Long time lurker, first time poster. We're at the airport on our way back and sadly I was generally too hungry to remember to take pictures of our food, but I do vividly remember it all.
We've been on the dining plan twice now (my wife and I), but this is the first time we upgraded from quick service to the normal dining plan. We stayed at Pop Century, which was leagues ahead of All Star Movies in terms of bus service. One thing that surprised us is how much the Dining Plan is different from the QSDP. We hadn't realized that they'd taken away appetizers and included-tip from the normal Dining Plan, so that was a bummer. The other thing that shocked us is the drop to 1 snack per person per day and that they take away the resort refillable mug. We ended up still having snacks left over, but only because we were frugal the first half of the trip.
Anyway, on with the meals. I'm only going to review the table service restaurants because the hot dogs, burgers, and chicken tenders at the counter service locations aren't really anything worth reviewing.
Sunday
Breakfast @ Kona
I'd heard rave reviews of the Tonga Toast at Kona, so I made sure we tried it. We actually had my parents and my brother join us for this one (they were on QSDP and weren't staying as long as us, but I convinced them to try it). I got the Tonga Toast and my wife got the Kahuna Plate and we split the meal. The Tonga Toast was alright -- not anything to rave about. The bacon had an odd flavor to it -- I preferred counter service bacon to this stuff. The sausage was alright. I didn't try the scrambled eggs but my wife wasn't impressed. My wife really liked the Tonga Toast, but I'm the picky one and I'm not huge on breakfast anyway.
In conclusion, I probably wouldn't go again. But I'm not someone who enjoys breakfast.
Dinner @ Via Napoli
This was one of my favorite meals. I had the Margherita Pizza and my wife had one with veggies on it, I believe. The pizza was absolutely delicious, but the texture was slightly abnormal. I'm big on texture and it did bother me. The center of the pizza was a bit moist and the clumpy cheese bothered me a bit. Once I was able to convince myself to ignore that, I really enjoyed the pizza.
For desert I had the apple cake and my wife had the tiramisu. The apple cake was a bit bland and dry. I imagine you're supposed to eat the almond sorbet with it, but I didn't like the almond sorbet so that didn't help. My wife adored the tiramisu.
Also, they have really good Coke here. If you're not a fan of the counter service Coke, this stuff is a dream come true.
Monday
Dinner @ Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater
I had pretty good memories of this place before it became super expensive. My parents used to take me here around 15 years ago. My brother was big into sci-fi so my parents didn't mind paying a few more dollars for our hot dogs. Now, the menu is much more limited and it's a lot more pricey.
My wife and I both got the same thing -- Ribs. They were absolutely the worst ribs I've ever had before. It was like we received a rubber dog toy. It was impossible to get the meat off the bones without sawing it off with a steak knife, and the poor lighting of the restaurant made it fairly impossible to see what you were cutting at. To be fair, the BBQ sauce was phenomenal and the fries were great with it... but the ribs, terrible.
For dessert we both got the Peanut Butter Chocolate Lava Cake or whatever it's called. We could taste the peanut butter but couldn't actually see it... it looked like chocolate sauce in the middle to us. It also came with Reeses Pieces scattered around the plate - a nice touch. I don't know if the cake was really good or if we were just really hungry after not eating any of our entree, but either way... I think it was good cake.
They also allow for flavorings in your soda. I had a cherry-flavored Coke. It was pretty good, but if you're expecting a Cherry Coke, it's a quite sweeter flavor. I believe they just put grenadine into the coke. Not bad, just not what I was expecting.
Though we're not going to ever come back here (the only thing I was interested in on the menu was ribs), the waitress was super nice and offered to give us both a different entree for free.
Tuesday
Breakfast @ Crystal Palace
My wife wanted to check out the Crystal Palace, which is the whole reason we got the normal dining plan to begin with. Honestly, if you've been to a Ponderosa or Golden Corral for breakfast, this is pretty much the same quality level food. It's alright, but nothing amazing. The best thing I tried was the puffed french toast (that was actually in the kids area). It didn't taste anything like french toast, but it was great. I'm pretty sure it's just a big homemade donut / fried dough.
For those who are interested, the Coke here wasn't that great. Yes, I love Coke... so I kept track of where there was good Coke (since every counter service place generally has the same bad Coke).
Dinner @ The Plaza Restaurant
This place had a burger, so of course it was on my list of places to eat. The burger was just ok. Nothing special about it, and if I had actually paid the $12 for it, I'd probably be sad. I'd rather have just about any fast food burger, personally. It was large, though. A big square patty that hung over the edges of the bun. The bun was dry and a bit too thick for my tastes. The fries were tasty, though.
My wife got a turkey sandwich which she said was delicious.
I got the brownie sundae and my wife got a milkshake to go. The brownie sundae was absolutely huge for a single serving. There were 3 or 4 brownies in there and about 3 scoops of ice cream. It was good, but next time I'd probably ask for it without the whipped cream, because there was a LOT of whipped cream on it.
Wednesday
We went to Universal Studios today to see the Harry Potter's Wizarding World for my wife / mom. If you're claustrophobic, stay away from this place. It was absolutely mobbed with tourists, many of whom didn't speak English. It was poorly organized and mobs were just running around randomly and stopping traffic. I know this has nothing to do with dining, but it was pretty miserable. My mom and wife liked it, but they're absolute fanatics about Harry Potter. If you're just curious about it and not a fanatic, stay away.
We stood in line for over an hour just for the opportunity to enter the wand shop, which had a two minute presentation and then dumped 20 people into an incredibly tiny room filled with wands for you to buy. Seriously, they should have anticipated it being a little more popular or at least sell wands in one of the larger shops and not require standing in line for an hour to get one. My mom snuck into the back of the wand shop and bought one for my little brother. Try that if you really want a wand -- the "experience" of a "wand fitting" or whatever it is only happens for a single kid out of the 20 they let in at a time. Overall, it took 4+ hours to go on two rides and go through the shops. Ridiculous!
As for dining, we went to The Whopper Bar for lunch. It's just a Burger King that lets you get a ton of different toppings on your whopper. Considering the fact that I only get standard burger ingredients on my whoppers, it was nothing special. I thought it would be like a buffet style burger place where you actually put the ingredients on yourself. That was a bit disappointing... but it wasn't Wizarding World, which made it an enjoyable experience.
We headed over to Wolfang Puck Express for dinner. My parents enjoyed their pepperoni pizzas and I got the chicken tenders. They don't use the same breading on them as they did last December, which is a bummer. It's a thicker breading now which isn't bad but isn't as tasty. I don't think they cook their fries in Olive Oil anymore, either. Probably a consequence of the never-ending free dining. My wife got the Rosemary Chicken which she's enjoyed for three trips now.
They didn't have any brownies or chocolate chip cookies (two of my favorite Disney desserts). I was pretty bummed. I got the sugar cookie which ended up being pretty good, but nowhere near as awesome as the chocolate chip kind.
Thursday
My wife wasn't feeling well on Thursday so we skipped our Yak & Yeti lunch.
Dinner @ Planet Hollywood
This place is really loud and crowded. It made me a bit claustrophobic, but the Ribs here made up for it. While they're normally ridiculously priced, the Dining Plan made me free to grab the Ribs & Fries here. The BBQ was awesome and the ribs were great. The fries were very crispy and went great with the BBQ. I got a milkshake to go and it was alright.
My wife got the seared Mahi Mahi and she said it was pretty good. She didn't seem thrilled about it (I think she likes Red Lobster's better) but she enjoyed it.
Friday
Dinner @ Le Cellier
We were super lucky with this reservation. We originally had reservations for Via Napoli for lunch again but we woke up late. So we were wondering where we'd eat to use up a credit and hit up the new Dining Reservation mobile site on my iPhone. As luck would have it, a 8:40 reservation was strangely available at Le Cellier. I'd been checking every few days for months trying to get a reservation on any day even for lunch and had no luck. Needless to say, we were excited!
I got the New York Strip Steak and my wife got the Pork Chop. Honestly, I'm not a huge steak connoisseur... so I probably don't appreciate this place as much as some people. The steak was good -- it had a nice butterly flavor on top and was generally tasty. If I had to pick an Outback Special w/ cheese fries or this dish... I'd go with the Outback Special, but mostly because I love cheese fries.
My wife loved the pork chop. We both got the chocolate whiskey cake and it was super rich. Very good if you like chocolate.
Our waitress looked like Kristen Kreuk. She forgot her name tag at home that day as well. Random information.
Anyway, the restaurant is very romantic and we'd definitely go again on the dining plan.
Saturday
Dinner @ Ohana
This was by far the best meal we'd had and a great way to end our vacation. We had a 9:50 reservation (the only one we could get!) but it worked out perfectly because Wishes was at 10pm that night. We got a nice seat where we could see the Magic Kingdom. When Wishes began they piped the soundtrack into the speaker system of the restaurant and dimmed the lights. It was really nice and a different perspective seeing the fireworks from the restaurant. Very cool. On to the food!
The pineapple-coconut bread: amazing! We're going to try to make this ourselves at home.
Salad: I'm not big on Salad, but my wife enjoyed it.
Vegetables: See above.
Pork Potstickers: They were really sweet. I'd never had potstickers before so I don't know what to compare them to. I ate half of one -- they were ok.
Sticky Wings: These were covered in a sweet sauce as well. I'm not huge on sweet sauces. I had one and went back to the pineapple bread
Main course!
- Steak - This was good stuff. A little bit undercooked for my taste (I'm a well done guy) but still very tasty. Had a flame broiled flavor, but generally just tasted like steak.
- Shrimp - Absolutely delicious. The sauce they're cooked in was a bit spicy.
- Chicken - Amazing. The first set of chicken I got was the best food I'd tasted at Disney. The second set I got wasn't AS great, but was still really good. First set > shrimp > second set.
- Pork - The pork was cooked in another sweet sauce. It wasn't bad, but considering how great the other 3 meats were, this one got left on the wayside.
Dessert!
- Again, not a big dessert person. The bread pudding was good, but I was stuffed with shrimp, bread, and chicken. I would have preferred another loaf of the pineapple bread for dessert My wife loved the ice cream.
Ohana is probably the only restaurant on our list to visit again even if we don't have the dining plan. The cast members were all extremely nice. We love the atmosphere of the restaurant and the Polynesian in general. After eating here we've decided we're not going to stay on Disney property unless we're staying at the Poylnesian. We're switching to visiting the Polynesian every other year instead of a Value Resort every year. We just loved the place that much!
We've been on the dining plan twice now (my wife and I), but this is the first time we upgraded from quick service to the normal dining plan. We stayed at Pop Century, which was leagues ahead of All Star Movies in terms of bus service. One thing that surprised us is how much the Dining Plan is different from the QSDP. We hadn't realized that they'd taken away appetizers and included-tip from the normal Dining Plan, so that was a bummer. The other thing that shocked us is the drop to 1 snack per person per day and that they take away the resort refillable mug. We ended up still having snacks left over, but only because we were frugal the first half of the trip.
Anyway, on with the meals. I'm only going to review the table service restaurants because the hot dogs, burgers, and chicken tenders at the counter service locations aren't really anything worth reviewing.
Sunday
Breakfast @ Kona
I'd heard rave reviews of the Tonga Toast at Kona, so I made sure we tried it. We actually had my parents and my brother join us for this one (they were on QSDP and weren't staying as long as us, but I convinced them to try it). I got the Tonga Toast and my wife got the Kahuna Plate and we split the meal. The Tonga Toast was alright -- not anything to rave about. The bacon had an odd flavor to it -- I preferred counter service bacon to this stuff. The sausage was alright. I didn't try the scrambled eggs but my wife wasn't impressed. My wife really liked the Tonga Toast, but I'm the picky one and I'm not huge on breakfast anyway.
In conclusion, I probably wouldn't go again. But I'm not someone who enjoys breakfast.
Dinner @ Via Napoli
This was one of my favorite meals. I had the Margherita Pizza and my wife had one with veggies on it, I believe. The pizza was absolutely delicious, but the texture was slightly abnormal. I'm big on texture and it did bother me. The center of the pizza was a bit moist and the clumpy cheese bothered me a bit. Once I was able to convince myself to ignore that, I really enjoyed the pizza.
For desert I had the apple cake and my wife had the tiramisu. The apple cake was a bit bland and dry. I imagine you're supposed to eat the almond sorbet with it, but I didn't like the almond sorbet so that didn't help. My wife adored the tiramisu.
Also, they have really good Coke here. If you're not a fan of the counter service Coke, this stuff is a dream come true.
Monday
Dinner @ Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater
I had pretty good memories of this place before it became super expensive. My parents used to take me here around 15 years ago. My brother was big into sci-fi so my parents didn't mind paying a few more dollars for our hot dogs. Now, the menu is much more limited and it's a lot more pricey.
My wife and I both got the same thing -- Ribs. They were absolutely the worst ribs I've ever had before. It was like we received a rubber dog toy. It was impossible to get the meat off the bones without sawing it off with a steak knife, and the poor lighting of the restaurant made it fairly impossible to see what you were cutting at. To be fair, the BBQ sauce was phenomenal and the fries were great with it... but the ribs, terrible.
For dessert we both got the Peanut Butter Chocolate Lava Cake or whatever it's called. We could taste the peanut butter but couldn't actually see it... it looked like chocolate sauce in the middle to us. It also came with Reeses Pieces scattered around the plate - a nice touch. I don't know if the cake was really good or if we were just really hungry after not eating any of our entree, but either way... I think it was good cake.
They also allow for flavorings in your soda. I had a cherry-flavored Coke. It was pretty good, but if you're expecting a Cherry Coke, it's a quite sweeter flavor. I believe they just put grenadine into the coke. Not bad, just not what I was expecting.
Though we're not going to ever come back here (the only thing I was interested in on the menu was ribs), the waitress was super nice and offered to give us both a different entree for free.
Tuesday
Breakfast @ Crystal Palace
My wife wanted to check out the Crystal Palace, which is the whole reason we got the normal dining plan to begin with. Honestly, if you've been to a Ponderosa or Golden Corral for breakfast, this is pretty much the same quality level food. It's alright, but nothing amazing. The best thing I tried was the puffed french toast (that was actually in the kids area). It didn't taste anything like french toast, but it was great. I'm pretty sure it's just a big homemade donut / fried dough.
For those who are interested, the Coke here wasn't that great. Yes, I love Coke... so I kept track of where there was good Coke (since every counter service place generally has the same bad Coke).
Dinner @ The Plaza Restaurant
This place had a burger, so of course it was on my list of places to eat. The burger was just ok. Nothing special about it, and if I had actually paid the $12 for it, I'd probably be sad. I'd rather have just about any fast food burger, personally. It was large, though. A big square patty that hung over the edges of the bun. The bun was dry and a bit too thick for my tastes. The fries were tasty, though.
My wife got a turkey sandwich which she said was delicious.
I got the brownie sundae and my wife got a milkshake to go. The brownie sundae was absolutely huge for a single serving. There were 3 or 4 brownies in there and about 3 scoops of ice cream. It was good, but next time I'd probably ask for it without the whipped cream, because there was a LOT of whipped cream on it.
Wednesday
We went to Universal Studios today to see the Harry Potter's Wizarding World for my wife / mom. If you're claustrophobic, stay away from this place. It was absolutely mobbed with tourists, many of whom didn't speak English. It was poorly organized and mobs were just running around randomly and stopping traffic. I know this has nothing to do with dining, but it was pretty miserable. My mom and wife liked it, but they're absolute fanatics about Harry Potter. If you're just curious about it and not a fanatic, stay away.
We stood in line for over an hour just for the opportunity to enter the wand shop, which had a two minute presentation and then dumped 20 people into an incredibly tiny room filled with wands for you to buy. Seriously, they should have anticipated it being a little more popular or at least sell wands in one of the larger shops and not require standing in line for an hour to get one. My mom snuck into the back of the wand shop and bought one for my little brother. Try that if you really want a wand -- the "experience" of a "wand fitting" or whatever it is only happens for a single kid out of the 20 they let in at a time. Overall, it took 4+ hours to go on two rides and go through the shops. Ridiculous!
As for dining, we went to The Whopper Bar for lunch. It's just a Burger King that lets you get a ton of different toppings on your whopper. Considering the fact that I only get standard burger ingredients on my whoppers, it was nothing special. I thought it would be like a buffet style burger place where you actually put the ingredients on yourself. That was a bit disappointing... but it wasn't Wizarding World, which made it an enjoyable experience.
We headed over to Wolfang Puck Express for dinner. My parents enjoyed their pepperoni pizzas and I got the chicken tenders. They don't use the same breading on them as they did last December, which is a bummer. It's a thicker breading now which isn't bad but isn't as tasty. I don't think they cook their fries in Olive Oil anymore, either. Probably a consequence of the never-ending free dining. My wife got the Rosemary Chicken which she's enjoyed for three trips now.
They didn't have any brownies or chocolate chip cookies (two of my favorite Disney desserts). I was pretty bummed. I got the sugar cookie which ended up being pretty good, but nowhere near as awesome as the chocolate chip kind.
Thursday
My wife wasn't feeling well on Thursday so we skipped our Yak & Yeti lunch.
Dinner @ Planet Hollywood
This place is really loud and crowded. It made me a bit claustrophobic, but the Ribs here made up for it. While they're normally ridiculously priced, the Dining Plan made me free to grab the Ribs & Fries here. The BBQ was awesome and the ribs were great. The fries were very crispy and went great with the BBQ. I got a milkshake to go and it was alright.
My wife got the seared Mahi Mahi and she said it was pretty good. She didn't seem thrilled about it (I think she likes Red Lobster's better) but she enjoyed it.
Friday
Dinner @ Le Cellier
We were super lucky with this reservation. We originally had reservations for Via Napoli for lunch again but we woke up late. So we were wondering where we'd eat to use up a credit and hit up the new Dining Reservation mobile site on my iPhone. As luck would have it, a 8:40 reservation was strangely available at Le Cellier. I'd been checking every few days for months trying to get a reservation on any day even for lunch and had no luck. Needless to say, we were excited!
I got the New York Strip Steak and my wife got the Pork Chop. Honestly, I'm not a huge steak connoisseur... so I probably don't appreciate this place as much as some people. The steak was good -- it had a nice butterly flavor on top and was generally tasty. If I had to pick an Outback Special w/ cheese fries or this dish... I'd go with the Outback Special, but mostly because I love cheese fries.
My wife loved the pork chop. We both got the chocolate whiskey cake and it was super rich. Very good if you like chocolate.
Our waitress looked like Kristen Kreuk. She forgot her name tag at home that day as well. Random information.
Anyway, the restaurant is very romantic and we'd definitely go again on the dining plan.
Saturday
Dinner @ Ohana
This was by far the best meal we'd had and a great way to end our vacation. We had a 9:50 reservation (the only one we could get!) but it worked out perfectly because Wishes was at 10pm that night. We got a nice seat where we could see the Magic Kingdom. When Wishes began they piped the soundtrack into the speaker system of the restaurant and dimmed the lights. It was really nice and a different perspective seeing the fireworks from the restaurant. Very cool. On to the food!
The pineapple-coconut bread: amazing! We're going to try to make this ourselves at home.
Salad: I'm not big on Salad, but my wife enjoyed it.
Vegetables: See above.
Pork Potstickers: They were really sweet. I'd never had potstickers before so I don't know what to compare them to. I ate half of one -- they were ok.
Sticky Wings: These were covered in a sweet sauce as well. I'm not huge on sweet sauces. I had one and went back to the pineapple bread
Main course!
- Steak - This was good stuff. A little bit undercooked for my taste (I'm a well done guy) but still very tasty. Had a flame broiled flavor, but generally just tasted like steak.
- Shrimp - Absolutely delicious. The sauce they're cooked in was a bit spicy.
- Chicken - Amazing. The first set of chicken I got was the best food I'd tasted at Disney. The second set I got wasn't AS great, but was still really good. First set > shrimp > second set.
- Pork - The pork was cooked in another sweet sauce. It wasn't bad, but considering how great the other 3 meats were, this one got left on the wayside.
Dessert!
- Again, not a big dessert person. The bread pudding was good, but I was stuffed with shrimp, bread, and chicken. I would have preferred another loaf of the pineapple bread for dessert
My wife loved the ice cream.Ohana is probably the only restaurant on our list to visit again even if we don't have the dining plan. The cast members were all extremely nice. We love the atmosphere of the restaurant and the Polynesian in general. After eating here we've decided we're not going to stay on Disney property unless we're staying at the Poylnesian. We're switching to visiting the Polynesian every other year instead of a Value Resort every year. We just loved the place that much!
