Eleven

WITH my Minnie Mouse ears on, I’m stood in an Italian piazza with a glass of Prosecco in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.

My friend has a pint of German beer and we click glasses to raise a toast in the Florida sun. It’s all very confusing.

When it comes to entertainment and attractions, Disney theme parks often raise the bar, but a new drinking game started by Disney World fans has created a new – rather boozy – way to enjoy one of the Florida theme parks.

The most magical bar crawl on Earth takes place at Disney’s EPCOT theme park, part of Walt Disney World.

It’s been dubbed ‘drinking around the world’ and has almost become an attraction in itself for Disney adults.

EPCOT is themed around future innovations and world community and there’s a huge lake surrounded by 11 pavilions representing different countries from around the globe.

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Here, you can experience different cultures, with attractions, crafts, food and drinks from countries including Japan, Norway, Morocco and Mexico.

With each pavilion serving traditional food and drink favourites from their own country, it wasn’t long before fans began taking on the challenge to sample food and cocktails from each one as they explore the EPCOT park.

However, with cocktails including the cult Avocado Margarita from Mexico, a whisky-based Ottawa Apple from Canada and a vodka-laden Canto Loopy from China, it doesn’t take long to get a bit tipsy.

Plus, at between £12 and £21 per cocktail, then tax and tip on top, it’s not the cheapest way to spend the day.

However, the challenge is a lot of fun and on a sunny day, it’s a very chilled-out way to relax and enjoy the beautiful EPCOT park without the hustle to get on all the rides.

However, this boozy bar crawl is not for the faint hearted. Big cups and generous pours mean it’s easy to get drunk quickly. 

Theme park staff and security won’t tolerate anyone intoxicated and behaving badly, so don’t go overboard. It’s worth nothing there are non-alcoholic options available too.

Since each pavilion also serves local foods, it’s a good idea to sample a snack at each place too.

If you’re on a family holiday, though, it’s fair to say your kids would probably rather meet Elsa and Anna than stop for a frozen daiquiri. 

So, it’s usually couples or friendship groups visiting without children who indulge in all 11 country-themed tipples.

As a Disney expert who has visited the Disney parks over 55 times, I have never managed to drink at every spot around the world in one day – with the most I could manage being just eight of the 11 pavilions.

However, recently my friend Marcus and I attempted to do all 11 by sharing a drink at each place to make it more affordable and, most importantly, less intoxicating!

We were in Orlando for work and decided to go to EPCOT for the day and take on the challenge.

We tried ‘drinking around the world’ at Disney

We headed to the World Showcase at lunchtime, starting in the Mexico Pavilion where we grabbed some tacos and our first cocktail of the day – a margarita from Mexico.

The Choza de Margarita bar has a huge list of different margarita flavours, with the cult favourite being the avocado margarita.

However, my personal recommendation is the Blood Orange (£14). Fresh, fruity and dangerously drinkable!

The Mexico pavilion is a great place to start around midday, as Mexican snacks like tacos and nachos make for a great lunch and there is an outdoor terrace with views over the lake.

I could very easily have stayed all afternoon, sampling some of the other marg flavours as well as Picantes and Palomas but, to stay on track – and on my feet – after a while we set off to pavilion number two: Canada

The Canadian location didn’t have as much atmosphere as Mexico, so we didn’t end up staying for long, stopping off just to pick up our next drink – which is actually one of my favourites.

If you like your cocktails sweet, the Ottawa Apple (£12.50,) is a hit.

This iced cocktail is made with Canadian Whisky, Maple, Apple Infusion, and Cranberry Juice and despite being full of ice, is like a warm hug. 

You actually pick this up from a popcorn kiosk, so we also grabbed a box of the moorish Maple Popcorn (£5) to snack on as we strolled over to the next stop.

If you want to hang around, there is a lot of open space here. You can grab a bench along the water’s edge and soak up the view.

Our next stop is the United Kingdom pavilion, which is very funny for Brits visiting Walt Disney World.

There are storybook ‘British’ streets, red phone boxes and cute little English rose gardens.

For those who love Disney characters, we bumped into Winnie the Pooh and Tigger here too.

The top spot is the British pub, Rose and Crown. Inside really does feel like the boozer down the road, – just a lot cleaner and with no fruit machines.

This is one of the most popular spots for Disney guests – especially those ‘drinking around the world’.

It’s one of the only places in Orlando to get a proper British pint and there is always a line. Probably because more than 800,000 Brits visit Orlando every year.

One of the best things about the World Showcase at EPCOT is that each pavilion has a team of staff from that country.

Marcus and I got chatting to the bartender, who was originally from Wolverhampton.

If you’re really missing home and you feel hungry, you can order traditional Fish and Chips here too and tables were packed with people tucking in.

For me, it could never be the same as back home though.

Marcus sampled the Snake Bite Imperial Pint for £9.50, which is half cider and lager and brought back memories of drinking in the Student Union.

Sticking with Europe, after this we moved on to one of my favourite pavilions, France.

The France pavilion is huge, with a popular attraction, Ratatouille, and lots of cute shops selling very French things, like perfume, macarons and pastries.

But, of course, we headed straight to the Les Vins de Chefs de France stand, for a fan-favourite Grand Marnier Orange Slush (£11.50).

This is a proper boozy slushie made with Grand Marnier, Rum, orange vodka and orange Juice. 

The queue is always so long for this drink, but that’s probably a good thing since it’s the most delicious, cold refreshment, which doesn’t feel at all boozy.

The 20-minute wait means you probably won’t keep going back for more and end up very sloshed in France, with seven pavilions still to go.

Picking ours up, we nabbed a spot in the sun next to the Beauty and the Beast garden and also picked up a box of macarons from the Boulangerie Patisserie as a sweet treat to go with it.

Morocco, Japan and the American Adventure pavilion were up next.

Japan also has a great alcoholic slushie, the Blood Orange Saki Mist (£10), but Marcus went for a non-alcoholic option here for a bit of a break.

I did the same in Morocco, opting for an iced mint tea but there are some fab drink options, including a Pomegranate Mimosa (£14)

The USA serves a less boozy slushie, the 0% American Dream (£5) made with Frozen Fanta Wild Cherry, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Frozen Fanta Blue Raspberry. 

By the time we reached Italy it was late afternoon, and we had worked out up quite an appetite. At 5ft 5 and 140lbs, I was also definitely getting a bit tipsy too.

Make time to hydrate

Lunch was timed perfectly at the Italy-themed pavilion, where you can grab a large slice of pizza to line your stomach. Washed down with a Prosecco (£10) of course – how could we resist?

Just along from here is Italy’s European sister, Germany but at this point I couldn’t handle any more liquids! I have it on good authority that the Bärenjäger Honey & Bourbon cocktail at Biergaten is great though £12 for the glass.

And of course, you are spoilt for choice with German beer.

At China, Marcus tried the Canto Loopy (a vodka and cantaloupe mix, £10.50) but I was more interested in sampling the pot stickers and potato and pea samosas (£5).

The final bar around the EPCOT world can found in Norway, which is a good place to wind things down.

It’s here you can ride the Frozen: Ever After boat ride, meet characters from Frozen and try one of the fan-favourite snacks – the School Bread (£4.50) from the Kringla Bakeri og Kafe. This is a custard roll topped with coconut and easily the best sweet treat in the whole park.

Perfectly complimenting this is the very alcoholic Viking Coffee – a boozy little liquid desert to end the day (£13.50).  It’s made with Baileys and Kamora Coffee Liqueur with Coffee-Chocolate Sauce, and garnished with Coffee-Chocolate Crunch.

The day was fun but I wasn’t sure if I’d still be awake for the fireworks show, Luminous: The Symphony of Us, which starts at 9pm.

It’s fair to say that by now I was definitely more drunk than tipsy. My hotel bed was calling for me.

A massive burger and chips was in order to sober up and as we scoffed our tea, I could hear the delighted screams of people riding Test Track, a high-speed car ride.

We’d had a fun day just strolling around in the sun but at roughly £75 to get in and almost £400 spent on food and drink between us, I couldn’t help thinking my time would have been better spent riding all the amazing attractions that I can’t do at home.

After a proper dinner and a ride on the calm and easy ‘Living with the Land’ boat ride, we wandered back over to the lake as the sun was setting, finding ourselves right back where we started, at the Mexico pavilion.

It was still going strong with tequila-drinking revellers and a Mariachi band playing in the background.

Was it a good idea to get another sumptuous margarita to sip along with the fireworks?

We’d drunk all around the world today, what’s one more cheeky cheers for the road?

The Netflix sci-fi fantasy epic has finally wrapped up forever but fans have questions

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from the Stranger Things season 5 finale

Stranger Things season five, volume three finally arrived after much anticipation and one last teaser trailer giving fans a sneak peek at the ending. As promised, audiences got a cinematic, feature-length runtime as the story wrapped up for good and viewers bid farewell to characters they’ve grown to love over nearly a decade.

With the show now wrapped up, many audience members still have many questions about how Stranger Things finally finished, including who died, who made it to the end and whether the Hawkins gang defeated the Mindflayer and Vecna (played by Jamie Campbell Bower) for good while closing the wormhole between the two dimensions. Here’s the lowdown on the Stranger Things grand finale.

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Who dies in the Stranger Things finale?

The body count was surprisingly low in the Stranger Things finale, given that the show is known for killing off beloved characters without hesitation. Vecna and the Mindflayer were killed, with Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) finishing off the evil villain in true style. The gang closed the wormhole between the two dimensions in the process.

Sadly, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) also died after she was shot by Akers (Alex Breaux) as the soldier threatened Hopper (David Harbour). Tragically, Eleven was unable to save her sister who died in her arms.

Hopper took out several members of the Wolf Pack Unit led by Akers as they launched their assault on them, while Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman). Most crucially though, it also appeared that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) had perished as she seemed to sacrifice herself and end the vicious cycle whereby her powers were exploited.

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Sky is giving away a free Netflix subscription with its new Sky Stream TV bundles, including the £15 Essential TV plan.

This lets members watch live and on-demand TV content without a satellite dish or aerial and includes hit shows like Stranger Things.

Is Eleven dead in Stranger Things?

Eleven’s fate at the end of Stranger Things was left ambiguous. It was thought she’d met her maker, along with the Upside Down, when she chose to stay behind after the bomb was detonated to close the rift. El vanished as the rift closed and everyone, including the army, thought she’d died.

However, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) had a different theory after hearing distortion on the speakers at his graduation ceremony. Mike told his friends his theory that shortly before Kali’s death, the two sisters had devised a plan. Kali would use her powers to make it look like El had died, but this was just an illusion.

This was Kali’s last gift to her sister before she died and meant that Eleven would never be hunted down again by the military for her powers. Instead, Mike believed El had escaped from everyone by faking her death and was now living somewhere else and exploring the rest of the world alone.

There was a scene of El finding the three waterfalls that Mike had promised to take her to if they both survived. It was unclear whether this was real or just how Mike imagined El’s new life. Although it was a theory, it offered solace to Mike and his friends.

There was also the feeling that Mike wanted to find her one day as he clung on to hope. According to the Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, it’s up to audiences to decide if El survived or not. Ross Duffer told Netflix ’s Tudum: “[S]he lives on in their hearts, whether that’s real or not.”

The final scene of Stranger Things saw Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and her friends playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement, signalling the passing of the baton to a new generation. This moment saw the whole of Stranger Things coming full-circle with the show also beginning with the original group playing D&D in the Wheelers’ basement.

Stranger Things season 5 is streaming on Netflix now