 Hey friends today, we're hanging out at Universal Studios Orlando, and we're gonna be celebrating Mardi Gras for 2022 I am so excited tonight's the first night and they're bringing back the full parade So we're gonna be able to catch some beads and eventually we're gonna be able to throw some beads from the parade floats That's one of the things I missed so much last year Then we're gonna eat some food and also watch some amazing live entertainment Anyhoo, let's go do this As soon as I see that big Mardi Gras sign and start to hear the music I get so excited Tonight's gonna be such a fun night of dancing eating and partying and also sugar ray is actually gonna be performing tonight And they brought back the whole Mardi Gras concert series. So I'm excited to see that as well This is gonna be a full Mardi Gras celebration the past two years It's been limited experiences because of the shutdown and everything that's going on But this year it's all coming back. I can't wait to see the parade That is one of my favorite things just catching the beads and also you get the opportunity to actually be on the parade floats Tossing beads to people and I like doing both of them. It's so much fun And when the music comes on feet don't fail me now feet don't fail me now It just gets me so excited The party really starts once it gets dark out So we're gonna actually go around try some of the food and then the parade is at 745 And also the concert sugar ray I think starts at 830. So there's gonna be a lot of things to cover today And I am so excited The Mardi Gras festival goes on from February 5th to April 24th, and there are so many new food items So I think we're gonna dive into some of the food boots first. I Do have to say the Mardi Gras live concert series is absolutely amazing sugar ray tonight Diana Ross bear naked ladies sticks LL Cool J marshmallow Khalid seal Gavin DeGrasse Jimmy Allen and Jason Derulo Jason Derulo. I Love how everybody gets so festive for Mardi Gras I figured I wouldn't bring my beads with me because by the end of the night I plan on having dozens of beads around my neck for when the parade happens and Also it being the first day it looks like the lines are gonna be a little bit long to get some of the food items But we're in it. We're in it to win it today No matter what every time I come to Mardi Gras anywhere not just universal. I got to try the gumbo I got to try the jambalaya. I got to get the beignets There's certain things that I always have to try and also gonna try some new things Hopefully things I've never had before that always gets me excited First things first. I think we have to get the chicken and duly sausage jambalaya You know I do love the jambalaya mixed rice with and duly sausage chicken shrimp peppers tomatoes finish with a spiced crawfish For only six dollars and forty nine cents This year instead of doing a punch lanyard They're actually doing a special food and beverage card and for annual pass holders. This is so amazing So this card is seventy five dollars with my annual pass. I saved ten dollars So I paid sixty five dollars for this I get seventy five dollars worth the food and then every other Individual item I buy with this. I also get my annual pass discount, which I think is so crazy That is so so good and here is the jambalaya. What a great way to start off We got some shrimp in there We got some sausage and then we got the little crawdaddy on top and I remember last year I eat the crawdaddy pretty much the improper way, so I've learned and I can't wait to try it now this year Look at this a little bit of everything in one bite the shrimp the sausage you got little chicken there and then the rice I love jambalaya. This is gonna be good That is some good good jambalaya Let's just mr. Crawl on the side here. There we go. Oh, he fell over But yeah, and you get a good amount so I I think I had four shrimp in there Four shrimp and lots of meat. It's actually a really good portion. I Feel like at other festivals you probably pay like seven eight dollars for this like, you know I mean and here we get it for five five dollars. It's not too bad at all, but I'm gonna eat all my shrimp first Now it's time to crack into the crawfish now last year I tried to like basically peel and eat like shrimp But they said now you have to crack it and then suck it out So I think that's what we're gonna do so now that it's cracked then you gotta like suck it out. So here we go I ran into my friends promise and Travis and they got the category five punch and those fancy little glasses I like those. How much are the glasses? So it's 13 dollars for the souvenir cup And you get a little light up party cup. I think I'm gonna go get one of those right now actually Yep, I'm going to get one right now The jambalaya Amazing now the crawfish Definitely a required taste and honestly, I like it. I like it now that I did it the proper way If you guys want to see the way I ate it last time I think I just like took the crawfish and just bit like I just bit it in half actually And that was not the right way that happened last year. So Definitely tastes better than the last time I had it Now I've got my official marigold cup for 2022 and it lights up and it's actually really pretty And I got the goon bay smash as my starter drink and this looks really really good I usually get the category five But I wanted to mix it up a little bit and now that I have this cup I can go back and I get refills for only 12 dollars and this is the bigger cup So that actually is really beneficial if you got the 12 ounce one you can get refills for eight dollars So if you plan on getting more than one drink Then this is the way to go and you can also get beer with it as well Because I do plan on trying some swamp head wild night beer later I much prefer like a beer instead of like a super sweet drink I do like like old fashions and stuff like that, but this is a pretty mixed one So I'm going to give it a go only for the experience of mardi gras, but I think I might like this one It's good. It's not too sweet. It's not too sweet at all. Very good juices in there. I like it This is good dark rum Then my friend promised grabbed me a carnitas a rapa here And I'm excited because I do love the arapas here and uh, look at that They took them away for a little bit. They were over by uh, where amity is but now they're back now. They're back Time to go all in here. Look at this. Doesn't it look so so good though? I am I love these actually there. They are really really amazing. So here we are They give you so much meat inside there and it is so so good And this is the second item that I've got to try so far For mardi gras and I'm loving it. I love all the food now We do have to get some gumbo and some beignets and a couple of other amazing items, but this is all this is a good start This is a good start Later on we're going to have to get some beignets. You remember our beignets technique to like hold it out like this Oh, yeah, I remember very very I feel like it's almost the same thing for the arapas The beignets and the rapids get eaten the same way all the mardi gras food is so messy It just got a bend over You shove it in your hole. Yep Now since we had some jambalaya we had an arapa and we have our drink still I think it's time for Some beignets some beignets king cake and also maybe a mardi gras marshmallow pie. Doesn't this all sound amazing? It's very apparent that the beignets stand probably has the longest line so far I mean, there's a lot of good offerings here and you can get the same drinks that you can get here Or at the mardi gras bar you can get them actually at this stand as well But uh kind of like going over to that side because it's a little bit nicer Here are the beignets and you can also buy a whole mardi gras cake, but the cake is like 12.99 but look at it in there I mean that is huge. I also got one of these cool mardi gras marshmallow pies because that looks fancy as well Thank you Oh boy lots of food Look at that so you actually get quite a few beignets in there and the cake looks really cool Look at all the mardi gras sprinkles on it and I'm excited. I'm excited to dive into it First things first. We're going to dive into the beignets But I'm going to break into it and I kind of got a good angle So I don't get powdered sugar all over myself and look at it. It's really really like Airy inside of it. I think beignets are supposed to be airy, but you can see there's actually a big pocket of air It's already broken in but I'm going to break through it first here Look at that. All right, now we're going to assume the position like this These are actually really really good and I didn't get any powdered sugar on me. I feel really really special Like you know, I couldn't find like a mardi gras shirt to wear So I just wore this nice floral patterned Roosevelt and I like it if it's pretty well Now we're going to try the mardi gras marshmallow pie and this looks so good I don't want to lose all my sprinkles, but we're going to just crack right in half here I don't know if it's going to work or not. I don't know Oh, wow Look at that That was impressive I am excited. Can you see the cake in there? This is going to be good. Okay. We're diving right in here Wow, this is so so good. I really really like it a lot Oh, and it was really fun to actually break open to it actually made like a pop sound Now, I don't know if it came out on camera, but I heard like a little like air pop But wow so so good. I might like this a little bit better than the beignets I don't know though. I've got one beignet left over there Maybe I should try that first and we don't have any sauce for it though Like you guys normally eat your beignets with sauce either like caramel chocolate or strawberry There's no dipping sauces for these ones, but this is good Oh You make a beignet moon pie combo a beignet a mardi gras beignet moon pie. Yes. I like the idea of this I think promise knows me too well here. This is it. This is the combo I feel like these beignets are a little bit more like how they would actually be served during mardi gras But I do like uh, disney's port Orleans french quarter beignets a little bit better I do like the mickey beignets even though they're not traditionally the way they're supposed to be But uh, they're just one deep maybe because they're mickeys Oh looks like we've got a marching band coming down I ran into some of my friends the darlings here and they are so well dressed and they actually do monthly events Where they go around and get dressed up around the theme parks and of course now it's mardi gras So we're all going to do a group photo. It's going to be really awesome. I feel under dressed though Oh Well that was so awesome aren't they all dressed up so beautiful. They're the d23 darlings and I love it They really do go all out for all the different events that happen in the theme parks And it's fun that we get to take photos and meet up Now I think it's time for some shrimp gumbo with rice 599 for this and I love gumbo. This is like a must have whenever I come to a mardi gras festival And it's 599 and plus we get our discount. So this is a really cool deal I would like to try the blackened chicken po boy. So we might have to come back and try that another day Uh, but gumbo on a perfect cool day today sounds like a plan Oh, you can actually hear sugar ray testing over there I almost heard uh every morning there for a second and here is the shrimp gumbo Look at this it looks so so good got a little tiny baby shrimp in there Got some rice and I like a little bowl. So we're going to dive right on in Seriously, that is some good good gumbo right there A lot of people always tell me gumbo should be a little bit darker than that though I mean, I don't know. I really only had like true true Like uh gumbo or jambalaya once and that's when a friend sent it to me And it was so so good, but it did not look anything like this and uh, I'm excited to try it I like the little tiny baby shrimp. All right, here we go. Our first gumbo Got a nice little bite with some rice with some shrimp Oh my lord It's so pretty. Hold me like this when it's cold like I like holding it like This is good though. Oh, yeah, this might be my favorite thing This literally might be my favorite thing I've had so far There's a little bit of spice in there, but not much at all. This is definitely my favorite thing. No so so good Hi, can I have some beads? Oh fancy. Oh, thank you. Oh, look at that my first bead of the night They're just walking around roaming around giving beads. I feel so special So we've been sharing a lot of the items tonight only because like most of the stuff is actually big portions But I devoured this gumbo. I ate it all. We all got like separate bowls This is so so good. It didn't even stand a chance. It didn't even stand a chance much too good Now I think we had our gumbo fix. It's time to move along and we're gonna check out the tribute store I haven't been able to actually see the inside of that yet And then we're gonna try to just relax and hang out until it gets dark out and the party starts Like this is a fun atmosphere I think I've had enough food, but if something else pops up that we all want to try I think maybe we'll try something else. I could go for another drink. I still only have had the Gumbay smash and that's the only one now. It's still full of powdered sugar But I'd love to get a beer and actually use this For my special refill price even though I can bring it back with me anytime I come But I never do that. I always forget it. I always forget the cups at home Right here is a tribute store. We're gonna head on in they do have some things in there that we can Actually try if we want to get some sweets or some snacks, but I'm just excited to see what it looks like this year The tribute store float factory Feet don't fail me now feet don't fail me now feet don't fail me now I actually have my Mardi Gras mask from last year that I actually brought with me and I kind of like how this is really set up in here It's like a factory for the floats and you can see all different things all over the place. It's really really nifty I love what they do with the tribute stores. I really think it's something unique and something that Disney really can't even touch Seriously, isn't this so cool. It's like a whole warehouse full of float works I love it The whole hallway is a look back in time at Universal Studios Mardi Gras And they just have tons of photos of the different Mardi Gras like floats and happenings throughout the years And take a look over on this side. This is really really cool. Like tonight's gonna be so much fun I'm so excited that it's back. And what do you think about floats on I4? I feel like that could be very dangerous Now we're gonna head on into the showroom and holy moly look at this It's so pretty in here I love it Wow One of the things I feel like it's important to tell you guys the Food inside the Mardi Gras tribute store is all considered merchandise So if you buy this food of average card, it does not count to these items So if you do come in here and you buy this you can't get any of the snacks even though the the snacks look fantastic But I probably won't get any because like I said, I really paid for this They have a nice little display right here. They have a Mardi Gras apple down here Look at that and then a tripe cake And uh some Mardi Gras shots and cupcakes dipped bacon So many cool things even a shaker shake a shaker shake a shaker cake for a hurricane $18 for that It's really really expensive But I just love seeing the big gigantic gator float in here. It's like a gator in space They were really really cool I always love checking out the tribute store. It's always amazing in there and they do a great job paying attention to detail in there But now I think we're gonna keep moving along and it's starting to get really really chilly out As soon as we came out of the tribute store, it looks like we see some space Some space Mardi Gras happening right here. Look at this. This is really really cool I love how they have so many different performers Just roaming around during the day until it gets really festive at night Which it will definitely get a lot more festive once nighttime comes But it's nice that they do have some daytime activities like the marching band. We saw earlier In fact now take a look at this. Holy moly the party is starting Look at this My friend Maria with LBB TV actually got the hurricane shaker cake From the tribute store and we're gonna share it because it is a big you said 15 pounds, huh easily like onike handed it to me I was concerned that they gave me concrete and cake. Wow. Yes. It's very heavy Um, and it's not the plastic that's heavy. No, it's the cake. Look at it. It's gigantic. See if it's good But it's definitely a shaker you can actually use so Oh, we should put that to use one day Oh, that's how you do it I can use it as an actual shaker not that I've ever made a martini, but I will start there you go. That's the way You gotta shake it up shake it up shake it up shake it up shake it up This is so heavy. I'm feeling so tasty Evie how it feels it looks it. All right. Does everybody have a spoon? No, I got a fork I actually think passion fruit passion fruit is very light So I think it's gonna be a little like a hurricane. Yes, like a category five. Yeah, an actual hurricane from New Orleans Those are strong It's gonna be strong. Yeah. All right, everybody go ahead. Okay. It's not as dense No, you don't like it. All right, here we go. I came in like a hurricane It's like it's really intense flavor Okay, it kind of reminds me of cough medicine. Yep. Oh no, and it's enough for three people With the king cake go with the beignet. Yeah Yeah, I feel like you should just keep that all day now and every time you run into somebody you feel like hey try this And let me know what you think Yeah, try this you got to try this cake. It's so so good. You're like hype it up The cake is good. It's the icing. It's the icing Yeah, the icing tastes like I actually bit into like a lemon The cake's good. Yeah, like a passion fruit icing. Like I bit into a lemon that is also mixed with bubble yum or something Yeah, it's very strange. Not not my I'm not a fan Yeah It was a hard pass on that cake. It's just something about the icing. It's just Not my favorite. Not my favorite at all, but it's okay. There's still a lot of cool things and it's starting to get darker out So I think we're gonna kind of hang out in this area and wait for a good spot for the parade Now I think I'm gonna stop at the Cajun twisted frank stand Well the twisted tater stand and they have a new twist on taters, which is kind of like a twisted tater drink Look at this old forester bourbon and then they have l'orange liqueur brown sugar sweet potato syrup Mexican chocolate bitters and lemon juice and uh goes in the refillable mug. So why not? He said they're whipping up the taters back there. I like how they just throw the taters right in the fryer Look at that. He's just tossing them right in there and look at all these delicious things here And I'm a floss in our seats. Did you see those cat-like reflexes? Ha Garlic parm look at that. Oh boy. Oh, yeah, don't breathe that in You're gonna get a little occasion in your eye. Ah very nice Thank you I had to try the twisted Cajun frank here and they have one with uh Spicy chorizo queso, but I got it just on its own because I hear that the uh queso was actually really spicy So we're gonna try we're gonna we're gonna dive in but look at this bad boy So good. It's nathan's hot dogs on there, too This is really really good. I like the Cajun seasoning on there They also had ghost pepper garlic parm, but you know how to go Cajun Cajun all the way, right? My friends ended up getting the uh same thing I got but they got the uh chorizo queso on there and look at it It looks really good, but I hear it's really really spicy So you guys are gonna have to let me know until then I'm just gonna stick with this bad boy Did you get any other seasonings on there? What did you just get the Cajun? Oh, and that's just Cajun Oh, this is the way. Look at this right here. It's kind of like the bone marrow like All over again. It makes that taste better. Yeah, definitely taste better Now we're gonna try the new twist on taters and this I actually think is gonna be really really good I want to point out that I found out that these cups are only served like sold on concert nights And if you do get a refill of one of the drinks like here They give you an eight ounce cup and they have to pour it inside there We still get the price discount and uh, here we go Oh, that's a little strong that's a little strong. It's got a little kick through it It is getting so busy here at night though Look at this the crowds are almost at a point where you can't walk And the parade's not for like another hour and I would say almost all the stands probably have a good 30 40 minute wait Like these lines are very very long. So if you plan on eating and trying the food I definitely suggest coming early as possible Now we've made our way over to the Bloody Mary stand and I'm not too much of a Bloody Mary drinker But I have some friends who do enjoy Bloody Mary. Is that a chicken wing? Are you eating a chicken wing? The Bloody Mary and the best part is that the straw is a slim gym See like doesn't wow hole in it so you can drink out of it. Holy moly I'm gonna try it so that yeah, they got me one to try so I guess we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this So my friend jojo and chris they've got theirs and this is the wild Version and it's the Louisiana hot sauce with sriracha hot chili sauce in there, but we're doing it Cheers Personally I like Sensitive the spicy stuff. It's not that spicy. That's great. Exactly bite my straw. Yeah, I could bite my straw I was really expecting this to actually be a little bit spicy, but now I have two cups Got two collectible cups. I don't know if this fits directly in there But I'm afraid to drop it in to see what happens, but I think we're gonna do it anyway Look. Oh, wow. That was actually really smooth. But look at that it fits right in there Now it is time the parade is almost here and because the concert is like immediately after the parade We wanted to find a spot where we can like go right to the concert as soon as the parade's over Without getting stuck in like a big crowd of people and I think we did pretty good So we're actually right outside of the monsters cafe Well, technically next to where donkey would be and we have like a good spot And everyone's all like already like lined up. They're ready for the parade to be back And then as soon as we're done, we can just hop right back here. It's time for some sugar ray We're all lined up here Our cups are finally paying off. We got the purple haze Yep, the drink of mardi gras waiting for the parade. Oh, and then there's a band coming right now. So cheers Feet don't fail me now soon Look at that Oh, it's coming Let the good times roll We got a really good spot The parade route's coming different than what i'm normally seen before So i'm excited Here they come we got the escort coming down Oh boy Feets we're missing in front of us Look at that that you just felt it in the face you do so i'm gonna try to catch that on film I'm gonna take one. I think this french quarter one is my favorite float so far I hope I we're gonna come back and we're gonna actually be doing this So i'm gonna be throwing the beads on this so look forward to a video about that soon But I want to be on this one right here. That'd be so awesome Somebody managed to nail one in my pocket I'll just look at this. Look at that talented On everyone is heading on in so we can watch some sugar array. Look at this Exactly why we wanted to come watch it from over here lbv tv Or me I don't know Now we're trying to get into the concert area This is really really tight here trying to take my beads off. There's like so much That I can't get them all off and they're like intertwined so i'm putting them In and then through my hand There we go. I'm I'm only a couple. I think that's all of them right there. Look at that. I like all the pretty colors Isn't it so pretty We're trying to untangle the beads here It's looking good as there's only one or two that's stuck in there got them untangled we can put them back on Here's the stage and we're ready for sugar ray a little mark mcgrath every morning They're coming out. This is mr Talking about 1995 and him having a number one song in 1999 and the first time he ever played in orlando was with a band called corn It was really cool to see that and now we got to make our way out But in true universal studios mardi gras fashion. There's one more thing we needed to do We have to give our beads to the tree. So here we go Oh, there's one it landed. I'm gonna take this one off. I don't want to give all my beads away There we go. Oh that one stayed too. I'm gonna try to rope it out right here Oh, this isn't it's so funny. What a tradition here for universal studios And with that, I think we are done here. What a fun mardi gras I am so excited. There are so many more nights. I plan on coming out I'm so excited to be able to come out and be able to throw the beads myself Because I do have a reservation to actually do that and also diana ross Jason derulo marshmallow. There were so many other great concert series actually happening and I love eating the food So, I hope you enjoyed the video. I enjoyed making it. We'll see you next time. Bye