Never eat more than you can lift…Miss Piggy on DDP 8/31-9/6/2008*UPDATED 9/21*

[catne]

or the "isn't that cute" oldsters do Free Dining Disney Dining Review, with pics, for 8/31-9/6/2008

Characters: DH & me, age 52, traveling sans kids..."isn't that cute" is what we heard twice in one week from different people about our plan to go to Disneyworld with no children...at "our age"..."that is just so cute!"

Stayed at Pop Century (first time at a Value, we liked it...see resort review at http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946530.)

I tried to get pictures of everything...some turned out good, others not so much. New to this taking pictures of food, so was quite a bit of trial & error going on.

On to the reviews:

Sunday 8/31/08: lunch at Everything Pop
Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
Snack at Aloha Isle

Sunday, August 31, 2008 Lunch at Everything Pop, Pop Century Resort

Checked into Pop Century at around 11:45…our room was ready, so we took a load of stuff up. Room looked great & we liked the location. Called the desk to ask about our fridge and they said Housekeeping would deliver it soon, so we headed over to Everything Pop for lunch.

We were surprised how large the place was. Every time you went around a corner, there was another set of tables. DH commented how good Disney is at making a humongous place appear smaller…here we were with hundreds of tables around us, yet from any place you couldn’t really see that many tables...seemed a lot less giant-commercial-enterprise that way. And it was virtually empty. At around 12:30 in the afternoon, we expected some sort of lunch crowd. None. There were one or two people in line at each station. Same when we checked out. I’ve never seen a restaurant so empty at lunch time. The help at the counters were fast & fairly efficient (the people in front of us had their order messed up, but frankly I’m not sure it was the help that screwed up…the people seemed awfully ditzy to me.) Anyway, they had no trouble getting our order straight.

We had looked at the various menus, and decided on the flatbreads. We decided to get different choices & exchange bites. DH chose the reuben, with iced tea and the carrot cake for dessert.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1687reubenflatbreadPOP.jpg

I chose the Mediterranean, with the legendary Pop tie-dye cheesecake for dessert and Pop’s "signature" drink: frozen coke.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1686medflatbreadPOP.jpg

First off, the basic rule of thumb on Disney portion-sizes held true on these: you get a lot of food on Disney meals. These were both large...as you can see in the pictures, these were served on standard-dinner-sized paper plates and they filled the plate. Both flatbreads were very good. The reuben had the right mix of ingredients and was interesting to have those flavors on top of a crispy flatbread instead of the usual rye bread. The Mediterranean was a delicious mix of flavors. Although I’m not that much of a green olive person, in a mix of meat & cheese like these I do like the zesty taste the olives add. I really preferred my flatbread to DH's: somehow the Mediterranean toppings made more “sense” on a flatbread.

Loved the frozen coke…haven’t had one of these in years & years (I normally drink nothing but diet soda, so frozen cokes are usually off-limits…but this was a vacation! Brain freeze here I come.)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1688FrozenCokePOP.jpg

On to the desserts. DH was too full from his flatbread to try the carrot cake, so it went back to our room fridge for later. I gamely forged ahead to try the famed tie-dye cheesecake. This really is a very beautiful looking dessert. The colors are spectacular (cannot imagine how much dye goes into these things to get the intense colors…and probably do not really want to know!) On to the cheesecake: It was fresh. The texture was good. The taste was fine. The color was outstanding. But it is just regular cheesecake. So, it was good. That’s all. Don’t know why I expected it to taste better...guess because the colors were so intense, I expected the taste to be richer:confused3 ?

All in all, it was a good lunch. I’d give it an 8 out 10. Good food, good service. A little disappointed in the dessert (although for looks, I’d give the tie-dye cheesecake a 10 out of 10.) Would we go back…sure. Cost was 2 Counter service credits. Cash cost would have been $29.74...not a bad start to free dining.:banana:

Later, dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern

[butiflfeet]

Those flatbreads really do look good! Thanks for sharing your reviews and pictures. I'll be checking back for more...

[catne]

Thanks for reading! They were very good, and very filling...we decided to get somewhat adventuresome with foods, especially at counter service. I mean, you can get burgers & fries anywhere, so why not try different stuff (especially when it's free?:lmao: )

[catne]

First off, let me say I think it will be a shame when they take the characters out of this restaurant. We thought it was fun to see the Revolution-era costuming on the characters here. Minnie looked so cute in the patriotic garb (loved the regular “Minnie” cartoon style shoes peeking out from under the long dress…she was darling.)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1714MarkminnieLTT.jpg

Second, this place was not all that crowded before 6:30 p.m., so if you have no ADR’s you might try it as a walk-in if you’re willing to eat early.

On to the meal. Our waiter was Mo, from Morocco. Mo was very friendly, fast and efficient. And he had excellent English…I mention this only because I’ve read so many reviews where people are slamming waitpersons with communications issues due to poor English. We never encountered this at any of the restaurants. There were many CM’s with obvious accents, but they all were understandable, and made sure they understood what we were saying, too. Anyway, he explained how the meal worked, and brought out the salad and rolls.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1708saladandrollsLTT.jpg
The rolls were soft, hot and fresh. They reminded me very much of the rolls my grandmother used to make…a very yeasty dinner roll (she always called them “Parker” rolls.) The honey butter was very tasty. Naturally I ate too many rolls.The salad was delicious. The lettuce was fresh & crisp with a strawberry vinaigrette. We’ve had some fruit vinaigrette that are just too sweet…this was nicely tart instead. We each had small servings of the salad…got to save room!

Next came the main dishes mac & cheese, turkey, beef, and ham (with a mustard sauce), mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing and green beans. Kind of like Disney-does-Thanksgiving.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1712Turkeydressingmpotatoesgrav.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1710RBeefMaccheesegreenbeansLTT.jpg

First, let me say that all of the food was hot, including the gravy. Not too hot, properly hot. LTT has been reported as serving cold food. Didn’t happen with us. Second, we liked it all…it’s mostly what I’d call a kind of homey, pleasant sort of meal: your basic American comfort-food. Like your standard Mom’s holiday meal for the masses. However, we have to say the turkey was outstanding…moist & juicy with traditional roast-turkey flavor. It did not taste like “pre-formed turkey roll” as has been reported (nor did it look like it was sliced off a roll.) As for the other meats, I know they call it “smoked pork loin” on the menu, but it looks, smells and tastes just like ham, so that’s what I’ll call it. The ham was just alright, but then, I really didn’t care for the honey-mustard sauce. Way to mustardy-spicy to me. It would have been better if served on the side (I’m kind of picky about my mustard, though…it’s great on burgers, but I really prefer ham plain.) The beef was good, but mostly just slices of regular roast beef. It was warm & moist, with a mild flavor. The stuffing was o.k. but the gravy for the mashed potatoes was delicious…again, it tasted like homemade gravy to us. The green beans looked lovely but not much flavor to them (not a real big beans fan, either, LOL.) We both like the Mac & Cheese…I know, I know it’s just Stouffers pre-made but we LIKE Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese. Didn’t eat a whole lot of it, but it was tasty.

Finally, it was time for the dessert. Everything you’ve heard about LTT’s dessert is true: it is truly delicious.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1715applecrispdessertLTT.jpg
Almost worth the price of the whole meal. The dish is chock-full of apples, with a very nice crunchy topping, served warm with scoops of ice cream. The only drawback is the ice cream melts faster than you can shovel it in. Yummy.

Mo kept our iced tea full, and cleared dishes as we finished, always asking if we’d like more (we didn’t…as usual, it was all in all too much food.) The characters came by throughout the meal, even though it was just us 2 adults. That was fun. We’re suckers for Disney.

Again, I’d give this meal an 8 out of 10. Not perfect, some parts even plain so-so. But what’s good is very, very good (the rolls, the turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy and the dessert.) And the rest of it was good enough. Would we go back…probably will some day. And I’d definitely go here if I was in WDW for Thanksgiving or Christmas & yearning for a “homey” kind of menu to remind me of family holiday meals. Cost of Liberty Tree Tavern: 2 Table service credits. Cash cost would have been:$61.75. We tipped $11.60 (charged all tips to room on that lovely magic room key.)

Later on Sunday night, we had our traditional Dole Whip floats from Aloha Isle. Just love those things-like a frozen pineapple sweet-tart. The contrast between how sweet the Dole whip is and the tanginess of the pineapple juice just makes a very refreshing taste sensation. I know some people don’t like it, but we do, especially if you swirl the juice in a bit. So sorry I didn’t get pictures…was feeling hot & lazy at the time, and figured we’d be back later to get more so I’d get pictures then. But I was totally forgetting just how full we end up on the DDP, and how few actual snack breaks we take as the week goes on. Cost of 2 Dole Whip floats: 2 snack service credits. Cash cost would have been $8.50.

TOTAL Free DDP Credits used for day 1: 2 Snacks, 2 counter service & 2 table service.

OOP cash saved by using the Free Dining: $99.99 for the day.

After a few more attractions, and watching a bit of SpectroMagic, we decided to head back to the resort (the crowds were getting crazy-big due to the late EMH at the Magic Kingdom…apparently everyone at WDW for the holiday weekend was going to get their money’s worth out of the 3 a.m. EMH! Not us…too tired.) So we stopped at Main Street Bakery to get pastries for Monday breakfast and headed back to Pop.

[TessieA]

Great reviews. Can't wait for the rest.

[HonnyDipp]

:thumbsup2 Great pics! Thanks for sharing, can't wait to see more!!!

[Joshua_me]

Lovin' the reviews so far !

That ice cream and apples from LTT looks deLISH. Hard to believe we've never had dinner there...

Looking foward to more... :thumbsup2

[TarheelPrincess]

Love the reviews! We're also doing our first trip to Pop with free dining in a few weeks...your reviews are very helpful and are really making excited to go to Pop!:goodvibes

[John's Mom]

Great reviews! Waiting for more! popcorn::

[catne]

thanks for the feedback, folks. Working on the next day (Sept. 1)

TarheelPrincess, did you see my Pop review? We really enjoyed the place...

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946530

[MickeyNicki]

Your DH is so cute with Minnie...where is your pic with Mickey? ;)

[catne]

Your DH is so cute with Minnie...where is your pic with Mickey? ;)

You know what? Now that you mention it, Mickey never did come around! We saw Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale, but no Mickey.

Here's me & Pluto...
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1707cATHYplutoLTT-1.jpg

Goofy was quite the flirt, by the way. Really laid it on thick with the hand-kissing routine. Cracked us up.

[MinnieMom]

Your reviews are great! Can't wait to read more. DH and I are headed to the world for the first time sans kids in just 5 days! Our friends and family think we're nuts, but we just love it. We've taken the kids every year since they've been born and decided we need an adults-only trip to do some of the things we just can't with them. I'll miss them dearly, but I'm really excited too!

[w-family]

Great review, looking forward to the next installment.

[catne]

Your reviews are great! Can't wait to read more. DH and I are headed to the world for the first time sans kids in just 5 days! Our friends and family think we're nuts, but we just love it. We've taken the kids every year since they've been born and decided we need an adults-only trip to do some of the things we just can't with them. I'll miss them dearly, but I'm really excited too!

Glad you're enjoying the dining reviews. I also have a trip report going, if you're interested. (http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946170) Maybe You'll be "cute" too, going to WDW without the excuse of children.:lmao:

Seriously, though, you'll have so much fun by yourselves. Yes,
it's wonderful to see Disney "through the eyes of a child" but it ain't too shabby just looking through your own eyes either!:lmao:

And wink, wink, nudge, nudge...no kids & no parenting responsibility is a great marital aid, know what I mean, say no more! :rotfl:

[MinnieMom]

Glad you're enjoying the dining reviews. I also have a trip report going, if you're interested. (http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1946170) Maybe You'll be "cute" too, going to WDW without the excuse of children.:lmao:

Seriously, though, you'll have so much fun by yourselves. Yes,
it's wonderful to see Disney "through the eyes of a child" but it ain't too shabby just looking through your own eyes either!:lmao:

And wink, wink, nudge, nudge...no kids & no parenting responsibility is a great marital aid, know what I mean, say no more! :rotfl:

HA! Yes, I know what you mean about the "marital aid!" :lmao:

[iluvpluto27]

Enjoying your reviews. Looking forward to more.

[luckytobeme88]

great review.:thumbsup2

[wilma-bride]

Great start to your reviews.

[TigerKat]

DH & I are so excited to be going alone for the first time in November.:goodvibes Looking forward to the rest of your reviews!

[catne]

Monday, 9/1/2008 Labor Day Dining in pursuit of Toy Story Mania

Breakfast in our room…we had taken our Senseo coffee maker with us - the luxury of driving our own car & having room for extras! With an assortment of coffee pods we could get great coffee right in our room. I had my fave French Vanilla and DH had his (boring!) Dark Roast. We took cream, and several bottles of flavor syrups with us so I could do my amateur barista-bit and our extreme caffeine needs were met very well, first thing in the morning.(The Senseo machines very quickly makes single servings of coffee, not like your typical 10 minute drip….well, that was perfect, because we were on a Disney vacation…can’t wait 10 minutes for coffee…who has that kind of time! LOL.) As for breakfast food, well the evening before, we had stopped at Main Street Bakery in Magic Kingdom on the way out of the park to purchase loverly decadent pastries for breakfast. Since I’d read cautions about the possibility of bakery items getting stale overnight, I cleverly took extra-large ziplock baggies to slip the to-go boxes in. Worked like a charm. Our bakery delights kept fresh to give us an easy quick & delectable breakfast in the room without having to resort to anything healthy like granola or cereal bars. Bon appetit! Here’s the pastries…an apple turnover
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1723giantappleturnoverMainStBak.jpg
and the famed Main Street Bakery cinnamon rolls.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1722giantCinnamonrollMainstreet.jpg
DH had the apple turnover…it was HUGE. Like the size of half an apple pie. Seriously. You look at the picture and think it’s not looking all that big. Except you have to know this: that is the larger size of a to-go container it’s sitting in…like the size they put a full dinner in! And according to DH, it was the all-time best apple turnover he has ever had, anywhere. Said there had to be a least a couple of apples in it-not the usual couple of slices & then a gallon of sugary syrup filler. This one had lots & lots of apples, and not the mushy kind that come in canned pie filling. DH is not usually that impressed by pastry/sweets/baked goods (I’m the real sugar fiend in the family. ) So this was significantly high praise coming from him. On to the cinnamon roll. Also huge…would estimate it to be about 4 inches high…easily twice the size of your standard cinnamon roll from the grocery store. As you can see, the roll easily fills a standard-size to go box (the size you’d put a BK whopper in for example.) Very soft dough, dripping with frosting/glaze and very cozy cinnamon in between the coils of dough. Yum. I’d rank it right up there among the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had, too. I would have preferred it to be warm, but even at room temp it was incredibly good. In fact, I’m getting hungry just remembering how good these pastries were…Main Street Bakery breakfast…10 out of 10 for sure. Would I do it again…in a heartbeat! Cost: 2 snack credits. Actual cash cost would have been $5.31.

O.K., ‘nuff of that. We were off to Hollywood Studios for the morning…had to get my TSM fix in. After a nice morning of touring the Studios (and a round of TSM) we headed to ABC Commissary for lunch. I know people complain there’s no good restaurants at DHS…well our previous experience has been that we actually liked DHS restaurants we’ve tried, so our current plan is we’re going to try all of them eventually. This time, we’re trying the Commissary. Once again, we were not disappointed. We’d looked at the menus in advance (o.k., I admit it…I looked at the menus…after 30 some years of marriage, DH just goes with the flow on these things. He learned long ago not to get in the way of manic OC planning. He has learned the value of a well-timed Yes,Dear.) So, we were going to try the Cuban sandwiches, which come with chips & soda for the combo meal. He chose the strawberry parfait for dessert, and I picked the chocolate mousse.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1724CubanSandwichchipscokechocm.jpg
First, the service was good…fast & efficient. The place had virtually no one in it (we were eating a bit early for lunch – it was just 11:15 - because we’d eaten breakfast fairly early, and also because we wanted to make the 11:45 Beauty & the Beast show.) Also as usual, the servings are generous. This sandwich is on a hoagie-size bun. It’s crispy-flaky outside and warm, soft bread inside. There’s a couple of nice thick slices of ham, along with melted cheese, dill pickles & mustard on this sandwich. We really enjoyed it, but if you don’t like mustard you better skip this one, or see if they can tone it down…they really slop it on here. The chips are those thicker cut, deep fried crunchy kind. I prefer regular chips, but these are o.k. for a change every now & then. The desserts were the Disney pre-packaged variety available at most counter services, but we like them. These were fresh. The parfait was like a light vanilla flavored pudding, not too sweet, with a few blueberries on top…the bottom layer was a lot of whole strawberries in a sweet syrup. Very nice combo of the sweet berries with the not-too-sweet pudding layer.

The chocolate mousse was a surprise – as a confirmed, card-carrying chocoholic, I figured I could easily finish this little beauty. Well, I expected it to be somewhat light, too, because it was a lighter color of brown and appeared to be a whipped consistency, so I figured it’d be a lot of air, right? Wrong! The actual taste was more like very rich and creamy dark chocolate. It was delicious, but way too rich to finish, especially after the size of the sandwich. So this was another Disney Dining meal we couldn’t finish. Again, I cannot begin to imagine doing the Deluxe Dining Plan…lordy, so far we haven’t finished all of the food at any DDP meal on the regular plan. Where would we ever put another meal? And after a couple of days of this over-stuffing, how would anyone fit on the rides? Or manage to waddle their way over to a ride, LOL. Anyway, I’d give this meal a 7 out of 10. Way better than your average fastfood burger & fries, but like I said a bit too much mustard (although DH thought the mustard quantity was just about right!), and I would prefer a choice on the chips. Overall though, good enough food, good service, and nice indoor seating. Would we come back? Sure, after we’ve tried the other DHS restaurants. Cost: 2 counter service credits. Actual cash cost would have been $26.35.

After touring the Studios for awhile longer, we decided to return to our hotel for some R & R in air conditioning…it was again hot & humid, and that drains you! We stopped at Starring Rolls on the way out of the park to buy breakfast goodies. There were only a couple of people sitting at outside tables eating lunch, even though it was around 12:30…prime lunch time. We ate lunch at Starring rolls in May…they have 3 choices of extremely good, extremely large sandwiches. I can vouch for the turkey club on focaccia and the veggie sandwich. The other also looked great. And you can’t beat the dessert choices…it’s a bakery: loads of yummy choices for those who abhor the prepackaged desserts at most counter service. Anyway, we got our breakfast goodies & headed back to Pop.

After a nice break (love the a/c at Pop…lovely cool rooms. And the maids don’t mess with the setting like in most hotels where they always put it up to 76 degrees or something. At Pop Century, if you leave it on a cold setting, it’s still there when you come back: so refreshing.)

We went back to DHS in time for our dinner ADR at Mama Melrose. We had the Fantasmic Dinner package,so this meal came with an appetizer for each of us. We started with drinks (love the parks which have adult bevs!) I had the Peach Bellini…this was a lovely frozen concoction served in a champagne flute which I believe had peach schnapps in combination with some sort of sparkling wine. Whatever - it was peachy/frozen and luscious.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1727PeachBelliniandItalianBeerM.jpg
Suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. With a bit of a brain freeze from overly eager slurping. DH had whatever the Italian on-tap beer was. He liked it.

I ordered the fried calamari for my appy. (sorry the pic is a little dark)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1730deepfriedcalimariappetiserg.jpg
This came with grilled veggies and a spicy marinara dip. I loved the calamari, and the combo with grilled veggies was very tasty. The dip was too spicy for me, but as DH pointed out, I’m a wimp on spicy dips. According to him it was a very ordinary amount of “spicy” in the dip (and quite good, to his taste.) Perhaps I should start drinking beer again…maybe that would allay my qualms about spicy dips? Nah. I’ll stick with the brain freezing fruity slushies…bring on the umbrellas.

To move on, DH chose the artisan breads plate with the various spreads and dips.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1729artisanbreadsappetiserpesto.jpg
The breads were good-all the sturdy grainy types which are best when coated with some sort of high calorie spread. The pesto was quite good, but dipping oil was kind of bland…tasted like just plain olive oil to me. We’re used to something a bit more flavorful in a dipping oil (please note I do like spices…just not the really “hot” ones.) The roasted garlic was outstanding…we could have skipped everything else offered and just used that.

For entrees, I ordered the Pork Marsala which is described on the menu as “Pan-seared pork tenderloin with wild mushroom risotto and asparagus topped with parmigiano-reggiano, and marsala sauce”
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1733porkmarsalawithmushroomriso.jpg
It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the actual quantity of meat was large…I would guess there was at least 8 oz. Of pork loin on this plate, and it was very tasty, moist and tender. The risotto was good…the marsala sauce was similar to a mushroom gravy (which I liked.) The asparagus was fresh, cooked al dente, which I much prefer to overcooked mush. All in all, I enjoyed this entree, but there’s no way I could finish this and save room for dessert.

DH chose the Spicy Italian Sausage which was “Served with Rigatoni pasta, peppers, onions, and a tomato basil sauce topped with Caprino cheese.”
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1732spicyitaliansausageandrigat.jpg
Being spicy sausage, I took his word that it was (1) very good and (2) very spicy. I did have a bit of the rigatoni & sauce. It was a classic Italian tomato sauce (the red variety) spicy, but not too spicy for me. The Cheese on top tasted like a cross between parmesan & sour cream…I assume there are fair number of similarities in taste between the various Italian cheeses.

For dessert, we again decided to get different items & share. I chose the Tiramisu - Layers of Ladyfingers soaked in coffee and topped with whipped mascarpone cheese.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1735tiramisuMamaMelrose.jpg
That's a curl of dark chocolate across the top, and chocolate sauce drizzle pattern on the plate. The outside edge of this was like a white chocolate shell, striped with dark chocolate. This was absolutely delectable. I love coffee, and this dessert took coffee appreciation to a whole new level. It was not overly sweet, but again no way I could finish this: the dessert seems to be light & fluffy, but the mascarpone cheese makes it so rich.

DH chose the Honey-Hazelnut & Ricotta Cheesecake.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1734HoneyHazelnutricottacheesec.jpg
As you can see, this dessert also has a very pretty presentation. That's chopped hazelnuts around the outside. What can I say…this was another little bit of heaven. And these sinners did our best to enjoy this one, too. The honey/hazelnut combination was very sweet, but using ricotta for the cheesecake made it very rich tasting while offsetting the sweetness just the right amount. We really like both of these desserts, but I think we’d give the edge to the honey-hazelnut ricotta cheesecake. The tiramisu was wonderful, but in the end, way too rich to really enjoy. To have a bite, lovely. To eat an entire piece, no way. The cheesecake, on the other hand, we could have eaten a whole piece if we weren’t so full.

To all those lamenting the removal of the appetizer option from the regular DDP…have to say the same thing as the DxDDP…how could you possibly eat that much food all the time? While we enjoyed having the option of appies on this meal, the truth is we probably could have made a meal of just the appies & desserts. Or just the entrees and no appies or desserts. And still walked away full. Love the luxury, but lordy, that’s a lot of food! Not to mention the amount of time it takes to get through that much food. We were there more than an hour & a half…really would not like to always invest that much time in meals during a Disney vacation. There’s just too many other ways to spend our time. It’s nice to take a long meal break every now & then, but not every meal.

The service was good, with a friendly, efficient and smiling waitress named Erica. The bussing help was good at clearing extra dishes off the table as needed. The décor was pleasant: done up like a traditional Italian restaurant, twinkling lights & grape bunches, etc. Although the place is actually very large, the dining rooms are broken up with partial walls so it seemed smaller and more intimate.

Overall, I’d give the Mama Melrose meal an 8 out of 10. We’d certainly return again, especially for the Fantasmic package deal.

The cost of this meal…the Fantasmic Dinner Package…was 2 Table service credits, total. The cash cost for the meal would have been $81.29. We paid $31.41 out of pocket for our alcohol beverages & the tip.

To wrap up Monday, after watching Fantasmic and doing one more drop on the Tower of Terror, we stopped for Mickey Bars. We were pretty full still, but it was fairly hot & humid yet, so the appeal of ice cream was too much. Love those Mickey Bars. (Cost was about $5.00 out of pocket…we were using our snacks for breakfasts!)


TOTAL Free DDP Credits used for day 2: 2 Snacks, 2 counter service & 2 table service.

OOP cash saved by Free Dining for breakfast, lunch & dinner: $112.95 for the day.

Total savings for the week so far...$212.94 in two days

[suzimar57]

enjoying your reviews and photos - especially at mama melrose - never been, made ADRs for december - planning to get both the artisan breads/spreads (sounds like you really liked it!!!) as well as that honey hazelnut ricotta cheesecake (want to compare it to the almond crusted cheesecake at narcoosees that i love!!!)

[catne]

enjoying your reviews and photos - especially at mama melrose - never been, made ADRs for december - planning to get both the artisan breads/spreads (sounds like you really liked it!!!) as well as that honey hazelnut ricotta cheesecake (want to compare it to the almond crusted cheesecake at narcoosees that i love!!!)

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did! But if you get the appies, you really have to consciously slow down to save room for dessert...the quantities are just huge. Both the calimari & grilled veggies and the artisan breads are served on platter-sized plates (like bigger than your average dinner plate.) As you can see in the pictures, the food fills those appy plates. Each appetiser could have fed 2-3 people easy so it was more like getting appetisers for a family of 4-6 people instead of just two people.

[sunny_stace]

I'm loving your reviews! Your descriptions are excellent! Thanks for sharing! :)

[sherry8253]

Great reviews. Looking forward to more!! :)

[ajsmommy1129]

enjoying your reviews and photos - especially at mama melrose - never been, made ADRs for december - planning to get both the artisan breads/spreads (sounds like you really liked it!!!) as well as that honey hazelnut ricotta cheesecake (want to compare it to the almond crusted cheesecake at narcoosees that i love!!!)

That cheesecake was my favorite, of all the foods we ate last year, and I do mean to tell you we ate!!!! I would go back to Mama Melrose just for the cheesecake...dang it, almost a whole year before I can have it!!!

BTW, great job on the reviews, and AWWWWW, isn't that cute!!!!

[FirstMagic]

I love the thoroughness of your reviews, especially how you keep the total for day, both in credits used and in cost. That kind of detail really helps people when they are planning, and wondering if they should get the DDP or pay OOP.

Your pictures are great too! Making me hungry.... :goodvibes

[catne]

Thanks for the positive comments, all. Glad people are enjoying the pics...I know I enjoyed many good reviews this year while planning this trip, so I was bound & determined to do "pay back" with some yummy pictures myself!

And FirstMagic, I was also determined this time to keep the receipts, so we'd have the real numbers for comparison. We kept track in May, but didn't always have the actual receipts, sometimes we had to reconstruct from menus. This time, I kept all the receipts, so we know what we saved & what we paid OOP, every time.

There's always a lot of talk about the DDP "costing" you money. Don't see how it could if you're planning on eating at Disney restaurants. Sure there's cheaper ways to do a Disney vacation, such as if you choose to bring your own food, or leave Disneyworld to try less expensive Orlando restaurants. But if you're planning on eating at Disney, our experience has been that the DDP saves money every time (especially when it's FREE, and you stay at a Value resort.:woohoo: )

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Your reviews are great, I really loved your review of LTT. I will miss having the characters there!

[catne]

Tuesday started in the room with our own coffee, and the breakfast goodies we bought at Starring Rolls, DHS on Monday.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1737dblchocchipandblueberrymuff.jpg
DH had the blueberry muffin (on the left in the picture), I went for the double chocolate chip muffin. I feel like an ad for ziplock bags, but once again the bags kept the baked goods fresh from yesterday. These were the usual over-size bakery style muffins. Moist, and loaded. DH said there had to be a full serving of fruit in his muffin…this was brimming and bountiful with juicy blueberries. As for mine, the “double chocolate chip” was no exaggeration…this muffin was that chockfull of chocolate...super-charged my choco fix for the day.

I’d give the muffins a 10 out of 10. Would we go back: We’d definitely do Starring Rolls again for breakfast (or snacks!) I've read that all the Disney bakeries are just retail outlets and they really do the baking at one large central bakery...I say SO WHAT? I don't care where they make the stuff, it's all yummy. And so far, it's all been fresh when we buy it.

Cost for Breakfast: 2 snack credits
Actual Cash cost would have been $4.88

We were off to Epcot this morning, for early EMH & some serious Soarin’ time. After a great morning of walk-ons (love the post-Labor Day lack-of-crowds!) we headed to the Tangierine Cafe, Morocco in the World Showcase for lunch. Now, in our quest to try new restaurants & foods every trip to WDW, we’d originally had ADR’s for Tuesday evening at Restaurant Marrakesh. But then I read a lot of reviews that suggested you’d get a better deal for your money by having lunch at the Tangierine Café instead: same food, less cost and quicker/easier. Sounded good to me, and gave us another opportunity to try a different table service for dinner. So I cancelled the Marrakesh and we went for lunch. At Tangierine Cafe, there are several sandwiches & such available, but we decided to try platters. I had a soda, DH had ice tea. Going for different dishes to maximize our exposure to new foods, I ordered the chicken and lamb shawarma platter, which is described as slices of chicken and lamb, with a side of hummus, tabbouleh and Tangierine CousCous salad with fresh Moroccan bread
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1738chickenandlambshawarmaplatt.jpg

This was absolutely wonderful, especially the lamb (that’s the stuff that looks like flank steak slices, top right of the bread in the pics, BTW. Chicken is below, center bottom with the purple onion slices on top of it.) Both the chicken & the lamb appeared to be roasted, but not dried out, and had very good flavor. Both meats were topped with a delectable cream sauce…would say it had sour cream, cucumbers and onion slices in it. Reminded me very much of the type of sauce you’d get on a typical gyro sandwich. The Moroccan bread was like a cross between Italian bread and pita…thicker & doughier than a gyro pocket bread, but not quite as lofty/yeasty as Italian bread. Very good, fresh and warm. The couscous-just to the right of the chicken, bottom right on plate - was excellent (taste: say a Mediterranean version of fried rice.) The hummus -that's the stuff the spoon is stuck in - was just plain WTH? It’s made from ground chickpeas...should be your first clue, if you've ever had chickpeas. The consistency of a cracker spread, but very little taste. Supposedly, recipes for hummus call for lemon,garlic, salt & olive oil. If so, they seem to have left those out in this. Was sooo bland. It reminded me of something very healthy you could feed to someone with no teeth to help get their strength up. Ugh. Pass! The tabbouleh - that salad above the hummus - was tasty…think salad made with dark greens & the Moroccan version of a tomato pesto on it…like a tomato/olive oil relish actually. Anyway, other than the hummus I loved this platter. And it was Disney-huge portions, again.

On to DH’s meatballs and saffron rice:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1739meatballandsaffronriceTangi.jpg
O.K., again this was a very large serving. There were more than ½ dozen good-sized meatballs, and the rest of the plate was the saffron rice…had to be a couple of cups of rice on this plate. Now, the meatballs were interesting. First, even though those look like your typical gr. Beef meatballs…just like what you’d get with spaghetti, they are in fact ground lamb. And the seasoning was fairly subtle, actually too subtle…and just a little bit strange. Not sure what it was, perhaps sage? and a bit of something else, but the overall taste was just not impressive: bland would be the word. Bland to the point that even salt & pepper vastly improved the dish. The sauce was very thin, and mostly tasteless (like a very watered down tomato-base with no seasoning.) And the saffron rice was a beautiful color of yellow…actually very intense yellow, gee, it was in fact Saffron yellow. But that’s all…saffron is basically a color-maker, but as a flavoring, well not so much. Again, subtle. Beautiful color, but blah taste. So what we had here was a large platter of food with not a whole lot of flavor to it. It was not bad food. It was just blah. It LOOKED delicious. We were glad we tried it. But after trying both Moroccan lunch specialities, we’d really, really preferred the shawarma platter.

At the Tangierine Café, on the DDP for lunch, you do not get a choice on desserts (although they do have a variety of desserts they just don’t let you choose.) The dessert which comes with the meal is plain baklava, which was actually o.k. with us because we like baklava:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1740baklavaTangierienCafeEpc-1.jpg
These are small servings of baklava (as you can see in the picture, they’re served in a cupcake liner.) However, for once, this is probably a correct serving size even though it doesn’t follow the usual Disney pattern of way too much. After all, baklava is a very sweet little item, and the thousand layers (or whatever the number is) of phyllo pastry makes it pretty intense to eat a lot. So, these were good. Not fabulous. But good examples of baklava. And even though they were small, we still couldn’t finish them.

The service was great…fast, efficient, and the guys working here are very smiley (and seem to enjoy their jobs, too. Not quite whistle while you work, but close.) The place was virtually empty shortly before noon on the day after Labor Day…on an early EMH day at Epcot. There were plenty of tables inside and out (the outside tables have umbrellas, and there’s a couple of roofed patio-style rooms that give complete coverage, which was nice on a hot/sunny day that actually decided to rain on us for about 2 min. during lunch. It was so empty we went from an outside umbrella table to an inside table with no problem.

I’d give Tangierine Café, Shawarma Platter a 9 out of 10.
Meatball platter, 5 out of 10
Would we go back? Definitely, especially for the chicken & lamb shawarma platter. Lots of very good, very tasty food.

Cost for Tuesday Lunch: 2 counter service
Actual cash cost would have been: $37.37

After lunch, since it was a long walk around to our car, we decided to take a little frozen refreshment with us (o.k., so I wanted an adult slushy!) We got an Italian margarita from a cart, sorry no photo...but just picture a frozen lemonade in a clear plastic cup:that's it. Was about $7 if I'm remembering correctly. Basically it was limoncello (an Italian lemon liqueur) & margarita mix, slushed up good to brain-freeze consistency. A very nice frozen lemonade with a mild kick...extremely refreshing on yet another hot & humid day. We wandered around World showcase in the direction of Norway. Stopped at Kringla Bakery to pick up breakfast goodies. Then continued on out of the park & back to the hotel for our daily R & R. (which, by the way, stands for Rest & Recuperation...we needed it! Gone are the days of running around parks all day & night. We need the rest, ;)

Have to take a break from reviews, for the day...sorry, but I'm off to watch some Husker football…Go Big Red! Will be back tomorrow with Tuesday's dinner review…The Wave at the Contemporary.

[MickeyNicki]

Whoa whoa whoa, back up....are you telling me the meatballs that DH and I have been scarfing down for a few years are not hamburger....they are LAMB! Are you serious?? We had no idea at all and we love them sooo much but if I tell DH he will not eat them again.

When he found out the meatballs from Subway were turkey meatballs he hit the roof.

Ok so I love the LAMB (omigod) meatballs, do you think I will like the lamb that was on your platter? What did it taste like? Was the consistancy like a sliced beef or flaky like chicken?

I am in shock...how am I not going to bust out laughing when DH orders the meatballs next month :rotfl2:

[catne]

Whoa whoa whoa, back up....are you telling me the meatballs that DH and I have been scarfing down for a few years are not hamburger....they are LAMB! Are you serious?? We had no idea at all and we love them sooo much but if I tell DH he will not eat them again.

When he found out the meatballs from Subway were turkey meatballs he hit the roof.

Ok so I love the LAMB (omigod) meatballs, do you think I will like the lamb that was on your platter? What did it taste like? Was the consistancy like a sliced beef or flaky like chicken?

I am in shock...how am I not going to bust out laughing when DH orders the meatballs next month :rotfl2:

Oh, that's funny. Well I guess you've just been much more diversified than you thought all this time! I guess I would have assumed they were ground beef, too, and just seasoned differently but the guy at the counter told us they were lamb.

Anyway, the lamb on the platter tastes like roast lamb (have you ever had a Greek gyro sandwich...they're often made with lamb?) I guess you could say it's sort of like beef (well in the neighborhood...as in they're both grazing farm animals? About as similar as turkey is to chicken? This is kind of crazy-making, to try to describe a kind of taste!:dance3: ) I can give you a definitive answer on the texture/consistency: yes it's the consistency of sliced roast beef. Fairly tender. You may be able to convince him it's beef that just tastes different because of odd seasonings:rotfl:

[Minniespal]

Excellent:thumbsup2

[wilma-bride]

Great updates although I am rotfl at MickeyNicki's DH and his meatball issues :rotfl:

[TigerKat]

Great updates although I am rotfl at MickeyNicki's DH and his meatball issues :rotfl:

Me too!:lmao:

[catne]

Tuesday evening…a couple of months prior, I’d cancelled Restaurant Marrakesh at the advice of Disboards posters in favor of lunch at the Tangierine Café. That turned out to be some of the best advice we’ve ever had from Disboards (and we’ve learned a lot of good stuff on here! Go Disboards!:woohoo: ) Anyway, when I cancelled Marrakesh, I was looking for an Epcot alternative since that’s where we planned to be for the evening…all booked. So then we looked at monorail resorts and Reservation’s first suggestion was for The Wave at the Contemporary, with my choice of times. We went for 5:30, so we’d still have some park time after. :thumbsup2
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/thDSC072261thewave.jpg
We arrived a little early to check in… travel time had been a bit less than expected, so it was about 5:10 when we got there. They checked us in, but said there would be 10-15 minutes before they’d be ready (the restaurant does not actually open until 5:30.) They invited us to wait in the Wave lounge. Fine by me, time to try more fruity and/or slushy beverages! Jing waited on us, she was very helpful explaining the drinks & appetizers available. We declined appies (we KNOW there’s too much food without adding appies!) So, I ordered the Tropi-glow (love those glow cubes. I’ve started a collection. Had one from a Blue glow-tini in May, another from some glowing drink at the Adventurer’s club also in May, and now this one. Gonna have my own glow-party one of these days.)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1743Tropi-glowTheWaveLoungeCont.jpg
Anyway, this bev was very scrumptious. But I have to editorialize a bit: The Wave is supposed to be all about new-age, organic & healthy choices, blah blah blah. Can you tell I'm not seriously impressed by such claims? After all, we're here to basically stuff ourselves with too much rich food & drink, regardless of the food origins:lmao: . Well, anyway, the description of the Tropi-glow is “X-fusion organic mango and passion fruit liqueur, Malibu coconut rum, pineapple juice, and a souvenir Multicolored glow cube.” I guess “x-fused organic mango & passion fruit liqueur” must be the ultra healthy item here? IF any type of liqueur can really be considered healthy? Maybe they mean Medicinal? Well, whatever, I certainly felt a certain amount of health afterwards…cheerful & relaxed, anyway. It was good, I’d get it again. (And really, I have to admit, The Wave does not claim any healthy benefits from this stuff...I'm poking fun at the emphasis on "organic" in the menus. And I'm not making light of people choosing organic and/or healthier foods. I just think it's very amusing when organic benefit is implied on an alcoholic beverage. I mean, c'mon...it's really tasty, but it IS booze! Love it, but I doubt that the presence of organic mango offsets the alcohol...)

DH tried the Organic beer flight…
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1741organicbeerflightTheWaveLou.jpg
Sorry the picture is a little blurry...maybe my ever so x-fused & organic Tropi-glow was already producing it's "healthful" benefits:rotfl: Anyway, you get the general idea, fuzzy or not. These beers are, left to right, blonde ale, pale ale, and blackwater dry porter. Again, “organic” apparently is the key wonder-word here in these beers. Although he generally knows what he likes in a beer, DH really couldn’t discern the actual "organic" difference between these specialties and the usual beers he drinks (Besides good ole 'Merican favorite like Budweiser, he generally enjoys beers such as Boulevard Wheat, Fat Tire, and the like.) Basically, they tasted like specialty brews. Of these three "organics", he vastly preferred the darkest (blackwater dry porter) although truthfully, he had no trouble finishing all three. These are good-sized glasses (I think they’re 6-7 oz. each I’d guess, so the whole flight experience gives you the equivalent of a good-sized mug of beer.)

After about 15 minutes or so, we were seated. The restaurant is of course only a couple of months old, so everything is still fresh & crisp. Everything is vaguely wave-ish, ocean-ish but not with actual ocean waves & fish…it’s more of an interpretive piece…modern-art ambiance with waves in the architectural detail; incorporating the wave theme in textures throughout the room (can you tell I watch too much HGTV? Pretty pretentious descriptions, LOL.) Anyway, as you can see in the pictures of the shakes below, even the candles on the table & the water glasses have the wave-y patterns in them. It's quietly & subtly done, without bombarding you with the wave concept. The tables are reasonably spaced, and there’s plenty of fabric around to absorb sound, so it’s not real loud. Course, the place was mostly empty the entire time we were there. It barely reached 1/3 full. Which is a shame, because it’s a very nice looking place (upscale, even) with good service and outstanding food.

So, onto the food: first, we learned from our very helpful server Yvonne that in addition to the usual tea, coffee or soda to drink, if we preferred, we could actually order milk shakes as our DDP dinner beverage. Score! So, we both ordered chocolate shakes. My,my,my these were wonderful…and very large. Way too much to have with a meal! This of course was a major mistake…filled us up way too much. But, duh. We did it anyway. Here’s those shakes:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1744chocshakesattheWaveContempo.jpg
We both wanted steak, so we ordered the filets, which are described on the menu as “Grilled Beef Tenderloin - with oven-dried tomatoes, roasted fingerling potatoes, cabernet sauce and local greens.”

First up, Yvonne brought out a basket of bread…some sort of hearty, artisan style whole grain stuff.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1745artisanbreadandseasonedbutt.jpg
The butter was seasoned (sorry, can’t remember what it was but you can see the little flakes of whatever the seasoning was.) The bread & seasoned butter were very good. Probably could have made a meal out of the milkshakes & the bread. But of course we didn’t. We continued to eat long past the point of satiety.

The main dish was delivered:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1746Grilledbeeftenderloinpotato.jpg

First, let me apologize about the angle of the picture...due to flash issues, I had to shoot the picture from the side, so the perspective is off & makes the salad look huge & the filet small. Actually, the salad was the size of a small side salad, and the filet was quite generous...probably at least 8 oz.

O.K., at the risk of offending all those who worship at the California Grille, I have to say THIS FILET IS WAY BETTER THAN THE CALI GRILLE FILET. No contest. None at all. We had the filet at Cali Grille in May. It was good, but we didn’t think it lived up anywhere close to the hype. This piece of beef, which has not been hyped, goes in our top 10 of all time, anywhere. This tenderloin was just that – an extremely thick, extremely tender piece of beef. Seasoned and cooked to perfection. The cabernet sauce was a lovely gravy-consistency, in just the right quantity (the plate wasn’t swimming in it, but enough to flavor the meat & act as gravy for the potatoes.) The roasted fingerling potatoes (under the steak) were delicious with that sauce, and the tomatoes were just the right amount of veggie/flavor contrast. The salad (“local greens”) was a nice little addition to the meal, fresh lettuce & such with a light vinaigrette style dressing…basically it was like getting a little appetizer salad with your entrée. Plenty of food, and a real treat of a meal. Boy, was I glad we had changed our reservation to The Wave…and for the life of me, cannot understand why this place is not mobbed! At any rate, we 100% thoroughly enjoyed these entrees. Savor, savor, savor.

And then, lordy, they’re going to give you dessert, too! And the desserts are absolutely amazing. What they do is this: there’s 3 dessert choices - basically each is like a trio sampler set. Here they are, and the menu descriptions:

Creamy Indulgence - cheesecake with raspberry coulis, coconut panna cotta with passion fruit drizzle, chocolate passion fruit mousse with pecan-olive brittle
Decadent Flavors - blueberry compote with yogurt gelato, lemon cornbread with vanilla panna cotta, chocolate mousse with salted caramel sauce
Crispy and Crunchy - vanilla-braised pineapple spears, almond-pineapple-raisin baklava, zucchini-carrot cake with vanilla panna cotta

So each of you choose one of these three-somes. If you each order a different trio, you’re getting 6 different taste sensations to try. Oh, we were in sweets-heaven. Here's our actual dessert trays:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1748dessertsTheWaveContempor-1.jpg
The top row is DH's choices: the “Decadent flavors” (he’s a nutter on blueberry) but he didn’t want the lemon cornbread, so asked them to sub cheesecake with raspberry coulis from the "Creamy Indulgence" trio. No problem. I chose the “Crispy and Crunchy”, which is the bottom trio in the picture.

To go through them one by one…in the top row, the "Decadent Flavors": the chocolate mousse was indeed decadently rich, and putting salt in the caramel sauce was a master-stroke: it really gave that sauce a zing. The combination of the blueberry compote (fancy name for blueberries in thick syrup) and the yogurt gelato (frozen yogurt) was delicious. Last was the perfect mini cheesecake, which was wonderfully rich and creamy. The raspberry coulis (another fancy name, this time for pureed fruit sauce) was an excellent accent...I really think cheescake is enhanced by fruit, no exception here.

On the bottom row are my choices: "Crispy & Crunchy"; On the left, the zucchini-carrot cake was spicy, rich & moist (the "vanilla panna cotta" is the little white dollop on top – it’s made with sweetened cream & gelatin…would compare it to the taste & consistency of sweetened, whipped cream cheese. That little triangle thing sticking out was like a very sweet, very thin wafer cookie) The pineapple/raisin/almond baklava in the center was by far my favorite dessert in this grouping…it was over-the-top sweet & fruity, and the baklava was just right drippy/crispy pastry flakes. To the right of the baklava, the vanilla-braised pineapple was the least impressive of our choices. Good flavor, very interesting to combine vanilla with pineapple, but didn’t care for the texture the fruit had from the braising - made it a bit rubbery. It was a good taste concept but maybe they could have done it flambe instead to make it actually crunchy on the surface. Tasted good, just an uncomfortable texture.

All in all, though, this was a marvelous way to do desserts, because between the two of us, we got to try 6 different items. And though each one is small (just 2-3 bites at most) we still were not able to finish all of these (serious regret on the milkshakes at this point.) We finished the blueberry/gelato, the zucchini-carrot cake, and the baklava. But we left a little bit of the other three. Not because they weren’t good…just because they were all so rich and we were so full.

So, rating The Wave: Wow. What a wonderful restaurant. :thumbsup2 10 out of 10. Would we go back…in a flash. Service was good, ambiance good, bar was good, and the food was outstanding.

Cost: 2 table service
Actual Restaurant Cash Cost would have been: $87.91
Out of Pocket spent: $21.51 for adult beverages & bar tip; plus $18.00 tip in restaurant

Tuesday DDP wrap-up

Total Free DDP credit used for the day: 2 snacks, 2 counter service and 2 table service

Total DDP savings for Tuesday: $130.16

Total DDP savings to date for trip: $343.10 in three days

[MickeyNicki]

Great updates although I am rotfl at MickeyNicki's DH and his meatball issues :rotfl:

Me too!:lmao:

Ok girls go ahead and laugh at me all you want, cuz I am laughing too! :rotfl: For my next trick I am going to take him to Ted Montana's grill and order him a Bison burger instead of a beef burger and see if he notices :lmao:

[John's Mom]

Great review! I might have to give The Wave a try in December.

Your dessert picture isn't showing up. Says it has been moved or deleted. :confused:

[catne]

Great review! I might have to give The Wave a try in December.

Your dessert picture isn't showing up. Says it has been moved or deleted. :confused:


We just loved The Wave...food, decor & service. Are you talking about the Wave Desserts picture no showing up? It shows up on my computer, so I don't know what's going on...I sure didn't delete or remove it. And it's there right now when I scroll to that post. Does anybody out there have an explanation for why I see it on the post and John's Mom doesn't? Do I need to try a re-post it differently or something? There shouldn't be any issues about ownership or anything...it's a picture I took of our specific desserts (the top one doesn't even officially come with those desserts...DH ordered a custom combination!)

[TigerKat]

Ok girls go ahead and laugh at me all you want, cuz I am laughing too! :rotfl: For my next trick I am going to take him to Ted Montana's grill and order him a Bison burger instead of a beef burger and see if he notices :lmao:

Now we want a picture of that!!!:rotfl2:

[catne]

Wednesday, Breakfast
O.K. No early EMH for us today (actually, I don’t think there even was an early EMH on Wednesday, 9/3. That took some getting used to, the shorter park hours, and less EMH than busier times of the year.) Anyway, once again it was home-brewed coffee and delightful pastries for breakfast in the hotel room. Tuesday, we had stopped at Kringla Bakery in Norway/Epcot for 2 of their often touted pastries: the famous school bread and the almond-covered sweet pretzel. Here are these beauties:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1761SchoolBreadandSweetpretzels.jpg

Comments…well, first of all, both of these are definitely substantial pastries. The school bread is in a BK-whopper sized to-go box, and as you can see, it fills it completely. The bread was about 4” tall, at least. Now, I had read many descriptions of this item, so I knew that even though it looks like a sweet roll, that it was actually bread, with a pudding-like filling and loads of coconut on top. So I got what I expected, and being a coconut & pudding devotee, I really enjoyed the school bread. DH, not so much. I don’t know, maybe he was really expecting more of a sweet roll instead of the bread (although I had told him it was bread, he doesn’t spend hours reading Disboards so I guess he was not properly indoctrinated:rotfl2: .)

He also thought there was too much coconut (AS IF! Obviously he does not understand coconut. Guess he didn't get that memo either.:lmao: ) Well, that’s o.k. Just meant I didn’t have to share more than a bite of the school bread with him.

So, on to the sweet pretzel. This was huge, as you can see from the photo, the plate is nearly twice as long as the bread’s to-go container, so you can see it’s very large. The pretzel itself was probably between 1 & 2” tall, then topped with vanilla frosting/glaze and that absolutely covered with thin sliced almonds. We both loved the pretzel. Kudos to the really creative baker-person who came up with this delectable breakfast (or snack!) food concept. We’re used to the usual large chewy pretzels with chunky salt; have even had the variety with cinnamon/apple filling over at DHS. But this idea of coating a plain pretzel with a thick sugary glaze & smothering that with almonds: well, this made for an extremely satisfying breakfast. And have to mention my ziplock bags again-was really glad I had them for the pretzel, because when we ordered it to go yesterday, they put it on the oversized plate you see in the picture, put another of those plates on top and popped it into a paper bag. Kept it from getting crushed on the way back to the hotel, but no way would it have stayed fresh in a paper bag. Anyway, I liked both of these pastries very much, but DH really preferred the sweet pretzel. However, they were both so large, and so sweet, we actually only ate ½ of them for breakfast that day, and popped the rest back in the bags & into the fridge for later.

Breakfast cost: 2 snack credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $6.80


Wednesday lunch, Flame Tree BBQ, Animal Kingdom
Well, we originally planned to go to Typhoon Lagoon Water Park for the day, with Animal Kingdom for the evening. However, watching the morning news, the forecast for today was exceptionally rotten (they’d been forecasting hot and 30% chance of rain every day, but so far it had only spit at us for about 2 minutes once, so we figured we’d been beating the odds on the horrible September storms. But Wednesday, the weather guys were extra-seriously doom & gloom, and the chance of rain was supposed to be like 80%. Since the sky outside our window was black with roiling clouds we made the mistake of believing the weather guys this time, and we changed our plans. We had planned to go to AK Wednesday evening for “late” EMH hours (late meant open until 8:00 P.M, LOL…in May, late at AK was 10:00!) Since we weren’t going to the water park we decided to go ahead and try AK this morning, and use Wednesday evening to go visit the Adventurer’s Club for a last hurrah. So off we went…and had a great, very laid back, morning. Like even though we got there a good 20 minutes after rope-drop, it was walk-on Expedition Everest 3 times in a row. Did I mention we LOVE these reduced crowds!

Anyway, didn’t really plan to do much besides our two Animal Kingdom favorites EE and Lion King Festival (we did most everything else in May) so after riding EE, we just meandered around, people-watching, taking in the scenery and stopping to look at animals & birds in the various path-side areas. Since it was morning, there was a lot of activity among the animals. Shortly before it was time to go see Lion King, it was getting very hot & sticky (the menacing clouds had of course blown away without a drop of rain, and the sun was now beating down) We stopped by the Anandapur Tea cart in Asia for an iced coffee (DH) and a frozen mocha for me. I wish it had actually been a frozen mocha: I paid $4.50 for what was basically a glass of chocolate milk. Although the machine appeared to be stirring up frozen slushy beverage, what went into my cup was not the least bit frozen. Oh well, I was extremely thirsty so I took it anyway. But just a word of warning…if you’re really wanting a frozen beverage, the Anandapur Tea Cart on a hot morning is not the place to get it. Live and learn.

After Lion King, it was definitely lunch time. Our original plan had been to eat lunch at a new place (counter service at the water park.) But obviously we weren’t going to go to the water park just for lunch, now, LOL. So we decided to eat in AK. Now we ate at Pizzafari in May 2007, and Flametree BBQ in May 2008. Pizzafari was good, but we loved Flametree so we decided to go back there. DH ordered the same thing we had in May (1/2 slab St Louis ribs) but I decided that I’d at least try a different entrée this time, so I went for the smoked ½ chicken.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1763halfslabstlouisribssmokedha.jpg

As you can see in the picture, these entrees each come with a good-sized cornbread muffin, and a cup of baked beans. They also come with drinks (we both had soda, don’t know why it’s not in the picture? Maybe DH was carrying them to the table while I was busy snapping pics.) We both chose the Minute Maid frozen lemonade cups for dessert (there are other dessert choices, but we love the frozen lemonade. Since it’s frozen fairly solid, with a lid, you can take it with you around the park, or can sit and eat it at a leisurely pace. Ultra refreshing on a hot day -tart & not too sweet.)

In May, we sat at a table right next to the beautiful pond right behind the Flametree building…I know people complain about the birds & squirrels begging in that area, but they didn’t bother us in May (probably because the toddlers two tables down were feeding virtually their whole meal to the birds. They had the flock around their table.) We just found it so scenic and tranquil back there. Disney does theming like this so well. I know it’s all fake, but lordy, it’s a very, very good fake, especially for those of us who will probably never get the chance to see the real thing. So we were heading back that way this time, too. But somehow, trying to negotiate around a family with 2 strollers who basically blocked a good portion of the path while they argued about where to eat, we took a wrong fork in the path, missed the turn for the little pond area, and ended up going further down. Where we discovered a wonderful covered picnic pavilion that was on the shores of the bigger section of the Animal Kingdom’s Discovery River...looks like a lake at the place. I didn’t even realize these tables were down there…and here’s the view from our table:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1764viewfromtableatFTBBQcovered.jpg
Isn’t that just picture-perfect! Even though it was now hotter than blazes (pushing 90 degrees with high humidity) it was very comfortable here. Completely covered, so all shaded, and a wonderful breeze coming off the water. We really lingered over lunch!

Oh, yeah, back to the lunch. Well, first off, DH did not care so much for the ribs this time. Although they were not totally dried out, they were too dry for him so he did have to add extra BBQ sauce. He skipped the beans this time, said he wasn’t sure stomach could handle them at this point in the vacation (did eat them in May, said they were O.K. then.) He ate some of his corn muffin, but just wasn’t all that hungry. So overall, he wasn’t all that happy with the meal this time. He did eat most of his frozen lemonade, and enjoyed that thoroughly. I had to disagree on the meal, though…the chicken I had was outstanding. Moist and good smoky flavor, with just a tiny glaze of sauce (the way I like it…don’t care for slathered-on-BBQ-sauce.) I never eat the beans, so no issue there. Love, love, love these corn muffins…they’re a moist, sweeter recipe of cornbread…they’re almost dessert-quality sweet. Which is the way I like them! I ate most of my chicken, and all of my muffin. Anyway, as I said, the scenery & the shady breeze was so nice, we lingered over our frozen lemonades. Eventually, though, we finished and headed out of the park. But we’ll remember this spot for future lunches in the AK.

So, Flametree BBQ for lunch: I’d give it a 10 out of 10. Good service, good food and spectacularly lovely place to eat a counter service. DH, probably a 7 out of 10 (but I have to say…he actually had the beginnings of what would be a 24 hour stomach virus, which we didn’t realize until later that night…so that may have been influencing his opinions on the food that day.) Anyway, he did say he’d love to go back and get the chicken next time, because he’d had a bite of mine and thought it was much better than his ribs

Cost for Lunch: 2 counter service
Actual Cash Cost would have been: $30.08

[catne]

Ok girls go ahead and laugh at me all you want, cuz I am laughing too! :rotfl: For my next trick I am going to take him to Ted Montana's grill and order him a Bison burger instead of a beef burger and see if he notices :lmao:


poor guy is gonna go vegetarian on you if you keep sneaking in mystery meats like that!:lmao:

Seriously, though...what he doesn't know can't possibly hurt him, right:dance3:

[catne]

Dinner at Boma, 9/3/2008

Alright, so we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge at little early to wander around, and figured we’d check in and go get a drink at Victoria Falls. We got there about 30 minutes early, and explored the inside of the Lodge. Wow, very impressive lobby. Awesome attention to detail, and liked the display cases all over with authentic artifacts & such. Well, we went to check in, were told it would probably be 20 minutes at least, so we took our pager-thingy and started to head for the bar. We’d just figured out how to get to the bar, when our pager went off…all of about 2 minutes after we checked in, so we figured this was a good sign.

We were seated; the place was no more than 1/2 full. Our server Brahim, took our drink order…you can order adult beverages at the tables in Boma! Yippee. I ordered the Sunken Treasure, described as Malibu Rum, Midori, orange juice, pineapple juice and Sprite with a splash of BOLS Blue Curacao. It tasted as good as it looked. Wasn’t frozen slushy drink, but nice and fruity.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1768sunkentreasuredrinknew.jpg
and DH had the Safari Amber (on tap there.)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1769africanSafaribeernew.jpg

Boma décor is nice. The tables are jammed in pretty tight, but it wasn't busy or crowded when we were seated. Brahim told us to help ourselves at the buffet, and described the various stations to us. He made a point of telling us we could start wherever we wished, there was no “order” you had to go in. Well, as we walked up to the buffet, we got our first inkling that things were not quite right at Boma…first off, no matter what the waiters were telling people, there was a “set order”, at least there was according to the people who were in line. Apparently, the herd mentality had set in, started by a group who decided the proper way to do the buffet was to start at the far right with as many plates as they could juggle, and work their way from right to left through everything but the desserts. As if this was a once-through the line cafeteria so you had to get everything in one trip! O.K., the meats and such were on the far right, then the hot veggies & such, and then the cold salads & fruits basically in the middle. So we were heading towards the cold fruits & salads, vaguely in the middle of the buffet, because we prefer to start our meals with the salads & such. Well, when we tried to step up to an empty space of about two feet in front of the cold salads, we were immediately chastised by some people standing at the buffet dishing up hot veggies that “the line starts way back there,” and they pointed way over to the right at the beginning of the hot meats area.

A woman just in front of me said “my waiter said there is no set line, start wherever I want. Well I want salad so I’m going to get it.” We said “our waiter told us the same thing.” So we figured strength in numbers, and went ahead and got our salads (there was a break in the supposed line, after all. And the line-bossers weren't even up to the salads yet.) We got our salads, and by then, there was now a break in the line by the soups, so we grabbed a couple of bowls of soup too, and headed back to our table. That was a tricky passage, because by now there seemed to be an awful lot of traffic with people trying to come & go every-which direction. And so many children on the loose, it looked like free-play-time at a day care. Here’s my first plate & soup:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1767chickencornsouppineapplecou.jpg

don’t know where to start on Boma’s food. I know a lot of people just adore the food here. So far, we’ve loved nearly every bit of food we’ve tried at Disney restaurants…or at least liked most of it, and we’ve had good dining experience everywhere. Sorry to say, at Boma…not so much. I really, really wanted to like the food here. But by & large, it was just strange combinations that “didn’t work” for me, or dishes spiced in such radically different ways I just could not enjoy them. As I've mentioned, I'm fairly wimpy on "hot" spicy foods...DH, on the other hand, likes hot-spicy foods. But at Boma, they seem to have two quantities for spice on the recipes: way too much hot stuff, or no seasonings at tall (totally bland.) Starting with this plate: the chicken corn soup was very colorful, lovely to look at. But pretty blah tasting -.didn’t taste bad, just but not something I wanted to waste more than a taste on. Was like a soup made out of canned corn with little or no additional seasoning. There were some nice chunks of meat in it, but they were equally tasteless. DH felt the same way. Moving around my plate: the pineapple was fresh, and good. The Mediterranean couscous was good, liked the veggies in it. I honestly do not remember what the brown stuff was or how it tasted. Next on the plate was the kool slaai (cole slaw.) Did not care much for the dressing on it…again, very bland. I like both usual variations of slaw dressing-either the sweet or the vinegary type. This was like a runny white sauce, no flavor. Up by the soup bowl, mostly tucked under the edge was one of the few things I liked of the cold dishes: this was a watermelon/tomato salad. There was some kind of light vinegar & oil style dressing on it…it actually was quite tasty.

DH’s first plate, and soup:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1769africandarkbeercoconutcu-1.jpg
Top right, that’s coconut curry soup. Now ordinarily, DH likes spicy hot food. This was too much. Two small bites were enough for him, one teeny taste convinced me no more. He also had the couscous (top of plate) and liked it. Agreed with me about the nothing-sauce on the slaw. The pasta salad was very yellow with what appeared to be either cheese or mustard. Don’t know what was actually making it yellow, but was not cheese or mustard because again this was one of the blah-bland foods. Looked good, no taste. The lettuce salad was just lettuce salad, it was o.k. but nothing special. He also enjoyed the marinated tomatoes and watermelon salad. So that was it for our first round.

By now, it was getting crazy busy in the place. I cannot believe the size of some of the family/groups they had seated while we were getting & eating our salads—there had to be at least 3 different 12-15 people groups at giant tables. Plus all the usual 4, 6, or 8 groups. You had to walk way out of your way to find a path through. Not pleasant at all. And the noise level was of course growing by the minute.

Anyway, this time we headed toward the meats and hot dishes. There was a very distinct line there now…about 20 people ahead of us. That would have been o.k., but what kept happening was major line jumping. A mom would be in line, and pretty soon she’d be joined by a kid, then another kid, then dad would walk by & drop off another kid. You get the picture. Took us at least 10 minutes to get to the beginning of the meats, and then we kept getting held up by the line jumpers. The woman immediately in front of me looked like she was going to deck the next kid taking cuts…I would have claimed I didn’t see a thing if she did! Anyway, DH & I were both kind of leery of the foods by now, so we decided to load two plates with everything we might consider a taste of…so here’s plate one:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1770Afritudepotatoescinnamon-1.jpg
That’s Potatoes with Afritude at the top. Can you say “way too hot” I did not believe DH when he said I wouldn’t like them at all…teeniest bite so spicy hot it burned the end of my tongue. Literally. Not temperature hot, spicy hot. Let’s just say if was a burning Afritude. Should have listened to DH. Next was the ribs. Now we were looking forward to these, they were fabulous looking ribs…appeared to have a BBQ glaze on them, and when we forked them onto the plate, you could tell they were juicy & meaty. So bit in with gusto…wrong! Almost spit it out…that wasn’t BBQ sauce. It was cinnamon…think sauce made with Red hots…again, so much cinnamon hot spicy it about burned the mouth. Dang it. Next was the corn bread…was expecting good corn bread, like on the other Disney buffets, or like the cornbread muffins at Flametree. NOT! Plain tasting (not sweet) and very dried out. Next was the prime rib. This was good. But like the cornbread, it was not as good as prime rib we’ve had at other Disney buffets like Cape May, Hollywood & Vine and Tusker House. It was drier, and very little seasoning. (See the pattern here…everything seemed this way…there was no happy medium on spices & seasoning. Either way too much, or way too little with few exceptions. The last thing on the plate…don’t actually know what it was called but looks like an egg casserole with cheese on the top. This was o.k, it actually did taste like egg casserole but don’t know what all was in it. Looked like sausage on the bottom, but didn’t taste like sausage.

On to the other plate: http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1772almondencrustedsalmoncoc-1.jpg

O.k., we start with another severe disappointment, because it looked and sounded delicious: the almond-encrusted salmon. Lordy, we’re both big salmon fans and up until this encounter have never met a salmon dish we didn’t love. This one…ewwww! Don’t know what exactly they used to make the “encrusting” sauce, but the main ingredient had to be pepper…it was hotter than hades. Didn’t realize salmon could be so easily ruined. Below the salmon was coconut rice. Had to get this, because I love coconut and I love rice. In keeping with the overly-seasoned everything, I really expected a strong coconut flavor here. Wasn’t. It was a very mild flavor (not quite bland.) Next to that was the Marrakesh couscous…think this was the same as what we’d had at Tangierine Café in Epcot the other day. It was good. The final thing on that plate – the white stuff with the tomatoes on the top left – was pap and tomato relish. Now, I knew pap was supposed to be bland! I got this mostly out of curiosity because I’m an avid reader and have seen reference to “pap” in so much literature over the years I just couldn’t turn down a chance to see what it really tastes like. Well, all the usage of “pap” to refer to extremely bland foods were correct. It tastes like nothing. Literally, nothing. No.taste.at. all, LOL. However, the tomato relish with it was actually quite tasty, so as a combination with the pap, it was good. So, to sum up the hot dishes. We tried it all, and had our tongues burned repeatedly by overly spicy hot foods. We ate the prime rib, the couscous, the rice and the pap/tomato relish. Lots of food left on the plates, even though we were taking small helpings.

At this point, the lines near the rest of the hot food offerings were ridiculously long…beginning to look like TSM or Soarin’ snake-lines! They should have been putting up "stand by wait times" and issuing fastpasses for the various food areas:lmao: Anyway, we’d managed to get fairly filled, and were totally tired of waiting in line for foods that looked great but disappointed. So we decided to skip the rest of the hot offerings and head for the desserts.

The line for the desserts was again about 20 people in front of us. However, it was a smaller area, so the people were packed in a little tighter than the meat line had been. It was even more obvious when people tried to do the kids-joining-the-family line-jumping bit. It soon became apparent that a number of the people in line ahead of us were from some of the very large groups, and they were just holding places for their entire table. There were several teens that were continuously “joined” by siblings, cousins, and others who were just "getting a cookie for little Joey", etc. I said something to the woman in front of me about is this a line or not, and I could not believe how crowded this place was. After about the 3rd time of kids cutting, she & I started telling these kids to get in line & wait their turn...or there was no way we'd ever get a dessert. I sure hope that it's not always that crazy busy & noisy in there.

So, after at least 15 minutes of waiting & such, we got to the dessert buffet and again decided we better just get a bite of anything we might like, cuz there'd be no stand in line another quarter hour to try anything we missed!

So, here’s the 1st dessert plate: http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1777cheescaketartwithstrawbe-2.jpg
Top of the plate is cherry crisp/cobbler. Good, but nothing spectacular. Pretty average. Next are the two little cheesecake-tartlets, one with blueberries & one with strawberry. The cheesecake was tasty, fruit was fresh but the flaky crusts was blah. Looked great, tasted like nothing. Just to the right/below the strawberry tart is coconut flan. Now flan is a fairly plain dessert, but I expected the coconut to add some flavor. It didn’t…added texture but still a very bland dessert. Next was the banana bread pudding-a little with vanilla sauce, and a larger serving with chocolate sauce. I really liked both of these, but especially liked it with the chocolate sauce. Then, to the left of the bread pudding is the famed zebra dome. These were very good, but very sweet and rich. I don’t think I could eat more than one of these (and after the bread pudding, I actually only ate about ½ of this one.) Above the zebra dome is tiramisu. This was again a fairly bland version of this dessert, tasted mostly like cool whip with a bit of cocoa, and a bit of coconut…nowhere close to the taste of the tiramisu we had at Mama Melrose.
Here’s DH’s dessert plate:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1779breadpuddingwithchocsauc-1.jpg
His top of the plate is the bread pudding, also tried some with the vanilla and some with the chocolate. He vastly preferred the vanilla sauce (said he’s missing the proper chromosomes for true chocolate adoration.) Being an avid blueberry guy, he liked the cheesecake bite & berries, but agreed the tartlet crust was blah. He was not all that impressed by the zebra dome. The item to the left of the zebra dome is a pineapple mousse…this was outstanding. Remember absolutely nothing about that little square white thing with what looks like cinnamon on it. Whatever it was it didn’t impress anything on our memory! The pyramid thing was a pumpkin cake-it was moist and spicy; we liked it except for that white stuff. Which looks like a nice little dollop of cream or glaze, but was actually some kind of hard-as-a-rock candy topping. Couldn’t even break it with a fork, had to like peel it off the top before we could fork into this cake. Odd. But as I said, the cake itself was tasty.

So, of the dessert, we liked the bread pudding with both toppings, the zebra domes, the berry cheesecake tarts (without the tart shell), the pineapple mousse and the pumpkin cake. (there were also several kinds of plain old American cookies, but we skipped those in favor of the fancier stuff.)

Anyway, Summing it up…the majority of the interesting sounding foods we tried were startingly over-spiced with very strong flavors, or were totally bland. We like a lot of variety and ordinarily welcome the opportunity for new tastes & flavors…these combinations just did not do it for us. We did not try any of the regular “American” foods like the mac & cheese, chicken tenders and such…maybe they were good. However, would have had to wait 10-15 minutes to go back and try them, so we didn’t. The desserts were mostly good, but I would not return just for the desserts. The décor is nice, the service was good. The set up of the buffets encourages traffic messes, since people tend to try to form lines going the entire length instead of following waiter’s directions. If they put up small barricade at the end of each section so it appeared they were separate sections people might be more apt to follow the suggestion that they go in stages. All in all, the foods we tried were not worth the effort and aggravation to get them.

Rating for Boma: 5 out of 10. And that’s mostly for the alcoholic beverage and the desserts.
Would we go back…no way.

Cost: 2 Table service
Actual Cash cost would have been $57.48
Total DDP savings for the day $94.36
Adult Beverages & tips OOP came to $27.25.

Total FREE DDP savings to date for trip: $437.46 in four days

[Evan&Kimberly]

I ate there(Boma) for the first time Sept 8th and boy did I think it was going to be great! NOT,maybe I just caught them on a BAD Night because the food was bland and sweet,really did not have much spice, and the pork had a wild taste, a strong taste sometimes pork can taste like that,but hey everyone can have a bad night will I go Back No,but I am going to try Tusker House next Year I bounced back,:banana: and for the Tangierine Cafe I found the Swarma platters to be Okay I think that it would have been better if it was piping hot,my food was closer on the side of being luke warm really closer to cold but it was my first day in WDW and I was not going to let anything upset me,so I ate it and made the best of it, and it held me over to dinner,no complaints,would I pay OOP for this meal NO,My total came to over 18.00 dollars for lunch thanks FREE DINNING!!!:love: your reviews!

[JerseyJanice]

First of all, let me say that I am loving your reviews! The photos are great, and your descriptions are both fun and informative to read. We were at Pop the week before you for the Free Dining plan and loved it! Both the resort and the restaurants were wonderful for us.

We went to Boma back in 2002. After seeing it touted so much on the boards, I was really looking forward to our meal. What a disappointment! One of the worst meals we ever had at WDW, and we normally love their buffets. I think we definitely hit on an off-night because a lot of the items we tried were ice cold and dried out as if they’d been sitting there a long time. The fat on the prime rib was snow-white and hard--that’s how cold it was. Still, I didn’t care for the spices they used. To me, everything was cloyingly sweet or totally bland. I didn’t find anything hot and spicy, and I like incendiary foods.

It’s still raved about here, so I was tempted to give it another try this past trip, but after reading your review, I am very glad I did not.

Keep the reviews coming! I’m enjoying them immensely. :)

[Joshua_me]

Let me first just say that we are thoroughly enjoying your reviews ! :goodvibes

You have a great, relaxed and very humorous writing style that makes reading them a pleasure.

With all the DIS I read, I'm amazed I've never even heard of 'school bread' in 'Norway'. It looks DElish. Gotta put that one the list of 'must try's'.

We have ADR's for The Wave in Dec. for Xmas eve. Can't wait ! :woohoo:

Thanks for taking the time to write such a great review of your trip.

[catne]

wow, thanks for the compliments on the reviews, folks...I enjoyed writing them and glad someone out there is enjoying reading them. Nice to hear that there are a few others out there that weren't so impressed with Boma. You know, it wasn't just that the spicy-hot foods were too hot, it was the spices used to make them that hot. Even I can take a little bit of hot-hot but when that heat is produced by massive quantities of cinnamon...yuck. Oh well, now we can say been there,done that.

Still have two more days to write up, have good notes written at the time so I'm not going to leave much out. But I had to take a break from writing for a couple of days because I have been a bit "under the weather" with massive hay fever the last 10 days...just got to the point I had no more energy. Usually doesn't get me this bad, so I guess it's been a good year for the allergen-producing plants. Starting to feel a little more rested today.

Hope to get finished up this weekend with reviews for Thursday 9/4 (Pop foodcourt for lunch & Kona Cafe for dinner) and Friday (breakfast pastries from Everything Pop, lunch at Pizza Planet at DHS and Cape May Cafe at Beach Club for dinner.)

[sandybobandy]

Great job!!! :)

[frdeb1999]

Love your review and pics!! Looking forward to the rest!! :)

[catne]

Breakfast…remains of the day

Thursday did not start out very well. Over night Wednesday, DH had stomach problems…don’t think it was specifically related to Boma. He really had not eaten all that much at Boma, because he did have an inkling of the rumbly-tumbly as early as Tuesday so his appetite had been off. And if it had been the food there, I'm sure I would have shared his discomfort - I tend to have a more sensitive tummy. Disappointed from Boma, yes; actual discomfort, no.

Anyway, after only a few hours of sleep, he was very short on get-up-&-go for theme-parking, so he was going to sleep in for awhile. We had not picked up any new pastries on Wednesday, but I still had ½ my school bread from Wednesday (which meant I had a normal-size pastry left, LOL), as well as part of some other desserts we hadn’t finished so there was plenty for my in-room breakfast. The school bread was still good. After my “leftovers” for breakfast I just lazed around the room, doing the barista-bit with my Senseo coffee maker. I spent a couple of hours filling in details on my various trip & dining notes, and watched the weather channel (they continued to hyper-talk hurricanes, but so far no storm problems in Orlando that week. The strangest thing about this trip & the weather was getting back to Nebraska and having the weather guys barely mention tropical storms & hurricanes after listening non-stop to doom & gloom weather forecasts all week in Florida.)

Lunch-Burger & Bland
Anyway, DH slept in most of the morning, but by 11:00 he was up, feeling better (he was hungry) but he was also looking for something fairly bland for lunch. And he didn't want to immediately leave the resort to eat at a park...wanted to make sure stomach problems were really on the mend! I seconded that notion, and remembered reading a review some time back that mentioned a big bowl of chicken soup at our resort food court - Everything Pop - so we headed over to see about an early lunch.

We got over to Everything Pop shortly after 11:00 and found out that about ½ of the counters were still serving breakfast, which DH wasn’t interested in. The station which offers Chicken soup was the area which has oriental foods, and it was just getting ready to start the switch from breakfast foods to lunch. They told DH it would be at least 20 minutes before soup was available, so he just sat with me while I ate. After looking at the menus, I decided I was hungry now, and one of the things available at 11:10 was the burgers & fries, so I ordered a double cheeseburger and fries. For dessert, I chose the double fudge cake, and had one of those lovely frozen cokes to drink.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1781frozencokedblcheeseburgeran.jpg The burger was fresh & juicy, and the bun was good. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the “wheat” buns but frankly other than the darker color it tasted like a classic burger bun (and that’s what Disney does best…they’re using something that LOOKS incredibly healthy, but it just looks that way, LOL.) Anyway, healthy or not, I enjoyed the burger. The fries were good: they’re the kind I prefer with little bits of peel left on. Reminded me of “good old days” fries like you used to get at greasy little cafes & diners…except these were not near as greasy, and they needed salt (guess that’s the Disney nod towards healthy fries, not frying in lard, and no salt!) The frozen coke was instant brain-freeze, naturally. Doesn’t make any difference I know not to slurp too fast, do it anyway, every time. The fudge cake was very fresh, and incredibly rich tasting. Those pre-packaged desserts so often get slammed in dining reviews...I guess we have incredibly good luck with them, because we've never had a stale one and they've always tasted as good as they look. I really enjoy the Disney desserts, even the packaged ones have the awesome Disney attention to detail (that little striped white chocolate/dark chocolate curl on top is so cute.) All in all, would give the double cheeseburger/fries combo an 8 out of 10…it was tasty, cooked properly, and you just can't beat how handy it is to be able to have food choices at your resort.

Once the Oriental section made the switch over, DH went to get a bowl of the chicken soup. Even though they’d just opened for lunch, the soup was hot. Sorry, no pictures of the soup (I forgot to get the camera back out.) It’s called “big bowl of chicken soup” on the menu, and it really is quite large - if you were serving it at home, you'd call this a serving bowl, and the contents would probably fill 2 normal-sized soup bowls. This was not canned-chicken soup...there was a lot of good-sized chicken chunks in the soup. DH only ate about ½ of it. In the interest of his "Bland" lunch theme, he got the plainest looking dessert available...a yogurt parfait with strawberries for dessert. But the soup filled him up so much, he really didn't want to test the tummy too much, so we took the yogurt back to the room fridge. Along with his soup, he had a bottled water. Said the soup was hot, full of chicken and somewhat bland…which was exactly what he was looking for. Fit what he was looking for...8 out of 10. Not the best chicken soup, but basic & filling.

Well, after lunch, he was feeling better, so we headed of to the Magic Kingdom for the afternoon.Crowds were nice and small so we had a great time. Our dinner reservation was for the Kona Café at the Polynesian.

Would we eat again at Pop? Sure, the food is good enough. Like I said above, we'd give it an 8 out of 10 on the rating. Place was clean, help was cheerful. Plenty of seats, we were eating early (he got his soup around 11:40 or so) but still, there could not have been more than 20-30 people using the food court while we were there.

Coming up later: Dinner at the Kona Café

Cost of Lunch at Everything Pop: 2 counter service credits
Actual Cash Cost would have been: $27.65

[catne]

Kona Café for Dinner, 9/4/2008

The original plan had actually been to try Ohana’ (we’ve never been) but after DH’s problems with upset stomach during the night, I called dining reservations first thing Thursday morning to cancel, figuring he probably would do better with a menu restaurant where he could pick blander foods should he still be unsettled. We also kind of wanted something close to Magic Kingdom, since we were missing the early EMH so he could sleep in, we would probably want to be in MK that afternoon & evening. So Reservations suggested we stay with the Polynesian, but switch to the Kona Café. I've always wanted to try that one, too, so I said let's do it. There were actually several times available, but since we wanted some park time after dinner, I took the earliest slot, which was 5:45.

DH was feeling much better and we did spend the afternoon in the MK. Hopped the monorail to the Polynesian around 4:45. We stayed at the Polynesian in May 2007, but only ate at Captain Cook’s (counter service) so we were interested in exploring both the lounge & Kona Café. It seemed to be very busy at the restaurant and the bar, so we checked in and were given a pager. They said it would probably be 20-30 minutes (we were checking in at least 15 minutes early, so that wasn’t a bad wait at all. And we had arrived early on purpose so we’d have time for a cocktail.)

So we found 2 stools at the bar and commenced trying something new (well, I did. DH didn’t trust experimentation at this point, so he went for a plain old rum & coke.) I almost ordered the lapu lapu (the one they serve in a pineapple) but backed off at the last minute because of recent reviews which said those drinks were extremely strong. I figured if DH was going to get sick again, it wouldn’t help to have a tipsy wife, LOL. So instead I ordered an Island Sunset. This is absolute scrumptious: Spiced Rum, Coconut Rum, Melon, and Peach combined with Guava Passion Fruit Juice. It is a very pretty orange, and I swear there was orange juice in there too but not according to the ingredients. Suffice to say I was going to count it as my fruit serving for the day! Oh, my I probably could have sat & drank these all night. Sorry I didn’t remember to get a picture until we were in the restaurant, so I had already finished half of it!
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1794IslandsunsetatKona-1.jpg
The lounge, and in fact the restaurant, are just over on one side of the 2nd floor of the main lodge at the Polynesian, and the whole thing is open 2 stories. We found the lounge to be a little loud (they did have a big screen t.v. going in there, with…the weather channel, of course. Since they had the closed captioning going on it, don’t know why the television volume had to be so loud. And to add to the noise level, just on the other side of the television lounge area, there was actually a guy playing live Hawaiian music on a guitar, although we couldn't hear the music, we could hear the crowd gathered around him to listen. We were able to hear the actual music once we were in the restaurant! Anyway, we weren’t sitting at the bar more than 10 minutes when our pager went off, so we took our drinks and were seated in the restaurant.

We were given one of the tables at the banquette bench seating (where it’s a long, long bench down one side, and small tables that seat 2 or more people. They can slide tables together for larger groups. So I was sitting on the bench, DH across from me on a chair. We had a couple at a table for two on my right. On the left, they’d pushed 3 tables together to seat a family of 6 (plus an infant off the other end in a high chair.) There was probably 2 feet on each side of our table from the other parties. So it was fairly close, but we had no problems with it. We were able to have a nice conversation without having to raise our voices, and were not distracted by conversations around us. Décor is vaguely South-Seas/Polynesian as you would expect. It’s not over-the-top Hawaiian luau in the Kona Café…enough to get the idea, but not covered with coconuts & leis.

So, on to the food. We asked Debi, our excellent server, about the beef on the menu as to which cut was available with little or no sauce. She suggested the prime rib. So DH ordered the prime rib which comes with a horseradish sauce on the side, and I ordered the teriyaki steak. She went to put our orders in, and returned with the Hawaiian bread and macadamia nut butter. OMG! We have had “Hawaiian” bread from the bakery at the grocery store. NO COMPARISON. This from Kona was straight from the oven, so fresh and warm…with the macadamia nut butter it was absolutely out of this world delectable. I think I would return to this restaurant just for the bread and butter…that good. You could make a meal of this bread & butter.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1794hawaiianbreadatKonaTHIS.jpg
We quickly ate at least ½ of this bread (almost forgot to take the photo!) then decided we just better slow down or we’d be full before our entrees showed up. Debi walked by and noticed my Island Sunset was about gone…she asked if I wanted a refill but I said I was seriously thinking about a Pina
Colava (I’ve heard so much about these.) She said if I like Pina coladas and raspberries, this was the drink for me and she’d have one out in 2 shakes. Well, she did…complete with umbrella:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1796pinacolava.jpg
O.K., the Pina Colava: Bacardi Razz rum blended with pina colada mix and raspberry puree, served frozen. So simple, but oh-so-good. I was in love. I amend my previous suggestion: now I know the perfect meal would be the Pina Colava and the Hawaiian bread with macadamia nut butter. (Well, at least it covers fruit & grains for your balanced meal, right?) Debi brought a refill on DH’s rum and coke, although he had to try my Pina Colava, too…he agreed it was by far the best frozen slushy umbrella drink I’ve ever ordered.

Well, I was already in heaven when our entrees showed up. Here’s mine:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1796sirloinstripsteakwithteriya.jpg

The menu describes this as Teriyaki-style New York Strip - sirloin strip grilled with pineapple teriyaki glaze served with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and stir-fried broccolini. I describe it as mmmmmmmmmm (steak with pineapple glaze.) And mmmmmmm. (Yukon gold potatoes.) And well, I guess that’s o.k. (that was the broccolini)

DH’s plate:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1795primeribgoldenyukonmashe-1.jpg
It’s described as Slow Roasted Prime Rib, Yukon gold potatoes and stir-fried broccolini. His personal description of the food sounded much like mine (with all the mmmmm’s going on our seat mates must have been wondering about us...probably went home & told their friends they would have had a great meal at Kona, except for the weirdos sitting next to them who kept going "mmmmmm" so much and taking pictures of the food.:rotfl: )

We both agreed the beef was well-seasoned, and cooked to perfection exactly as we ordered it. His prime rib was classic, not overly seasoned and not dripping with fake "au jus" like some places do. Instead, the taste of the beef was predominant, and it was a fine piece of beef. The teriyaki sauce on my NY strip was fairly subtle, a little tangy-sweet with just the right amount of pineapple chunks to accent the beef: but not overwhelming the flavor of the steak. Both my steak and DH's prime ribe were quite good-sized (estimate 10-12 oz. each) and nicely marbled for flavor, but not overly fatty. Those “Yukon” gold potatoes really did look golden (or at least a nice yellow) and they tasted like they had been first baked, then mashed with a lot of butter. Very, very good.

The only thing we didn’t find “all that” was this broccolini stuff. Which I’ve never heard of before. It tasted vaguely like a cross between asparagus and broccoli with maybe a little celery thrown in, but the long asparagus-like part of it was woody/stringy. Not a good texture for human consumption. Debi had suggested to us that very few people liked it…in fact she estimated 99% of it went right back to the kitchen, LOL. When Debi came to clear our plates and get our dessert orders, she congratulated us on being among the few who were willing to at least taste the broccolini. Then she sent us up to peruse the dessert choices (they had an example of each dessert sitting on a buffet-like counter towards the back of the restaurant. I liked this…being able to see what the desserts looked like. Except they all looked fabulous, which made it difficult to choose!)

DH is a traditionalist with desserts, so the dessert which looked like a fancy stack o’apple pie…the “Apple Stack” caught his eye right away.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1797Aapplestackdessertkonacafe.jpg
This one is decribed as
Cinnamon, Sour Cream, and crisp sugared Wontons stacked with apples/syrup and topped with ice cream scoop. He loved this, and was very happy when it did indeed taste very much like a good apple pie…

I’m a sucker for a crème brulee, so I went for the Banana crème brulee, served with a flambéed ½ banana and Chocolate Spiral:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1799bananacremebruleewithcho-1.jpg

Whoa, if there is one thing Disney knows how to do, it’s crème brulee! Look at the perfect crackling on top...when they flame these desserts, they always get it just right...crackly but never burnt tasting. I took this picture after scooping into it…you can see this was not only a fabulous crème brulee, but at the bottom of the dish was a layer of very creamy, very scrumptious chocolate fudge. And the caramelized banana…what a taste sensation this whole dessert is.

Alas, as always, we could not do justice to these desserts. We were so full we could barely waddle out of the place.

So, to once again amend my dream meal…I’d come back here for the whole shebang! (well, I’d try to eat less bread…but that would be hard…so I could eat more of the dessert. And they can keep the broccolini next time. But everything else, I’d do exactly the same.)

How would we rate Kona…10 out of 10. Would we come back...Always. Great service, great drink choices, great steaks, great desserts. Nice décor, pleasant surroundings.

Cost of dinner at the Kona Café: 2 tables service credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $66.49

Adult Beverages & tips came to $31.71 in the restaurant, and $14.38 in the bar

Total DDP savings for the day was $94.14 for lunch & dinner (breakfast was leftovers)

Total DDP savings for the week to date is $531.60 for 5 days

[lynn46356]

Wonderful reviews. We tried the Island Sunset last year on our Disney trip. I agree it was very good. I'll have to try the other one next. This year my DH had the Backscratcher. If you are wondering, yes it comes with a two foot backscratcher in it. Of course, he had to have a second one also. Doesn't everyone need two backscratchers. We had to carry our backscratchers around with us in the MK later in the evening. What a pain! haha Thanks for sharing your reviews.

Lynn

[John's Mom]

Another great review! :goodvibes

[DrDeb]

Thanks for the review and great pix----- KONA is now my new favorite-- you are SO right about that bread and the desserts-- OMG take me back NOW!!!

[Joshua_me]

Well, I was already in heaven when our entrees showed up. Here’s mine:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1796sirloinstripsteakwithteriya.jpg


Great time of day ! ^That^ looks incredible !! :)

[hill6]

Great review. I will be dining at Mama Melrose and The Wave when we go in November. Lots of very positive review for The Wave.

[catne]

Wonderful reviews. We tried the Island Sunset last year on our Disney trip. I agree it was very good. I'll have to try the other one next. This year my DH had the Backscratcher. If you are wondering, yes it comes with a two foot backscratcher in it. Of course, he had to have a second one also. Doesn't everyone need two backscratchers. We had to carry our backscratchers around with us in the MK later in the evening. What a pain! haha Thanks for sharing your reviews.

Lynn
I saw that on the menu, and I've seen a picture of here somewhere on the boards, so I do know it comes with a real backscratcher...I'll probably try that next time (I'm the "backscratcher" in our family...the one with the fingernails, so I need a backscratcher for me, LOL. But I would try to time my drink for when I wouldn't have to carry it around a park, especially after a couple of drinks...I know I'd forget it somewhere.)

Another great review! :goodvibes
Thanks, muchly.
Thanks for the review and great pix----- KONA is now my new favorite-- you are SO right about that bread and the desserts-- OMG take me back NOW!!!
Me too, me too! Don't know what we're going to do next year...on the one hand we want to keep trying new restaurants, cuz we still have quite a few we haven't tried. But on the other hand, now we know 2-3 that were really outstanding, and want to go back...too many choices, too little time! What's a Diser to do!:dance3:

Great time of day ! ^That^ looks incredible !! :)
Don't I know it...I was posting that right before dinner time here...boy did I want another meal just like that...had to settle for baked chicken. Blah. So I look at my pictures and dream of Disney for next year.: :cloud9:

Great review. I will be dining at Mama Melrose and The Wave when we go in November. Lots of very positive review for The Wave.
Thanks for reading...hope you enjoy them as much as we did.:thumbsup2

[Rebelmom67]

I am loving these reviews!! I put The Wave on our "to do" list just because of you.:)

[catne]

I am loving these reviews!! I put The Wave on our "to do" list just because of you.:)

I think you'll enjoy it...I predict that one of these days it will be overwhelmed with reservation requests like Le Cellier, but for now it's an "undiscovered treasure."

[catne]

Breakfast in the room with our Senseo coffee and pastries from Everything Pop. DH opted for an apple turnover
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1780appleturnoverEverythingPop.jpg
This was tasty, but about ½ the size of the mega-turnover he had on Monday from the Main Street bakery. Guess the excess pixie dust grows ‘em larger in the Magic Kingdom, LOL. Seriously though, if they do all come from the same bakery, then someone makes the decision which outlet is going to get “special” versions like the MK extra large turnover & cinnamon rolls. This one tasted just as good, but was much smaller (and approximately the same cost.)
I was craving chocolate, so I picked the chocolate chip croissant:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1780chocchipcroissantfromEveryt.jpg
Well this certainly was loaded with chocolate. As you can see coming out the sides, it’s not just sprinkled with chocolate chips, it also has a chocolate filling…somewhat like a chocolate fudge pudding, but stiffer consistency like soft frosting. Although it wasn’t actually shaped like a croissant (rectangle instead of crescent shaped), the pastry was light & flaky like traditional croissants. Yum…as a confirmed chocaholic I can now vouch for the Everything Pop chocolate croissant. It’ll fix what ails ya, chocolate-wise. But it was so rich, I did have to save a bit for later.

Pastries from Pop: 9 out of 10 (slight downgrade because DH knew the double-size apple turnover was available elsewhere. But actual taste-wise & freshness factor the pastries were 10 out of 10.)

Cost for breakfast: 2 snack credits
Actual cash cost would have been: $5.53

Well, after breakfast in the room, we decided to head for Hollywood Studios for one more shot at Toy Story Mania. Crowds were light in the Studios, and we had a great morning.

Lunch at Toy Story Pizza Planet
Decided to try another DHS counter service. It was just shortly before 11:30 and we were fairly close to Studio Catering Company, so we wandered over. Surprise: it wasn’t open yet and couldn’t even see anyone around setting up. Maybe they don’t open until later? So we decided to try Toy Story Pizza Planet, despite the bad knocks I always read about Disney pizza. First off, it was open before 11:30, so we were in luck. Second, the crowds at DHS were still very small, and there was only one party in front of us in the line, so no delays getting our food. There were actually more people playing in the video arcade than in the restaurant part of the place.

The people behind the counter were fast, efficient and friendly. Our food was up in about 5 minutes, so they must have the pizzas half-baked. They were piping hot without being dried out at all so I don’t think they were fully cooked and just sitting under heat lamps. We got our food and headed outside to one of the many patio tables outside. It was a little cooler that morning since it had been cloudy and rainy off & on that morning so it was nice to be able to sit outside without the sun beating down on us. We were close to the door in case we needed to move if the rain started up, but we lucked out…no more drips until just after we finished. Here’s our food from Pizza Planet:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1802cheesepizzagardensaladpe-1.jpg
Top left on the tray is DH’s personal-size pepperoni pizza, bottle water & coke, garden salad with ranch dressing, chocolate chip cookies, and my personal-size cheese pizza. Keep in mind this pic is taking from an angle so perspective is off...the two pizzas really are the same size (luncheon plate sized.)

So, I will start by saying this to all those who complain loudly about how bad Disney pizza is: o.k., it’s not the absolute best pizza in the world. But then, we’re not in Chicago or New York, are we? And if we were there, we'd sure be able to get really fab pizza, but no rides on Tower of Terror, no Toy Story Mania, no 3-D Muppets...you get the picture. So, given the entertainment advantages of our location, we liked the Disney version just fine!

DH got the pepperoni pizza but I’m picky about pepperoni so I opted to play it safe with plain cheese pizza. The crust was more of the thick deep-dish variety, and it was warm & chewy. Since we both prefer this type, we thoroughly enjoyed it. The sauce quantity was on the light side, but it was flavorful enough. The Mozzarella cheese was melted properly on top. The pizza meal comes with a garden salad, we both chose ranch dressing. It was nice to have a fresh salad with fast-food lunch. DH chose bottled water, and I had a coke. Dessert is a large, warm chocolate chip cookie. Again, I think it was fresh from the oven because it was still a little warm even after sitting on the tray cooling while we ate the pizza & salad. The chocolate chip cookies were superb…they tasted like homemade classic toll house cookies…the chocolate chips were still soft & melty. Yum…we actually managed to finish this dessert!

All in all, we actually like Pizza Planet’s food. For a rating, I’d say 8 out of 10. Not the best, but certainly a satisfying meal.

Cost: 2 counter service credits
Actual Cash Cost would have been:$22.50

On the way out of the park to head back to resort for afternoon R & R, we stopped at Starring Rolls to use our last two snack credits to get breakfast pastries for Saturday Morning. We’d had the muffins from Starring Rolls earlier in the week, so we were looking for something different. DH spotted apple Danish…that was all the farther he looked. I really did mean to try something new, but when I spotted Starring Roll’s luscious looking chocolate croissants, I decided I had to have another one. Here’s the picture of our last Disney breakfast, Saturday 9/6/2008.
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1811Starringrollsappledanishand.jpg
I know this part of my review is a tad anachronistic – putting Saturday breakfast just after lunch on Friday - but since we got up & left very early Saturday morning, the Friday reviews will be the finale. And we actually did buy these pastries right after lunch on Friday, so I am just putting the pic in here right after Friday lunch for your viewing pleasure! The Starring Rolls croissant was a little bit larger than the Everything POP version, was plumper with more chocolate filling and a lot more powdered sugar on top. I really like the POP version...I loved the Starring Rolls version. I am beginning to think the reports I've read that all the baked goods come from the same bakery cannot possibly be true. This is the 2nd time we've purchased the "same" item from 2 different bakeries and gotten fairly substantial differences (not just cosmetic.) So I'm thinking the prepackaged desserts may all come from the same bakery (which makes sense) but the fresh items are probably really made on location? Anyway, even though this one was definitely more chocolatey (and richer) I did finish it all on Saturday morning! DH enjoyed the apple Danish; said it was tastier than the usual grocery store bakery version and tasted much more like home-made baked goods: the apples did not taste like canned pie-filling as is so often the case in rolls like this. We gave the Starring Rolls pastries a 10 out of 10.
Cost: 2 snack credits (Our last ones…so sad to see it zero:sad1: )
Actual Cash Cost would have been $5.52

Last Installment, coming soon: Friday Finale Dinner at Cape May Cafe

[catne]

Friday Dinner...our final Free Dining Meal

After a nice rest back at the hotel, and a bit of early packing & car loading, we headed out for our dinner reservations at the Cape May Café, Beach Club. We left fairly early, so we'd have time to wander around checking the place out and having a cocktail. MK was closing early for the first MNSSHP, but Epcot had late EMH until 1:00 A.M that night, so we drove to the Beach Club and valet-parked the car so we could leave it there and use the International Gateway walk to Epcot. I know you’re not supposed to self-park at the Epcot resorts for more than 3 hours, but we were told that using the valet-parking there was perfectly acceptable since valet-parking is (1) paid parking and (2) does not take parking spaces from people staying at the resort. Valet parking informed us there was no time limit on how long we left the car, although more than 24 hours would be charged a 2nd fee. Fine by us, we would be on the way home long before that would happen!

So, we checked out the Beach Club lobby. Nice-enough looking, but seriously in need of a refurbishment-lots of wear & tear on the upholstered furniture, carpets stained and fraying around the edges. It was very busy, but no one was at the Cape May check-in podium yet (it was still almost an hour before they opened.) So we wandered outside to see the resort’s awesome pool & check out the adult beverages at Hurricane Hanna’s. (Ironic name, since this year they actually were talking about a Hurricane Hanna out in the Atlantic.) The Beach Club pool is awesome looking…amazing slide! I can see the appeal of this resort’s amenities.

We found Hurricane Hanna’s in the pool area, and after perusing the drinks menu, we decided to experiment with Disney drinks again. I ordered the Orange Dream…I believe it was made with orange juice and vanilla schnapps (might be wrong on the ingredients.) I do know it was delicious and tasted like that favorite from childhood, an orange creamsicle. Course, it had a nice adult beverage kicker, yum. DH ordered the Poolside Lemonade, a tasty concoction made with Bacardi Limon Rum, Razz Rum, sweet & sour mix and Sprite with a splash of Grenadine. It tasted very much like regular lemonade, but the kick was definitely there. Sorry, I once again forgot to take pics of these loverly beverages…I can tell you that mine was frozen creamy orange – looked like an orange milkshake, and DH’s did indeed look just like a glass of lemonade (you wouldn’t want to leave it around where the kiddies might mistake it for their drink, that’s for sure.) We took these delicious drinks and wandered over to sit on some benches directly in front of the beach. It was scenic and tranquil, with a nice view of the Boardwalk across the lake. The boats coming and going really added to the Beach Club ambiance.

Around 5:15, we went back to the lobby to check in for our 5:30 seating. Seemed like a kajillion people all checking in, but that’s because the Cape May Café actually opens at 5:30, so everyone with 5:30 reservations do tend to all show up at 5:15. We were given a pager, and went to sit in the lobby area. The chairs are comfortable, but my, they are shabby looking. Frankly, I'd be very disappointed to be paying deluxe prices to stay here until they do a refurb on it. Anyway, right about 5:30, our pager went off and we were led into the restaurant.

The décor of the Cape May Café is a nostalgic look at the Jersey seashore from long ago. Pictures of old-fashioned beach scenes decorate the walls, along with large shadow-box displays of beach paraphernalia and the funny bathing suits of great-grandma’s day. There is a wonderful sand castle display (but you can’t play with it!)

As you come into the restaurant, they walk you right past the ultimate temptation to eat dessert first: the elegant desserts counter (the plainer desserts are inside the restaurant on one side of the buffet counter.) In the very center of the restaurant is a large square buffet counter. Each side offers different types of foods: one side is mostly cold salads & fresh fruit, another side is mostly seafoods. The third side is one half a hot meats carving station & dinner rolls, with the other half of that side offering the plainer desserts like an assortment of cookies & brownies. The final side of the buffet square is a variety of hot vegetables and grilled foods.

Our excellent server was Durland, and we started off with a couple of adult beverages. DH decided he had to have a Pina Colava for himself, so he did:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1803NEWCapeMaycafepinacolava.jpg
As you will recall, the Pina Colava is made with Bacardi Razz rum blended with pina colada mix and raspberry puree, and served froze. DH definitely appreciated the Cape May version, the only thing missing was the umbrella! But that’s o.k., since DH isn’t all that impressed by the decorations anyway. (I’ve read that the drink recipes are standard in all the Disney bars, and this one certainly tasted just as good as the one I’d had at Kona Cafe.) Do have to say, I think the Pina Colava probably ranks #1 of the drinks we tried, with the Italian Margarita #2 on this tip. They both meet all my criteria for frozen slushy fruity brain-freeze-inducing adult umbrella beverages.

Although I briefly considered another Pina colava for myself, in the interest of furthering scientific exploration (how’s that for justification?) I continued my quest to experience many different Disney drinks. So I chose the Captain’s Mai-tai
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1805CathysMayCafeCaptainsMaiTai.jpg
This one is listed as Captain Morgan Original Spiced rum, BOLS Amaretto, pineapple juice, lime juice and grenadine served on the rocks. Now I am not ordinarily that much of a fan of spiced rum…fruit flavored rum, yes, but not spiced rum. However, I do love Amaretto, as well as pineapple juice so I figured this drink would not disappoint. Although it did not qualify at all as an “umbrella” drink, because it was no slushy, just “on the rocks” so there was absolutely no possibility of a brain freeze, it does find a place on my list as “have to get another of these one day.” It was very, very tasty…and the spiced rum is nicely disguised by the other flavors.

Now with the way the Cape May Café buffet is set up, 4 distinct lines formed, basically one on each side. Going with my usual preference for salad as starters on my food, I headed for the cold salads/cold fruit side first. Big Mistake…apparently, most people agree that salads should come first! I waited at least 5 minutes in line to get up to the beginning of the salad line. Once there, though, I was able to move right down the salad line (no one line jumping here as had happened in the Boma line, thank heavens.) Here’s my first plate:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1805CathysplateatCapeMaypota-1.jpg
Plate contents, top right: potato salad, then going clockwise, that’s marinated tomatoes, caesar salad, fresh fruit, and cole slaw.
Sorry the flash-glare makes the potato salad look like a white blur. It actually was a very tasty and colorful variety, was made from cut red-skinned potatoes with a creamy mayo dressing. The tomato marinade tasted similar to a mild Italian salad dressing…the tomatoes were firm so I believe this dish must be made fresh daily. The Caesar salad was fresh, but just your typical Caesar salad. The fresh fruit was delicious: so often the mixed fruits on a buffet are made so far in advance (like days!) that all the melons and pineapple end up tasting like generic-fruit. This fruit was fresh enough you could still enjoy the various distinct fruit flavors. The cole slaw was wonderful…classic “picnic” type of slaw, with slightly tangy dressing.

DH used his brains when heading for the food…he chose the seafood side first, which had virtually no line. Here’s his first effort:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1803NEWMarkatCapeMaycafepinacol.jpg
top right: a large bowl of clam chowder; on the plate starting top right: deep fried tilapia, corn on the cob, rare prime rib with horseradish sauce, clams & butter.
We shared the clam chowder: it was hot and very good. The deep-fried tilapia was the specialty fish of the day according to our server. Well, they shouldn’t have bragged on it as “special.” It was absolutely tasteless…correction, it tasted vaguely like deep-fry oil on very plain breading (not even the taste of salt & pepper in the breading.) Needless to say, after one bite, the tilapia remained on the plate. The corn on the cob was great. So often, this item remains in the water on the buffet so long it starts tasting like canned corn. This tasted very fresh, and quite flavorful. The rare prime rib was wonderful. He enjoyed the clams but only had a few because they are a bit of work to eat.

This time when I went up to the buffet, I decided to scope out the shortest-line side, and get a plate of foods for us to share. Looked like most of the salad-first crew was now on the seafood side, so I went for the other hot foods side. Here’s my sharing plate:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1807grilledchickenhomemadema-1.jpg
Top center of plate-potatoes, asparagus, center of plate is pasta & chicken alfredo, then a BBQ rib and top left is rotisserie chicken.

The veggies were excellent: the home-style mashed potatoes were just the way we like them…skins left on, and mostly mashed smooth with just a bit of chunky potato; the asparagus was cooked from fresh and still crisp. The pasta alfredo was good but just a bit bland, with large chunks of chicken. In an Italian restaurant, it would have been too bland, but on a buffet like this it was a good alternative for anyone looking for mild alternatives. You’ll notice I took just ONE rib. No way was I going to take more than one of those: think I now have a phobia from those awful Boma cinnamon ribs, LOL. Anyway, this really was a traditional tomato-based BBQ sauce on the rib…it was meaty, tender and very tasty (cured the phobia on the spot.) We both liked the taste of Cape May’s BBQ ribs. The rotisserie chicken was juicy and tender, but the rub on the skin was a tad too salty.

DH continued to play the buffet smart, and now headed for the salads (of course that side had no line at all now.)
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1808capemaycafeceasarsaladpe-2.jpg
At top center, that’s peel & eat shrimp, clockwise cucumber salad, marinated mushrooms, and finally, Caesar salad.
He didn’t care much for these peel & eat shrimp…didn’t think they were fresh. The cucumber salad was good with a tart vinegary dressing. The marinated mushrooms were excellent, and fresh. He did like the Caesar salad.

I was now ready to try the seafood side…and even though the line was actually quite short, it still took me forever to get through because a woman in front of me wanted an entire plate full of steamed clams. I don’t have a problem with that…this restaurant is advertised as a “clambake” so naturally those who love clams will be here. And the vat of clams & mussels is huge so it wasn’t a matter of worry that she would take them all. No, the problem was she wanted a plate of clams with no “empties”…that’s right, instead of just scooping up a heaping plate and taking them back to her table like everyone else did, she scooped them out one at a time, slowly draining all the liquid off, and then carefully inspected the inside to make sure she had a “keeper.” If it was empty, back it went. She kept this up until she had a good 20-25 clams on her plate. Geez, it’s not as if she was paying per pound so make sure they’re all good! And she could come back for refills as much as she wanted. But oh, no, she was going to make this plate count, no matter what. Oh lord, I can’t tell you how many people gave up on waiting and left that line! I’d already done 2 of the other sides, and was 1/2way down this side. And I really wanted the shellfish, so I stayed. Eventually she finished, and I just scooped a couple of ladles full onto my plate, splashed them with melted butter and called it good. (Interestingly enough, I had no “empties” in my randomly scooped shells.) Anyway, here’s my 2nd plate for myself:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1809Capemaycafeprimesirloindeep.jpg
Top center; rare prime rib, deep fried tilapia, cheese-garlic roll and whipped butter, clams & mussels, corn on the cob

The prime rib was very good. Since I don’t care for horseradish sauce, I do like prime rib to have been cooked with a well-seasoned rub: this one was done just right. And it’s nice to be able to get rare beef on a buffet. All too often it sits under a heat lamp so long it continues cooking until it’s shoe leather. I tried the deep-fried tilapia just on the chance that DH’s might have been accidentally under-seasoned. Not. Mine was just as tasteless as his…c’mon folks, tilapia has a very mild flavor to start with: it needs seasoning. The cheese-garlic roll had good flavor, but was a trifle hard as if the heat lamps were too strong for these rolls. The clams & mussels were wonderful. I thought the corn on the cob might be getting that over-cooked-buffet-texture, but they must replenish it often, because mine tasted as freshly cooked as DH’s had been 30 minutes before.

Well, we were getting full, so it was time to hit the dessert bar. We’d had cocktails as our beverages with the meal, so we asked for coffee & cream as our DDP beverage to be served with our dessert. We mostly skipped the cookies, and went for the elegant dessert bar around the corner. Since neither of us were very hungry at this point, we figured we’d mostly just nibble. So here’s our dessert plates: http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1810coffeewithcreamcheesecakeke.jpg
coffee, classic cheesecake with white/chocolate “sail”, key lime tart, german chocolate cake, oreo bon-bon
The coffee was good. This is another item that’s routinely slammed in reviews…I don’t know why. If you like plain old restaurant coffee, that’s what this is. No, it’s not gourmet, no it’s not supreme. But again, this isn’t Starbucks. For a nice cup o’joe with your dessert, it’s fine. Anyway, to the dessert…the cheesecake with the pretty little “sail”was classic cheesecake with a thin cookie-like crust (didn’t taste like graham-crackers.) The key lime tart was good but prefer a merigue topping (this was whipped cream.) The little german chocolate cake square was outstanding. Had I more room in my tummy, I would have gone back for another of these. Very fresh, very scrumptious. As was the oreo bon-bon (DH’s favorite on this plate.) After eating the german chocolate cake, though, I thought the oreo bon-bon was a little over-the-top rich…good, but no way could I eat 2 of those in one sitting. Our second dessert plate:
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj308/caleibman/IMG_1810CapeMaycafemickeysprinklesc.jpg
It’s a mickey sprinkles cupcake, and a peanut brownie. I really like the Mickey sprinkles cupcake…classic white birthday-cake taste. Frosting was the butter-cream kind, but not too heavy and just the right amount of sprinkles. The peanut brownie surprised me. For some reason, when I took it I thought it was just a regular “blonde” brownie. I noticed the nuts, but thought they were walnuts. So needless to say, I was quite surprised when I bit into this and tasted peanuts! It was good, but I would have preferred a traditional “blond” brownie.

All in all, I’d give the Cape May Café dinner buffet an 8 out of 10. The décor is fun, and the buffet itself is set up much better than the Boma layout. The foods were by & large at least “good enough” and some were very good. Our service from Durland was excellent…he was very attentive with clearing used plates, making sure we had enough to drink (we did have ice water along with our cocktails) and the coffee showed up just as we got back to the table with our dessert plates. Cape May Café was very busy, but the noise level stayed reasonable. The tables are close together, but there is room to walk between them without having to go exploring for a path.

Cost: 2 table service credits (our very last credits…all gone now!)
Actual cash cost would have been $54.30
Total DDP savings for Friday (including Saturday’s pastry): $87.85
Total DDP savings for the 6 night stay: $619.45

That's it...my Final Free Feast:upsidedow

[catne]

Cost of our rack rate Value Resort room for 6 nights & Free DDP: actually cost us $492.00

Cost of discounted Value Resort room and pay for DDP would have cost us $837.48

Cost of discounted Value Resort room, skip the DDP entirely and pay cash for all the food we ate would have cost us $1013.05

This was for 2 adults, staying at a Value resort. (Park tickets not included in figures above, of course...that's where they really get you:rotfl: :wizard: :rotfl: )

And yes, we would have eaten the same way whether or not we were on the DDP. We were at WDW in May 2007, no DDP, and ate all our meals on-site (we like Disney food.) We were there again in May 2008, this time using DDP and again ate all meals on-site. And yes, we eat desserts when on vacation (diet the rest of the year so we can go eat Disney food:woohoo: :yay: :woohoo: )

We're going to do Free Dining again next year...already booked on Bounceback.:cheer2:

[summermac]

I'm so glad someone shared this post with me. Loved reading it. And man I want dessert!