2 Weeks of Disney Dining on the DDP - Oh My!

[DisneyMomx7]

Well we've been back for over a week and I'm just getting around to starting our dining review.

Table service restaurants where we dined:

Breakfast: Crystal Palace, PSB in Norway
Lunch: Sci-Fi, CRT
Dinner: Le Cellier, Biergarten, Coral Reef, Restaurant Marrakesh, Beaches and Cream, Cape May Buffet, Liberty Tree Tavern, Hollywood Brown Derby, Garden Grille, Ohana, Chef Mickey's, 1900 Park Fare, Rainforrest Cafe in DTD, Yacht Club Galley, and Boma.

Counter service restaurants:

Columbia Harbor House, Main St. Bakery, Tusker House, Pizzafari, Hurricane Hannah's, Sunshine Seasons, Kringla Bakery in Norway.

I won't bother to mention what the kids ate unless it was something other than macaroni and cheese, cheeseburgers or chicken strips!

The first week it was me, DH, 2 dds (8 and 9), ds (celebrating 7th birthday) and DFIL and DMIL. Second week was only DH and I and the kids.

Arrival Day:

When we stay at the Yacht Club it's our tradition to eat at Beaches and Cream as soon as we check in. I had been on a six week diet (lost 15 lbs!) and couldn't wait to sink my teeth into a burger and fries. B&C did not disappoint. We all had burgers and fries except DH who had a veggie burger and fruit. It was great as usual and service was very good.
Rating (1-5)
Food: 4
Service: 4
Can't wait to go back.

Dinner 1st Night (in-laws arrived after lunch)

Le Cellier

LeCellier is one of my favorites. While the food did not disappoint the server did. It took us over two hours for a meal without dessert. The server would take our order, disappear forever, bring appetizers, disappear forever and ever, finally bring entree and was gone again. Eventually DMIL and I took the kids out (2 hours is enough) and DH and DFIL waited an additional 20 minutes to get the check. Kids got the light up tinkerbell and capt. hook with their drinks and I got a glow tini.

I'll try to remember what we all had. DMIL and I had the cheese soup for an appetizer, DH had the seared tuna and I don't remember what DFIL had for his appetizer. Kids had cheese soup also. We all liked our appetizers and of course loved the pretzel bread and the sourdough and multigrain breads were good also. I had the maple glazed filet with cream cheese mashed potatoes - umm hmmm good! DMIL had the mushroom filet which she said was excellent, DFIL had the salmon - pronounced it very good. DH had the boullibaise and thought it was only okay. Kids had the kids steak which they loved. We were too tired from waiting for any dessert so we skipped it.

Rating:

Food - 5
Service - 1

 

[DisneyMomx7]

DAY 2

Today was our MK Day.

We had ordered from garden grocer so the kids had cereal in fruit in the room and we were good to go.

Lunch: Columbia Harbor House

Our favorite MK cs restaurant. DMIL, DFIL and I had the tuna sandwich with chips (I truly believe these are the best tuna sandwiches I've ever eaten - I get them every time) DH had the hummus sandwich and said it was very good. We got chocolate cake and yogurts for dessert and took the cake back to the room with us for a snack later as we were all too full to eat the cake at lunch time.

Food: (for counterservice) 4

Dinner: RFC at DTD

OOP meal since it isn't covered by DDP but we like it there anyway. We are safari club members and made reservations so our wait was only 10 minutes. We heard people being told 2 hour waits for walk up so I was glad we had reservations! Kids had cheese sticks for appetizers and we had the coconut shrimp appetizer which was really good. DMIL, DFIL and I had the crab cakes which were excellent. I can't remember what DH had but he said it was really good. We had drinks in the light up cups and kids had their drinks in the souvenier cups with the prize at the bottom. For dessert we all shared the volcano dessert which was delicious!

Food: 5
Service: 4

 

[Barbi]

Thanks for posting, we'll be there in 3 weeks! Of the places you mentioned we're eating at Coral Reef, O'Hana's and Crystal Palace, can't wait for your review.

 

[my3disneygirls]

Sounds good so far. Can't wait for more.

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent ~ Looking forward to reading more

 

[DisneyMomx7]

DAY 3 - MGM Day

We started with some counter service breakfasts from BeachClub Marketplace - cinnamon rolls, bagels, egg and cheese croissant and yogurt parfait. They were a good use of our snack and counterservice credits. For counterservice we could get one breakfast item (we did egg and cheese croissant) and two beverages (oj for us). We used snack credits for the yogurt parfait, bagel and cinnamon roll.

Lunch - Sci-Fi

I know Sci-Fi gets a lot of bad reviews here on the DIS but for us its a definite must do first day at MGM tradition. Kids love it and so do we. DH and DFIL got Reubens which they said were pretty good and DMIL, me and the kids all got cheeseburgers and fries. Kids got the glow in the dark ice cube drinks and I got a solar eclipse (strawberry banana milkeshake with alcohol and glow in the dark cube). Burgers are always great there and so was my drink. Only kids got dessert - make your own sundaes which they liked. We paid out of pocket for this meal as we didn't want appetizers or dessert for lunch so didn't want to waste a TS.

Rating
Food - 4
Service - 4

Dinner:

Cape May Buffet

We really liked the buffet and I loved the clams (although they were tiny!). Dessert were especially good, I really liked the mini key lime pies. Service was fine until the end when the server really messed up our DDP. Charged us 4 credits instead of 2, when DH pointed out it took a long time to supposedly fix it (it wasn't fixed at all and we ended up having to go to concierge a few days later - thank goodness we saved the receipts).

Rating
Food - 4
Service - 3

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Day 4 - AK Day

Breakfast was in the room so we could hurry up and be there at opening.

Lunch: Tusker House

How I will miss Tusker House as a cs restaurant. It was definitely my favorite cs anywhere in Disney. I had the rotisserie chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans, DH had the vegetable sandwich, DFIL and DMIL had the chicken salad. We all took the chocolate cake but saved it for later. Everyone really liked their meals and we all agreed that we were sorry it was going to be changing.

Rating
Food: 5 (for counter service)

Dinner: Coral Reef

This was ds's birthday dinner. We had a 6:00 reservation and it was pouring. Not only was it raining but it was lightening. I know everyone wished we could cancel but I kept telling them that we had to get there because I had arranged a diver and ordered a cake. Guests service was finally able to get us a cab and call the restaurant so we wouldn't lose our ADR. We didn't get there till after 6:30 but they were very nice about it. We had a great table right up front, so we had a great view of the diver. Unfortunately they couldn't find ds's personalized menu but since he didn't know anything about it he wasn't disappointed, only I was. Diver did the sign and ds was thrilled.

Onto the food - for appetizers DMIL and I had the lobster bisque, DFIL had the salad, and DH had the crab claw salad. Lobster bisque was great as always and DH said the crab claw salad was really good too. DFIl liked the salad. For entrees I got the shrimp pasta, DH had the mahi mahi, DMIL had the steak and I think DFIL had the salmon. Everyone was happy with their dishes. I was worried about the shrimp pasta because I had seen some bad reviews here but it was delicious. DMIL and I had the octopus juice, DH and DFIL had wine and kids had the pirate punch with the light up Tinkerbelle and Capt. Hook. Since I had ordered a cake none of us had dessert.

The cake I ordered was a vanilla Finding Nemo themed cake and it was just okay. I thought the cake was pretty enough but didn't have much taste. Cake iteself was dry and frosting wasn't very good. Service was mediocre but the kids love the view of the aquarium.

Food - 4
Service - 3

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent ~ Looking forward to reading more.

 

[natalielongstaff]

great reviews

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Day 5 - Our "rest day"

Actually today we were supposed to go to AM EMH at MGM and have lunch at 50's PTC (one of my favorites). However we could see that the kids had been on the go, go, go and needed a rest. So we decided to let them sleep in and have a pool day.

Breakfast:

When they finally woke up we decided to walk over to Boardwalk Bakery for breakfast. We still had tons of counter service and snack credits burning a whole in our pockets. DD and I used counterservice and had the egg and bacon panninis and we were able to get two drinks each (we got oj each and one bottled water each), other dd and ds each got a donut (snack credit) and dh got some kind of fruit salad (snack credit also). The panninis were huge and I ended up sharing mine with dh and dd split some of hers with her brother and sister. They were very good. Kids said the donuts were great. I think DFIL and DMIL split the tomato and egg pannini and liked that too.

Food - 3

Lunch:

Hurricane Hannah's (poolside at YC)

I like HH's counterservice a lot. Between our family we ordered cheeseburgers, chicken strips and the cape cod sandwich (which is turkey and fresh mozzarella on a roll with basil mayonnaise). Kids got their burgers and chicken strips in kids meals which came in sand buckets and shovels. For dessert adults were given poker chips which they could use to come back later for mickey bars, itzkadoozies etc. All the adult meals came with chips and kids had the usual choice of carrots, grapes, jello, pudding etc. Although we asked and they could pick one bag of chips instead of the two side choices. We paid oop for fries since the kids wanted them.

Food - 4 (for counterservice)

Dinner:

Liberty Tree Tavern

We were 40 minutes late for our ADR thanks to Disney transportation. We waited over 45 minutes for a Disney bus to MK at YC. LTT was very good when I explained the situation and we were able to be seated within 15 minutes. We had a very good server - Ryan. Character interaction was excellent. Food as always was great. I was so happy to find out that they have brought the honey butter back. Last year I was so disappointed, after raving to my in-laws about the great rolls and butter to find out they had stopped the honey butter. It is back and our family went through rolls and butter like there was no tomorrow. Salad - again love that dressing. Kids say that mac and cheese is the best at MK and we devoured everything else. Meat was moist and tasty and who wouldn't love mashed potatoes, stuffing and green beans. I'm not an apple person so I skipped the apple cobbler/ice cream dessert but everyone else scoffed it up. I liked when they had the cherry cobber/ice cream but Ryan said so many people kept asking for the apple that they went to apple exclusively. Oh well I sure didn't need to eat any more desserts!

Rating:
Food - 5
Service - 5

 

[natalielongstaff]

i love LTT

 

[wideeyes]

Thanks for the review, we are doing LTT in september. DD, can't wait!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

DAY 6 - MK Day

Breakfast - in room

Lunch - Kids filled up on snacks like funnel cake and mickey bars so they decided to wait until we got back to YC and eat at Hurricane Hannah's. Same as before - burgers, chicken strips - all great. Good pina colada too!

Dinner - Biergarten

We tried Biergarten for the first time last trip and loved it. It helped that we were still a party of seven so we had the whole table to ourself. Kids really enjoy the band the the dancing. We had a table on the first level and the kids could just run out and join the dancing on the dance floor. This is great when you are eating with kids - something for them to do besides color!

Service was excellent. DH had the wine flight and DFIL had the beer flight and the server was friendly and knowledgeble. He knew the server we had last year, who was also very friendly and helpful. Maybe its just German servers but we really liked our waiter both times. Food was good - especially the dumplings, macaroni salad, and sauerbraten. Kids liked their foods and tried some of the adult buffet also. DD loved the chocolate pudding cups dessert and I can't remember what I ate from the dessert section but I know it was good! We left filling very filled and were glad to walk around WS to walk off some of that meal!

Rating
Food - 4
Service - 5

 

[Busymom85]

Thanks for the reviews. How do you carry your cake around so it doesn't get ruined when you take it to go?

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Thanks for the reviews. How do you carry your cake around so it doesn't get ruined when you take it to go?

We had a small cooler bag with us so I just put it in that.

The birthday cake that was left over we just had boxed and took back to our room. HTH.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Day 7 - 4th of July!!!! (EPCOT)

Breakfast:

We had 8:30 ADRs for Princess Storybook Breakfast in Norway. Since we were staying at YC we walked over to the International Gateway. This was the first time since we've been going that they actually had a list of ADRs for PSB and they checked your name off before they let you through.

Breakfast was little different than in past years. They now had a small buffet with fruit, pastries, bagels, some meat and cheeses, muffins etc. They had cinnamon rolls on it, but these were not the cinnamon rolls of the old days. THey were pretty generic. (Later we were able to get the really great cinnamon rolls at Kringla Bakery in Norway). Then they brought a platter of eggs, bacon, sausage, and a potato casserole to the table. The potatoes were fantastic. Everything else was good but the potatoes were the best. Server was just okay, had to wait awhile for juice and potato refills, but she wasn't terrible. Belle was in the lobby where you take the picture. The princesses there that morning were Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Snow White. They were somewhat rushed but my kids have seen the characters enough that they didn't mind.

Rating:

Food - 3
Service - 3

Lunch: DH and I were too full after the big breakfast for any kind of real lunch but DMIL, DFIL and the kids were hungry. We were going to see the American Adventure (where else would you go on the 4th of July?) so we stopped at Liberty Inn. In-laws had burgers and they got the chocolate ear mickey rice krispy treats for their desserts, kids had (what else?) chicken nuggets and I used a snack credit and had a frozen coke - which hit the spot.

Food - 3

Snack - later on we stopped at Kringla Bakery in Norway and shared a huge perfect cinnamon roll and school bread. They were so big a filling, DFIL, DMIL, DD and I all shared and were stuffed. Good use of snack credit. One dd didn't eat at Liberty Inn but then decided she wanted to try a turkey leg. It was almost as big as her, and of course she didn't come near finishing it, but she liked it a lot and let her brother and sister have a taste and they all said it was very good.

Dinner: Yacht Club Galley

We had eated at YC Galley for lunch several times before and always liked it. This time was a huge disappointment. Now the appetizers were good. The only ones I really remember is that I had the crab cake and DH had the spinach dip and we shared. Both were excellent. Service left a lot to be desired. Server kept coming back and telling us it would be out soon so I think the kitchen was more to blame than she was. I had ordered a chocolate mickey cake to celebrate ds's birthday one more time before the in-laws left the next day. Somehow it's become a tradition for us to do two different birthday cakes for the child whose birthday we are celebrating. At first they couldn't find the cake order and that took awhile to straighten out but they finally said they they found it. When the food came it wasn't very good. I had the braised beef sandwhich which sounded really good on the menu but wasn't. DH had the shrimp pasta dish, and in-laws had the top sirloin and no one thought the meal was good. I was a little disappointed because the kids had been looking forward to the white chocolate Tinkerbelle puzzle which they had before, but it was no longer on the menu. They finally brought out the cake but it took about 2 1/2 hours for dinner.

We were rushing to get to EPCOT for the 4th of July Illuminations so DH didn't really check his receipt. He should have because the next day we found out that instead of charging us for 2 A, 3 C ts, they charged us for 5 A and 3 C ts. Luckily we were able to get it straightened out at concierge but it took up time we didn't want to spend waiting.

Rating:

Food - 1
Service - 2

 

[wilma-bride]

Really enjoying your reviews so far

 

[Tink3Belle]

Excellent Review we will be going to Norway for PSB BREAKFAST - SOUNDS REALLY GOOD!

 

[Motherofboys]

Day 7 - 4th of July!!!! (EPCOT)

Breakfast:

We had 8:30 ADRs for Princess Storybook Breakfast in Norway. Since we were staying at YC we walked over to the International Gateway. This was the first time since we've been going that they actually had a list of ADRs for PSB and they checked your name off before they let you through.

Breakfast was little different than in past years. They now had a small buffet with fruit, pastries, bagels, some meat and cheeses, muffins etc. They had cinnamon rolls on it, but these were not the cinnamon rolls of the old days. THey were pretty generic. (Later we were able to get the really great cinnamon rolls at Kringla Bakery in Norway). Then they brought a platter of eggs, bacon, sausage, and a potato casserole to the table. The potatoes were fantastic. Everything else was good but the potatoes were the best. Server was just okay, had to wait awhile for juice and potato refills, but she wasn't terrible. Belle was in the lobby where you take the picture. The princesses there that morning were Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Snow White. They were somewhat rushed but my kids have seen the characters enough that they didn't mind.

Rating:

Food - 3
Service - 3

Lunch: DH and I were too full after the big breakfast for any kind of real lunch but DMIL, DFIL and the kids were hungry. We were going to see the American Adventure (where else would you go on the 4th of July?) so we stopped at Liberty Inn. In-laws had burgers and they got the chocolate ear mickey rice krispy treats for their desserts, kids had (what else?) chicken nuggets and I used a snack credit and had a frozen coke - which hit the spot.

Food - 3

Snack - later on we stopped at Kringla Bakery in Norway and shared a huge perfect cinnamon roll and school bread. They were so big a filling, DFIL, DMIL, DD and I all shared and were stuffed. Good use of snack credit. One dd didn't eat at Liberty Inn but then decided she wanted to try a turkey leg. It was almost as big as her, and of course she didn't come near finishing it, but she liked it a lot and let her brother and sister have a taste and they all said it was very good.

Dinner: Yacht Club Galley

We had eated at YC Galley for lunch several times before and always liked it. This time was a huge disappointment. Now the appetizers were good. The only ones I really remember is that I had the crab cake and DH had the spinach dip and we shared. Both were excellent. Service left a lot to be desired. Server kept coming back and telling us it would be out soon so I think the kitchen was more to blame than she was. I had ordered a chocolate mickey cake to celebrate ds's birthday one more time before the in-laws left the next day. Somehow it's become a tradition for us to do two different birthday cakes for the child whose birthday we are celebrating. At first they couldn't find the cake order and that took awhile to straighten out but they finally said they they found it. When the food came it wasn't very good. I had the braised beef sandwhich which sounded really good on the menu but wasn't. DH had the shrimp pasta dish, and in-laws had the top sirloin and no one thought the meal was good. I was a little disappointed because the kids had been looking forward to the white chocolate Tinkerbelle puzzle which they had before, but it was no longer on the menu. They finally brought out the cake but it took about 2 1/2 hours for dinner.

We were rushing to get to EPCOT for the 4th of July Illuminations so DH didn't really check his receipt. He should have because the next day we found out that instead of charging us for 2 A, 3 C ts, they charged us for 5 A and 3 C ts. Luckily we were able to get it straightened out at concierge but it took up time we didn't want to spend waiting.

Rating:

Food - 1
Service - 2

OH NO!! This is exactly what I was afraid of! We took a chance and booked YCG for our September trip. The kids are going to be so disappointed that they don't have the puzzle anymore. I hope the menus get updated soon so I can see if there is even a point in keeping this res.

Of course, we are going during free dining so I doubt we will be able to move it now, especially as a party of 6

 

[Sparklin]

Love your reviews so far, they are VERY helpful.