WDW Daily News

Guests at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel can toast Independence Day with regionally brewed craft beers, during a “Taproom Takeover” at Cabana Bar and Beach Club, July 2-8. The hotel will partner with Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing to serve a variety of craft beers on all eight of its taps throughout the week and add a charitable twist as well.

On July 4, a portion of the proceeds from the brew, Homefront IPA, will be donated to Operation Homefront, which provides services to military families across the nation. Homefront IPA is collaboratively produced by several American microbreweries nationwide, including Cigar City Brewing. Homefront IPA is aged on donated Louisville Slugger maple bats, brewed with donated hops from Puterbaugh Farms in Washington, infused with fresh orange peel and served in donated cans from Crown Holdings, Inc.

Along with Homefront IPA, Cabana Bar and Beach Club will serve these Cigar City Brewing beers throughout the week: Helles Lager, Maduro Brown Ale, Invasion Pale Ale, Jai Lai IPA, Florida Cracker White Ale, Cigar City Cider, Cigar City Apple Pie Cider, Tocobaga Red Ale, Cubano Espresso Brown Ale and Wandering Pelican Black Ale. A selection of Cigar City Brewing beers will also be served at the Dolphin’s Lobby Lounge.

• Who: Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel and Cigar City Brewing
• What: Taproom Takeover at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel’s Cabana Bar and Beach Club
• Information: Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel is partnering with Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing to offer locally-brewed craft beer throughout the week at the hotel’s Cabana Bar and Beach Club. Proceeds from the specialty brew Homefront IPA offered exclusively on July 4, will be donated to Operation Homefront, which provides services to military families across the nation.
• When: Wednesday, July 2 to Tuesday, July 8 – Cabana Bar and Beach Club Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Where: Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel Cabana Bar and Beach Club, 1500 Epcot Resorts Blvd., Lake Buena Vista, Florida 32830

June 27th will mark 180 days until my family’s Walt Disney World vacation! We can’t be any more excited that December 26th is coming closer and closer. However, as many veteran Disney vacationers know 180 days before your vacation means one thing… Restaurant reservations. I thought this would be so easy. Boy was I wrong. I thought we would just call sometime that day and say what I wanted. Yeah, that’s not how it works.

First thing is, we have a dining plan. Therefore, for the four of us in my family, we get 1 snack, 1 quick service meal, and one table service meal. So on our 5 day trip, we’ll get to eat at 5 restaurants that require reservations. All over the internet, mainly Pinterest, I saw people mentioning that it’s a good idea to have a few backups for each night. That created an even bigger problem for us. My sister is allergic to many things and is a extremely picky eater, (well, so am I) so a lot of places didn’t have anything she would even think about touching. We finally have it narrowed down to a few things as a first choice… however, there’s a guarantee that they’ll go fast.

So for our first day in Hollywood Studios, our first pick is the Sci Fi Diner. Which looks amazing! Our second choice is the Fantasmic dinner package, which includes a dinner at Hollywood and Vine and priority seating to Fantasmic. Which wasn’t our first choice because we are hoping there’s a chance we’ll get good seats or a fast-pass. Our second day at Magic Kingdom our first choice is Chef Mickey’s for the breakfast buffet, not exactly in MK, but everyone is wanting character interactive meals. Our second choice for that day is Tony Town Square.

For Epcot, there were basically no places anyone found interest in. Let’s just say, we would not being accepted into the Epcot Food and Wine festival….. We are not cultured when it comes to exotic food. Therefore we decided to try another character breakfast. This one involves a slew of Princesses and is in a banquet hall in Epcot. “Akershus Royal feast” I’d personally never heard of it, but the reviews on the dining website gave it an average of four stars. We originally wanted to do the Cinderella breakfast…. But that costs 2 table service points instead of one and we want to try and go to as many places as possible. For our second day at MK we want to go to the Polynesian for Ohana character breakfast, this one featuring Lilo and Stitch. (If you can’t tell, we’re desperate to meet characters.) and for our last day in Animal Kingdom we’re hoping to get in at the Tusker House.

For the other meals during the day were going to have our quick service meal for dinner if we have reservations for lunch. And we’ll use quick service meal for lunch on days we have reservations for dinner.

We’re still having trouble deciding what we want for our backups. If anyone has any suggestions- please help us out! I’m excited to be able to write about my family’s experience in planning our first Disney Vacation. Only 6 more months!!