Hey everyone! We got back from our trip Sunday night and are counting down the days until next year's!! We stayed at AOA-Lion King suite and LOVED it!! Fit our family of 5 perfectly...especially the 2 bathrooms.
We had free dining, had to check in on Thursday so the boys missed 1 day of school (we have the whole Thanksgiving week off). I talked to the teachers beforehand and they let them take any tests/quizzes from Friday on Thrusday and we left after school Thursday. Even Brandon's high school teachers were ok with it, surprisingly.
Hopefully they'll add the Mermaid rooms to FD for next year...otherwise I would suggest staying at Pop, because it's just a walk over a bridge to get there, and you would still be close to everyone at AOA.
Ok, here's my thoughts on meals:
BOG-Amazing!! A must do!! My favorite restaurant in all of Disney at the moment....and that's just the lunch, as I couldn't get a dinner reservation. We ate there twice, between DH, me, and Brandon we tried the turkey sandwich, steak sandwich, french onion soup, and roast pork. All were great. For desserts we had the chocolate cream puff, strawberry cupcake, & chocolate cupcake-all awesome!! We actually liked the desserts the best...it's worth it to just go and order dessert and enjoy the atmosphere if you don't want to spend a lot of $$ on food. The decorations were amazing!! We ate in the main dining room and the other dining room on the right (not sure what it's called)...we actually liked the second dining room the best because it's quiet and beautifully decorated. Just as large as the main dining room, but because it's off to the side most people don't see it so it's never crowded. The west wing dining room was awesome too, but small-if we have a large group I don't see us all fitting in there together...just my thoughts. I took tons of pics and I'm still editing. When I get finished I'll load a few on here so y'all can get a good look at all of the dining rooms.
One negative comment about BOG-the portions on the kids meals were tiny and there's not a lot of variety for picky eaters (like my Connor). He got the kid's pasta the first time and it was one small scoop-probably 1/2 cup of elbow pasta with marinara...Tyler got the mickey meatloaf and it was cute, but 2 tiny mickey shaped pieces of meatloaf. The second time we ate there I ordered an adult turkey sandwich meal for them to split and Connor just ate the french fries and a chocolate cupcake.
Teppan Edo
We've eaten there twice and loved it! They make it so much fun...definately a fun place to celebrate birthdays also.
Akershus
Never tried it, but I'm up for anything. Since we have 3 boys we don't do a lot of the princess meals, but we have eaten at CRT twice-for me.
None of us like seafood though, so I'm thinking we would be more inclined towards breakfast the most if they offer it.
Mickey's Backyard BBQ
We did this in 2007 and the kids had a great time...they had fun dancing and interacting with the characters. The food was good-standard hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, etc. All you can eat, beer & wine included. Brandon loved it because they had all you can eat popsicles for the kids...think he ate 5 lol. It woud be a fun place to celebrate birthdays also. Only downside-if it's cold-you are eating outside on picnic tables in a pavillion. It was very chilly when it got dark this year-the coldest Thanksgiving we've spent at Disney for the past 6 years. I'm hoping next year will be much warmer!!
We will do a character meal or 2-love Chef Mickey's breakfast or Best Friend's breakfast at the Poly. We'll definately do the Poly breakfast next year because Connor caught a stomach bug and we had to cancel that one this year. We usually always do Crystal Palace also-either breakfast or dinner.
Counting down the days until next year's trip!!