September 12, 2013 - On the Go in MCO

AN OCEAN OF HALLOWEEN FUN AWAITS AT

SEAWORLD ORLANDO’S HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR

Join SeaWorld Orlando every weekend in October for silly, spooky fun at Halloween Spooktacular. During this daytime event, families will be immersed in an underwater “fantasea” filled with trick-or-treating, dancing with sea fairies and pumpkin fish and sea-themed arts and crafts.

SeaWorld’s Halloween Spooktacular takes place weekends in October: 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 and 26-27, from 12 to 8 p.m., leaving the littlest of trick-or-treaters wide-eyed for all of the fun-filled activities. Halloween Spooktacular is included with park admission.

Spooktacular Highlights Include:

NEW this year: Spooktacular Dance Party

Princess Penelope and her undersea friends invite guests to join the Spooktacular Dance Party, where children can dance along to a Spooktacular mix of line-dancing favorites as clouds of bubbles fill the evening air. The party will kick off at the front of the park every event night an hour before SeaWorld’s park closing time.

Waves of Trick-or-Treat Fun

Offering more than two million pieces of sweet treats, costumed youngsters can trick-or-treat “under the sea.” Each trick-or-treat station features an assortment of ghoulish goodies including Tootsie Roll, Jelly Belly jelly beans, Airheads and other candy favorites.

Penelope’s Party Zone

Located at SeaWorld’s Bayside area, this dynamic underwater environment comes to life each day with a live DJ, a variety of interactive crafts to choose from, countless bubbles floating overhead and colorful pumpkin fish gliding around!

Sweet Treat Decorating

Kids and parents alike can have a “splash” creating their own sweet treats at the cookie decorating station. Kids will be able to decorate and devour their spooky cookie when they purchase a kit that comes equipped with a cookie, frosting and toppings.

Jelly Belly® Bean Art to Come to Life at Spooktacular

Jelly Belly artist in residence, Kristen Cumings, will use more than 10,000 Jelly Belly jelly beans to create a portrait of rockhopper penguins, reflecting SeaWorld’s all-new, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin. Guests can watch as this handmade jelly bean creation comes together in front of their eyes during the final weekend of Halloween Spooktacular, Oct. 26 and 27. Kids can join in the fun too, with the opportunity to decorate a Halloween Spooktacular mural with a variety of Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Not included with admission to SeaWorld Orlando’s Halloween Spooktacular, but always a really fun time is…

Count von Count’s Spooktacular Breakfast

1-2-3… Dine with me! Don’t walk around on an empty stomach, stay 1 step ahead of hunger! What goes great with your 2 morning eggs? How about infinite hugs from Count von Count, Elmo and his furry friends! Featuring a delicious buffet sprinkled with the hottest characters in town, the Count’s Spooktacular Breakfast is a fun-filled experience sure to delight kids and parents alike. You can “count” on it! Adults $24, Child (2-9) $14.

We’ll be heading to SeaWorld Orlando’s Halloween Spooktacular, and will be bringing you all sorts of great tips, tweets, and pictures!

Make sure to Like SeaWorld Orlando on Facebook or follow on Twitter and Instagram for the latest details about SeaWorld’s Halloween Spooktacular. #SeaWorldSpooktacular

My Disney Dish: Nudel Gratin

Nudel gratin is essentially a form of macaroni in cheese to put it in its simplest terms. The basics are there with elbow macaroni pasta, cheese, cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg and eggs. I have made mac and cheese from scratch before, but had forgotten how much time it takes in comparison to opening a box of Kraft or heating up Stouffer’s frozen mac and cheese. Make sure you read through the entire recipe including the instructions and not just the ingredients before you start cooking. I made the mistake of not doing so and didn’t realize until I was ready for it that I was out of aluminum foil and had to go out and get some even though the food was ready to go in the oven. I don’t think it had any adverse affect delaying the baking, but it made dinner later, which was annoying. So make sure you have your baking dish, mixing bowls, cooking spray, aluminum foil, etc. all ready to go along with your ingredients.

Ingredients

Baking pan

Preheating oven

Boiling water

Since I couldn’t find shredded white cheddar or swiss cheese with the other shredded cheeses at Publix, I bought blocks of each type of cheese and ended up grating them myself. This also added just a couple minutes to the relatively quick prep time of otherwise about 15-20 minutes. Most of the prep time was taken up by preheating the oven while waiting for the water to boil and cooking the pasta. While these were happening that didn’t need active supervision, I combined the cream, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cheeses. Total start to finish time with preheating, prep work, baking and cooling should take about an hour and ten minutes, so make sure you set aside a good amount of time before dinner to start.

Adding salt into cream and egg mixture

Grating cheese

Incorporating half of the cheese into cream mixture

Cooked pasta before adding cheese and cream

Overall, my brother and I thought it turned out well, and we would definitely have it again. We served it with ham and peas with a chardonnay, which seemed to complement the pasta dish well. Have you tried to make your favorite Disney dish at home? I’ve tried a few with varying degrees of success, but this was one of the best results and best tasting recipes I’ve made from Walt Disney World. Give it a try if you’re looking for a relatively easy, albeit time consuming, dish to start.