I was at first leaning towards Animal Kingdom since I hadn't seen the new additions since the last time I went, I think about 6 years ago. And there have been MANY additions including an entire "land" themed on the movie Avatar. I was also in the mood to have this visit be a taste adventure so the idea of nibbling on exotic Asian or African (or Pandoran) cuisine sounded great.
But the Magic Kingdom was in a similar situation with, like AK, a whole "land" I hadn't seen (the revamped Fantasyland) and, I thought, if I was going to go to a park on the week before Christmas, wouldn't the Magic Kingdom be the most appropriate...all decked out and twinkling with childlike glee?
But after some further consideration, I decided to pick Epcot. Yes, there have been some updates there since I last visited but I again thought about the Christmas themeing and I thought seeing all the countries of World Showcase festooned with holiday splendor would be, well, magical! While I do think I've visited all the parks during this time of year at least once sometime in the past 20 years, I don't really remember Epcot, and I wonder if, by chance, I never actually did visit it during this season?
Well, it turns out my choice was fortuitous not only in fulfilling the expectations I had, I found that I lucked out and arrived to this park on one of the last days of its "International Festival of the Holidays." Despite spending hours on the Disney World website last night, I hadn't come across any mention of this festival taking place at this time. In fact, the website still had the Food and Wine Festival info up as if it was what was going on, even though it ended a month ago.
When I was a annual passholder at Universal last year, they frequently sent me emails detailing events going on so I could plan visits based on that info. Since a month ago when I became a passholder with Disney, I've gotten exactly two emails (other than the obligatory "welcome" email) one was reminding me of the discount benefit of the pass and another was a pitch for Disney Vacation Club, their timeshare club. Nothing about this Holiday Festival. It began right after the ending of the Food and Wine Festival in mid-November. I could have been enjoying it since weeks ago!
But, fortunately, it seems that Disney has gone "all in" on the whole festival idea and even though this holiday one is ending on December 30, a new one, featuring a focus on the arts is starting in early January. I guess these festivals are popular! I know I love them, and with Sea World jumping in on the festival bandwagon, we just need Universal to fall into the fold! They used to. A long time ago, they hosted an annual Beer Festival at City Walk, back in the early 2000s. Not sure why that never kept going?
I'm trying to be good with money since, well, I have none of it coming in, you know. So I only had a few items of delicious food and beverage here and there.
In Canada, I enjoyed a small tapas serving of what they touted as "authentic" French Canadian Pork Pie. My Memere made some awesome pork pies in her day and though I've tried to backwards-engineer them, my version are not quite right. Epcot's was pretty on-point though, I gotta say. It brought back fond memories. It even came with what they called "Canadian Ketchup." We too had ketchup with our pork pies, but I'd always assumed it was an American culinary bastardisation of the real Quebec way of eating them. Nope. Apparently that's the real deal.
In England, I had a Bass Ale. I love how the servers are all from the country they're representing. Both the cashier and the girl pouring the ale had such a great Cockney accent! I wanted to bid them a "Chip, chip...Cheerio!" as I made off to give a tip of my imaginary bowler. Glad I didn't though. I would have come of as a right twat!
Between France and Morocco I had another beer but for the life of me I can't remember what! Were they hitting me that hard? Well, TBH, I was a bit woozy after riding "Mission: Space." I think the kids running the ride cranked the centrifuge up to "11" and it was like the good ol' days before they nerfed it. Must have been pulling some 6 or 7 Gs! Plus, being on phen and not eating since a light 8am breakfast...well, you know.
Sandwiched in somewhere between France, Morocco and Japan there was a kiosk called "L'Chaim!" (the traditional Jewish toast "to life!") where I got a potato knish. At $4.50 it was one of the least expensive food items and, INHO, probably the most filling. It was a relatively large mashed potato filled fried dough pocket. Sadly though, it was rather bland and even the herb sour cream topping didn't help it much.
There were some nice little street performance style shows in various lands like the French mime doing handstands on stacked up bistro chairs, a German punk rock band, a British Invasion cover band playing 80's brit rock favs and Beatles hits and a Chinese acrobat troupe. The scheduled highlight was an orchestra, chorus and (battery-lit) candlelit processional methodically crooning their way through classic traditional Christmas carols, interspersed by sermon-esque segments memorializing Christ's birth, presided over by actor Gary Sinise at a podium, in person, center stage.
(Fun-ish Fact: This is the second time I've seen Gary Sinise live, through pure happenstance since I never specifically planned to see him or anything he's been in. The first was the Memorial Day Concert at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. in 1991.)
The last "treat" of the night was a Mexican craft beer with a Kahula float. Not good.
