Back from 2 Weeks on DxDDP (and I lost 5 pounds!)

[KathyK]

I had originally planned to go to the BW bakery and use some snack credits for breakfast, but the kids were really dragging, and I was hoping to get to MK in time for the opening. So I grabbed all of the leftover fruit from the fridge, put it into one container, and we all ate it at the bus stop. We probably should have had something more substantial. The kids used snack credits in the park, but not for anything substantial.

We had no ADR for lunch, as my plan was to go to Beaches & Cream, which does not take ADRs. So, when the kids started saying they were hungry, we went to wait for a bus to the Beach Club. By the time, we got to the Beach Club, everyone was STARVING. Somehow, when we got to the Beach Club, I went down teh wrong path, and we ended up walking in through the Yacht Club entrance. So we had to walk through the Yacht Club to get to the Beach Club. The kids were hot, tired, and starving, and kept insisting that we were lost.

When we got to Beaches & Cream, the hostess said that it would be an hour wait. Goodness! An hour? With 2 starving children? Waiting out in the hot, July, Florida weather? Yeah. That was not going to work. This is why most restaurants have ADRs (and why we make them for most meals). So we decided to take a boat over to BW, and have lunch at another place that does not take ADRs - Big River Grill.

Oops. We just missed that boat.

So we walked all the way around to Big River Grill. The kids were miserable. I was miserable. Everyone was complaining. When we got there, I had 2 kids who were really misbehaving, and I was worried. The hostess was very understanding, and was immediately able to seat us at a table. The waiter kindly kept refilling the glass of diet coke that I emptied over and over again. I cannot tell you what anyone ordered. We were just all really glad to have food and cold drinks. I believe that I had a burger. It was very tasty, but at that point, I would have eaten anything.

The waiter was nice enough to wrap up our desserts, as the children were eager to get in some pool time. So we took our desserts out to the pool with us and enjoyed them there.

I would definitely try this place again, if only to try to enjoy a meal without worrying about how starved the kids were. The server was really wonderful, the food came out quickly, and he was so attentive.

 

[mstmp]

Great review - I am in!
I felt so bad when I was reading how miserable you all were. Glad it worked out in the end

 

[DLo]

great reviews (even without buffet pics ) Adorable family. We enjoyed sci fi last year and agree it is dark in there! We have been to beaches and cream twice and have been lucky with the wait both times. (once was right when it opened) It is good but in my opinion not worth a long wait. Jealous of you having 2 weeks at wdw! Looking forward to more reviews.

 

[KathyK]

We were supposed to meet my friend Susan, who lives locally, and her 10 and 9 year old sons at 6:30, but she was stuck in traffic and arrived closer to 7:00 for our 6:45 ADR. There was no problem seating us, but I did check in with the hostess and let her know that half of our party was running late.

Our waiter was very personable and funny, but so slow. As an example of funny, my friend's son said that he was 10 years old. The waiter said, "What a coincidence! I was also 10 when I was your age." The 10 year old found that hilarious.

I ordered the calimari for an appetizer (and forgot to take a picture). It was so good, and the breading had a very lemony flavor. I enjoyed the dipping sauces as well. Susan didn't order an appetizer, so I shared the calimari with her as well as anyone else who wanted to try. My kids were not impressed, but my friend's sons enjoyed it.

Susan had the Kouzzina Sampler appetizer as her main course. She said it was very good. I had the fisherman's stew. Well, i had most of it. My daughters both wanted the shrimp, so I gave it to them. It had a bit of a kick to it, and I really enjoyed it.

The 10 year old was able to order off of the child's menu, which was good, because I think that his mom was about to have a heart attack when he was talking about ordering a steak from the adult menu. My friend's 10 year old ordered the meaty macaroni, and his brother had the cheese pizza. They both really enjoyed their meals. My girls both had the Greek Lasagna with Chicken Noodle Soup as an appetizer. Neither really liked the lasagna, but they ate all of their soup.

All of the kids had ice cream for dessert.

They all liked it.

I had the baklava, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought that the ice cream was absolutely delicious.

I don't recall what Susan had for dessert.

So we enjoyed the food. However, the waiter was so slow. We rarely had drink refills, he never checked in with us after other people brough food to our table. We were thinking that we would be out by 9:00 to see the high Illuminations fireworks, but at 8:45, we started trying to find our waiter/wave him down to get the check, and we didn't get out of there until 9:15. So our whole meal took 2.25 hours, and we spent about 30 minutes trying to get the check and pay the bill.

I'd go again (especially if we were staying at the BW - our home resort), but hope to get a different waiter.

 

[vettegirl]

Rose and Crown looks so good.

 

[Colleen27]

Nice to see another positive review of Garden Grill! I'm thinking we're going to have to try that one on our next trip because Mickey is so cute in his farmer clothes, so it is good to hear the food has improved.

 

[butiflfeet]

Our experience with Kouzzina was similar. We really enjoyed the food but the service we had was so slow! At one point it took half an hour from the time we asked our server for more water to when we actually got it. The meal took about 2 1/2 hours (we only had 3 adults at this meal) and we ended up missing Illuminations as well
I would love to go back because we thought the meal was delicious, it would just have to be for a little earlier in the evening or for when we didn't want to do anything else but sit in that restaurant for 3 hours

 

[KathyK]

My husband's flight landed at around 12:30 a.m.. He arrived at the hotel room at around 1:45 a.m. So when it was time for our 7:30 a.m. reservation, he said, "Go without me." So we did.

The reservation was for 4 people, but they were fine with changing it to 3. We were seated immediately, and the restaurant was nearly empty. In contrast to the previous evening, our waitress for breakfast was very quick.

Vanessa ordered the fresh fruit plate. Caroline ordered the All American breakfast, substituting Mickey waffles for eggs. I had the spinach, tomato, and feta scrambled eggs. with chicken sausage.

I thought that the eggs were great. I have got to try adding feta, spinach, and tomatoes at home. The chicken sausage was tasty, but a little dry.

We all thought that the breakfast was delicious. We would definitely go there again for breakfast, and maybe next time DH will even come with us.

We used up the last 2 snack credits of that first reservation on a croissant and fruit from BW Bakery for DH's breakfast and filled my refillable mug with coffee for him.

Then we went up to our villa to pack up and move to OKW.

 

[KathyK]

The move went smoothly. And not only was our room ready at OKW, we actually had our pick of rooms. We ended up in a 1 BR on the 1st floor in the newly renovated area of the resort, near the bus stop. We dropped our bags inside and quickly caught a bus for Magic Kingdom.

After a few rides and picking up FPs, we went to our traditional first lunch as a family: Tony's Townsquare. Ever since our 1999 1st anniversary trip, we always make this our first lunch. Since this was the beginning of the trip for DH, we put it off until he arrived.

DH and I both ordered the tomato and mozzarella salad for an appetizer, and we both really enjoyed it. DH had the chicken parmiagiana, and said that it was OK. I had the shrimp scampi linguini, which I found way too salty.

Both girls had spaghetti and meatballs, which they enjoyed. Vanessa had celery and carrots with her meal, and Caroline had the salad.

For dessert, I was convinced to have the tiramisu. The waiter was right - it was really very good. it was so smooth and tasted wonderful.

The girls had ice cream, and DH had chocolate gelato.

Overall, I was very happy with our dining experience. Dh said that we could skip Tony's next time, but that would mean the end of our tradition, so I'm nto sure. He said that his food was just OK, and it wasn't the magical experience we had in 1999 when they gave us free bread & pesto and a flower from the hanging plant fell into my glass and the waiter decalred it was Disney Magic.

I like Tony's. I like going to a TS in MK that doesn't involve characters. So we'll see what happens next trip.

 

[KathyK]

We decided to plan another meal at CRT so that DH could join in the princess fun. I was surprised to see the lobby so full when we went in. When we had eaten there for breakfast the other day, it was a short line for Cinderella, and then we were called upstairs almost immediately. This was about a 25-30 minute wait including the pictures.

When we were seated, we did not receive menus from the person seating us. We mentioned this to our server when we placed our drink orders (and told him that the girls wanted swords rather than wands), and he said that he'd bring them. He brought the drinks and the swords, and we still did not have menus.

After a few visits to the table, where we still hadn't even looked at the menus, he finally brought them over for us. And he mentioned that we should keep them "...for the scratchbooks."

I don't recall what DH or I had for appetizers, I think that I ordered the soup, but I don't remember what kind of soup it was. I was coming down with a cold, and I probably ordered soup to soothe my throat. It must not have been that remarkable, since I don't remember it. I have no idea what DH had for an appetizer, but I will bet that Vanessa had soup and Caroline had salad.

For dinner, I ordered the lamb, and DH ordered the prime rib. The kids do not remember what they had. They were there for characters, not for food. I thought that the lamb was really good.

The pesto did not impress me that much, but the meat and the potatoes under the meat were delicious. DH really liked his prime rib too, but he always likes prime rib.

When Ariel came to our table, she flipped through Caroline's book and found her own autograph. So she asked if we had seen her in Norway, and we "reminded" her that we had seen her at breakfast at CRT on Tuesday morning. Snow White asked if we had a good day, so I told her that we changed kingdoms earlier in the day, moving from the Boardwalk kingdom to the Old Key West kingdom. And I mentioned that we had been swimming. She asked if we swam in a pond in the forest, and I said, "No. A swimming pool." She didn't know what that was. I did mention that we had seen some of her wooodland friends around - especially squirrels.

I decided to be good and have the sugar-free sorbet for dessert. I think that DH had the creme brulee, and the kids had the kids' ice cream. Why I only took a picture of the kid dessert, I don't know. The sorbet was OK - not great.

When it came time to pay, I explained to the waiter that we had 6 credits on our first reservation that we needed to use to pay for 1AD/2CH, and we would be paying for the other adult with 2 DxDDP credits from the reservation we had just started that day. I was worried about explaining it (I had actually lost sleep the night before worried about using up those last 6 credits and trying to figure out the best way to do it), but he was able to do it for us with no problem whatsoever. So with that meal, we finished up our 1st reservation's credits, and we still had 78 credits left to use on the second reservation. And we had used up all of the snacks on the 1st reservation that morning, so I felt like we did a great job, especially considering the skipped reservations.

 

[grafxgirl]

I think I did sweat it off. It was sooooo hot when we were there, and we did a lot of walking. My DH wears a pedometer for work (competition between departments), and for the time that he was there with us, he doubled his normal number of steps on a typical day.

I should buy a pedometer before we leave next weekend and count my steps. We walk alot at Disney, and eat on the standard DDP, which means we usually split quick service meals. Both my husband and I usually lose a few lbs while on vacation too. I'm looking forward to it, because I've just recently gained a few lbs.

 

[KathyK]

Somehow, I have no pictures from this meal.

We walked over to Olivia's from our room in the Turtle Pond section, with plans to catch a bust to DHS afterward.

We were seated immediately, and our waiter was very nice. I had the shrimo and conch eggs benedict, and DH had Olivia's breakfast with no eggs (he's allergic). The waiter asked if he would like extra sausage instead of eggs, and DH said that would be nice. Vanessa had the fresh fruit plate, and Caroline had Mickey waffles. I thought that the eggs benedict were delicious. I had never had them before with seafood added. I would definitely have them again. It was a very rich breakfast, but soooo tasty. I was still working on that cold, so it was a little difficult swallowing, but I also had tea to help. Dh said that his meal was good, and the kids were really more interested in the coloring pages they were given than the meal, but they said that their food was good too.

It was a very convenient meal, as we were staying at OKW, and the food was very good.

After breakfast, I bought some cold medicine in the General Store, which helped a lot. Then we went to the concierge to pick up the HDDR tickets for that night. As I was standing there, V remembered that she still had her sword from CRT in her bag. She was worried that her weapon would be confiscated at bag search at DHS, and the CM who was helping me confirmed that she would be fine.

Later that day, I forgot that he had charged the DDP for our HDDR tickets, and I started freaking out about disappearing meal credits, but once I remembered that the credit were used when the tickets were printed, all was well.

 

[Lisa29]

Ooh, so many good reviews - thanks

Can I ask, is Handy Manny now at Hollywood and Vine instead of the two characters I have no idea who they are as my DD is only nearly 2??

May have to see if we can get this in if it is now different characters.

Thanks

 

[KathyK]

Ooh, so many good reviews - thanks

Can I ask, is Handy Manny now at Hollywood and Vine instead of the two characters I have no idea who they are as my DD is only nearly 2??

May have to see if we can get this in if it is now different characters.

Thanks

When we went, we saw Leo, June, Manny, and Jojo.

 

[vinotinto]

Yeah, a DxDP review with kids! Looking forward to the rest !

 

[princesspeach]

You lost 5 lbs...how is that possible? I did 6 days on DLXDP and thought I was gonna die!

I also lost 5 lbs on dxddp. I think it was because I worked out every day plus all the walking. One expensive diet though.