Our last Disney hotel recap was Pop Century Resort so it's only fitting that it's sister resort, Art of Animation, be next! AoA is another Value resort but it is on the higher end price-wise vs the other four. Art of Animation offers normal rooms as well as Family Suites, which can sleep up to 6 people versus 4 for standard rooms. Family suites are a great option for families with more than 2 kiddos, but they'll cost you upwards of $400 a night even with a deal.
This is my favorite of the value resorts but we often choose Pop Century because it's at least $20 cheaper a night. I'd rather more fun food than a slightly better hotel, ha ha! The theming is pure Disney nostalgia with Little Mermaid and Lion King sections as well as Finding Nemo and Cars.
The lobby is super fun and full of color, artist sketches and storyboards. Even if you don't stay here it's fun to come check out. In the lobby building "Animation Hall" you will find an arcade, gift shop and a very large food court, Landscape of Flavors, for all your meal needs. You can mobile order to go if you want to eat in your room. There is also a pool bar called The Drop Off near the main (Finding Nemo) pool.
As I already mentioned for Pop Century, the biggest perk of staying at Art of Animation is access to Disney's Skyliner in addition to buses. The Skyliner station is shared with Pop Century and will take you to EPCOT, Hollywood Studios or the other hotels on the Skyliner Route - Caribbean Beach & Riviera Resort.
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| View of the hotel from the Disney Skyliner |
We always stay in the Little Mermaid section because that's where the standard rooms are. The rest of the buildings are family suites. One day I'd love to stay in a Lion King family suite, they look so fun!
A quick video tour!
More photos:
Wow, we're at 20 parts for baking since 2020. That's about 120 recipes (not exactly since some things were baked more than once, ha ha!) There might be a little big bigger gap between this roundup and the next one as I'm away from home for the next few weeks, but maybe I'll still do some baking where I'm at.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
I wanted to make cookies but didn't want to let butter from the freezer come to the right temperature so I figured it was the perfect time to try these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with brown butter! I only made half a batch in case they didn't come out, but I was pretty sure they'd be delicious because I've yet to have a huge fail with one of Jenna's recipes (just like Tessa of Handle the Heat!)They were so delicious. Soft, but crunchy on the edges, a nice hint of cinnamon and deep flavor from the brown sugar. YUM.
Semolina Pizza Dough
On Pi Day I had to make pizza for dinner, right? I decided to do the semolina pizza dough recipe from our King Arthur Baking School class because I haven't made it since then. The recipe I linked above isn't the exact one but it was the closest I could find to the printout they gave us.
Cosmic Brownies
It's been a while since I put these brownies in a roundup so I figured it was time to share again in case some new folks are reading these! I'm almost out of my 1lb bag of Rainbow Candy Coated Chocolate Chips so I need to order some more soon. These are always a hit when I make them for Christian and I. We have to stop ourselves from eating them all at once (but they are very rich so that helps too.)
Classic Whoopie Pies
Every month Handle the Heat does a baking challenge, last month it was for Whoopie Pies! I've never made them before so it was a good excuse to try. They are sooooo good and the recipe is really easy, it's just like making cookies. We loved them right out of the fridge. Perfection.
Cinnamon Star Bread
I've had this recipe saved for a while and almost made it for Christmas last year but didn't get around to it. I thought Easter would be a good time too, so here we are! My family had brunch for Easter this year so I also made biscuits and french toast sticks, ha ha. My Mom made the rest. But back to this - it was pretty easy to make, the hardest/most annoying part was rolling out the dough into even and equal circles. They make it look so easy on TV! I also had made my dough the night before and it had been in the fridge, so it may have just been too cool to roll out easily, but oh well.
Chocolate Babka
I've been wanting to make babka for a long time but it always seemed so scary and daunting. Then I saw a video of Isaac Mizrahi making some on his Instagram and it made it look easy, so I finally decided to give it a go! It was a little messy but so so sooooo good! I will definiitely be adding this to my rotation of must-remake treats.
Happy Disney hotel Thursday! Today we're visiting one of my most stayed at resorts, Disney's Pop Century Resort. I have stayed here three times out of my 12 hotel stays (some of those stays were split stays meaning I switched hotels during the trip.) Is it my favorite hotel? No. Is it convenient and cheap-ish? Yes!
Pop Century is one of Disney's "Value" resorts, meaning it is one of the cheaper options for those still wanting to stay on Disney property. The absolute cheapest options in the Value category are the 3 All Star Resorts (I'll be doing a post on All Star Movies in the future,) next comes Pop Century and finally Art of Animation. I personally prefer Art of Animation because of it's theming but most of the time end up at Pop Century because of the price point. It's usually at least $30 a night cheaper than AoA (Art of Animation) so I choose buying more tasty food over location.
The biggest perk of staying here is access to Disney's Skyliner in addition to buses. The Skyliner station is shared with Art of Animation and will take you to EPCOT, Hollywood Studios or the other hotels on the Skyliner Route (Caribbean Beach & Riviera Resort.) If we had a choice between most similar-priced hotels and a hotel with Skyliner, we'll choose a Skyliner resort. Obviously I will never turn down one of the deluxe resorts like Animal Kingdom Lodge, Boardwalk or Polynesian, but in our usual budget Skyliner access vs. buses only would be a deciding factor.
We usually get one of the two queen rooms which have one normal queen bed and a murphy bed that can be left as a table if you want to dine in your room. Then at night just fold it down and you've got a second bed. The beds feature artwork of Mickey and Pluto in Pop Art style.
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| Murphy Bed in the up position, creating a table |
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| Easily folding down the Murphy Bed |
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| The bed comes down fully made and ready for sleep! |
As the name suggests, each set of buildings is based on a decade within the last century and what was popular at that time. They actually only have the 50s through 90s. Disney was originally going to do another hotel with the earlier years ("Legendary Years" and the "Classic Years,") but that eventually became Art of Animation. The resort has 2,880 rooms in ten separate buildings, three pool areas, and one central building, named Classic Hall.
Classic Hall is where you'll find the lobby, souvenir shop, arcade, quick service dining and anything else you may need on your trip. The dining is pretty standard quick service - pizza, burgers, chicken, various breakfast options.
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| The shopping and dining are combined into the "Everything Pop" area |
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At Christmastime most hotels will get a tree and Pop Century is no different. On the trip I took this photo they had just put up the tree the night before we left, so that was a nice surprise. |
Below are some of the larger than life items from the latter half of the century. I only have photos of the 50s, 60s and 90s because that's where we've stayed. I never took the time to explore the rest of the grounds because our trips were always super packed, perhaps next time!
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| Bowling Pin staircases are used for the 1950s buildings |
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| Baloo and Mowgli statue in the middle of the 1960s buildings |
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| Mickey's main man Goofy hangs out in the 1960s |
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| The 1960s have huge Yo-Yos as their staircases |
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| A giant laptop is featured in the 1990s section |
A couple weeks ago I was sent over Southside Market & Barbeque's Fresh Original Beef Rope Sausage to try. Southside Market was founded in 1882 by William Moon in Elgin, TX. What started off as door to door meat sales has evolved into four brick & mortar restaurants/stores as well as nationwide shipping! You can order smoked sausage, chicken, brisket, hot sauce, rubs and more straight to your doorstep! After trying the rope sausage, I'm looking forward to trying more of their products in the future!
Known by old-timers as “Elgin Hot Sausage” or simply “Hot Guts”, this is the sausage that put Southside on the map. Now available to order in rope form exactly as we sell it fresh in our meat markets. Unlike the shorter links, each fresh (raw) rope measures approximately 44-48 inches long and weighs 2 lbs. Seasoned with cracked black pepper, it is all beef, coarsely ground in a natural pork casing. This is our signature item, made fresh in-house daily for a level of quality, taste, and enjoyment you can’t find anywhere else. Since 1882.
You can buy one sausage for $25 or save $10 by purchasing 2 for $40. Make sure to use code TXBBQ10 to save 10%! The rope sausage came frozen and packed with some dry ice and packing foam to keep it safe and fresh. I defrosted it within a day and we cooked it the weekend it arrived. Never cook your Southside Market meat from frozen, always thaw first and make sure sausage gets to 165°F!
Time to dig in! I cooked the whole beef sausage very simply with no added spices and without cutting it. It's still a little too chilly for a grill session so I baked the rope sausage in the oven instead. I baked for 20 minutes in a cast iron skillet (to see if that would help with browning) at 400 degrees and flipped once to get some browning on both sides. I definitely need to buy some this Summer to grill too!
Since there's only two of us we obviously didn't eat it all in
one sitting so I did something a bit more fun with the leftovers. For
this first try I wanted to eat it as is, with some simple veggies as a
side so we could really get a feel for the texture and flavor. The sausage was juicy with great beef flavor and a nice kick at the end from the black pepper. I imagine the flavor would be even better with some char from the grill.
My only gripe with Southside Market is the cost of shipping. It cost $58 to ship just this one sausage rope. If I added on sausage links it would go up to $66 . Adding a rub to that it jumps up to $85. I understand they want to ship quickly and with enough ice to keep items frozen, but other brands can do the same for cheaper. Even HelloFresh, who send up to 7 (or more) meals worth of groceries is shipped for $10. They aren't doing the volume of HF, but I'm sure there are other economical ways to ship.
*This post was made in partnership with Apogee Agency. All opinions on the product are my own and have not been influenced by this sponsorship. Thank you for supporting brands I feature* #sponsored #SouthsideSausageReview #ad
Still going strong with no clothing purchases in 2023! It also helps that we're saving up for a bunch of trips so whenever I think about buying something I imagine us being finished saving for those trips sooner. I've been thinking about getting myself some new pajamas as well, but that's not very exciting, ha ha.
THE (modified) RULES
- Be mindful of purchases
- Quality over quantity
- Basics are best
MY PROGRESS
Clothes:
- None yet
Basics:
- None yet
Shoes:
- None yet
Handbags:
- None yet
Accessories:
- Apple Watch 8 Midnight Aluminum Case with Elderberry Sport Band (gift from Christian)
Activewear/Swimwear:
- None yet
Gifted from Brands:
- None yet
Spent in March: $0
Spent in 2023: $0
Spent in 2023 - counting ad money: $0
Time for more sweet treats! We've got a mix of chocolate, sweet potatoes, coconut, lemon and honey! It's been a long time since I've made really good brownies from scratch and I think I found my new recipe. I also made one of our favorites from the past couple years, the coconut chocolate chip blondies as well as a few more new recipes! One of which I've had on my "to bake" list for over a year - whoops!
Better Than Boxed Chocolate Fudge Brownies
I made these on a day when Christian casually mentioned wanting brownies. You don't have to tell me twice! Jenna's recipes have yet to disappoint me so I decided to try her brownie recipe. This is definitely one I will be remaking. They're super fudgy and have a perfectly flaky top to add a bit of crunch.
Flourless Chocolate Cake
I made this as our Valentine's week treat. Normally I would make chocohotopots but Tessa made this her February baking challenge and I LOVE flourless chocolate cake, so I decided to give it a go! We don't have an 8in round pan so I decided to use my fun heart shaped dutch oven from Home Goods since I would have to adjust the cooking time no matter what I used. I wasn't able to get it out of the dutch oven so no pretty picture of it on a plate, luckily the dutch oven is pretty.
Sweet Potato Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar Topping
We had a ton of leftover sweet potatoes after a dinner I made (mental note: we only need 1 sweet potato, haha) so I decided to bake them into muffins! I used walnuts instead of pecans and added chocolate chips to a few. I wish I added chocolate chips to them all, but we weren't sure we'd like the flavor combination. Overall they were tasty and a good way to use up leftovers!
Chocolate Coconut Blondies
I've featured this dessert a couple times in my past baking roundups. It's always a hit, even if the center is a bit under-cooked for Christian sometimes. I personally love the gooey center, so he gets all the edge pieces, ha ha.
Honey Lemon Cake
I've been wanting to make this cake since I saw Elizabeth make it on Ranch to Table. Christian loves honey and lemon so I figured this would be a perfect treat for him. This first go around wasn't the best, the butter didn't cooperate when I was whipping it, I assumed because the eggs weren't fully at room temp yet. I continued on anyway and the cake came out a little gummy. The flavor was there though! After my (sort of) fail I re-watched the segment on Discovery+ and her butter/egg combo looked the same as mine so maybe that wasn't the issue. I may not have mixed the honey in enough or mixed enough when adding the milk. Next time I'll do better, I hope!
Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
Another case of, "I have buttermilk from another recipe that I need to use." I have had this recipe saved for a while but since I don't normally have buttermilk on hand it's not something I can just whip up anytime. The recipe also uses sour cream which Christian and I HATE. But I always keep the little sour cream packets we get in our HelloFresh (get a free box!) or Blue Apron meals for this purpose. We won't use it for the meals but if I can hide it in a baked good, I'll use it.
