Excuse me waiter, I dropped my fork-July dining review with lots of pics! Update 8/8

[angelbear425]

I'm happy you had a positive experience at Coral Reef. We had it booked for next month, but read all the negativity and cancelled for one of the restaurants in Italy. I have always wanted to eat at CR for the same reasons as your daughter lol.

 

[Steelersfan]

On Monday the Animal Kingdom had an early opening so we were there as it opened. We rode Everest (and got a little sick), the Safari, Pangani trail and grabbed a fastpass for Kali River Rapids before our 10:00 am breakfast at Tusker House.

We were cutting it close to our 10:00 time, but got our picture (with Donald this time) and were seated no later than 10:10. We ate here when it was a counter serve several years ago and had the buffet our last trip mostly because our daughter wanted to meet Daisy. Although we already met Mickey, Goofy and Donald, it was nice too see Daisy again. Plus, we like to have a few breakfasts each trip because breakfast buffets are always good. We usually try to get the breakfast in the early hours park around 10:00 so we can spend a couple of hours on the rides, eat, then get out of the park which is always extra crowded due to the early entry.

That was the plan here too originally because we were going to do one or two things after breakfast then go to Typhoon Lagoon, but there was a 70% chance of showers that afternoon so we decided to just bite the bullet and stay the whole day then go to Typhoon on Wed. instead of doing a second AK morning. I didn’t want to get to the water park and have to get out of the water due to lightning.

On to our breakfast… I love nothing more than following up a day with cholesterol filled food with more cholesterol so here is my plate:

One thing I love about WDW breakfast buffets is the sausage gravy and biscuits. Nobody in my house really likes them so I usually take advantage when I can. They have the basic breakfast foods here like eggs, bacon, sausage, Mickey waffles, plus a bunch of danishes, donuts, bagels and croissants. They also had the one item I feel makes any event a first class ordeal… cheese chunks!

My wife had some with her plate:

My daughter had some dry cereal, a Mickey waffle and some tots she said “were the best in the world” with her plate.

I had coffee to drink, my wife had “pop” and our daughter went with milk. Another neat item at this restaurant that I completely forgot from our last trip was the “monkey juice” everyone gets with their meal. It is a combination of different fruit juices and is REALLY refreshing on a hot day. I could have consumed a gallon myself!

This is a really good breakfast if you happen to enjoy breakfasts. Some people are not excited about breakfast food, but this is good stuff. They know how to do it. For example, some places at home try to do this and have eggs get so rubbery you could take them home as a toy to play with, but they put them out at the “just cooked” stage so they finish in the pan on the line and they don’t let things sit out to become dry. Even the bacon is cooked to that “barely crispy,” not hard consistency.

We never did an early breakfast at WDW because the 10:00ish time works best for us.

Because we were staying in the park we used our Kali fastpass, did It’s Tough to be a Bug, hung out in Dinoland, watched “Festival of the Lion King,” went to the petting zoo/Planet Watch area, then came back across the park for the last Nemo show.

That was quite a bit to get in one day, especially with the size of this park. First time visitors can be overwhelmed by this. Just something to think about that caught us off guard this time. If your child likes animals and wants to do the petting zoo, do that BEFORE you go in the building at Rafiki’s Planet Watch/Conservation Station because they close it down in lightning. We ended up missing it this day because the 70% chance of rain became 100% at around 4:30 and we got drenched. We were soaked watching the Nemo show!

After all that it was a good time to call it an early day and go back to the hotel to “recharge the batteries.” This is VERY important to do a few nights a trip regardless of how old your party is. Until we got the bus, it was still after 8:00 until we got back, so it wasn’t as early as it could have been.

We knew going in that at some point we were going to have to pay for one meal out of pocket. We have always had luck with the 16” pizza at the hotel food courts in the past and since we already had our drinks mugs that were included with the meal plan. We figured one $16.00 pizza with three snack credit salads was cheaper that paying at a park later in the trip.

Like I said, we always had very good luck with the food court pizza, but this one was literally a 16” version of the pizza we had at Pizza Planet. When I said we were “recharging the batteries,” we literally were as our cameras were back in the room getting charged so I didn’t take any pictures at the food court. I did get one of the pieces that were left when I got back to the room. I believe this pizza ended up being an eight cut when it was all said and done:

The remains of the pizza:

We brought plastic food storage bags so the refrigerator in the room allowed us to save what was left and not waste it. We each eventually grabbed a piece later that week. It was almost better cold.

I would have to almost say not to get the food court pizza (I have a feeling they all have basically the same thing) until they change the recipe. Again, I need to stress I am not comparing this to the pizza I like to eat at home, but to the pizza I have eaten at the All-Stars and Caribbean Beach in the past. I am curious to see if anyone else saw a decline.

My wife and daughter watched “The Princess and the Frog” on a big screen in the courtyard at French Quarter (they showed a movie every night at 9:00 weather permitting) and I just went to bed because we were heading to the Magic Kingdom in the morning.

Cosmic Ray’s is next!

 

[DisneytheKid]

Wow! Great pics! I cant wait for Earl of Sandwich to come to DLR!!!

We just got back from our July 13 to 21st 2012 trip. In the past we have found these reviews to be very helpful so for our last three trips I have made sure to try and remember to get pictures to share!

First a little about us:

Me: I'm in my 40's from the Pittsburgh area. This was my 7th total trip to WDW. I am NOT a picky eater at all, in fact I am a burger and fries and hot wing kind of guy. If I didn't like it, it was bad!

My wife: Also in her 40's. We both have similar eating habits. She likes the vegetables a little more than me. She has a shellfish allergy, so any seafood other than fish is out.

My daughter: She is 8 and loves the vegetables. She likes chicken and some meats... mostly hotdogs and burgers. She is getting more adventurous as she gets older. She does not like anything spicy, although she is getting better there also.

We stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter and were in the dining plan. Our meals were as follows:

7/13: Earl of Sandwich and Chef Mickey's
7/14: Pizza Planet and 1900 Park Fare
7/15: Coral Reef and Liberty Inn
7/16: Tusker House Breakfast and Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory pizza.
7/17: Cosmic Ray's and Garden Grill
7/18: Leaning Palms and O'hana
7/19: Crystal Palace and Rosie's All American Cafe
7/20: Akershus princess breakfast and Pecos Bills
7/21: Pinnochio Village Haus

Reading many of these reports, I notice, with all due respect, that some of the reviews are a little negative. In other words, it seems to me that some folks order a burger and expect filet mignon. This review will take into account that when we ordered a burger or chicken nuggets we expected just that. I know there is magic at WDW, but a chicken nugget is a chicken nugget.

I think it will also become painfully obvious that our daughter likes to drop her fork...a lot, and I ended up eating more carrot cake than I have in my life and more burgers than I expected... but it was all mostly GREAT!

Feel free to jump in with questions /comments whenever anyone wants!

Now, on to day 1 (7/21/12)

We had a VERY early flight out of Pittsburgh so we were up at 3:00am without any real sleep. Needless to say, we were all TIRED! Our plan was to take it easy the 1st day and just go to DTD to do a little shopping.

Our daughter is a HUGE Build-A-Bear fan and loves to build a dino on our visits, so we figured we could get that out of the way day one in the event we didn't get back. While going to DTD we figured we could stop and eat an one of our favorite restaurants on property... Earl of Sandwich!

Now, it must be said that I am still a little mad at the Earle for taking the Beef and Bleu off the menu a few years back, so I was searching the menus for a replacement. I decided to try the Hawaiian BBQ. I got the pasta salad so we could get both the pasta and potato salad as sides.

While it is no Beef and Bleu, it will do as they say! This sandwich was awesome. It had a great combination of ham, pineapple, chicken, cheese and BBQ sauce. There was quite a bit going on, but it all meshed perfectly! I am going to try and simulate this at home asap... it was that good. Sometimes ham and chicken can have chewy pieces, but this sandwich was completely tender. I had the pasta salad here before and it is a good pasta salad. I would compare it to Walmart pasta salad more than homemade, but that was OK with me!

My wife had her favorite, The Original 1762 with a side of potato salad.

When I asked her how it tasted, she said," it tasted like I've been dreaming for the last three years." That pretty much says it all. I ate some of her sandwich and we shared our sides so I must say I agree. Both were very good. I wondered how hot the horseradish sauch would be, but it was more tasty than spicy.

My daughter went with the grilled cheese with some baked Lays as her side.

I asked her if she liked it and she said," I thought it was burnt but it tasted great!" She ate the whole thing which is a challenge at WDW.

We got there at 11:45 or so and it was very crowded but that is expected. It wasn't very hot out so we sat outside. We got a table right away and even saw our first duck of the trip which is a major thing for her. She likes seeing the animals walking around more than the characters at times! Plus, she didn't drop a fork at this meal! At the time we didn't realize how nice that was!

We all had the fountain drinks which is nice here because you can get as many refills as you want until your cup falls apart.

On a side note, this is actually a good restaurant to save until mid trip or so because the offerings are so different than the bulk of the counter service restaurants. It would be a nice change of pace, plus it is tough to go to DTD the first day with success because it is tough to buy things when you don't know what is available in the parks.

My recommendation is eat at Earl of Sandwich every trip, but save it for when you are hungry for something a little different.

That's all for tonight. I was uploading my food pics and my eyes are starting to cross! I'll get to Chef Mickey's whenever I get a chance!

 

[tinkerbells mum]

I'm really looking forward to eating at tusker house, thanks again for sharing the pictures xx

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[Steelersfan]

The next day (Tuesday) we were up for a normal 9:00 Magic Kingdom opening. We saw the opening show and went straight to Fantasyland to get all those things out of the way without any lines. We worked from Dumbo/Barnstormer over towards It’s a Small world, skipping Mickey’s Philharmagic because it can be experienced all day with a minimal wait. When we got to Peter Pan, there was already a 25 minute wait so we fastpassed it and got a bonus fastpass for Mickey’s Philharmagic anyhow! That worked out great. The lines for that Peter Pan ride got to be longer than Space Mountain at some points in the trip. It is a neat little nostalgic ride, but I would never wait 2 hours for it!

We knew we had Cosmic Ray’s, Pinnochio Village Haus and Pecos Bill’s down as our MK counter serve choices and our daughter picked Cosmic Ray’s for this meal. We had quite a pit of success here in the past and, like the Earle of Sandwich, I need to see Cosmic Ray about taking the chicken and Ribs combo off the menu. That was crazy value on the meal plan, which is why it was taken off I’m sure.

We got there past the 11:00 opening but there was still a seat available in front of Sonny Eclipse, who is a little scary and annoying after awhile, but the kids love him!

I had the half chicken meal. It came with mashed potatoes and green beans. I got… surprise… CARROT CAKE for dessert!

The food here has been very good in the past, but my chicken was somewhat dry this time. The potatoes were very good as always and I had a few green beans and donated the rest to my daughter… not because they were bad, (they were good actually) but because she LOVES green beans.

My wife had a chicken sandwich with apples and a coke. She had the chocolate gelato for dessert.

Her sandwich was a little on the dry side too. The rest was good and the gelato was very rich. We all helped her finish it.

Our daughter had the kid’s turkey sandwich with fries, applesauce and chocolate milk. She ate my beans, and all the sides along with half of her sandwich, which is quite a bit of food for her. I “helped” her finish her sandwich and would have been happy with a larger version as an adult offering for certain.

Overall, the dried chicken took something off of this meal. I am curious if we just went in there and got the last of what they had made for the 11:00 am rush or if the quality here just went down. We liked this restaurant enough in the past to try it again, but if Ray screws up the chicken next time, he may be on our naughty list! I will be checking other folk’s reviews before our next trip for certain.

Next will be The Garden Grill in Epcot!

 

[Steelersfan]

On another Cosmic Ray's note. Their fixin's bar was good. It was better that Liberty Inn, but not as good as Peco's Bills as you will be able to see when I get to that one!

 

[magic kingdom park]

Great reviews and pics

 

[jedijill]

Great reviews...can't wait to hear more!

Jill in CO

 

[Steelersfan]

Later in the day Tuesday we went back to the hotel for a rest then headed to Epcot for our dinner at the Garden Grill. This was a new restaurant for us so we were looking forward to it. The plan was to eat here, then go back to the Magic Kingdom via the monorail to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes fireworks since this was an extra hours evening at Epcot. Our dinner was at 5:20 and the park was PACKED at this point so our idea to eat and leave was a good one. The parkhopper is a must! The line for Soarin’ was close to three hours in the stand-by line and we watched a tour group of at least 100 kids go in it while we were waiting to be seated!

We did get seated rather fast in a booth on the lower level looking out over the Living with the Land farm scene. The man who seated us, Carlos, was one of the nicest cast members we met the whole trip. He was ultra friendly and is what makes Disney special personified. I just wanted to give him a shout-out for his efforts. Look him up if you eat here.

Our waitress, Lisa, was very nice and attentive also. She started us out with some very good rolls with an interesting maple butter. This was a great way to start the meal and both the rolls and butter were very good.

Next came a salad with their own homemade ranch dressing. This was good also. Our daughter was allowed to eat both of these items in addition to her child’s menu options.

After eating those for a bit a ridiculous platter came out with turkey, spicy tilapia, steak and mashed potatoes. Here are two pics of the platter(s)… yes we did get a second.

In an earlier review I praised the steak I had at the Coral Reef, and I stand by that, but the steak here was even better! It was cooked just a tad past medium and was crazy good. I thought the turkey and mashed potatoes were equally good. As stated earlier, I’m not a big fish fan, but even I liked the tilapia. My wife wasn’t crazy about it only because it had a kind of salsa on top as a dressing and she does not like salsa. The little bit of the pure fish she did eat, she liked. It was a little spicy so if that’s not your thing you might not like it, but I would give it a try. You could order as much of anything as you wanted.

Our daughter, in addition to the rolls and salad, got the kid’s choice which included mac and cheese, broccoli, a chicken drumstick and sweet potato sticks. She liked everything except the sweet potato sticks. I tried one myself and wasn’t crazy about them either. She actually had more than one order of broccoli. She’s a beans and broccoli kid!

For dessert the adults had this awesome multi-berry pie with ice cream. It was almost more like a cake than pie. My wife didn’t have any as she wasn’t feeling very well at that point (more on that in a minute), but I ate some. It wasn’t easy considering I was stuffed! This is a great dessert. I don’t know if they offer it everyday, but what they had that day left nothing to be desired. It sure was a nice change from the prepackaged carrot cake!

Our daughter had a “Life’s a Bug” cake for her dessert and liked it very much.

The food at this restaurant was equal or superior to what we had at the Coral Reef as our best of the trip up to that point and that is saying quite a bit! In addition, we got to meet Mickey again and saw Chip and Dale for the first time the whole trip. Character interaction was very good and unlike a buffet, there was no fear of missing a character when you went to get more food!

As great as the food, service, atmosphere and characters were at the Garden Grill, there is one “little,” potentially game changing negative about this place that I really think needs to be stressed before booking this as a meal choice. This may sound “whimpy,” but the rotation of the restaurant can actually get to you a little bit queasy if you are at all susceptible to any kind of motion sickness. It is weird and almost embarrassing to admit because the restaurant rotates at a snail’s pace but you can still see it moving and your brain knows you are moving.

This is why my wife wasn’t feeling so well by the end of the meal. She was sitting in the middle of the table looking out and got the effect more than I did. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. You can’t tell in the distance but can easily see the wall near you moving.

As a kid, I never got motion sickness and I only tend to get it now on things that spin rapidly or if I go backwards. This trip I rode the teacups twice and spun it pretty hard and only got temporarily dizzy, not sick. My wife and I both got thrown off for about a good half an hour after going backwards on Expedition Everest. I honestly have to say, I felt almost the same way after leaving this restaurant as I did getting off Everest. I wasn’t “sick” and I didn’t feel like throwing up or anything, but I wasn’t “right” either if that makes any sense. My wife was a little closer to the “throwing up” stage than the more gentle “not right.” At one point our daughter handed my wife her cup quoting Wayne"s World saying, "If you have to spew, spew into this!" We both found it funnier than my wife at the time, who still laughed!

It took us over an hour for the whole meal and the restaurant completely rotated a little over once in the time we were there so it isn’t a violent thrill ride, but it is something to consider. We wondered if sitting in the upper level would help as the rotation MAY not be as obvious. I’m not sure.

By the time we got out of the park and to the monorail we were both feeling almost normal so it didn’t last long. I do not recall reading about other people having this issue, but again… if you feel queasy at all getting off anything that spins, have issues moving backwards or just get sick in the back seat of a car, you might want to skip this restaurant. It literally pains me to think how good this food really is without the rotation because it was pretty good with it!

It is a shame, but that little motion sickness issue is probably enough to knock this off our list for the next trip which is a shame because the food here is beyond… well beyond good. I am actually considering trying a motion sickness patch at one of our local theme parks to see if it helps so we can both get the patch for the next trip and eat there again! It says something about a restaurant if I’m willing to medicate myself so we can eat there!

On to Wednesday with some H2O park food and a much anticipated first visit to Ohana!

 

[CanadianPaco]

That ladybug cake was way tooooooo cute!

 

[pld5]

Another close to Pittsburgher here. I'm enjoying your review. That creme brulee at Coral Reef looks scrumptious.

We booked Coral Reef last January, but events of the day had us cancel it at the last minute. Hoping to make it there in February. Nice to know you have a good view even if the stingrays aren't eyeballing you through the whole meal.

 

[Steelersfan]

Another close to Pittsburgher here. I'm enjoying your review. That creme brulee at Coral Reef looks scrumptious.

We booked Coral Reef last January, but events of the day had us cancel it at the last minute. Hoping to make it there in February. Nice to know you have a good view even if the stingrays aren't eyeballing you through the whole meal.

Several swam arould the whole time, but the one that had to be the leader just say there on the bottom then swam away when we were leaving! He (or she) wanted my steak I think!

 

[deenbrad]

I'm glad I didn't make an ADR for Garden Grill. I think we would all enjoy the food but I'm sure I'd get pretty sick! I suffer terribly from motion sickness!

 

[angelbear425]

I'm happy to know about the rotation for this restaurant. I didn't know beforehand and I cancelled the reservations to eat in Italy instead.

 

[iloveeeyore]

That was a great review of Garden Grill! I have never heard anyone say that the restaurant made them motion sick, but I have heard occasional complaints of the FOOD making people sick...maybe they just didn't put it together and realize it was the motion, not the food?

I get a little motion sick; I can only ride Everest once without ruining my whole day, the old Star Tours made me sick, and forget about Mission: Space! I find that acupressure wristbands really help. They are medication-free (so no side effects) elastic bands that have a little button you place on a particular acupressure point in the wrist area. You can put more or less pressure on the buttons as needed. I even use them in the hospital on patients who are sick from anesthesia. They don't work for everyone, but when they do work, the results are miraculous!

 

[MWillis]

Love the reviews and taking notes! We have eaten at Garden Grill several times. I have terrible issues with motion sickness and have never had a problem here, thank goodness, because my family would still go without me!! Waiting to see your O'hana review. I went once without my husband, and it was fabulous, took him on the next trip and it was terrible I just kept saying, I swear it was really good last time

 

[mom of princess]

As the wife of steelersfan, I need to clarify something... Our DDs dessert is missing the white chocolate face that made the ladybug super cute

Also, I was looking straight out at the rotating scenery during our entire Garden Grill meal so that is why I got sick feeling. When it got too bad I spent time staring down at my plate since that helped

 

[Linda67]

We really want to try Garden Grill next trip
It's so hard to miss one of the world showcase restaurants though!!

 

[CatNipRules]

just read your entire report! I have wanted to try Coral Reef, but suffer from shellfish allergies also. Sometimes it can be so bad that even the smell can set me off. It sounds like you had a great time there.

Garden Grill is one of our favorite restaurants. We eat there on every trip. DH will definitely want to try the tilapia. The steak looks yummy and we've always loved the turkey there. There's just something about the service and the food that makes it a wonderful place to eat.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Steelersfan]

On Wednesday we slept in a little then hopped a bus to Typhoon Lagoon to spend most of the day. Since our afternoon trip Monday was knocked out by weather, we ended up spending much more time here that I usually would have planned since I personally DESPISE water parks. Everything about them “grosses” me out.

The two girls handled the trip like troopers, so I dug deep and went out of my comfort zone and was actually glad I did. Besides a moderate sunburn on my “golfer’s tan” it was a really nice day. The waves were a little rough on my surgically repaired hip and knee but I was more afraid of falling down and not being able to get up in the shallow water than anything. I actually had fun and will be a little more enthusiastic about it the next trip.

Because we ended up in here for a whole morning and afternoon, we had a meal here that we had not planned coming into the trip. We originally were going to eat the food court pizza after the park closed at 8:00 on Monday, but that didn’t work out.

Being unprepared, we just kind of looked around at the menus and found Leaning Palms. The menu there was different than what I saw on the WDWINFO site. I had a pulled pork sandwich with fries and cheesecake. It was just like I make at home so I was very happy with it. My wife had the chicken Caesar salad with a cookie and our daughter had a hotdog/grapes/fries pail.

Being unprepared, we only took our daughter’s Easter gift, a Kodak camera that can get wet, but because we were kind of wandering around, we left it in the bag by the chairs we grabbed. As a result… sorry… no pics of this one.

I would say that when we go back to this park I would eat there again if the menu was the same. The only downside was in the area to eat your food some of the most aggressive animals I have ever encountered resided. There was a squirrel that wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone and three long billed birds that made the squirrel look like Richard Simmons! One bird got some of my sandwich I’m at least semi-sure when I was getting ketchup and the others were just torturing people. I know feeding these beasts just reinforces the bad behavior, but people really didn’t have a choice. It was the only way to get them away. I actually found them to be more “funny” than annoying, but some people were getting JACKED! That just added to the humor! The angry birds and their furry partner in crime not withstanding, this was a good basic counter service place if you need to eat your lunch in the water park, which we did because I knew we had a BIG dinner later that night at Ohana!

We finished up at Typhoon, went back to the hotel and swam a little more and got showered and ready for Ohana. We had a 6:30 reservation and left plenty of time to get there, so we actually ended up being about 30 minutes early. We only waited about 15 minutes until we were ready.

We were escorted to our table by a fellow from the Pittsburgh area who noticed my Steelers string bag and were offered a loaf of friendship bread. I wanted to try this because I made a loaf of this based off an internet recipe I found last year for a classroom party when my daughter’s class learned about Hawaii. I was happy to notice that I had it very close! This was our first trip into the Polynesian and Ohana as well. Our waiter insisted that we talk to a chef about my wife’s shellfish allergy and he basically said to obviously avoid the shrimp and do not eat any french fries our daughter might have ordered because it is cross contaminated. He said he would heat up special oil any make my wife fries if she wanted them that were safe. Disney restaurants are GREAT at dealing with any kind of allergy. My niece who is allergic to all gluten came with us in 2007 and everyone was wonderful. Check out my 2007 report (now linked in my signature) if you need any more info.

After ordering drinks, our salad and dips for the meats were brought out. The salad had a slightly sweeter taste than I’m used to but it was OK. I had a little and it tasted good, but I don’t think I could have eaten a whole lot of it. Considering what was coming, that wasn’t an option anyways!

Here is the salad:

Here are the dips:

Before I could form an opinion on the salad, out came the appetizers. First was a skillet of wings and dumplings. I like to consider myself a chicken wing connoisseur and these rank right up with some of the best I have had. They were tender and more of a sweet BBQ than hot. The dumplings were different than anything I have ever eaten. They were crispy with what seemed to be honey on the outside with some type of meat on the inside. We all thought these were great also.

I honestly would have been happy with this as a meal in itself, but a minute or two later out came the noodles and broccoli appetizer.

The noodles were very tasty, but were a little too starchy to be put in the same class as the wings and dumplings but they were still good. I’m not a broccoli eater at all, but I can assure that our daughter ate it all so it must have been good.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I was actually getting kind of full when the meats started coming and when I say coming I mean fast and furious. There was steak, chicken, pork and shrimp offered but we just stuck with everything but the shrimp.

They just come around with skewers and a fork and slide off whatever you want a few pieces at a time. It was crazy! I totally forgot to get pictures of the meats except for this one of the steak:

All the meats I tried were very good and the steak actually rivaled the ones at the Coral Reef and Garden Grill. It was just a little overwhelming for a rookie.

Then, just as we thought we could tap out, they brought the bananas foster bread pudding dessert. When I told the waiter I couldn’t move he said, it’s OK, it’s just a little spoonful!” Yea, right! It was awesome, so good that I had to force some in me!

Our daughter had some vanilla ice cream for dessert.

We managed a small break in the action when a gentleman came out and sang some Hawaiian songs and taught whoever wanted to learn how to hula. Overall this meal was very good. Although there was some entertainment I almost felt adults would enjoy the food more than the kids. Our daughter destroyed the broccoli, but picked at everything else.

Ohana kind of reminded me of Whispering Canyon Café in terms of the amount of time needed to get to the restaurant and eat the entire meal except Whispering Canyon is a little louder, but there was more to do for kids. For instance, they promised us coconut races when we sat down, but we were there for an hour and a half and there were none. I could easily see a young child being disappointed by that.

Overall the food here is not only plentiful, but is of the highest quality. To really enjoy it fully, one almost has to be at least 80% carnivore and that isn’t the case with everyone. In some ways, there is almost too much to eat. It is like sensory overload… you naturally don’t want to miss anything.

Knowing what to expect and taking a nice slow pace will help us beyond words if we eat here again, which I would say we probably will, especially if our daughter continues to develop as a T-Rex, not a Brontosaurus because a $40 plate of broccoli and ice cream is a little steep on the adult menu, which she will be next time.

Just one more note about meal times and this is for my own record for the next trip as much as anything. I think earlier dinners, say 5:00ish, work much better than the late ones. Eating our dinner here at 6:20 made it work out so it was close to 8:00 until we walked out of the door. We had intentions of eating this meal and heading to Epcot via monorail for Illuminations, but there was no way we were going to pull that off after the longer meal. Plus, you are STUFFED after eating these meals and DO NOT feel like hauling butt in still 90 degree heat right after eating.

An earlier dinner allows for an early lunch and really does not tie up the early afternoon because the parks are full at that time anyhow. It then allows for guests to so something in the evenings also. At 8:00, we were DONE for the day, which isn’t terrible because you need a few early nights at WDW to keep up the energy, but it does limit the options if your meal isn’t done earlier.

Next we have the Crystal Palace for lunch and Rosie’s All-American Café for a late post-Fantasmic dinner!