Food Blog Forum Orlando Disney Trip {Part Two}

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{ Food Blog Forum Orlando Disney Trip {Part Two} }

If you’ve been following along, you know that I was able to go to Walt Disney World a few weekends ago for an amazing Food Blogger Conference put together by some amazing people from Food Blog Fourm!

I spent 4 days in the magical world of Disney, learning how to make my blog better, networking with a group of inspiring food blogger, and sampling some down right scrumptious foods!

I covered Friday and Saturday of the trip in this post: Food Blog Forum Orlando Disney Trip {Part One}.That included our Welcome Reception at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, the conference at Epcot, lunch provided by Walt Disney World and the St. Patrick’s Day Dessert Party with the Epcot Illuminations!!

Now, I want to share Sunday with you! It was packed full!

Sunday we had to check out of the Polynesian Resort, bright and early to head over to Whole Foods in Orlando for brunch! Yes, Whole Foods hosted a brunch for a group of food bloggers, and they did not disappoint! You know, I never knew how much companies loved food bloggers until I went on this trip. Disney and Whole Foods were so excited to be working with us. It was wonderful!

Back to the brunch. 🙂

Anybody that gives me Chocolate truffles for breakfast is a friend of mine!

This yogurt bar was something new to me, but it’s a great idea! I can see myself using this idea for brunch in the future!

Sweet and Savory Items lined the tables for our brunch. Do you see that Banana Stuffed French Toast up there? Yes, that was just a tiny piece of banana heaven in a bowl!

I did manage to grab a few pictures with some of the great people that were there!

Left to Right:
#1. Amanda (Amanda’s Cookin) and I
#2. Angie (Bakerella), Myelf, and Jenny (Picky-Palate)
#3. Myself and Denise (Creative Kitchen)

After Brunch, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom. I had not been to Disney as an adult until now, but it is just as wonderful as I remembered!

How pretty are those balloons!

We walked down Main Street USA taking in all of the sights, and after watching the end of one of the parades, we slipped into the Main Street Confectionery to check out some of the Disney goodies!

Look at those Minnie Mouse Apples!

Cinderella’s Castle and Walt Disney with Mickey!

The castle is so pretty! I loved the murals inside!

While we were at the Magic Kingdom I only had two rides that were on my “Must Do List”. Peter Pan’s Flight and The Haunted Mansion. Peter Pan is my favorite Disney Movie ever and with the Haunted Mansion being “Haunted”, yeah… I loved it!

Parades, Parades Everywhere! We settled down in Frontierland for a bit and had “front row seats” to the C elebrate A Dream Come True Parade. I will admit I did tear up a little during the parade because BigBear wasn’t there to watch it with me :(. One day BigBear, One day!

And what do you know, by time we rode a few more rides and had a mickey mouse ice cream, there was a show going on in front of Cinderella’s Castle.

After a long day of being at the park, we hopped onto the water ferry and rode back over to the Polynesia Resort, were we had been staying, for dinner.

‘Ohana. This place was quite the happening spot! Lucky for us, since there were only the two of us, we managed to get in with only a five minute wait. A short, easy wait for the feast that we were getting ready to have!

They started us off with salad and bread. Everything is served family style here, so huge bowls of food everywhere. Then we were served noodles, chicken wings, grilled chicken, pork, steak and veggies. And do you know that after all of the food, they still insisted that we have dessert? Holy Moly! Coconut Banana Bread Pudding **with some kind of Caramel Sauce! (That’s the middle picture up there!) It was so, so good. As in I’m not even sure I have words to describe it. But since I couldn’t share it with Big Bear, I came home and made my own version of it. (Pineapple Banana Bread Pudding with Banana Caramel Sauce)

Yep, it was that good. I had to recreate it within a week of being home.

I’ve only got a little more to share with you from my Disney Trip. Mainly Downtown Disney 🙂 Since this post is so very full of photos already, I’ll save that for another day.

If you missed Part One of my trip, you can check that out here.

A HUGE Thank You to Jaden, Scott, Diane, Todd , Dawn, Julie and Walt Disney World for everything that you all did to bring together such a wonderful event!

There are so many wonderful recaps written from the bloggers who attended Food Blog Forum – Orlando 2012. So much food, beautiful photography and stories!

Todd & Diane White on Rice Couple
Allison Ingredients Inc.
Angie Bakerella
Amanda Amanda’s Cookin
Brandi Bran Appetit
Denise Creative Kitchen Adventures
Julius Droolius
Emily Sage Recipes
Erin The Girl & Her Mutt
Gretchen What a Healthy Family Eats
Heather Life by the Spoonful
Helene Lush Lady
Jen One Curly Fry
Jenny Picky Palate
Jenny Parkers Pantry
Jeannette Jeanette’s Healthy Living
Jessica The Novice Chef Blog
Jessica How Sweet Eats
Joanne Fifteen Spatulas
Josee Josee’s Kitchen
Julie Table for Two
Katie Katie’s Cucina
Kelly Just a Taste
Kevin Pee Dee Foodie
Kim The Suburban Cook- Part 1 & part 2
Kiran Kiran Tarun
Kristen Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker
Lauren Lauren’s Latest
Lindsay Love and Olive Oil
Melissa Dash of East
Merry-Jennifer The Merry Gourmet
Michelle The Domestic Mama & The Village Cook
Monica Sweet Bites
Nikki Pennies on a Platter
Rashmi The Primlani Kitchen
Robyn Grill Girrrl
Samantha Sweet Remedy
Sarah Sarah’s Cucina Bella
Susan Sticky Gooey Chewy Creamy
Suzi Cooking’s Good
Wanda My Sweet Zepol
Yelena Cooking Melangery

Last weekend I was giving an opportunity that I never thought I would get. I was able to go down to DisneyWorld for a food blogger conference. I say that I never thought I’d get to go to something like this, because to be honest I never thought I’d be able to afford it.

Thankfully Food Blog Forum worked miracles and Disney took care of pretty much everything and I only had to pay a registration fee and travel expenses. If I could bear hug everyone from Food Blog Forum and Disney right now I would! I can’t even put into words how much this conference meant to me. Just being with other people that are passionate about food and blogging pulled me out of the “funk” I’ve been in lately. It was just a breath of fresh air. I mean for once I wasn’t the crazy chick with the camera snapping pictures of my food! There were about 100 crazy chicks and their camera doing the same thing I was. Amazing.

I just wanted to give a little re-cap/overview of the conference. I’ll be posting more about it later, because I took well over 1,200 photos and I’m pretty sure that all of those wouldn’t fit into this one post. 😉

Originally BigBear was going to come with me to Florida for the weekend, but he got a new job a week before the trip so my mom was more than willing to take his place. We drove about 12-13 hours down to Florida on Thursday. Such a long drive, but 100% worth it. Since we got there a day early we stayed at the Westgate Vacation Villas for the night. Hello Florida!

Westgate Vacation Villas

Friday morning we got up early and made our way over to Disney to check in 🙂 Disney provided us with rooms at their Polynesian Resort. This resort was beautiful! It transported me right back to Hawaii and I fell in love with it from the second we checked in.

Disney’s Polynesian Resort

After getting settled in to the room, we headed out to check out the resort and to grab lunch from one of the restaurants at the resort. We choose Kona Cafe for lunch, it was was perfect. If you get a chance to go, make sure to try the Pan Asian Noodles!

After lunch we shopped a little and relaxed, before I got ready for the Welcome Reception at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. I met Amanda, from Amanda’s Cookin‘, and we walked over to the party together. (I’ve been waiting to meet Amanda in person for over a year, I was so glad to finally meet her!!)

The Welcome Reception was beautiful! Disney made every event special, and this reception was a wonderful way to start off the weekend! I mean look at that food! I’ve died and gone to food Heaven!

Look at all of that gorgeous food

After lots of amazing food, connecting with fabulous bloggers, and a few cocktails I headed back over to the Polynesian Resort. We sat on the beach and watched Tangled on the outside movie screen, while waiting for the Electrical Water Pageant and Magic Kingdom fireworks. I was so excited that we could see both right from our resort!

Electrical Water Pageant

Saturday was a long but incredible day! Early Saturday morning, we took Walt Disney World’s Monorail System over to Epcot for the conference.

During the morning portion of the conference we had sessions about “Food Photography and Styling” ( Diane Cu & Todd Porter ), “PRspectives” ( Jaden Hair , Rachel Barbarotta, Arianna Bastianini, Tom Smith), “How to Write Bigger, Better, More Badass Food Posts” ( David Leite), and “From Hobby to Professional: Taking your Blog to the Next Level” (Dawn Viola)

( Rachel Barbarotta, Jaden Hair , Arianna Bastianini, Tom Smith) ON THE RIGHT
Diane Cu & Todd Porter ON THE LEFT

Dawn Viola & David Leite

At lunch we took a break and headed through Epcot for a lunch provided by Walt Disney World. Restaurants from all over Walt Disney World were there making dishes for us to sample. And sample we did. So much food!!! (Yeah it was a lot but with all the walking we did it was ok)

(from left to right)
Chocolate Raviolo with Cognac

Mascarpone Cheesecake with Lavender-infused Florida strawberries
Olive Oil-infused Chocolate Truffle mousse with sea salt caramel

*this was probably my fist pump in the air moment, when I wasn’t the only person snapping 100 pictures a second!*

Soda Float with Rotovap Extracted CO2-infused vanilla lemonade with Nitro whipped, no sugar pomegranate ice

OK, I’ll stop now. Sorry about that 😉

After lunch we headed back to the conference and had Experts Round Table Sessions. We were able to pick four, and I jumped at the opportunity to learn from the masters!

I picked these:

Blog Design – Lindsay Landis

Working with Brands – Rachel Barbarotta (KitchenAid) & Arianna Bastianini (OXO)

Recipe Development & Writing – Jennie Perillo & Kelly Senyei

Writing a Cookbook from Two Perspectives – Angie Dudley & Alison Lewis

These were one on one…. ok well more like one on ten, up close and personal sessions with some of the best food bloggers out there. I’m so glad that they did this!

Since Jennie was one of speakers in the Recipe Development & Writing group I finally was able to meet her and hug her in person. She’s just as wonderful as I expected. We’ve chatted on twitter, and I’ve fallen in love with her blog, but meeting her face to face almost made me cry, like tears in my eyes, hold them back so you don’t look like a dork. Not one of those “omg it’s Jennie” cries, but one of those “my heart is getting ready to explode because this woman that I’ve grown so fond of, a woman that has made me value my relationship with BigBear even more everyday, and a woman that I’ve hugged in my mind 1000 times is standing up to hug me” cries. Sorry. You wouldn’t understand…. or perhaps maybe you would…

Jennie and I

I want to share just a few more photos with you, I’m going to break this re-cap into two parts. Even though I tried to made this short and sweet, I just can’t. I want to be able to show you everything….well I can’t show you everything because that would equal to about 100 post 😉 but I want to show you more without making this post so long. Below are some of the pictures from the Epcot Illuminations Dessert Party. We had front row seats to the fireworks! Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day after all, so everything was “Irish” inspired for the party 🙂 Including Guinness ice cream with bacon brittle and Bailey’s Cheesecake Push pops!

Epcot at Night and the Epcot Illuminations

I have my second post ready! Read about that here: Food Blog Forum Orlando Disney Trip {Part Two}

A HUGE Thank You to Jaden, Scott, Diane, Todd , Dawn, Julie and Walt Disney World for everything that you all did to bring together such a wonderful event!

Be sure to check out all of these other wonderful bloggers and their great re-caps of the trip!

There are so many wonderful recaps written from the bloggers who attended Food Blog Forum – Orlando 2012. So much food, beautiful photography and stories!