10 Days on DDP and STUFFED! The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.... WITH PHOTOS

[Lollipop's Mom]

I am going to do some reviews on this thread, a few at a time.
We had 10 days, and used all of our credits.
We ate TS at:
Liberty Tree Dinner
Sci-Fi Lunch
Le Cellier Dinner
Tusker House Breakfast
Chef Mickeys Dinner
Cinderella's Breakfast
50s Prime Time Dinner
1900 Park Fare Breakfast
Crystal Palace Dinner

We had CS for lunch most days at various places.
I have to go through my passporter, but some we did were:
Yak & Yeti CS
Electric Umbrella
Cosmic Rays
Pop Century Food Court
Caseys
Sunshine Seasons
Typhoon Lagoon - 2 places

And also a couple of CS breakfast at Pop.

Next Post will be day one!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Day One: Arrival day Jan 5th.
I forgot to mention it was myself (picky eater) and my daughter, Meg, 11 yrs, an even pickier eater.
We got in late and grabbed some Pop Food Court around 8pm. It was PACKED. This was a Saturday night and we were dead tired and I was shocked at how packed it was.
We both wanted different things at different areas, but settled on eating at the same place to avoid doing 2 lines.
We picked the Italian area. I didn't have the camera with me, so no photos at this point.
I had the Chicken Penne Alfredo and Meg had the Kids Mac n' Cheese.
My meal was HUGE and would have fed 2 people comfortably. You can have your choice of marinara sauce or alfredo sauce. I had the alfredo. It was really good. The chicken was a HUGE boneless breast that was breaded. It came with a warm breadstick. I only ate half of it. This could easily be one CS credit used to feed 2 people.
I got cheesecake for dessert, but brought it back to the room for later.

Meg's mac n' cheese was good, but not as good as the mac n' cheese from the restaurants and in the parks. She had the chocolate pudding and grapes on the side. The chocolate pudding is really yummy and tastes like 'cooked' pudding you have in choc pie.

We both rated this meal a 10/10.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Day Two, Jan 6th:
This was our 'first day' in the parks. We were going to MK.
We slept in pretty late and had some breakfast in the room. I had done a garden grocer order with some muffins, cereal, milk, etc....

Around 2pm we went to Casey's Corner. It is kind of a small tradition that we have a Casey's hotdog on main street on our first day.

There is no kids menu here, so adults and kids order from the same menu (even though meg is 11, she often just eats off the kids menu, as it appeals to her more).
We each had a hotdog, with fries, a bottle of water and a brownie.
Again, we could have shared this, as it was tons of food, but I was still tired and not really 'with it' yet, and just got 2 meals.
WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! At this point I was thinking "People are complaining at the loss of an appetizer????". The hot dogs were yummy, the fries 'ok' (but the birds we were not suppossed to feed sure liked them!), but the brownies......OMG this was one of the MOST DISGUSTING things I have ever eaten in my life. First off, we are both chocoholics and love sweets, but these were just plain bad. They tasted like a wad of dough with no real chocolate taste. I took one bite and had a hard time swallowing it. Meg tried a bite and spit it out. Needless to say these went into the garbage fast!
Hotdog: 8/10, fries 6/10, brownie 0/10
Here is a photo:
(also, you will notice most of my food has a bite out of it - I would start to eat and think 'oh shoot need a photo".)

 

[angelmav]

Looking forward to the rest of your reviews!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

That night we went to Liberty Tree Tavern. This is one meal we were most looking forward to, so planned it as our first dinner.
One word.... GROSS!!!!!!!
I LOVE turkey dinner, and it is Meg's most fave meal in the world.
The first thing that put me off was our server. I don't remember names at all, but she was a woman in her 40s.
She never smiled once, and you could tell she did not want to be working there.
She brought out the salad. The lettuce was limp and the whole salad was soggy. I think it had been sitting in the dressing for quite some time. I didn't like the taste of the dressing at all. Also, Meg hit it dead on when she said the salad smelled like "smelly armpits". Yes, seriously - the salad smelled like BO!
Our server came over and took it away after a quick snide comment "OH you NOT eating THIS?" in a rather rude tone.
While waiting for the main meal, several characters came around, and the interaction here is very very good. We had goofy, pluto, chip & dale, and Minnie.
The meal came out, and I regret I forgot to take a photo. It was presented nicely. We only got 2 VERY SMALL pieces of turkey and 2 very very small and thin pieces of beef, and 2 very small pieces of pork. A bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of green beans, and under the meats was stuffing. Also a bowl of mac n' cheese.

The meats were gross. The turkey tasted like processed lunchmeat, the beef was so salty it was inedible. We don't eat pork, so didn't try it. The potatoes were disgusting and had an odd flavour. The beans were good and the mac n' cheese was very good. Actually the best part of the meal, which is pretty sad. We don't eat stuffing, so didn't try it.
We filled up on mac n' cheese and I joked that thank goodness we were on the dining plan, otherwise I would have just paid over 50 bucks for mac n' cheese.
The dessert was warm apple cobbler with ice cream, and this was VERY good.

During dinner we did not get our drinks refilled and were pretty much ignored by the server.

Here is the kicker though....
our server comes with the bill (I had been asked if we were on the DDP at check in) and when I said we were on the DDP she huffed and puffed really loudly and said "It would have been nice if you told me that!". I told her they asked at check in and I figured they had some sort of communication with her.
So off she goes in a huff and comes back with the new DDP bill where you fill in the tip and she opens it up and says "Is this your first TS meal on the DDP?" I say yes, and she says "Ok, so here is where you write in my tip. These are the recommended amounts, the top one is 18% and the bottom is 20%, most people tip 20%, so just write that amount on this line here and sign", and then proceeds to stand over me to make sure I do it. I was REALLY pizzed off and said "Oh I would like to tip in cash" and wrote cash on both lines and signed.
She left, we got up, and I did not tip her. She didn't deserve it, and I did NOT like her 'tip me 20%' attitude. I was in shock and disbelief and got the heck out of there.
In hindsight I should have talked to a manager, but we just wanted out.
All we could smell was the body odor salad and had to get out.
NEVER AGAIN!!!!
Character interaction 9/10
Food 2/10
Dessert 8/10
Service....won't even go there!

 

[mpmluvstigger]

Thanks for your reviews! Im sooooooo sorry your server was so rude! I cant believe they tell you what to tip them now. My DH is a server and he thinks its rediculous how they tell you what to tip tip them. Seems to me now that we have the option of what to tip them on the ddp now, they would be a little more courteous. Hopefully all your TS meals werent that bad.

 

[Busymom85]

So sorry about Liberty Tree Tavern. We were there 12 years ago and it was great. We didn't go last month as we wanted to try something different. Glad we did.

 

[Texas Rob]

We were there a year and a half ago. Not quite as bad experience as that but in the ball park. I wish we would have had the original reservation kept at the Crystal Palace (I accidentally made reservations for 2 and we needed one more kid and they refused to put a chair to the table).

Anyway, scratch that one off...cause it wasn't good when I went either. My grandmother said she remembers when it was a really nice place to eat.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Day 3 - Jan 7th....

Ate breakfast in the room.

Lunch was at 12:10 at Sci Fi Diner. This is one we were really excited about. I haven't been there since 1994, and Meg has never been. I didn't care how the food ended up, as we were going for the atmosphere. We live down the street from a 'real' drive in that we go to regularly, so this was going to be really fun for us, and it was!
This was one of our fave meals on the trip.

We were seated fairly quickly and had an awesome server. The place was PACKED! Meg wanted to eat off the kids menu, and she ordered mac n' cheese (seeing a pattern here.....yah its her fave food) with carrot sticks. I ordered the cheeseburger/fries. We both ordered a chocolate milkshake, as it was included in the DDP.
Right after we ordered our server came up and put a GIANT ice cream sundae in front of Meg and said "Will your mom let you have dessert before lunch?". I said sure. I guess someone had ordered it, but then decided they didn't want it when she brought it out (they had gotten a phone call and had to leave or something). So she didn't want to throw it out. We both dug into it and ate a bit of it, but didn't eat much.
The food was delicious! It was one of the best burgers I have ever had. The fries were typical disney fries and the milkshake was incredible. Meg enjoyed her meal.
The server asked what we wanted for dessert and I said we were just too full, so she gave us bottles of water to bring with us in lieu of dessert. This was great, and she told us that whereever we dine, we can ask for a bottle of water or other drink to go instead of dessert. We also found out later in the week that all servers are happy to send you with a fountain drink to go at the end of the meal, and we took advantage of this a few times.
Photos are below...but before that...
Later on, meg started feeling sick, around 6pm. We left and by the time we got back to the room she was projectile vomiting and also 'going'. It was terrible. She had stomach pains and was VERY ill. Housekeeping had to come by a couple times. I ended up buying childrens mylanta and immodium at the gift shop ($$$$$$) - it wasn't a good night. Poor kid was so sick. I called Sci Fi and they said they hadn't had any complaints. I had 2 thoughts....either it was food poisoning, or the fact she had disney mac n' cheese non-stop for 3 days, and there was actually something in that mac n' cheese that disagreed with her and finally shut her system down. She didn't eat any more of it for the rest of the trip and was fine - so could be an allergy?????? Food poisoning??? We will never know! Still, we count it as one of our fave meals because it was yummy and the atmosphere was a blast.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

For dinner that night, Meg was too sick to eat, so I ran over to Pop Food Court and grabbed something - and I can't even remember what as that day is a bit of a blur now - I remember it was good. I think it was chicken fingers and fries, but just can't recall!

 

[mom2fivecs]

Thanks for sharing. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience at LTT. We have first time reservations for June, and am thinking of reconsidering this.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

The next day, Jan 8th....
We stayed in the room until about noon. Meg was feeling a bit better, but still pretty weak. We decided to take a slow day at Epcot and see how things were. I was thinking of renting her a wheelchair and pushing her around to save her energy, but didn't need to. She perked up once out in the sunshine. She didn't last long that day. We were suppossed to meet other Dis'ers for a wishes cruise and had to cancel.

We did lots of quiet epcot things and then ended up at sunshine seasons around 2pm. I was starving, but just wanted something light.
I got a pre-packaged croissant with tuna salad, coke and I had to try a butterfinger brownie. Meg just used a snack credit and got a croissant. She didn't really want to eat, but I wanted her to put something in her tummy.
I loved the tuna croissant. Definately a 10/10 on that. It was fresh and yummy. The brownie was INCREDIBLE!!!

Later we had ressies at 4:40 for Le Cellier. I wasn't really all that hungry because the way lunch worked out, but just figured 'whatever'. As it was, we didn't get seated until 5:15, so it worked out ok.
Our server brought breadsticks and there were 3 different kinds. We liked 2 of them, but not the one that was wholegrain.
Meg ordered the kids pizza with grapes. I had the filet mignon with cream cheese potatoes.
Meg said hers was good, but she still wasnt completely up to eating, and only ate a bit.
Mine was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!! The maple bbq sauce was a bit too much for my tastes, as there seemed to way too much for me. I would have liked a little less, but that is just my picky tastebuds. It was an incredible cut of meat, and our server was incredible. For dessert Meg had some fruit and I ordered the campfire smore for us to share. YUMMMMM!
10/10 here!
It was a nice quiet meal and very relaxing!

 

[mom2my3kids]

That night we went to Liberty Tree Tavern. This is one meal we were most looking forward to, so planned it as our first dinner.
One word.... GROSS!!!!!!!
I LOVE turkey dinner, and it is Meg's most fave meal in the world.
The first thing that put me off was our server. I don't remember names at all, but she was a woman in her 40s.
She never smiled once, and you could tell she did not want to be working there.
She brought out the salad. The lettuce was limp and the whole salad was soggy. I think it had been sitting in the dressing for quite some time. I didn't like the taste of the dressing at all. Also, Meg hit it dead on when she said the salad smelled like "smelly armpits". Yes, seriously - the salad smelled like BO!
Our server came over and took it away after a quick snide comment "OH you NOT eating THIS?" in a rather rude tone.
While waiting for the main meal, several characters came around, and the interaction here is very very good. We had goofy, pluto, chip & dale, and Minnie.
The meal came out, and I regret I forgot to take a photo. It was presented nicely. We only got 2 VERY SMALL pieces of turkey and 2 very very small and thin pieces of beef, and 2 very small pieces of pork. A bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of green beans, and under the meats was stuffing. Also a bowl of mac n' cheese.

The meats were gross. The turkey tasted like processed lunchmeat, the beef was so salty it was inedible. We don't eat pork, so didn't try it. The potatoes were disgusting and had an odd flavour. The beans were good and the mac n' cheese was very good. Actually the best part of the meal, which is pretty sad. We don't eat stuffing, so didn't try it.
We filled up on mac n' cheese and I joked that thank goodness we were on the dining plan, otherwise I would have just paid over 50 bucks for mac n' cheese.
The dessert was warm apple cobbler with ice cream, and this was VERY good.

During dinner we did not get our drinks refilled and were pretty much ignored by the server.

Here is the kicker though....
our server comes with the bill (I had been asked if we were on the DDP at check in) and when I said we were on the DDP she huffed and puffed really loudly and said "It would have been nice if you told me that!". I told her they asked at check in and I figured they had some sort of communication with her.
So off she goes in a huff and comes back with the new DDP bill where you fill in the tip and she opens it up and says "Is this your first TS meal on the DDP?" I say yes, and she says "Ok, so here is where you write in my tip. These are the recommended amounts, the top one is 18% and the bottom is 20%, most people tip 20%, so just write that amount on this line here and sign", and then proceeds to stand over me to make sure I do it. I was REALLY pizzed off and said "Oh I would like to tip in cash" and wrote cash on both lines and signed.
She left, we got up, and I did not tip her. She didn't deserve it, and I did NOT like her 'tip me 20%' attitude. I was in shock and disbelief and got the heck out of there.
In hindsight I should have talked to a manager, but we just wanted out.
All we could smell was the body odor salad and had to get out.
NEVER AGAIN!!!!
Character interaction 9/10
Food 2/10
Dessert 8/10
Service....won't even go there!

Wow that is horrible a server would be so bold, Funny that this was one of our top restaurants in Sept food was excellent, characters were excellent and server was good. He could of kept of refilled a bit more when we told him we were sorry but we were so thirsty coming from the hot parks.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Next day - Jan 9th...

Meg was feeling 100% better (thank goodness!) and we started our day with Tusker House buffet breakfast in AK.
This is a perfect start, as it is next to Kilamanjaro Safari, so you can go, grab a fastpass, eat, and then hit the ride right after!

The food here was GREAT!!!!! This is another highlight of our dining for us. This place is really huge, but did not feel crowded. The food was all in one big separate room in little carts, made to look like an african market. Our server was great. She brought us guava (sp?) juice, which was a mixture of different citrus juices and passionfruit juice I believe. I am allergic to citrus, so could not drink it, but Meg inhaled it!
Part way through the meal they had all the characters come and dance and play instruments (shakers) with the kids. It was really fun. The characters seemed a bit rushed here, but was still good interaction. We saw Mickey, Goofy, Donald & Daisy.
The food was AWESOME. The one thing that really stood out for me was the cheese blintzes. They were crepes filled with a sweet cream cheese filling, and there were hot cherries and apples to put on top. YUMMMM!
There were mickey waffles, krispy kremes, danish, muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, yogurts and topping, cereals, etc...etc....etc.... So much food I couldn't try it all!

Here was my first plate.... this place was a 10/10 for sure!! Its a must do breakfast!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Later on, around 2pm, we were going by Yak & Yeti and I was feeling a bit peckish. Meg just wanted a mickey bar, but I wanted to try the counter service there (Anandupur Local Food Cafes). I love chinese food, but she hates it.
I decided just to get a kids meal there, as I wanted more of a 'snack'. I got the eggroll with chicken fried rice and carrot sticks.
After I took a bite, I wished I had gotten an adult meal. The rice was really good and so was the eggroll. The carrot sticks were pretty limp and gross, so those got tossed. Next time I want to try something else here, but this made for a quick snack and was yummy. Lots of seating in the shade behind the restaurant!

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

Thanks for sharing. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience at LTT. We have first time reservations for June, and am thinking of reconsidering this.

Please don't reconsider this ADR. This is just one opinion out of hundreds of thousands who eat there every year. Plus, the way that the OP described her meal (smelly armpit) was a bit strange as I've never heard of food described this way. I would say to go and make your own judgement.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

That evening we went to DTD and went to Ghiradelli! I wanted to order one of everything! lol.
We both decided on the brownie hot fudge sundae. Again, I should have just ordered ONE of these, as I had no idea just how huge they were! We only got halfway through them! These were DELICIOUS and a chocolate lovers DREAM!
Of course, not on the DDP and they were about $10-$12 for 2 sundaes and worth every penny!

 

[mom2my3kids]

Is their characters at tusker house breakfast??

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Please don't reconsider this ADR. This is just one opinion out of hundreds of thousands who eat there every year. Plus, the childish way that the OP described her meal (smelly armpit) was a bit strange as I've never heard of food described this way. I would say to go and make your own judgement.

Thanks for calling me childish. That was a nice compliment of you.

As for it smelling like that...it DID. At first we thought someone around us had bad BO, but realized it was the salad.

And yes, everyone had different opinions, what we hated someone else might love, and vice versa. This is why MANY people post MANY reviews.

If I realized I would be called childish for describing a smell, maybe I wouldn't even bother writing these reviews at all.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Is their characters at tusker house breakfast??

Yes there were!
Here are some more tusker photos...