Grand Gathering Events

[Leftcoaster]

Has anyone done either the Safari Celebration Dinner or the Epcot International Dinner and IllumiNations Dessert Reception? If so, can you please give a run down on what it all entailed? i'm interested in possibly doing one of these in March.

[Simba's Mom]

We did the Epcot Illuminations Dinner and Dessert Reception (along with some other Mouseowners). The dinner is a buffet, it's held in the Odyssey resturant, and a certain Mouse makes a guest appearance. The dinner food was OK. However, then there's the dessert and Illuminations. I've seen Illuminations at least a dozen times, from a wide variety of places (including 2 Illuminations cruises) and this was BY FAR the best view of Illuminations ever. There's only one regret I have about it-at the end of the evening, there were lots of desserts left over, and the CMs encouraged us to take left-overs. And me without my ziploc bags! So I had no way to get them back to our villa. Otherwise, it was an awesome time, and I'm SO glad we did it. Now, next year are we gonna do the Safari Celebration Dinner so we can compare?

[Plutofan2]

We were lucky enough to do all of the Grand Gathering events last year. We really enjoyed the Safari Celerbration. You get to take a private extra long safari ride with other groups. It was nice since you could ask a lot of questions and were not rushed. The dinner was pretty good. They brought out some animals but they were only small animals in cages nothing to exciting. The other post did a good job describing the Illuminations. We had a great time at both. Good luck.

[jiggerj]

Hi LC- I cant believe that I missed this thread! :bagovermy

Last May a group of us on Mouseowners had a Grand Gathering event that included the Illuminations dinner-

Here is a link to the thread- Included towards the end are pics, reviews and some details of the fun- :)

http://www.mouseowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1549&highlight=Illuminations+dinner

[Leftcoaster]

Ah, decisions, decisions. These will be very tough choices to make.
Already, we will definately be doing the Polynesian Luau as well as dining at Jiko.
I didn't go to Jiko on my trip last February and I am suffering from withdrawals.
Maybe I should just put it up to a vote?


It seems that the Safari has the better food of the two. However, Illuminations has dessert while watching Illuminations from an amazing vantage point.


For Plutofan2, did the safari ride offer you more, and better picture taking opportunities during it? What was the entertainment like? and were there any characters?