Family of 4 Dining Reviews from last month's (May 2008) 10th Anniversary Trip!

[KatMark]

Loving your reviews!!! I hate what I am hearing about Pepper's Market. We had plan to go eat there this Dec because one of the DVC reps highly recommended it for the DDP but if it isn't good or you are going to be treated rudely then to me that isn't worth it. May have to rethink that decision.....

I think it is hit or miss with the guests being treated rudely. We have stayed there six times and have NEVER had an incident with rude servers when getting our food. I will admit the servers that bring the drinks are not the friendliest, but we have never had a rude one.

 

[dawgfan]

Great reviews thanks.

 

[trixiequilts]

Thank you, thank you for these reviews. I am starting to plan our trip for January and debating about doing DDP or pay OOP. It's nice to hear about the counter service places and also the amount of time the table services take. Looking forward to more!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Hi
Thanks for your reviews!! Can't wait to read more. I have to agree about the CM's at the Pepper Market. My DH had to wait so long for a steak to be cooked, and they served so many people before him, that had ordered after him. I can't believe he didn't start yelling at anyone!! He remained calm. Also, I noticed you stayed at POFQ last year. We're staying there this August for the first time. Did you like it?

Yes, the service at Pepper Market is very frustrating to say the least. It was all my DH could do to remain calm too! And I forgot to mention the CM at the bakery (that had to be nearing at least 90 years old) who tried to give me a raisin cookie instead of the choc. chip cookie I asked for. She insisted that it was choc. chip and it was raisin and she just kept arguing with me! Oh my!

As far as POFQ, we did like it, although it wasn't our favorite. If you are looking for small and quiet you will love it. The pool is a lot of fun too. We weren't really "wowed" by the resort though. We like a place a little bigger with more things to do and see! But you really can't be put in a bad building at POFQ, everything is close to everything! I think it would be a great place if traveling with young children or older people.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Tuesday May 13 - Ohana breakfast ~

Today was our EARLY day! We had a 7:30 am ADR at Ohana at the Polynesian (BTW-which is where I am going to stay someday when I get rich!! ) On our previous 2 trips we had breakfast at the Crystal Palace on our early MK day so that we would be inside the park before opening. Crystal Palace is so good, but the boys really like Stitch right now so we decided to give Ohana a try and then go to CP later in the week for dinner.

When I made my Ohana ADR the CM on the phone told me that there was NO WAY that I would make it to this ADR by WDW transportation. She insisted that the buses wouldn't start running until 8:00am. I knew she was wrong because we had always taken an earlier bus to get to CP before. She kept insisting that I make the ADR for 9 or 9:30. I told her that I wanted to be done eating and to MK before opening. She was very persistent though, and I finally told her to leave it and I would call a cab if I had to! Well, needless to say, we walked out to our CSR bus stop at 6:55am and a bus pulled up at 7:00! He even dropped us right at the Poly! We were there by 7:15!!

We checked in and there were a few other families there too. Pretty soon all the Ohana staff came out and greeted everyone and did a little opening ceremony and they started calling names to be seated. Our waitress took us to our table and told us that we were lucky to get this table because it was the second table the characters went to! This meal is served family style, it's kind of like a little buffet at your own table. You don't order, but you don't have to go get anything either. Here is what you get:

"Hua Paka (Scrambled Eggs) - made fresh, hot & delicious
Uala Kahiki (Fried Potatoes) - island-style potatoes, caramelized onions & scallions
Pua'a (Pork) - pork breakfast sausage links & smoked bacon
Assorted Warm Breakfast Breads
Seasonal Fruit Bowl for na Keiki (Kids)

Unlimited Orange Juice, Milk and Coffee included"
"Adults $18.99 Children 3-9 $10.99 "

Everything was very good. I wouldn't say the food was as good as the CP breakfast, but still very good. There was also someone carrying around a basket of mickey waffles and you just told her how many you wanted when she came to your table. So those are always a hit with the kids!

The characters started out almost right away! Stitch, then Lilo, Mickey, and Pluto. They all spent plenty of time with the kids and it was a great time! About 30 minutes into breakfast they called all the kids up front and they got maracas and got to parade around the restaurant with all the characters. A Very fun time!!

Ohana rating: Overall 4.5 out of 5
Food 4 out of 5
Service 5 out of 5

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Thanks again for all the nice comments everyone!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Thank you, thank you for these reviews. I am starting to plan our trip for January and debating about doing DDP or pay OOP. It's nice to hear about the counter service places and also the amount of time the table services take. Looking forward to more!

You're welcome! Hope I can help!

We are thinking about going in January next year too! And we are debating about whether or not to get the DDP again. . . . Yes, we saved money, but if had paid OOP we would not have gone to all these places and wouldn't have spent what we paid for the DDP. . . . Does that make sense??? We may get it one more time since this will be the last year that DS9 will still be considered at child! There's no way that I would pay the adult price for him at age 10.

 

[trixiequilts]

You're welcome! Hope I can help!

We are thinking about going in January next year too! And we are debating about whether or not to get the DDP again. . . . Yes, we saved money, but if had paid OOP we would not have gone to all these places and wouldn't have spent what we paid for the DDP. . . . Does that make sense??? We may get it one more time since this will be the last year that DS9 will still be considered at child! There's no way that I would pay the adult price for him at age 10.

Yes, that totally makes sense and is exactly why I don't know if we should do the DDP. I've been looking through the menus trying to figure it all out...the other thing is that my DD8 isn't really a "kid food" kind of girl...she has always had tastes beyond her years. DD6 is much more typical, but I don't see her being too interested in chix nuggets every day, either. Haven't been super impressed with the children's menus in general. Can't wait to get more great info, especially with our kids being the same ages! How fun!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Yes, that totally makes sense and is exactly why I don't know if we should do the DDP. I've been looking through the menus trying to figure it all out...the other thing is that my DD8 isn't really a "kid food" kind of girl...she has always had tastes beyond her years. DD6 is much more typical, but I don't see her being too interested in chix nuggets every day, either. Haven't been super impressed with the children's menus in general. Can't wait to get more great info, especially with our kids being the same ages! How fun!

I know, it is a hard decision. It is usually too much food on the DDP. I don't need dessert with lunch. On our last day we had like 20 snack credits left that we never used, so we got a bunch of prepackaged stuff to bring home. But the DDP is nice for character meals. You can see a lot of characters that way and it sure beats standing in those HUGE character lines in the parks! And yes, the Disney kids meals leave a lot to be desired! With the CS meals you don't have to order their meals from the kids menu, but with the TS meals you do. A lot of times we will get one adult CS meal for the kids to share because the meals are so big and because the kids don't like anything on the kids menu. We've found that buffets work best for our kids. Then they are free to pick and choose whatever they want! So that's where the DDP pays off too. Those buffets will cost around $90+ OOP.

Boy I'm not helping much am I? It really is a hard decision and a personal preference. We did not get the DDP on our first trip (5 nights, 6 days) and we had only 1 TS breakfast and 1 TS dinner and ate CS the rest of the week. The boys were 6 & 4 then so they shared nearly every meal, and we still spent about $350+ on food.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Tuesday May 13 ~ Casey's Corner lunch ~

We spent that morning at MK and weren't really hungry until about 1:00 after that Ohana breakfast. We headed to Casey's Corner for lunch. We had gone here last year so we pretty much knew what to expect. There is not much indoor seating at CC. There are a lot of umbrella tables right outside, and then more tables outside of the ice cream shop across the street.

I'm not really one for hot dogs, but CC's hot dogs aren't bad. Of course they have this great cheese sauce and I just cover mine in that! They were busy, but had a lot of lines open so we didn't really wait long. DH and I got the "Grand Slam All Beef 1/4 lb. Hot Dog - served with apple slaw or french fries $5.79". We chose the fries, you can put the cheese sauce on them too! The kids love going here so they can get the "Corn Dog Nuggets $3.59". They love those! They each got fries with their meals too. And we each got to choose either "Brownie - $2.39" or "Cracker Jack - $.99" for dessert. That was a lot of food for lunch! All very good though. DH likes the fixing's bar, they have all the toppings you can think of for a hot dog there. And as I said, the cheese sauce at the fixing's bar is great!

There were no available seats inside or outside of CC or outside of the ice cream shop, so we spotted a place with a bunch more tables just down the hill by the water between the ice cream shop and the castle. So we headed down there and then realized that it was a designated smoking area. No wonder it was nearly empty! There wasn't anyone smoking so we grabbed a table and ate there.

A very nice place to grab a quick lunch or dinner. We would probably eat there if we were paying OOP too because it is so inexpensive.

Casey's Corner rating: Overall 4.5 out of 5
Food 4.5 out of 5
Service 4.5 out of 5

 

[Verity Chambers]

Really enjoying your reports!

 

[TigerKat]

Casey's is a must do for us on every trip. I'm not a big hot dog fan but there's just something about a Casey dog on Mainstreet!!!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Casey's is a must do for us on every trip. I'm not a big hot dog fan but there's just something about a Casey dog on Mainstreet!!!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Okay, where was I ??? Oh yeah, Tuesday May 13th ~ Pepper Market dinner ~

After a long day at MK we went back to CSR around 5:00 for the rest of the evening. After swimming and resting we decided to give PM another try. We figured it had been 3 days, maybe we'd get different CM's. This time we decided to forget about the whole crazy waitress at a food court thing and just get our food to go and eat at one of the tables outside. So once again I took the kids and went to the kids station. DH and I wanted to try the pizza this time so he headed for the pizza station. The kids got the "Pizza, Fresh Fruit, and a cookie $4.25" (the fresh fruit consisted of 1/4 of an orange slice) this time. We got it packaged up to go and I looked over and DH STILL hadn't been waited on. . . . .And he was the first one in line! One CM came over to him and asked if he was wanting pizza and when DH said yes (obviously, he was in the pizza line) the CM told him that he couldn't get that and that the other CM had to do that. Well the other CM kept her back to DH and all the others that were in line behind him the whole time. We finally gave up and left. We remembered that Rix Cafe had some food items so we went in there. The staff in there was much friendlier and way more helpful. We grabbed some turkey and ham sandwiches and went outside to eat.
The kids pizza was excellent. Our sandwiches were average.

So the first experience at PM wasn't just a fluke, apparently it's like that a lot. It's too bad too because their food isn't bad, just the service.

Rix Cafe has muffins and pastries, candy bars, bags of chips, sandwiches, and a few hot items. They also have all kinds of "Gelato: Single Scoop $2.99, double scoop $5.99". The pineapple gelato is the best! I even liked it better than the pineapple dole whip you get at MK! And the small gelato is allowed as a snack credit on the DDP!


Up next: Wednesday May 14th ~ Restaurantosauras lunch and Chef Mickey's dinner!

 

[Avojeo]

Great reviews!!! I love the pics at Ohanas. We must try this one day!! I hate that you had another bad experience at Pepper Market

 

[trixiequilts]

That experience at the PM wasn't really much better, was it? I told DH my concerns about CSR and his biggest issue was the poor service. So we will be looking at other options.

BTW-that pic of your boys with Stitch is too cute!

 

[disneybound31]

Very nice.

 

[ratty 987]

really enjoy reading your reviews-we are travelling from uk in august staying at csr and eating at a lot of the places you ate at-thanks

 

[lisaj]

Great reviews, you have made me reconsider our plans to include a breakfast at Ohanas. We had a lovely dinner there last time but we can't fit it in next as we only go for 7 days.

Have to agree with you about Pepper Market, we love the CSR (preferred it to GF last trip!) and think the Maya Grill breakfast is actually better than any other (including CP, 1900 PF and CRT) but the Pepper Market is useless. The fact that a service charge is automatically added if you pay OOP when it is in effect a self service restaurant is taking the Mickey if you will pardon the pun.

We visited PM a few times on our first trip as DD was teething and by 6pm she was all done in for the day. Last trip we opted for PM for our first evening as we didn't arrive until 5pm. It was ok but only ok and our meal (OOP) cost the same as a dinner at Ohanas/LTT and CP did later in the week - madness!

Enjoying your reviews and can't wait for more.

 

[annie1995]

Great reviews!!! Thats really too bad about Pepper Market , we were planning on going there on one of our off days to eat. I really don't think its worth the trip now.. DTD it is I guess LOL. Can't wait for more!!!