Hey, You Lions Can't Do That! This is Disney! A Frozen Harambe Trip Report! NEW 8/27!
- Thread starter AAshleySEG
- Start date
TheMaxRebo
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2008
- Messages
- 27,672
joinings - sounds like quite the trip! The wife and I ate at V&A our last trip for our anniversary and it was amazing!
That's cool that you were able to make that stop during your drive. Looked interesting and broke up the trip a bit
That's cool that you were able to make that stop during your drive. Looked interesting and broke up the trip a bit
FancyNancy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2012
- Messages
- 1,233
Love your tr so far. Subbing
I'm joining in. I can't wait to hear about your trip!
I really enjoy reading about your stops in Charleston. My husband's grandparents lived there, and we visited quite a lot when we were first married.
The wood-fired pizza looks amazing. DH won a weber charcoal grill from a work picnic earlier this summer and just bought the Kettle Grill. We had our first pizza from it this past weekend, and he's planning to give it another go on Saturday. I had never heard of it before, but he enjoys making pizza at home and had done about all he could in a conventional oven. Anyway, I thought it was fun that you mentioned this, too.
-Stephanie
I really enjoy reading about your stops in Charleston. My husband's grandparents lived there, and we visited quite a lot when we were first married.
The wood-fired pizza looks amazing. DH won a weber charcoal grill from a work picnic earlier this summer and just bought the Kettle Grill. We had our first pizza from it this past weekend, and he's planning to give it another go on Saturday. I had never heard of it before, but he enjoys making pizza at home and had done about all he could in a conventional oven. Anyway, I thought it was fun that you mentioned this, too.
-Stephanie
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
That is the nicest compliment ever! I try to make them interesting because I go back and read them every once in a while to reminisce
Yeah, I am not sure how anyone could think that we don't love Disney! Each other...eh...
(Just kidding Jeremy, I know you will read this)I was so proud of our Sunday outfits! We had more compliments on those than any other we have done before! Thank you so much for reading along!!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
joinings - sounds like quite the trip! The wife and I ate at V&A our last trip for our anniversary and it was amazing!
That's cool that you were able to make that stop during your drive. Looked interesting and broke up the trip a bit
Awesome! Thanks for joining in on the fun! I am glad you had an amazing experience at Victoria & Albert's! It seems to get better each time we go! Chef Scott is so wonderful! He also has quite an amazing staff!
It is nice to be able to stop in Charleston, we are lucky that we have a few places on the way that we could detour if we needed a road break! Maybe one day we will hit up Savannah, Hilton Head, St Augustine, Myrtle Beach or some of the other places we pass by! Thanks again for joining!!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
Thanks!! Those cannon hole photos were such a nice surprise! It was so random how it happened! I love when things work out like that! Plus with the way Jeremy poses for photos, it just makes them even better
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
It's good to see you!
I am so glad you are subbing in! I am glad you enjoy reading about Charleston, because we definitely enjoying stopping there! I am so jealous about your KettlePizza! I really want to try one out! We are definitely going to have to look into getting one!!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
Oh that's great! Charleston is your favorite city! We have only spent such a short amount of time there, I am looking forward to seeing more of it!! We try to do one Charleston-y thing each time we go!
You are so kind to say that!
I am glad you are enjoying the TR! I am glad you joined us! 
MidnightParade
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 1,022
What a fun and interesting stop! I love history and just imagining the life and times that occurred back then. There was no thought back then that the fort would become a historical monument, just the brick and mortar that was keeping them safe and was their strong hold for battle. Pretty crazy sometimes.
Love the cannon hole pics! hee!!
Love the cannon hole pics! hee!!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
We definitely had a great time in Charleston! I'm so glad you want to hear more, especially about V&A, I tend to talk about it too much sometimes because of how much we love it
Thank you so much for reading along! It is great to have you!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
What a fun and interesting stop! I love history and just imagining the life and times that occurred back then. There was no thought back then that the fort would become a historical monument, just the brick and mortar that was keeping them safe and was their strong hold for battle. Pretty crazy sometimes.
Love the cannon hole pics! hee!!
Yeah totally crazy, I can't imagine what life would have been like then, I mean, there wasn't even a Disney World!
And the cannon hole pics were definitely some of my favorites, they make me laugh every time I look at them!
AAshleySEG
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2012
- Messages
- 1,256
So we made it into the car and then started trying to get out of the parking garage so we could drive over to another parking garage for dinner! Wait, that makes it sound like we are having dinner in a parking garage!
Anyway, there was a really long line of traffic to pay and get out of this garage, it took us about 15 minutes or so just to get out of there! We were only about a mile or so from where we were having dinner, we could have walked it, but then I was like, I don't want to walk a mile after I eat dinner, ugh! For parking this time, we were going to be parked in the same garage that we used on the past trip, the one over at the Charleston Place Hotel. It was literally right across the street from where we were eating!
So, little back story on FIG. In June, when were at Victoria & Albert's we had a server named Chris! We had spoken about stopping in Charleston on our way down to Florida and he said that they had just been to an awesome restaurant there and we should try it if we are ever through there again! So when we got home I looked up FIG to find out more about it, and make a reservation! So they change the menus every single day based on what is in season/local, etc. That makes me so happy, I love seasonal food! We had a pretty early reservation at 5:30 right as they opened up, we were the first table in the dining room! We were presented with the menu for today!
We read over everything and I was going to have a really difficult time deciding what to get, everything sounded so delicious!! In cases like this I tend to just ask the server for what they recommend and trust their judgement, like I have said before, I will eat pretty much anything!
I took a break from the dinner menu for a moment to check out the wine list, Jeremy and I really love a good Riesling and upon inspection of the menu, they had a Summer of Riesling Tasting Flight!
Sign me up for that one! Our server made it back to the table with some freshly baked Rye bread for me, and Sourdough for Jeremy. This bread was really fantastic! I just recently bought a book from the French Culinary Institute on bread baking that I have started to try and having different breads out and about, gives me ideas of which ones to try and bake next!
For our drinks, we ordered a bottle of the Acqua Panna water, and both of us got the Riesling Flight! Great minds think alike!
The Ravines Riesling was just ok, not a favorite for either of us. The Donnhoff was excellent! I would absolutely consider buying a few bottles to have at home! The last one the Willi Schaefer, OMG, it was one of the best Rieslings I think either of us had ever had! Definitely on the get again list if we see it!
With our wines tasted, I took the suggestions from our server and for an appetizer we had the Charred Eggplant Caviar which featured fresh sea island cheese, and also came with buttered and toasted rectangular lengths of brown bread!
This may not look appetizing to some of you, but SERIOUSLY, this was probably one of the BEST appetizers I have ever had in my entire LIFE! It was perfectly seasoned, and when you dipped or spread the eggplant mixture on that buttered crispy and soft brown bread, I could have melted on that chair, it was that good. This place's name is not just for show folks! The food really is good, good may not even do it justice! We had only just had the appetizer course and I was already planning how to properly thank Chris for suggesting it!! Even sitting here now, typing this out, I can taste it, and now my stomach is rumbling!
So for our entree courses I chose the Mustard Crusted Pumpkin Swordfish with yukon gold potato puree, cauliflower and piquillo pepper piccata! If you have never heard of pumpkin swordfish (I hadn't) apparently it gets its color from feeding on shrimp. Our server told us that when fisherman are catching swordfish, maybe 1 out of 30 of them will be considered the right color to be called a pumpkin swordfish. I am really not sure there is anyway for me to convey to you all just how fantastically delicious this plate of food was. The fish was melt in you mouth and with that sauce on it, just crazy good. The potatoes were so smooth and silky, and the cauliflower and romanesco in the piccata were cooked and seasoned absolutely perfectly. Just a real home run of a dish! I had no complaints and it didn't look like this photo for long!
Jeremy pretty much knew that he wanted his entree as soon as he saw the menu, he chose the Pan Roasted Snowy Grouper with sauce romesco, fresh-dug potato, heirloom pepper and oregano. So straight from Jeremy, "The fish was cooked perfectly, the sauce went really well with the dish, the potatoes were also seasoned really well. The peppers were SO HOT, I took one bite and I was on fire for the rest of the meal!" He also said, that my dish was the better of the two, I tasted his also, and would agree, but that in no way means that his wasn't delicious!
Since we wanted to try more food, we wanted to get one of the sides in the Vegetables to Share section of the menu, we talked it over and landed on the Parsnip and Sweet Corn Farrotto! I wish I could make this at home, because man, what an unexpected dish that turned out to be a great complement to our meal!
I think we cleaned every single plate or bowl that we had on our table! We were pretty full, but I have a thing where if the server offers us dessert, I will get something, even if it is just something for Jeremy and I to split! So out came the dessert menu to us!
We had quite a long discussion of it, and Jeremy decided that we should get the Blackberry Curd, which was a frozen curd, almost akin to a sorbet, but really vibrant and flavorful, it also had fresh fruit, little crunchy morsels of deliciousness, some pate de fruit, and a little brebis cheese, which added a really nice tang to the dish! Sorry, we ate the whole thing before I realized that I didn't take a photo of it. We were very happy with everything we had for dinner! Well you could tell I was!
I tend to get a little silly after I have had a full wonderful dinner and a flight of Riesling! So all in all, dinner at FIG was outstanding! If you go to Charleston and are looking for a great place to eat! Go there! It is a casual atmosphere with stellar high quality food and service! I can't imagine that you would be disappointed! We finished up with everything there and walked across the street to hop in the car. It was time for us to leave Charleston and head to Georgia for our hotel for the night!
So by 7:15 we were on the road. Since we are going to be getting to the hotel later than we thought we decided to just stop for gas in the morning on our way to Disney World! I wanted to get to bed as soon as we got to the hotel, I wanted to try and get some good sleep before our full day tomorrow! By about 8:45 we were crossing over the line from South Carolina to Georgia!
Sorry for the awful blurry photo! We were going over some bumpy road! We made it to the hotel around 10:00. We stopped by the front desk, checked-in then went up the elevator and down the hall to our room, only to find out that our keys didn't work. So back down we went to get them re-keyed. When we got back up there, we got everything in to the room and then got ready for bed! Tomorrow is the day, we are going to check out Frozen Summer Fun at Hollywood Studios and we can't wait to see what that has in store for us!!
Anyway, there was a really long line of traffic to pay and get out of this garage, it took us about 15 minutes or so just to get out of there! We were only about a mile or so from where we were having dinner, we could have walked it, but then I was like, I don't want to walk a mile after I eat dinner, ugh! For parking this time, we were going to be parked in the same garage that we used on the past trip, the one over at the Charleston Place Hotel. It was literally right across the street from where we were eating!
So, little back story on FIG. In June, when were at Victoria & Albert's we had a server named Chris! We had spoken about stopping in Charleston on our way down to Florida and he said that they had just been to an awesome restaurant there and we should try it if we are ever through there again! So when we got home I looked up FIG to find out more about it, and make a reservation! So they change the menus every single day based on what is in season/local, etc. That makes me so happy, I love seasonal food! We had a pretty early reservation at 5:30 right as they opened up, we were the first table in the dining room! We were presented with the menu for today!
We read over everything and I was going to have a really difficult time deciding what to get, everything sounded so delicious!! In cases like this I tend to just ask the server for what they recommend and trust their judgement, like I have said before, I will eat pretty much anything!
I took a break from the dinner menu for a moment to check out the wine list, Jeremy and I really love a good Riesling and upon inspection of the menu, they had a Summer of Riesling Tasting Flight!
Sign me up for that one! Our server made it back to the table with some freshly baked Rye bread for me, and Sourdough for Jeremy. This bread was really fantastic! I just recently bought a book from the French Culinary Institute on bread baking that I have started to try and having different breads out and about, gives me ideas of which ones to try and bake next!
For our drinks, we ordered a bottle of the Acqua Panna water, and both of us got the Riesling Flight! Great minds think alike!
The Ravines Riesling was just ok, not a favorite for either of us. The Donnhoff was excellent! I would absolutely consider buying a few bottles to have at home! The last one the Willi Schaefer, OMG, it was one of the best Rieslings I think either of us had ever had! Definitely on the get again list if we see it!
With our wines tasted, I took the suggestions from our server and for an appetizer we had the Charred Eggplant Caviar which featured fresh sea island cheese, and also came with buttered and toasted rectangular lengths of brown bread!
This may not look appetizing to some of you, but SERIOUSLY, this was probably one of the BEST appetizers I have ever had in my entire LIFE! It was perfectly seasoned, and when you dipped or spread the eggplant mixture on that buttered crispy and soft brown bread, I could have melted on that chair, it was that good. This place's name is not just for show folks! The food really is good, good may not even do it justice! We had only just had the appetizer course and I was already planning how to properly thank Chris for suggesting it!! Even sitting here now, typing this out, I can taste it, and now my stomach is rumbling!
So for our entree courses I chose the Mustard Crusted Pumpkin Swordfish with yukon gold potato puree, cauliflower and piquillo pepper piccata! If you have never heard of pumpkin swordfish (I hadn't) apparently it gets its color from feeding on shrimp. Our server told us that when fisherman are catching swordfish, maybe 1 out of 30 of them will be considered the right color to be called a pumpkin swordfish. I am really not sure there is anyway for me to convey to you all just how fantastically delicious this plate of food was. The fish was melt in you mouth and with that sauce on it, just crazy good. The potatoes were so smooth and silky, and the cauliflower and romanesco in the piccata were cooked and seasoned absolutely perfectly. Just a real home run of a dish! I had no complaints and it didn't look like this photo for long!
Jeremy pretty much knew that he wanted his entree as soon as he saw the menu, he chose the Pan Roasted Snowy Grouper with sauce romesco, fresh-dug potato, heirloom pepper and oregano. So straight from Jeremy, "The fish was cooked perfectly, the sauce went really well with the dish, the potatoes were also seasoned really well. The peppers were SO HOT, I took one bite and I was on fire for the rest of the meal!" He also said, that my dish was the better of the two, I tasted his also, and would agree, but that in no way means that his wasn't delicious!
Since we wanted to try more food, we wanted to get one of the sides in the Vegetables to Share section of the menu, we talked it over and landed on the Parsnip and Sweet Corn Farrotto! I wish I could make this at home, because man, what an unexpected dish that turned out to be a great complement to our meal!
I think we cleaned every single plate or bowl that we had on our table! We were pretty full, but I have a thing where if the server offers us dessert, I will get something, even if it is just something for Jeremy and I to split! So out came the dessert menu to us!
We had quite a long discussion of it, and Jeremy decided that we should get the Blackberry Curd, which was a frozen curd, almost akin to a sorbet, but really vibrant and flavorful, it also had fresh fruit, little crunchy morsels of deliciousness, some pate de fruit, and a little brebis cheese, which added a really nice tang to the dish! Sorry, we ate the whole thing before I realized that I didn't take a photo of it.
We were very happy with everything we had for dinner! Well you could tell I was!
I tend to get a little silly after I have had a full wonderful dinner and a flight of Riesling! So all in all, dinner at FIG was outstanding! If you go to Charleston and are looking for a great place to eat! Go there! It is a casual atmosphere with stellar high quality food and service! I can't imagine that you would be disappointed! We finished up with everything there and walked across the street to hop in the car. It was time for us to leave Charleston and head to Georgia for our hotel for the night!
So by 7:15 we were on the road. Since we are going to be getting to the hotel later than we thought we decided to just stop for gas in the morning on our way to Disney World! I wanted to get to bed as soon as we got to the hotel, I wanted to try and get some good sleep before our full day tomorrow! By about 8:45 we were crossing over the line from South Carolina to Georgia!
Sorry for the awful blurry photo! We were going over some bumpy road! We made it to the hotel around 10:00. We stopped by the front desk, checked-in then went up the elevator and down the hall to our room, only to find out that our keys didn't work. So back down we went to get them re-keyed. When we got back up there, we got everything in to the room and then got ready for bed! Tomorrow is the day, we are going to check out Frozen Summer Fun at Hollywood Studios and we can't wait to see what that has in store for us!!
HarkiQuinn
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2013
- Messages
- 153
Love all of your photos! And all of that food looks DELICIOUS. I know where I'm going if I'm ever in Charleston. YAY Chris for awesome recs!
MiaBella05
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2006
- Messages
- 824
joining in
TheMaxRebo
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2008
- Messages
- 27,672
wow - that meal looks amazing! So glad you enjoyed it
Ravines is one of our favorite wineries to visit - so sorry you didn't like their wine better. We like their Reisling but some of their others are definitely better. Glad to see some NY wine make the menu though
Ravines is one of our favorite wineries to visit - so sorry you didn't like their wine better. We like their Reisling but some of their others are definitely better. Glad to see some NY wine make the menu though
-
The Best Secret for Watching Fireworks on a Disney Cruise
-
Are Fans Still Upset About Disney Characters in 'it's a small world' at Disneyland?
-
Walt Disney World Reveals Star-Spangled Fourth of July Plans
-
Temporary Closures Announced for Popular Walt Disney World Attractions
-
Which Disney World Rides Are CLOSED in July 2025?
-
New International Imports Arrive On Disney Merch Scene
-
Disney Execs Visit Universal Epic Universe: What Might That Mean?
Save Up to 30% on Rooms at Walt Disney World!
Save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resorts Collection hotels when you stay 5 consecutive nights or longer in late summer and early fall. Plus, enjoy other savings for shorter stays.This offer is valid for stays most nights from August 1 to October 11, 2025.
CLICK HERE
