This was our first time trying 1900 Park Fare, and we were lucky to score an ADR here, especially since we changed to dates last minute. I had been trying for a few months to replace my ADR for 8/29 to an earlier time, with no luck, and when I first rescheduled the trip, nothing was available for PF on the 30th at all. Well, right before my power went out on Sunday am (due to Irene), I was able to book PF for 4:45 pm on the 30th.
We made our way over to the GF a little early just to be sure we arrived on time. Let me tell you, the transportation from CSR to everywhere was AMAZING, and we arrived at GF way earlier than we had anticipated (we took the bus to MK and the monorail to GF). We spent some time wandering around, listening to the band on the balcony of the lobby, browsing the shops, and we came to the shocking conclusion that we would really like to stay there some day!
This is shocking because we are die-hard Poly people who thought we really had no interest whatsoever in the theme of the GF, but spending a little while there, we were really impressed by the beauty and elegance, while at the same time...extremely relaxing atmosphere. Hercules, the musician, especially is really into it. He says that any resort with a live band in the lobby is his kind of place. I also had time to stop at the concierge desk to pick up my tickets for the HDDR the next night. We found all the staff members we encountered there to be very inviting, and didn't get any sense of that "stuffiness" we often read about on forums.
Anyway, we had a 4:45 ADR and we checked in at about 4:30. We were taken right away to our table...through the dining room to that annex room on the side. I politely asked the hostess if it would be possible to wait for a table in the main dining room, as we didn't want to miss any entertainment. She assured me that we wouldn't miss anything, and in fact, the characters would reach us faster if we sat in that room, but I explained that we were not in any hurry and would rather sit longer and enjoy a slow meal and be in the main dining room. I emphasized that we would be happy to wait. She used a little walkie-talkie type thing and got us a tbale in the dining room, and we were so happy!
So Aladdin started off his first vacation dinner with an Eco-tini:
He liked it, but I think it was a little sweeter than he had expected. It came with a cute bracelet that we both like.
I went with my now traditional Magical Star Cocktail:
So yummy, and beautiful, too! This was was blinking all the colors!
To be honest, we weren't very impressed with most of the food on the buffet. I took a few pictures, which I will share, and try to list the selections here. If I don't comment, none of us tried it. There was Caesar Salad and mixed baby greens salad with dressing on the side, seafood salad, 3 kinds of sushi rolls (these were great, we all went back for more!), green beans (good), coq au vin (sauce yummy, chicken dry), chicken marsala (not sure why they had both chicken marsala and coq au vin, we only tasted the french variety?), stir-fried beef with vegetables, baked salmon with creamy dill sauce (very good!), seafood jambalaya (OK), carved beef (pretty good, various stages of well-ness, love it with the horseradish sauce), turkey, pork (looked dry), and 3 kinds of soups - strawberry (out-of-this-world, but tasted more like a dessert, a melted vanilla with strawberry topping Carvel sundae), tomato florentine (good) and chicken noodle. There was some kind of pasta dish that did not look good, maybe it was a bolognese sauce? There was also a kids' section with mashed potatoes, roasted or baked chicken (not nuggets), mac & cheese (Stouffer's style, same as most places in WDW - we like it like this) and pizza.
For dessert, there was bread pudding with vanilla sauce (this was a little bit dry but very tasty, tasted like good french toast), rice crispy treats, brownies, a variety of tarts (Aladdin liked the key lime well enough), carrot cake (those who tried really liked this).
Here are the photos I took.
Coq au vin:
Sushi pieces (best item on buffet, which ain't saying much) and carved beef with horseradish sauce:
Herc's plate of comfort food, mostly from kids' section. You can also see they had rolls, and that is the tomato florentine soup:
Belle's plate of sushi, potatoes and strawberry soup:
Aladdin's mashed potatoes, beef, pork (exceptionally dry), green beans, sushi and strawberry soup:
So that's the food. But we really came here for the characters...they were FANTASTIC! We are so happy we tried this place, because we just loved the interaction and had tons of laughs. I like to really egg them on, and I asked Cinderella if Prince Charming's REAL name was "Charming" in ear shot of Lady Tremaine. So she came over and started making fun of me for caring about the name of...a cartoon! Later, Drizella was flirting with Hercules and he was teasing her about how he buys and sells castles for a living, and she was trying to convince him to talk to her mother to make marriage arrangements. She said a rich guy with multiple castles was much better than a prince with only one castle. When Anastasia was at our table, our mortgage broker called (of course we had been playing phone tag and with the hurricane all business had stopped before we left for vacation), and when I answered, she started yelling into the phone "She's on vacation, there's a reason she didn't invite you!" We all had tears streaming by the end of the meal. We had a real ball and got some hysterical photos...which sadly I am not allowed to share for privacy reasons. Trust me, it was great!
I imagine we might go back to 1900 PF if/when we ever stay at GF again. The food was passable, we didn't leave hungry, but the characters made the experience. We wouldn't go out of our way for this one, though, when there are so many other wonderful experiences waiting to be enjoyed, but we are so glad we did it once!
! If I ever get back there, I will definitely order this!
