D23 Expo Trip - Day 5

Monday started early again (as I woke up before the alarm) with the expectation of the only full day in the parks during this trip. After getting up, showering and the rest I headed to IHOP for another pancake breakfast, at the time i noticed that i didn't have my vitamins but thought they were back at the hotel so as it was still early, i headed back to the room and could not find them, so the last place i saw them was Dennys so after a quick chat with celia via the wonders of Skype, i had to walk away from the parks to get to Dennys, where they had kept my tablets and then headed back as fast as i could walk towards the park entrance.

I only managed to get to the park 15mins before opening and already Main street was full of guests, even cutting through the shops on the right hand side of the street only got me so far before i could go no further and there were queues to get out of the stores.


Finally 9am came and the park was opened and I headed to tomorrowland, where I grabbed a FASTPASS for Star Tours and headed off to Peter Pan for my first ride, the queue was not to bad but i did have some extended familys deciding that queuing was optional and they could join their friends who were much further forward. After Peter Pan I headed back to Tomorrowland spotting the Seven dwarts grotto just outside the castle.


As it was still not time for the FASTPASS, I walked onto Buzz Lightyear which is a favourite of mine and Celia's and I got a reasonable score, I prefer this version (like Paris) that has the handheld guns rather than the fixed ones in WDW.

I just had enough time now to grab a new FASTPASS for Space Mountain before riding Star Tours, this time I got the pod racing on Tattoine and ended at GUNGAN????? I love this new multiple story line ride and still hope to get the last planet on the next trip whenever that is....

I then headed across the park to Big Thunder Mountain, but as I arrived it was closed, and as I had the space mountain FASTPASS i was unable to get another, so on to the next ride. The touring plan is was following suggested Winnie the Pooh, but as I was passing Splash Mountain the ride was showing a walk on, and the heat was warm enough that i would dry quickly, so I hoped on a log and went for a ride.


Getting off the ride it was still only just gone 10am, so with 1 hour gone I had done 4 rides and had fast passes for Space Mountain for later. As I got to Pooh it looked a little too quiet and yes it was also broken, so on with the plan, Next was Indiana Jones, and this is one of he great rides at Disneyland, I followed the single rider line as the main queue was starting to get longer than I had expected which did worry me that today was going to get busy even though it was a working day. In the queue to Indi I saw a nice nod to the other lucas production.


A trip on Pirates and the Haunted Mansion were fun and the heat of the day was starting to get more oppressive, as I headed back to Big Thunder Mountain it had re-opened but with the Fastpass for Space still in my pocket the only option was the standby queue, this took a while and was my first 20+ wait of the day, the sun was beating down, but the ride was worth the wait and as it neared midday I wandered into Toontown to get a quick ride on Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin before a better look round, before I had a time to call Celia at 1pm as that was the time she was due to be back at her hotel in Stockholm. But then in the queue time started to slow down, even though it was only shown as a 15min wait, and that was matched by the numbers shown on lines but in reality the walk through the queue took over 30 mins and by the time the ride was over I had spent almost an hour on 1 ride.


So now I had no time to tour Toon Town so I headed to the Monorail as Spurs were playing Man Utd so I had decided that lunch would be at the ESPN Zone where I assumed that I could see the match (or at least now the 2nd half). Monorail Blue arrived after a little wait and I was shuttled off to Downtown Disney district, before making my call to Sweden from a US mobile in California (have I mentioned I love Skype). At the ESPN I had a Cheesesteak with side salad and a couple of beers, whilst Spurs capitulated, but I was in Sunny Anaheim, so after the match, i headed back to the Monorail and went back to Disneyland.

The Afternoon started with Space Mountain, and a walk through Innoventions, this was a big disappointment and i really didn't see the point. By now the queue's had got a silly lengths so I headed to Main Street to await the Soundsational Parade, realising that I had the time, I popped into Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, which is a good show, though a bit cheesy for my personal taste, but the  really weird moment was leaving the show, where there are photo's of inspirational Americans. And included in the musicians are the Beach Boys, Elvis (the King of Rock), Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) and Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) WHAT YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS she is the most inspirational female, what about Madonna. and this got even sillier when on the oposite wall is Rosa Parks? Disney get a grip.


 Leaving the hall and heading back to Main Street only the east side had any space (in fact it was empty) as it was in the full heat of the sun, but I grabbed my first ever Mickey Apple and waited 10mins for the parade.


Now I love a parade and this is a good one with lots of music and dancing, I do like that Disneyland, due to their lack of space, make the front row sit down on the kerb (even though it was really hot) which does make it easier to see. A mum with her two small children sat next to me, and i can't work out how as they can both walk off she keeps them under control, and at one point i had to look after her stuff as she took them off to get snacks for the parade.


After the parade I decided to head over to California Adventure to hop a ride on Grizzly River Run as I did not want to deal with a water ride during my last morning. As I entered through the chaos of the work on Buena Vista street, i headed round past Soarin' and headed to Grizzly, the queue was 50min wait with FASSPASS'es available for 6:30 so I grabbed one and as about single rider, to be told that this was not an option at the moment, so I headed off to Paradise Pier and go a ride on California Screaming via the Single Rider line, but Toy Story was over an hour and even Goofy's Sky School was 35mins, so I headed back past Grizzly to ask about Single rider (nope still not operational), and I start to think about the sky and what time did the sun go down as I hoped that the 6:30 ride would still be warm enough. I headed off to Soarin' as Lines did show a Single Rider queue time, and yes you can ask for a single rider spot. I did have to wait for a couple of shows but did find a tween boy who was a pin trader so we had a chat about that before heading for our flight over California.

Leaving the Condor flats area and heading back to Grizzly, I finally saw that they were using Single riders so even though my fast pass time had arrived, I grabbed the Single rider pass and headed into that queue for a ride, before immediately re-riding via the FASSPASS. as you can guess I liked the ride, and I do have the feeling that as a large man I can steer the raft at least to try and AVOID being too wet, but not sure that worked out to well, but at least the heat was still going so i did start to dry, even if the shorts said a bit wet for the rest of the evening.

Wandering back into Disneyland at 7pm, the queues for most attractions are still long, but after a quick snack of a Jalapeño cheese stuffed pretzel at Bengal Barbecue, I wandered past the Rivers of America where the lights for Fantasmic where coming up and I could see how they are hidden during the day under the ground. I headed to Small World, where the ride has the Disney characters included which is a good spotting test to see if you can see them all.


As I got off the ride it was just about time for Music, Magic and you, which was good to see and I was almost forced to the front as that's where the ride exits. The show is a little bit tacky and as i was so close and the night was not that dark the actual building was still visible even without the lighting effects which does spoil the show slightly.

Leaving the area I headed to the hub for the fireworks, but as that was full I headed back down Main Street ending at the Town Square, I did see Walt's Light above the Firehouse.


Whilst waiting for the fireworks, I was able to get on-line and check-in for the flight home. The Fireworks were spectacular



As they came to an end I headed back to the hotel for rest and top pack for the last day before flying home.

Lunch at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck

Yesterday we headed to Bray for lunch at the Fat Duck. The drive from home took just over 1hour and we arrived just after 11:30 for a 12 o'clock reservation. It was a lovely sunny day so we took a wander and got some photo's of the outside, including the menu.



We didn't see Heston today but did see Ashley Palmer-Watts entering before service was to begin. Finally 12 o'clock came around and we went through a non descript wooden door and into the dinning room. Firstly the ceiling is low and with wooden beams I had to duck a few times whilst we walked round to our table.

We were seated and offered a glass of champagne, a choice of still or sparkling water, a look at the 14 course tasting menu (and Celia was informed that they would make some minor changes to some of the courses, but for 1 they needed her to choose between meat and fish, as it was pointed out that the 2 courses before the choice were both fish based, meat was the obvious answer).

We also had a look at the Wine list which was a 58 page volume that was huge and imposing , but there was only a single page for wine by the glass, I decided on a 2009 Châteauneuf du Pape, Domaine de Beaurenard from the  Rhône Valley, and Celia asked the sommelier for a semi sweet and was recommended  a 2010 Pinot Gris, Signature, René Muré from Alsace. With these chosen we received before the first course an amuse bouche made of beetroot and horseradish cream (with Celia's having the cream removed but still with horseradish). This was an interesting texture as the beetroot component was crispy almost like a cheese puff but with the taste of beetroot.



The Wine was served and then the true theatre of the lunch was started with the first course, which was listed as Nitro poached Aperitifs. We had a choice of Gin & Tonic, Vodka & lime sour or Campari Soda. Celia chose the Gin & Tonic and I went for a Vodka & lime. The waiter took a soda syphon with an egg white mousse that had been flavoured with Gin or Vodka, this was then dropped into an Ice bucket filled with liquid nitrogen which firmed up the mousse to a meringue like consistency.


For Celia this then had a lemon  twisted on it to get a taste of lemon added, and for mine a dusting of lime green tea mixture.


as Celia tried her one it broke apart so after he had served mine he made Celia another. The taste was exactly as described Gin & tonic or Vodka & lime, but the texture was an initial crunch followed by nothing, it simply dissolved in your mouth and you were just left with the flavour, and wonderful light way to start the meal.

Course 2 was a Red Cabbage Gazpacho, this arrived a small bowl in a large plate with a pommery grain mustard ice cream quenelle and some finally chopped onion in side, and then the red cabbage soup was poured over these at the table, these resulted in a wonderful light but creamy cold soup.The only problem was the shape of the bowl and spoon which meant that we were unable to get every last drop and we did discuss it but decided that licking the bowl was not the done thing in public.



As course three was brought out we saw more of the show that accompanies a Heston meal. We were brought a bowl with layers in it of pea purée, jelly of quail, crayfish cream (which was skipped for Celia's version) with a quenelle of chicken liver parfait (replaced for Celia with a pyramid of peas. This was also accompanied with a thin slice of toast, with a truffle topping (Celia's was gluten free toast), then the centre of the table was cleared and a wooden tray with moss on top, and sitting on top was a couple of film casings. We were asked to take the film out of the plastic case and place it on our tongues as it was to involke the senses of a woodland forest, then the waiter poured something from a cast iron kettle onto the moss and it started to smoke and bellow which had the smell of a forest.




The truffle toast went brilliantly with the smell of the forest, and the jelly with parfait (or peas) was nice enough and had some great textures and tastes.
As they tided away this course we noticed that the table opposite was getting the Nitro aperitifs cooked and we worked out that being early for lunch was a benefit as no-one was getting their course before us so the spectacle was all on our table first. So if you are going we would recommend the 12 o'clock seating.

The next course was a Heston classic, the Snail Porridge, which was brought out is white lidded bowls which were opened with panache and the announcement of what makes up snail porridge. For myself it was a pea soup with what looked like bulgar wheat, then with minuscule slivers of Iberico bellota ham. The on top was ribbons of shaved fennel and the infamous snails. Unfortunately the snails had been cooked in butter so Celia's version was missing both the wheat and the snails, but she said that is did not harm the flavours, and was soon scrapping the bottom of the bowl trying to get every last morsel.  For me the snails were just there, they do not have a bad flavour but I also would not rush to have them again, they were a bit chewy but worth trying if you have the chance.



They then offered us some bread and butter, the butter was either Carmarthenshire or Cornwall as we can't remember what they said as we both seem to heard something different, but it was wonderfully rich. Celia was given some gluten free toast and some olive oil for dipping.

We had finished the bread before the next course came along, this was roast foie gras, served on braised kombu (which is a Japanese seaweed) This must have been prepared with butter as it was missing from Celia's plate, I also had a crab biscuit, which did not taste of crab, but Celia was given a Cep gluten free option. We also had a barberry sauce on the plate to eat with the liver.




The sixth course was pre-announced with a bookmark explaining the history of Mock Turtle Soup and the link to Alice in Wonderland. Then the bowl was brought out with a collection of strange shapes within.



The main parcel was Ox Tongue and the egg at the front is made of Turnip and Swede juice, with Celia's (shown) using soya cream rather than standard cream.

The Waiters then brought out a cup of water for me and stock for celia, and we were told that the White rabbits watch was broken and he thought that it would be best to put it in hot water to fix, but then the watch got even more broken and we were told to pour it over the bowl to create our Mock Turtle Soup.


The 7th course signalled the half way stage of the meal and was listed as "Sounds of the Sea", the first sign this was a little different was when 2 sea shells were brought out with white headphones coming from the depths of them.


Then the food was brought out and it looked just like a sea scene but the waitress would not describe what it all was


The "sand" was crisp and salty, the fish was undercooked for my preference but I am not a great fish fan but it was still delicious and with the sounds of the sea being played through the headphones whilst you ate gave the whole course a feeling of the seaside.

After we had finished the course, we were told that the sand was a mixture of tapioca and mackerel and the types of fish that were included, but I can't remember what they were now.

The eight course was Salmon poached in a liquorice gel, served with roasted artichokes, vanilla mayonnaise and golden trout roe. This was almost a simple dish for the meal, as it was served simply and tasted great, the salmon was pink in the centre. But the star of this dish was the vanilla mayonnaise.



We now finally came to the main course (also known as course 9) and for this course we were both served something different and I had also ordered a glass of 2005 Château la Gasparde from the Bordeaux region, which complemented with the Anjou Pigeon. The Pigeon was served with a Blood pudding sauce (which was absolutely wonderful), some small turnips and onions, and some pigeon crackling. It also came with a risotto of spelt and umbles, this was the star of the course, creamy and flavourful, the spelt giving a great texture and the umbles provining flavour and this was topped with Sugar puffs, which is a little bit childish but also so Heston.



Celia was given a roast belly pork with cabbage, which just seemed out of place in the whole meal, it was OK, it tasted nice and was cooked to perfection and anywhere else it would have been great but against the rest of the courses, and indeed my Pigeon (even if I spent the rest of the day calling it duck).



We were now on the final straight, but had already been eating on and off for almost 2.5 hours. The next course was a palate cleanser, a cup of Hot & Iced Tea.


Now the picture of this can't prepare you for the strangeness of drink a drink that is hot on 1 side and cold on the other, and as you drink it they stay hot on a side and cold on the other. The hot side is slightly more viscous and we assume this is why they don't mix but you must understand the it is all liquid, not like a jelly on one side.

We had now moved into the dessert course and first up was Taffety Tart, which is also on the menu at Dinner that we went to a few week ago, but neither of us had had it there. So it was block of caramelized apple, fennel and rose cream with very crisp pastry for me and the thinnest slivers of apple for Celia (and no cream) it was served with a blackcurrent sorbet on the side and was delightful. Again there was little show in the course just a dessert that was put together to delight the taste buds.



The twelfth course was entitled the "BFG" or black forest gateau and although we hadn't been told in advance Celia received something different. We had ordered a couple of glasses of the dessert wine recommened in the menu for this course which was a 2009 Alella, Dolç Mataró, Alta Alella from Catalonia, which was surprising that it was a red dessert wine.



The cake was in the tower and ice cream was kirsch flavoured which made a lovely dessert and the sweetness of the wine went perfectly with the whole gateau.



Celia dessert initially seemed to be a chocolate mousse inside a hard chocolate cylinder, however once she got to the base, that was also harder chocolate but held a secret inside, Space Dust, Pop Rocks or what every you want to call the crackling candy and the grin that came across her face was a delight.


We were then asked if we wanted to add a 15th course to the meal, in the style of a cheese plate, but decided against it and we continued with the penultimate course of Whisk(e)y Wine Gums, These arrived on a photo frame, with the locations of the various whisk(e)y involved. Now with normal wine gums they all seem to taste the same, but with these you could taste the individual whisky's. We were advised to eat them in order as they did increase in strength as you went through the gums.



We were asked if we wanted Tea with our final course, and the tea menu went up to £35 for a cup, and some of the teas had fascinating names but most were also quite expensive for a cup of tea, Celia did take a coffee that she had whilst we had our final course, described in the menu as "Like a Kid in a Sweet Shop", which arrived as a candy striped bag containing 4 small sweeties. Listed as Aerated Chocolate, Coconut Baccy, Apple Pie Caramel and The Queen of Hearts. Due to diatry issues Celia had to give up the Apple Pie caramel and the Queen or hearts, and as I don't like coconut I swapped my coconut baccy.

The Aerated Chocolate, was flavoured with a mandarin gel and was like a small high quality aero, with an orangey taste, the holes were large in a chocolate almost 5mm.
The Coconut baccy, was grated coconut infused with black cavendish tobacco, but doesn't taste of tobacco and tastes like a mild smokey coconut. It looked like brown slivers.
The Apple Pie caramel was a chewy sweet in a edible wrapper, and did taste of apple pie, but the star of these sweets was the Queen of Tarts.

 The Queen of tarts looked like a playing card but when you bit into it it was a strawberry filling surrounded by white chocolate with the playing card design printed on. even the "wax" seal on the envelope was edible.

As so we came the end of a 4 hour marathon lunch, during which we were delighted, engaged, fed, watered and made to feel special. I am so glad that we had this meal and now we move to to look for other meals and travels around the globe.

 

D23 Expo Trip - Day 4

So the final day of the expo dawned, and I had adjusted a bit more to the time change so was only just awake as the day actually dawned, but after the normal morning routine of shower, breakfast (today back at Denny's) and a video skype chat with Celia. I headed to the conference centre a lot later than the last two days as I arrived it was 8:30 and I was taken aback but the absence of a line, where was everyone.
I headed straight up the escalators as today the arena shows were not interesting for me (Marvel & Disney Channel) so I was planning on being in and out of Studio 23 watching the smaller presentations, and first up was on the architecture of the latest Disney Cruise liners. I made it in to the holding pen room and waited for about 10 minutes before they started to unload the waiting room and move us to the stage. As we have never been on a cruise, the presentation was fascinating just even to see the boats in some detail.

And what they could have been.

The details on the Aquaduck and the story behind it, opened up the fact that every thing in Disney has a back story.

The ideas on the inside virtual portholes almost make them the preferred place to stay especially if we get to see Pooh bear floating past.

But the highlight was when we moved onto the Fantasy and how they plan to make an entire restaurant of animators. The plan goes like this, as you sit down to dinner you will receive a placemat

where you can design a character and draw them any way you want

Then after this has been drawn all the mats are taken away and fed into a computer system, which will based on where you are sitting ensure that you can see your character being animated along with classic pieces of Disney animations, anyway that is sort of the descriptions but it is probably just easier to see this

And the after the meal you get your placemat returned with a stamp showing that you are an honouree Disney animator. Now this is something I want to do…
After the presentation and with no other presentations to attend in the morning I was deciding what to do, when I bumped into Deb Wills from Allears.net and we had a little chat about the cruise line and how to combat seasickness as this could be an issue for my wife. I headed off to try and see the Disney Archives exhibit. As I got into the queue (as people seemed to have arrived now) there were announcements that the Marvel presentation still had spaces, but I got into line and was told it would be about 30 mins from where I was, well 1 hour later I finally got into the room. But it was worth the wait, First up was the Mickey mouse toy that rode with Walt on the train during the opening of Disneyland, along with a collection of maps and tickets from opening day.

There was a re-creation of an animators studio, and the original books from the Snow White film, there was also a whole section on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, including maquettes of Roger, Benny the cab and Jessica

I did get to meet the man who started the archives Dave Smith, who was just sitting in the room happily talking to anyone who wanted to meet him.

There were a lot of costumes in this display including Eddie Valiant and Delores from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and Alice from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and various characters from Pirates, Lost and Tron.

Finally leaving the archive, I headed back to the hotel to grab a salad (and a slice of cheesecake that had been in the fridge since Thursday) for lunch hoping to eat whilst I waited in the queue and then headed back to the Stage 28 queuing area to find that I was already too late to get into the queue for the Cars land even with over hour and half before the show was going to start and the queue for the following presentation on Star Tours was already forming. The queuing on this last day was getting even more out of hand. Deciding that I was not going to queue for more than 3 hours for a presentation on star tours I headed to the D23 Charter member lounge to eat lunch and take stock of plans for the rest of the day. I quickly decided that the presentations were out as the queues were already looking way to long to be enjoyable. Discussing this with some of the other members in the lounge we did come up with the idea of showing the current Stage 28 presentation in the queue room for the next one, so that at least you had something interesting to watch whilst you waited.
After lunch I had decided just to wander around the show floor, and found myself heading towards the pin traders, even though I had met some of them before at Westward Ho, there were new faces and I quickly had to pop back to the room to grab my trader bag to get some new pins. But as it came up towards 3 and with the queuing not getting any shorter I headed back into the lounge for a round of trivia competitions and won another pin, and was also awarded a recycling Bin from Paul Anderson of the Walt Disney family museum, who is slightly mad, but they did pose for a photo with the bin, as I tried to take a picture of them asking questions.

Finally I had had enough of the Expo and decided to try and get to Target to grab a few items so that the next 2 days could be just about touring the parks, Oh that was a long walk and the sun was HOT, and the way my luck was going the stuff I was after the didn't have and my knee that I had hit before fantasmic the night before was still stiff and looked like it was starting to swell. But the walk to and from the shop did give me time to think and review what I had missed and the only thing that came to mind was to see the Talking Mickey, so when I got back to the Expo an hour or so after I left, that where I headed. He was in the Parks and Resorts pavilion but that did not have much of a queue as I think most people were still revolving around the various presentations and queue in studio 28. But he did have a short queue and went off for a break during my time in it, but this was no worst that the character meet and greet queues you get in the parks. Just behind me in the queue was Deb Koma from allears so I had met both debs on the same day. Having met Mickey on multiple occasions in the park, it is weird when he can talk and the mouth moves, but his vocabulary is a bit limited but we had a chat and a photo

And that was that, it seemed the obvious end to the Expo but I did have 1 last walk around the show floor, spotting a Tinkerbell

And a great Eye test T-Shirt but with no indication as to where you can get this,

I also had a last pop into the dream store and picked up a Tronorail diecast model, but then headed to the hotel dropped of my stuff and tried to decide where I was going that night. In the end on the walk up to the entrances I tossed a coin which on landing tails meant I was heading to Disney California Adventure for the evening. I headed to the Backlot area and grabbed a fast pass for Tower of Terror and then as my hunger had got the better of me to the Pacific Wharf area for some food, As I entered this area I was stopped by a group of girls as they were fascinated by my T-Shirt which is a Star Wars Coffee (May the Froth be with you) with a storm trouper drinking a cup and wanted to get a photo, this was all a bit surreal especially when the tattooed Californian girl turned out to be from Ilford, Essex but based on her accent that was when she was very young. I went to Cocina cucamonga Mexican Grill where I had half a burrito and felt more and more pain in my leg, I did try to ride California Screamin' but got very confused with the single rider setup, and wanting to see ElecTRONica and especially the Laserman show I headed back around the park to the backlot area.
ElecTRONica is just an open air nightclub, themed to look a bit like the GRID from the movie but the laserman show was brilliant, a mixture of smoke mirrors and great timing

But the leg was hurting more than I would like but I remembered the strapping I had found in the suitcase when I unpacked so decided that I should get that on to try and reduce the swelling. I did bump into Ricky Brigante as I was leaving the Tron area, and without even using my fast pass for Tower of Terror I headed back to the hotel for an early night.