Quick trip to Orlando

Andrea and I drove to Bloomington on Wednesday night where we spent the night. Our flight left early in the morning and landed around Noon on Thursday. We immediately went to Disney Springs where we shared a clambake at The Boathouse. We walked around Disney Springs afterward. It was really nice as it wasn’t too busy and the sun was shining. We walked down to Pepe, the counter-service to the larger restaurant, Jaleo. Both are new and are Spanish. Andrea knew to get a lemon, cinnamon ice cream. Here is something like it: https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-leche-merengada-recipe-3082981

We then went to check into our hotel. For dinner, we went to Sweet Tomatoes. It is the best restaurant ever for less than $10 each. Afterwards, we went shopping at the outlets and walked around the Boardwalk where we saw IllumiNations.

On Friday, we had breakfast at Starbucks in Disney Springs and met Bev around 10 a.m. We went to Epcot and rode Spaceship Earth, Soarin’, Test Track, and Nemo & Friends. We also walked around the world twice. Andrea knew what food to eat at the Flower and Garden kiosks. We had roasted cauliflower, beets, turnips, Impossible meatballs, a cool terrarium pudding where all the flowers were edible, salmon, etc.

For dinner, we went to Grand Floridan Cafe. The waitress said the best thing on the menu was the shrimp and grits, so I had that while Andrea and Bev had a steak. Bev had 40% off the entire meal, so it wasn’t too bad. During dinner, Bev mentioned her tickets were park hoppers, so we went over to Magic Kingdom after dinner. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean and went to the Hall of Presidents. Andrea and I checked for Big Thunder FastPasses and there was one for 11:15 p.m. Andrea had the idea to refresh the times multiple times and we were able to get the FastPass for 9:45 p.m. Big Thunder is always the best. We went to get a dole whip and they had this dole whip designed liked Hei Hei from Moana. It is the picture of the ice cream with the eyes. It is creative. We got back to our hotel around Midnight after seeing the fireworks and the castle light projection show. It was a really fun day at Disney with friends.

Today, as we do not have passes anymore, we discovered agri-tourism. We went to a Farmer’s Market in Winter Garden, rode bikes on the West Orange Trail, and went to two agri-tourism farms. We bought mangoes, peaches, and tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market. We picked white peaches and blueberries from the blueberry farm. We also went to Showcase of Citrus and purchased an orange slushy. We ate at a new Sweet Tomatoes before taking a short nap at our hotel. For dinner, we went to Disney Springs and ate at Wolfgang Puck Express just sharing a pizza.

We ate a lot of food, but we did walk over 20 miles in less than 3 days. We are headed home tomorrow.