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.

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!

To say that the muscle man and I have had a crazy past few months is a bit of an understatement, what with the stress of buying our first house (or, rather, the stress of waiting forever for the short sale to go through!) and slowly moving in while renovating/refreshing 17 years worth of apathy from the previous owners… But we’re well on the way to feeling like this is our home, and the list of major projects to be completed is quickly dwindling… So when my bff said her and her boyfriend were going to disney, and would we like to come, the answer was a very quick and very enthusiastic YES! And even better is the fact that since she is a seasonal cast member, our trip was going to be incredibly cheap!

Still, we’re very frugal people, so we decided to drive down to save $$ not just on airfare, but we also decided we would ‘car-camp’ the first night so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel. We made it to FL, and started trying to decide if we wanted to stop at a rest area or find a big-box store to sleep in (we’ve done each once before this trip, both are very amicable to people sleeping in their cars, we’ve yet to experience a problem). We finally settled on a turnpike service plaza, although it was a bit warm and a bit loud (service plazas are in the median of the road, so the traffic was a bit loud, especially with the sunroof open) it was good enough for a quick night’s rest before making the short trip the rest of the way into Orlando and to the hotel for some real relaxation =)

Once we checked in, met up with my bestie and had a nap, it was off to Downtown Disney for a long overdue visit to Earl of Sandwich!

I’ve only ever had one type of sandwich from this place, but it’s really amazing! Turkey, ranch dressing, and cranberry relish… all melted into amazing toasty bread… I missed this sandwich haha!!

What a nice welcome back to the mouse house, and the muscle man was pretty impressed with his sandwich too! (don’t remember what he got, I was a bit distracted by my own indulgence haha!)

We decided that with our bellies full, we should work off some of those calories with a little putt-putt, and Disney does that wonderfully too, so off to Fantania Gardens we went! I’m pretty sure I came in last place, but only because we did not give penalties for flying off the course! Everyone save me managed to leave the green on at least one hole, but we just took a ‘throw it back on the course and keep going’ approach, on a few holes the balls landed in places where they could be played despite not being in the actual playing field, so it was quite the fun experience regardless!

I think at some point I’m going to take a trip to Disney, and just never go to a single park, and instead do all the fun stuff that there is on property that’s not a park… Mini golf, water parks, DisneyQuest… Seriously, there’s so much to do that has doesn’t involve a hopper ticket! But you know, since my friend had free tickets, we were off to the parks the next day!