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Yesterday Raglan Road hosted TPR and other outlets for a preview of this weekend's Mighty St. Patrick's Festival. This annual festival has been running at Raglan Road Pub for 17 of the 18 years that the Pub has operated at Disney Springs, and each year the offerings expand with new acts and new food and beverage options, all on top of what already makes Raglan Road a special place to visit year round. The Mighty St. Patrick's Festival takes place this year between March 16th and March 19th! One of my favorite places to eat and drink in Orlando! We had an opportunity to sample some Raglan Road favorites as well as new menu items, starting with the Berry UnIrish (a non-alcoholic drink featuring muddled blackberries, fresh lemon juice, rosemary & honey syrup and sparkling lemon Pellegrino) and the Misty Irish Eyed (a mixture of Irish Mist honey, Grace O'Malley gin, Italicus, lemon sour & prosecco). While a normal visit to Raglan Road is filled with entertaining musical and dancing acts, during the Mighty St. Patrick's Festival, the schedule is filled from end to end authentic Irish entertainment! In what I could best compare to a savory cupcake, the Truly Scrumpet Goat Fig features caramelized (torched!) goat's cheese with a fig & port jam on a chive scrumpet with walnuts, pickled beets & poached figs). This was easily the most unique and standout taste of evening! "That Salad with Seared Beef" was a surprising combination of flavors, textures and perfectly prepared ingredients. I'd happily order a plate of this during my next visit! A staple on the Raglan Road menu for many years, the Dalkey Duo is a perfect Dalkey mustard beer battered Cheshire Heritage pork sausage served with Dalkey mustard mayo and buffalo apple sauce. These battered sausages are heavy and filling but the rich batter and unique sausage make them perfectly addicting bites that you'll definitely want to keep digging into. There's lots to see and hear while dining at Raglan Road! The center of the restaurant gives guests an up-close chance to experience all the fun of the pub. The Seafood Sharing Board offers a selection of sesame crusted tuna, smoked fish cakes, "The Pink Panko" (panko crusted seared salmon) and the "Kiss Before Shrimp" (a garlicky-bathed set of shrimp bites with toast). It is always a pleasure to hear from the owners of Raglan Road Pub. The restaurant along with the attached shop, bars and Cookes of Dublin quick service venue are all owned an operated independently of any larger corporation. The venues operate out of scratch kitchens so you know everything is served at its freshest. Much of the staff and entertainers are Irish and the menus offer authentic tastes of Irish heritage with modern flair. Clare Sands (pictured right) is a 6ht generation fiddler, bilingual singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist who is performing daily along with her sister (pictured left) during the Mighty St. Patrick's Festival before moving on to perform in New York, Washington D.C., the United Kingdom and Europe. We capped off our tasting experience with the Guinness Chocolate Cake, made up of dark chocolate, soda bread ice cream and a whiskey caramel sauce. There is no better place to experience authentic Irish step-dancing than at Raglan Road Pub. Defying gravity. Step-dancing isn't reserved to the main stage, with a center stage to put guests in the center of the action. A truly unique experience! Thanks again to Raglan Road for hosting us for another fantastic evening! Be sure to check out the Mighty St. Patrick's Festival this weekend, or if you can't make it before then, don't hesitate to add the Pub to your future Orlando plans--you won't regret it!

Strong line-up for early entry this year. Hit it out of the park here. GateKeeper Wild Mouse Atomic Scrambler Matterhorn Calypso Dodgem Kiddy Kingdom (select rides) https://www.cedarpoint.com/early-entry

Day 12, morning: Walt Disney Studios up and out for rope drop, as today was going to be a slamming busy day. It was Saturday, so knew the parks were going to be PACKED. as an alternate plan, I had weeks ago, booked a visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower Saturday afternoon, with the Alvey's to get away from the crowds during the busiest part of the day. James wasn't going to do that (tho a few others on the official trip did join us too), so we planned to go to the Disney Studios park at rope drop, I'd leave for Eiffel Tower around lunch time, and then would meet back up with James at Disneyland later that evening. plan locked, and off we went: Lovely entrance. . thru an indoor section (that I think was mostly shops - we never actually stopped here on any day - tho Brown Derbey looks like a food court) Up ahead the main park, and the Walt & Mickey statue. noted - we'll be back for you this morning. . . but first, we are following the crowd to the right side of the park. Aladdin's flying carpets. . never really had much of a line, but I don't think we ever actually rode it here at Disney Studios.. . . I mean. . it's right next door to where everyone was going. . . Crush's Coaster. and yeah. . . STARTED off the day, at rope drop, with a 30 minute wait. (we had some skip the line passes, and would use them later in the trip. . but we wanted to not waste one right away and joined the flood of folks headed here) a few other TPR folks were in line here too first thing. . . the theming, as expected, was well done. it's a fun spinning coaster. is it great? no, but it IS fun, and if the line is shorter than a 30 minute wait (or you have skip the line), I'd say it's worth it. Capacity seems to be pretty bad tho. . . so never really saw it with a "shortish" line after a fun ride on Crush, we headed out to continue our way around the park. during our trip, lots of construction walls were up - Avengers Campus area opened shortly after we were there. So there really wasn't all that much to do at the time at Disney Studios. But I did have a fun time there, and the rides they DO have, are mostly pretty great. this ride (cloned at several Disney parks) had really no line - I think maybe folks just miss it's there? so James and I hopped in the queue for it. it would have been better if it hadn't been out in the direct sunlight. . . . but with both of us in the back seat, we got some decent "whip/swing" action. Crush's coaster does have this interactive section where the cars zoom by outside, enticing those walking by to come take a ride. is it as Detailed as Car's Land at Disney California Adventure? I dont' think so (tho never have been there since they opened it). . but I thought it was really well done here. outside of Cars land is Toy Story area. . . with a bunch of rides that LOOK way better than the actually ride. but man, do they look good. we passed by tho, as first we wanted to ride Ratatouille. . . I'd only heard raves about this, and couldn't wait to experience it. the Gusteau animation in the sign comes "alive" and chats with the people in the queue. Ready for our 3D adventure! trackless ride, similar to Pooh's Hunny Hunt system and you ride inside a rat! that's scurrying under counters and thru the kitchen during your adventure. I LOVED this..and think we rode it at least 6 times during our visit. thru the windows back there is Remy's. . the sit down restaurant, where you are shrunk down to the size of a rat for the meal. the food there was good, but well worth it for the theming, which was amazing. an ok. .let's head over to Toy Story Land, entering thru the Barrel of Monkeys really well done. . the queue for RC Racer is great. . and the look of the ride is great. peeking across the way at Slinky Dog. . we'd be there next unfortunately, RC Racer looks way more thrilling than it actually is. the restraints weren't my favorite, and the ride is really short and doesn't do much. I think I got more airtime from a giant frisbee than this. I'm glad we rode it, because it looks so neat. . but yeah, this was one and done for us. same with Slinky Dog. . . it LOOKS just amazing. and as a Toy Story fanboy? I loved it and no way would I pass up a ride on it. but it doesn't really DO anything. (another 1 and done). but it looks so great. this is the only ride over here that I did more than once. which is surprising, because it looks like just a standard Parachute Drop ride. but it actually holds in spaces, and goes up as well as down during the cycle. It was quite fun, actually. Pic from Slinky Dog queue too much of a glare. . but "I've been Packaged!" Rex is eating his head!!! ooooooooo I have ZERO memory of what this is. I recall it's from the food truck that was near the Cars Roadtrip tram ride. . but hell if I can recall.. it didn't make much of an impression, I guess. ham and cheese? hell if I know? ah. .the infamous (ly) bad "Cars roadtrip". . the replacement for the Studios tour. we're here, and it's a people eater, so let's ride it. huge queue space, not many folks in line. . . I know that look - "why do you wanna waste time riding THIS???" but we did ride it. and even got a bit excited (tho that might be because we got to sit down after a full day yesterday and already a lot of walking today) hmmm. . THIS looks . . . "familiar" FIRE FIRE!!! sparks! and water! lots of water lots and lots and lots of water yup and once we saw the Eyefull tower , it was over. really? yup. but the toilets over here had car part themed toilet seats. . which were cute. I still had about 40 minutes until I had to head out to the train station, so we decided to hit the only other ride here we hadn't gotten to yet: Tower of Terror. the line wasn't "short". . but it was moving. . . nah. .it was closer to 20. . but the sign was right there and with permission took a pic. spooky. . . and love the uniforms here too. . . we moved pretty well, and made it all the way into the gas pipes room.. . THIS close.. and the ride went down. and stayed down.. . 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. I started to panic, as I still had to leave the park and make it to the train station. . . so at the 20 minute down time - KNOWING it was coming back up shortly - I flagged down a cast member, and told him I had to exit the line, as I had to meet up with folks. and he walked me (and a couple of others - mainly parents with kids who had to pee ) out the back way and thru to the exit. I powerwalked over the train station at DisneySprings. It had been a really fun morning. . but I was pretty psyched for the trip into Paris and to the top of the Eiffel Tower. to be continued. . .

I heard it's going to Indiana Beach, opening in 2027.

While I’m not an expert in local Florida politics, the fact that Disney isn’t bothering to fight this is probably telling. That’s a PR calculation, but not one that they would likely make if they were all that upset about it. My gut says that they need to have DeSantis act like he accomplished something big, but it probably won’t change much-of-anything of substance so Disney would rather just let this stupidity die. This is just so stupid. They never cared about this bill and Ron DeSantis knows that they never cared about this bill. The last thing they ever wanted to do was make a statement on it, but their own cast members protested and demanded it. Then they caved, and miscalculated the reaction that they were going to get from the other side while trying to stay out of it and play it down the middle in a world where that’s no-longer possible. They don’t care and everyone involved knows that they don’t care. Everybody involved in this knows this whole thing is made up bullshit for political points but yet, here we are… it’s childish idiocy.

Some videos from the Avengers Campus soft opening/press preview: Full walkthrough: Avengers Flight Force POV (Formerly known as Rock'n'Rollercoaster): Official video from the press preview:

Official opening April 15th, hours posted through September 5th