DxDDP for young family of 4 - Tons of Food Pics - UPDATED *12/17!* Whispering Canyon

[beautyqueen]

Jumping on a little late...

 

[ilovepete]

I've never even considered Biergarten because of the group seating and the menu doesn't appeal to me AT ALL. but... your pictures of the band make me want to go!!! DS11 just started band in 6th grade this year and loves all things musical right now. He would go CRAZY over all those different instruments. Ugh... what to do?????

It is worth trying! Just try it once and see how you like it.

Jumping on a little late...

Welcome! Glad to have you reading!

We are gong to Bierdgarten (sp?) too mainly because my Dad loves it there and we are also celebrating my parents 40th so we figured we would go there and surprise him.
I am not too excited about it, but there are 15 of us going (4 grandchildren) and I know the kids will love it and we will all just have fun together. Plus I
figure I am going to so many other great rest. and my Dad will love to be with all of us at one of his favorite places in Epcot. For my Dad I know he enjoys the food but honestly I think it is more about the beer and atmosphere and the memories when we were younger!

That is how I feel about it, too. Not my favorite place but my husband loves it so much I just can't say no! It's worth it to make him happy. And it's not BAD by any means, just not what I would choose.

You're off to a great start! keep em comin'

Thanks! More coming soon!

 

[nessz79]

I'm in!

 

[Jade+3]

I am enjoying your reviews as I have kids the same ages.

 

[Disney_Mama]

Love it.

 

[ilovepete]

I'm in!

Yay, glad to have you here!

I am enjoying your reviews as I have kids the same ages.

My kids really enjoyed this trip, including the food! Glad to have you reading.

Love it.

Thanks! Glad you are reading.


Working on the next review now so it will be up soon!

 

[ilovepete]

Our next meal of the trip was the Crystal Palace with an ADR time of 8:05AM. I made this reservation for a few reasons. One was because I really wanted to see the Magic Kingdom without the swarms of people in it. It seemed like such a magical thing to be one of the few in the park so early in the morning. Another reason was to have a chance to take a few photopass pictures without so many people behind us in the pictures. And finally, I didn’t want to miss any valuable park time! So, having the reservation before the park opened worked out really well and turned out to be a great breakfast.

This is not a great picture but I wanted to show our view from the table, look past my daughter, who was pouting at this point, see the castle right there? It was great!

We really lucked out with views on this trip. All 3 that I have reviewed so far we have had a great view, and of the reviews still to come, almost all of them were great views as well!

This was one of the better breakfasts we had on our trip. The food here at the Crystal Palace just seemed a little better and fresher than the other breakfast buffets we have been to. I didn’t get to try everything of course, but what I did have a taste of was very good. We haven’t been to a sit down breakfast at any of the restaurants yet, but I would really like to try that as well. Kona is one place I am longing to go for breakfast!

The character interaction was excellent. We saw Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore.We were one of the first people seated for the day so a few of the characters even came around to our table twice. They were very friendly with the kids and patient with me while I tried to get good pictures. Our kids also loved the parade they did where all the kids walk around the tables with the characters while waving their napkins high in the air.

Now onto the most important part, the food!

Here is my plate:

It was all pretty tasty. Starting on the far left there was a donut type of bread, I am not sure what it is called, but it tastes like just fried dough with sugar on it, very good actually, and I usually don’t care for stuff like that. Next are the eggs on the bottom of the plate. They left a little to be desired but were still good considering it was a buffet. To the right of the eggs is a potato casserole. It had a lot of topping on it so the actual potatoes are a little hard to see. This was good and very creamy but could have used a little more flavor if I am being honest. Then you can see a sausage link, which was pretty basic, good not great. And finally, the last item on my plate is a biscuit with sausage gravy on top. Biscuits and gravy is one of my favorite things to have for breakfast so I tried it every place we went. I’d say this was the best one. None were what I would expect if I actually ordered it in a restaurant but I think it was just a little fresher than the others even though it had the same taste. The biscuits were soft and warm, where in some places we went, they were not.

Here is DH’s plate:

As you probably already guessed from the Biergarten review, he is quite the sausage lover. So you see that there on his plate. He also got a croissant which he said was very good, light and buttery. He also had some of the home fries, eggs, and also grits. Grits are one of his favorite things ever, so he tries them everywhere. He was satisfied with these and went back for more. He really enjoyed his breakfast and spoke highly of it the rest of the day.


This is DS5’s plate:

As you can tell, he is a fruit lover. He finished this entire plate and then wanted more. He had Mickey waffles (which by the way they had chocolate ones on the buffet! We didn’t try them, though.), a blueberry muffin, yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, pineapple, blackberries, raspberries, and eggs. His second plate had all the same things except the eggs. He ate it all and was full for a while.


This is DD2’s plate:

This was much the same as DS5’s so I won’t explain, but she did eat most of if and also a Mickey Waffle which was in her hand at the time of this picture. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, this is one of the reasons I do like buffets on the dining plan when traveling with toddlers at Disney World. We are not charged for DD since she is only 2, but she is welcome to get whatever she wants from the buffet. This is not true in non-buffet restaurants when you are on the dining plan. You either pay out of pocket for the child’s meal or the toddler just has to share with the others. My DD is a big eater and so sharing with her can be difficult when she wants to have her own, and can eat her own, so the buffets work out well for us. I don’t like doing a ton of them, though, but it seemed we did quite a few during this trip. Two of them my husband insisted on (Biergarten and Cape May Clam Bake), and the others were breakfasts, which I feel are great for buffets with my kids, who mostly want fruit.

COST BREAKDOWN:

My husband feels this is worth every penny for two reasons. One we start the day full and don’t have to stop for snacks or food until later in the day. Second, we don’t have to stand in line to meet the characters! That is one of the things he hates most, so characters meals are a very big plus to him.

I'm going to also share something that may help others when doing buffets on a time crunch. I asked for the check early at this meal so that we could go ahead and get our credits and gratuity taken care of and be ready to leave once we saw all the characters. I did not want to miss any park time! Since it was a buffet, the cost/credits were very easy to do early on in the meal. I did not want to be in a situation of waiting 30 minutes to pay our bill like the night before and miss out on that early morning time in the Magic Kingdom.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
We love the Crystal Palace breakfast for many reasons. Two of them being the ones I mentioned above in the cost breakdown (no lines for characters and we are all full when we leave). Additionally, the food is always well prepared, tastes good, and is fresh and warm. Then there is the added benefit of getting into the Magic Kingdom early and being ready to hit the park at 9am. My kids also love the abundance of fruit offered at this buffet as opposed to the limited choices at the others. This is a meal all 4 of us would gladly do again, in fact, I already have an ADR for it for our next trip. I probably wouldn’t use a TS credit on it if I just had the regular dining plan, as I’d like some other options better as far as value goes. I’d do it on the DxDDP or I would pay out of pocket for it, though.


UP NEXT….
Grand Floridian Café for lunch
And The Wave for dinner
One of them was my favorite meal of the trip, can you guess which one it was?

 

[stephielela]

My mom feels the same way you do about Biergarten, I kinda like it though. My DS is a big meat and potato eater though, so he had plenty to choose from. He is also 2 so I know what you mean abotu the buffet's being worth the money for kids. Biergarten was our only Table Service meal in September since we paid OOP. We are skipping it in December in favor of Via Napoli.

We are also doing an 8:05 am ADR at Crystal Palace! Great tip about asking for the check in advance!!

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

thanks for the update on CP, we have always gone to lunch and loved it. We are trying CP breakfast at 8:05 am for our first time and can't wait...less than a month and we are there...

 

[ilovepete]

thanks for the update on CP, we have always gone to lunch and loved it. We are trying CP breakfast at 8:05 am for our first time and can't wait...less than a month and we are there...

Oh I bet you will love it! Hope you enjoy your trip, so close!

My mom feels the same way you do about Biergarten, I kinda like it though. My DS is a big meat and potato eater though, so he had plenty to choose from. He is also 2 so I know what you mean abotu the buffet's being worth the money for kids. Biergarten was our only Table Service meal in September since we paid OOP. We are skipping it in December in favor of Via Napoli.

We are also doing an 8:05 am ADR at Crystal Palace! Great tip about asking for the check in advance!!

Yes checking out in advance helped so much! We did it several other times at the other buffets we had, too!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

subscribing - we were at WDW the same time as you. Which night did you do MNSSHP?

 

[ilovepete]

We were enjoying our day at the Magic Kingom and it was time for lunch! I scheduled an ADR for 12:30 at the Grand Floridian Café and we just rode the monorail over. We had never been and I was really looking forward to it. We were working up and appetite from running around the park so much that I was ready for lunch by the time it got there!
This restaurant is beautiful. We were seated right away and had an amazing view out the side of the restaurant to a garden area. It was really nice! There was also a very pretty rose on our table.

And here is the menu:

My husband and I both ordered the exact same thing for our starters and our main course. They never happens, as we have such different tastes normally, but today we both agreed!

I had a coke to drink and my husband got the lemonade. The kids has water as usual. We are super boring with our drinks, I know!

For our appetizers we selected the Crab Cakes

These were really amazing. Very tasty and full of big pieces of crab meat. I personally did not love the Mango Relish that came with it, but my husband loved it. So, I think that is just a matter of taste. I honestly could have just eaten this as my meal and been fine, they were great!

We both choose the New York Strip steak with Mashed Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables for our main entrée.

The steak had a great flavor but it was a little tough compared with the other steaks we had on our trip. I would describe just as “good”. Not amazing, not great, but not bad, and better thank “OK”. We both felt this way and mine was medium and my husband’s was medium rare, so I don’t think it was the way it was cooked that made it tough, it was the cut itself. Everything else, however, was really great! The sauce that was on them was so tasty! I gave the kids a lot of the mashed potatoes and vegetables but what I didn’t give them, I ate up with great gusto. I really loved the flavor of them and so did my husband. Neither of us finished our steak but the vegetables and mashed potatoes were all gone!

The kids split a kids meal (and they ate quite a bit off of our plates as well). The one they got was Pizza and I ordered it with the fruit cup and sliced apples, which counted as their appetizer and dessert as well. Sorry my picture was from after we already split it up between their two plates, so there was twice as much of everything on one plate to begin with, but you get the idea.

They had some other kid options but this was the one I thought they would enjoy the most, and they did! They ate every bite of all of this and still had some of ours and room for dessert!

Dessert was great at the Grand Floridian Café. My husband decided he did not want dessert and ordered the one he thought the kids would like the best, which was the Chocolate Fondue – Dark Chocolate Ganache with Fruit to dip into it.

This came with a bowl of chocolate in the middle and fruit surrounded it for dipping. The fruit included was banana, strawberries, pineapple, and as an added bonus, marshmallows! The chocolate had an orange flavor to it as well. The kids really enjoyed this and loved having the chocolate to dip the fruit into. It was gone within minutes! I tasted it, and I do agree with them, it was great.

I wish I had chosen the same thing, actually, but I selected the Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake.

This had a wonderful flavor and I loved the hazelnut but it was incredibly rich! After a few bites I was done and just could not eat anymore. I do wish I had ordered the fondue as it was a bit lighter and definitely healthier since there was fruit involved. There was nothing wrong with mine, but I think I just picked the wrong one with how full I already was.


COST BREAKDOWN:

The value for the price was good in my opinion. I didn’t have any complaints on the price breakdown.


OVERALL THOUGHTS:
This, by far, was not the favorite of our trip, but I would eat here again for sure. We really loved our appetizers, and for the most part our entrees. I’d be willing to give the steak another try to see if it was just an off day for those cuts. Everything else on the plate was superb. The desserts were great as well, especially the chocolate fondue with fruit.
Up next, my favorite meal of the trip!

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

We have plans to try GFC for lunch next trip. That fondue dessert looks to be worth the trip alone!

 

[plutosgirl]

Loving your reviews and pictures! Sign me up!!

 

[ilovepete]

We have plans to try GFC for lunch next trip. That fondue dessert looks to be worth the trip alone!

Yeah it was pretty tasty! You should try GFC out and see what you think!

Loving your reviews and pictures! Sign me up!!

Thank you! Glad to have you reading!

 

[lindsayp]

count me in! sorry to see that biergarten wasn't much of a success. We've never done it and I've convinced my family to try it next time because i make some german receipes and love it. They don't so much Hopefully they will enjoy themselves. how is the show by the way? what do they do?

 

[ilovepete]

count me in! sorry to see that biergarten wasn't much of a success. We've never done it and I've convinced my family to try it next time because i make some german receipes and love it. They don't so much Hopefully they will enjoy themselves. how is the show by the way? what do they do?

The show was really good. It has been every time we go. They sing and also play instruments. They do some songs together and then some of the guys do solos on some of the more "odd" instruments. There was a show with bells last time we were there that was really cool! They also had different horns and things that you don't see every day. It is definitely worth seeing, very entertaining and fun.
I hope you enjoy it!

 

[vettegirl]

Great GF review. I am planning on ordering the steak on Sunday and hope it's good.

 

[ilovepete]

So for our final meal of day 2, we chose The Wave. I had a 5:00ADR because we were going to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party that evening, and I didn’t want dinner to interrupt that. We were at Magic Kingdom that entire day, so we just jumped on the monorail and rode it over to the Contemporary to eat at the Wave. We got there a few moments early and had a seat to wait for our table. We were seated shortly and had a look at the menu.

They served us bread.

It appeared to be multigrain and the butter had seasalt on it as well. I didn’t eat this but my kids and husband did and they ate all of it, so I assume it was good.

For my appetizer I chose the Pan Seared Scallops with Sweet Onions, Applewood Smoked Bacon, and Chili Cream Corn Sauce.

They were AMAZING. Really incredible. One of my favorite things I had the entire trip. They were tender and cooked perfectly and the flavors of the bacon and the corn with it were perfect. I ate every single bite of these and look at this picture makes my mouth water because I remember the taste!


My husband’s appetizer was the Seasonal Soup.

It was actually a seafood mixture with shrimp, sausage, fish, and potatoes. It was served with a jalepeno cornbread muffin, which he said was great. He enjoyed the soup but was trying to save room for his main so he didn’t eat very much of it.

For our main entrees, we both choose something different.
I went with the Apple Brined Pork Tenderloin with Bourbon Sweet Mashed potatoes, warm spinach-bacon salad and Sassafras Jus

I asked them to double the sweet potatoes and skip the salad. I just wasn’t feeling more bacon flavor after having the scallops with bacon, and sweet potatoes are one of my favorites. Seriously this was perfection on a plate for me. The pork was amazingly tender and so easy to eat it almost melted in your mouth. The sweet potatoes were equally fantastic and to be honest with you I ate every single bite on my plate. That rarely happens for me but I could not get enough of this! I think I could eat it every single day and not get tired of it. The Jus on the plate went just right with both the pork and the potatoes, I honestly wanted to lick my plate!

My husband selected the Grilled Beef Tenderloin - port wine jus, potato and onion gratin and braised swiss chard.

He was getting extremely full by this point. He is not used to eating so much in one day and between the breakfast buffet, his steak for lunch, and now a filet for dinner, he was just to the point of being tired of eating. He ate the Filet and said it was really good. I tried it and it was very tender and had a really excellent flavor to it. He chose not to eat the potato and onion gratin or the swiss chard. I tried the gratin and it was incredible, I was really impressed with it. My daughter ate it was well and seemed pleased.

The kids menu had a few new choices.

But DS5 was set on the cheeseburger. So, he got the Cheeseburger with Sweet Potato Fries and the Fruit Salad.

He said it was good and he ate the entire thing. Neither child was a fan of the sweet potato fries, even though they love sweet potatoes. DD2 did share the fruit salad with him, but she is not a fan of burgers so she did not have that. She shared our dinner and enjoyed herself. They also got the Yogurt Parfait for dessert, which my pictures came out blurry for, but it was strawberry yogurt, with actual strawberries on top and some granola sprinkled on it. They ate all of it.


Next up for us was dessert. We were both so full that we weren’t really feeling dessert but since it was included on the plan we decided to go ahead and order just to taste them. I figured if nothing else the kids would enjoy them, and they did.

I went with the American Flavors.

From left to right – Boston Cream Pie, Mississippi Mud Pie with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and finally Key Lime Cube with Fresh Citrus Whipped Cream. These all tasted great. My favorite was the Boston Cream Pie, which was surprising, because usually I am a sucker for the Key Lime desserts. I only tasted a bite or two of each one but I was pleased with the flavors.


My husband chose the Freshly Made Gelato

Sorry, the picture is blurry here, but yes the ice cream was actually melting by the time it got to us. He didn’t really care since he wasn’t hungry enough to eat it anyway, but it was slightly disappointing. From left to right they were, Popcorn Gelato, Peanut Butter & Jelly Gelato, and Rocky Road Chocolate Gelato. They also did not taste like typical gelato, but he said they were all very nice tasting and he enjoyed the couple of bites he ate of each one. The popcorn one was actually the best in his opinion, he said.
COST BREAKDOWN:

Compared to other meals we had that cost the same, I felt this was well worth it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
As I said in an earlier review, The Wave was actually my favorite meal of the trip. This was the place I was initially most resistant to try, but they proved me wrong. I absolutely adored my scallops appetizer and polished off my pork entrée with ease.My husband enjoyed his steak very much and said he would eat at The Wave again strictly because of that, but he was not as pleased with his appetizer and dessert. He did say that he was so full from all we had eaten that day that he thought he would have enjoyed everything more if he was really hungry at the time of our meal. That of course is one of the mian disadvantages of having to make ADRs instead of going with what you feel at the time.
Regardless of that, we will be eating here again. Because of my love of my meal so much and his desire to try it again under better circumstances, we will definitely be returning to The Wave in the future!

 

[Gena001]

Co-workers of mine were at WDW a year ago. They loved The Wave & ate there a few times (it was convenient; they stayed at the CR). It was their favorite!

I can't wait to hear your 'Ohana review!!!!! Hope it was good for you since we go in December!