“Les poissons, les poissons!” A vegetarian and a carnivore EAT! *30/4 COMPLETE!!*

[raniroo]

I love that you have reviewed your days before arriving at Disney too...gives a new look on Orlando food!

Looking forward to hearing more.....

 

[SmallWorld71]

Glad you enjoyed DC - we thought it was amazing!

And you could SO be Ariel! You are practically twins!

 

[*sarah*]

We loved our breakfast at CRT last year too. Great pic of you and Ariel! You could totally work at WDW as her lol. And I just love your cell phone cover, lol, I saw it on the table in one of your pics.

 

[rentayenta]

Great photo of you and Ariel.

I worked for the Olive Garden many years ago. It was a fun place to work and endless breadsticks weren't bad either. Next time, order a *boat* of Alfredo with them. Talk about fatty heaven. I gained like 20 lb working there.

 

[NMAmy]

Libby-- you are so enthusiastic and sweet. You and Benji must be wonderful travelling companions. You made even a dinner at the Olive Garden sound like an exciting, exotic adventure and that's why I love your dining report. Keep up the good work! Looks like breakfast at the castle was lots of fun.

 

[CraigB03]

Loving your reviews,
you too look like you had a blast,
and it's almost scary how much you and Ariel look alike
Keep it up

 

[Stini228]

Great report so far. I just love your enthusiasm!!

 

[TigerKat]

I am enjoying your review so much!!! You've made me that much more excited that we will be there TOMORROW!!!!!!

 

[AshClan]

You are just adorable! I am loving this report, and agree you look quite a bit like Ariel, who is also my favorite princess (as is evidenced by my avatar ). I've enjoyed the "non-Disney" food reports, and this last one in the castle, and I can't wait to hear all about the rest of your Disney dining!!!

Keep up the good work!

 

[disney_princess_85]

LOVING your reviews! I'm a vegetarian so it's fun to see Ben's choices. Nice cocktail-ing too! You're my kinda girl. Oh- and HOW awesome is the Smirnoff cranberry/lime drink? I love that! I wish they had it over here.

More please!

 

[Libby_Darling]

The photo with you and Ariel is lovely

Thanks! I love her

So glad you enjoyed Discovery Cove. We are going in May and I think it will be one of the highlights of our trip. I'm disappointed though. No pics of you, Ben and the dolphin?




TWINS!!

Great TR....keep it coming!

Haha! Well, seeing as you asked so nicely...

and this must also be seen then

Having the absolute time of my life!!

Wasn't actually going to share them as I am make-up free which no-one really needs to see but the the heck!

I love this TR!!

You two are simply quite adorable, and being a fellow vegetarian, I appreciate a TR dedicated to Disney food!
I'm surprised you like Olive Garden though, especially for being from the UK, haha. I don't like it at all!! hah But hey, everyone has different tastes!

Thank you! We try our best

Uh oh! Do no American's like Olive Garden!? Is it a bit chain-y and not very nice? We have restaurants like that over here...Hungry Horse pubs spring to mind...but I guess with Olive Garden being American I was BOUND to love it and also, a not-very-good restaurant in the US is still about 8x better than a good restaurant over here!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

I love that you have reviewed your days before arriving at Disney too...gives a new look on Orlando food!

Looking forward to hearing more.....

Yay thank you! Glad you're enjoying them, always good to remember there is food outside Disney I think!!

Glad you enjoyed DC - we thought it was amazing!

And you could SO be Ariel! You are practically twins!

We loved it so much Best day ever! And thank you, what a compliment!! She is the best

We loved our breakfast at CRT last year too. Great pic of you and Ariel! You could totally work at WDW as her lol. And I just love your cell phone cover, lol, I saw it on the table in one of your pics.

Awww thank you, I actually did research into being Ariel but you have to be 5'6/7...I am nearly 6 foot unfortunately very, very devastated when I found that out.

Haha, my phone case! Ben got it for me for my birthday isn't it fab? I put it right on the table so that Ariel would see it

 

[Libby_Darling]

Great photo of you and Ariel.

I worked for the Olive Garden many years ago. It was a fun place to work and endless breadsticks weren't bad either. Next time, order a *boat* of Alfredo with them. Talk about fatty heaven. I gained like 20 lb working there.

Mmm endless breadsticks, I just wish we'd not been so full that we could have actually made the most of them!

OMG boat of alfredo!?!!? Amazing!! The last thing we would have needed...but amazing!! I can def see how you'd gain weight haha I felt like I gained a fair amount just with that one dinner!

Libby-- you are so enthusiastic and sweet. You and Benji must be wonderful travelling companions. You made even a dinner at the Olive Garden sound like an exciting, exotic adventure and that's why I love your dining report. Keep up the good work! Looks like breakfast at the castle was lots of fun.

Aww thank you! What a lovely comment We are very sad in that dinner at the OG really WAS an exciting adventure! In fact I was so excited about all the chain restaurants on IDrive, I'm especially gutted we didn't get to try Red Lobster as that was number 1 on my list but we just ran out of time Glad you're enjoying the reviews, got a few more coming up! xxxx

Loving your reviews,
you too look like you had a blast,
and it's almost scary how much you and Ariel look alike
Keep it up

Thank you! Hehe I should have been Ariel! Shhh don't tell anyone but I secretly think I'd have made a better Ariel than the one that day.... Just a shame about the height! And the fact that I weigh a lot more than that Ariel did haha.

More reviews coming up, I hope you enjoy! xxxx

 

[Libby_Darling]

Great report so far. I just love your enthusiasm!!

Thank you!

I am enjoying your review so much!!! You've made me that much more excited that we will be there TOMORROW!!!!!!

Aww thank you very much! I'm so unbelievably jealous though!!!!!!!

You are just adorable! I am loving this report, and agree you look quite a bit like Ariel, who is also my favorite princess (as is evidenced by my avatar ). I've enjoyed the "non-Disney" food reports, and this last one in the castle, and I can't wait to hear all about the rest of your Disney dining!!!

Keep up the good work!

Thank you so much! Ariel is the best princess!!!! No-one else comes close!!!

Glad you're enjoying the reports, lots more Disney dining coming up!

LOVING your reviews! I'm a vegetarian so it's fun to see Ben's choices. Nice cocktail-ing too! You're my kinda girl. Oh- and HOW awesome is the Smirnoff cranberry/lime drink? I love that! I wish they had it over here.

More please!

Glad my reviews are helpful! Ben ate sooooo well in America, it was brilliant

Mmmmm the cranberry lime was SO GOOD! Why don't they do it over here!? We should protest!!!

Few more reviews coming up nooowwwwwww

 

[Libby_Darling]

Cosmic Rays Lunch

After our absolutely stunning lunch we hit Magic Kingdom pretty hard, took loaaaddsss of photos too as I had also stopped crying hehe Did a fair few rides too, absolutely LOVE the Magic Kingdom it’s just the best place ever and I was so so pleased that Ben seemed to be loving it too

Have to share this photo of me by one of the the Fantasyland expansion boards, Ben said it looks like I’m actually in there with them!

At about 1 o clock we were starting to get a little bit peckish but not enough for a whole lunch so we decided to share the first of our 14 CS credits. I wanted to try either Pecos Bills or Cosmic Rays to try the toppings bar and we were nearer Cosmic Rays so we headed on in! WOW it was busy in here!!

We decided to share a veggie burger and fries and we got chocolate ice-cream for dessert. Once we’d got our tray stuffed full with food we headed over to the FIXINS BAR which is a joyful buffet of things to slap on your burger to improve it’s flavour and reduce it’s visual appeal.

We cut the veggie burger in half and used the burger wrapper as a makeshift secondary plate I got very excited with the discovery of the melted cheese sauce and literally poured it all over my burger half and my fries. I also added lettuce, fresh, thick cut tomato slices, fried onions and chopped onions. WOW it was a beast when I was finished with it! The fixins bar was crazy busy but there were a lot of CM’s working really hard to keep it tidy and clean, not an easy job when some idiots let their 5 year olds squirt the ketchup out and they just keep on going til it forms a kind of ketchup rockpool littered with floating straw wrappers and stray fries. This really, really annoyed me and we saw so much of it. I took extra care to lift my onions out without dropping half of them on the counter (it’s not difficult!!!) while staring pointedly at previously mentioned incapable people.

In fact, we ate at Pecos Bills during MNSSHP and I told one of the CM’s cleaning what a fantastic job she was doing and gestured at the stray onions etc that people had dropped and said sorry you have to deal with all this. Problem was, she really didn’t speak even a little bit of English and looked quite terrified (I was dressed up as Dorothy and wearing quite a lot of makeup so understandable) and I think she thought I was complaining and mistook my gesture for a kind of “CLEAN THIS UP NOW!” as she grabbed her little cloth and started clearing it up!! Horrified, I turned around to her fellow CM who was smiling and spluttered that I was actually saying thank you and she luckily understood and said not to worry, she’d tell her later and that it was lovely to hear a nice thank you

Anyway, back to our first experience with Cosmic Rays. Benji loaded up with everything I had, plus some grown-up items like jalapenos and mushrooms (GAG) and plenty of condiments. I do like a few fries with my condiments We went over to where a CM was directing people to spare seats and were shown to a free table in no time.

Here is our feast It is missing from the photo but I loved the Halloween cups!

After we’d finished our half burgers we were mega full! One CS meal is soooooo much food!! Obviously we weren’t too full for ice-cream and quickly devoured it because it was delicious; creamy, melty and chocolaty mmmmmm.

We thought Cosmic Rays was really excellent, the discovery of the melty cheese sauce literally changed my life and we were so impressed that one veggie burger not only filled us both up, but left us stuffed! I really think you could always share CS meals and be absolutely fine and we’d probably do that if we weren’t on the greedy mcgee dining plan.

In fact, we liked it SO MUCH that we went again…later that night!! This 100% was not the plan and I am mortified that we ate at the same CS place twice in one day BUT these things happen and there was method behind the madness!!

Basically, after spending the day at the MK we got the bus back to SSR where we were taken to our fabulous room by an awesome Jamaican bellhop. I have to share some photos of our beautiful room, I was absolutely in love with it

Although it did look a bit nicer before we dumped all our stuff in it, oops!

Our view!!

We got a towel Mickey, SCORE!!!

I literally photographed every square inch of our room over the 8 days we stayed there if you were wondering but I’ll refrain from sharing.

So anyway, we hung out in the room for a bit mainly wow-ing at everything we saw before going down to the pool for a bit. We came back up to the room, showered, changed and headed back to Magic Kingdom for WISHES!!!!!

Wow, if I thought I cried a lot when I saw the castle I really had no idea, Wishes absolutely finished me off!! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We actually walked to DTD beforehand for a couple of drinks, to explore and also grab some dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. PROBLEM IS, WPE was super duper busy and we’d spent so much time exploring we were running out of time eeekkk! So we quickly got the bus to the MK and decided we’d get dinner there.

We got there about half an hour before the Magic, Memories and You was going to start so we wanted to get dinner straightaway. I fancied Columbia Harbour House but we noticed some quite good viewing spots in Tomorrowland so we just decided to go to Cosmic Rays again as time really was a-ticking!

No photos I’m afraid (and I think these are the only missed photos of the holiday, you can tell it was tense!!) but I got the Angus Cheeseburger and Ben got another veggie burger and we again hit the toppings bar hard but swiftly.

We ate our dinner resting on this huge rock where we had a partially blocked view of the castle to watch the show which didn’t really matter; once we’d finished eating we moved onto the bridge where we had a PERFECT view!

At 9.00pm the music started….and as I said before, I cried AGAIN, cried and cried and cried, wayyyy more than when I saw the castle for the first time!! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more emotional in my whole life, from the very first bars of music and the “star light, star bright, first star I see tonight” and especially when it goes “and do as dreamers do…” I was in absolute floods!! Tears of joy though you understand. I don’t know if I’ve ever been that happy (since earlier that morning in front of the castle ) and it was a perfect moment

The Verdict

Cosmic Rays gets a pink dress for both times!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Epcot – F&W Festival Snacking - Part 1

This was a day we were very excited for! First visit to the F&W Festival! We had poured over every single article about the F&W fest in the months before our visit; printed off maps, planned routes, read reviews, the whole shebang. we were READY!

Unfortunately it was a Saturday so we knew it’d be busy but it was the best day for us to go, we weren’t too worried as we had another day planned later in the holiday

We were up early, poptarts in the room and on the bus to Epcot bright and early.

Nice PP photo by the entrance!

We did Soarin’ and Test Track in quick succession and then went over to Misson Space. I have a pretty strong stomach and always ride everything but for some reason I was really nervous about MS and insisted we ride Green first.

Look at Ben all happy about riding Green!

J/K, he was not at all happy about riding Green.

Joke was on me though because although I found Green fine and said we could go on Orange, I found it absolutely HORRENDOUS and nearly had to use the little vom bag; my head was spinning, stomach was churning and I couldn’t believe how bad I felt after one little ride!! All I could think about was my morning poptart…blerghhh. I had to have a 5 minute sit-down after we came out, what a Granny!!!

After this excitement we did Nemo for a little relaxing chill out. Productive morning! About 11.00am we went over to the World Showcase where we had a lovely chat with Mr Cranberry who was the sweetest old guy, and also got QUITE a lot of money out the machine eekkkk! Eating around the WS is approximately equivalent in price to eating around the actual world, including plane tickets.

We walked through to the World Showcase and BOY OH BOY was it busy!! It was absolutely heaving and this was a couple of minutes after 11!! Obviously, we were prepared but it was still pretty disheartening to see all the queues of people already waiting

We decided to go counter clockwise and so Canada was our first port of call where I immediately decided to get the infamous cheddar cheese soup! Ben couldn’t have anything from this booth (this was a running theme throughout the day!!) and joined the MASSIVE queue for Greece which was just opposite. As I got closer to the ordering bit I was so excited by the whole experience of actually queuing for a booth at the F&W Festival that I threw caution to the wind and ordered both the cheddar cheese soup AND the chicken sausage!! Ooooops Cost a small fortune but I was over the moon. I collected both my items and found a little table to stand by while I waited for Benj. Trouble was, his queue hadn’t moved at all and he was still in the same place!! He spotted that I was waiting for him and walked back over to me a bit dejected. If he was shocked/disgusted by my greediness he politely disguised it I suggested he get a beer and he cheered up immediately!!
While he went to the Canada booth to get a Moosehead, I tucked into my soup. This is really sad but I actually remember thinking I can’t believe I’m about to try cheddar cheese soup from Le Cellier WHAT A GEEK!! I read a LOT of dining reviews on here before we went, was my little lunchhour pastime and that soup always looked/sounded so amazing in reviews!! I would loved to have had a chance to eat at LC but we just didn’t have the time! Why are there so many amazing restaurants in Epcot!!?!?? Haha!!

So back to the soup, it was super delicious and I scraped the cup to make sure I got every last drop mmmm

Benji came back with his Moosehead at this point and was in absolute bliss! I was like who needs ADR’s, mushroom filet aside I was getting to try all the elements of a LC meal I wanted to!! The spicy chicken and chipotle sausage was stunning too with sweetcorn polenta and caramelized onions. It was very spicy though and I had to have a sip of Benjis Moosehead to cool my mouth down!!

You may think these two items would have started to fill me up but if anything it was quite the opposite and in fact my appetite swelled to really quite alarming levels!! I was ready for more food so we continued on our way around, taking some photos along the way! Next up was Ireland and a place where Benj could actually get some food!!

I got the lobster and scallop fisherman’s pie which was BEAUTIFUL with big chunks of lobster and tiny sweet scallops, mmmm I was in heaven!!

Benji got the Kerrygold cheese selection which was very enjoyable and he ate every last crumb, particularly enjoying the apple chutney which accompanied the cheese, mmm!!

He also got another drink…I think it may have been a second Moosehead!

We found a lovely spot to enjoy our snacks, sat on a fountain in the UK It was very busy but the atmosphere was absolutely fabulous with the sun shining, music playing and delicious smells of the various booths wafting over us as we sat there taking it all in.

Our views…

My mouth was still reeling from the heat of the chipotle sausage and I needed a drink by this point! We were sat right opposite the drinks booth so we queued up and got 2 Strongbows and I must say I don’t think a cider has ever tasted so incredible!! I think Ben had a moment of near nirvana as he sipped his!!

He is a big cider fan and I don’t think he’d had any til this point in the holiday. We wandered around the UK for a bit but to be honest neither of us really took much in on this day, we were having such a great time looking at all the booths and taking it all in that we didn’t venture into each country much at all. I did love the feel of the UK though and we got chatting to a couple of CM’s who were on the CRP. We must have pretty much downed our Strongbows because before we’d even made it out of the UK we were finished!! We wanted to get a couple more but the queue for the booth was quite big so we decided to go into the R&C to get them and have a little gander.

Benji got in the queue while I paid a visit to the lavatory and naturally took some snaps I wish our local pubs toilets looked like this

I didn’t really have any inclination to eat here though…we are from the school of trying new things when on holiday and the last thing I wanted was sausage and mash or a Cornish pasty!! Each to their own though

We got our drinks to go and headed back out into the sunshine to continue our tour. We got to the US of A next! I knew what I was getting here so queued up immediately while Ben browsed. Any guesses what I wanted!? The lobster roll of course!! A great deal on the DDP as it’s $7 and counts as a snack credit, plus I was on a big lobster kick the whole holiday!

Sadly I wasn’t a fan The roll was really dry and I didn’t like the herby mixture that the lobster was in. There were big chunks of lobster so it was of high quality but overall it was just a bit tasteless and uninspiring. Shame! Never mind though because I did get some stunning lobster later in the holibobs

 

[Libby_Darling]

Benji was a bit peckish again so we headed to one of the only places he could get a snack which was very similar to his last one… the cheese booth! He got the cheese fondue with sourdough and had to queue an absolute age to get it!! Bless. Don’t these people know there’s a starving vegetarian in line, they can get food anywhere!!! While he queued up I managed to grab a table for us to stand at and I took some photos of him cause he’s cute.

I somehow got talking to an absolutely LOVELY American lady and her sister who had got to WDW on a train which had beds and little kitchens on which absolutely fascinated me for some reason and she was telling me all about it! By the time Benj came over we were having in depth discussions about DLP and we were telling her not to go there with WDW-esque expectations as it is on a much smaller scale!! But still great But obviously if we lived in America and had WDW practically on our doorstep like this lady did I’d probably never go to DLP again…why have Sirloin when you can have Filet Mignon!!??

The ladies were so nice and we actually ended up chatting to them about Disney for about 20 minutes

Ben ate his fondue as we chatted, he said it was yummers!

Eventually we said our goodbyes and me and Benj continued round on our quest.

Next up was South Africa and it had a veggie option so we were in the queue faster than you can say Capetown. Benji went for the “Bunny Chow” and I got the seared fillet of beef with sweet potato “smash”. I also accidently got a glass of wine!! Well I say glass, it was more a shot. We managed to get a table right by the booth which was great as we could have a little sit down for a minute to enjoy our snacks Ahhhh it was relaxing. We watched all the groups with their t-shirts on walking past, I was loving it!!

Thimble of wine

Once we’d finished our snacks we were pretty full but we had room for a nice frozen beverage We were right by the margarita cart so we hit it up!! I got a frozen mango marg and Benji got the deliciously camp rainbow variety. We were both pretty pleased with our drinks!!

Such beautiful views

Ben enjoyed his drink rather a lot.

Possibly too much? I let him have a little minute on his own.

Cute!

It was about 1.30 at this point and the WS was preetttyyy busy:

So we decided to leave the WS for now and head back into Future World with plans to do all the booths we didn’t try this time, next time!

The Verdict

Can only really give the F&W festival food a wedding dress – Ben says eating and drinking around the WS was one of his favourite things of the whole holiday and we are hoping to go back October 2013 to repeat the experience You just can’t beat it I don’t think! I only wish the food and drink was a teeennnyyyy bit cheaper :O but it’s Disney and we don’t mind paying it at all haha!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Sunshine Seasons

We had just about finished in Future World and were about to leave the Soarin’ area after using our FP’s from the morning when the enticing wafts of the amazingly vast Sunshine Seasons CS restaurant drifted over to us and I realized I was peckish!!

This surprised me as I had consumed a large number of F&W snacks earlier on and should really not have been hungry but who am I to deny my stomach?

As we checked out the options Benj decided he was also peckish so we grabbed a Mediterranean wrap meal with a drink and a rice crispy treat! The wrap came with a potato salad which I believe is German style so quite different to the overly mayo-based style we are used to but it was lovely. The actual flatbread had lovely big pieces of roasted peppers, aubergine and tomatoes too with feta cheese. In the picture it looks to be mainly aubergine based but I promise you there were other veggies in there!

The Verdict

This was nice but not really anything special so it gets a blue dress

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Still seriously addicted to your reviews - was really interested in the non-Disney ones and even more interested in comparing the places we have been to at WDW.

The F&W festival is great while you have dining credits but scarily expensive when you have used them all. The four of us spent more there one night than at Le Cellier - I tried the Bunny Chow too and it reminded me of an Aunt Bessy yorkshire pud with veg in it - still I did enjoy it.

 

[AshClan]

About 11.00am we went over to the World Showcase where we had a lovely chat with Mr Cranberry who was the sweetest old guy, and also got QUITE a lot of money out the machine eekkkk! Eating around the WS is approximately equivalent in price to eating around the actual world, including plane tickets.

Doing the F&W booths is pricey, but oh so fun!!!