I fell off the ice cream truck...13 days of DDP with pics!*UPDATE: COMPLETED!!*

[the little marla]

Hi! I'm Marla... and i had a problem.. in disney.. with ice cream. At least that's the phrase my husband used when i commented about how much ice cream i had been eating! I equated it to falling off the wagon (as we had be diligently eating healthy/dieting for months up until disney) and he chimed in and claimed it was more like falling off the ice cream truck! but it's cool cause we were in DISNEY!!!!

Little background, i'm a long time DisBoards lurker.. i chime in occasionally but i just like to hang around and read. I've been to disney my entire life.. from year 1 to now year 25 (almost 26 .. )! My family went every year growing up and then 7 years ago - i introduced my now husband, Dan, to disney.. and since then he has gotten the Disney bug.. which works for me! We just got married in November 11.11.11 and we honeymooned in Disneyland (1week) and then Punta Cana (2nd week).. you would think after those vacations we would be done for a while.. but no, around Februrary we got itching to head back to the world.. so we booked our 13 night stay at Pop and we luckily had a pin attached to Dan's name for Free QS dining.. we upgraded to DDP and started our countdown!

I just finished my Student Teaching for my Masters in Elem. Ed.. and Dan is a graphic designer for a NJ newspaper.. did i mention were from NJ! .. and we DROVE down.. actually we drive to Disney World all the time.. it may seem strange but we actually like to drive down! all 18 hours of quality time in a car! plus i much prefer to rely on our own car for transportation.

Anyway, back to the food.. we love it! who doesn't, so we made a ridiculous amount a reservations.. i believe we started out with 15 TS... switched some.. canceled some last minute.. but over all we were pretty happy with our selections.. tried a couple new places and a lot of old favorites!

Dan is also on the Dis... we had some interesting discussions on how i would write this report.. he is on the edge of his seat waiting to see what i write.. especially over one piece of chocolate cake which we just could not see eye to eye on.. LOL i'm sure he will be commenting on how i don't know what i'm talking about hahaha

oh and one more somewhat key factor to our eating around Disney.. dan eats meat.. i don't.. i'm a pescetarian... if you've never heard of it it means that i will eat fish (i like to say, "no land animals" to be clearer).. perhaps one day i will get rid of that as well. but for this report, just though you all should know!

oh and hopefully by the end of this i will have answered the age old question.. is the DDP worth it.. i have never really cared if it is.. i just love it for how easy it is .... even though we were scrambling the last few days with 12 snacks left! hahah i still have some mickey cake pops in the fridge! (we got back early sunday morning - so i'm sure they are fine! lol)

omgoodness.. i keep starting to type the line up and i remember more things to say...if you haven't figured it out already - i talk.. a lot. but we left for our drive on June 9th, the day after Dan's birthday (so you know i had already let disney know the birthday boy was on his way!) arrived at Pop on Jun 10th and left for NJ on the 23rd! OH one more thing.. we went to UNIVERSAL 2 days.. so i will also include dining reports for there as well!

Here i am, with my least favorite Pooh Character.. lol.. don't be mad at me but i just could never really stand piglet..

and the DH and I

so.. here is what you have all been waiting for.. the lineup!!

June 10
Dinner:Teppan Edo (Japan) @Epcot

June 11
Breakfast:Pop Century
Snack: The Royal Anandapur Tea Company @AK
Lunch:Earl of Sandwhich @DTD
Dinner:Mama Melrose@HS

June 12
Breakfast:Crystal Palace @MK
Snack:Sunshine Tree Terrace/Ice Cream Cart@MK
Lunch:Pop Century
Dinner:Via Napoli (Italy) @Epcot

June 13 - Island's of Adventure
Breakfast:Pop Century
Snack: IOA - Butterbeer/Fruit cup
Lunch:Steak and Shake
Snack: Pop Century
Dinner:AMC Dine in Theaters @DTD

June 14
Breakfast:Pop Century
Lunch:Coral Reef @Epcot
Dinner:Backlot Express @HS

June 15
Breakfast: Pop Century
Lunch: Sci Fi @HS
Dinner:Columbia Harbour House @MK
plus * MK Dessert Party! *

June 16
Breakfast:Trails End @Fort Wilderness
Lunch: Wetzle Pretzles@DTD
Snack: Goofys Candy Co.
Dinner: Captain Cook's@Poly
Snack: Pop Century

June 17
Breakfast: Pop Century
Snack: Sunshine Tree Terrace @MK
Lunch: Liberty Tree Tavern@MK
Dinner: Catalina Eddie's@HS
Snack: Ghirardelli @DTD

June 18
Breakfast: Pop Century
Snack: Sunshine Tree Terrace
Linner: Gasparilla Grill @GF

June 19
Breakfast: Pop Century
Lunch: Wolfgang Puck Express@DTD
Dinner: Sommerfest (Germany) / La Cantina de San Angel(Mexico)@ Epcot

June 20
Breakfast: Boma @Animal Kingdom Lodge
Lunch: Rainforest Cafe @AK
Snack: Mickey Pretzel @MK
Dinner: Chef Mickey's @Contemporary

June 21 - Universal Studios
Breakfast: Pop Century
Lunch: Louie's Italian Restaurant
Dinner: Mel's Drive In
plus * Ghirardelli's

June 22
Breakfast: Pop Century
Lunch: Tutto Italia(Italy) @Epcot
Dinner: Cinderella's Royal Table@MK

Now that i typed up this list, i see how much we ate breakfast at Pop! We typically like to eat first before heading to the park that way we can hit the rides right away.. but i'm thinking for the next trip we may need to branch out a bit lol

WELL! there is is... i'm exhausted from just typing all that and bolding certain things! lol

we also had a ridiculous amount of snacks along the way, which will be posted along with each day!

hopefully these pictures and reports will be as helpful as other's were for me!!!!!!

and let me know if your reading, i'd love to hear what other's thought of these dining locations as well!

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

I'm in ... looking forward to the reviews!

But how can anyone not like Piglet!

 

[vettegirl]

Can't wait to hear all about it!!

 

[jabead]

Count me in too! And by the way, I love the title of your report.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

can't wait for you to start. :

 

[kelleigh1]

Looking forward to following along.

And I'm so happy you used the word Pescetarian! I always cringe a little when someone says I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish. Then no, you're not a vegetarian. I had a friend who used to say she was a vegetarian but she ate chicken and fish. Huh?

Looks like you only ate at a couple of places that I've got on my list for October, but I'm still going to love following along because there are some on your list that we considered, but they didn't make the cut. And I'm interested to hear your take on AMC Dine-In. We have Showcase de Lux where I live which is the same concept and hubby (who is from NJ, btw) and I go there fairly regularly for date night. I always like to hear how AMC compares.

 

[Jacksonev1]

Excited to read your reviews!

 

[tdainsberg]

How did you find out there was a pin associated with your husband's name? Did you get a card, email or have to call?

 

[the little marla]

How did you find out there was a pin associated with your husband's name? Did you get a card, email or have to call?

i actually had called and checked my name first and no pin... and i wasn't even going to have him call and check until i was like.. let me just try. and sure enough we had a free dining pin good for the whole year..just call the vacation planning number and ask them to check and see if there is a pin associated with your name because a lot of times you won't get the e-mail or snail mail! It can't hurt to check!




yay! so excited to have some readers! I'll be posting more later tonight!!

 

[the little marla]

And I'm so happy you used the word Pescetarian! I always cringe a little when someone says I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish. Then no, you're not a vegetarian. I had a friend who used to say she was a vegetarian but she ate chicken and fish. Huh?

.

i totally agree, even when i tell people I eat fish they still label it veg or vegan but pescetarians do exist! haha and sometimes i think other people assume i made up the term! lol

 

[DancinDaisyDuck]

Wow, that's a LOT of food and I am looking forward to hearing about every single bite!

 

[Bethislucy]

sounds like a fun thread.

 

[Tracerr00]

Excited to read your report and to see your pictures!

 

[mommarjam]

Woohoo..so excited to read. Making ADR's soon at many of the same restaurants.

 

[weswife]

I am here!!

 

[LifeIsDis]

I am looking forward to read all of your reviews!

 

[iloveeeyore]

I'm in! The title is hysterical! Great line-up and I can't wait to read more about it!

 

[disnut1149]

Hi
Can't wait!! I don't eat any meat either, so I'm so ready to read your reviews!!

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Can't wait to read your reviews! I have problems with eating in Disney too, but not with ice cream, my problems are all cupcake related!

 

[the little marla]

so, not to toot my own horn or anything but i thought i was just oh so clever with how i kept track of our DDP and our ressies.. also it's where i made notes about the food. i'm not sure if i was just so pleased with myself or the fact that it took me FOREVER to type all this up in my iphone notes.. and i had downloaded Emoji which is an app that lets me use cute little pictures in texts/instagram/anything i want... so i was determined to stick with this! Dan initially liked the idea, but may have changed his mind when i whipped it out at every meal and asking him "HOW DOES THAT TASTE?!?!?" .. "OK, BUT CAN YOU DESCRIBE IT TO ME!" ... "WHERE DOES IT RANK, BEST STEAK, WORST" .. LOL it is very hard for me to comment on the meat aspect of the dining, and it's not like i was going to taste it! so, he was bombarded with questions, and it went like this.. every time we sat down to eat.

Dan takes 1 bite, he is not done chewing...

i look up.

"HOW IS IT"

and after a while his response was, "seriously - i'm not even done chewing"...LOL and then it slowly transformed into a look.. that basically said "seriously - i'm not even done chewing"

haha he was a trooper through the constant interrogation of his palate.

anyways here is what i did to keep track of our DDP

i had a separate note for each day, which had the park hours, where we were planning on eating and what parks we were going to. I used little day or night icons to indicate if it was an EMH, morning or evening.

and i did this for 13 days, until i started to realize the hours were the same each week.. so CUT AND PASTE. .. making my life easier

this is where i listed overall how many snacks/QS we had.. we were there 13nights so, 26 of each, and then each time we used them i would just delete the little icon and lower the number

here i put little icons next to each restaurant to indicate how many TS they were

also a little mishap on my part, half our ressies were in my maiden name and half in my married name! i guess i didn't realize when i was making the ressies online that i was just using the autofill feature.. ya know that info that pops up when you start typing in your name or email, yea well.. lol that caused a bit of confusion a day or two before our trip, so i needed to denote which restaurants had which name...

overall this worked out really well, other than it was annoying that at the beginning it was all nice and organized and then every time i updated the note it would jump to the top of the list! but i'd use this system again!