First attempt at a dining review 9/19 - 9/26

[JimC77]

Hi Everyone,

We just returned from an 8 day trip to Disney and after basing many of our dining choices on reviews I read here I'd like to return the favor! First a little bit about our family and what our plans were for the trip.

Our band of Adventurers
me - 40-something, dad of 3 boys, and chief Disney planner, drinker of MUCH coffee, and 1 previous trip to Disney
DW - age-not-to-be-documented, 2 previous trips to Disney, coordinating shirt planner
DS - 13 years old, lover or all things sports or seafood, 1st trip to Disney
DS2 - 9 years old, loves all rides and especially loves big cheeseburgers, 1st trip to Disney
DS3 - 8 years old, thrill seeker and lover of macaroni and cheese, 1st trip to Disney

The Plan
We stayed 7 nights in AKL-KV on rented points and I spent a LONG time debating about the dining plan. After studying the menus and plugging everything into a spreadsheet (did I mention I'm an engineer ) it looked like we could spend a bit less on food compared to the dining plan so we decided to pay OOP. The plan was to eat breakfast in our room, spend the morning until early afternoon in a park, then come back to the room for a late lunch and to rest/swim. We had a TS dinners planned for each evening then we could go back into the parks to enjoy the evening shows.

9/19 Arrival Day - dinner at Boma, our flight landed at MCO ~4PM and we had a reservation for 6:50PM.
9/20 MK Day - Dinner at Whispering Canyon
9/20 AK Day - Dinner at Yak & Yeti
9/21 resort Day - Brunch at Chef Mickey and Dinner at Ohana
9/22 HS Day - Dinner at Sci-Fi Dine in Theater
9/23 EP Day - Dinner at Garden Grill
9/24 2nd MK Day - Lunch at BOG and Dinner at Sanaa

There are lots of online calculators to see if the dining plan fits with how you plan on visiting the parks. For our family the dining plan for 3 adults and 2 children for 7 nights would have cost ~$2000 plus tax and that wouldn't include tips which would easily add another $200 (we normally tip ~20% as long as the service is good). We ended up spending $1755 on food including snacks in the parks plus $138 for our grocery order for a total of $1893 including tips on the dinners.

We took some pictures of the dinners so I'll try to upload those later and comment on what we ordered and our overall impression/enjoyment of our experience.

more posts soon...

 

[JimC77]

First up Boma!
The boys and I really enjoyed eating here. My wife wasn't feeling well after the trip down and ended up skipping dinner The buffet had a nice variety and I enjoyed the soups and desserts especially. My boys are pretty adventurous eaters and they all went back multiple times. Its pricey but overall I think it was worth it, they had chocolate banana bread pudding after all! Next time we're back we'll try to fit another visit in.

Whispering Canyon
MK had a MNSSHP on this day and we were not going so we spent the day in the park then headed over to Whispering Canyon and Wilderness Lodge. We all ordered one of the skillets and had SO MUCH FOOD! This was one of our favorite meals. The food was good, our server was great, and the environment was really fun. We needed ketchup early into dinner and the boys loved it! We will definitely be back for more!

Yak & Yeti
I really really wanted to like this meal... Most of the reviews I read were positive but there were a few negative ones mixed in. We sat upstairs and the view was nice, but the meal and service was meh. The kids ordered burgers off the kids menu and when the food came out the portions looked very small. DS2 immediately complained that it wasn't enough food and I told him to eat up and we would get a snack later if he was still hungry. The kids meal looked like a McDonald's cheeseburger, a gogurt, and a small pack of baby carrots. It did come with an ice cream sandwich for dessert which was a plus. I had the chicken lo mein and my wife had the coconut shrimp and both meals were fine. Overall I'd put the food quality and experience somewhere between Applebee's and TGIFriday's. It wasn't bad, but not on the same level as Boma or Whispering Canyon. I won't go out of my way to eat here again.

Chef Mickey's - Brunch
I went into this meal with low expectations. I had read all the warnings.... lots of loud kids... chaotic buffet... rushed character interactions. Even with all of the warnings lots of people still said it was something you should do for a first visit, sort of like a rite of passage. Well I am very glad we went, and we had a GREAT experience here. Our table in the back corner behind the buffet and out of the way of the stream of ppl, characters, and kids getting food. We also had a great view of MK and the castle and did not feel rushed at all. Coming for brunch was also very nice. The buffet had lots of breakfast and lunch options and everything I tried was hot and well prepared. Our server was great and I have absolutely no complaints about Chef Mickey's, even if my 8yo had a plate of gummy worms and jelly beans for lunch!

O'hana - Dinner
This was one of the ADRs I really wanted to get. Looking at the dinner menu it matched a lot of what we like to eat. Overall our dinner and service here was very good, not quite as fun as Whispering Canyon, and the food wasn't quite as good as Boma, but still very good. Our food came out quickly and when we ordered more pot stickers and wings they were brought out right away. Everything we had was good and I think I ate at least 1/2 of the pineapple coconut bread pudding! This one is on the visit next time list.

Sci-Fi Dine in Theater
This one was exactly what I was expecting. A fun environment for burgers and fries. The kids loved the table and corny movies and I didn't hear any complaints about the portion size! We all had burgers and fries and the kids had milk shakes (which mom and did finished Its amazing how quiet it is with everyone watching the movie. It was a nice break for what was a very long day for us at HW. We made it into the park before 7AM, did everything except SWGE, then took naps in the afternoon, then back into the park for dinner, Fantasmic, and SWGE to end the day. I think this one is on the list to do again for our HS day.

Garden Grill
For our Epcot day we ate at Garden Grill we are a bit divided on it. Our server was great, the food was good, and all of the characters came around twice for pictures. This was also the most expensive meal we had for the entire trip. I enjoyed the food more than my wife did. The boys really liked the turkey and vegetables, we ordered more of both. We had had a very hot and long day (94F for most of the day, grumpy kids, got stuck in Spaceship Earth for over 30 min...) which all contributed to how we were feeling by the time we made it to dinner. The food was good, the character interactions was good, and so was our service. Even with all that I'm not sure it was worth the $ and with all of the other dining options in Epcot we will probably try someplace else next time.

Be Our Guest
So this was the first ADR I made for our trip and I was very curious to see what all the fuss was about. We had lunch reservations at 11AM and it wasn't very crowded when we arrived. We got one of the large tables in the best's wing right in front of the picture and by the time we left the boys had it down to when a rose petal would fall and when the picture would flash with the beast. The food was pretty good also. It took a very, VERY long time to get through the ordering process and from the time we checked in at 11 it took ~30 minutes for our food to arrive at our table. The entrees were normal Disney fare, overall pretty good. We all had cupcakes for dessert and if you are going to go through the trouble to eat here you might as well get a cupcake. We had the master's cupcake, the lemon meringue, and the triple chocolate ones and they all were very good. I'm glad we went and if we can work it into our next trip we'll be back. As we walked out the 12 o'clock crowd was starting to come in and it was noticeably more crowded and much louder than when we arrived. It would not have been as enjoyable if the place was packed and loud.

Sanaa - our final dinner in Disney
Since we were staying in AKL-KV we had to work a dinner at Sanaa into our trip. My wife and I both like Indian spices and curry, if this isn't your type of food do not eat at Sanaa! We started with the bread service and the boys and I took turns seeing who could eat the hottest dips. Our server brought out something hotter than what it typically offered, and WOW was it spicy. Our 13yo ordered the shrimp and it was a bit too spicy for him. My wife had ordered the seafood stew which was pretty mild so they switched and all was good. I had the triple meat plate (I don't remember the exact name) and it was very very good. The meat here was probably the best I had while in Disney. The pork was cooked perfectly and the spices on the steak were very good. The carving station at Boma was also very good, but I think this was a bit better. The kids menu portions were also huge here. My 9 yo who always seems to be hungry ordered the butter chicken and it filled him up This meal was very good and a nice way to end out stay at Disney. The food is pretty spicy, and if you don't like the flavor of curry you're going to have a hard time finding something to eat here.

I'll try to upload some pictures of the food and the merry adventurers later. I hope this helps anyone trying to decide where to eat on their next trip!

-Jim

 

[rlduvall]

Wonderful reviews - can't wait to see the pics. Sounds like you and your family had a great vacation. Thank you for taking the time to post.

 

[GovieMom]

Thanks for taking the time to post such wonderfully detailed descriptions of your meals. Looking forward to seeing the pics!

 

[WDWNan]

Thanks for the reviews and the overview of your decision making on the dining plan! I want to love the dining plan, but I can't seem to make the math work for us either (I also have spreadsheets).

 

[JimC77]

View attachment 440438

Thanks for the reviews and the overview of your decision making on the dining plan! I want to love the dining plan, but I can't seem to make the math work for us either (I also have spreadsheets).

I kept looking at it and it just seemed to complicate our plans. I knew going into the vacation that if we went overboard with drinks and desserts it may cost a bit more than the dining plan but it was really pretty nice to just eat what we wanted whenever. I heard many many times during our visit people trying to work out which items counted as a snack credit or QS credit. With our plan of having breakfast in our room and snacking through lunch the dining plan just didn't make sense.

 

[DLo]

Thanks for taking the time to review . Looking forward to the pics .

 

[JimC77]

Boma

Sorry for the upside down pictures... not sure how to rotate them :/






The pictures aren't in the order we ate!

Pic 1 - Seafood gumbo - very good
Pic 2 - Mulligatawny - also very good
Pic 3 - DS3's second plate of desserts!
Pic 4 - My plate of desserts The blob on the left is the chocolate banana bread pudding.
Pic 5 - We did have some actual food. Salad with some sort of lime dressing. Rice, fried plantains and veggies.

I forgot to get a picture of the protein plate - Beef, turkey, roasted chicken and salmon - it was gone in a flash!

 

[JimC77]

Whispering Canyon skillets!



The traditional skillet is in the middle, the piggy is on the right, land and sea is at the bottom, and the plant based skillet is on the left. They all were very good and SO MUCH FOOD. The plant based option was good and we all tried it, especially the sausage. If you are looking for vegetarian options in WD this is a good choice.

 

[JimC77]

Whispering Canyon skillets!

Also you can see that we had the ketchup at the time I took this picture

 

[JimC77]

Chef Mickey

I'm not sure these pictures provide you with a good idea of what is available at brunch...




There are plenty of options for those with a sweet tooth! They also had the standard breakfast and lunch options.

 

[JimC77]

O’hana

Apparently we only took pictures of dessert up to this point!



Coconut, pineapple bread pudding with caramel sauce! There was other food at the meal but does it really matter?!?



The kids liked these also. They were freshly made, nice and soft when they came out.

 

[Markal]

Enjoyed the reviews. Isn’t that bread pudding at ‘Ohana the best?

 

[kastoney]

Thanks so much for sharing. Whispering Canyon is one of our favorites too. Glad to hear that paying OOP worked so well for you all.

 

[nursejackie]

We haven't eaten at O'hana but really wanted to try the bread pudding, luckily they serve it in the lounge bar (back in 2016). We intended to share one, but ordered two, and it's a good job we did.

 

[Tink2Day]

Wonderful quick review, your boys are so handsome. My 92 year old Mom has a philosophy: Life is short eat dessert first.
She and your youngest would get along great!

 

[amytech]

Great review! We have 3 boys and a girl and wow, the boys can eat! You guys had some great meals. I have always contemplated the dining plan but we like the flexibility of ordering whatever or if someone isn't hungry, that's fine. Not tied to a meal or plan. We also like wine and we also aren't big breakfast eaters-any of us! We eat in the room too but love a nice table service for dinner. So it always works better for us to just eat OOP

 

[TeresaNJ]

Loved your review! The boys are adorable, and gotta love that Mickey head made out of candy!