Epcot Food and Wine Festival

 We got an early start as the sun was rising we were headed across Tampa Bay towards Orlando to enjoy the Epcot food and wine festival.

 We arrived at WDW about 9:00.  We got Grace checked in at Best Friends for a day of doggie day care. It took what we thought was too long to get her checked in- 9:45 and we are on our way to Epcot.
 We decided to purchase annual passes.  With the Florida residents discount, if you spend 5 days in the park, you come out ahead.

There are some really good deals if you are willing to accept black out dates. This time we opted for no black out dates. We purchased the pass at AAA because there is an additional discount.  Once at the ticket center we got our "official passes." This also took a little time. Can you guess who is Minnie and who is Goofy?

 OK -in the park about 10:30.
We rode the new "Fast Track" and then headed to the world showcase for the main event - eating and drinking our way around the world :).  There are specialty booths set up all around with unique foods from each country.  The food is served in small portions. So, it is like a giant tapas bar.

First stop for me- Australia for a lamb chop.  Catherine has a scallop and rice from Brazil.

Then Mexico for a Sangria and a Dos Equis to wash it down.  We enjoyed our first bites with a view of the lake.

What a beautiful day!

I had pot stickers in China and then we strolled on to Germany.  We both got small dark beers and then discovered that "cheese" has its own country.  We got a sampler to enjoy with our dark beer - good stuff. We enjoyed our beer and cheese in a makeshift "Biergarten".

 At the Poland booth Catherine got "zapiekanki" (kind of like polish pizza) and I had a pierogi and kielbasa both were good.  After our polish food, we decided to take a break from eating and drinking and visit the "American Experience attraction."

We got there just in time to see "The Voices of Liberty" begin their performance.  Have a listen...

After the performance and the attraction, we moved on.  I purchased a "Stella" in Belgium and Catherine got a "cosmo slush" and some Escargots (which we shared) in France. 

Almost all the way around, it has been fun, but we were starting to feel like this kid in the stroller.
We shopped a bit in England.  I purchased a "keep calm and carry on" t-shirt. 

We stopped and listened to "Off Kilter" in Canada.  We always enjoy them.  Our last bite was a "kalua pork" slider from Hawaii.  We shopped a bit more, enjoyed another small beer and then made our way out of the park.  We picked up Grace and got back home about 7PM.  A long but very fun day :)