We had Easter brunch with some friends at Goofy's Kitchen. I should have the review up sometime later this week. After brunch, a few of us went over to take another look at Tortilla Jo's. It really does look great. Here's a picture of the full restaurant with all the walls down. Here's a closer picture of the right side of the restaurant, where the outside bar area is, and here's a closer picture of the left side of the bar area and the front entrance area. Here is a page with pictures of the three menu boards for the taqueria. Rumour has it that the taqueria will open this Tuesday, April 13, and the downstairs restaurants will open this Friday, April 16. Note that the rumours are very much that - rumour, so take that info with the proverbial grain of salt. There are a number of things I find interesting in the downstairs inside menu, though the slightly high prices surprised me a bit. However, upon reflection, I had remembered hearing that Tortilla Jo's would have three separate price point dining locations, so with the Taqueria being the lower end, the inside downstairs restaurant would seem to be the higher end, and presumably, the menu for the downstairs bar area would be in the middle.
After our detour, we then headed to DL and over to Big Thunder to see if we could get Fastpasses. At about 3pm, the Fastpass return time was 3:30 to 4:30, which surprised us as we expected a much longer wait, but we happily got our Fastpasses. To pass the time, we decided to check Pirates to see if maybe we could get Fastpasses there as well. Since the walk-up time was only posted at 20 minutes, with the line seeming to be moving quickly, we decided to just get in line. It ended up taking about 10 minutes to get to the front, and we had a lovely ride on Pirates. After that, we went back to use our Big Thunder Fastpasses. It's been quite a few years since I've been on the ride, so it was fun to be able to ride it again. I did make one discovery though - there are 2 rattlesnakes in the scenery. My husband told me that they've always been there, but I usually sit on the right side so I don't see them. I had sat on the left side this time. Mental note - always sit on the right side when riding Big Thunder.
We then headed over to DCA to see what we could see at Tower of Terror. With the walls still up, though, nothing more was really visible than previously. I had heard mention of a Mulan-related parade/cavalcade, so after checking with the information booth and being told that the last performance was just about to start, we hurried over to the wharf section. We caught the performers just as they were getting onstage near the first aid/baby care center (by the tortilla factory and bread factory tours), so we ended up following them as they made their way to the Golden Dreams theatre. And we were absolutely dumbfounded at how nothing it was. They had three people controlling a dragon, Mulan, Mushu and two other people dressed in Chinese costumes. That was it. They played the portion of the Eureka soundtrack that used to accompany the Chinese section of the parade, and then it transitioned to one of the themes from the Mulan Parade. What an absolutely poor excuse for entertainment this so-called cavalcade was. And to imagine that they would dare use the Mulan Parade music, which evoked in all of us such fond memories of that wonderful parade, for this non-entertainment. I can't imagine what they were thinking in bringing this forth.
After hanging out for a bit in the wharf area, part of the group left, and the rest of us wandered over to Bug's Land for a bit. We went on Heimlich's Choo Choo Train, and I was surprised that they were doing the watermelon squirting again. They had stopped that shortly after the land opened, but I haven't been on the ride in some time. I do like the ride, but it is definitely much too short. After walking around a bit more, we headed back over to DL for a quick dinner at Pizza Port. My husband and I had been boycotting the place for about a year now. We often ordered the pizza salad to split, and we had noticed that they had cut the portion size in half while maintaining the same price, which was absolutely ridiculous to do, so we had not gone back there for any meals. A couple of days ago, I had happened to go in there and noticed that the salad size had changed again, so we decided to try it. They've changed the salad bowl sizes for all the salads, it seems, and added a new iceberg lettuce side salad, but at least the new salad bowl size for the pizza salad seems mostly comparable to the original size, so I guess we can eat at Pizza Port again.
We left shortly after that. On the way out, one of the people in our group noticed that the picnic area now seems to be outside the bag check area as there are barriers up over most of the entrance from the picnic area, and there is a security guard there. So, presumably, one can again bring utensils and cutting knives and any other possibly objectionable items into the picnic area and keep them in the lockers there.
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