A family of pirates take on the DDP! Updated F&W 10/30

basketlacey

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 31, 2003
Hi everyone! I have drooled over dining reviews here on the DIS for YEARS! They have helped me decide on new ADRs for our trips and make me nostalgic for our favorites in between! This will be my first attempt at my own Disney Dining Review :cool1:! I posted a few live updates on jabead's thread during our trip but I have much more to share!

Who are we?

Let me start by introducing my family of pirates pirate:

Me - basketlacey - working mom of 3, avid disney fan and vacation planner for the family. I love to eat and I love to cook. I am not very picky except when it comes to seafood which I only like if its not fishy. Dh would tell you that I want what I want though - in other words, when I get my mind set on something, nothing else makes me happy ;)

DH - business owner aka working dad of the same 3 LOL. Dh is definitely NOT the vacation planner in our family! He loves to go and has a good time whereever we end up but he is just as happy spending a weekend at the lake. DH will eat anything you put in front of him except for raspberries and olives. He is the love of my life :love: and we have been married for 16 years.

DD13 - 8th grader and Disney travel agent to be! DD13 loves Disney almost as much as her mom. She is a great trip planner although she lives in a world of unrealistic budgets :rotfl: While we suprised the kids with our trip and I picked the resort, dd redid a lot of the ADRs :eek: She is a great eater and will try quite a bit but she doesn't love most meat.

DS11 - 6th grade sports fanatic. DS loves rides and roller coasters. He gets interested in the planning for about 5 minutes and then he checks out! As long as he gets to ride his favorites, he is happy. DS's favorite meal of the day is breakfast. He is a great meat eater but vegetables are another story :scared1: He loves that he gets to order off the adult menu at WDW.

DD8 - 3rd grader and Minnie Mouse fanatic. DD8 LOVES WDW. She loves rides but also likes to get autographs and pictures with the characters. Her brother and sister will humor her as long as the lines aren't too long. For the first time on this trip DD8 rode everything her brother and sister rode! She is a pretty decent eater but not too keen on trying new things. It drives her crazy that she is the only one that has to order off the kids' menu (even though that is what she would like pick anyway!).

Here is a pic of our pirate family from MNSSHP:
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Where did we eat?

We were on the DDP so we ate at a mixture of CS and TS places. As I said earlier, this is my first attempt at a dining review. So we did a good job of getting TS pictures (I think!) but we missed out on pictures of a lot of the CS places. We have some but not nearly all. I will still tell you where we ate and what we had but unfortunately, won't have pics of all of them!

Here is the lineup:

Arrival day:
Dinner: Marketplace at the BC

Day 2:
Breakfast: Kona
Lunch: Liberty Tree Tavern
Dinner: Cosmic Ray's

Day 3:
Breakfast: Main Street Bakery
Lunch: F&W Festival/Sunshine Seasons
Dinner: Les Chefs de France
Dessert: Beaches and Cream

Day 4:
Breakfast: Tusker House
Lunch: Restaurantasaurus
Dinner: Captain's Grill

Day 5:
Breakfast: Sunshine Seasons
Lunch: Via Napoli
Dinner: Pecos Bill's

Day 6:
Breakfast: I have no idea :confused3 Hopefully there will be a picture somewhere!
Lunch: 50s Prime Time
Dinner: Marketplace

Day 7:
Breakfast: Cape May
Lunch: SAB Poolside
Dinner: California Grill

So thanks for joining! Here we go.......
 
So our trip started at the airport. Because I waited so long to book our airline tickets, we ended up not getting direct flights. The direct flights were insanely expensive. At one point, we were just going to drive down (its about 12-13 hours) but the one-stop flights took a dip in price and I snatched them up. Our departure flight times were decent - we were scheduled to land in Orlando around 5:30. Our return flight times were horrid but more on that later!

Anyway, the first meal of our trip (if you don't count airline peanuts) was in the Atlanta airport. Everyone was starving and wanted something more than just a burger. I knew we were doing counter service for dinner so I figured a sit down place would be good and I knew we had time. We ended up at a little french place. I think it was Cafe Tazza from looking at the Atlanta airport website. It was just ok. The service was pretty slow considering we were in an airport. I also thought it was rather expensive for what we got (apparently I wasn't yet in the Disney mind-set LOL). I failed to take any pictures of this but figured I would let you know where we ate.

Our flight was right on time and we went straight to the Magical Express. We had a very short wait before we took off for our resort. As you might have guessed, we were staying at the Beach Club! This was our first stay at the Beach Club. We were at the hotel and checked in by 7. I know this is a dining review but I will throw in some other pics and stories from time to time. I have to take this opportunity to show our room (4579) and view:
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We loved our room. It was more spacious than we expected. We had two queen beds plus a day bed and a good sized balcony. From the balcony, we could see Friendship lake and the Boardwalk.

So after we dropped off our carry ons and loaded the camera bag with park tickets and a map, we headed out looking for something for dinner. About that time, the skies opened up and it started POURING! We had a resort map and thought we might try to get Beaches and Cream for dinner. But we couldn't figure out how far we would have to walk in the rain to try and get in. We learned later we could have stayed under cover the whole time! But we didn't figure that out in time for dinner. So...we just ended up at Marketplace.

This was our third trip on the DDP and we learned our lesson about ordering 5 counter service meals on the first go round. We ended up throwing away 2 whole meals worth of food. So we ordered 3 meals to split 5 ways knowing that we had plenty of credits and could get more if we were still hungry.

I ordered one each of the flatbreads:
Cheese
Pepperoni
Flatbread of the day (Margharita)

We were starving by the time we got our food so forgive the fact that the kids dug into these before I could get the camera out! We got better about this as the week went on.

Pepperoni:
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Half a Cheese (oops):
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Almost a whole Margharita:
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We also "purchased" our Refillable mugs while we were there. They are now included as part of the dining plan. So since we didn't need drinks, we grabbed some juice and milk for breakfast later in the week as part of our QS meal.
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Later in the week, I was sorry I didn't make the kids get plain milk. We had plenty of sugar in other places that no one needed chocolate milk. But oh well, I guess its fine on vacation!

For our three desserts we chose:
Carrot cake:
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a chocolate croissant and a coffee cake
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The verdict:
The flatbreads were pretty good. The margharita was the best followed by the cheese. Something about the pepperoni was slightly off to me but I couldn't put my finger on it. I would have preferred all of them to be cooked longer - especially the crust. But for a QS meal, they were fine. The desserts were good. I would even say the carrot cake was great. The cake was moist and the icing had great cream cheese flavor and wasn't sickeningly sweet. My biggest complaint about the Marketplace was that there weren't a ton of choices for entrees. Pretty much for dinner we could have sandwiches or flatbreads. I knew this going in to our stay at BC though so it wasn't unexpected.

Once we finished dinner, we ran the mugs up to our room and then jumped on the boat to HS for EMHs. Thankfully, the rain had stopped. We got to HS just as the first Fantasmic was finishing up. We had originally planned to make that show but it took us longer to get settled in the room and find dinner than I anticipated. I wanted to do F! tonight so that later in the week, we wouldn't be stressed about missing it. It is a favorite and must do for all of us. By the time we got into the gates, we were able to walk straight into the theater and find a seat for the second show. Dh got each of us a beer and we waited about 20-25 minutes for the show to start. This was the perfect way to kick off our trip.

After the show we hit the three main HS rides - Tower of Terror, Toy Story and Rockin Roller Coaster. I figured that was a pretty successful night at HS!

Up next - Day 2 (Magic Kingdom day)
 
Following along! Great start! We will be staying at the BC next November and can't wait! Did you have a water view? That view is awesome!
 




Emteach said:
Joining in - I love foodie reviews :thumbsup2
Thank you for joining and welcome! I love reading the reviews and I figured it was time to give back!
goofy78 said:
Following along! Great start! We will be staying at the BC next November and can't wait! Did you have a water view? That view is awesome!
We had a garden view but that pic was taking from our balcony. We were thrilled with the view! Thanks for coming over to the review!
rznhal said:
Love your family pic! Hope you have a great trip!!!:thumbsup2
Thank you! The kids had such a blast at the Pirates League! That was money well spent! I was worried that my two oldest wouldn't be into it but they were! And yes, it was a great trip!
jabead said:
Count me in, Lacey! So glad you decided to do a Dining Report! :thumbsup2
you made it over! We will see how I do with this ;-)
DonaldDoleWhip said:
Yay! Your room at Beach Club looks great, and I can't wait to hear about more of the food! :goodvibes
Thanks for coming! Our room was awesome. We had plenty of space for the 5 of us. Ds loved having his own bed. The daybed was much nicer than the trundle at POR. And last year we were at AKL and oldest DD stayed down the hall with my parents. So this was really our first time in a full size room that sleeps 5 comfortably.
Disneymaddness said:
Joining in. Great so far!:)
Thank you for coming and welcome!
Dalamara said:
Agreed!!! I especially love the "beard" on your DS, TOO cute!!

Thanks! DS loved his beard. DH wanted one too. Our pirate didn't have time to make him a beard but he did get a scar!
 
Definitely a successful first night at DHS! :thumbsup2 We haven't seen F! in years and each trip I try to figure out how to fit it in and we end up not going. I will see it again one of these days!

Looking forward to the rest of your reviews!
 
Thanks for posting. Looking forward to the rest of the report. We will be at the Beach Club Villas over the Christmas holiday.
 
Definitely a successful first night at DHS! :thumbsup2 We haven't seen F! in years and each trip I try to figure out how to fit it in and we end up not going. I will see it again one of these days!

Looking forward to the rest of your reviews!
F! is a don't miss for us. It is definitely a favorite. Although, I find as we have been going every year for a few in a row, that some of the don't miss things get skipped. :lmao: We just can't seem to get it all in especially because we are spending more time enjoying our resort. Thanks for stopping in to my review!
Thanks for posting. Looking forward to the rest of the report. We will be at the Beach Club Villas over the Christmas holiday.
Welcome and thanks for coming! We loved BC!
Joining along! Yall ate at a lot of our favorite places! :thumbsup2
We made some new favorites this trip! Welcome!
Count me in!!

Welcome!
 
:wizard:Day Two (Magic Kingdom):

So we went to bed pretty late on Sunday night and had to set the alarm to get up Monday for our breakfast at Kona. I tried not to schedule ADRs too early after a late night. So, I scheduled Kona at 9 which didn't seem early for my family. Well, when you factor in travel time and 5 people getting ready in 1 bathroom, 9 is early after closing down the park at midnight the night before! :rolleyes1

I think we caught the bus around 8:30. We were running later than I would have liked. We had good luck with bus service all week though. We arrived at MK and took the monorail to the Poly. I LOVE the Poly. We have never stayed there but I just love the feel of the place. Someday....

We were a few minutes late (maybe 10?) but they didn't turn us away thankfully. We saw them turn away several walkups so I felt lucky they were still going to seat us. Everyone was hungry at this point and getting pretty grouchy! The mezzanine area of the Poly is crazy busy in the morning and there isn't really much room to stand around and wait for your table.

After about 15 minutes, we were seated and immediately greeted by our waiter who offered to bring us some drinks - YES, coffee please, immediately :coffee: Dh and I decided to order the press pot of Kona coffee. The waiter tried to talk us out of it and said the regular coffee was really good too and we could have free refills. We hemmed and hawed for a minute but decided that we were there and really wanted to try the press pot:

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The coffee was great! I am not sure it was the best coffee I have ever had (although DH might disagree) but it was really good. We had plenty considering we both had a cup of coffee before we left the resort that morning.

The kids had the Lilikoi juice (orange, passion fruit, guava blend) and the waiter brought dd13 orange juice as well in case she didn't like it (but she did).

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It was time to order and here we go with DD8! She didn't like being forced to order off the kids' menu. This is a constant battle we have at home. DD13 has pretty much outgrown kids' menus and is usually too old anyway. DS thinks he is too old and doesn't usually like to order off the kids' menu at home. We indulge him sometimes when we know he will eat the adult portion but many times, the kids' portion is plenty for him and I am not paying for him to order off the adult menu just for appearances. FYI - it's all about the cup with the lid :sad2: She ended up ordering Donald's choice which was a scrambled egg with cinnamon toast and bacon.

DD13 and I had already decided we were splitting macademia pineapple pancakes. I had read numerous reviews that said this is too much for one person so we knew we didn't need two orders of them. We had both been drooling over these for several weeks leading up to our trip.

Dh and DS both wanted a Big Kahuna - not to share LOL - one of each of them. As I said before, DS is a huge breakfast eater and everyone was starving by this point so I told them to both order it. I knew we would end up sharing a few things because DD8 wanted some French toast and DD13 wanted some eggs.

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Macadamia Pineapple Pancakes - Served with Macadamia nut butter, pineapple sauce, and your choice of ham, bacon or sausage. - $9.99

These were good. The pineapple sauce was really good. I have to say though, I was disappointed. Quite frankly, there were just too many macadamia nuts. I couldn't even finish my half of them. DD thought the same thing. The nuts made them seem heavy. I would have preferred regular pancakes with the sauce and butter. Actually, I would have preferred something savory but that is my own fault :confused3. DD even felt slightly ill after breakfast because they were so heavy. I'm glad I tried them but I wouldn't get them again. The bacon was great however.

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Big Kahuna - French Toast, pancakes, eggs your way, home fried potatoes, ham, bacon, and sausage. - $11.99

DS and DH both ordered one of these and both choose over easy eggs. You can't see the ham or bacon in the picture but it was there. They loved this. They both shared pieces of it with the rest of us. I tried the potatoes and they were fantastic - crispy, not at all greasy and perfectly seasoned. They didn't even need ketchup. DS said Nana makes better ham :goodvibes but both he and DH said the sausage was really good.

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Donald's Choice - One egg, quacked and scrambled, with sweet cinnamon toast. Choice of bacon, fruit cup or sausage. Beverage not included. - $6.09

DD8 was happy with her choice especially since daddy shared his French toast. She shared her eggs with big sister.

We finished most of what we ordered. When we got the check, dh and I debated whether we wanted to use 3 TS and 1 child TS for this meal. I can't seem to put my hands on that receipt for some reason but I think it was only around $57 for our breakfast. After consulting with our waiter, we decided to pay OOP and save our credits to use later.

The overall verdict was that breakfast was good. DD13 and I were the only ones who would pick something different. We will probably go back to Kona but might try and do dinner next time.

Now - let's get to that castle :wizard
 
My DH and I are staying in a Garden View room at the BC next month and can't wait! Your pictures look great - you have such a cute family!

I've read a couple reviews where people who have been defeated by the nut pancakes in the past have just adored plain pancakes with the butter/pineapple. That seems to go over much better.
 
We will be returning to Kona for breakfast and lunch next year. I too want to try those macadamia nut pancakes. We stayed at the Poly last year and it was great although we won't be running back. Here we come BC!
 

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