One Exciting Ride

This week has been filled with lots of excitement! For those of you to don't know, I'm a writer for the Tips From the Disney Divas and Divos blog and this week three of them happened to come visit Walt Disney World with their families. It was great to meet some of the people who I knew so well online and to actually make a connection with them. It makes the writing community seem just a little smaller once you know someone in person rather than just online.

Dopey Diva

Tangled Diva all dressed up for Halloween

Nick the Disney Divo

Last Thursday my roommate Courteney and I headed out to Hollywood Studios for a day of fun, and after checking in with my fellow blog writers we decided to have lunch at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. Let me tell ya, this place is the best! I seriously recommend that everyone go to this place at least once. Just like the name sounds, it's themed for the 1950's and you feel like you are walking into a real 50's house. Once their you are called to dinner "Steindorf kids, it's time for dinner!!" and you are taken in where your 'Uncle' or 'Aunt' is your server. Uncle Tim was our server and he was awesome. Not only did he make us get up and wash our hands before we ate, but he kept coming back and giving us a hard time. And of course, when he saw me with my cell phone out I got a very stern "No toys at the dinner table'! Not only is the Atmosphere great, but so is the food. Of course everything is a home recipe from a family member and everything comes in big portions. I had meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans and I was stuffed the rest of the day. Once again, Uncle Tim made fun of me for licking my plate clean. Courteney and I didn't have any room for desert but we vowed to go back there one day just for the deserts, which have big portions just like dinner. And the Prime Time has a Peanut Butter and Jelly milkshake and is definitely a must try! (Have I sold ya yet?) Let's just say it was one of the best dining experiences I had ever had and I would gladly go back again and again.

This is where you get called for dinner

Our table! Look close, the Disney name is on the TV

Team Yen Sid!

Tuesday night was the Fantsyland Mystery Challenge, which is a once a year bonding event that takes place after the park is closed. The game changes every year, but this year it was a giant game of Clue! We had to wander around the areas within the Pinocchio Village House and the "it's a small world" queue and solve mysteries and play games to get clue cards. The more times it took us to figure out the answers the less cards we got. My team was only down one card at the end and unfortunately guessed the wrong one, but we weren't the first one to turn it in anyway so it didn't matter. What did matter was that it was a total blast! The challenges were things like charades, matching games, song writing and many more. I'm so glad I didn't miss this event and I love how much fun it is to work in the Magic Kingdom

Wednesday morning I went to auditions for the college program which would allow me to be a character performer and extend my program. I don't really want to extend my program anyway since I only have a semester left of school, but I thought I would go just for the heck of it. I was pretty worried about my foot since I hadn't been in jazz shoes, or really danced since I broke my foot, but it turned out to be fine. The combination was simple but it was really obvious that they were only looking for specific things, and I didn't fall into those categories. The size of the group that went was crazy. The auditions were supposed to start at 9am, so me and a few Fantasyland friends got there at 8am and we got numbers 306-308. They ended up starting to take people in to audition in smaller groups at about 8:30 because I think they realized they just needed to get people out. Personally, I wished they would have just said at the beginning "this is what we are looking for so if you aren't that please turn around" It would have saved there time and a lot of other people's time, but I guess there is always that off chance that you aren't what they are looking for and they take you anyway. What I really like is that they head casting director (who I have seen before) started his Disney career in the College Program at Food and Beverage, so it proves you really can make it in this company if you try. For now I will look for other auditions while I'm here and then I'll continue to keep my eye on the calender for the ones in California.

Thursday was my first time at the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival. Courteney and I decided to work our way backwards because we liked the last food countries better than the first. We only made it though Scotland, Hawaii and Greece before we had to head to the Festival Center for our 'Beverage Seminar'. Here we listened to Marco Antonio De Martino talk about the Vina De Martino Vineyard which is one of the largest vineyards in Chile and accounts for over 12% of the vineyard land that Chile has. We tried three of their wines as he talked about making each one of them and how much care they put into each and every bottle of wine they make. It was really fascinating, even if we did only like one of the wines.

Wines from the De Martino Winery Seminar

Escargot from France!

After the seminar we headed back out to the World Showcase to continue our food tour. We hit up the dessert and champagne booth, the refreshment booth, Canada, Ireland, France, Japan, Germany, the Cheese booth and China before we decided we were far too wined and dined to continue. I'm super excited for my next chance to go and hit up all the countries we missed! I think my favorite food so far was the escargot in France and my favorite drinks have been the green tea colada from Japan and the Caposaldo sweet sparkling Moscato I had at the Festival Center while I waited for Courteney to get off work. I can't believe how much food and alcohol we drank! What's great about this festival is that all the food is appetizer size and many of the drinks are shot glass size (though you can get much bigger). It really allows you to try a large variety of food and drinks

Green Tea Colada

without getting too full or drunk. I will admit that at one point I wanted to lie down and take a nap from being so full, but even from the 13 different drinks I tried, I was not tipsy at all (except maybe a little after the colada). The other great thing is the prices! Though I was worried about how much money I would spend, most of the drinks were $3 and under and most of the food was $5 and under. Yes there were plenty that were more, but I got a lot more bang for my buck than I expected. I'm really excited that I get the chance to be here during the Food and Wine Festival because it is a really big deal and it is an awesome experience. Last time I had escargot I was on a cruise ship, and I don't think I've seen it sense! There is such a large variety of things for you to try from so many different countries, you really are eating and drinking your way around the world.