4/25/25 Visiting Deleon Springs for Pancakes & Wildlife
One of our favorite off-site things to do is to visit the Old Sugar Mill in Deleon Springs State Park for “make your own pancakes”. We departed the hotel very early and arrived at the gates of the park about 15 minutes prior to opening. As soon as the park opened, we paid our $6 park fee and headed for the restaurant. We were the first people seated!
Last time we simply ordered the batter for plain pancakes. This time DH needed to add chocolate chips. They brought out a dish of mini chocolate chips. There were at least a half cup of them!
I ordered a coffee and decided to add blueberries as my add on.
The server brought out a pitcher of buttermilk batter and we started making our pancakes on the center griddle.
We each ordered a slice of ham as well to boost our protein!
Here’s my plate with my blueberry pancakes and ham.
The server will bring refills of the batter if necessary but the initial amount easily makes 4 pancakes each. So fun and so good! We will always include a visit here on our extended trips!
I had booked the Deleon Springs River Boat tour for us to take after our meal. We had experienced this tour last year and the tour guide was so informative. It was such an excellent tour that we decided to do it again. We were very happy to see when we boarded the boat that the same woman was giving the tour. Unfortunately though it wasn’t nearly as good. The tour guide seemed distracted and on auto-pilot. She repeated herself a couple times and said “oh I may have said that already.” There also didn’t seem to be as much wildlife so maybe that was part of her struggle but it just was nothing like the previous years’ tour…odd. It’s too bad because there was only one other couple on the boat so we really had an opportunity for a nice tour.
After our tour we walked around the grounds for a bit. We had brought swimsuits to take a dip in the springs but it was super crowded with a school group so we decided to head off. We drove over to the parking lot for Hontoon Island State Park and took the free pontoon boat ride over to the state park. We walked along the trails enjoying the peaceful beauty of this secluded state park. We even saw a small gator.
The trails aren’t marked well but we made our way to a Native American midden (shell mound). It was a huge hill! We got a little lost but eventually found our way back to the pontoon boat. We drove to Disney Springs to walk around as we awaited our dinner ADR at Frontera Cocina, a “new to us” restaurant. Here’s a helpful tip: Make your ADRs for Disney Springs in Open Table, as it is far more flexible than
MDE, and often has more availability. Our reservation was for 6:00 in Open Table but we arrived at Disney Springs around 4:30 and wanted to eat a little earlier, since we hadn’t had anything since breakfast. I was able to easily move the reservation up to 5:00 pm. If I had made it in MDE I would’ve been within the two hour window and unable to change it without calling or stopping at the host’s desk.
We checked in a little before 5:00 and admired the beautiful decor.
We requested an outdoor table and were brought to a hightop with this beautiful view.
We enjoyed people watching as we waited for our food. DH actually spotted Dan and Leslie from Addicted to the Mouse as they were walking past. They were too far away to say hello.
For our appetizer, we ordered the Half & Half: Half guacamole verde, half toasted pumpkin seed “Hummus”, jícama, cucumber
This was excellent! The guacamole was full of flavor and the pumpkin seed hummus was flavorful as well. We’ve never tried jicama before but it was really good. I don’t know if they did something to it or if it was just served as is but we both loved it. I want to try some at home sometime. The chips were also fresh tasting and perfectly seasoned. This is how chips & guac should taste!
We decided to share two entrees. First, we ordered a new menu item, Red Chile Peanut Mole Salmon: Pan seared Faroe Islands salmon, smokey peanut mole (ancho chiles, chipotle en adobo, fire roasted tomatoes, chocolate, toasty peanuts), grilled broccolini with garlic mojo.
We both agreed this was a fantastic dish! It was really unique. The salmon was cooked perfectly and the mole sauce added great flavor. The broccolini was nicely grilled with a hint of smokiness. We would definitely get this again.
We also shared the Cocina Ensalad: Romaine and arugula, avocado, black beans, radishes, poblano rajas, cilantro, tortilla strips, green chile citrus vinaigrette.
This was also extremely good. What a great meal we had at Frontera Cocina! If we ever desire Mexican food, this will be our top choice restaurant in Disney World. We gave it an A and it ranked very high on our final list!
Up next..trying a bucket list dessert with shocking results.
I don’t think they make their own which if funny bc it’s on a farm so most people think it’s homemade.
