Dining Around the World 4/29-5/7 with dessert pics from Alfredo's in #22

[swankybeth]

Great reviews! Thanks for taking the time to post.

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

Thanks again. I need to stop putting time frames on when I'm going to post things as I have yet to meet one of those deadlines. At any rate, I do have some pictures of the desserts from Alfredo's as my brother took some pictures with his camera.

First up, the Nutella chocolate cake which my brother liked.

Happiest Celebration on Earth Citrus Trifle, which I enjoyed especially on account of the nice citrus touch.

The chocolate mousse which my mom loved.

The strawberry mousse which my sister loved.

A final note. If anybody in your party has needs due to diabetes, make these recommendations known to Disney dining ahead of time. I kept warning my father to do so, but he didn't so in some cases, he was unable to have a dessert because they didn't have any sugar free desserts available. All the restaurants have them, but they may not be ready if you don't give them notice ahead of time that you need one.

 

[scanne]

So now I just HAVE to get to Alfredo's for the Nutella choc. cake! OMG! I love Nutella and cannot, in any way, have it in my house because I'd sit on the sofa with a spoon and eat it straight!!! (OK - it's also great with fruit and pretzels!) But that cake looks HEAVENLY!.

Now, how do I add this to our plans for July...........it will take a TON of convincing b/c my DH has always refused to eat there.

It's time I start letting him know about all the "great" (I use the term lightly) reviews.


Love your dining report.........thanks for sharing!

 

[dixiedizfan]

Thank you for your wonderful reviews and pictures. I was wondering if there are any more desserts at Alfredo's than the ones you have pictured, though.

 

[kaysmommie]

I really enjoyed reading your reviews. The photos of dessert at Alfredo's look very good, thinking of making and ADR for there.

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

Now, how do I add this to our plans for July...........it will take a TON of convincing b/c my DH has always refused to eat there.

It's time I start letting him know about all the "great" (I use the term lightly) reviews.

If your DH likes steak, Alfredo's had a pretty good one. That's what I ordered.

dixiedizfan, as for other desserts at Alfredo's I can't remember. I think there were, but we ate there a month ago, so I can't be sure.

 

[ufgator]

Thanks for the great reviews! The nutella cake looks great!

 

[tinawv]

Great reviews. Thanks for sharing.

 

[disneyfreakjackie]

GREAT reviews!! You keep it very interesting!! BTW ... LOVIN' the pic of the choc mousse!!! YUM!

 

[purpliequeen]

Wow! Thank you so much for the reviews, much appreciated.

Raina

 

[Booknut]

Great reviews! That nutella chocolate cake looks soooooooooooooo amazing, I can't stop drooling! I might need to swap some of my reservations over...

 

[Harambe]

Thanks for the pictures of the Alfredo desserts. Desserts are not listed on the menus, so I wasn't sure what they have. Now I can't wait!

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

I'm glad everyone appreciated the pictures of the desserts. I hope to have more food pictures for my next Disney World trip.

We've come to the last day of the trip. We start the day off with a 10:50 ADR at Chef Mickey's for a late breakfast/early lunch. Mom is hoping that this will preserve CS meals so my sisters and I can eat tomorrow without having to pay exorbitant airport prices for lunch. Well, her plan worked perfectly. We all enjoyed Chef Mickey's. The food was quite good and there was a nice variety of it. I always have biscuits and gravy when I go to a breakfast buffet and I liked the ones here. There was also a good variety of waffles(including the Mickey ones) and pancakes. I also loved how there are a lot of topping choices. You can go with syrup and/or fruit, so that was nice. The assorted egg meals were also tasty. The service was excellent as well. The characters were also great. They came around to visit our table multiple times and played around with us a lot. At one point, Dale even hid my little brother's hat, causing my brother to chase him all over the restaurant, so that was highly enjoyable. The character interaction was plentiful, so this is a good choice. Both LTT and CM had great interaction and a lot of it. If you want to play around with the characters, both are good choices.

Still trying to work throught those snack credits, I had two today, an orange juice bar in Fantasyland(my dad was able to get a sugar free frozen treat of some sort here), and a dole float to finish off the day in the MK. Mom went for a root beer float which she also enjoyed.

Hoping for a special final meal of the trip, we chose to try Rose & Crown with a 7:40 ADR for Illuminations. My little brother was late for our ADR, but as everyone else in our party was present, the cast members let us in. For an appetizer I ordered the leek and barley soup, which I thought tasted very good. I also sampled some of the fruit and cheese from the plate my dad and brother ordered. Also very good. I'm not much of a fish eater, but I've heard excellent things about the British and their fish, so I went for the steak and fish entree. Let's just say that I did not regret my choice. The fish was excellent and the steak was even better. Outstanding. I liked the steak sauce type thing that came with it. My dad also thought the steak was excellent. My mom and one brother thought that Rose & Crown was the best meal of the trip, but they had ordered the NY strip steak at Le Cellier. Myself, my father, and my youngest brother, who all ordered the filet mignon, ranked Rose & Crown as the second best meal. Either way you put it, the food was great. Rose & Crown, however, had our slowest service of the trip. We spent a long time waiting for our drinks to get refilled. We were even led out to the patio for Illuminations after it started, but the view was outstanding. My perception of the show went from a nice Disney fireworks show to understanding why people raved about it simply because of the view from the patio. And now we come to the best part of Rose & Crown, although the fish and steak were very good, the chocolate guiness cake. Wow. It was, hands down, my favorite dessert of the trip. I wish I had a picture of it, but it was great in our hotel room at POP a couple of hours later.

One thing about eating on the DDP is that you get stuffed easily. Don't be afraid to get a heavier dessert to go, especially if dinner is the last thing you're doing for the night. You can always enjoy it back in your room later. Some places have light desserts such as the raspberry sorbet at Le Cellier, or Boma's variety of choices that hit the spot after a filling meal.

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

As we departed MCO at 3:40, I spent the morning in DTD.

With DME leaving at 12:40, we ate at Everything POP at around 11:30. Still trying to burn counter service credits, we succeeded. We had 4 CS meals and 3 of us, so we ordered a refrigerated sandwich and chips, a powerade, and fresh fruit for the extra meal, all stuff that we could share or take on the plane. Wanting to be different, I ordered the meatball sandwich, which tasted quite good. It was very filling also, though I did manage to eat the fresh fruit and finish off my dessert. Then, I refilled my mug one last time and we went to wait for DME.

In preparation for dinner on the flight, I went to Earl of Sandwich to get sandwiches for me and my sisters. Now, while Earl of Sandwich has hot sandwiches, if you tell them that you're getting the sandwiches for later to eat on your flight, they will still prepare them for you. When it came time to eat, my sisters didn't much care for their sandwiches. I thought they tasted fine, but I do not recommend getting the ham and pineapple one to go. The bread gets a little soggy. Now, since my sisters didn't want their other sandwich, I took them with me and froze them when I got home. The sandwiches all tasted quite good when I had them later. Again, these were not the ham and pineapple ones. I liked the cookies from Earl, but I don't know what my sisters thought about the brownie. For DDP purposes, the drink at Earl is only the cup, so we had to forfeit our drinks on that meal.

Final thoughts on the DDP. Yes, it is a lot of food, but it beats having to eat burgers and fries day after day. We had to finish off 10 CS credits and some snack credits on our last day, but that's because people got sick and also didn't plan out their days very well. The other thing I loved about the DDP was how it gave you a nice break. I was in the parks from open til close all but two days, so the sit down meals were a nice break after I'd been on the go all the day. My mom's take was slightly different though. Since she tended to head to the parks later, she didn't like how the 2 hours at sit down non-buffet TS meals effectively ended the day. She would do ADRs around 5:00 instead of 6:00 if the park in question closes at 9:00. This didn't bother me as much since I had already done a lot of touring before dinner.

I was quite impressed with the quality of the counter service meals. You could never eat at a Disney TS meal and do fine at WDW, but by the time you factor in paying OOP, I think it's still a better deal to do the DDP. I was never hungry after a CS meal, although MGM's did have the smallest portion and the cheap juice box. CS desserts were also good, but I didn't always eat them as I was pretty full from the entree. In planning for my next trip, my brother told me he could see about a timeshare deal offsite and I told him no way. He didn't understand why I wanted to stay at a value when there were nicer places off property until I reminded him that I'm doing the DDP again. There are simply too many places I want to try at WDW. As my next trip could well be solo, I'm going to factor in more sit down places in EPCOT. There's a lot of bang for your buck at these places, and some of them sound good to me. I still want to try Akershus, but it didn't work out this trip.

And now, my TS rankings.

1. Le Cellier. Definitely eating here next trip.
2. Rose & Crown. Will definitely eat here again.
3. Boma. Good food, nice dessert selection, new flavors.
4. Whispering Canyon Cafe. Fun atmosphere, good food. Will try again.
5. Chef Mickey's. Good food, Mickey is here, probably a WDW tradition.
6. Liberty Tree Tavern. Good food, fun character interaction.
7. Alfredo's. Good food, though different to my American-Italian tastes.
8. 1900 Park Fare. Good food, lots of choices.

CS Rankings

1. Sunshine Seasons at EPCOT(The Land). Great variety, dessert choices.
2. Cosmic Ray's MK(Tomorrowland). Ribs and chicken. 'Nuf said.
3. Tusker House AK(Africa). Very good, filling.
4. Cantina de San Angel. Good Mexican, very filling.
5. Everything POP. Lots of choices, lots of food.
6. Flatbread Grill MGM. Smaller portions, tiny juice box.

I liked all the counter service meals, but MGM was my least favorite. I hope it improves before I go back for Star Wars Weekends. I want to stress that I liked all the places we ate at. If I was unable to get another choice, I would happily return to any of the places that we ate at. Yet there are so many places I want to try, that Le Cellier is the only definite for next trip, although Rose & Crown is possible and Chef Mickey's is likely, though that has more to do with the Mickey part.

 

[Minniespal]

Another excellent review

 

[disneyfansx5]

Thanks for the excellent review. Loved all of the details!

 

[Dizneydaz]

Thank for the great reviews! I'm glad to hear you liked the steak and fish at RC. We are thinking of eating there in Sept. and I had read some less than favorable reviews on the fish. Comments like "too much fish, not enough batter" I like the taste of fish, with a little batter. Sounds like we'll definitely have to go. Would you think 7:40 was early enough or would you try for a little bit earlier?

Also interesting about Earl's sandwiches. We plan on getting sandwiches there for our plane trip too! We've gotten them in the past from CBR food court and wanted to try something new. I'm sure we'll have leftover CS on the last day (We have the previous 2 times on DDP)

Again, for the great reviews!

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

Thanks everyone for the compliments.

Dizneydaz, the 7:40 ADR worked out okay for us. We were all just about finished with dinner when Illuminations started, so afterwards we came back and ordered dessert. You may want to try a little bit earlier, but you don't want to be too early or else you'll have to leave before Illuminations. When my mom made the ADR, she told the CM what we wanted to do, so they gave us a time to accomodate that. Plus, it was really neat being able to walk out of EPCOT nearly by ourselves on our last night. The park was so beautiful and quiet. And I can't really say enough about how good the steak and fish were. I was very pleased and it was a great way to end our vacation.

I can't stress enough the importance of getting ADRs made early. The most stressful part of the trip planning was getting the ADRs figured out. Once they were taken care of, I could just relax and plan other things.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

I just wanted to say how much my Wife and myself enjoyed your reviews. Thanks for the great reports you did here and on the trip reports board. Hope the moving back to California is going alright.

 

[bluejasmine]

I really enjoyed your reviews, thank you so much hon! Now for my quesion oh wise jedi... Did you try the zebra domes at Bomas? How was it???? Im dying to try one we are having breakfast at Boma in AUG and I planned on running over to Maras before leaving AKL for AK.. Also is it a dessert that needs to be kept cold or will it be fine in a bag being carried around the park until I want it as a snack..lol