2 weeks until our next trip! Deluxe dining here we come again!

[danielle.st]

I have spent years on disboards, drooling over pictures. My 9 year old spends much quality time with me, at the computer, as we devour menus She was disappointed that I never did a review of our December '08 deluxe dining trip and has made me promise that I will do one for our April '10 trip. And she is insisting that we WILL take pictures of our food this time! She's so adorably excited that I can't say no. I figured that to pass the time for the next couple of weeks, we can review our last trip and detail our plans for this trip.
Our vacation is from April 21-27. We are going for deluxe dining again, by unanimous vote. We absolutely loved it last time! My dh said he wouldn't go without it. I said I'd go to WDW any way I could get it, but if I can go and get 3 TS meals a day then that's what I want to do! My girls just want to do as many character meals as possible.

So more about our family.
dh: He likes simple foods. Lots of chicken and turkey with the traditional sides. Not too many burgers because the grease bugs him, but he enjoys one on occassion. He dislikes eggs, seafood and only likes cheese on pizza. Only likes a couple of fruits (apples, bananas, grapes) and a few more common veggies. He's very thin and needs to eat 3 meals a day. He's not a huge sweet eater... that's all I can think of relevant to his eating!

me: I am not quite a vegetarian, but lean that way. I dislike most meats, the veins and bones and fat make me gag. I'll eat a few meats that are so processed that they don't even look like they ever came from an animal, but prefer meatless when it's an option. I like most fruits... except grapefruit and melons. I like many veggies, but definitely not brussel sprouts! The only fish I like is a tuna sandwich. I do like shrimp and occassionally crab. I've had a bit of lobster before but didn't love it so I never order it (too expensive since I don't love it) and I don't like that it still looks like the animal. I love breakfast foods and adore sweets!

dd9: She loves to eat. She really likes to try new things. She likes most of what I like and most of what dh likes. She actually does like brussel sprouts! We think she must be a throwback to the previous generation, because grandma is the only other person in the family that we know of who likes brussel sprouts, lol. She loves the character meals and really loved the buffets last time so that she could sample all kinds of things.

dd6: picky, picky. She plans on having pizza for 2 meals a day on this trip. We'll see. She loves sweets, likes a few fruits, only likes a couple of cooked veggies (corn, green beans, peas) and not cold, crunchy veggies. Like dh, she doesn't eat a lot at once but definitely needs 3 meals a day because she is so thin and gets crabby when hungry.

Here is a picture of us from our December '08 trip.
Next up, I'll list the meals we did before and are planning to have in a couple of weeks!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

SUBBING!!!!!

We did ddp for the first time last trip, didn't work for us so booked to do DXDP for first time in October.

Our family are pretty random in their eating habits - bit like yours - no two like the same thing.

 

[danielle.st]

Here are the meals we planned to attend at WDW when we went, December 6-13th, 2008.

Dec 6th- we expected to get to Pop at lunchtime. We planned a quick food court lunch before heading to AK. Dinner at Chef Mickey.

Dec 7th- my now dd9 had her real 8th birthday! She was so excited to be celebrating the actual day in WDW. If I remember correctly, I told her we were going to Epcot that day (based on crowd predictions) and gave her a couple of meal choices. She loved being able to pick which meals we went to for her birthday! Her choices? Cape May Cafe breakfast, Akershus lunch, Biergarten dinner.

Dec 8th- the only day we planned on skipping a regular breakfast. We planned snack type stuff at Pop, this was to make up for a couple of 2 credit meals later in the week. Lunch was to be Sci Fi, dinner Mama Melrose, Fantasmic! Package.

Dec 9th-- Crystal Palace breakfast, The Plaza lunch, 1900 Park Fare dinner

December 10th- Kona breakfast, CRT lunch, LTT dinner (characters were still there back then!)

December 11th- H&V breakfast, 50's PT lunch, dinner a counter serve in either Epcot or DHS (we had park hoppers and I wanted to use them, darn it! lol. I didn't know where we'd be at dinner time)

December 12th- Tusker House breakfast, lunch an AK counter serve (probably Pizzafari, was the plan), dinner HDDR

December 13th- breakfast in the food court at Pop before departing WDW.

Coming soon... did we stick to our plans? did we have too much food? did we get bored with all of those character meals? will I even remember any details after almost a year and a half?

 

[princessallegra]

Congrats on your upcoming trip!! Everything sounds great! Can't wait to read your reviews!

 

[ariel333]

Hi! my name is Francesca. I just registered on disboards, and I can't figure out how to post a thread? can you tell me how to post one please? Thanks

 

[princessallegra]

Hi! my name is Francesca. I just registered on disboards, and I can't figure out how to post a thread? can you tell me how to post one please? Thanks

You just click on "Start new Thread" when you're looking at the page of threads.

 

[danielle.st]

In the end, this is what we ended up with:

lunch in the Pop food court- I don't remember what everyone else got. I know I got the parmesan crusted chicken and salad. The chicken was ok (remember, I'm not a huge chicken fan) and the salad was gross. the others seemed to enjoy theirs.

dinner was Chef Mickey- the girls loved it. I felt it was chaotic, loud and the food was just ok. Not terrible, but not wonderful.

breakfast at Cape May Cafe- was lovely! The characters were great, the food was so good, the waiter very kind.

lunch- Akershus. I had been worried that dh wouldn't find anything, but he did! He had chicken, I had the vegetarian pasta dish. It was great! The cold buffet was nice too. We really liked the meal and it was so much better than I had thought it would be.

dinner- Biergarten. The food was nice, I remember liking all of the potato stuff. We loved, loved, loved the atmosphere. We sat next to a fun, talkative family and were there forever just because we had so much fun. We loved the toasts and the music. This was our favorite atmosphere of all of the restaurants all week.

breakfast- snack in Pop. I don't remember what we had. I don't remember disliking anythign either!

lunch- Sci Fi. This I remember. This was our most stuffed day, foodwise. Which was a surprise since we did a snacky breakfast. I got the spinach-cheese dip with chips thing, dh got onion rings. I remember eating so much of the dip and I might have even licked the bowl, it was that good. I also ate a couple of dh's rings because he couldn't eat many. I got the pasta with shrimp and it was really good too. I couldn't eat it all and was picking out the shrimp and olives. I had the pb/chocolate thing for dessert. I was too full to eat more than a couple of bites, but it was really yummy!

dinner was Mama Melrose. Fantasmic package. Unfortunately, we were still so stuffed from lunch, it was hard to eat. I ordered the breads and spreads, expecting everyone else to share. No one did. I ate one roll and couldn't eat more. The girls and dh were able to eat their meals, but not dessert. I ordered the 4 cheese flatbread. It looked and smelled so good but I couldn't eat a bite. They boxed it up for me (it was excellent when I ate it cold 3 hours later, lol). I didn't even attempt dessert. We loved what we were able to eat.

breakfast- Crystal palace, before MK opening. It was really good. You could eat lighter (fruits, cerals, yogurts) or heavier (breakfast pizzas and lasagna, eggs, etc). I had a bit of everything. Very funb. The girls had drawn pictures for Pooh and Piglet. They made a show of them and Piglet especially loved the picture.

lunch- The Plaza. It was good. I know I got the vegetarian sanwich and had broccoli slaw and liked it. I got the brownie sundae and shared with the girls. That's all I remember.

dinner 1900 Park Fare. It was ok. The food (aside from the strawberry soup and desserts) just wasn't for us. The characters were fun but we were off in a little side room and it wasn't very atmospheric. Not worth the amouont we paid.

More to come!

 

[vinotinto]

Signing in! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your '08 trip and your plans for the '10 trip.

 

[danielle.st]

The next morning we had planned on Kona breakfast. However, coming back from MK after dinner at 1900 Park Fare, we knew we weren't going to make it. We were exhausted and needed a relaxing morning. When we got back to Pop, I called and cencelled. We ate breakfast in the food court the next morning. My older dd and I shared a breakfast pizza and both loved it! It was super crowded, that was our only complaint.

After a slow morning, we got to MK in time for our CRT lunch. It was awesome! We loved being in the castle. My younger dd said it was like eating in a church, lol. I had the major domo and just ate everything but the meat. I don't remember what everyone else had, I do know we all enjoyed the meal. We didn't care for the appetizer platter... I loved the chocolate buckle dessert.

Dinner was the LTT character meal. It was just ok. I ate everything except the meats (mac and cheese, stuffing, etc). The characters were fun, but we all agreed that it wasn't worth it without them. We like more variety and chouces than the dinner menu provides.

The next breakfast was H & V before DHS opened. We loved it. Nice, friendly (but inexperienced) waitress, good food, not many people there. It was great! My kids aren't really into those characters, but they were the most friendly chracters we ran into all week, so we enjoyed them anyway.

Lunch was 50's PT. I remember we'd had a downpour before and at the beginning of it. In fact, people weren't leaving because of the rain, so it took longer to be seated. Still, we eventually got a seat. We shared onion rings as an app. We were all allowed milkshakes as our drinks. My younger dd pretty much just drank her milkshake instead of eating. I got the meatloaf (one of the few meats I like) and it was fine. I disliked the green beans. Not their fault, but I think I am used to over cooked green beans, lol. I don't like them al dente and they were a bit cool. I think there were too many also, and I knew I had to eat all my greens. I ate them and had a yummy angel cake and berry dessert. It wasn't bad, just I wished I'd gotten a different entree. It was another of my dh's favorite meals.

dinner was planned to be a cs in either DHS or Epcot. We traveled to Epcot (very fun and long boatride, my older dd got to be an honorary captain, wore his hat and made announcements). After going on the boatride in Mexico, we were going to get food but it was so crowded at all of the cs places and really cold besides, that we gave up and decided to go back to our hotel. We got food, took it up to our room and ate watching tv and being warm and cozy. If we'd had a ts booked, we'd have definitely stayed in park. Just the weather and crowd defeated us for cs that night.

our final park day was an AK day. We had a great Tusker House breakfast. We all really enjoyed everything. They let us skip the picture we weren't going to buy anyway, and I think that put us in a good mood.

For lunch, we'd planned on Pizzafari. After an aborted try to go to Rafiki's Planet Watch (the line for the train was insane and it didn't feel like the train would ever arrive) we went to eat. The inside of Pizzafari was more chaos. I couldn't figure out where we were even supposed to line up. I looked at my family and asked if there was anything else in AK they really wanted to see. They said no, so we left. We went back to Pop for another food court meal that we ate in front of the tv. This was another example of a time where we'd have definitely stayed in park if we'd had a TS ADR. After being spoiled all week with not having to deal with meal time chaos to get food, we didn't want to try it.

Dinner was HDDR. It was such a fun show, we all loved it. I didn't like the meats at all and I wished I had phoned ahead for a vegetarian dish. That was not their fault at all, my own for being too lazy to make the call. I pigged out on cornbread though, that was yummy My younger dd wasn't a fan of the food either, she'd have been happier with mac and cheese (or pizza!). Again, not their fault, I should have asked.

Our last meal was breakfast at Pop. I had wanted to do Ohana, but had to cancel when our flight time bumped up. We enjoyed another breakfast pizza.

We also enjoyed a few snacks over the weeks... pretzels, raspberry lemonade slushies, Itzakadoozies, a dole whip float, strawberry and cream smoothie, waters, gatorades, muffins, etc. However, we still had 22 snack credits left that last morning.We used them to get Disney Pez' for all of the kids in my older dd's class. She loved handing them out when we got back!

We loved our trip. We enjoyed most of our meals, none were bombs. We only wished we'd actually scheduled more TS places because we definitely preferred them to cs, especially in the parks.

next up... our plan for April 21-27, 2010. What will we repeat? What new places will we try?

 

[danielle.st]

Back on the infamous October 27th 2009, we called to make our ADRs. It was a grueling morning. It took me forever to get through the phone lines, got through, and as a couple things were places in my cart, the system crashed. The awesome CM stayed on the phone with me forever, hoping it would come back up, but then we gave up. If I remember correctly, it was an hour of redialing to get thorugh, then an hour waiting for the system to come back up and no ADrs to show. My dh called that night and got right through. He got all but 2 of the ADRs we ended up with (I got the other 2 online later).
What did we end up with?

April 21st- arrival day. We decided to just relax this first day. We will be getting to our hotel just in time for dinner. Our plan is to get food court food at Pop and eat either in the room or at the pool (that is still up in the air). For myself, I'm looking at veggie lo mein or a veggie calzone or something like that. My older dd wants to share with me. My younger just wants pizza. dh doesn't know yet what he'll get.

April 22nd- DHS day. My dh knew exactly which restaurants he wanted. H&V before the park opens for breakfast, lunch at 50's PT and dinner at MM (nonFantasmic, we can eat a bit later than last time which will be better). He strongly vetoed SciFi. He said he disliked how dark it was and just wasn't happy with it. The girls were disappointed, but there was no changing his mind. H&V is obviously buffet, at 50's I am so excited to try the new vegetarian pasta dish on the menu! At MM, I know I want the mozz/tomato app, am still trying to decide what I'll get for the main entree. I'm sure I'll have decided by the time I get there!

April 23rd- MK day. We decided to try breakfast at 1900 PF. We weren't crazy about dinner, but we figure breakfast is a better gamble. Also, my older dd really wants to see Mary Poppins! And I did like the strawberry soup.
lunch is at LTT. We liked the menu choices for lunch. Well, I did especially I really want the fried cheese app (and my girls want to share it). I'm leaning towards the vegetarian dish but could end up with the salad as my entree. dinner is Crystal Palace. We are doing a breakfast again later in the week, but I really wanted to try dinner there. I was trying to decide between breakfast and dinner, but dh said he thought we should just do both. Why not, right?! I'm looking forward to it

April 24th is our rest day. We realized last time we were burning out from parks every day. We are going to sleep as late as we want this day, eat breakfast in the food court (most likely) and then head to DTD. Originally, we'd planned on EOS for lunch, but then I started reading about the long lines. We know we dislike the long lines for food and preferred TS last trip anyway. So I made an ADR for RR. But the menu wasn't as good as it seemed to have been before, there wasn't anything my dh would like. So then I canceled that one and made one for WPC. The girls much preferred the menu there over that at EOS and RR anyway, so we are settled for sure (I think, lol)
dinner is Boma. I emphasized the more normal meats and the safe foods when telling dh about it This one is more for me. I really want to try it and I think we will like checking out the AK resort.

April 25th- breakfast will be at Chef Mickey. We (the adults in our family) weren't crazy about dinner, but the girls begged to go there again. The lost their bid for Sci-Fi but did win this one because we can go for the safer breakfast. Then we'll take the monorail to Epcot for the day. This was the hardest day for meal choosing. We were really happy with both Akershus lunch and Biergarten dinner last time. But there are also other restaurants to try! We went over and over it for a couple of months before the big phone call. We ended up going with Biergarten for lunch and Garden Grill for dinner. Our reasons? My youngest really doesn't like the princesses and we are going to CRT the next day already. We considered Teppan Edo because it looks so neat, but dh wouldn't be super happy with the food and my youngest wouldn't like it either. Same for many of the other countries, to tell the truth. GG is really dh's kind of food, and the girls will love the characters and rotating restaurant. I absolutely do plan on requesting a vegetarian platter here though because I know I will not eat the turkey, steak or fish.

April 26th is our final park day. We plan on Crystal Palace for breakfast before the park opens. Lunch will be the Plaza. Dinner will be CRT. We went for dinner because at the time the Princesses wouldn't be coming to the tables... now they will. But dd6 is ok with that, because I told her she won't have to have pics with them
Our departure day will be relaxed (I hope) and breakfast in the food court.

 

[danielle.st]

So, while there aren't a lot of posts here (totally ok!) there are quite a few views For those checking, it's only a week until the trip! (ok, in about 40 minutes it will be a week, lol).
Anyway, the only update is that we went to our travel agent to get our documents and found out that to get our deal, she got us 5 day park passes, instead of the 4 day. So we decided on Saturday that we would drop the Boma dinner and after going to DTD and having lunch, we'll got to AK after all. We're going to see the safari and a couple of other things that we did enjoy there and have dinner at Tusker House. We had eaten breakfast there before, not dinner. We decided on the change because AK closes at 6pm that day, we'd have had to leave pretty early to get to AKL at 6pm for dinner (I'm figuring there would be a lot of people leaving at the end). By going to TH instead, we don't have to worry about the transportation time and crowds leaving.

 

[gibbersome]

So, while there aren't a lot of posts here (totally ok!) there are quite a few views For those checking, it's only a week until the trip! (ok, in about 40 minutes it will be a week, lol).
Anyway, the only update is that we went to our travel agent to get our documents and found out that to get our deal, she got us 5 day park passes, instead of the 4 day. So we decided on Saturday that we would drop the Boma dinner and after going to DTD and having lunch, we'll got to AK after all. We're going to see the safari and a couple of other things that we did enjoy there and have dinner at Tusker House. We had eaten breakfast there before, not dinner. We decided on the change because AK closes at 6pm that day, we'd have had to leave pretty early to get to AKL at 6pm for dinner (I'm figuring there would be a lot of people leaving at the end). By going to TH instead, we don't have to worry about the transportation time and crowds leaving.

Yay! Congrats, one week left to go!

 

[mandibc11]

Can't wait to hear your "almost vegetarian" reviews!

 

[danielle.st]

Can't wait to hear your "almost vegetarian" reviews!

Thanks! In all of my planning, I think the only thing that will probably keep me from 100% vegetarian at WDW is breakfast. I can't turn down breakfast pizza or some sort of egg dish that has bacon bits or sausage mixed in. I love breakfast pizza and egg dishes!

 

[mandibc11]

I completely understand! I will be pretty much vegan on our trip, and I know that's going to be really hard to do when it comes to breakfast...my favorite meal of the day! More than anything I just want some pancakes. I'm hoping they will be able to accomodate me!

 

[princessallegra]

All your details sound great!!! You're so close!!! Can't wait to hear about your trip!!!!