A quick post.....just back

[maxaroni]

Had free dining plan and loved it. We had 4 leftover CS's when we checked out and 3 snack credits. We were driving, so got tons of food for our dinner last nite. The snacks will be good for lunch as school is starting next week...

We did not do the Fantasmic Dinner pkg and glad we didn't. I suppose it would depend on when you are going as to how crowded it is but it wasn't necessary for us.

We used our CS's for breakfast and able to get OJ AND Coffee with our meals. We weren't planning on it and assumed we'd have to pay for one or the other. The CM said that was fine and credited as such. She said the OJ was a fruit and therefore, a dessert. This was the case, each morning. The only question came about when my ds was at another register and had OJ and hot chocolate...the hot chocolate was charged as a snack. DH went to inquire at the front desk and the CM agreed that the hot chocolate should work the same as the coffee. DH didn't want to take from the plan, what we shouldn't but wanted to take what was right. DH asked to speak to the dining manager and dh was told that we were correct. Go figure.

We ate at Olivias, Liberty Tree Tavern, Mama Melrose, Le Cellier, Whispering Canyon, Spoodles, Ohanas, Boma and Chef Mickey (breakfast)

I don't have a lot of time, at the moment, so a quick post with more to follow when time allows. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Adding: We asked at each restaurant if there were any exclusions and always told 'no'. We added on shrimp at both Le Cellier and Spoodles. Knowing there was some controversy at Spoodles (from reading the boards) and that it isn't a Disney Restaurant, I wasn't sure what to expect. Our waitress was very friendly and said that there would be no problem to get the shrimp add on ($5.00).

Those of you trying to decide on the Fantasmic dinner pkg...as I said, we didn't do it and the last time we were at WDW, people were lined up on the street waiting to get in early. I don't know when it changed but the gates are opened up 2 hrs prior to show time and you can get a spot to sit. We got there 1.5 hrs prior and many were in there having their dinner. We figured that we only sat an extra hour as opposed to getting the pkg and needing to be their 30 mins prior.

 

[pennyplanner]

Welcome back Maxaroni!

Let's have some details... how about highlights of Boma and Whispering Canyon Cafe over at WL?

Thanks,

penny

 

[natalielongstaff]

welcome back

 

[NadiasMommy]

Welcome Home! I am curious to hear more about how the Dining plan went for you...I am anticipating nightmares..in a counter service line..trying to figure out how much we are allowed to have..and what charges go where...any advice??

Glad you had a great trip. Wishing the kids a great first day back at school!

 

[Minniespal]

Welcome home ~ Can't wait to read more.

 

[maxaroni]

Welcome back Maxaroni!

Let's have some details... how about highlights of Boma and Whispering Canyon Cafe over at WL?

Thanks,

penny

Loved Boma....we had been there before and remembered it to be a favorite. We walked out totally stuffed. The buffet had some interesting items, some we liked and some we didn't. I was very proud of my ds12 as he tried many interesting and new foods. He learned to just take a tiny bit of each for a taste and going back if he liked an item. The waitstaff were all very helpful and friendly. Any specific question?

WCC: what a hoot! We had never been there before and had read some mixed reviews. For us, it's a place we were glad we experienced but don't need to go back. Keep in mind that we have a ds12....if he were younger, it would probably be a return visit. The whole restaurant was 'into it' the evening we were there. We got up many times to bring crayons to other tables, ketchup went around the room many times, a huge set of utensils went to the table next to us. One CM came out bringing food and each time clunked the tray holder on the floor as he walked. My dh got up for "I'm a little buttercup" as all the men were asked to get up and dance. There were a few birthday celebrations that evening and the birthday people had to ride the stick pony around the room and one was asked to go through the lobby as she didn't sing loud enough. Straws were thrown at us as were the cocktail napkins.

 

[maxaroni]

Welcome Home! I am curious to hear more about how the Dining plan went for you...I am anticipating nightmares..in a counter service line..trying to figure out how much we are allowed to have..and what charges go where...any advice??

Glad you had a great trip. Wishing the kids a great first day back at school!

We had a great experience with the dining plan. I found it to be more confusing before we went with trying to figure it all out. Once there, it seemed to all fall into place. We only did a CS for breakfast as breakfast is a must for us. We prefer to have breakfast and snack through lunch having an earlyish dinner. Some days our lunch was a frozen banana (snack). We brought snacks in our backpack, too.

Breakfast was fairly easy as we got the breakfast platter, juice and coffee. It was all counted as a CS meal. The day my ds had trouble with the hot chocolate, he had gotten a muffin and side of bacon. I think that totally confused them but it all worked out. The HC was the beverage with the OJ being the fruit.

Dinners we had no problems at all. As far as snacks, we had no trouble with the carts in the park. One evening we were going to get a snack at POFQ as we had gone to Ohanas and the 'dessert' was the pineapple with caramel sauce. My ds doesn't like pineapple so off to POFQ and they didn't have any Mickey bars or frozen bananas left. They let him have one scoop of ice cream and it was a huge scoop...don't know if that is ordinarily part of the plan but since they didn't have much left, they said that was fine.

 

[maxaroni]

We were rehashing some of the meals during dinner and we all said that we miss the meals from last week!

Keep remembering different things to the meals....I remember reading that someone (disboards) had said that Olivia's is a hidden gem. I have to agree! It was our first evenings meal and we walked out of there and said that we were surprised it wasn't more crowded than it was. If you are trying to figure out another restaurant or some of your faves are booked...try Olivia's. Oooops...maybe I should keep it a secret....

 

[Samantha]

Our waitress was very friendly and said that there would be no problem to get the shrimp add on ($5.00).

Do you have to pay extra for the shrimp or can you get the add-on free as part of the dining plan?

 

[maxaroni]

The add on was free on the plan. I never expected it to but asked if there were exclusions and told there weren't. Prior to ordering, we double checked and again said it was ok. We weren't charged extra....it was all $0.00

 

[stschaefer]

Welcome back. Sounds like you had a great time. Curious about Mama Melrose and Liberty Tree Tavern. Taking DW and DD tomorrow for DD's first trip. what snacks did you get while you were there on the plan?

 

[zookeeper]

Had free dining plan and loved it. We had 4 leftover CS's when we checked out and 3 snack credits. We were driving, so got tons of food for our dinner last nite. The snacks will be good for lunch as school is starting next week...

Is it really so much food ? I've read several dining plan reviews where people have left with unused credits. Are the CS meals really so big that you can share them? I just have a hard time imagining not using up all the credits especially since we have 5 days worth of credits and we leave in the afternoon of day 6. I've never been to DW so if it's all true I'll be in heaven! We were thinking we would bring our own breakfast/snacks and we would have to stretch to make the other meals work so that we didn't pay out of pocket for anything else in the parks. Sounds like I could be wrong.


8 7 5 3 8months

 

[maxaroni]

Welcome back. Sounds like you had a great time. Curious about Mama Melrose and Liberty Tree Tavern. Taking DW and DD tomorrow for DD's first trip. what snacks did you get while you were there on the plan?

As far as Mama Melrose, we had an open mind as I had read mixed reviews on it. We all thought it was good but more mediocre than great. I don't know if that makes sense or not. For us, we live in a part of the country that has excellent Italian restaurants so it wasn't as good as those. However, I wouldn't expect it to be. I think that may be why it gets a bad rap but don't know for sure. DS and I had Chicken parm and it was a chicken breast (I prefer cutlet) that was large with plenty of cheese and sauce. It had a side of spaghetti with it and thought that was ok but I'm not a big spaghetti eater. DH had seafood fra diavlo and was told it would be spicy. Usually, it's not too hot for dh but this seemed to be going on the too spicy end. He did enjoy it, though. It doesn't have as much seafood as he gets here but thought it was still worth the price. I have read that people say the sauce tastes like Buitoni and I saw that it is sponsored by Buitoni. We really liked the atmosphere as it is reminiscent of a NY Italian restaurant.

Liberty Tree Tavern was also better than we expected after reading some reviews here. I will say that I think restaurants are very subjective and hard to judge...everyones tastes are different and experiences are different. We did LTT for dinner and therefore, a set menu. Food was plentiful and tasty. My ds12 didn't eat the salad (everything was family style) but dh and I thought it was good. It comes pre-made with strawberry vinagrette dressing and the only thing we thought negative was that the lettuce was a bit wilted as it must get the dressing on it quite early and sit in a big bowl. The food is all you care to eat but there was so much we didn't need refills. There is stuffing on a platter with mounds of turkey, steak and ham on it. Mashed potatoes and beans are in separate bowls and both were good. I only had the steak but thought that was good (as did dh & ds), dh & ds had the turkey and ham and thought they were both good, too. The dessert was cherry cobbler that nite but we chose to just have ice cream.

Hope that helps.

 

[maxaroni]

Had free dining plan and loved it. We had 4 leftover CS's when we checked out and 3 snack credits. We were driving, so got tons of food for our dinner last nite. The snacks will be good for lunch as school is starting next week...

Is it really so much food ? I've read several dining plan reviews where people have left with unused credits. Are the CS meals really so big that you can share them? I just have a hard time imagining not using up all the credits especially since we have 5 days worth of credits and we leave in the afternoon of day 6. I've never been to DW so if it's all true I'll be in heaven! We were thinking we would bring our own breakfast/snacks and we would have to stretch to make the other meals work so that we didn't pay out of pocket for anything else in the parks. Sounds like I could be wrong.

We didn't believe it either. I kept reading how much food was served and I thought, "gosh, we must be pigs because there is no way we can't eat all the food''. WRONG.

I guess some could eat it all but we found we were really full after each meal. For instance, we used our CS's for breakfast....we got the platters with OJ and coffee (Hot choc for ds). The OJ was the 16 oz btls...I can't drink that much OJ in the morning. We'd split one btl to take our vitamins and then take the other 2 btls to the room to have something cold to drink later on. We were at POFQ and they come with a fridge. I ordered choc chip pancakes 2 mornings and I ate 2 pancakes, they come with 4. I would have shared with ds but we didn't need to save any CS's to use for another time. We got omelettes and would eat that but leave the potatoes and the omelettes were filling...it really could have been shared (if you eat the tators). Breakfast is our fave meal but we don't like walking away stuffed.

We didn't buy lunch but chose to get snacks instead as we were doing earlier dinners and 3 meals would be too much for us. We'd use a snack credit for the snacks but did bring some of our own as well. I'd get a frozen banana as a snack some days or a Mickey Bar. I believe 3 days we just ate our own snacks until we realized we'd have too many snack credits left. We were going to use what we had and not leave any behind.

Dinners were plentiful as well. The character meals or All you Care to eat, you must all use a credit and can't share. My DS12 ate so much at WCC that he took his dessert. Some meals we shared to save 3 credits for the last morning. We chose meals that we could share such as a pasta dish and a meat dish. At Le Cellier, I got Filet Mignon and dh ordered a 20 oz ribeye...more than enough food to share with the appetizer. When we shared dinners, 2 desserts were more than enough. We'd forget that when we all got a meal, it was 3 desserts and we would take a taste of the dessert and leave it.

One morning, my son had leftovers from dinner as his breakfast and we didn't use his CS. Therefore, we had the 3 CS's for our last day plus that one. We bought sandwiches to pack in the car for dinner that evening (we drove).


8 7 5 3 8months

 

[zookeeper]

WOW!! I thought for sure we'd end up buying some extra food, but it sounds like we'll have more than enough. With TS being so much food we'll probably only want a smaller meal earlier in the day. Most of our ADR's are around 5:00 so probably breakfast for CS is the way to go. We'll be at POP and I read that the CS breakfast there has plenty for sharing. Thanks for the help. WOOHOO...only 18 days to go!

 

[stschaefer]

Helped very much Maxaroni. Look forward to our trip this week. Will be trying San Angel, Liberty Tree Tavern, Concouse Steakhouse, Mama Melrose, Crystal Palace (breakfast), Chef Mickey (dinner), and Cinderella's Royal Table (dinner). Looks like we should enjoy our choices.

 

[Dizneydaz]

WOW!! I thought for sure we'd end up buying some extra food, but it sounds like we'll have more than enough. With TS being so much food we'll probably only want a smaller meal earlier in the day. Most of our ADR's are around 5:00 so probably breakfast for CS is the way to go. We'll be at POP and I read that the CS breakfast there has plenty for sharing. Thanks for the help. WOOHOO...only 18 days to go!

We had the dining plan in Jan. for 8 nights and we also had unused CS and snacks. On our last day we used all our CS at CBR for food to carry on plane and have lunch on the road. We even treated a father and son from Canada to ice creams on our last day-(I don't think we'll have unused snacks this time-in Jan. it was cooler and we didn't have as much to drink). We're looking forward to have dining plan again (and free this time!)especially now that the program is more broken in.

14 days and counting!!! (and crossing my fingers about the weather)