How to make your own Disney’s Kona Cafe Breakfast

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February 13, 2010

Many times we get home from our Disney World vacation and wish we would have ate at a restaurant one more time, or we find ourselves craving certain foods from one of the various restaurants. This is one of those times..

I am craving some Tonga Toast and POG Juice. So having spent most of the morning looking around the internet I am going to post the best Tonga Toast and POG Juice recipes I was able to locate. These are untested till I get wade through the snow and goto the grocery store to get the items needed to make it.

Tonga Toast

Ingredients:

2 slices sourdough bread, cut 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick (Softer the bread the better)
1 banana
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
oil or shortening for frying
whipped butter and/or syrup

Method:

Cut a 1-inch pocket in one side of each bread slice. Cut banana in half crosswise, then split each piece lengthwise. Remove peel and stuff two pieces of fruit in each pocket of bread; set aside. Mix sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Mix together well the egg, milk and vanilla.

Heat about 4 inches of oil in a pan to 350º F. Dip stuffed bread into egg/milk mixture and let it soak a few seconds to let penetrate bread. Fry bread on both sides in hot oil until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels or wire rack. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and serve.

POG Juice

If you lived in Hawaii you could drive down to the corner store and pick up some POG juice, but here is the recipe I was able to find around the interwebs so you can make it at home.

Basically it is Passion Fruit Juice, Guava Pineapple, and Orange juice mixed together.

Ratios say 1/3 each but I am sure with some trial and error you could get to to your taste.

Let me know if you try them out and if they were good or not in the comment section below!

Disney Cruise Ship is Stuck In Bahamas

By

Chip

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February 13, 2010

A Disney cruise ship is stuck in the Bahamas due to inclement weather, leaving passengers frustrated at the delay.

“Due to weather conditions, the Disney Magic cruise ship has been delayed in its scheduled return to Port Canaveral today from a seven-night Western Caribbean cruise,” according to a statement released by Disney Cruise Line.

Officials said guests will remain on board Saturday night and will debark the following day.

Officials said the Disney Magic won’t be returning to Port Canaveral until sometime on Sunday. It has been docked at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay, since Friday and will dock at a different terminal Sunday.

“Gale force winds at the end of the day and into the night created an unfavorable environment for departure,” a Disney Cruise Line statement said.

There is a cruise scheduled to depart Saturday at 5 p.m. Disney said guests scheduled to depart on that cruise have the option of spending the day at Epcot. Disney said it is working to find resort rooms for those guests.

Christi Donnan, of Disney Cruise Line, said it’s not known exactly how many passengers will be affected by this delay. Donnan said about 2,400 passengers are on board the Disney Magic, and another 2,400 will now be delayed.

Guests with questions can contact Disney Cruise Line at 800-939-2784.

Authorities said Disney is offering passengers on board the Disney Magic:

# Free daily cell phone service to make alternate travel arrangements upon arrival Sunday at the port
# A 20 percent discount on a future cruise
# Help on board arranging return travel if passengers booked air travel through Walt Disney World

Passengers who were delayed and who will board on Sunday for the now six-day rather than seven-day cruise will be offered:

# Free hotel stay Saturday either on or off Disney property, and a free day at Epcot for their entire party
# $20 per person on board credit for the meal they would have gotten Saturday night. The credit can be used on the ship when they board.
# $100 per stateroom on board credit
# A 20 percent refund
# Option to cancel cruise without penalty and with full refund

Source

Alice in Wonderland: Mad Hatter Exclusive

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

Walt Disney Pictures and Tim Burton’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND coming to theaters in Disney Digital 3D on March 5, 2010.

Disney’s Rapunzel changes name to Tangled

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

Disney's Rapunzel changes name to Tangled

I think this is bad idea, I liked the name Rapunzel. It kinda looses[joke] it’s classical feeling now and seems more in line with a Shrek Movie. Not that there is anything wrong with Shrek. That is like changing the name of Sleeping Beauty to Snoozed…lol

Here is the news from the Disney Facebook page:

“Hey everyone, I’m Roy Conli, producer of Disney’s next animated film. I have some exciting news to share, and it was important to me that YOU guys – the Disney fans – hear it first. I want to tell you about Walt Disney Animation Studio’s 2010 release, Tangled. It’s a really fresh,
smart take on the Rapunzel story.

In our film, the infamous bandit Flynn Rider meets his match in the girl with the 70 feet of magical golden hair. We’re having a lot of fun pairing Flynn, who’s seen it all, with Rapunzel, who’s been locked away in a tower for 18 years.

I’m so proud of the crew working on this film – they’re doing a fantastic job creating an awesome story with great characters and a stunning world – and it’s all going to look amazing in 3D. All of us
here at the studio are incredibly excited for you to see Tangled when it comes out in theaters this November.”

What do you think about the name change?

Toy Story 3 Welcomes Lots-o-Huggin Bear

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

Toy Story 3’s huggable new bear character, voiced by Ned Beatty. Actually it seems his full name is Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear and he looks every bit as snuggly, cuddly, and friendly as his name suggests. Hopefully he doesn’t have the personality of the Prospector. I don’t want him to turn out to be the villain, he looks far too lovable.

Here’s Lots-‘o’s description from his original toy packaging: Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear is a jumbo, extra-soft teddy bear with a pink and white plush body and a velvety purple nose. This lovable bear stands fuzzy heads and shoulders above other teddy bears because he smells like sweet strawberries! With a smile that will light up your child’s face and a belly just asking to be hugged, Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear is sure to become a bedtime necessity. Stain-resistant. Spot clean plush surface with a damp cloth.

Sterling Knight Addresses Rumors that he didn’t sing in Disney’s “StarStruck”

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

Rumors have been circulating for some time now that Sterling Knight was not the one doing the singing in the upcoming Disney Channel Original Movie “StarStruck”. There were alot of people were saying that Drew Ryan Scott actually sang the songs. Here is Sterling’s Twitter post addressing those rumors:

Thanks for all the support everyone! I don’t wanna take credit for anything or offend anyone cause I think drew ryan scott is amazingly talented and I am so grateful that disney found someone that fantastic to sing the rest of the songs. I tried really hard to make the singing my voice, but I literally showed up a week before shooting and heard the songs 4 days before I recorded starstruck. Just not not enough time and fyi drew did sing backround vocals on starstruck and thats HIS voice on the other songs! I can’t thank him enough. Hopefully this will put an end to all this silliness! Thanks again much love to everyone!

So what do think? Will you still watch the StarStruck Movie when it releases?

Disney Unleashes ‘Alice in Wonderland’ on Mobile Devices

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

Walt Disney Pictures has unveiled an iPhone-centric ad campaign around the upcoming March 5 release of “Alice in Wonderland,” plus a standalone “Alice” iPhone app.

MediaPost reports that the campaign features games, digital greeting cards, and video streaming as part of motion-sensitive ads. Clicking on the ads lets users view the “Alice” movie trailer, play the “Queen’s Match-Up Game,” send greeting cards to friends that feature Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.

Plus, the ad employs the iPhone’s accelerometer to let users spin their phones on a flat surface to simulate falling down the rabbit hole. Greystripe, Millennial Media, and Quattro Wireless are all distributing the Starcom USA-developed ads.

The free “Alice” iPhone app, meanwhile, features the trailer, wallpapers, and a series of movie-themed puzzles, according to the report. The upcoming iPad will probably also feature in there somewhere, with iPad versions of Disney’s digital books, the ABC News app, and Marvel apps all already in the works, according to the report.

Source

Ty Pennington & Give a Day Celebration Pictures and Video

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

If you weren’t watching Disney Park Blog’s live stream during yesterday’s “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” Celebrate Volunteers event you missed a few surprises — including a visit from Ty Pennington, host of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” Ty unveiled Disney’s record-breaking canned structure created with 115,527 canned goods.

Bonus photo below:

Ty Pennington & Give a Day Celebration Pictures and Video

The massive sculpture titled “Celebrate Volunteers” was unveiled as part of a special “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” celebration honoring family volunteers and the spirit of giving at Epcot’s World Showcase. It took about 500 hours of volunteer work to construct and shape the 44 tons of food into the Disney character structure. Look closely…Mickey’s head was shaped from cans of black olives and Pluto’s eyes were created with cans of sliced pineapple. Here’s how the rest of it came together:

We figured out that if all of the cans in the sculpture were stacked on top of one another, the topmost can would be more than one mile above the 29,035-foot summit of Mt. Everest. But what goes up, must come down. The sculpture will be disassembled by Disney VoluntEARs and other volunteers and the cans will be taken to food banks for those in need. There’s enough food for more than 70,000 meals.

By the way, according to a Guinness World Records adjudicator, the new record easily beat the old mark of 54,527 cans set last year in New Zealand.

Even more changes for the Magic Kingdom

By

Chip

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February 12, 2010

The Examiner is reporting on alot of interesting changes for Fantasyland at Walt Disney World. Disney has been pretty thin lipped about many of the changes till now. Here are a few post worthy notes from their article. For the complete article click the link below.

Originally rumors had Mickey’s Toontown Fair closing in the very near future, but that seems to have been pushed back while the rest of Fantasyland receives its makeover, preserving an opportunity to meet and greet with the princesses and the fairies.

Goofy’s Barnstormer would be transformed into a Snow White themed mine car ride gone wild, featuring the seven dwarfs. Nevertheless, it appears that Snow White will get the raw end of the deal in the new Fantasyland reconstruction and that ride will be circus themed and engulfed in the new Dumbo area.

In addition to this change, there’s a leak about a whole new phase to the plan. Originally, the plan had two phases. The first–to be completed by 2012–included the new princess areas dedicated to Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, and Ariel. The second phase–set to open a year later–was the new and improved Pixie Hollow area, dedicated to Tinker Bell and all her fairy friends. Now, a third phase has been introduced, expanding away from the current Toontown region and into the classic fantasyland area.

There is alot of details to this article click here to read more.

Disney World’s 6 Places you Must Eat!

By

Chip

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February 11, 2010

Disney World has some of the best dining options anywhere on the planet in my opinion. Where else can you find such diversity in such a small location. For example in Epcot you can travel the world dining on anything from Crepes in France, Bratwurst in Germany, and Churros in Mexico. Combine the parks with all the various resorts and you are sure to loosen a belt notch or two while on vacation.

For my family we opted for the Deluxe Dining Plan so we could sample all the delicious food from anywhere we wanted and not have to worry about cost. If you are booking your Disney World vacation I highly urge you to go this route if you love to eat like we do. 3 Meals a day and 2 snacks was a lot of food but if you pace yourself and not over do it at any meal you will be fine. With all the walking we did around the parks we found we were hungry again when it was meal time, with only a few times of feeling the notorious blah you get from over eating. Drink plenty of water 🙂

Out of all the places we ate which were plenty here is our list of the 6 Places you Must Eat from our most recent trip. While there may be a bunch of your favorite places not on the list I am strictly going by our overall review of the restaurants from our most recent trip.

Polynesian Resort – Kona Cafe – Tucked back in a corner this eating establishment is missed by most people visiting Walt Disney World. Known for the Tonga Toast, one of the small highlights for us was the POG juice. After doing some research I found out we can get it outside of DW. It is Minute Maid Orange Passion fruit Guava blend. Yummy. The Tonga Toast was great! So great we ended up eating breakfast here twice! If you are a coffee drinker be sure to get the Kona Coffee French Press. Beats anything Starbucks has hands down. By far the best breakfast at Disney World.

Animal Kingdom Lodge – Boma – This is by far one of the more unique Disney World restaurants we have ever ate at. Having never been here, and not sure what to expect I was delighted by all the wonderful African Food. Since I love to cook a lot of Indian food, for me it seemed some of the dishes had a Indian/Asian flare to them. The ribs were so good I couldn’t stop eating them. The mealie bread was delicious with the various hummuses. We would have ate alot more than we did if our little one was exhausted. (Parents know what I mean) We tried to go back again but couldn’t get a family friendly meal time so be sure to add this one to your Advanced Dining Reservations more than once!

Epcot – Le Cellier Steakhouse – First off having the Deluxe Dining at this restaurant is great we both got a tremendous amount of food! The Cheddar Cheese Soup with the home made pretzel bread was a meal its self. I would love to have some of that on a cold winters day ANYTIME! Kansas City Steak was phenomenal! I am getting hungry just thinking about it. It was so tender I could almost cut it with my fork. Honestly I could almost not fit a dessert down me after the soup and steak. I did not hear a single complaint from anyone around us. (Everyone was like this is sooo good!) My wife got the whiskey cake and I got the maple creme brulee both very good. If it wasn’t for a mix up at the end with our Dining Plan I would say this meal was almost perfect.

Epcot – San Angel Inn – One of my favorite places to eat we were unsure if we could dine here since it was not on the Disney Dining PDF we had before we left. So we decided to take a chance and walk in and ask. Sure enough we were able to eat here for lunch with no wait. The food here was authentic Mexican cuisine. A little different than the local restaurants we have back home. Everything was so fresh and the servers were wonderful. The atmosphere here is by far my favorite. Just something about the darkness and the Mayan Temple in the background makes this truly surreal. I try to always get something different here and have not found anything I didn’t like. Unfortunately for dessert I always get the flan. Mmmm so good! So on your walk around the World Showcase stop by here for Lunch or Dinner and have a great meal.

Animal Kingdom – Tusker House – This was a tough decision for breakfast. 1900 Park Fare was great at the Grand Floridan, the unique characters, and the make your own omelets. Ohana’s Best Friends Breakfast was good too with the Polynesian touches to the meal from the fruity breads, to the potatoes. But I believe the Tusker House beat them out just barely due to the more authentic breakfast finds. The various casseroles and frittatas were great. I will say one thing this place is very busy and very loud. Usually we can get in and out of most restaurants fairly quick this one due to all the people took a lot longer than normal. Still the food was well worth the wait.

Polynesian Resort – Ohana’s – Last but not least and always one of our favorites. Ohana’s delivers Polynesian food with Style. Starting from the very beginning when they bring out the salad it is a feast for your taste buds. Pork, Steak, Shrimp, all cooked perfectly and favorable. I could honestly eat this food everyday and we always make it a point to eat here. There is nothing they serve that I don’t like. Just be sure to save room at the end for the bread pudding! Hands down my favorite restaurant of all time.

All the food was very good at Disney World and it was very hard to narrow it down to just 6. We always try visiting new places every year we go. So far we have never been disappointed with Disney. That is one of the reason we find ourselves going back every year. Check out some of the food & restaurant photos in the section below.

Let me know some of your Must Eats while visiting Walt Disney World in the comment section below.

4 & 5 Bedroom Regal Palms Resort Pool Homes Rentals

By

Chip

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February 11, 2010

4 & 5 Bedroom Regal Palms Resort Pool Homes

These one and two-story vacation pool homes are located in neighboring communities within one to seven miles of the resorts. Boasting private screened-in pool and patio, fully equipped kitchen, spacious and fully furnished living, dining, private bedrooms with bath, cable TV, telephone, washer and dryer.

These 4 bedroom and 5 bedroom pool homes are great for larger families or even two families traveling together. Everyone will enjoy the privacy and the ability swim at will.

4 Bedroom / 2 Bathroom comfortably accommodates up to 9 guests
Bedding configuration: 1 Queen, 1 full, 4 Twins and 1 sleeper sofa

5 Bedroom / 2 Bathroom comfortably accommodates up to 11 guests
Bedding configuration: 1 Queen, 1 Full, 6 Twins and 1 sleeper sofa

Click here for more info!

Jimmy Fallon Spoofs ABC’s LOST with “Late”

By

Chip

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February 11, 2010

Jimmy Fallon spoofed ABC’s LOST on his late-night talk show with this clip from his pretend TV show “Late.”