion, and snap peas. That decision really was a no-brainer because the other options were grilled lamb chop with mint pesto and potato crunchies (neither of us eat lamb) and lamington, which is yellow cake dipped in chocolate and shredded coconut (we didn't want anything sweet).

Our sweet and spicy bush berry shrimp was incredible. I kept saying "shrimp on the barbie" in a terrible Australian accent while eating it (and maybe for the remainder of the trip...).  I couldn't help it- the deliciousness of the shrimp just put me into a crazy state of mind! Just kidding. I'm just naturally crazy like that. But it was very good. And very spicy. It came with three pieces of shrimp which is lame if you're trying to split the dish. It's a hot mess trying to slice a piece of shrimp in half. But we successfully did it. I loved the sweet and spicy flavor combination. I also really loved that flavor combination on the pineapple pieces. It was surprisingly amazing.

If we had been drinking around the world, we could have tried some delicious Australian drinks. They had Coopers Brewer extra strong vintage ale, Chateau Tanunda Grand Barossa dry Riesling, Bulletin Place Unoaked Chardonnay, and Yangarra Estate Vineyard Shiraz. I don't really drink much wine or beer, but maybe one of these would have been worth the try!

Maybe some of these booths need to offer a nonalcoholic specialty drink! That would be a really awesome addition to the festival!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Hawai'i

Stop #2 of Monday and #7 of the trip was Hawai'i!

Now, Hawai'i didn't really have anything I could eat. They had two different food offerings and neither sounded great to me. So because Ean, ate this one all by himself, I got South Korea later and had that to myself.

So, the two dishes that Hawai'i had was a Kalua pork slider with sweet and sour Dole pineapple chutney and spicy mayonnaise, and tuna poke with seaweed salad and nori strings. Neither of us really wanted the tuna poke because it is raw tuna, and that's just not really my thing. Ean wanted to try the pork slider but was nervous about it since I wouldn't be having any and he didn't want to waste time getting food I couldn't eat. I encouraged him to get it anyway because I knew he'd really love it. And he did.

I did try a little taste, mostly the bread with the chutney, and one tiny nibble of pork. Meat never tastes good to me, so once I got past that terrible never-ending chewiness part and tasted the flavors together, I liked it. The pineapple chutney and spicy mayo were both really good and had a wonderful flavor. I also really liked the bread they used for the bun.

Hawai'i had some really awesome alcoholic choices that I would like to try if they offer them next year. The Maui splash sweet pineapple wine and the Mai Tai ft. Sammy's Beach Bar Rum both looked super tasty. Hawai'i also had Kona Brewing Company Big Wave golden ale and Pipeline porter. I should have tried that Mai Tai drink cause it looks incredible.

Disney doesn't mess around with their delicious food and drink offerings, that's for sure!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Scotland

We were able to visit a lot more booths on Monday. We were worried the parks would be real busy since it was a holiday, but I'd say Epcot was pretty tame. Wait times for the rides was pretty long, but the festival booths didn't have many lines at all.

We spent the morning in Hollywood Studios, which was super crowded, then headed to Epcot for some afternoon bites. Our first stop of the day, and sixth stop of the trip, was Scotland!

Last time I went to the Food & Wine Festival, Scotland offered a really delicious vegetarian haggis with neeps and tatties. This year, they offered traditional haggis with neeps and tatties (rutabaga and mashed potatoes). Haggis is a "savory pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, traditionally encased in the animal's stomach, though now often in an artificial casing instead" (via Wikipedia). No, thank you.

One really good option we debated trying was the fresh potato pancake with Scottish smoked salmon and herb sour cream, but we looked up Disney Food Blog's handy dandy Festival page to see pictures of what it looked like, and the salmon on this dish is raw. Ean wouldn't have minded it, but I just can't do raw fish.

If we had been in the mood for something sweet, the Tipsy Laird sounded good. It is a whiskey-soaked cake with lemon cream and toasted oats. DFB's picture of it looks really good, but we were looking for something more savory.

We decided to go with the seared sea scallop with spinach-cheddar gratin and crispy bacon. I know, I know, it has bacon on it and I don't eat bacon, BUT this dish was super tasty. I tried picking as much bacon off of my half as I could. Ean and I both love sea scallops, and they prepared this one very well. The spinach-cheddar gratin was so good and really enhanced the flavor of the sea scallop.

We sat on the ground outside this one shop that was near the Scotland booth and ate both Scotland and Hawai'i. We had just been browsing through that store and found some wine we wanted to purchase, but I was going to have to go back in by myself to make the transaction since he's not quite 21 yet. Let me tell you, that ended up being a PROCESS. When we went back, it was later in the evening. But you're not allowed to carry wine through the park, so if it's before 7, they send it to the park entrance for you to pick up. If it's after 7, you have to leave the park immediately. It fortunately was our last stop of the night anyway, but I had to listen to the cashier go on and on forever about the consequences of getting caught hanging out in the park with a bottle of wine in my bag. She also didn't even know how to use her register, so when I say this was a process, I truly mean it was a process. It took nearly 30 minutes.

But all in all, our Scotland food adventure was a great one. I'm super sad they don't have the vegetarian haggis anymore, but our sea scallop dish proved worthy of praise. We need to go back next year and try some of their alcoholic offerings. I think Ean might really enjoy some of it. They had Innis & Gunn rum CASK OAK aged beer, BrewDog Punk IPA, Citrus Thistle ft. Hendrick's Gin, Glenfiddich Single Malt 12 yr scotch, 15 yr scotch, and 18 yr scotch. They also offered a scotch flight, which I know he would have loved. I'm already saving up for all the alcohol we're gonna be trying next time we go!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Cheese Studio

The Cheese Studio was the only "non-country" booth we went to. It was also our 5th stop of the trip, and the 2nd/final stop on Sunday.

Being a cheese lover, I wanted to try all the offerings. But since we were about to go to Boma for a huge feast, one dish was all we could get. What to choose, what to choose...

One thing we could get was the trio of artisan cheese, which included:

• Karst cave-aged cheese served with honey
• La Bonne Vie goat cheese served with Craisin bread
• Rogue Creamery Oregon blue cheese with berry-port compote

Or we could have gone with the sweet goat cheese panna cotta with guava gelle.

OR the third option we could have chosen was the cheese fondue with sourdough bread.

The first one was out because Ean doesn't like honey, Craisin bread, and neither of us really like blue cheese. The second one was out because we weren't sure what kind of texture it would be and if it would be jelly (which Ean doesn't like). So the winner was the cheese fondue!

What a great dish it turned out to be. The cheese was real hot and creamy. It had a really strong flavor that was very delicious. We both love sourdough bread, and it was wonderful dipped in the fondue. We actually ran out of bread and didn't want the cheese to go to waste so we just ate the rest with a spoon!

The Cheese Studio offered a few beverage, wine beverages of course, because you have to have wine with cheese! They offered Robert Mondavi Fume Blanc, Still River Winery Apfel Eis (apple ice wine), and Sterling Vintner's Collection Cabernet Sauvignon. The Wine Studio was also right next door, and they had a huge selection of different types of wine that looked interesting.

There are SO MANY different alcoholic beverages offered at this festival that all look so good. No wonder everyone was crazy tipsy before 5:00!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: South Korea

Stop number 4 of the trip (and stop number 1 of the day on Sunday) was South Korea!

South Korea is the only place we stopped at twice. We got the vegan Korean BBQ both times and it was amazing. There weren't a lot of vegetarian options at the festival this year, so when we saw this one, we knew we had to try it. It ended up being one of my most favorite dishes of the whole festival.

Having not eaten meat, except for fish, for the past three years, I couldn't tell you if this tastes better than the meat version that they offered (Bulgogi BBQ). However, I do know that they did a REALLY good job with this dish. I don't know for sure which fake meat Disney used on this one, but I can assume it was Gardien. They used Gardien meatless crumbles in a dish at the Greece booth, and they've used Gardien products in the past. The consistency of the fake meat was just like that of the Gardien beefless tips, which I have had before. I'm not sure if they used the beef one for this, because they also have porkless tips, but whatever it was, it was very good. The flavor of the BBQ sauce was incredible. I assume the vegan Korean BBQ flavor was supposed to match that of the Bulgogi BBQ, because the dishes were nearly identical. Both dishes are served with steamed rice and cucumber kimchi. The cucumber kimchi was really cool and refreshing, perfect for cooling down the mouth after the spicy flavor of the BBQ!

South Korea also offered a roasted pork lettuce wrap with kimchi slaw, and then a good selection of drinks- Cing grapefruit sparkling rice brew (sounds interesting), myungjak bakbunja raspberry wine (which I feel like I tried with my mom a few years ago), and soju banana milkshake (which a lot of people tried and seemed to love).

Ean and I visited Epcot for just a few snacks on Sunday afternoon. We had spent the morning in Animal Kingdom and were saving our appetites for our anniversary dinner at Boma that night. We brought a few snacks with us to AK that morning, but wanted to slip a few festival bites in before that evening!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Japan

Our third stop of our food extravaganza, and our final stop of Saturday night, was Japan.

Photo taken a few days later because the one I got that night wasn't great.

This is where a slight panic over money hit. Ean and I have been saving up all of the cash tips we receive from catering to take to Disney for food and souvenirs. We brought plenty (only ended up spending about 2/5 of what we brought by the end of the trip), but when you see that the price of a small plate of sushi is $5, you realize that you're about to fork out a lot of money on just small samples of food. We nearly skipped Japan all together and just went to the Japanese quick service restaurant we always go to- Katsura Grill.

After much discussion, we finally decided to try the Japan booth because we have Katsura all the time. We know that their sushi is very tasty, and we would have been paying a whole lot more for nearly the same amount of sushi.

Japan is the only place where we tried two of the menu items rather than just one. Ean wanted to get the tempura shrimp roll, and I wanted to try the miso udon. We sampled a taste of each other's, of course!

The tempura shrimp roll was very tasty. Ean is a sushi fan and he loved it. Tempura shrimp is a crispy breaded shrimp. I absolutely love tempura shrimp. The roll had cucumber and was topped with a teriyaki sauce. It also had a little taste of ginger on the side, which we never eat.

The miso udon was amazing, in my opinion. The broth was real spicy. It had several cooked shrimp, vegetables, and noodles in the broth. I always get the tempura shrimp udon at Katsura. I love the udon noodles. I REALLY liked this spicy broth. If we had more time, I would have gotten this again. Japan was a really popular booth, and I can see why. Both these dishes were incredible.

The Japan booth also offered a spicy hand roll (tuna and salmon with Kazan volcano sauce) and a Teriyaki Gyoza bun (steamed bun with chicken, vegetables, and sweet teriyaki). They offered a kirin draft beer, pineapple infused sake, Komatsu Tatewake Samurai sake, and Suigei Drunken Whale sake. I have no idea what sake tastes like, but I love pineapple, so that sake sure sounded interesting! Maybe next time, Japan.

As we ate, we got to enjoy a nice view of the World Showcase Lagoon. Japan was the only place we were able to snag a cocktail table that day, and we shared with another couple towards the end of our eating. Sometimes that's just what you gotta do at these festivals!

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Ireland

Our second stop of our trip around the world was Ireland. As we made our way to Ireland on Saturday night, the sun was setting and the nice, cooler evening was quickly approaching. Standing in line at Ireland was where I saw some of the worst adult drinking behavior, and it made me very disappointed in humanity for a moment. Norms.

Ireland's booth offered several delicious looking food items. They had a lobster and seafood fisherman's pie, an Irish cheese plate, and a warm chocolate pudding with Kerrygold Irish Cream liqueur custard.

We decided on the Irish cheese plate.

The three cheeses on the plate were Irish cheddar, Dubliner, and Irish Porter. We know for sure that the porter cheese is the more marbled one (pictured under one of the white cheeses), and we are fairly certain that the cheddar cheese was the bigger one and the dubliner was the smaller strip. All three cheeses tasted amazing (Ean and I are big cheese fans; we love trying different types of cheese). They served the cheeses with a slice of bread and a little cup of what seemed to be formerly dried fruit that was now remoistened with some kind of tasty syrup. Ean didn't really like the fruit, but I loved it. I put some cheese of my half of the bread slice and topped it with the fruit, and it was amazing.

Ireland had some tasty looking beverage options. They had Kilkenny Irish cream ale, Bunratty meade honey wine, chilled Irish coffee ft. Bunratty Potcheen, and Kerrygold Irish cream liqueur. I know that if Ireland is at the next F&W Festival we attend, I'll be trying some of that meade honey wine and probably the Irish cream liqueur. Something about the honey wine sounds very appealing to me.

But for now, we were very satisfied with our decision to try the cheese plate. For cheese fans like us, trying cheeses from another country was a wonderful experience!

As we were eating our cheese, we experienced a very hilarious moment. We were sitting by the World Showcase Lagoon right next to the Ireland booth when suddenly every phone in the entire Epcot park went off at the exact same time with an Amber Alert. That loud and almost frightening alert sound rose above and beyond the noise level of all the people in the area as every single phone received the alert at the exact same time. Then I watched as every single person walking by and sitting near us pulled out their phones at the exact same time (myself included). I honestly couldn't stop laughing at this moment.

Food & Wine Festival 2015: Greece

After settling into our hotel room, Ean and I went straight to Epcot so we could begin our food journey around the world.

Our first stop was Greece.

Since it was a Saturday evening and a holiday weekend, the park was CROWDED. We had to wait several minutes in the lines at each booth (later on in our trip, we could just walk right up to a register and order, then get our food immediately... Saturday night was crazy busy). Most of the people there were locals, and most of them were already drunk out of their minds by 6 PM. This wasn't a good start to the trip because insanely drunk people are always annoying beyond belief, and it just makes you wonder why 21 is the legal drinking age when these people are in their 30's-50's and acting worse than your regular 3-year-old toddler. Many of them had small children with them. Many of them were there in large groups with t-shirts that advertised their desire to drink until they were drunk as ever. All of them were stumbling around, shouting profanities at the top of their lungs, sloshing their beer everywhere, and acting like trashy fools.

I do hope they enjoyed themselves.

I know this very first experience made Ean very skeptical about the whole thing. I know he most likely questioned why I loved it so much. From the second we first got in line at the Greece booth Saturday evening and all the way through until our adventures the next day, I know he wondered what the appeal was. I will let you know that by Monday, he was able to see what was so amazing about it, because by Monday, all the crazy people had gone leaving only the level-headed guests who know how to handle alcohol, and who know when enough is enough.

I was grateful for that.

So yes, Greece!

Despite our crazy start, Greece ended up being wonderful, as always. We ordered the spanakopita, which was absolutely delicious. That's been one of my favorite dishes since I first experienced the festival with my family back in 2006. Ean and I have spanakopita at events we work all the time, but we normally serve it room temperature. Greece's steaming hot, super flaky, and extremely flavorful spanakopita was top notch. Ours at work is amazing and super delicious, but having it hot and super flaky was out-of-this-world good.

Spanakopita is a savory spinach pie. Disney serves them in little triangles of phyllo dough stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, among other seasonings.

Greece had several other delicious offerings that we would have loved to have tried if we had a chance. They offered vegan moussaka with Gardien sausage crumbles (Gardien is a brand of fake meat that is super delicous), greek salad in a cone, and chicken gyro with tzatziki sauce.

They also offered three different Greek wines (domaine skourus moscofilero, domaine sigalas assyriko athiri, and alpha estate axia syrah xinomavro) and a tzatziki martini (made with a cucumber vodka and BOLS natural yogurt liqueur). Though that martini sounded very interesting, we mainly focused on food for this journey. Maybe next year.

Epcot International Food & Wine Festival 2015

This year, Ean and I went to Disney for our one year anniversary and got to try out Epcot's Food & Wine Festival. I've been several times, but Ean has never been. I was super excited to experience this with him and take him to all the many countries to try all the delicious cuisine.

We made it to 18 of the 38 destinations. That's almost half! I'd say we did pretty well, considering several of the destinations only had alcohol, and we were there mainly for the food.

Destinations we hit:
Cheese Studio
Greece
Desserts & Champagne
Hawai'i
Scotland
Australia
Mexico
China
South Korea
Germany
Poland
Italy
Japan
Belgium
Brazil
France
Ireland
Canada

My Festival Passport- our guide around the worlds!

This year was the 20th year for Epcot's Food & Wine Festival. They gave away special wine glasses to annual passholders who visited the festival at least 3 times. We had to pick up our Festival Passport (available to all guests to chronicle your journey around the World Showcase as you experience each station they have to offer), then get the book stamped on a special passholders page on three different days. On the third day, they took the page from us and gave us super cute souvenir wine glasses. We were a little worried because we couldn't get a stamp the first day we were there because we arrived at the park around 5, and the place to get stamps closed at 7. We had to go to Guest Relations to get a hard copy of our annual passes since we renewed them online. When we arrived at the park, the line at Guest Relations was absolutely ridiculous, AND we had FastPasses to Test Track that we didn't want to miss. So we decided against getting a stamp immediately. We did have time to get stamps the next two days, then go back on Tuesday to get the glasses, so it all worked out!

Cute wine glass! Image from mealtrip.com!

This is something we want to try and do every year as long as our income allows. It was an experience I was really looking forward to, and one Ean has now come to LOVE.

One week to go preparations!

We officially have ONE WEEK until we go to Disney for our first wedding anniversary!!

Me and Ean on our wedding day, 10-11-14!!

This week is going to consist of lots of working for me, and both school and work for Ean, on top of all our Disney prep.

Our list of to-do's seems outrageously big as I look at it right now, but will be so exciting to complete, as I know the end of it means Disney time!

Things we must get done:

• laundry
• clean the bathrooms
• clean the kitchen
• vacuum
• change the sheets and towels
• dust the shelves
• grocery shopping for the trip
• pack
• go to the bank
• make final payments for the trip
• put together our meal and souvenir budget
• get our spending cash
• clean the inside of my car
• put together finishing details for my costume
• find Ean a costume
• clean our coffee pot and grind more coffee to bring (since value resorts don't have a coffee maker)
• buy sunscreen, shampoo, and conditioner
• buy Ean an anniversary gift!!!

How are we ever going to get all this done before the trip?! We will have to plan our days carefully and waste no time! That's one thing I know for sure!

I'm sure there's some things on this list that you may be wondering about. Like, why do I HAVE to clean the bathrooms and dust the shelves? I have this habit, and I've been doing it as long as I can remember. I have to have every inch of my living quarters spotless and super clean before I go on vacation so that when I get home, all the chores are already done, the house looks amazing, and the only thing I have to worry about is unpacking. Sure it makes for a stressful week beforehand, but I'm very happy, comfortable, and stress-free when I return from vacation! Ean thinks I'm crazy, but I definitely feel more relaxed coming back to a clean home.

Of course, I know that I'll be okay if I don't make the final trip payments today and I wait until we check in next week, but that's another crazy thing about me. I like to know that's already taken care of before the trip so we can just arrive, go straight to our room, and be stress-free knowing that everything is already paid for and taken care of. I don't like charging that credit card such a huge amount on our first minutes of arrival!

On our honeymoon trip to Disney last December.

As I sit here on this chilly, rainy Saturday afternoon, waiting until I have to leave for work, I'm more excited about leaving for the trip than I am stressed about everything that needs to get done. Ean and I are both working a lot this week, which means limited time to tackle this list, but the fact that we only have a week left until our anniversary is super exciting.

So, here we go! And be prepared for some super exciting posts when we return!

Perks of the Disney Annual Pass

Ean and I have been Annual Passholders since June 2014. Being Passholders has allowed us to do Disney more times in one year than we ever imagined. Neither of us make a whole lot of money (but we aren't struggling either). Disney is such a huge passion for us that the cost of getting the annual passes isn't even a burden. It's something we save for.

Happy little Passholders.

My parents did get us the annual passes on the front end. We were going on a family vacation, and they knew we were going there for our honeymoon in December, so they upgraded our park passes to annual passes to help us out a little.

The annual passes are $696.51 each to purchase on the front end. That's almost the cost of two 3-day park tickets with the park hopper option! If you're planning on going to Disney World more than two times in one year, and you're visiting the parks for more than 3 days each time, you're going to end up saving money in the long run.

To renew the passes, it only cost $590.01 each. If you know you're going to be visiting Disney World more than two times the next year, and longer than three days each time, you're going to come out with over $100 in savings per pass in the end!

If that's not enough to make you want to get an annual pass, the amazing benefits and discounts you get as a Passholder surely will.

Disney offers Passholder discounts on a huge variety of things. One discount you get is a 10% off discount as select restaurants in the parks, at Disney Springs, and at certain resort hotels (some places at Disney Springs offer a 15-20% discount!). Some of my favorite places, such as Boma, Trail's End Restaurant, and Rainforest Cafe, are all on the list. You can view the full list here.

Not my image- belongs to worldtraveledfamily.com!

Ean and I enjoyed a lovely Passholder discount on our rooms for the two upcoming trips we have booked this month and in December. We are staying at All-Star Music both times, where the discount for Passholders was significantly greater than the Fall Discount offered to all guests. Disney offers discounts on select Walt Disney World resorts, and for certain room types at each resort. They are offered at various times throughout the year and for certain nights only. We were going to stay at the campsites in December, but the overall total price at the time of booking was only about $20 cheaper than if we just stayed at All-Star Music!

All-Star Music Resort image from VisitOrlando.com!

Passholders also receive merchandise discounts at select shops. Ean and I got a 10% discount at Darth's Mall back in May during Star Wars Weekends. You can also get discounts at different recreational and spa locations, as well as certain events and fun entertainment experiences! We are going to the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party during our next trip, and as Passholders, we got tickets for $70 rather than $74.

For a full list of places and experiences that offer discounts, you can visit the official Walt Disney World Passholder website here.

We loooooove our annual passes!

We absolutely love the flexibility the annual passes give us. We are able to visit the parks on the evening of our arrival (we usually make it to Florida around 3 or 4, and go to a park around 5 or 6), and we are able to visit the last morning for an hour or two before we leave. We have ended up saving a LOT of money with all the discounts we receive. We also get lots of free stuff! We got posters that are exclusive to Passholders at Star Wars Weekends this year. We are planning on getting exclusive Food And Wine Festival wine glasses in Epcot on our next trip. And we get a cute little Passholder slider to wear on our magic bands (and we also are able to get an extra magic band in addition to the ones we get when we book a trip)!

You can see my awesome slider on my magic band in this photo.

Walt Disney World annual passes are seriously the way to go if you're a super Disney nut like us. We plan to keep renewing our passes as long as your finances allow us to.