Winter Holiday 2015/2016- Walt Disney World Monorail Resorts

On our last morning, we checked-out of the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, loaded our luggage in the rental, and headed to EPCOT. It was cold and rainy. The only cold, rainy day of our vacation.

We loved staying at the Omni. Our room was lovely, the pool was amazing, and the staff exceeded our expectations. It wasn't more than a fifteen minute drive to WDW. For an adult trip, it couldn't have been more perfect. However, we thought that it would be fun to stay on Disney property with the kids during the summer 2016 trip. In particular, we thought it would be a special experience to stay at a monorail resort, something that neither Dan, nor I, had ever done. Rather than heading inside EPCOT, we caught the monorail to check out the three WDW Resorts located on its route.

First up, The Polynesian Village Resort. The Polynesian is one of my favorite resorts to visit for dining. The Tonga Toast (banana stuffed french toast) at the Kona Cafe is divine, and I really enjoy the family style multi-course character dinner at O'hana. The tropical theming and lush foliage around the pool complex, quickly pushed this to be our top pick. I'm not sure if Disney has changed the policy regarding water sports on the Seven Seas Lagoon in the wake of an alligator killing a toddler in June 2016? This is a possibility. They have added fences and more warning signs. When we were checking out the resort, we were excited by the idea of renting a boat.

We saw the over-water bungalows and decided that this is where we needed to stay with the kids. They are so cute! However, when we tried to book them, they were also sold out.

Our second stop was The Grand Floridian Resort. I knew that this was just too fancy for our family vacation, but isn't this hotel gorgeous? I love the Victorian theme. Look at the Gingerbread House! It's huge and smelled amazing. I don't know when, but one day, I'm staying here. It's on the bucket-list!

The Contemporary Resort was our last stop. This has never been my favorite, primarily due to the modern (1970's modern) theming. It has a cold, sparse feel to me, especially the pool area, which was our primary concern for our summer vacation. We are a family that likes our pool time. Dan got excited, because the monorail actually goes through the building, which is snazzy. The History buff in me, gets a kick out of The Contemporary being the site of Nixon's famous, "I'm not a Crook" speech. After walking around the grounds, I warmed up to The Contemporary, as Dan's enthusiasm started to rub off on me.

So, where did we stay for our summer 2016 trip? None of the above.

We really wanted a two bedroom suite and the options for these hotels were both limited ( including sold-out) and very expensive. Since we had such a great trip staying off-site and didn't feel like we had missed out on any of that Disney Magic, we decided to stay off-site. We found the perfect kid-friendly family resort, close to the parks that met our needs for a fraction of the price of Disney...more on that in a future post!

Winter Holiday 2015/2016 - EPCOT (First Time)

The title to this post might be a little misleading; this was not the first time that Dan or I had ever been to EPCOT, but it was the first time together, and the first time on this trip. Time permitting, EPCOT is not a one visit per vacation kind of place. Not only is it massive, but it's the type of park made for strolling, and enjoying at a more leisurely pace than perhaps, Magic Kingdom. We picked EPCOT to follow our massive Universal day, precisely for its laid-back vibe.

Just look, cute topiary when you enter the park.

The first stop, always, is Spaceship Earth. The park was still fairly busy with holiday crowds, so we made sure to get a Fast Pass for Spaceship Earth and breezed right on inside.

One of Spaceship Earth's highlights, is the end, where you can create "your future" by answering a series of questions based on your likes, such as "wind or solar" or "city or country". When you exit the attraction, sometimes you can catch your picture on the wall. Here we are, in our future, floating in space. Dan's wearing green and I'm in orange, we are wearing the other person's favorite color.

Next we visited Figment at the Imagination Institute for the Journey Into Imagination attraction. No Fast Pass needed, the queue move fast here.

I love Figment! He's mischievous and silly. I still have a small Figment stuffed animal from my first trip to Walt Disney World, when I was thirteen.

There are several, creativity testing games in the Imagination Institute. I thought that when we brought the kids to EPCOT the following summer, that they would enjoy this more than we did. I can verify that we enjoyed hopping on squares that make noises, as much as the kids do.

After all of that expended energy, we needed a nap...on to Ellen's Universe of Energy.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Ellen's Universe of Energy, but sitting in the dark, in a slow moving vehicle always seems to induce a nap. For better or worse, this classic attraction will soon be no more. I'll miss Ellen and Stupid Judy.

Bouncing back to high energy, we used another Fast Pass for Mission Space, an attraction that was new to Dan. It's exciting to watch someone experience a new attraction. I probably get more excited about it than they do. We went hard core and did the orange training, which is the intense, "you might need the barf bag" ( they really do have barf bags on the ride) version. There is a less intense version for people that get motion sickness, but want to experience the story part of the attraction. I can just barely handle the intense version, but I always feel slightly queasy for a few hours afterwards. Dan loved it.

Back to low energy, we walked over to The Land pavilion and rode Living with the Land, a leisurely boat ride that teaches about agricultural techniques. At the risk of sounding dorky, this has long been one of my favorite EPCOT attractions. I love the education aspect and it's just really cool to float through a greenhouse and see unusual produce. On a previous trip, I took the, Behind the Seeds Tour, which is a guided walk into the green house for a closer look. It's so cool, inexpensive, and totally worth doing!

When we excited the pavilion, the sun was setting, and we took these pictures of the fountains. So pretty.

And back to high energy with Test Track. Test Track is arguably the best attraction at EPCOT and usually has a long queue, so we used our last Fast Pass of the evening. I was surprised by some of the changes that had been made to the attraction. First, a design studio has been added to the queue. In the Chevrolet Design Studio, you can create a virtual car, which is then tested on performance against other car designs during the ride. It's a lot of fun. We knew that Felix, my car-crazy stepson, would go nuts over this during our upcoming summer vacation. He loved it, as did his older sister. The actual attraction had some changes too. They had made it look more sleek and futuristic, which honestly, was a bit uninspired. I miss the cow.

In our marriage, we have a little game we play, where Dan wants a new car and I say no. Right now, he is keen for a truck, so we had to spend a good chunk of time checking out the Chevy trucks, while Dan explained why we need one. I think he will wear me down eventually, Dan is good at playing the long game!

Dan left all of the dining planning in my hands. I was in heaven. I also had an eye towards hitting restaurants that I knew wouldn't be on the agenda on our summer trip with the kids. Dan looked longingly towards the Yorkshire County Fish and Chips in the UK Pavilion, as we kept walking toward Morocco.

I had dined at the Marrakesh Restaurant once, many years ago, and I had a positive experience. Although many of the restaurants in the World Showcase are very good, coming from Los Angeles, nothing seems too exotic or special. The Marrakesh Restaurant is probably the most unique, although I'm sure a similar menu could be found at several restaurants in Los Angeles. We have recently moved to Portland, Oregon, which although is much smaller than LA, it is considered a "foodie" city, and I'm also sure that any type of cuisine offered in the World Showcase, could be found here. The world is rapidly becoming more and more accessible.

That said, we dinned at the Restaurant Marrakesh and ordered a dinner sampler meal called, Marrakesh Feast, washing it down with a pitcher of sangria. I really enjoyed the Beef Brewat Roll; cinnamon and beef are a surprisingly delicious combination.

As we walked back through the World Showcase, we stopped in the UK Pavilion and marveled at the insane prices for UK products. Similar to our local English market, the export prices are outrageous. If you have a lot to buy, it would practically be cheaper to fly to Europe and stock up at Tesco. We got a kick out of the Union Jack cardigan and Downton Abbey themed jewelry. Oh, and Excalibur, you gotta have a sword to be a proper UK Pavilion.

Spaceship Earth looks so pretty at night. See you for round two in a few days EPCOT!

England March 2013- Cadbury Factory

I had visions of chocolate rivers, Oomph-Loompas and Everlasting Gobstoppers, but sadly, the Cadbury Factory in Bournville didn't have any of those things. However, the Cadbury Factory did have chocolate. Lots of yummy chocolate and really, what else do you need?

We set off early on a Thursday morning and the sluggish highway turned into a dead stop shortly into our journey. The traffic is bad in Los Angeles, but it's almost worse in England. The highways have less lanes in England, so if there is a problem, there's no way around it. You're stuck.

Dan took a screen shot of our traffic nightmare.

We got off the highway and took a detour through country roads. It was slow going, as we were not the only ones who had the idea, but at least we were moving and seeing cute towns.

Sense and Sensibility fan?

The gate to what we imagine to be a huge mansion. The house was set so far back off the road that we couldn't even see part of it through the gates.

i love the vines on this house.

A factory in the distance.

The gate to what we imagine to be a huge mansion. The house was set so far back off the road that we couldn't even see part of it through the gates.

The funniest moment of the drive came when we saw this guy wearing his PJ bottoms while walking his dog.

We got the kids to yell out the window "Put some pants on!!!". It was followed by an explosion of giggles.

The traffic was so bad, that we had to take a break midway on our trip. We needed a break and lunch, so we stopped at a traveler's center that had a bunch of American fast food chains. I feel like I should apologize to the UK for the crap that America has sent over. Fast food is not an export that makes me proud to be an American!

Old fashioned phones at the travel center.

Starbucks and Krispy Kreme. I saw more Krispy Kreme in the England than I have in California.

KFC and Papa Johns.

After a long car ride, we finally arrived at the Cadbury factory.

Driving into the Cadbury Factory parking lot.

The main entrance.

We went inside and purchased our tickets.

The tickets have a timed entry and we had to wait over an hour until we could go inside. We headed to a separate part of the facility called The Bournville Experience.

In the Bournville Experience, we learned all about George Cadbury and his vision. Prior to Cadbury building his factory in 1879, the area had been quite a dump and its residents living in squalor. Cadbury christened the town Bournville (using the word Ville was in vogue at the time) and he used his Quaker beliefs as a guide to running both the town and his company. It turned into a company town with the employees benefitting from good wages, nice homes, pensions, literacy and health programs.

Another big part of Bournville was temperance. Cadbury's Quaker beliefs led him to abstain from alcohol and he believe it to be a big root of societies problems. To this day, there are no pubs in the town. I guess the absence of alcohol is more than compensated for by the abundance of chocolate!

Design your own candy wrapper.

A model of Bournville

Part of the Cadbury factory. I took the picture before seeing the very small "No Photography sign" and then i thought, screw it, I'll share the picture on my blog. The secrets of the cadbury Factory for all of my readers. (evil laugh)

A mock candy shop.

The mock candy shop had an interactive feature where you could design your own candy wrapper.

We still had time to kill after our Bournville education, so we let the kids run wild in the adjacent playground.

The Cadbury factory and playground.

The kids had a great time in the playground.

The Cadbury factory and playground.

Train info

Cadbury train

Take a good look at the cocoa bean character in the picture below. It will be referenced later!

It finally came time to go into the Cadbury factory. At the entrance, we were each given two full size candy bars to munch on. This was not the only point in which we were given candy bars, they also gave us more half way though. Maybe people have chocolate emergencies and need the sustenance to make it through the entire tour? I have to admit that all of the talk of chocolate makes it impossible to refrain from eating it. The power of Cadbury is so strong that I've already consumed two creme eggs while writing this post!

The first part of the factory tour was a walk through an Amazon jungle to learn about the origins of cocoa beans.

"Snakes, I hate snakes"...says Dan in his best Indy voice.

Deep into the jungle..complete with animatronic animals and people.

From the jungles, we are led to the streets of Victorian- Era London and encounter costumed actors in period garb playing characters and interacting with the crowd. This is where the message of the evils of city life and alcohol were driven home. George Cadbury emerges as a savior figure to led the way to the good life in his model town.

I need to stop here and point out that George Cadbury and his vision for Bournville sound a lot like Walt Disney and his original plans for EPCOT. Cadbury got his town built before Disney was even born.

The entire Cadbury World experience feels like it was built by Disney imagineering. It's an immersive experience, where everything is highly sensory and interactive. The focus is on fun with the education component slickly placed.

The actors fed us into a theater where various projections on several screens told the story of Cadbury's beginnings and beliefs. A bit redundant for those of us who had already been to the Bournville experience.

After the Cadbury film, we were ushered into a second small theater to learn how cocoa beans are harvested and processed. This theater had interactive elements, including the moving seats and bursts of air hitting us in the face. It was mild and entertaining.

After the movies we were fed into a tour of the actual factory, which included seeing all the processing and labeling machines. Neat to see. Dan's kids wrote their names in chocolate on a giant slab of marble and we saw artists creating custom chocolate sculptures.

Chocolate art.

A chocolate artist. She is working off of a picture of a train and recreating it in chocolate.

Chocolate art.

I was most surprised to find a dark ride inside of the Cadbury factory. It had the cocoa bean characters in animatronic form and only served to solidify my feeling that we were at a Disney park. The kids loved it.

The exit of the ride fed into a hall showing all of the Cadbury advertisting campaigns, past to present.

Diary Milk

Cow!

Curley Wurley!

Dairy Milk stained glass.

Just like everything at a Disney Park, the Cadbury World experience ended with an exit into the gift shop.

Remember the cocoa bean character? The promotion of the cocoa bean guy is so slick that Dan's three year old (who doesn't even like chocolate) walked right into the gift shop and picked up a chocolate cocoa bean guy, insisting on it for his souvenir. Well played Cadbury, well played.

We went nuts in the store.