Our First Trip to The Magic Kingdom

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We finally made it to Walt Disney World! This all started with our Aunt asking if we wanted to fly with her to Orlando over a weekend and of course, we all said YES. A little background, our Aunt is a flight attendant and a lot of our childhood/youth was spent on planes with her. Most of our trips were spontaneous and last minute just like our trip to Walt Disney World. Since this was our first time to the Magic Kingdom and our time there was limited, Courtney made an itinerary. She also booked our hotel, made dining reservations, bought our tickets and booked our fast passes (our own little travel agent!). Since we bought our tickets ahead of time, we were able to pick them up at our hotel. We stayed at the World Swan which was conveniently located next to Disney’s Boardwalk with only a 10 min drive to the Magic Kingdom.

While picking up our tickets, we were helped by Brent. Brent was great. We loved Brent. We told him we would blog about him because of how great he was (Hi Brent!). But seriously, he was the best. He reassured us that our itinerary was top notch, shared some fun WDW facts and gave us advice on the best (and quickest) way into the park. Per Brent’s recommendation, we used the Lyft app to order a “Minnie Van” (cute right?) to take us to Magic Kingdom. Unlike regular rideshare services, when you use the Minnie Van selection in the app, you will be dropped off right in front of the park. If you use regular Ubers and Lyfts you will be dropped off at the Transportation and Ticket Center and then have to take the monorail or ferryboat to the front entrance of the park.

First in line! We’ve done many rope drop mornings at Disneyland so we knew what to expect or so we thought… We’ve seen it at Disneyland, the fast walking and slight jogging once the rope drops with everyone trying to get to their favorite ride but we were not prepared for the actual speed and running agility of some folks visiting the Magic Kingdom. We tried to keep our group together but realized we lost our Mom…she was already ahead of us as she too was running (never underestimate a Mom).

After rope drop and our first ride of the day (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train), we stopped in front of the castle for some photos because LOOK AT IT. It’s so beautiful.

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After our castle photoshoot, we stopped in Liberty Square for some breakfast at Sleepy Hollow. This quick service restaurant was delicious, serving aaalll the waffles. We just ordered enough for the group and shared everything.

What we ordered:

Fresh Fruit Waffle Sandwich
Mickey Waffles with Strawberries and Whipped Cream
Breakfast Egg and Cheese Waffle Sandwich
Mickey Waffle with Powdered Sugar
French Vanilla Iced Coffee

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Mom just couldn’t stop looking at the castle… we don’t blame her, it was UNREAL. Just wait until the firework pictures…

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We loved Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion. It was big and grand and we loved the additional rooms with all the different details. We’re trying not to spoil the ride for those who haven’t been on it yet, but 10/10 must ride if you are at Magic Kingdom. We went on it twice!

We spent a lot of our time in Frontierland. First, we had to see the Country Bear Jamboree. This is something we miss dearly at Disneyland. The bears were out roaming so we just grabbed some popcorn sat on a bench and watched them cause some trouble.

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Brent’s Fun Fact- Keep an eye out for artist Mary Blair in “It’s a Small World”! Mary is responsible for designing the magical and dazzling style of the iconic ride.

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There was so much room for detail at the Magic Kingdom. We loved waiting in the lines so we could look at everything around us. We felt completely immersed in each world.

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Courtney made a reservation for us at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant around the same time as the parade. She asked if we could be seated on the patio so we could watch it from our table (She’s just too good).

What we ordered:

Caprese
Spaghetti with Meatballs
Scampi pasta
Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
Chocolate Cake
Tiramisu

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Next up the Peoplemover! The best way to see Tomorrowland!

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The sun was starting to set and we were starting to crash… so we decided to lay low and stake out our spot for fireworks. No one was as excited for the firework show as Courtney and we are so glad that she put this on the itinerary because this show was spectacular. It was definitely worth the wait and the crowds… Bravo!

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Food & Wine Festival 2019

Today is the last day to enjoy all the deliciousness at the Food & Wine Festival in DCA. We bought the Sip and Savor Pass ($49 with AP discount) which we love doing for all of the food events that take place at DCA. We were able to mosey along to each vendor, try what we wanted and come back at a later date to try some more! We really enjoy trying all the different foods – we’ve posted some of our favorites below!

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It was a bit chilly when we first went to try some food so we decided to stop and get the Fiscalini White Cheddar Lager Soup from the Nuts About Cheese booth. The soup was served in a mini Boudin sourdough bowl so you could eat every last bite of this delicious dish.

Close by was the California Craft Brews booth where Cody got the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Columbia Street, Amber Lager and Courtney got the Pepperoni Pizza Egg Rolls. I’ll say this now, us three siblings all have very different tastes in what we like and what we agree on. These egg rolls are something we will never agree on. I won’t name names but some thought it was amazing and others thought that that person was CRAZY.

Another glimpse into our disagreements of tastes… Kenzie was not sold on the Esquites Sweet Corn Nuggets but Courtney loved them so much she had them twice! Also, Cody loves Churros (not part of the Food & Wine Festival but worth noting).

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Like I mentioned before, we love taking advantage of our Sip & Savor Pass. We went back to DCA on another weekend to eat more food!

These next few vendors had some of our favorite dishes from the festival.

The Spice Roasted chicken on Pita with Avocado Hummus and Garlic Sauce
Artichoke Toast with California Olive Tapenade
Deconstructed Teriyaki Chicken Musubi with Pineapple Relish

Some honorable mentions:

Asian-Style Beef Barbacoa Taco with Pickled Ginger
Chocolate Crunch Cake
Chocolate Peanut Butter Churro

Posting this made us hungry…Until next year Food & Wine Festival!!

Lamplight Lounge

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We did it! We finally ate at the Lamplight Lounge on Pixar Pier. When this place first opened this past summer, the queues were INSANE. We tried a couple of times to put our name down as walk-ins but our hunger would always get the best of us. We may be late to the party with this one but it was only a matter of time that we book a reservation (a month in advance) for dinner.

The drink menu is colossal. We ordered two rounds because there were so many options! We tried boozy & non-boozy drinks and spoiler alert- they were all good.

What we ordered: 2319, Mint to Be, Infinity Fizz, Celctic Cure, Six Tentacles

There is an upstairs and downstairs for dining. The upstairs menu offers drinks and shared bites while the downstairs menu offers drinks, big bites and desserts. We made a reservation for downstairs.

Cody ordered the cheddar burger and we like to tease him over how particular he is about how he eats his food. He doesn’t like his food touching and he always eats his sides first and then the main part of the dish, is anyone else like this?

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SO many Disney bloggers/influencers were raving about these lobster nachos so of course, we wanted to try them. Honestly, we were left scratching our heads…we all took a bite and then didn’t touch them for the rest of our meal (lives). Our sweet waitress noticed the full plate of nachos pushed aside and decided to take it off of our bill. In good conscious, we CANNOT recommend the lobster nachos but we CAN recommend the ratatouille! It was sooooo good. I could’ve added a few more “o” in so but I think you get it…it was good.

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We ended our meal with these babies. We give it and the sauces that go with it a 10/10!

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Lunar New Year at DCA

Lunar New Year

It’s the Year of the Pig and we celebrated with all the Lunar New Year food at DCA. We decided to head to the park on a day that had a 50% chance of rain…which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea but that didn’t stop us from enjoying all the yummy food. Because of the bad weather, most of the performances were canceled so we weren’t able to see Mulan’s Lunar New Year Procession… I guess there is always next year!?

We purchased the Sip & Savor Pass ($39.00 before AP discount-$36.00 after AP discount) so we could try an assortment of goodies from all the different vendors. We still had some left over on our pass so we went back for seconds of our favorite foods.

Sip & Savor Pass

Vegetable Egg Roll and Chilled Sesame-Garlic Noodles

Longevity Noodle Co.

Kenzie LOVED the Vegetable Egg Roll and Chilled Sesame-Garlic Noodles from Longevity Noodle Co. Courtney’s favorite was the Mandarin Orange-Green Tea Tart from the Lucky 8 Lantern. Also, what should be noted but is not pictured, the Vietnamese Iced Coffee from the Lucky 8 Lantern… SO delicious.

Mandarin Orange-Green Tea Tart

Kenzie’s Favorite

Longevity Noodle Co. Food

There was just so much good food! We spent the rest of the day trying to walk off everything we ate, but we ate A LOT.

Prosperity Bao and Buns

Lunar New Year

Char Siu Pork Bao

Lunar New Year

Fall Dapper Day 2018

With Spring Dapper Day coming up this weekend, we decided to (finally) post our first Dapper Day experience at Disneyland! We had so much fun getting all dolled up and going into the park. We made a whole weekend out of it and booked a room at the Disneyland Hotel. Since the Dapper Day expo was taking place in the hotel they were offering discounts on rooms if you purchased your expo tickets ahead of time.

lrg_dsc00799 Once we checked in we went downstairs to check out the expo. We got there just in time to watch the San Andreas Sisters perform and we LOVED seeing everyone on the dance floor!

lrg_dsc00867 We then roamed around the exhibit hall to look at all the vendors and found a couple of shops that we really loved. Leo found a hat shop that had so many great options he couldn’t decide on what hat to get and ended up leaving empty-handed. The pressure was too much! Kenzie, on the other hand, walked away with an adorable Mickey fascinator by Hat & Mouse.

The next day we got up bright and early to have breakfast with Minnie & her friends at the Plaza Inn.

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That moment when you see your favorite character…

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After breakfast, we met Cody back at the expo to get our tintype photographs done. We saw this booth set up the day before and put our names down to get a portrait done. Jason Madsen, the photographer is great and if you’re ever in the Los Angeles area, he frequents the Melrose Trading Post so you can grab your tintype photo there too!

Voila! The final product!

We headed back into the park to walk around, grab a bite to eat and take some pics of our Dapper Day attire. Kenzie had an outfit change because she said “wearing a dress is hard work”.

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We had so much fun on our first dapper day. Can’t wait to do it again soon!

Minnie’s Valentine’s Day Surprise Scavenger Hunt

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Happy Valentine’s Day from the Happiest Place on Earth! This year, Disneyland did a scavenger hunt in search of Minnie’s secret Valentine’s Day cards that she’s hidden for Mickey and all of her friends. This was such a cute little activity to do in the parks…some were harder to find than others which let Kenzie’s competitive side really show but we had a lot of fun with it!

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We celebrated our victory of finding all the Valentine’s Day cards with some Valentine’s Day desserts! A chocolate tamale and frozen strawberry horchata…YES PLEASE.

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Christmas Time at The Parks

lrg_dsc03406 We LOVE visiting the parks during the holiday season, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until we’ve been to Disneyland! Every year we watch the Christmas Fantasy Parade… we typically grab a snack (popcorn, pretzel, churro. What’s your vice?) and mosey on down Main Street to find a spot for viewing. There were a lot of new foods to try this season, so we did our best and tried as much as we could! Lots of peppermint and eggnog treats were consumed… You can see more of our Christmas at the parks below!

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The gingerbread cookies in the parade are just as cute as the ones at Red Rose Tavern!

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The look of love…and an eggnog mustache. We weren’t kidding when we said that we consumed a lot of eggnog treats. We tried the Holiday Frozen Eggnog from Red Rose Tavern, the Eggnog Latte Cheesecake from the Jolly Holiday Bakery and these Churro Bites with Eggnog Gelato from Hungry Bear.

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Now on to one of our favorite treats from this past holiday season. We found out about these Churro Sundaes from the Golden Horseshoe during their last run for Halloween. We were sad that we didn’t have more time together SO when we found out that they were making a comeback for the holidays, we were first in line. We loved this one so much that we decided to recreate it at home! (you can see how we did that here)

The best part about this sundae is the caramel filling inside of the churros. A very sweet surprise…as expressed by Courtney below.

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Cody loves going into the Penny Arcade to look at all the sweets. Also, can anyone actually eat a beignet without getting it all over the place?? We loved these Candy Cane Beignets at the Mint Julep Bar.

Kenzie is an avid affogato consumer, so when we found out that schmoozies was putting a holiday twist on their affogato she HAD to get it…even if it was cold and raining.

Some of our favorites from the Festival of Holidays this year.

Warm Sticky Toffee Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce
Blood Orange Ginger Mule
Turkey & Stuffing Tamale with Cranberry Relish
Braised Pork Belly Adobo
Jalapeño Latkes with Chipotle Crema (spicy)
Nashville Hot Fried Turkey with Dill Pickles (So friggin spicy)

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We’ll miss you Christmas!! Until next time…

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Holiday Churro Sundae

We can’t get enough of all the holiday treats being served in the parks right now. One treat in particular is the churro sundae from the Golden Horseshoe…WE. ARE. OBSESSED! So obsessed that we needed to recreate it for a little holiday treat at home. Nothing can beat the Disneyland version but I think we got pretty darn close 😉

Mickey’s 90th Birthday!

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Mickey turned 90 earlier this month so we went into the parks to celebrate! For his birthday weekend only, the parks released Mickey-themed treats in celebration of the big 90. Us girls headed down to the park that Saturday morning to get a taste. We started with the celebration churro and it was DELICIOUS. Very messy but very much delicious. This churro had cookie butter drizzled on top of it so it wasn’t a hard sell.

After the churro, we walked around the park, took some photos…tried working up our appetite and then stopped by the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor to get the Mickey & Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake Ice Cream Sundae. This Sundae was like a melting pot of all your favorite birthday goodies; cupcakes, brownies, whipped cream and scoops of birthday cake ice cream. We could not and did not finish this sundae, we were in desperate need of extra help.

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Mickey Sundae

On Sunday we got up bright and early so we could get our Birthday pins before they ran out (which they did…around noon) and quickly found a spot for Mickey’s Birthday Cavalcade down Main Street. It was cute to see all the characters come out for Mickey’s Birthday. We loved seeing those characters that we don’t usually get to see in the parks, some of them we haven’t seen since we were kids *cough cough Jiminy Cricket*. The cavalcade stopped right in front of us and we all got to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mickey and Minnie.

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After the cavalcade, we were on the hunt for the Mickey Mouse Sipper! We headed over to DCA to try our luck and were able to snag one without having to wait in the long lines over at Disneyland.

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The Real Life UP House

UP HOUSE 5 Oh My Disney has released a docu-series called Disney People which gives you an inside look at the lives of 6 different people who all share one thing in common, their love for Disney.

One of the episodes is about the real life UP house and we NEEDED to see more. Just look at these photos! Clint and Lynnette Hamblin live in the house with their two kids. You can keep up to date on more of their adventures by visiting their blog here!