Eating at the World Year Round!!!! An AP trip report...

[Brena]

I've lived in Orlando for a little over 8 years now and I've never really given a second thought to WDW, until recently. Sure, I loved to go as a little girl (I grew up in SW Florida) and I'd had many friends who'd worked at Disney over the years so I'd gotten in free... but pay for Disney??? I never had.

Then all of my CM friends moved away. I forgot about Disney for awhile.

Until this June when my Fiance' wanted to go on a Disney cruise for his birthday. I found the DISboards while looking for cruise information and I was hooked. I remembered the wonderful times I'd had at Disney and realized that as an adult that WDW could be even better than before! I wasn't an easily embarrassed teenager anymore and I could do whatever I wanted to do (within reason)! The World was my oyster.

The only thing stopping me was my Fiance'. He wasn't technically stopping me by saying "You can't go.", but I had the distinct feeling that he didn't like Disney World. Something about the smell (he is very sensitive to smells) and crowds and bad memories of MVMCP with his sister. He would go if I wanted too, but I wanted both of us to want to go.

Then... I saw the key to getting my fiance' to love the World here on the DISboards. I found the food reviews.

We started off with a No Way Jose' at Beaches N Cream. Fiance' loves peanut butter and ice cream. Another weekend it was the Cannonball sandwich at Earl of Sandwich.

The final blow was California Grill. That night he gave me the go ahead to get Annual Passes.

We got our AP's on July 25th, the weekend before the price hike. I had read rumors so we went ahead and purchased two Florida Resident Annual Passes and a Dining Experience card.

We are:

Brena (28) - I always wanted to be a princess when I grew up and I think I've gotten as close to it as I could. I have a wonderful job, many pretty dresses, an adoring Fiance', and I am very charitable. Those are all princess qualities to me! Things somehow seem to turn out the way I want them through persistence and good luck. I can find a silver lining in anything. Oh, and I looove to eat. And I have to eat fairly frequently, I have a "condition" where my immune system doesn't understand the difference between good cells and bad cells, so it sort of just destroys things randomly. The result is that I am incredibly anemic. I try to keep my protein and iron levels up throughout the day otherwise we're in for a bit of trouble. I'm really trying to be better at this and hopefully I'll improve by the end of this TR!

Fiance' or FI (25) - he loves to eat as well and he has wonderful metabolism. He's rarely hungry. He eats when we're around food but I never really get a "yes" when I ask "are you hungry?". He's laid back and loves to follow my plans (I think!). He's incredibly smart and caring. He loves chicken and steak and mac 'n' cheese. He doesn't drink a lot of alcohol so he's my constant DD!

OK, so let's get this TR on the road.

 

[Brena]

So the first day of our AP's and I forgot my camera. Luckily we just got iPhones so we took pictures with those.

I chose Peco's Bill for CS because I knew they had cheeseburgers and FI loves cheeseburgers. It was not too crowded and we waited for a short time before we got to order. Our CM had a friend visiting her at her register so she was having a difficult time understanding my order of 2 cheeseburger combo's but eventually it got through. We picked out a seat and I offered to go to the toppings bar for both of us. FI didn't want any toppings, I'd suspected as much.

I was impressed by the toppings bar. I was very much expecting a McDonald's like setup where you get ketchup and straws. There were 2 stations that had sauteed mushrooms and onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, tons of condiments and cheese sauce! Yay!!!!! I loooove cheese sauce. I got tomato, lettuce, mustard, and cheese sauce and headed to the table pronto.

The one thing I would've done differently is gotten the toppings before we sat down or brought my tray with me to the topping bar. Then I could've gotten more cheese sauce.

Here's a picture of our cheeseburger and fries.

They were pretty good. They were well cooked and not extremely greasy. The fries were hot and crisp and delicious dipped in cheese. I ate about 3/4 of my burger and all my fries and it was the perfect amount. I was not stuffed, but I knew that I wouldn't faint either.

Would we come back again? Probably but I don't think we'd go out of our way.

 

[Brena]

I'd read all about Dole Whips on the DISboards and knew I had to try one. So when it was looking like rain, I suggested we grab a Dole Whip float and sit somewhere under cover.

Here it is after we had eaten off all of the swirly goodness. FI didn't watch the float being made so he was a little surprised that it was hollow inside.

I had expected the dole whip to be like vanilla soft serve with pineapple chunks, but it was really pineapple soft serve! It was amazing and creamy and delicious. And I loved the pineapple juice at the end.

We will definitely come back and go out of our way to do so. Next time FI would like to just try the Whip without the float.

 

[quixoticvalue]

Yay yay! This is very cool. Do you take requests? (As in, if one of us asks you to go somewhere or check something out... would you consider it? )

 

[Brena]

I decided that our first place to try lunch at Animal Kingdom would be Pizzafari. After seeing Pizzafari pizza's on the DISboards we decided to split a pepperoni pizza. We also got to use our Dining Experience card here for the first time!

As you can see, we remembered my point and shoot this day.

This pizza was yuuuuuuummmmmmyyyy! The sauce was nicely spiced and the crust was nice and chewy. Half a piece of pizza was the perfect amount. The only thing I would change about this meal was the pace that I ate. I am normally a really slow eater, but I wolfed this pizza down because I was starving. I also drank a ton of lemonade really fast. At the end of the meal I felt kinda sick from eating to fast.

We would definitely eat here again. The price was right and so was the meal. And it was air conditioned!

 

[Brena]

Yay yay! This is very cool. Do you take requests? (As in, if one of us asks you to go somewhere or check something out... would you consider it? )

Definitly!!!!!! We plan on eating everywhere...

 

[quixoticvalue]

Definitly!!!!!! We plan on eating everywhere...

Ooooh! This sounds fun!! I am very jealous of you right now! I really don't know what to request right now........ hmmmm.. But I may ask you one day!! Haha

 

[MickeyNicki]

Great start! Cannot wait for more

 

[Brena]

We decided to stop at Beaches N Cream on our way out of WDW property. FI had been talking about No Way Jose's for at least a week.

I love the No Way Jose'. It's sooo super delicious and peanut buttery and chocolatey and yummy. It really hit the spot. And the waitress took a pretty good picture of us with it. We always have had excellent service at Beaches N Cream.

We definitely go out of our way to eat here and I'm thinking of convincing my sisters to join us here one day and get the kitchen sink.

 

[John's Mom]

Great reviews!

 

[Brena]

We were on our way around the World Showcase for the first time. I knew that we wanted to ride Maelstrom so I figured we might as well stop in the Kringla Bakeri and pick up some Schoolbread and water.

Like the Dole Whip, I had an idea in my head of what the Schoolbread would taste like. For the most part, I was wrong.

I thought that there would be more creamy stuff in it, but there was just a bit. But that bit was perfect because the cream was much sweeter than I thought it would be. It tasted like vanilla pudding mixed with icing, whereas I thought it would just taste like pudding.

The Schoolbread is glazed like a doughnut and covered in coconut. That part I got right.

The bread itself is not terribly sweet, but nice and cinnamony. Together they all made for a really nice sweet treat.

I didn't think that FI would try this because he has a self-professed hatred of coconut. But I'm guessing that this assumption was made awhile ago because after he tasted it he didn't think it was that bad. So he helped me eat the Schoolbread which was nice because there was no way I could finish it all.

Schoolbread is certainly yummy but I probably won't come back around for it for awhile because there are just too many places to try at Epcot!

 

[D&R love Disney]

Great report so far!

 

[Brena]

I had seen the Samantha Brown WDW Favorite's Special on the Travel Channel and her favorite drink was the Grand Marnier Orange Slush at a small booth in France. August in Central Florida was roasting hot of course so I felt the need for something cool.

The slushy was yuuuuummmy. It was not too icy or too liquidy and came in a cute glass. It was really cold. FI even had some and he rarely drinks anything alcoholic. We sat in the shade and drank and it seemed like the perfect break.

In hindsight we should've grabbed some water and a protein snacky instead. The alcohol combined with heat and my lack of protein that day and a skipped lunch (I honestly forgot about lunch). I got sick really really quickly. Which leads to our next food stop...

 

[Brena]

I was starting to fade fast so we grabbed me some Chicken McNuggets. Note to self: next time pack a protein bar so you don't have to eat McNuggets.

It took forever to get the nuggets. The line wasn't particularly long either. I sat on a bench while FI waited in line. What really killed him was that the guy in front of him took such a long time to decide. They had already been up there for 20 minutes when it was the guys turn and he apparently stood at the counter forever going "chicken nuggets or fries?" (that's all that this stop offers in the way of food). And then he finally picked the nuggets. The CS CM asked "6 or 9 piece?" and the process started all over again. FI still talked about it when we were leaving that night.

 

[Brena]

Yay! My first table service review.

We had ADR's for Bistro de Paris at 6:00 PM. The entrance is at the back of the Chefs de France restaurant. Since (407)WDW-DINE had told me that tank tops weren't acceptable at this restaurant I stopped before we entered and threw a shirt over my tank top. The girls at the podium smiled at me. It turns out that there were several women in the restaurant with spaghetti strap tanks on. Oh well, I was happy with my shirt because it was chilly in there!

A few decor pictures.

Our waiter was great. He didn't make us feel uncomfortable and chatted to us a bit about his life in Orlando. He teased me about my lack of eating.

I'm not a big wine drinker but I usually have a glass or two with a nice dinner. However they didn't have too many "glass" choices, just a lot of bottle choices. I decided to go with a soda.

First a waitress came around with a bread basket and we had our choice of bread. I had the rustic bread and FI had the baguette. They were both wonderful.

Then we were served a small amuse bouche of gazpacho. I didn't like it very much. I felt it was over seasoned.

Then came our appetizers. FI ordered a salad and I ordered Rillettes Crab et Tuna Carpacchio.

FI's salad looked delicious but he only ate the lettuce part. He doesn't like marinated artichokes or dressing on his cucumbers.

The tuna part of my appetizer was very yummy but the crap rillettes (sort of a crab salad) was too creamy for me. I could barely taste any crab.

For an entree' I ordered the Maine Lobster with gnocchi and peas in a champagne truffle sauce. wow, this was really really rich. The sauce tasted bland to me and even though the gnocchi were perfectly cooked they were smothered in the sauce that I was not too fond of. The lobster was very good though. I ate the lobster and perhaps 3 gnocchi and a couple of peas.

FI ordered the Beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes. His beef looked a bit overcooked to me, although I tried some potatoes and I thought they were amazing! He said that everything was ok.

After we had eaten as much dinner as we could, we ordered the dessert sampler. This was by far the best thing!!!!!

As you can see, we'd already taken bites of the creme brulee' and rice pudding. Starting from the creme brulee' and heading clockwise we have: chocolate cake with molten filling, raspberry sorbet, rice pudding, chocolate bombe, melon granita and a pistachio peach tart.

I tried a bite of the rice pudding and the flavor was delish! However I cannot get over the conflicting textures in rice pudding so I didn't have any more. FI ate it all quickly anyways!

The cake was very good especially with the fruit from the sides of the plate. The raspberry sorbet was tart and was a nice break from all the sweetness!

The chocolate mousse bombe was way too rich for me. I could only have 2 bites. If you love dark chocolate then you would probably love this dessert.

The melon granita was amazing! It had such an intense melon flavor. I loved it, it was so refreshing.

The creme brulee' was perfect and yummy (it's one of my favorite desserts). The peach tart was ok... the tart part was dry and the peaches tasted canned.

This is a pricey place. For the two of us with the DDE our total was around $130. So while the food was good, I don't think we'll go back. French food really isn't at the top of our favorite food list and I think that if I ever craved French food I would probably try Chefs de France.

Also... the food really upset my stomach later that night. And the next day. I just think French food is too rich for my tastes, I usually love light foods and sweets! I'm big into veggies and there weren't too many of those on our plates.

What I would like to do in the future is just stop for this dessert sampler and maybe a nice glass of dessert wine. It won't be anytime soon though, the atmosphere made FI a bit nervous. I have to say though, the dessert sampler was a pretty good deal.

Next weekend: Disney's Hollywood Studios!!!!

 

[jerseygal]

The pizza at Pizzafari AK looked good for Disney Pizza!

Thanks....Pepperoni looked good too!

 

[Brena]

Ooooh! This sounds fun!! I am very jealous of you right now! I really don't know what to request right now........ hmmmm.. But I may ask you one day!! Haha

I look forward to the challange! I try to remember to make most of our ADR's a couple of months in advance, it's kinda difficult when you're not planning a trip. Although there are no ADR's made for October because of F&W Festival!!!!!

Great start! Cannot wait for more

Great reviews!

Great report so far!

Thanks!!!!!!!! I can't wait to do some more reviews... especially since it means eating more!

The pizza at Pizzafari AK looked good for Disney Pizza!

Thanks....Pepperoni looked good too!

I was really expecting high school cafeteria pizza so I was pleasantly surprised!!!!

 

[iluvpluto27]

Really enjoying your reviews. That dessert sampler looks fantastic!

 

[TigerKat]

Great job so far! We're trying Bistro in November and hoping for a great experience.

 

[mcrabeck]

Great Reviews- Can't wait to hear about your dining adventures at DHS.