Family of five and our adventures on the dining plan!

[tlriv5]

We planned our trip way back in March, decided we'd pay to have the dining plan (we had it free our last trip and thought it was well worth the price). I made all of our ADR's on the first day I could and then to our amazement we were given a pin for free dining a few weeks before we left. It sure was nice to get a big check sent back in the mail to help pay for our trip down and those tips that we now have to pay! Anyway off to our reviews. By the way, like I said there are five of us. Mom, dad and three girls (all on the adult plan). We planned lots of buffets since our 10 year old twins would be adults this year. I just thought this would be easier than trying to look at all the menus. We will have reviews for the following:

1900 Park Fare,
Crystal Palace breakfast,
Sci Fi,
Tangierine Cafe,
Ohana dinnner,
Chef Mickey's,
Yak and Yeti counter service,
Lotus Blossum,
Catalina Eddie's,
Rosie's
Biergarten,
Whispering Canyon Cafe
Columbia Harbour House
Casey's

Our first night we ate at 1900 Park Fare. My dd's picked this based on a youtube video they saw of the stepsisters being silly. We didn't get the best of tables and couldn't see all of the action, but no one complained too much. The food was good, different, but good. I enjoyed my prime rib and the mashed potatoes were really good. The desserts were petite and decorated for Halloween, which the girls thought was too cool. We got to see Cinderella, the prince and the fairy godmother, but the best are the two stepsisters. They play their parts so well. One of our twins couldn't stop giggling for the picture and the stepsister got all snippy (in a fun way). We enjoyed this meal and it was fun to do once.

The next day we had made ADR's for Crystal Palace for 8:00 am. The girls wanted to see Magic Kingdom before the park opened. I'm not a buffet breakfast person, but it was worth getting up early to be able to walk down Main Street with so few people. I'll write more on this in a bit, I'm being beckoned upstairs by one of my girls. To be continued... I will also try to add some pictures.

 

[TigerKat]

I'm signing on.....

 

[brekin67]

I'm in.

 

[tlriv5]

Ok, back to Crystal Palace. The food was good, we just decided after two trips to disney and using a few of our ts meals for breakfast that we prefer the dinners. Of course if you love breakfast then I can't think of anyone better to share it with than Pooh and Tigger!! The Crystal Palace is the prettiest restaurant I've been to so far at Disney. I love it, I just prefer dinner. Now getting up extremely early on vacation is not our thing, but it was worth it to see Magic Kingdom virtually empty and after we ate we waited about 5 minutes for them to open Adventureland. Very Nice!

We had adr's at Sci Fi for 7:00 that night and I was so worried about the food here. Everyone is so negative and they only want you to order hamburgers and I didn't want a hamburger. I'm hear to tell you now that we were pleasantly surprised. We really enjoyed Sci Fi. My dh and I had the butcher steak. It was good. Now I'm a ribeye girl and I like my steak a certain way and this is not a ribeye, but it was a good meal. My dd's were so excited to get to order ribs (their favorite). They loved them!! They almost cleaned their plates and that's pretty good for some little girls. The had milk shakes with their meals, yummy. For dessert I had the cheesecake and it was so cute. I wish I'd taken a picture. It had caramel popcorn and m&m's around the plate, very tasty! My dh and oldest dd had the peanut butter brownie (can't remember the name), it was good too. I know one of the little ones had the fruit plate, but I can't remember what the other one had. They were all very good though. We loved the atmosphere of Sci Fi, it's definitely a must do at Disney, very cool. Tomorrow we are going to Epcot and to Ohana's for dinner.

 

[tlriv5]

On Monday we decided to go to Epcot for a while and we let the girls pick a World Showcase counter service and to our surprise they wanted to try Tangierine Cafe, they knew it came highly recommended by my disers. We all really enjoyed our meal. We shared three meals, two scharma platters (one lamb and chicken and one chicken only) and the twins shared a chicken wrap. The girls said it was the best wrap they'd ever eaten and we enjoyed our meals as well. I would definitely go there again.

That night we had reservations for 6:55 at Ohana's. When we arrived it was raining outside so we couldn't enjoy walking around outside. The waiting area was absolutely packed!! I'd never seen anyplace like this before. It took 45 minutes past our ressie time to serve us. I felt like they were poorly mismanaged. Our service was slow, but I don't really fault the waiters here, they were constantly moving. I didn't like the way they served the meats here. They bring over a skewer and ask what you want and how many pieces, this took a long time. Now the food was very good, we really really loved the pork dumplings! They were awesome! The noodles were good (we'd never had the potatoes, but had read that everyone loved them). We were here so long that we missed Tinkerbell coming out of the castle, which was part of our plan for the night. I am glad we went, it was very good. It won't however be on my list for a redo.

 

[tlriv5]

Tuesday we had tickets to the Halloween party so I made adr's for 5:00 at Chef Mickey's. We were able to see a family from our home state of KY open Chef Mickey's that night, that was cute. We enjoyed the food here. They had a lot to choose from and I found everything to be quite yummy. I didn't feel the excitement in the air like everyone seems to experience here. I don't know if it's because my kids are older or if it was because we got there when the restaurant first opened. I can see why this would be a traditional restaurant for some families. It's always great to see Mickey and friends during dinner. We would definitely pick here again. That night we really enjoyed the Halloween party, it was a great night.

The next day we had a free day, our last trip we picked one day where we had no adr's and we were free to eat where we wanted. We headed over to Animal Kingdom and decided to try Yak and Yeti counter service and yummy is all I can say! We had sweet and sour pork, shrimp lo mein and kung pao beef. We were all eating out of each others boxes. They were all very good!! I am going to try to post some of the pictures I took from the restaurants.

 

[tlriv5]

1900 Park Fare

 

[tlriv5]

1900 Park Fare and the petite desserts, the girls thought the halloween decorations on them were cute.

 

[tlriv5]

Here's one of Crystal Palace, no food pics, but Eeyore is worth going to see and if you can tell the restaurant is gorgeous.

 

[tlriv5]

Here is a picture of us in the car at Sci Fi, we were in the first row. By the way, our waitress was great, she was one of the best we had all week!!

 

[DLo]

What an adorable family. we are going to CP and CM for the first time next month - but b'fast at CM and lunch at CP. GLad to hear you liked both.

 

[TigerKat]

Your girls are beautiful!

 

[tlriv5]

What an adorable family. we are going to CP and CM for the first time next month - but b'fast at CM and lunch at CP. GLad to hear you liked both.

You will love both and I'm sure the breakfast at CM will be about the same. We had lunch at CP two years ago and really enjoyed it. I loved the buffet meal there. Have fun!!

 

[Nohal]

You girls are adorable. We ate at Ohanas and had a really long wait to get in also. The service was so slow. We left without eating desert as dinner had taken over 1 1/2hrs. Never again.

 

[tlriv5]

Your girls are beautiful!

Thank you very much!

Wednesday night we left Animal Kingdom and headed over to Epcot, we were really wanting to eat at the Mexican cs, but it looked like it could pour down rain. We didn't want to chance eating under the umbrella's, so the girls chose Chinese, again. We had eaten at Lotus Blossom before and found it to be good, so we were up to trying it again. We had two beef noodle soup bowls and shrimp fried rice. I enjoyed my fried rice and the beef bowls were ok. I definitely enjoyed Yak and Yeti more! Here's a picture from Yak and Yeti, my girls liked the boxes they came in...

 

[tlriv5]

Thursday we went to DHS and had counter service meals at two different places. I ate at Catalina Eddie's and had the hot italian deli sandwich and was really impressed, it was quite good. My dd had a cheese pizza with a salad and seemed to enjoy the salad more than anything (but that's her). My dh and other dd ate next door at Rosie's All American Cafe. My dh had a cheeseburger and enjoyed it and my other dd had chicken nuggets, she ate them all. So, I guess she enjoyed them.

That night we had adr's for Biergarten. Yummy!! My dh and I really enjoyed this place. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but it was dark in there. You feel like you are sitting in a German village and there is a band playing songs. We saw them perform twice. As far as the food, I really enjoyed the brats and the schnitzel. And the German potato salad was really good. We also liked the different salads, their was a cucumber and a tomoto salad. The girls found plenty to eat there too. I would definitely recommend. You do have to share your table with someone and we were sharing with two young men that seemed to be in their twenties. We talked some, but not a lot. It still didn't feel uncomfortable at all, your table is long enough. A lady I was talking to on the bus one day said there table was a lot of fun. They had newlyweds and an older couple sharing with them and they had a lot of laughs.

Friday we ate at three different places in Magic Kingdom. My dh had wanted a hotdog from Casey's and he said it was very good. Two of my dd's ate nuggets from Cosmic Ray's and my other dd and I ate at Columbia Harbour House. My 10 year old dd had the tuna fish sandwich and at the whole thing. She said it was very good. I had fish and it was good. I'm happy to say I went the whole week without a hamburger!

That night we had adr's for Whispering Canyon Cafe, this was our favorite meal from our last trip and we loved it again. We had a wonderful waitress, but she didn't really do anything much with us. Now of course she threw some straws and napkins at us, but that was about it. We didn't need ketchup this time, so we didn't get to enjoy that. We all shared the skillet meal and we put a pretty big dent into it, but there is no way to eat it all. The food was very good, I didn't love the ribs as much. The pulled pork, chicken and I can't remember the other meat were all very good. The mashed potatoes and corn were both good. They packaged our desserts and we took them to the room. My dh and I had the pecan pie (not a fan of theirs), my dd's had smores cheesecake (good), the caramel apple pie was very good and the chocolate cake was good too. This place is so much fun and the food is so good. We will go back again!! Highly recommended! Here's a picture, but as you can tell we were about done with that meal!

 

[disnut1149]

Hi
Your girls are so adorable!! Thanks for the reviews!!

 

[tlriv5]

Thanks for all of the compliments on my girls. I just wanted to add a few things I learned from this trip and if you have any questions, please ask. I know one thing I worried about was my two 10 year olds eating of the adult menu. As you can see I did pick a lot of buffets and this was one of the reasons. THe girls really enjoyed picking out what they wanted to eat. I also looked at menu's on www.allears.net to see what was on the menu that they would enjoy. Our last trip we loved Coral Reef, but now that they were eating adult meals I wasn't sure what my twins would pick to eat. So, thank goodness for the menu's. The menu's weren't exact, but they we really close. Also, don't plan for your meal to be an hour long, sometimes they are. But like our Ohana meal, we were there for quite a while. We shared a lot of our counter service meals, so that gave us more counter service meals to use for breakfast. The day we left we used all of our counter service meals, but still had quite a few snack credits left. The girls went to the gift shop and bought some cotton candy, and rice krispy mickey's to give to their friends. Also, I love the disney restaurants and I get upset sometimes when I read a disfavorable review to one of my favorite restaurants. However as much as I enjoyed some of these meals if I was paying out of pocket I would probably feel differently. The meals are not cheap here. I think our meal at 1900 Park Fare for 5 adults was around $199. and that didn't include the tip. It was a good meal, but it was not worth that kind of money. I was very thankful that we had free dining, but like I said before we were going to buy the dining plan and still think it is well worth it. Oh, and another change from our last trip is this time we had to pay tips. I think we were out around $200 on tips this year, which is a bummer. We had pretty good service, most of our dinners we were out of drinks long before we were given refills. The servers seemed very busy though, so I don't complain unless I see them standing around talking. We charged all of our tips to our room key, except one. They brought our bill from Ohana without that option, so luckily we were carrying cash and paid that way. It was a good trip and can't wait to go back in about 3 or 4 years!!

 

[SunnieRN]

I really enjoyed your reviews, thank you! Your daughters are beautiful! How fun that sometimes you split up so you could eat where you all really wanted to, that's great!

 

[Disney owl]

great reviews & photos, thanks