You know when you’re married to someone for years and one day, they walk in the room and you hardly know them any more. Because they’re wearing a massive, frontal bumbag!

'The name’s Packer, Fanny Packer'

DW ‘They’re back in fashion.’
CMG ‘‘They were never in fashion in the first place’
DW ‘I can fit a lot of stuff in it’
CMG ‘Why did you get it in a flesh coloured leatherette? It looks like a massive external ’
DW ‘They have a designer one in the shop by reception’
CMG ‘I’m leaving you if you don’t take that off’

So I won the first round of what may eventually become the Fanny Pack Wars. Bit of an aside as we were mainly off to SeaWorld. Anyway we took the secret entrance out of the hotel car-park and walked into a park that most people were leaving, this was around 6pm. We then walked a lap of most of the main park areas in what might be called the SeaWorld Food and Wine Hunt. Eventually we asked and found our way to a stand which was selling the passes.

Basically you buy a number of tokens for a set fee. We paid $69 (including the taxes) for 15 to share between us so $4.60 per token. The per unit price gets cheaper the more you buy, believe 10 was just over $50. You then get a lanyard with the number of points on it and they punch it as you go, here’s our completed card.


A big advantage of this over the EPCOT versions is that you can get alcohol on the same scheme (as opposed to using Disney Snack Credits which only cover food). The alcohol server is a half ‘sampler’ portion though which makes the value a little misleading. We picked up a couple of mini drinks with our first points, an Accomplice Black Cherry (me) and Hibiscus Flower Red Sangria (DW).


These were both heinous, I mean just awful. I’m not even sure if the black cherry was a cider or a beer, it tasted more of beer than cherry. The Sangria beat it though, cloudy and sweet it looked like something you ended up with at the end of the worst ever teenage party. I eventually had to force both down, grateful only for the stingy portions.

From there we set off across the Seven Seas in man/woman’s eternal quest to find something worth eating. Honestly you would barely know there was a food festival on it’s so low key and spread out. Thankfully we arrived at the Mediterranean booth and DW got some drinkable prosecco which was one of the few things we saw come out of a bottle as opposed to a vat or tap.


With me still in need of something to remove the memory of the sangria we stumbled on to the North Atlantic stand. The lobster roll looked dicey so we went for a beer (me) and poutine to share because while most of the food had looked iffy to this point you can’t really mess up chips and gravy

Tray of Vladimir please guv

This was my first poutine, it was ok - the ingredients tasted cheap though. DW liked it more than I did. The beer was very nice a Copper Tail Free Dive and I wish I’d had more of this.

After that we stopped quickly by the German stand and I realised that 2 tokens bought a normal size beer so did this for a Paulaner Weissbier. It still works out at almost $10 for about ⅔ of a pint though so not exactly a bargain but I guess cheaper than Disney for alcohol and for a well-known, quality beer.


We walked on a ways and passed on a couple more stands and were now hungrier than when we arrived. In the end we went for a Lumpia (me) at the Polynesian market and a Shrimp Po Boy (without the bun) at the Gulf Coast for DW.



The Lumpia was a vaguely sinister frozen thing fried and cut in half and served with an ok pineapple chutney, the Shrimp were ok but again obviously defrosted and fried so we’re definitely talking the Frozen Food and Wine festival (which is a shame because we wanted to like it).

After that we were basically trying to find anything worth eating and drinking in order to dump our credits so we could leave. There wasn’t any real atmosphere which surprised me with it being a Friday night but I guess the locals have been before and not returned!

We passed on Mexico, Italy and a few others and went back to the start. Here we had the only decent food of the evening. DW went back to the Mediterranean and ordered the scallop on risotto with a double prosecco.



The scallop may look like crap but it was freshly/well seared to order and the risotto was apparently very tasty. Meantime I had gone to the vegan stand and picked up an impossible meat burger plus a double serve of a truly horrible IPA that is lucky I can’t find the name of so will have to call Sad Wizard IPA from Imposters brewery.



The impossible meat thing was impressive As an all-around burger it was just okay because they didn’t do a lot with it but I found the patty indistinguishable from meat. It was extremely enlightening and I’m on the bandwagon with this now (‘impossible meat’ being a brand of plant based meat substitutes that has started to sell outside the US).

After this we walked back to the hotel, DW was knackered after all that shopping too. We agreed that if neither of us had been to a food festival before this one, we would probably never have gone to one again Of the 19 stands on the SeaWorld website we only found about 10-12 of them and as for Tenth Avenue North who knows if/when they played.

All I heard in the distance was someone playing ‘In the Navy’ and as we were leaving, ‘Gangnam Style’ which I think sets the level for the night But we burnt off more than we ate and drank for once and keeping it in perspective, nobody died, nobody left the room wearing a fanny-pack

Tomorrow (today) is Hilton breakfast then Aquatica & we've just come back from Shake Shack. Running consistently at about 2 meals behind which works for me

My dh would say exactly the same about a fanny pack . Such a shame about the festival , Tim tracker raves about it , perhaps his taste buds have disintegrated from too much sugary crap .
How tiny is that Prosecco ? And the froth on that beer looks like seafoam .
You’ve Redeemed yourself about the receipt lol.
How was aquatica ? we’ve never been but debating it this time .

I too saw Tim Tracker at the festival so was hoping you too would have good things to say.
I’m wondering if the fanny pack ever left the hotel room now 😀

I think Harry should taste and rank every cheesecake in the Cheesecake Factory !

Those cheesecakes look amazing. The food at sea world looked a bit of a let down but at least it wasn't expensive lol. Better to try it than wonder I my thought process

Nothing wrong with that Fanny Pack! I'd have sent you on your way on your own

Such a shame about the Food Festival but at least you know you wouldn't do it again xx

Your DH is a wise man The sample drinks were about 1/3 of a normal UK measure I reckon.

We enjoyed Aquatica, it was more as an alternative to the hotel pool today so we only tried the lazy river (which is nice but on the short side albeit you can see some dolphins through the side) and the rapid river. The rapid river was great fun, less vicious than the Volcano Bay one but still fairly rapid. The kids play area looked amazing. We're going to go back probably Monday and I might try some slides if we get there early.

Tim Tracker is clearly a nice man but he's not the most critical at times, also the festival had an air of SeaWorld having given up on it so maybe it was more complete when they went. The fanny pack almost left the room via the balcony let me tell you

Trust me he'd love to but there would be budgetary issues unless we could blag some sort of sampling event via our Italian instagram personas

I'm just finishing off the strawberry one now and it's lovely, tasting better after an extra day in the fridge! Exactly our thoughts on trying stuff. Part of the problem is the first time we went to Florida together we turned up off the cuff at a local food festival in Naples and it was straight out incredible. Ruined us for everything else although when we've been at EPCOT for Flower and Garden the food was generally good just pricey. Never been to Food and Wine yet sadly

It's a sort of pleather material, I'm tempted to biro a few hairs onto it but DW would probably wear it anyway just to prove a point There was some renegotiation on the topic this morning and we agreed that it looks less dodgy worn on the side.

We definitely will not be doing that food festival again but we will try SeaWorld proper tomorrow. Mixed in with attractions the festival may have made more sense

Thanks for reading, breakfast update on the way.

Breakfast - Hilton Doubletree at SeaWorld

Never let it be said that we aren't committed to the dining photo. Here's a picture of the reclusive 4am catfish captured by DW in our room. The flash would have scared it off apparently. This was I am told a spicy fish in a nice batter that made an ideal early morning snack Last of the Publix deli counter haul and another decent item.

4am Catfish. Ssshhh, you'll startle it

A bit later on it was time for our first hotel breakfast of the trip. It's included in the room but only if you waive the Hilton reward points for that night's stay which is why we've generally eaten out instead. Also the bit of the hotel we spend most of our time in is not that great, we're a bit gutted to have missed out on the Tower room we thought we had and TBH we're a bit spoilt by spending most of our time in the Yacht Club and Hard Rock Hotel on our last trip.

Here's a few snaps of the buffet that would cost I believe $20 a head if you were paying for it as an extra:

Free the Bread Rolls!

that's pizza under the lights

Doughnut Exhibit

From the pictures you can probably pick up the vibe that this was okay. A wide choice but completely standard. There was also an omelette chef and some hot food under lids which was hard to photograph. Here's our plates, first mine then DW's.



As you can see we were fairly uninspired. I seem to have arranged a scale model of the galaxy using a motley collection of unrelated items and DW has reverted to unenthused toddlerdom with a trio in beige. Food was okay, very standard hotel breakfast and not worth $20.

We also had tea and orange juice (DW) and coffee for me - pictured.


I then went back for some hot food to try and get more value out of it.


The hot food was not hot enough and the corned beef hash (a favourite of mine usually) was not a good one. Lunch is better I promise

News flash :::::: I am informed ( by my style conscious boys who wouldn’t be seen dead with me wearing a FP the normal way either ) this is how you now “style “ a fanny pack , both male and female apparently . It may be saved from going over the balcony after all , although dh informs me I would still look a t*t wearing it the stylish way !
Photo courtesy of web , it is not me

Anyway I digress $40 for that . As a Yorkshire lass all I can say is 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

Well we don't want Harry to go the way of Mr Creosote. Best leave the cheesecakes alone.