6 days on DDP - round-up

[crmscotland]

My family & l were at WDW July 7-13, stayed at POR. We were on the DDP (FD), gosh it's a lot of food!
We booked our ADRs 180 days in advance of our stay, but changed some a bit at about the 90 day mark.
All T/S were 1 credit

7/7 - POR Q/S Foodcourt, dinner - it was busy, but we had no difficulty getting a table. DH had a burger, DD fish & chips, DS flatbread pizza & l had chicken nuggets. Food was pretty standard, but perfectly fine.
We got our refillable mugs, so used those for our drinks & got orange juice, fruit salads & muffin to take back to our room for breakfast next day.

7/8 -
1900 Park Fare, breakfast - first time we had visited the Grand Floridian resort - beautiful. Very good choice of buffet breakfast foods, standard breakfast fare, but of a good standard, especially liked the scrambled eggs, possibly the nicest l have ever tasted. Great character interaction - Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter (he was hilarious), Winnie The Pooh, Tigger.

7/8 Garden Grill, Epcot - Dinner, served family style, really nice salad to start, then platter with beef, chicken, fish, mashed potatoes, veg, we liked it all apart from the fish - none of us were keen on it. Just about had room for some fruit cobbler, it was good. Kids got chocolate cupcakes.
Character interaction again was great - Mickey, Chip & Dale, Pluto

7/9 Boma, AKL - first time we had been to AKL, thought it looked great.
Boma was very busy & we had to wait a while, the food was exceptionally good - huge variety to cater for most tastes, everything was fresh, plentiful & tasted good including the zebra dome dessert l had heard about, also tried the bread pudding & caramel sauce - delicious.

7/10 Be Our Guest, MK - Lunch
Only had to wait in line a couple of minutes. We we were seated in the main ballroom, it was busy, but we got a table without waiting. We had pre-ordered our food online & l was amazed how quickly it arrived, things seemed to run like clockwork, at least they were that day. DH & DS both had croque monsieur with fries, l had quinoa salad, we all liked our food & thought it was fresh & well presented, especially for a QS. For dessert we had cupcakes - chocolate, grey stuff & strawberry & shared them, strawberry was nice, grey stuff didn't really taste of anything, the chocolate was the best - the filling was delicious.
(DD, age 18, wasn't with us at MK that day, she stayed at POR).
I thought it was the best Q/S during our trip - really good food & beautiful setting.

7/10 T-Rex, Downtown Disney - Dinner
Boy was this place busy & loud too, but it was great fun. We thought it was a really good use of a T/S credit. From memory our check came to approx. $170 + tip, glad we were on DDP!
DH had a burger (as he often does), the other 3 of us had steaks which were huge. For dessert we shared the Chocolate Extinction - that was fun & delicious but we couldn't finish it.

 

[crmscotland]

7/11 Ohana, Polynesian Resort - breakfast. We had to wait 30mins or so after our ADR time to be seated. Food was good & plentiful, served family style, there was a lot of food, only thing we requested more of was bacon, as both DH & DS like that a lot. Characters - Mickey, Pluto, Lilo,Stitch
First time we had been to Polynesian Resort & we thought the lobby, shops & outside areas looked terrific. After looking round the resort we got Dole Whips & floats from Pineapple Lanai (using snack credits)

7/11 Beaches & Cream, Beach Club - Dinner
Had to wait 20 mins or so for a table, we were seated in a booth which was nice.
DH, DD & DS all had hot dogs & fries which they enjoyed, l had the grilled cheese & tomato bisque - it was every bit as good as l had read & very importantly l wasn't too full for some ice-cream. We shared the mini Mickey sink between us & didn't manage to finish it - it wasn't so mini after all & contained lot more ice-cream than you at first think. The waitress washed our Mickey sink out for us so we could take it away, it now has pride of place in it's new Scottish home, my kitchen.

7/12 Mama Melrose, HS We had an early 4:20pm dinner ADR & didn't have to wait long to be seated, the restuarant wasn't busy at this time.
We had booked the Fantasmic Dining Package. Our waitress (can't recall her name, but l remember she said she was from Detroit was ok, but very brisk & made us feel rushed from the moment we sat down, the only time we felt this while dining during our whole trip, she offered us drinks as we were sitting down, then brought us menus, literally hardly gave us a minute to look at them before coming back to take our order, she then suggested we could order the appetiser then look at the menu to choose our entrees, she was barely gone before coming back to get our entree order. The entrees arrived while we were still eating our appetisers. The food was ok, not great, but passably edible, although bland & poor in comparison to food l've had in Italy or at Italian restaurants here in Scotland. Our appetisers
were better than our entrees & dessert. DH had minestrone soup, pasta (can't recall what type), DD & DS both had the mozzarella appetiser, l had salad. DD & l had chicken which we both found dry & rather bland. DS had flatbread pizza which he said was ok. As we had the Fantasmic package, the dessert came as mini desserts, no choice, the waitress just brought them without telling us beforehand, none of us liked what we got much, especially DS who never touched his. This was the one TS during our trip that l was rather disappointed with both in terms of food & (rushed) service, maybe it was just an off day, l'd give Mama Melrose another try & hope things on both counts would be better next time as l had read several good reviews before our visit.

We also had QS meals at Sunshine Seasons (Epcot), Pizzafari (AK), Starring Rolls (HS), & on our last day 7/13 we had lunch at POR Foodcourt & dinner at Casey's Corner (MK), once offsite we visited Epcot again & had lunch at Les Halles, it was a shock, lol, paying for food, drinks & snacks oop after previously being on the dining plan & just having to scan a magic band.
We really did find the DDP a lot of food, sometimes for lunch we would just use 2 or 3 QS credits between the 4 of us, as a result we had quite a few QS credits extra so were able to get 3 snack items for each of them at Goofy's Candy Co & the sweet shop in HS - brought home Mickey Krispie treats, bags of sweets & lollies for gifts.

 

[pumba]

that is to bad about mama melrose....we went with our son and daughter in law and two grandkids...and we had a great experience. our son and my husband and myself had the steak entree...with mac and cheese side...my dil had the seafood fettucini, and the two little ones had chicken salad and fries...I think...for dessert the two kids got the spaghetti and meatball cupcake and we had the assortment of pastries...our waiter was very prompt with filling our drinks and also brought my dil and I a cappachino...strong stuff...

what I am saying we all have different experiences in disney and maybe someone else had one like yours or like mine....again sad for that experience for you