A Fly on the Wall Meal Review: How we ate in WDW on the QSDP *YORKSHIRE FISH SHOP*

[TxRabbit]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my third dining report.

If you have ever wondered how other people eat on vacation: When do they eat? Where do they eat? How often do they eat? How much do they eat? Do they split meals?

And especially if you have ever comtemplated the QSDP meal plan and wondered: Would it work for your family?

...this is the review for you.

Not only will this review tell you about the food that we ate, it will give you a complete and total picture of how we used our entitlements on our vacation.

This was our budget trip. Value resort with free QSDP. This was a complete departure from our very planned DXDDP trip we took last year.

This trip was all about go with the flow, what do you feel like doing today? Literally. My DS picked where we would go each day.

While little was planned in advance, much research went into knowing good options for my family. The inevitable question arose: "What can we do for food?" I felt a bit like a walking Disney Dining Encyclopedia, but it was my job to know the answer.

My family consists of myself (38), DH (37), and DS (9) whom I upgraded to an adult for this trip.

Without further ado, I will be posting an account of where and when we spent each of our entitlements from Sunday, August 15 to Friday, August 20 from All Star Sports Resort.

 

[TxRabbit]

How we spent:

30 CS credits
30 Snack credits
2 OOP TS meals
1 OOP CS side dish
2 OOP CS entree

For 3 people in 6 days/5 nights.

SUNDAY, August 15: Arrival Night

Dinner (9:31 PM):
Sports End Zone Food Court
3 CS
3 Resort Refillable Mugs

MONDAY, August 16: Disney Quest/Downtown Disney

Breakfast (9:40 AM ADR):
Cape May Cafe Character
OOP TS meal

Late Lunch (3:15 PM):
Wolfgang Puck Express
4 CS

Late Dinner (9:00 PM):
Pepper Market @ Coronado Springs
3 CS

TUESDAY, August 17: Magic Kingdom

Lunch (12 Noon):
MK Liberty Sq Turkey Wagon
Liberty Square Produce Market
2 CS
4 Snacks

Early Afternoon snack (3:00 PM):
MK Snack Cart
Aloha Isle
Free Ice Water
3 Snack

Afternoon snack (4:00 PM):
MK Popcorn Cart
2 Snacks

Dinner (5:30 PM):
Contemp Cafe
3 CS

Late Night Snack (9:30 PM):
Sports End Zone Food Court
1 CS
2 Snacks

WEDNESDAY: Epcot

Breakfast (10:15 AM):
Sunshine Season Food Fair
3 CS

Lunch (2:30 PM):
Tangierine Cafe
2 CS

Snack (4:10 PM):
Germany Sommerfest
1 Snack
2 Souvenir Beers OOP

Snack (6:15 PM):
Norway Kringla Bakery
2 Snacks

Dinner (7:30 PM):
Yorkshire County Fish Shop
3 CS
2 Souvenir Beers OOP (UK Beer Cart)

THURSDAY, August 19: Hollywood Studios

Breakfast (11:15 AM):
Starring Rolls Cafe
10 Snacks

Lunch (1:25 PM ADR):
Hollywood Brown Derby
OOP TS meal

Dinner (7:13 PM):
Sports End Zone Food Court
2 CS
OOP side dish

Late Night Snack (10:47 PM):
Fantasmic
2 Snacks
2 OOP Draft Beers

FRIDAY, August 20: Departure Day / Disney Quest / Downtown Disney

Early Lunch (11:10 AM):
Wolfgang Puck Express
3 CS

Road Trip Snacks (3:45 PM):
Goofy Candy Company
4 Snacks

Road Trip Late Lunch (3:51 PM):
1 CS
2 OOP sandwiches

 

[Denamac]

Looking forward to your review. We leave in a few weeks for our "budget" trip too. First time on QSDP; we usually go DxDP!

 

[hsembrick]

Excited to read your review! We are thinking of doing a budget trip this spring with QSDP!

 

[disneyfav4ever]

Looking foward to your reviews!

 

[darthtatty]

looking forward to your reviews

 

[2Tiggies]

I like QSDP reviews. I'm really looking forward to reading yours.

 

[TxRabbit]

We drove to WDW from the Houston area.

We drove straight through. 14 hours on the road.

The car was unpacked.

We were hungry for dinner.

It was after 9:00 PM.

We did NOT want to get into the car to go anywhere for dinner. We decided to try out the one and only dining option at All Star Sports, Sports End Zone Food Court.

This was our first experience with any kind of food court at WDW. It was like any other food court you might encounter at a shopping mall with different stations serving different themed foods. It reminded us of our university food court. If you have ever happened to attend Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and know what I mean when I say "Coates," then you have a great idea of what dining at the ASSp food court was like.

There were 6 different zones:

1. Pizza and Pasta: Here they had cheese or pepperoni pizza, a chicken alfredo pasta, spaghetti with maranara sauce, hot panini style sandwich, breadsticks, soup, Caesar salad, and several of the aforementioned served with side salads.

2. Grill: Hamburgers, hot dogs.

3. Specialty Dinners: Half-chicken, turkey, salmon, etc. served with choice of starch and veggie side dishes; nachos, etc.

4. Self-Serve Refrigerated: bottled drinks, pre-packaged desserts, fruit cups, veggie cups, side salads.

5. Self-Serve Bakery: All sorts of assorted breads, muffins, desserts

6. Ice Cream: milkshakes, sundaes, ice cream cookie sandwiches.

There was an excellent selection. The big draw back to the excellent selection is the possibility that your family may need to stand in different lines, each with a varying speed of delivery of product, which can result in one person standing around waiting for the rest of the party while their food gets closer and closer to room temperature.

At 9:30 PM, this food court was hopping. All food lines were lengthy. The CMs were working diligently, but the service was still on the slow side.

DH and DS wanted burgers. They hopped in the Grill line, one of the longest lines. I didn't want all that bread, so I opted for the Specialty dinner line. The half chicken looked very good, but it was literally HALF a chicken, breast,wing, thigh and leg. I couldn't eat all that. I saw that the Turkey plate was freshly carved from a roasted turkey breast. It looked juicy and wonderfully cooked. I opted for that with mashed potatoes and veggies.

There was a major delay in serving my turkey. Apparantly, a more "chef-like" CM, dressed more chef-like than cafeteria worker, was needed to carve the turkey. So we waited for one to be available while they finished other necessary tasks. Using a kitchen scale, she cut and weighed out a serving of turkey. The other CM was able to precisely use a scoop to measure the mashed potatoes and the veggies. It was served with a dinner roll. If you are trying to calculate calories, this would be an excellent menu choice and the servings were EXACT. I didn't bother to ask about the size, but I'm guessing it was 4 ounces of cooked turkey meat, 1 cup each of mashed potatoes and mixed veggies.

DH and DS were still waiting when I was done. The hamburgers and other grill items would come hot off the grill and be placed under a heat lamp where a different CM would grab that plate, matching plate to customer and finish it off, so to speak, with a choice of pasta salad or french fries, or whatever. DH and DS both got the bacon double cheeseburgers with fries. Upon request, the CM retrieved a pre-plated arrangement of lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion from a refrigerator case.

Knowing that we would be getting our refillable mugs, we opted for 3 bottled waters for our CS entitlement drink. We wanted ice cream for dessert and learned that we could retrieve the ice cream within 90 minutes of purchase. At check out, we purchased one each of: hot fudge sundae, brownie sundae, and ice cream cookie sandwich. (Only the fudge sundae would qualify as a Snack on a meal plan).

Most receipts 0.00 the price of all items ordered. I'm not able to find prices I recall seeing online, but I do remember that with the 3 refillable mugs, the grand total before credits were applied was over $103.00.

The drink station was huge. I'm a big iced tea fan. I was happy to see a Gold Peak ice tea dispenser. You can choose one of four different options: 1. Unsweeten Black Tea, 2. White Tea with Citrus, 3. Sweet Green Tea, 4. Sweet Black Tea. Sadly, there is no Diet Dr. Pepper for DH, he made do with Diet Coke. DS is a water only drinker, so he was happy.

I apologize here for the lack of pictures for this meal, but I had left the camera in the room.

The burgers were tasty. The bacon is that special Disney bacon, super thin, perfectly crisp, with NO black on it at all. The toppings for the burger were rather wilted and dry from being uncovered in a refrigerator. (To her credit, the CM did search for the best looking ones she could find). DH used his and DS's to top his burger, as DS doesn't like anything but ketchup. The fries were super hot and fresh and yummy.

The turkey was AWESOME. Truly. Juicy and well seasoned, REAL breast meat. The mashed potatoes were SALTY. The gravy balanced the salt though. The veggies were typical of a cooked mixed frozen variety. Brocolli, cauliflower, carrots. They weren't too mushy.

After eating our entrees, DH was kind enough to get our desserts while DS and I waited. They stamped his receipt three times with a big VOID stamp at the ice cream station, one for each dessert on the receipt.

These desserts were ALL ridiculously sized. They were absolutely IMMENSE. The cookies for the sandwich were almost as big as the small plate, about 5" in diameter. The ice cream was over an inch thick. The brownie sundae took a full sized brownie with huge scoops of ice cream, fudge and tons of whipped cream. The regular fudge sundae was more normal, but after our big meal, it was still huge looking. As tasty as the vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce were, we did not finish all our desserts.

We had sat at a booth in the food court. The table area was surprising empty compared to how many people were milling around the food service area. The dining area wasn't overly loud at this time in the evening. There were cartoons playing on a large TV at the end of the room. We were able to have a normal speaking voice conversation.

All in all, the food itself was on par with what you would expect from such a location. The food court concept create the pros (lots of variety) and cons (different lines, varying wait/serving times) of such an establishment. I wasn't disappointed or impressed. It was a handy place to have onsite, but I was glad that it wasn't our only option for the week to come.

 

[TxRabbit]

Looking forward to your review. We leave in a few weeks for our "budget" trip too. First time on QSDP; we usually go DxDP!

If you planned and researched and scheduled your DxDDP, then you may really enjoy the more free wheeling touring that the QSDP lets you have. We really did this time around.

Excited to read your review! We are thinking of doing a budget trip this spring with QSDP!

The QSDP was GREAT for a budget trip! I really appreciated not having to budget for tips. You can have a lot of fun with the QSDP plan. For the first time, we were hungry for snacks!

Looking foward to your reviews!

looking forward to your reviews

I like QSDP reviews. I'm really looking forward to reading yours.

Welcome everyone! I like writing reviews (it helps to relive the trip and relieve the post trip blues ). I hope you enjoy!

 

[disney_princess_85]

I loved your last report! Looking forward to more.

 

[Denamac]

That's exactly what I think too! We loved the DxDP, but I am looking forward to the freedom that QSDP is going to allow us!

 

[disneyfav4ever]

You have no idea how happy I am to hear they have Gold Peak tea for the mugs. I'm trying to cut back on soda, and was even thinking about not getting a mug this trip, but I just changed my mind about that.

 

[Sazzo'sMommy]

I can't wait to see more pictures! This is a great report!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

I am really looking forward to this report because it closely follows our lifestyle, low carb, tea drinkers, loving Sports, and taking it nice and easy. Thank you!

Slightly Goofy

 

[TxRabbit]

We knew that we wanted to do one character breakfast. It didn't matter that this would be an OOP meal. We were not interested in having more ADRs, so upgrading our QSDP was not an option.

Donald is DS's favorite character at this time. Based on prior experience, Cape May Cafe was my top choice. We hadn't been since Chip & Dale left and Donald came over. Our first touring day is always down to DTD and Disney Quest. It works well because DQ doesn't open until 11:30 AM. We can sleep in a little bit, recover from our travel day, have a leisurely breakfast and still be at a park for opening.

I made an 9:40 AM ADR.

I think we left our resort some time after 9 AM. The wait was super short.

We were seated in the side room that is immediately to your right when you enter the restaurant. IMO, it is the least desirable area to sit in the restaurant, being a small low-ceilinged room with no windows. I didn't ask to be seated elsewhere. Sometimes, you have to be willing to be the ones that get seated in a less desirable location. Our host explained that the characters would come by every 15 minutes and that we had time to hit the buffet immediately.

CMC has a nice selection. The buffet is like a rectangle in the middle of the restaurant. On a short side is a great selection of cut fruit, including cantelope, pineapple, honeydew, etc. There is oatmeal and grits and a huge selection of toppings. Down the long sides are almost mirror image hot selections, including scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, etc. On the other short side are all the flour based carbs, including pastries and sweet breads, mickey waffles, etc. There is a separate counter with a toaster for breakfast breads, including bagels, sliced bread and appropriate toppings including cream cheese and jellies.

Here are some plates from the buffet. I was excited to see asparagus, which I love. It wasn't trimmed well, so the ends were pretty stringy, but otherwise, they were a perfect al dente and super tasty. It's one of the few veggies that I love for brunch. The bacon was Disney AWESOME. The eggs were fluffy and buttery. It was tasty goodness:

Fresh fruit:

One difference between the two hot selections sides was the eggs. One side had eggs with cheese and veggies. A surprisingly tasty item was the sticky looking brown thing on the left with the raisins on top. This was served in a big cast iron skillet. It was like a french toast casserole. It was yummy!

Our room was filled with families with children ranging from high chairs to teens. It's always entertaining to see the characters interact with the different kids. The characters all seemed to be sensitive to the hopes of the parents, trying to help their screaming toddler get over their fear, and the children, from the fearless infant in the high chair (they kiss their heads) to encouraging the reluctant but wanting to participate tweens. Not a single character rushed through the room.

Donald was the first to enter our domain.

There was a rather large separation in time after Donald (could have been close to 15 minutes) for Minnie and Goofy. We almost left after just seeing Donald, but we could see Minnie and Goofy coming in quickly, so we hung around.

We didn't linger this day. You can read my review of this buffet in my 2007 dining report, which was a very different experience, with mulitple character interactions. We were satisfied with our experience and ready to hit the road.

The check was closed out at 10:15 AM. The total after tax, before tip, for one child and two adults: $57.48.

It was a great kick off to our Disney vacation.

 

[TxRabbit]

I loved your last report! Looking forward to more.

I'm glad to read this! I'm glad you enjoy my reports!

That's exactly what I think too! We loved the DxDP, but I am looking forward to the freedom that QSDP is going to allow us!

Each trip is different. Sometimes one plan works better than another. DxDDP was fun, AND the QSDP was a GREAT follow up to that. From one extreme to the other!

You have no idea how happy I am to hear they have Gold Peak tea for the mugs. I'm trying to cut back on soda, and was even thinking about not getting a mug this trip, but I just changed my mind about that.

I was pumped to see the Gold Peak. I gave up soda several years ago. It can be so difficult to find a drink. I love water but seriously, sometimes you want some flavor. I found that I liked to have the unsweet black tea with some of the white tea with citrus. Sometimes the unsweet tea had a funny after taste? The other tea helped that a lot. By itself, it was too sweet for me, the blend was great.

I can't wait to see more pictures! This is a great report!

Thank you. I didn't take pictures of everything. Somethings just didn't need a photograph. But I'll include all I have.

I am really looking forward to this report because it closely follows our lifestyle, low carb, tea drinkers, loving Sports, and taking it nice and easy. Thank you!

Slightly Goofy

The more we go to Disney, the more I figure out HOW to go to Disney. Taking it nice and easy is SO the way to do Disney. Especially in the August heat. The QSDP worked well for us this go around.

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

TxRabbit, in my neck of the woods the brown casserole you described is called bread pudding. It is sort of a sweet strata, composed of bread cubes, eggs and flavorings. An excellent way to get rid of leftovers. Ever notice that many of our favorite foods started out as a way to eliminate waste?

It is pretty over there at CM. I enjoy the dinner soups myself.

Slightly Goofy

 

[TxRabbit]

TxRabbit, in my neck of the woods the brown casserole you described is called bread pudding. It is sort of a sweet strata, composed of bread cubes, eggs and flavorings. An excellent way to get rid of leftovers. Ever notice that many of our favorite foods started out as a way to eliminate waste?

It is pretty over there at CM. I enjoy the dinner soups myself.

Slightly Goofy

You know, I got that dish because I thought it was bread pudding. But it was more like a french toast version of cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet. No bread cubes. It was one big solid that you sliced off from the pan. The sticky stuff was an added topping, a kind of maple syrup glaze with raisins. It tasted just like french toast too; I didn't have a big portion of it, but if I had, I would have headed back up to the buffet to get some more syrup to put over it!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

They have a French Toast Loaf at the MS Bakery and that might be sort of what you got. It is still basically a bread pudding only baked in a bread pan instead of a casserole.

I do not care for sweets too much so it would not be for me.

Thank you for your report. I am looking forward to the QSDP options. I know most of them but I can always learn something new.

Slightly Goofy

 

[chocolateMinnie]

great reviews so far - how lovely to have the dxdp last trip - luxurious food but huge planning and the laid back qsdp this trip. It's sort of what we did last year but had the ddp and had buffet breakfasts each day and mainly cs dinners.