Deluxe dining from last summer - Much to Munch

[YYC-Rob]

Hello Everyone!

A little bit of an introduction to myself and my family...

The trip im posting about happened at the end of august 2018. I had been avidly reading all of your posts here in the dining review, took notes and pictures during my stay with intentions of posting here after but never followed through. I dont know if it was the post Disney blues or just an overwhelming amount of real life that struck but I never got around to posting. To cure this, im going to post some shortened reviews now in hopes that it sparks my drive to upload pictures and extend reviews.

My name is Rob. Im a 35 year old from Alberta, Canada. Along with me on this trip came my wonderful wife, Lila, Disney Gramma, Leslie, my daughter, Ella, and son, Noah (that is a record number of commas for a sentence). This was the first trip to WDW for my wife, son, and daughter. My mom and I last travelled to WDW around 2001. Wow has a lot changed.

We saved up a long while for this trip and approached it as a "no hold barred" trip. We did everything we could. It was 14 nights staying at the Beach Club resort with Deluxe Dining. I managed to snag us the regular dining plan for free as a promotion then spent the ~1600 (I think) to upgrade to deluxe. We had 10 day tickets, MNSSHP, and Disney After Hours tickets. It was amazing. We booked bounce back before we left with adjustments. We kept what was important to us and dialed back what wasnt. We experienced everything from overeating the a medical emergency in Magic Kingdom (short story below). I will try to keep this post down to the dining!

(**at the end of DAH and MK my son came off space mountain and told me he would be sick. I took him to the bathroom where he threw up once, then threw up a sizable amount of blood three times. I couldnt take a picture fast enough between consoling him and the auto toilet flushing. I notified a young lady tending a concession cart. Within 5 minutes we were seperated off from everyone else by about 5 cast memebrs, paramedics were on their way, the GM of MK was with us along with some sort of customer relations person. Paramedics arrived after another 5 minutes or so and checked my son out. Their guess was that the burst capilleries when throwing up. They offered to take him to the hospital nearby but felt it was also ok to take him back to the hotel and keep an eye on him. We did the latter. Disney was amazing during this. We never saw any medical bills or anything for the paramedics. They escorted us out the back of MK (around 1:30 am at this point) to a car with a private driver. They drove us to our hotel where the manager waited for us and opened the car door. He gave us his direct number if we had any needs whatsoever. As a parent, I was very scared for my son and I am the calm one between my wife and I. Disney was everything wonderful that they could be to us. We check my son hourly that night and by the morning he was back to 100%**)

OK! so we ate at... (this is from memory for now)
-Cape Mae Cafe(dinner thrice)
-Skipper Canteen
-Yachtsmen Steakhouse
-Tusker House
-Brown Derby
-Cape Mae (character brunch)
-Raglan Road
-Tiffins (twice)
-50s Prime Time Diner
-Narcoossee
-Boathouse (lunch and dinner)
- Trattoria El Forno (character brunch)
- Morimoto Asia (lunch)
- Paddlefish
- Yak And Yeti
- Sci-fi drive in
- Be Our Guest (2 credit dinner)
- Crystal Palace (lunch)
- California Grill (Brunch and Dinner)

That is a long list! With 5 of us in a room and with the free dining (plus pay for upgrade) we saved a large amount of money! Many of our dinners were $350 plus. It was a wonderful experience but not one we intend to do again. It was, too much food, which sounds insane. I honestly didnt think that this was possible but after a week of appetizer, main, dessert dinners I got sick from being so full. We also found that the amount of time required for the meals was tough on my kids along with them being relatively disinterested in the fine cuisine. Last down point was that I came home with around 2000 on my credit card just in tips! Don't get me wrong, we very much enjoyed being spoiled with delicious food but, it was too much over 14 nights. I would do it again with a shorter trip but for our bounce back (14 nights again) we will be doing the regular plan.

I am not going to comment on whether or not I felt the bill would be "worth it" if I wasnt on the dining plan because the answer is almost entirely "no" unless I was doing 1 or 2 of these meals maximum on a vacation or if my party was down to two instead of 5. That being said, with the dining plan, all of these meals felt like a steal for us and I loved every minute.

One other item of note is that my wife is Celiac (auto-immune disease that prevents her from eating gluten).

OK, hopefully I can see this through to the end. Work has been very busy lately but ill try and get one at least once an evening, or every other evening, to share our thoughts with each restaurant.

Ill start, for now, with Cape Mae Cafe - Dinner

-What a great use of a single credit. We ate hear after travelling all day from Alberta and then again two more times for dinner by popular demand from my children.
-My kids loved the options here. They loved the pizza other child options. They very much enjoyed the independance of picking out their own food. This is very underrated I think. Kids are the boss in Disney and having the opportunity to freely choose what they wanted from the buffet vs the daily grind of dinners was a revelation to them.
-As for the adults... we found the crab legs delicious 2 out of 3 of the times. I think the key was waiting for a fresh tray to be brought out or diving to the bottom of the stack for the juiciest pieces. Having heated butter to enjoy with the crab was great too. Along with the crab we found almost everything else enjoyable as well. Nothing stood out as an "avoid" food. So hit that crab up and tuck in some other items you may be craving on the side. The clams were another favourite of mine.
-Our servers all 3 times were great. The first night the server tipped my wifes crab butter over onto her bloise. He was extremely apologetic and we were comped a few of our addition drinks.
-For those that enjoy a drink or two... I had a couple Mules (cannot remember what my wife and mom had) and we all found the pours very generous without overkilling the flavour of the drink. I do drink fairly often and could see some being put off but the amount of alcohol in the drink but for me it was great.
- My wife had no problems eating gluten free despite it being a buffet. This is a theme for all our meals. Disney does a stand out job regarding dietary restrictions.
-I have two ADR's for Cape Mae coming up on our bounce back trip this August.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Great start to your report.
I found myself nodding along - we stayed at BC one trip and loved it, had dxdp on a different trip and although it was a fantastic way of doing some very special dining shows and character meals I felt that the dining ruled the holiday and the tip cost was scary.
Awful that your little one was ill. Many years ago my Dd had an allergic reaction to insect bites (never happened before) and then had a worse allergic reaction to the Benadryl that we used! WDW swung into action just as you described and I have insufficient words to praise their actions.
Looking forward to reading the rest.

 

[elsbit]

Yikes, how scary about your son! Glad to hear that it was nothing major and that Disney handled it so well. I have enjoyed the DXDP on two trips, once with my family and once with a friend. On our next trip, I am planning to do a split stay and do the plan for 1/2 of the stay. While it is a money saver for our family, it sure does add up! Looking forward to reading the rest of your report.

 

[amytech]

Following along! Sounds like you had a wonderful trip! We stayed once at Beach Club when my son was on his College Program but have never done the dining plan. I think it would be too much food for us but I LOVE reading about others doing it and always get some great "must tries" for our next trip.

 

[TeresaNJ]

My motto is better late than never when it comes to writing dining reports! I've been the same as you. Took all the food photos with every intention of doing a dining report, then life gets in the way, and then I don't do it. We go to WDW at least twice a year, and we've been going for years, yet I've done one trip report, a trip report started and not completed, one completed dining report, and I'm in the midst of doing a dining report of my latest trip. Don't feel bad if you can't post as often as you'd like. It took me many many months to complete my previous dining report, and I've seen other reports than have spanned a year. If you post, we will read. Do it at a pace that suits you. Don't feel like it's been too long between posts, so you get discouraged and give up. I've been there, and done that! Now, getting to your post, it sounds like you had an amazing trip!!! I love the Beach Club resort, and I can't wait to hear about all of the great dining experience you all had on your trip. We love Cape May Cafe, too, and it's a must to eat there every trip!