How am I ever going to fit back into my work clothes?? 8 days of Free Dining Report

[KandD]

Just returned yesterday from my FIRST free dining trip! It was also the first time I was on the dining plan and the first time I have traveled to the World during September. WOW! A lot of firsts. I will first say that it was an AMAZING trip. We tried a lot of new restaurants and I haven't even bothered to weigh myself because I KNOW that I gained some weight!!

Unfortunately, this will be a dining report without pictures. Before the trip I had every intention of doing a full dining report with pics and everything but that idea went down the toliet when we got to Orlando and realized that we forgot the digital camera (by we I mean my DBF but I digress....). Crisis diverted because we did have the video recorder (but no flash so really only daytime outside pics) and I had already bought the Photopass CD. Plus my sister bought two disposables so we were good.

So who are we? This trip was just my DBF and me. My sister makes a few guest appearances though throughout the trip (she lives near Orlando). As I already said, we have never done the dining plan and usually we eat at 50s Prime Time for dinner and Ohana for breakfast and pretty much do CS for the rest of the time or off property. I researched the restaurants a lot and made my ADRs 90 days out at 6 a.m. like a true DISer does! Here are the TS I will review:

Chef Mickey's (D)
Sci-FI (L)
Yachtman's Steakhouse (D)
Whispering Canyon Cafe (D)
Le Cellier (D)
Ohana (B)
Chefs de France (D)
Mama Melrose (D)

For CS we ate at the food court in POR, Mara at Animal Kingdom, Sunshine Seasons in Epcot and some other places. I saved ALL of our receipts so I can properly document what we ate and hopefully add some insight into how much OOP we spent.

We learned a lot from this trip, most importantly that this is an AWESOME time of the year to go!! Lines were non existant and the restaurants were not crazy like I thought they were going to be, we never waited over a few minutes past our ADR. But I will add our little "tips" as I go and hopefully someone else will benefit!

Thanks for reading and next up is Chef Mickey's dinner!!

 

[natalielongstaff]

Yum count me in !

 

[KandD]

Yum count me in !

Welcome!! Thanks for following along!

 

[KandD]

Our dinner the first night was at Chef Mickey's. We have never eaten there and I have read MANY mixed reviews. And not to add to the conflicting reports but I can totally see why some LOVE CM and some HATE CM.

Our ADR was at 6:10. My sister was driving in to have dinner with us. While at the MK the skies were getting darker and darker so not wanting to get soaked right before dinner we took the monorail over to the Contemporary at about 5 and went to the bar right next to CM for a drink. I had a beer and DBF had a rum and coke. And this was the beginning of our Disney drinking adventures, I don't think I have ever in my life spent so much on alcohol!! While we were at the bar I commented on how NOT busy CM was. But at about 5:45 that all changed!! The line to check in got realllly long and the crowd in the waiting area was building and building. My sister finally arrived and we checked in, took the picture (which came out really well), and decided to walk back over to the bar because it looked like we were in for a wait. As soon as we sat down at the bar our buzzer went off!! What a pleasant surprise!!

We sat right near the buffet, not in the "main" room. Right away Donald and Goofy came to our table. We were a table of three adults and the characters really did spend some time with us! Mickey came while DBF and sister were up at the buffet and he actually waited until they came back so we could take pictures!!

The buffet itself was very clean, no platters were empty, and most children were with parents so I didn't see any fingers in the food!! ( I did see one kid sneeze all over his own plate though!!!)

So what about the food?? Welllll....it wasn't inedible but everything I had was SO heavy. That is the only word I can think to describe it. I got a big plate of salad and the "salad bar" was lacking to say the least, I think there was lettuce, cucumbers, some pasta salad, pepperoni, and cheese. Not even any tomatoes!! I took what I assumed to be a ranch or house dressing and it was sooo thick and heavy. (Which is another minor complaint, not everything was labeled).
We all had the turkey and beef from the carving station. The parmesean potatoes were very good, but again I couldn't have too much because it was soo filling. I tried the broccoli with cheese. The mac and cheese was just okay. The beef stroganoff was good, I ate more of the pasta than the actual beef because it was fatty. DBF had some sort of rice dish which he said was "alright".
The dessert bar was good, we all had some ice cream with some candy toppings. I tried the little mickey domes with the oreo on the bottom. All good.
Our overall opinion (we were all in agreement)...we would never pay $30 to eat dinner here. If we had free dining again and wanted a character meal? Maybe. The character interaction was great, I know from reading here on the DIS that there is some sort of "party" that goes on. Because we weren't in the main room all we saw were people waving their napkins so we joined in but we weren't really sure why we were doing it!!! I don't know how much it is for kids to eat here but I am sure that they would really enjoy it.
Our waitress was great, we never had an empty cup (we had ice tea and coke). But the food overall is just not worth 30 buckaroos. If you are going to CM for the characters and for a kid friendly meal then you will probably get more out of it then we did.

Next up....CS breakfast, Sci-Fi lunch, and yummy yummy Yachtman's!!

 

[mcrabeck]

Enjoying your reviews- looking forward to reading more!

 

[TigerKat]

Signing on!

 

[bluejasmine]

Im in! Sounds great!

 

[KandD]

I had ordered a basket from the Disney Florist about two weeks before we left. I thought that it would be delivered to the room but the cast member who checked us in at POR gave it to us at check in. I was so surprised (because I was expecting it to be delivered to the room) and I really wasn't paying attention, I was shuffling through our paperwork and looking around (it was our first day in Disney I couldn't possibly pay attention to whatever was going on in front of me!!). Obviously I ordered it for DBF and he was even more surprised then me! He read the card and STILL couldn't comprehend what was happening. For some reason he thought that my best friend sent it for us. So I explained that it was from me to him and he carried it with a big smile on his face all the way to the room.

I ordered the Toasting To A Happily Ever After basket. It was a red plate with wine (we got chardonay), two types of cheese, a box of crackers, two wine Mickey wine glasses, and a small box of chocolates.

Worth the money? Probably not but DBF was so appreciative and taken aback that it made it worth it. We are really busy at home (I work three jobs and go to school, DBF usually doesn't get out of work until at least 8 pm) so it is nice to do little things like this for each other every once in a while.

 

[DLo]

Great start. Glad you had a great trip. Looking forward to more especially Sci Fi lunch (going there next month for the first time in a while) and Chefs dinner (first time ever next month).

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

count me in. Enjoying your review so far and can't wait to read more