Tea During Disney Honeymoon

I planned the wedding while the husband had the fun job of planning the honeymoon.  However, we both helped each other out at times as we are both organized people who love making plans and schedules anyways.

After much discussion we decided to honeymoon in Orlando, Florida visiting Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea World.  Since I discovered my fear of flying when we flew to Miami, Florida in 2011, I thought it best to pick a destination within reasonable driving distance.  From Indiana to Florida was about 17 hours, but, even though I did all of the driving, I found that much more relaxing than having to spend three hours on a plane.

I could go on and on about our amazing trip to the magical world of Disney, but since this is a tea blog I will keep the event topics strictly to those that involve tea.

I have drunk from many teacups, but this is the first time I got to ride in one.  The Mad Tea Party ride in Magic Kingdom is incredibly cute with all of the bright colors, the giant tea pot in the middle, and the whimsical spinning teacups.  After boarding our teacup and spinning around for about 10 to 15 seconds, the ride slowed and stopped.  We knew something was wrong since we had watched a few sessions of the ride before it was our turn and saw that it normally lasted longer.  We were instructed to stay in our teacups for a moment while the crew worked out an issue.  So, we took this opportunity to snap a few pictures of each other chilling in our cup.  After a few minutes the crew instructed us to exit our teacups as the ride needed further maintenance.  Thus, our ride was cut short, but I really didn’t mind because of the pictures we were able to take while on the ride and the new perceptive I gained from inside a teacup.  Although, I can’t help but to wonder how much tea would fit into one of those cups!

I spotted several tea items/locations while in EPCOT.  We checked out the Twinnings store in the England area.  I didn’t buy anything, but it was an adorable store.  We sniffed around the Joy of Tea booth, but it seemed like an Americanized version of tea with all of their fruit flavored mixes.  Finally, we made it into the beautiful China and gorgeous Japan areas.  I think I may have spent a little too much time (and maybe a little too much money) in those two places, but the tea and tea ware displays were so pretty!

The husband, knowing my love for tea, made reservations to the Garden View Tea Room at the Grand Floridian resort.  Although we had kind of a flighty waitress who tried to serve us the same course twice and kept forgetting things, the overall experience was elegant.  I had a pot of a basic green tea and the husband sipped on a citrus flavored green tea.  We were served five small finger sandwiches, a tiny tart, and two small dessert pastries.  The manager brought out a special dessert for it being our honeymoon.  The tea was average, but the food was full of flavor.

While at Hollywood studios, we had a few minutes before we needed to head to the Fantasia light show so we ducked into a café to have a look.  It was a cute little coffee and tea shop that had comfortable seating and shelves of books, tea, coffee, and drink ware.  I ended up buying a big box of Alice in Wonderland themed teas, plus we both bought a cup of freshly made tea to go to take with us to the light show.  It was about eighty degrees outside, but the hot English breakfast tea I ordered was still refreshing.

During our shopping spree in Downtown Disney, we visited a tea and spices store.  The whole place had kind of a homey kitchen feel to it.  There were rows and rows of teas and even more spices along with utensils, plates, drink ware, aprons, etc.  At that particular time the store was quite busy so we didn’t stay long, but I bought some chocolate flavored tea and a black and white Disney mug.

Almost all of the restaurants that we went to had some sort of tea menu.  Some menus were larger and more sophisticated than others, but the overall selection was far greater than any restaurant in our home town. 

At Jiko in the Animal Kingdom resort we had a dessert that featured green tea ice cream.  Additionally, while at Artist Point in the Wilderness Lodge resort, we had a pot of a delicious gong fu style tea along side a bowl of mixed berry cobbler.  Feeling bold, I asked our waiter how much they are required to know about tea.  Being the friendly gentleman that he was, he stopped and told us all about how they have a professional tea taster come in to train them on different types of tea, the brewing process, steep times, temperatures, etc.; He sounded very knowledgeable on the subject.

Neither of us were previously into the whole Disney propaganda… until our trip.  In fact, I have never seen Alice in Wonderland or Snow White (among other movies, though I do know the plots).  However, by the time we got back into town we were already planning a return trip.