How Many Snack Credits are Left?! 11 Nights of Free Dining! *COMPLETED 31 JULY*

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

I'm going to have to steal this line!

Honestly, I lie about my age so much that its getting confusing! One of my credit card companies completely threw me when I called the other day - instead of asking for my date of birth to prove my ID, they asked how old I will be on my next birthday. It genuinely took me about 20 seconds of silence to work it out! So my new technique is just not to discuss my age, instead of lying!!

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Day 2 (part 1)

Our first full day at WDW and where else to start but MK!

We were there for rope drop so by 11am we were hungry! I had one thing on my mind – a trip to Gastons Tavern! My best friend has been telling me for about 3 years how good the cinammon rolls were and I could not wait to try one.

When we arrived we clocked the size of the roll and decided to share as we were planning on a midday lunch. The line was fairly slow moving, it took around ten minutes to reach the front (thank goodness for the free wi-fi to pass the time!). We also ordered a LeFou's Brew to try (Frozen Apple Juice with a hint of Toasted Marshmallow and topped with All-Natural Passion Fruit-Mango Foam)

The cinnamon roll was just amazing. Warm, sticky, pumped full of cinnamon and HUGE. I think we both pretty much agree that this was the best snack of the trip. @dznyacct messaged me while in the line to suggest that I ask for extra icing which I did – great tip! Even sharing this it was so big that we didn’t go for lunch until about 2pm.

The LeFou brew was ok . . . I don’t really like apple juice so its not a very fair review. Its ice cold and refreshing which we needed at that point, and the foam on top was very nice. Its not a repeat order for me though. JC liked it.

Total cost should have been $9.98

Casey’s Corner for lunch was a request from JC as he wanted to hear the pianist playing outside (he’s a musician in his spare time). We decided to share the foot long chilli-cheese hot dog with fries followed by a brownie. This was plenty of food for the pair of us, and we’re not especially small portion kinda people! You can see how much chilli and cheese there was and both were good. The sausage was hot and fresh and the bread was nice and soft. The fries were fresh and nicely cooked. The brownie – unlike the one the night before from Good to Go’s – was a proper brownie! Crisp on the outside, gooey and dense in the middle. We both enjoyed every bite of this meal!


Cost (including a water) should have been $18.97

Trattoria al Forno dinner to follow soon . . .

Also, as a side note - not long after lunch it rained so bad that the puddles came up over the top of my trainers so we retreated to the hotel room. I had ordered some of this stuff (butterscotch beer - non alcoholic!) from Garden Grocer for the room and decided to try it - marvelous!! Tastes just like the butterbeer from Harry Potter world (or whatever its called!) but without the foamy top! Definitely worth a try if you don't want to visit the dark side of Universal!

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Following! What a great list of restaurants you went to! I can't wait to read about Olivia's, we're staying at OKW on our next trip and I'm so excited to eat there!

I've been enjoying your reports too!

 

[dixonsontour]

Great start

 

[DHare]

Awesome reviews! Can't wait to hear more.

 

[dznyacct]

Loving your reviews so far, my dear friend ! Can't wait till day six when we arrive !!

 

[elaine amj]

Really enjoyed your update! Intrigued by that butterscotch beer - I loved butterbeer

 

[ALEXandFAB]

they asked how old I will be on my next birthday. It genuinely took me about 20 seconds of silence to work it out! So my new technique is just not to discuss my age, instead of lying!!

I can't believe that giant cinnamon bun is available on a snack credit! Definitely on my "must eat" list.

Wow, that chili cheese dog looks delicious. And those fries too!

 

[Terra Nova guy]

Joining in and looking forward to the reviews. That's a great list of restaurants you visited.

The cinnamon roll was just amazing. Warm, sticky, pumped full of cinnamon and HUGE. I think we both pretty much agree that this was the best snack of the trip. @dznyacct messaged me while in the line to suggest that I ask for extra icing which I did – great tip! Even sharing this it was so big that we didn’t go for lunch until about 2pm.

Those cinnamon rolls are awesome. My wife and I can share one as a light lunch. The extra icing tip is a great one and I have indulged in that before. A must if you have a sweet tooth like me!

 

[Melissakay1q]

Joining in and looking forward to the reviews. That's a great list of restaurants you visited.


Those cinnamon rolls are awesome. My wife and I can share one as a light lunch. The extra icing tip is a great one and I have indulged in that before. A must if you have a sweet tooth like me!

I am jealous! My roll was cold and dry

 

[tink too]

Joining in - loving the reviews so far.

 

[fallonkendra]

I love Disney chicken nuggets, so good

Nice backpack! I bought myself the same one for my upcoming trip

I don't like hot dogs or chili, but looking at that picture of your meal makes me want to add Casey's Corner to my list... so much cheese! And those fries look like the ones I love!

I need to remember that Butterscotch Beer. I loved Butterbeer from Harry Potter World, but I hated Universal overall, so that's a good way to get my fill without going back to that park.

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Day 2 (part 2)

Time for our first table service meal of the trip!

For all my times in WDW, I had never eaten at the Boardwalk, so I was really looking forward to Trattoria al Forno – especially as Italian is one of my very favourite types of food.

We arrived about 15 minutes early for our 7.15pm ADR and they seated us quite quickly. We were both surprised by the size of the restaurant – it didn’t look that large from outside. I would guess it was a half full when we arrived and 2/3 full by the time we left. We were sat near the window and had a really friendly, helpful waiter – I wish I could remember his name to recommend him!

We both started with a drink – can’t remember what JC had but imagine it was a red wine. I had a lovely sparkly glass of bubbly cold prosecco – now I knew the vacation had begun!

I was greedily eyeing up the pizza on the menu, but decided to save myself for Via Napoli (big mistake, thanks Hurricane Matthew!) – we decided to share two dishes in the end so we went for the wood grilled strip steak (with fregola pasta, vegetables and amarone butterO and the braised short rib bolognese with smoked bacon, tagliatelle and roasted mushrooms.

Some warm bread and butter came out first – photo fail I’m afraid. There was a huge amount for two people - we both swore to only eat half and then managed to eat it all … oops! I think we both got a soft drink around this time to as the dining plan came with it.

Then the entrees arrived!




The steak was AMAZING! AMAZING!!! Really deep smoky taste. OMG I could eat it again right now. The pasta with it was very nice and firm and the sauce was really tasty. My only very minor complaint would be that I could have done with more vegetable than a couple of slivers of courgette (zucchini!). So far today I think I had scored giant, fat zero on the fresh food stakes. The Bolognese was tasty with a meaty, rich flavour and - after we had been soaked through earlier in the day – just felt like lovely, warm from within, comfort food. We both just loved these entrees.

Dessert time – I ordered the cannoli pizzelle filled with chocolate and pistachio cream – I’ve wanted to try cannali for years as Maria was always making it in Everyone Loves Raymond! It was OK – not exactly like I imagined (It was more like a pastry whereas I had imagined more of a brandy snap texture) and – much as I love pistachio – I didn’t especially like the flavor here.

JC had the Affogato al Caffè – vanilla gelato with hot expresso poured over it. He loved this – I tried it and the strong coffee blew my head off which the waiter found hilarious. Between that and jet lag it’s a wonder I slept that night! I didn’t get a photo of his dessert as I was breaking him in gently with the whole taking photos of food in public thing . . .

We really liked this place and I would recommend it to anyone. Loved the location too – JC has come away with an ambition to stay here one day which I am happy to agree to!

Cost (including the soda) should have been $79 and we paid for alcohol out of pocket.

Coming up next . . .food and wine festival and Sci-Fi Dine In

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Thank you all for your kind comments so far! I will answer questions asap, having a horrible week at work and drowning slightly in it!!

 

[Disneyncscmom]

That steak looks amazing!

 

[ariane37]

The cinnamon roll at Gastons w/ extra icing = Glad you enjoyed your meal at Trattoria Al Forno! We ate there last Nov. and found our meal just ok but by no means bad. We were staying at the Boardwalk for the 4th time. We're big fans of staying in the Epcot resort area, so I agree with JC that you should stay there one day!

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

I am jealous! My roll was cold and dry

Noooooooooo!!!!

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Day 3 (part 1)

We just grabbed a bagel and peanut butter in the room again for breakfast and then headed to Epcot.

Mid-morning we stopped at Fountain View (Starbucks); JC had a flat white and I had a pumpkin spice latte (my own personal heaven!). I was so busy posing for selfies with it to send to my friend who loves them that I forgot to get a photo of the blueberry muffin that we shared *rolls eyes with shame*. The muffin was nice and light – bit artificial tasting, typical Starbucks really! It was good to just sit there and watch the fountain music show for ten minutes and chill. I overdosed a bit on pumpkin spiced lattes this year and don’t think I can face another one as long as I live *or until next year*


I think we got the muffin as a snack credit and paid for the drinks so saved $3.29.

After a few more rides we headed off to our Food and Wine Festival lunch, the first of two visits that we had planned - my first F&WF for 6 years and JCs first ever!

First stop was Greece, where we shared the Vegan Loaded Greek “Nachos” (Pita Chips, Meatless Sausage Crumbles, and Vegan Tzatziki). I purposefully didn’t tell JC that these were vegetarian and he still doesn’t seem to have noticed!! This is just my type of food, I love fresh, Mediterranean food, especially if olives are involved.


The portion was very generous – enough pita chips that we weren’t fighting over them! This was tasty and fresh, it wasn’t blow-your-socks-off amazing, but I would happily have it again.

We then went to Morocco where we used a counter service credit on trying all three food items available. We had the Kefta Pocket (Seasoned Ground Beef in a Pita Pocket), the Spicy Hummus Fries with Cucumber, Tomato, Onions and Tzatziki Sauce and the Chocolate Baklava (Rolled Phyllo Dough with Toasted Almonds and Dark Chocolate Sauce).


The kefta pocket was fabulous – stuffed full of meat, spicy, lots of flavor. I really begrudged sharing it!!!!

The spicy hummus fries on the other hand were a let down – for some reason I was imagining a tub of hummus (YUM!) with fries to dip in it. This is a lesson in reading descriptions properly!! It was actually hummus shaped into thick fries and fried. They were pretty dry! I wouldn’t have them again. JC liked them and enjoyed most of my portion.

Baklava is something that I adore and this did not disappoint. Crisp yet moist, covered in syrup and drowning in sticky chocolate. A nightmare to eat in the heat but soooooooo good!

Cost for the F&WF items should have been should have been $18.45

Sci-Fi dinner (or as we like to call it “the worst meal of the trip”) to follow soon . . .

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Day 3 (part 2)

This evening we were supposed to go to Bongos, a place that I have always wanted to try (I was a big Gloria Estefan fan back in the day!). However, about 2 months before we travelled I became aware of the Star Wars fireworks . . . JC is a HUGE Star Wars fan so I was determined that we would see these. The times for them weren’t published but in anticipation for them being around 9pm I moved Bongo’s forward to 6pm to hopefully give us time to do both. When the times were finally published, just two weeks before we left, I nearly had a heart attack to see that the fireworks would be at 7.45pm – what an inconvenient time! So I decided to move the meal to inside DHS if I could get an ADR. At the same time I was reading a Disney “fact” book which told me that memorabilia from The Rocketeer was on Display in Sci-Fi Dine in. This is one of JCs all-time favourite films! It seemed like fate! So after checking about 6 times an hour for days I finally managed to get an ADR there for 5.45pm – perfect! I had never had an interest in Sci Fi, but was quite excited about trying somewhere new so managed to not be too disappointed about Bongos.

Move forward 2 weeks to the night of the meal . . . this was the Wednesday night and Hurricane Matthew was due on the Friday so the weather was “interesting”. We sat on the Disney Bus on our way to DHS and the sky opened – torrential, I cannot see through the bus windows, type of rain. As we approached DHS I asked JC to get the ponchos out of the bag . . . they weren’t there! (Hours later, back in the room there they sat on the bed). If you’ve ever got off a bus at DHS in the rain you will be aware, as we are now, that there is NO shelter. We sort of sprinted / sort of dejectedly walked to security – where there is also barely any shelter – before we could get to the first shop and buy some more ponchos. By then we were soaked to the skin. All this preamble is to explain to you that by the time we finally got to Sci-Fi we were already miserable and grouchy!

The waiting area in Sci-Fi was extremely small and extremely busy. We checked in and were told that there was a “bit of a wait” and that the rest rooms were closed due to an “issue” (the mind boggles). After a few minutes the restrooms reopened so we both went to try and dry off. Annoyingly there were paper towels rather than hand dryers so this wasn’t much use. After asking twice how long a table would be we were finally seated 40 minutes after our ADR time. By now our moods were dire.

I’m just going to get the rest of my rant out of the way and then move on to the actual food – we hated how dark this place was, so dark you could barely read the menus or see the food, we hated sitting with other people who could hear your whole conversation (in our case just a lot of complaining), our server was a lovely man but impossibly slow, and the annoying movie clips on repeat drove us insane. And sitting in soaking wet clothes was not fun (I don’t blame the restaurant for this last part)! I also asked the waiter where the Rocketeer memorabilia was and was told that there wasn’t any – grrrrr (FYI to any fellow fans, there is some in Peevy’s Polar Pipeline, around the lake, which we found a few days later - hurrah)!!!

On to the food! I ordered the build your own angus burger, and I choose cheddar cheese, bacon and caramelized onion to go on it. This is the picture taken with a flash- yes, that’s how dark the restaurant was inside. This was pretty nice – I probably could have done without the onion in hindsight as it made it a bit sickly, but it was a good, standard burger. The fries were chunky and good. This was nothing amazing but it felt so nice to get some hot food in me as I was freezing from the aircon / wet clothes combo.


JC had the Flame-broiled New York Strip Steak topped with Garlic-Herb Butter and served with Cheesy-Horseradish Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetables, and crispy Onion Rings. He was pretty grouchy by then so I did not dare ask to take a photo! He enjoyed the steak, although it was not as good as the one the night before from Trattoria al Forna. The potatoes were OK. He thought the vegetables were far too hard (I tried them and actually liked them as I prefer my vegetables al dente).

For dessert I ordered the house-made Sci-Fi Candy Bar (White and Dark Chocolate Mousse layered with crispy Pearls sandwiched between Sponge Cake and dipped in Chocolate Gananche. I didn’t like it at all and I don’t often meet a dessert that I can’t find something good about. It was just completely tasteless (even the chocolate), too cold, and the sponge cake didn’t seem to work with the mousse. I left half of it as it wsn't worth the calories. JC ordered the brownie and confirmed that this was my greatest bugbear –it was in fact just chocolate cake cut into a square and called a brownie. I hate it when places do that!! There is a great difference between chocolate cake and brownies! He ate a bite of that and a bite of my dessert and confirmed that mine was the best of the two – yikes. Its pretty rare for us two to leave desserts – I think this might have been a first.

We then had to wait absolutely ages for the bill – we made the fireworks with just a few minutes to spare . . . when an announcement was made that due to the weather they may be cancelled. At that point I almost cried as this whole thing had been to see them. In the end they did a reduced show – the lasers and the videos on the theatre went ahead, but we had only a couple of fireworks as the wind was quite strong by then. What we had was good though and I can’t wait to see them properly next year . . . though I will definitely choose somewhere else to eat!

All in all, this is a never repeat for us, I’m sure its quite fun but its jut not our cup of tea. I’m just so glad we didn’t have to pay – the bill would have been $73 including soft drinks.

Coming up next . . . Backlot Express and House of Blu . . . oh no, no, Good to Go food court instead – darn you hurricane!!

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

What a disappointment for you we ate at Sci-Fi and it was ok. At you can imagine our daughter really enjoyed it, but sharing a car is weird!