| A visit to Tanaka Farms  Tanya's Daily Scoop CURRENTLY IN: ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Greetings, I've had a day. Yup, it was just a day. It was quite annoying and no matter how I much prepared and repaired along the way - nothing at all was going as it was planned. But, being the strong believer in things going just exactly as they should, helped me lack in fret though I might need to work on learning to lack in frustration. Since it was one of "those" days, let's chat about Sunday and the day before (Saturday) which were both much more delightful. I was glued to the boob tube watching Yankees baseball before leaving the house. They were playing the Toronto Blue Jays in Toronto and while I was watching, I was also reminiscing about vacationing in Toronto with Elisa and catching a game while we were there back in 2015.  A cousins visit to Toronto (c)travelincousins.com The highlights for Saturday was that we went out to try a (new to us) vegan Vietnamese Restaurant - Thuyen Vien, which translates to "teacher". It was Dave Y, Dominic and myself going and each thoroughly enjoyed our late lunch and shared plates:  Dave Y. and Dominic waiting for our meal (c)travelincousins.com  Spring Rolls (c)travelincousins.com  Crispy Rolls (c)travelincousins.com  Garlic Vegan Chickun (c)travelincousins.com  Buddha's Delight (c)travelincousins.com  I don't remember what this dish was, but it was good (c)travelincousins.com This little restaurant was just so pleasant. A certain win in our books. The service was attentive and warm, the meal was so flavorful and tasty. I took a picture of each dish we had - because you know...the camera eats first yet somehow the picture of Dave's dish came out with a blur (so I didn't upload it). After eating, we made a quick stop to pick up a few needed household items and then pretty much made a beeline to go straight home. Once 9:30p rolled around, we went over to the Bunny Borough for game night and to catch up with the rest of the Fam Bam crew playing Herd Mentality, which proved to be quite a fun(ny) affair. On Sunday, some of the crew was going over to Tanaka Farms and had invited us to go along. I accepted the invitation, while Dominic and Dave opted to stay at home.  Arriving at Tanaka Farms (c)travelincousins.com  Me and Chaplin (c)travelincousins.com  Gift shop at the farm (c)travelincousins.com  Baseball Pasta! (c)travelincousins.com  Tanaka Farms box (c)travelincousins.com  Different type of Candy Corn (c)travelincousins.com  Watermelon Candy (c)travelincousins.com  So perfect! (c)travelincousins.com  Sweet and juicy (c)travelincousins.com I concluded that it had been since 2009 that I been to Tanaka Farms!!!  2009 was the last time I went to Tanaka Farms!!! (c)travelincousins.com After our farm visit, I went off to the Irvine Spectrum to do a little shopping with Jet, Chaplin and Andrew. And finally our Sunday Family Dinner and another round of Herd Mentality. Sooo depending on my mood, there will be some nights that I might decide to have a modest amount of chocolate. Ya know, when the sweet tooth is kicking in. Tonight was one of those nights and now I'm finding that I'm down to my last night of my little chocolates. You will never believe it that one of the pieces came from a box of vegan Christmas truffles - so very good and now they are all gone. I sure do know how to make things last! The other piece came from my box of Seattle Truffles, which are also sooo darn good. And I am down to my last couple of pieces. Does that mean a trip up to Seattle is in my near future? We shall see. That's all for now. See ya soon. Ciao 4 now, -Travelin Tanya | Goodbye Orlando & Disney's Riviera Resort  Elisa's Daily Scoop CURRENTLY IN: LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK Hey there! Can you believe it's July already?? Well, I cannot! We've been settling in the past few days from our super fun Mother-Daughters Disney World Trip last week!!  Each time we go to Disney, we do a little informal review together about the trip, the accommodations, the park, and the food. This trip ranked very high on the accommodations and food front!! As far as the parks were concerned - we were a bit ...I don't want to say disappointed...but we were surprised, at how much things had changed since we were last there in November 2021 AND during that trip we noticed many changes from the visit prior.  The financial set backs that Disney is having were palpable in many ways, to those who have been going to Disney for over two decades like us. Staff wise, it is very obvious just how few "cast members" there are, both in the park, the hotels and the restaurants. Everything has been scaled back in terms of the entertainment and "extras". For instance, no more parades, no more Castle shows at the Magic Kingdom and no more "street" entertainers, and alot less vendors in the park. Additionally, between our trip this past week, and Kelsey's school Disney Trip in May, many rides were suddenly shut down due to "technical issues." The "magic" that was felt in the past, is somewhat missing and it feels like any other big entertainment venue. Our hotel stay, however, was very nice and quite enjoyable. This was our first visit to Disney's Riviera Resort. Located next door to Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort in the Epcot Hotel area, this deluxe resort opened on December 16, 2019. It's "smallish" in size by Disney resort standards, with 300 rooms. However, that was just fine with us since our "home" resort, The Saratoga Springs is so enormous and very spread out.  (c)travelincousins.com When you are a Disney Vacation Club member, (as we are) you are assigned a "home" resort when you join. Our home resort is the Saratoga Springs, for which we've stayed numerous times, We also enjoy trying new resorts to experience different accommodations, restaurants, and the general resort vibe! In addition to Saratoga Springs, we have stayed at numerous resorts including The Old Key West, Animal Kingdom Lodge & Villas, The Boardwalk Inn and way back in 1999, I stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort.  Disney's Riviera Resort (near EPCOT) (c)travelincousins.com The Riviera is the 15th Disney World resort which is themed after the architecture and culture of the French and Italian Riviera . We really enjoyed our stay - maybe because it was a bit smaller than our usual stay at the Saratoga Springs or perhaps that it was quieter than The Boardwalk, or it could have been the fun transportation on the Disney Skyliner to EPCOT! I wouldn't say that it had lots of bells and whistles, but, the rooms are really lovely and there were lots of outdoor spaces to just hang and chill.  (c)travelincousins.com  Outdoor space (c)travelincousins.com  Balconies that we enjoyed on our last day before departing (c)travelincousins.com  Gianna enjoying her swing just reading (c)travelincousins.com  Bocci court (c)travelincousins.com  Hanging out before saying goodbye (c)travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  one of 3 dining locations on the property. (c)travelincousins.com I would say that if you are looking for a quiet and "compact" place to stay, The Riviera might be right for you. Everything is pretty close, no long walks, and it's super close to EPCOT, with its international cuisine options (and definitely our favorite park). We also found it quite convenient to get to other resorts, for which we visited 2 on this trip for dining experiences. We simply took the Disney Skyliner to Hollywood Studios and then boarded a resort specific bus when we visited Animal Kingdom Lodge on Day 3; and for Wilderness Lodge, we hopped on a boat from Magic Kingdom during our visit on Day 4 of our trip. Well, that's it for me! See you soon! -Travelin' Elisa |
