First timers 6-11 thru 6-18, deluxe plan! no pics :(

[honeybunches]

Thanks so much for all the info you guys have posted on this site. I enjoyed reading and absorbing all of it! We returned from our first trip and it was TOO HOT for us.....we're thinking about our 2nd trip already, but definitely need to return when it is cooler!! This trip was planned only 6 weeks in advance, so all of our ADRs were made after stalking the website & calling several times a week to try to snag a table somewhere. But we made it!

Background.....we are not very adventurous eaters. We also don't like to wait too long for a meal, all we cared about was getting something quick & having air conditioning! Thankfully most places we went fit our needs. Since this was our first trip we didn't know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised by the benefits of the deluxe plan and would absolutely do it again. We also have 2 little ones (a 6-yo girl and 1 y.o. boy).

sorry that I can't show pics, I had the 2 kiddos who were demanding my attention! plus DH thought it was kind of weird that I wanted to take pictures of the food. Hopefully I can give you enough information to feed your imagination It will take me a while to finish (and to figure out how to attach links) so bear with me

Click here for Day 1 (unexpected day....we left a day earlier than planned!)
Wetzel's Pretzels

Click here for Day 2
Crystal Palace (lunch)
The Wave (dinner)


Click here for Day 3
Whispering Canyon (breakfast)
Akershus (lunch)
Cosmic Rays (dinner)

Click here for Day 4
Grand Floridian Cafe (breakfast)
Coral Reef (lunch)
Roaring Fork (at WL) dinner

Click here for Day 5
Main Street Bakery (breakfast)
Cinderella's Royal Table (lunch)
Tusker House (dinner)

Click here for Day 6
Whispering Canyon (breakfast)
Garden View Tea Room at Grand Floridian (late lunch)
Hollywood & Vine (dinner)

Click here for Day 7
Crystal Palace (breakfast)
Roaring Fork (lunch)
Cape May Cafe (dinner)

Click here for Day 8
1900 Park Fare (breakfast)
Min & Bill's Dockside Diner (lunch)

Click here for Snacks


Thanks so much for taking the time to read my review. I had fun writing it & remembering our first Disney trip. Hopefully next time I can be more covert in picture taking at meals!!

 

[honeybunches]

Day 1.....
We arrived in Orlando a day earlier than planned, so we stayed at the Caribe Royale just outside of Disney. It was a great hotel, very inexpensive and convenient to stores & restaurants. We spent the morning getting settled in, eating at Chick Fil A, and swimming in the pool!!

When we finally got motivated to go out, we went to Downtown Disney and walked around a little. The heat was crazy so we decided to try to get some A/C....we were able to get a seat immediately at Wolfgang Puck. So excited!! We sat down & waited....waited....for 15 minutes, nothing happened. No one came to get our drink orders or anything. our toddler was close to meltdown so we walked out & went to Wetzel's Pretzels instead.
We got 2 pretzels, frozen lemonade, and 3 bottled waters......total came to around $25!! Eeek! The kids were too hot to eat so we ended up throwing the pretzels away.

 

[honeybunches]

Day 2:
Drove through chick Fil A for breakfast, then headed over to get our tickets from Wilderness Lodge. We arrived in Magic Kingdom around 10:00.

We were able to book this unexpected Crystal Palace lunch only the day before. I was so surprised! It was wonderful, much better than we expected. It was buffet style, so my kids were able to get a great selection of foods. Kids favorites: the mashed potatoes for sure! They both ate extra helpings of this.
DH's favorite: black bean salsa
My favorite: everything! but the fruit was especially good. Fresh pineapple & huge strawberries, yum!!


The Wave dinner:
We had a 5:30 res. and were meeting friends, so we were a few minutes late for this one. Since we had a party of 9 and needed 3 highchairs, it took a while for them to get our table ready.

We enjoyed getting to max out the Deluxe plan on this meal. DH got the soup (corn chowder) appetizer which he shared with our toddler, and I got the crab cakes. The crab cakes were out of this world!!
For our entrees, my daughter got the pizza & apples. DH and I both got the beef tenderloin. I shared mine with Luke. DH wouldn't eat the au gratin or veggies that came with it, but I loved them.
Desserts---Eliza loved the sundae. She had so much fun making it & loved every bite. DH got the sugarfree dessert trio and later said it was the best dessert he had during the trip. I got the decadent trio, which my son gobbled up.

Overall, this was one of the best meals of our trip. I think our total was around $150.

 

[honeybunches]

Day 3....
Whispering Canyon breakfast:
since we were staying at WL, we thought it would be really quick & easy to eat here before heading to Downtown for the Bippidy Boutique. We were seated about 15 minutes after checking in and by 8:10 still hadn't received our food (just the 4 of us at this meal). So it made us late for our other plans by about 30 minutes.

The food was great! I got the smoothie as my drink and gave it to my daughter. She loved it! She got the pancake breakfast & shared some of our skillet.

In the skillet, we got nice-sized helpings of scrambled eggs, potatoes, sausage, bacon, biscuits & gravy, and Mickey Waffles. It was all so yummy! My favorite was the sausage and the Mickey waffles. Thankfully the staff wasn't awake for the antics that I'd read about, so it was a pretty calm breakfast.


Akershus lunch---we were supposed to have 11:00 res, but were late getting out of the boutique. So our friends were able to get our res. moved to 11:45. I felt very fortunate because there were many people waiting at the door trying to get a walk-in table.

This was a great meal, in terms of food and also character interaction. The girls got pics with Belle immediately and we were seated right away. We were able to go up to the buffet and get food for the little ones, which was a big plus.

For our meals, DD got the hot dog and corn. I think she was worn out from walking & getting overheated, so she didn't really eat much of it.

DH and I both got the Chicken Breast. Again, DH didn't eat anything except the meat. I loved the risotto and so did my son!! He ate almost all of it.

The dessert was delicious but small, the kids ate most of it.


Cosmic Rays dinner:
We were supposed to eat at Yachtsman, but got lost trying to get there. We missed our res, and were too late to eat with our friends at Liberty Tree Tavern, so we ended up just going to Magic Kingdom. The only place we were able to get a table was Tony's, and it was going to take too long to get food for the hungry kiddos, so we ended up going to Cosmic Rays.

We were probably spoiled from all the good food we had at the other restaurants. But this was NOT our favorite meal of the trip. In fact, it was worse than school cafeteria burgers. We all got burger meals. I got the double cheeseburger & gave one of the patties to my son. Then I put grilled onions & mushrooms on mine which really helped the taste. The chocolate brownie cake thing I got for dessert was pretty good. But overall this is not something we would go back to unless we had no other choice!

 

[KatMark]

Great start and I'm here for the rest of the reviews! And with two little ones that age I can certainly understand no pics.

Sorry you did not enjoy Cosmic Rays; it is one of our favorites but then we never get burgers (we get turkey wraps, barbecued ribs/chicken and barbecued pork (most Disney burgers leave a little to desire). We did WCC for dinner and hated it, but the breakfast sounds pretty good -- maybe we'll try that.

 

[emmabemmainc]

Day 1.....
We arrived in Orlando a day earlier than planned, so we stayed at the Caribe Royale just outside of Disney. It was a great hotel, very inexpensive and convenient to stores & restaurants. We spent the morning getting settled in, eating at Chick Fil A, and swimming in the pool!!

When we finally got motivated to go out, we went to Downtown Disney and walked around a little. The heat was crazy so we decided to try to get some A/C....we were able to get a seat immediately at Wolfgang Puck. So excited!! We sat down & waited....waited....for 15 minutes, nothing happened. No one came to get our drink orders or anything. our toddler was close to meltdown so we walked out & went to Wetzel's Pretzels instead.
We got 2 pretzels, frozen lemonade, and 3 bottled waters......total came to around $25!! Eeek! The kids were too hot to eat so we ended up throwing the pretzels away.

Are you talking about WPE? When we went, we had to go inside and place our orders and then they brought it to us. We didn't just sit down and wait. Maybe that was the problem?

 

[honeybunches]

Are you talking about WPE? When we went, we had to go inside and place our orders and then they brought it to us. We didn't just sit down and wait. Maybe that was the problem?

no, I'm pretty sure it was the regular restaurant. Wolfgang Puck Cafe?? The hostess told us to wait for our server

 

[honeybunches]

Sorry you did not enjoy Cosmic Rays; it is one of our favorites but then we never get burgers (we get turkey wraps, barbecued ribs/chicken and barbecued pork (most Disney burgers leave a little to desire).

Thanks for the tip...if we do go back, we'll try something different. DH mentioned later that he saw the club wrap on the menu & wished he had ordered that instead. I think he was trying to stay together with us.

 

[honeybunches]

Day 4
Grand Floridian Cafe (breakfast)
We took a bus from WL to GF (figured out that the Downtown Disney bus stopped at GF next, saved us a bunch of time!) and arrived at the cafe right at our ADR time. We were seated immediately.

DH ordered the ham & cheese omelet. He said it was okay, but not as good as IHOP or a similar restaurant.
I got the Lobster Eggs Benedict. I thought it was really good...but I wasn't able to finish it! Just too rich for me.
Eliza got the sprinkle pancake, and we also ordered a meal OOP for the baby since I didn't want to give him any lobster....we got him the Eggceptional Morning meal. Eliza also drank my megaberry smoothie (it was sooooo good, even better than WCC). Both kids ate it up, so it must have been good!
The server was a trip, so funny & friendly. We enjoyed him a lot!

Overall I thought the food was good, but we probably won't go back here again. It was not really worth the hassle of going to an out-of-the-way place and missing the early park hours. Also, I didn't think we got our money's worth using the dining plan on this meal. Much better at lunch or dinner. Maybe that's a no-brainer for everyone else, but we are still figuring it all out!



Coral Reef (lunch)
we were meeting friends for lunch at Coral Reef, so we arrived early in order to ride a few rides & look around. I checked in a little early and explained that we needed 3 highchairs. No problem. Well, when they seated us, they tried to squeeze all 9 of us into a booth with 2 separate tables. No highchairs. We had to wait a few minutes for the highchairs, then the hostess said we had to put the highchairs in between the tables. ???? Impossible to feed the kids that way. So we asked to be moved to 2 separate booths (so we could see the fish). By that time she had already set up the highchairs at one table, and a clip-on chair at a booth. Our friends asked if they could sit at the booth next to us instead & use 2 clip-ons (we didn't know that was an option.) THe hostess got SO MAD and literally threw the chairs back into the table and stormed off. It was the biggest temper tantrum ever! But we were happy that all the kids could see & it was all fine after that. Honestly, she was the ONLY person we encountered the entire week who didn't bend over backwards to make sure our trip was perfect!!!

Okay, for the food----
DH got the corn chowder for his appetizer (shared it with the baby). He said it was okay. For his entree, he got the strip steak & really liked it. Didn't eat the greens of course. His dessert was the NSA cheesecake, said it was good.

I got the crab cakes for appetizer. They were all right, not as good as the Wave. I didn't finish them. For my meal I got the strip steak and didn't eat half of it. It was too tough for me. I'm not a beef fan anyway, but this just wasn't my cup of tea. Now the Chocolate Wave.....WOW. I loved it so much I could marry it. If I had known about this wonderful dessert, I probably would have skipped the meal and just eaten the Wave!!

Eliza got the pizza and apples. She said the apples tasted weird & wouldn't eat them. She loved the ice cream sundae, of course!

Best part of this meal was our server. His name was Steve. He knew we were in a time pinch with the little ones and he got our food out to us lickety split. We left a very generous extra tip for him because of this, it helped us all have a good afternoon!!!


Roaring Fork (at WL) dinner
After running around all over creation, we just didn't feel like going back out for dinner. So we went down to Roaring Fork for supper. It was really, really good. DH and DD got chicken tenders and loved them. I got a double cheeseburger & shared with Luke. We all really enjoyed it and although we weren't stuffed at the end of the meal, it was satisfying. They had great desserts. We especially liked the brownie & chocolate rice crispy Mickey!!

 

[honeybunches]

Day 5
Main Street Bakery (breakfast)
We arrived at 8:00 for Magic hours, hoping to beat the crowd. HA. We went into Main Street Bakery and there was aline going out of the door! It was worth it though!!
DH got a few pieces of fruit (banana & orange). He said they were just normal fruit. LOL
DS and I both got a ham & cheese croissant. Wow, it was really good!! I wish I had bought 2 for myself, I could have eaten them both.
DD got a blueberry muffin and a doughnut. She loved it & said they were good, especially the muffin.
We all got a juice or milk to drink. It was hard to get a seat, but DH found a few chairs over at the counter side, so we were able to sit long enough to scarf down our food.

We paid for this breakfast OOP because we thought we were going to run out of credits. It ended up being around $31.


Cinderella's Royal Table (lunch)
We were a little late getting to CRT because we had a late ADR and had to fight the pre-parade traffic. Because of this, we missed the part where they announce the party going in. Also, Cinderella had already left to get ready for the parade, so we had to wait to do pictures at the end of the meal. So the whole thing started out to be kind of a flop (my fault for not planning well.)

We were not impressed with the appetizer plate. Bruschetta was okay, the fruit worked for the kids, but that was about it. There was a strange salami roll thing that DH picked apart. Not very appealing.

The food was decent. DH got the chicken with mixed greens (basically a salad with grilled chicken). He said it was fine, I noticed that he only ate the chicken. I got the salmon which was served with rice. I shared this with Luke, although they gave him a complimentary plate of buttered pasta. I can't remember what DD got.....a corn dog I think?

For dessert, DH got the sorbet which he really liked. I had the cream cheese buckle which was very good, kind of like a chess pie. DD and DS both received a sundae, which DD promptly decorated her dress with. And we had to do pictures after!! But that's okay. It was really neat to sit inside the castle. The princesses seemed to be in a hurry here, so the character interaction wasn't the greatest. But again, that was my fault!! probably wouldn't do this again, but it was worth it to say that we have been at the royal table.

Tusker House (dinner)
We got last-minute res. for Tusker House since our plans to eat with friends fell through. Animal Kingdom closed at 7 that night, and we arrived at 6 for our 6:50 res. It had rained that afternoon, so everything had cooled down nicely. We were able to walk right onto a Safari which was the best thing ever!! Totally loved it. And best yet, we weren't late for our res!

Tusker House was very different than I expected. That is a big understatement. I wasn't sure I had booked the right place!! The buffet had great stuff for the kids (corn dog nuggets being the primary hit for our kids). But the adult buffet was quite unique. DH got caesar salad and that's pretty much all he ate. I tried a little of most of the dishes. I can't say that I really liked anything, except maybe the roasted root vegetables. The desserts were decent though. Probably wouldn't go back here again, it just wasn't our style! In fact, we didn't even go back to Animal Kingdom at all!

 

[honeybunches]

Day 6
Whispering Canyon (breakfast)
By this time, my family was begging me for a day off. The kids and Dh were cranky from the heat. We are really home-bodies. So we scrapped the plans for the day & just enjoyed being together.

We hit the Whispering Canyon for breakfast, more relaxed this time because were weren't in such a hurry. It was crazy in there!! Everyone was much more animated & loud. My husband did not care for the atmosphere at all. But the food was very good, as before. If you like to be entertained while you eat, this is probably a great place for you! I guess we are just boring, as my family just snuck a bottle of ketchup off another table to avoid all the attention. LOL

Garden View Tea Room at Grand Floridian (late lunch)
We headed back to the room for a while, and DH took Eliza swimming. Afterwards, we took a short nap then headed to the High Tea at GF. It was really nice, a very pretty sitting room and beautiful china. We weren't very hungry since we had such a big breakfast, so we just shared the tea sandwiches and fruit/cheese plate. DD got the lemon verbena tea and loved it. The rest of us just had ice water. The food was the perfect amount for the 4 of us. It was a nice experience. Not something we will probably do again, but fun to do at least once. We paid for this OOP since it wasn't on the dining plan (cost around $37 including tip).


Hollywood & Vine (dinner)
We headed over the Hollywood Studios after the tea room. There was a huge storm headed our way, and we had no ADRs. So DH tried his luck at walking in to Hollywood & Vine, and we were able to get a table within 5 minutes or so. Perfect timing, too, because the storm hit just as we were seated!! We actually had ADR's for Le Cellier and had cancelled them because we were supposed to eat with friends and couldn't get them on our ADR....so we cancelled then our friends changed their plans and went to the beach instead. I was kicking myself!

The food here was pretty good. It was a typical buffet with chicken nuggets, normal veggies, various salads. I would compare it to Golden Corral or someplace similar. That was just perfect for us though. Everyone loved it & we were grateful to find something last-minute. We would definitely return here, just for the convenience!

DH took the baby back to the hotel, and I stayed with DD for the late hours. We had a blast!!

 

[honeybunches]

Day 7
Crystal Palace (breakfast)
Since we had a late night at Hollywood Studios, we slept in the next morning. I took DD for a swim before we left for breakfast. We just didn't rush ourselves. We were supposed to meet our friends at Crystal Palace at 10:15.

When we got to CP, it was completely packed with lots of people waiting outside hoping for a table. Our friends texted me to ask if we could do a later meal, but by this time our kids were starving so we had to take the ADRs we had for 10:15. Which means they didn't get to eat there, very disappointing.

But the breakfast buffet was AMAZING. Definitely our favorite breakfast of the whole week! Everything was just fresh and warm and delicious. The fruit was perfect, loved the puffed french toast, made-to-order omelets.....it was wonderful. We are completely spoiled now because this is going to be our first choice for every meal in MK! LOL


Roaring Fork (lunch)
DH took the baby back to the room again & I kept Eliza at MK for rides. I regretted it later....it was just too hot for us & I think she was overheated. When we got back to the hotel around 3:00, I stopped at Roaring Fork to get a small lunch for us (turned out we had more credits than needed, so might as well use them!) I got the turkey & havarti sandwich; got a chicken salad for DH, and got a pbj for DD. I shared my sandwich with the baby. Everything was very fresh and good. Again, loved the desserts!! But we were just too hot to eat, so we ended up wasting some of the food I felt guilty because it was soooo good.

Cape May Cafe (dinner)
We took a nice nap then headed to Cape May Cafe to meet our friends for our last dinner at Disney. It took forever to get to the Beach Club from WL by bus. We probably should have just driven our van!

But WOW was it worth it. The buffet was incredible. I loved the crab legs. If I hadn't been with people I knew, I would probably have eaten 5 helpings LOL And don't think I'm crazy but they had the BEST mac & cheese ever, it was sooooo good!! DD got the chicken nuggets & picked at them, but she was still sick from being overheated & didn't eat a lot. The baby mostly ate mac & cheese, which he's never wanted before. My DH is not a seafood eater, so he wasn't very excited, but he found some things to keep him happy (prime rib, bbq ribs, corn....he's a northern boy so he was okay with what they had.)

The desserts here were simply amazing. They were tiny little bites of oreo cake, molten chocolate, etc. Just perfect size and delicious. This was my FAVORITE meal of the trip. I could eat here every night!!!

 

[KatMark]

Day 7
Crystal Palace (breakfast)
Since we had a late night at Hollywood Studios, we slept in the next morning. I took DD for a swim before we left for breakfast. We just didn't rush ourselves. We were supposed to meet our friends at Crystal Palace at 10:15.

When we got to CP, it was completely packed with lots of people waiting outside hoping for a table. Our friends texted me to ask if we could do a later meal, but by this time our kids were starving so we had to take the ADRs we had for 10:15. Which means they didn't get to eat there, very disappointing.

But the breakfast buffet was AMAZING. Definitely our favorite breakfast of the whole week! Everything was just fresh and warm and delicious. The fruit was perfect, loved the puffed french toast, made-to-order omelets.....it was wonderful. We are completely spoiled now because this is going to be our first choice for every meal in MK! LOL


Roaring Fork (lunch)
DH took the baby back to the room again & I kept Eliza at MK for rides. I regretted it later....it was just too hot for us & I think she was overheated. When we got back to the hotel around 3:00, I stopped at Roaring Fork to get a small lunch for us (turned out we had more credits than needed, so might as well use them!) I got the turkey & havarti sandwich; got a chicken salad for DH, and got a pbj for DD. I shared my sandwich with the baby. Everything was very fresh and good. Again, loved the desserts!! But we were just too hot to eat, so we ended up wasting some of the food I felt guilty because it was soooo good.

Cape May Cafe (dinner)
We took a nice nap then headed to Cape May Cafe to meet our friends for our last dinner at Disney. It took forever to get to the Beach Club from WL by bus. We probably should have just driven our van!

But WOW was it worth it. The buffet was incredible. I loved the crab legs. If I hadn't been with people I knew, I would probably have eaten 5 helpings LOL And don't think I'm crazy but they had the BEST mac & cheese ever, it was sooooo good!! DD got the chicken nuggets & picked at them, but she was still sick from being overheated & didn't eat a lot. The baby mostly ate mac & cheese, which he's never wanted before. My DH is not a seafood eater, so he wasn't very excited, but he found some things to keep him happy (prime rib, bbq ribs, corn....he's a northern boy so he was okay with what they had.)

The desserts here were simply amazing. They were tiny little bites of oreo cake, molten chocolate, etc. Just perfect size and delicious. This was my FAVORITE meal of the trip. I could eat here every night!!!

So glad you loved Crystal Palace. It is our MUST DO breakfast every trip...we just love it. I could eat that puffed french toast every day. And the characters are great too.

We've not been to Cape May since they added the crab legs (I think the last time we were there was in 2007). We've always enjoyed our meals there and my DH loves their desserts.

 

[honeybunches]

Day 8
1900 Park Fare (breakfast)
By this morning, my family was DONE. FINISHED. ready to head for home. But I had planned for this great breakfast, so they humored me! We checked out of the hotel and headed over to the GF one last time.

This buffet was really good. It had the typical breakfast items---sausage links, bacon, mickey waffles, french toast, biscuits & gravy......the two major things I enjoyed most was the lobster eggs benedict (although they were not as good as the GF cafe, much drier) and the strawberry soup.

I didn't know that they were going to take a family portrait before the meal. I probably would have primped a little more if I had expected this! but it was the only family pic we got during our entire trip, so I went ahead & purchased it ($32).

The characters were somewhat disappointing at this buffet. Snow White, Belle, Pooh, Tigger, and Alice came by the table. We had already met everyone except Alice. I was expecting to see Mary Poppins & The Mad Hatter as well, and neither came (at least not while we were there.)

Min & Bill's Dockside Diner (lunch)
We went to Hollywood Studios to see if we could get a fastpass for Toy Story. We arrived there at 10(it opened at 9) and the fastpass return was for 4:55-5:55. No way was my DH going to wait that long!! So we ended up leaving I still had 3 TS credits on the dining plan, plus 16 snacks left, so I had to use them up before we left. I stopped at Min & Bill's Dockside Diner to get some sandwiches to go. Of course, they didn't have bags to carry the food out, so I was juggling the food & drinks. Had to go into one of the stores & ask for a bag to put it all in. We tried to eat the sandwiches in the car on the way home, but they were just gross. We ended up throwing them away I also stopped at one of the shops to use up the snack credits, but I wish I had stocked up at Roaring Fork instead! There just weren't very many options that I could find.

 

[honeybunches]

Snacks

Our favorite snacks of the trip:
frozen lemonade (MK)
Dole whip (MK)
popsicles (MK)
chocolate dipped rice crispy Mickeys (Roaring Fork)
muffins (Roaring Fork)
brownies with fudge icing (Roaring Fork)

we wasted a few snack credits on Dasani (poor planning on my part, forgot the water bottles).

We had a bunch of leftover credits right before we left, so I was limited to what I could find at the store on the way out of Hollywood Studios. I got a bunch of cookie packs, some cheese crackers, and a couple of cotton candy containers. We ate some of the cookies on the way home and they were icky. Like the generic grocery store brand vanilla cookies. I was mad that I wasted these credits, should have planned better & maxed them out at Roaring Fork before we left! Oh well, lesson learned for next trip!!

 

[honeybunches]

So glad you loved Crystal Palace. It is our MUST DO breakfast every trip...we just love it. I could eat that puffed french toast every day. And the characters are great too.

We've not been to Cape May since they added the crab legs (I think the last time we were there was in 2007). We've always enjoyed our meals there and my DH loves their desserts.

yep, both of these will be our must-do's from now on!! And I love that puffed french toast, too!

 

[emmabemmainc]

no, I'm pretty sure it was the regular restaurant. Wolfgang Puck Cafe?? The hostess told us to wait for our server

Well, that really stinks then! I'm sorry! Love the rest of your reviews!