7 days of yumminess in the heat (6/20-6/27) with pics!! (Completed)

[Ciciwoowoo]

Wonderful review! Your son is a cutie!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Great reviews!

 

[MinnieNurse]

Loving your reviews. We will be there again in August and I cant wait.

 

[JoePa4Ever]

Thanks for the review on Chef Mickey's dinner. We love the brkfst there, but have never done dinner. From your review, it seems both brkfst & dinner are great @ Chef Mickey's.

 

[wilma-bride]

Great updates - I hve never been overly impressed with the food at Mel's Diner, Universal - perhaps it has improved lately

Great dinner at Chef Mickey's - we are having breakfast there next trip - a first for us and I am really excited for some strange reason.

 

[lauritagoddess]

Thanks for the review on Chef Mickey's dinner. We love the brkfst there, but have never done dinner. From your review, it seems both brkfst & dinner are great @ Chef Mickey's.

Great dinner at Chef Mickey's - we are having breakfast there next trip - a first for us and I am really excited for some strange reason.

I've always loved both breakfast and dinner and Chef Mickeys. The character interaction is always good and although I've read some bad reviews of food at Chef Mickey's, I've never experienced that. Of all the meals we had this trip, the dinner at Chef Mickeys would be in my top two favorites. The only meal I ever had there that was less than stellar was when we went for lunch during free dining two summers ago. The character interaction was really good since the restaurant wasn't that full, but they just didn't have that much food out. It was like dinner, but just with less options. But even then, the food was still good.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We had another cinnamon roll and chocolate milk breakfast at the food court. Mmmmm, cinnamon rolls.

We were off for our second day at Universal, but to Islands of Adventure. Not to get into a whole discussion of Universal, but we really preferred Islands of Adventure to Universal Studios. The theming was really great and it had more of an immersive feel if you will. And I'm really looking forward to going back there after they complete the Harry Potter section of the park next year.

We happened to be in Seuss Landing when it came time for lunch and went to the Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoo-Pendous.

By chance, we'd happened to pick one of the restaurants that does the Universal meal deal, so of course it was packed in there. They had if I recall, fried chicken, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs and burgers. My son got the kids fried chicken meal which came with one drumstick, fries (the adult fried chicken came with mashed potatoes) a drink and a chocolate chip cookie. I got another burger there, and fries. I have to say, it was another really good burger. I was really pleasantly surprised. My son ate his drumstick but left over most of his fries. The inside of the restaurant was very cute, very Seussish (is that a word?).

My son was really jonesing for some ice cream when we left Universal and had wanted to stop at the Dippin' Dots that was in Citywalk, but we had a pick-up from Mears there and we wound up leaving Islands of Adventure just a little too late to be able to hit Dippin' Dots and still make it on time. I promised him we'd get something when we got back to the hotel and a little ice cream Mickey saved the day.

 

[wilma-bride]

Oh my goodness, it's only 7.30 am here in the UK but I could desperately eat one of those little guys right now - I mean the ice-cream not your child

Great update. I'm assuming you didn't want a sit-down meal at Islands otherwise Mythos would have been your best bet for lunch - fantastic place, we always have to eat there at least once every trip

We love the theming at Circus McGurkas though.

 

[lauritagoddess]

Great update. I'm assuming you didn't want a sit-down meal at Islands otherwise Mythos would have been your best bet for lunch - fantastic place, we always have to eat there at least once every trip

We love the theming at Circus McGurkas though.

We were just winging it there. I'd heard about Mythos, but I wasn't sure where we'd be in the park around lunch time since it was our first time there and figured we'd just stop wherever we were. When we go back the next time, I probably will want to try Mythos.

 

[lakelandcallsme]

great reviews

 

[lauritagoddess]

This was our evening at 1900 Park Fare. We'd never been before, it's not like my son is big on princesses, but I've always wanted to go. And he's usually a good eater at buffets. We arrived a little early, and were told to expect a long wait. I believe the CM said "We just can't make the people get up and leave". We were given a pager and went out into the GF lobby to wait. My son played with my iPhone which kept him busy, but we probably waited about 25-30 minutes.

We were seated off to the side and I could see Cinderella and Prince Charming both out already. Our server took our drink order and we went up to the buffet. Almost as soon as we got up there my son announced that his stomach hurt. This was out of nowhere, he'd been fine before. Not only did it hurt, it HURT according to him and he was doubling over and trying to lay on the floor. I think he probably did have some passing gas pain, but he's such a drama boy, that any little thing gets all out of proportion. I had to pull him up off the floor and he wanted food, he didn't want food, he wanted food. I was getting frustrated, he was whining and clinging on to me, and it was just a mess. I wound up just filling plates for both of us and going back to our seats.

Whatever was bothering his stomach must have passed very quickly because he had no problem eating when we sat down. The food was good, particularly the paella, but honestly I wasn't in the best mood at this point and didn't really enjoy the food like I could have. At this point the stepmother and stepsisters were out and in our area but kept walking by our table. My son kept asking me why they didn't stop by our table. Cinderella did come out again and came to our table. She stopped and took a picture but seemed to have no interest in our table and was off right away. Prince Charming was very nice. My son asked him what his real name was, and he told my son it was Prince Charming.

We went up and got dessert then. We both made our own ice cream sundaes and nibbled some other desserts. The sundaes were yummy!!

The stepmother and the stepsisters did come back around. The stepmother stopped and asked my son which of the stepsisters he liked better and told him he should decide and come back when he's older so he could marry one of them. Drizella walked by twice, but then came over and said that she'd decided that she was going to marry my son because his shirt matched the colors of her dress. She was very funny. Very shortly after Anastasia came and told us to ignore everything that Drizella said, stopped for a quick picture and left.

I'm not sure what to make of this meal. The food was actually quite tasty, but the character interaction was a little stressful, I almost felt like I had to force the characters to interact, if you kwim? I know that we didn't have any little girls in princess dresses at our table, but still it felt like they wwere ignoring us. And there was the long wait before we went in and then of course there was the drama with my son which colors my feelings, but I can't say this is somewhere we need to go back to. Maybe if I had a princess obsessed daughter, but the food isn't enough of a draw to bring us back. And per my son the Grand Floridian is just too fancy for us, lol.

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

Thanks for the update...enjoying your reviews.

 

[FirstMagic]

That is so cute - your son asking Prince Charming what his real name is! Adorable photos of your son, and great reviews! Sounds like you had a wonderful time together.

 

[lauritagoddess]

I was really looking forward to this day, our breakfast at Tusker House. We had a 8:10 ADR and we got to AK a little before 8:00. It was so nice to walk through Discovery Island and into Africa while the park was empty. There was a line to check in but they have a table with African instruments on them for the kids to play with which kept my son busy. Right before we were being walked us in to the restaurant, one of the other servers asked us where we were from. My son told him NYC and the man answered that he used to live nearby on Long Island. My son shouted out after him, "Where in Long Island, Nassau or Suffolk county?" which had the guy rolling.

The restaurant was just gorgeous, they really have it decorated wonderfully. Our server Robin came over and explained how the characters would work their way through the restaurant and took our drink order. My son asked for chocolate milk but I ordered the special juice that Robin recommended which I believe was a combination of orange, guava and passionfruit. The juice was soooo good. Later on I asked her about because I would like to make i at home and she said Minute Maid made it special for them so she wasn't sure about the proportions of orange to guava to passionfruit.

We went up to the buffet and it was arranged in sort of a square with different stations, and then stations in the middle. Everything looked great. And everything was fantastic. Really, there wasn't one thing that either my son or I got that didn't taste great. I particularly liked the biscuits and the chocolate croissant. My son was very excited to see they had Krispy Kreme donuts there.

It took awhile for the characters to come out. We were already halfway through our plates before Donald came out.

After a short while Daisy and Mickey also came out. Daisy got to quite near our table when our server Robin came over and started handing out instruments to the kids to shake and said that they'd do a dance with Daisy. They played some music and all the kids marched around and shook their instruments. He had a great time, all the kids looked like they really enjoyed it.

Daisy came over about a minute or two later and then very quickly Mickey came over.

We thought that Goofy would be out too since when you first check in they have you pose for an optional picture where they have a shot of you one one side and then a picture of Donald, Mickey, Daisy and Goofy on the other. Robin was bringing over the check when we saw Goofy come out. It just worked out that Goofy came by our table just when I finished paying the check.

Overall, the breakfast was very good. The food was excellent, really really good, both my son and I went back for seconds. The characters were really good, the servers were very nice. The only thing I would have liked to have seen the characters come out a little quicker and to have gotten the check slightly quicker. We were seated not much after 8:00, but we didn't get out of the restaurant until 9:05. This was just long enough so that when we walked over to Kilimanjaro Safaris, that there was already a wait. I had assumed we'd be done right before 9:00 and be ahead of all the people who were at the park at rope drop and be able to walk right on, but instead we wound up grabbing a Fastpass and coming back later. But I definitely recommend the Tusker House breakfast and we'll be coming back.

 

[kirkson]

great reviews, thanks! we love Tusker House too (going back in just under 3 months!).

FYI, there is a juice called POG (passion orange guava) that is made and sold in Hawaii that is similar (but not as good) as the juice @ Tusker House. You might be able to find it in NYC, not sure.

 

[lauritagoddess]

FYI, there is a juice called POG (passion orange guava) that is made and sold in Hawaii that is similar (but not as good) as the juice @ Tusker House. You might be able to find it in NYC, not sure.

Thanks for the info, I'm going to take a look for it.

 

[lauritagoddess]

We left AK around a little before noon. We had been planning to park hop over to Magic Kingdom, but my son developed a blister and I had already gotten 2 blisters (I'm not sure why this trip, on all our previous trips neither of us have ever gotten one) and we decided to do something a little more low key. My son had wanted to pop over to Pop Century and check it out. I was actually there in March without him, and we had already decided it's where we'd probably stay next time.

We hit the food court first. My son just wanted some chicken nuggets. I decided to try the blackened fish sandwich. I had meant to on my previous visit and never got a chance. I wish I'd decided on something else. It took forever for it to be ready, I guess because so few people order it they do it all up fresh. I guess that should be a good thing, but I had an impatient child making beelines around the drinks station in the food court. And then it just wasn't that good. No, the fish was good, but it had a sauce and a slaw on it that weren't that tasty and the roll tasted kind of stale. I know I took a picture of the food but I can't seem to find it now, but it was no loss.

We looked around Pop for awhile and used up one our 30 minute arcade there. Around 3:00 we headed over to Hollywood Studios. Our dinner ADR was at SciFi at 5:30. We did the Backlot Tour, saw Muppet 3D, met Mikey from Monsters Inc., stared in amazement at the people who were willing to wait on the Toy Story Mania stand-by line with an 120 minute wait. Around 5:15 we headed over to SciFi

SciFi is probably my son's favorite restaurant. I had wanted to get it for our first night in Disney but hadn't been able to get a decent time until later in the week. It worked out fine, because along with our our dinner at Chef Mickeys, this was our other stand out meal of the week. We were seated in the back one of the cars in the last row. My son wanted to know why we always get seated in a back row. I was just happy there weren't any small kids in front of us. The last time we were there, there was a little boy who spent almost our whole meal turned around and staring at my son and it creeped him out a little. I decided to order a chocolate shake for my drink. I normally order a burger here, I love SciFi's burgers, but since I'd had those two burgers at Universal, I wanted something different. I decided to try the ribs. It came with fries and baked beans. My son got the hot dog meal and asked if he could have just grapes with his meal iinstead of the regular fresh fruit appetizer which the server was happy to accomodate. The fruit appetizer comes with honeydew which my son is allergic to and the server took this very seriously. I usually forget that my son has any food allergies, it's just to honeydew and lime which are fairly easy to avoid, but it was nice to see how the server became very attentive once he heard the word allergy.

When our server came back with our drinks, he brought a strawberry shake by mistake. When I told him I'd ordered a chocolate shake, he left the strawberry shake and told us to enjoy it gratis, so we wound up with two shakes!

The ribs were excellent. I've heard reviews here for the ribs that haven't been that great, but I really enjoyed them. The beans were really good too.

My son's meal before and after we made Mickey ketchup heads.

For dessert my son got the make your own sundae and I tried the peanut butter chocolate cake. It was good, but not great. The cake was a little dry and the peanut butter was dry too. But I still love anything chocolate and peanut butter, so I ate most of it,

We both really enjoyed the food, and of course we love all the cheesy clips. What is a trip to Disney without seeing Attack of the 50 ft woman? And our server brought my son a Sci Fi driver’s license at the end of the meal that he adored.

 

[dd50]

Great reviews. We are going to Sci-Fi, CM and Tusker next month. Can't wait.

 

[thepianoman]

I decided to try the blackened fish sandwich. I had meant to on my previous visit and never got a chance. I wish I'd decided on something else. It took forever for it to be ready, I guess because so few people order it they do it all up fresh. I guess that should be a good thing, but I had an impatient child making beelines around the drinks station in the food court. And then it just wasn't that good. No, the fish was good, but it had a sauce and a slaw on it that weren't that tasty and the roll tasted kind of stale.

I made the mistake of ordering the blackened fish sandwich during my recent stay at Pop and felt exactly the same way -- it took way too long to make and the sauce and slaw did not complement the fish at all. I'm usually easy to please, but this is a truly yucky sandwich.

 

[poegirl30]

We loved Tusker House too. Glad to see you had a great time at Chef Mickey's. It looks like your son liked the kid's meals. I'm hoping that we we return, my youngest will like them too!