Just returned-8 days of free dining! (9/20 Update Starring Rolls, Toy Story Pizza...)

[disfansx4]

We just returned from our 3rd trip to Disney, the 2nd using the dining plan. Our last trip was 3 1/2 years ago. The dining plan has changed a lot since then. The Dis boards helped us so much in planning this trip and the last so I thought I could help someone else by sharing our experiences.

After all this time lurking and reading about other people's trips I just registered and this is my first attempt at posting!

My family includes:
DH, Paul who loves steak, salmon, chocolate. We love to share our meals and try different things.
Me-I love great salads, seafood, desserts and occasionally steak. I lost 40 pounds 2 years ago so I eat pretty healthy most of the time but this is vacation!
DS Sam 11 is a big eater but picky eater. He loves pizza and french fries.
DS Ben 9 is our adventuresome eater-loves to try new things. Both my kids are super skinny but big eaters.

We debated before the trip whether we should upgrade DS 9 to an adult-it would have cost us about $30 for the ticket upgrade and an estimated $25 in extra tips. What we finally decided to do was assign DS 9 as the adult for the trip since we knew he would love to choose from all the adult options (he is taller and looks older than his big brother and was handed the adult menu automatically at every TS we ate at!). DS 11 (the pickier eater) would be happy eating kid options most of the time. We planned to use the extra $50 the upgrade would have cost us to buy him an adult CS meal whenever he wanted more food or better options. He also wanted to eat the steak and shrimp at Yak and Yetis after seeing pics on the DIS boards so we told him we would buy that one OOP if he wanted it at the time. I am so glad we didn't upgrade him! We shared most of our meals and had way more food than we could eat and hardly spent any money OOP.

Here are our TS ADRs:

LeCellier
Kona
Boma
Chef Mickeys
Yak and Yeti
Boma (again-we loved this place in 2006!)
Tutto Italia
Ohana

We also ate at these counter service places:

Sunshine Seasons (twice)
Cosmic Rays
Wolfgang Puck Express (twice)
Mara (twice)
Pinnochios
Main Street Bakery
Starring Rolls
Toy Story Pizza Planet
France CS at Epcot
Goofy's Candy Co (snacks)

As much fun as I had looking at Food Porn I didn't take any food pictures. I am sorry!!! Hopefully, I will be able to give you helpful info anyway.

I am going to try posting this-hopefully I will do it right!

 

[DaughteroftheKing]

Look forward to what you have to say!

We're also doing Boma and Chef Mickey's. For CS we plan on Sunshine Seasons and Main Street Bakery, as long as getting some snacks from Goofy's!

 

[disfansx4]

We arrived on Sunday, the 1st day of free dining. We got to the Animal Kingdom Lodge around 1:00, our room wasn't quite ready (we were surprised with an upgrade to a Savannah view!) so we left our carry ons with Bell services and caught the bus to Epcot. I had packed a PB lunch for all of us which we ate while waiting for Magical Express at the airport so we weren't planning on eating lunch at Epcot. However, our reservations for LeCellier weren't until 7:05 so we knew we wouldn't make it without a snack. We went to Sunshine Seasons and DH, DS 9, and I split a CS meal, the roasted beet salad. It was so good, literally one of my favorite things I ate all week! My husband doesn't like beets but he really enjoyed this salad. It has goat cheese and candied pecans and a light vinaigrette dressing. Yum! We had the Key Lime Pie, really refreshing on a hot day. DS 11 got a chocolate chip muffin as a snack credit. DS 9 got a slushy outside as a snack.

We arrived at LeCellier about 15 minutes early. This was one of our longer waits to be seated. I think it was about 7:30 when we were shown to our table. What a delightful experience. We had wonderful service and great food. We were all offered smoothies or shakes as part of the DP (even the child). DS 9 and I had the Chocolate Raspberry, so good, and DS 11 had the chocolate. The only problem with these is that they did fill you up especially as we drank them at the same time we ate the yummy bread sticks-all of us got full fast this night! DS 11 (the "child") ordered the Cheddar cheese soup as his appetizer which we all enjoyed dipping our bread sticks in. Paul regretted not getting his own bowl. Sam ordered the child's steak with french fries, I ordered the mushroom filet with the risotto, Paul and Ben ordered the strip steak, DH with the au gratin potatoes and DS subbed the cream cheese mashed potatoes. Everyone ordered their steaks medium except me, I said medium to medium rare. My steak was cooked perfectly. The other 3 steaks which were all ordered Medium looked completely different! The child's steak was over done, Ben's steak was pretty rare, and my husband's steak was medium well (it was obvious at the time that we were going to have way more steak that we could possibly eat so we shared the steaks so everyone had some that was cooked to the pinkness they liked). Our waitress was so nice, I am sure that if we had expressed a concern about the way the steaks had been cooked they would have been happy to replace them). I could only eat about half my steak, we were all stuffed and exhausted by a long day of traveling. We packed up the leftover steak to go (we had a lot of leftovers!) and ordered our desserts to go. We got 2 whiskey cakes and one chocolate moose. Sam was disappointed that the child's ice cream could not be packed "to go". I reassured him that we would all share the desserts later and we ordered the child's fruit cup to go. I ended up eating the child fruit cup for breakfast the next morning. It was awesome, a large cup filled with fresh melons, grapes, and pineapple. Okay, then I will admit I ate half the whiskey cake for breakfast too. I loved it and it doesn't at all taste like whiskey if you are worried about that. Paul ate cold steak for breakfast-he ate the rest of mine and said. "you ordered the right thing, it was the best steak." Of course I knew that from reading the DIS! He just didn't listen to me in the restaurant. The other cake and chocolate moose were eaten later in the day and were big hits with all.

As we were getting ready to leave DS Ben, a baseball lover, was standing by our tucked away table and swinging an imaginary bat which he does all day long! A different waitress than ours walked by and without missing a beat "pitched" a ball to him-he smiled and swung at it. The staff was so friendly here, it was a great start to our dining adventures!

 

[christophfam]

Great report so far!! Can't wait to read the rest. We'll be dining at many of the same places next month!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Great start, cant wait for more!

 

[disfansx4]

I ordered a case of 24 water bottles from Costo.com. It was easy and cost only $7. It was waiting in our room when we arrived. Paul bought the refillable mug at Mara since he likes to drink several cups of coffee (even Disney coffee!) in the morning. As an aside, when he returned to the room he told me the CM told him these new mugs can be used anywhere in the parks or any resort. As he does not read the DIS boards and I do I told him I was pretty sure he got the wrong info! Paul was not planning on using the mug anywhere but Mara-he's not a huge pop drinker and had more that enough opportunities for pop on the DP at lunch and dinner. Just because he was curious the next time he went to Mara he asked a different CM. This one said you can't use them in the parks but you can use them at any resort counter service. I told Paul this was still wrong info. It does say in teeny tiny print (I would never have noticed it had I not read about it on the DIS and was looking for it-and I could only read it with my reading glasses!) that you may only use them in the resorts they were purchased in. Paul did not use his anywhere but Mara but we saw many people bringing them to the parks and using them there. I guess I am saying don't judge people automatically-they may have just been told the wrong info! If you didn't read the DIS you would just believe what you were told. I almost didn't write about this, please don't let it be a controversy!

We are big water drinkers-and especially in the heat we like ice cold water. Every counter place that serves fountain drinks serves filtered ice water (it tasted great-not like the drinking fountains!). We often stopped at CS just for this-we would get one cup of ice and one of ice water. We always carried empty Gatorade (wide mouthed) bottles to the park and them would fill them with ice to carry around. The boys sometimes had a bottle of Powerade left over from a CS meal. These got warm fast. When we had the ice we could make it ice cold and very refreshing. In the parks this was actually a better strategy for us than carrying the water from Costco.

Next up Cosmic Rays and Kona.

 

[DLo]

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

 

[bluejasmine]

Cant wait for the Kona review

 

[disfansx4]

We arrived early at Cosmic Rays-it was very quiet with no wait. We still weren't that hungry-you know what healthy breakfast Paul and I ate!- and I think the boys had Fiber One bars. We were going to split 3 CS here. I was gong to go get the turkey bacon wrap and Paul was going to get the 8 piece chicken strips and the ribs and chicken combo. I was trying to explain to Paul what he should order and he was confused about the different ordering stations. The very nice CM told me we didn't have to worry, we could order an adult meal for our child if we wanted. We didn't, I was pretty sure we would have enough food with the 3 orders but she was nice to offer. This happened several times for us. I am sure you might get a different response from different CMs but it doesn't hurt to ask. She also threw in a 3rd drink for free (not that we needed it...we had plenty of pop with the 2 large ones we ordered!). We couldn't finish all the food. I got my wrap with the packaged apples (you could also get grapes or chips). They weren't bad, I was afraid they might have a funny taste. We all split those. I got the yogurt for dessert and a yummy iced mocha for my drink. Paul got 1 carrot cake and one chocolate cake. I tasted both and they were fine but I was so full I couldn't eat more than one bite of each. The boys didn't even try them. Most of all of the desserts went in the garbage. The ribs came with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was nice to have a vegetable at a CS! The beans were crisp and fresh. Everyone ate a little of everything. I loved the wrap. At the fixing station I got extra tomatoes and lettuce to put in the wrap. I also got a honey mustard salad dressing to use as a dipping sauce. Paul thought the ribs and chicken were just okay. I think he wished we had gotten something else as our 3rd choice. He said he wouldn't go back but I would. Get the wrap!

 

[mouseika]

Great reviews so far! We're leaving in 3 weeks for 8 days in the World, and you ate at several of the same restaurants we have ADRs for. I'm looking forward to the rest of your feedback!

 

[KatMark]

Great reviews so far. Glad you had a great experience at LeCellier -- we've always had excellent service there.

 

[disfansx4]

This is the DH serving up Kona review. I wished to go elsewhere but was out voted. The Hawaiian bread with macadamia butter is outstanding. We asked for seconds then stuffed 1/2 of second loaf into a big ziplock to eat later. Very piggy. My DW ordered Shrimp and Scallops and loved the scallops. I wanted the Lump Crab Cakes so server/CM upgraded this appetizer to a full meal. It came with more ckaes and two sides. The asparagus was perfect. I recommend it, and particularly liked the pineapple relish. So did my DS 9. I wish he would have ordered the Kona Salad as a full meal which we then might have split. It was nice to know that Kona CM's were flexible. Their French Fries are great, crispy, salty and perfectly cooked inside. Both boys were thrilled with Kona Kones; if you bring kids here make sure they get it! My DW ordered the Kilauea Torte, her favorite dessert in the world. This meant I took one for family and ate kid sundae which was more than enough for an adult. At the table next to us the father ordered the Kona Coffee French Press Pot. This looked terrific. Why he was drinking 24 oz. of regular coffee at 8:00 PM is beyond me but if you love coffee, check that out for breakfast. I ordered decaf coffee but was offered (as part of DP) either a latte or a cappuccino. Both boys were offered smoothies on DP and one got a virgin strawberry daiquiri. Overall, no need for a recount, Kona is "pono"

 

[Jeanieblue114]

We have Kona reserved for our anniversary on Oct. 3rd.
Glad that you enjoyed it. I think hubby is looking forward to the virgin drinks and pineapple bread. If we don't eat anything else he will be a happy man!
Thanks for the reviews!

 

[natalielongstaff]

Really enjoying your reviews

 

[disfansx4]

Tuesday was Typhoon Lagoon in the AM and DTD in the afternoon. We had brought roasted nut packages to eat as a snack at the water park. We were trying to conserve our snack credits at the beginning of the week. We shouldn't have!! We had plenty to last us. It was still nice to have a few snacks that we brought with us-our boys seem to be hungry all the time and we weren't always by a good snack place. We got to DTD right after noon and accidentally parked on the West Side instead of the Marketplace side. I knew from reading the DIS that the WPE on the Marketplace side had a bigger menu than the West Side one so even though Paul said, There's a Wolfgang Puck Express right here!", I made everyone walk to the other side! It would have been fine except the sky was getting dark and ominous. We also had left our Rain Gear back at the hotel thinking we weren't touring this day. We ran the last few blocks and made it just as the skies opened up to a torrential storm. We got a little wet which caused a major problem for DS 9, the air conditioning was set on arctic and he was freezing (and whiney!). We wished we had brought our backpack which had a long sleeve T in it. It was too stormy to eat outside so he needed to get over it. If you are sensitive to being cold you might want to remember a light sweater or long sleeve shirts when you go to the restaurants. We found the air conditioning many places to be really cold! Now on to the important stuff...the food! We LOVED this place! I had such a hard time choosing what to order. Paul and I worked together with a plan to share. I ordered the Chinois Chicken Salad. It's like an oriental cabbage salad and it's huge. Paul got the Roast Beef Gorgonzola Pocket Sandwich and we shared the 2. I loved the pocket sandwich, it had a horseradish dressing. I normally wouldn't think I liked horseradish but it was very light and yummy. It was served with house made Parmesan potato chips that were surprisingly good. DS 9 Ben ordered the same pocket sandwich. It was very filling and he could only eat half. He wanted to take the rest to go and was very upset when we had to throw it away later since we spent so much time at Disney Quest. Here comes the best part. I knew Sam would love the pepperoni pizza (good pizza versus Disney so-so pizza!). I asked the CM how big the kid's pizza was, I was thinking of buying Sam the adult pizza OOP. The CM said, "You don't have to order him the kid pizza, you can order the adult if you like." Yea! I would have been happy to pay for it because he loved it and ate every bite. She also told me I could pick any dessert for all 4 of us, we didn't need to pick a child dessert. Now, I am fully aware that at Disney you can get different responses from different CMs so you might have a different experience but we went back later in the week and was told the same thing again. We were there at prime lunch time and there was no line. When we went back later in the week it was packed! For dessert 3 of us got the Chocolate Brownies with Chocolate chips in it and Paul got the Chocolate chip cookie. We were all stuffed so we took them to go. I ate mine for breakfast the next day (are you seeing a pattern here? I would never do this in the real world, but dessert for breakfast is a vacation guilty pleasure.) The brownie was to die for. In fact, a secret confession, the boys completely forgot about these brownies and I ate theirs from the fridge over the next few days! What a terrible mom. One more thing, as a non pop drinker I enjoyed places that had freshly brewed non sweetened ice tea. WPE tea was so refreshing, they also had 2 other choices of sweetened tea. We knew we had to eat here again. In fact I think I could have eaten here everyday and eaten something different every time and been happy.

After WPE we ran to Goofy's Candy Co. before DQ. I told the boys they could each use a snack credit here. I tried to sell them on the make your own pretzels but they had no interest in these. Thank goodness! I still had not discovered yet that these were no longer snack credits. I was planning to get them for myself but decided to wait until the next time we came (I was stuffed and thinking about the Brownies we already had plus a big dinner planned for the evening). Sam picked our Disney characters chocolate coins. Ben used his own money to get the fill your own pixie stick-he loved this. So at this point we have only used a few snack credits and we have extra CS from sharing meals the first few days. I started to realize we didn't need to share and conserve but I also hated the idea of throwing food away that we couldn't eat.

Coming up next-that evening we went to Boma, a restaurant that we loved so much in '06 that we ate there twice and made 2 ADRs for this trip. Would it stand up to our memories? Stay tuned.

 

[Sandy321]

I admit to lurking on your thread!

Cant wait for your impressions of Boma - we enjoyed it the last time we went as well, but I'm not sure about going on our Jan after reading a report on the changes made...

particularly the soup and the beef!!

Glad your boys didnt have their heart set on the make your own pretzels! I'm curious if after free dining if they put them back on (highly unlikely!) which means we can skip DTD altogether!!

 

[catne]

Nice reviews

 

[PrincessPeanut]

I'm really enjoying your reviews! We had great experiences at Le Cellier and Kona last week, as well. Their breads are both amazing.

Looking forward to more reviews.

 

[disfansx4]

Arrggg! I don't know what happened but I just finished a long review, submitted it and them got a message that it couldn't be processed and now it's gone-I am definitely new to this! I will try a shorter amount at a time.

I forgot to write about our snack experiences at MK. As we were leaving we stopped into the Main Street Candy store. The boys saw these swirled vertical suckers which came in 2 sizes big and bigger. They asked if the giant ones were snacks and I told them to ask the CM. He said let me check and came back and they were! They were at least a foot long! They couldn't wait to walk around with them and show them off. This is what I love about the DP, I would never have bought these huge suckers for my boys. I am a sensible mom and this was not sensible! But it was so much fun watching their excitement about these. They ate them back in the room for a while and then I put their names on the sticks with a sharpie and put them in large ziplock bags (bring ziplock bags- we used them a lot!). They sat in the room the rest of the trip (too many other treats!) and they survived the plane flight back home.

The next day was our first AK day. After running for a FP for EE and riding the Safari we were ready for a snack. Outside the safari is a stand that sells fresh fruit and pretzels. We got a bowl of pineapple (so refreshing!) and a pretzel. The cheese pretzels were not a snack credit so we got the plain. Then a few feet farther is a CS stand (maybe Tamu Tamu?). This was an easy place to go to the food pick up window and ask for cups of ice and ice water. They gave us huge cups of great tasting ice and water for us to pour in our wide mouth bottles to enjoy the next few hours.

We left around 1 and headed back to AKL to eat lunch at Mara. Paul had the bacon double cheeseburger (he said it was fine), Sam had the Pepperoni pizza, Ben had the vegetable flat bread and I ordered the corn chicken flatbread. I had asked what the "zough" drizzle was in the description. She told me it was a spicy sauce and I could have it on the side. I said yes, I wasn't in the mood for spicy. Well, I took one bite and I hated it! It was way too spicy for me even without the sauce. I went back in and politely explained the situation and they happily replaced it with the vegetable flatbread. Ben and I loved the vegetable flatbread! I had read on another review that it was "gross" but it was yummy if you love olives and goat cheese (we do!). Shows that so much is personal taste-don't let me scare you off the chicken/corn one especially if you like spicy food. They really should call it the olive and goat cheese flatbread because other than a few onions there weren't any veggies! I loved it but could only eat half-I ate the rest cold for breakfast in the morning! I got the watermelon for dessert, Ben got the yogurt parfait (he loved it!), Paul got the carrot cake (Yum!) and I am not sure what Sam got!

Hopefully this post will work this time and I will rewrite the Boma review soon.

 

[disfansx4]

I got a little out of order with our CS meals but I am back on track now. We went to Boma on Tuesday night after spending the afternoon at DTD. When we came to Disney World in 06, Boma was our favorite place to eat. We liked it so much we canceled another reservation and went to Boma a 2nd time. Since we were staying at AKL it was so convenient to walk downstairs to Boma. The restaurant is beautiful, it is dark which is peaceful after being in the sun all day. We were seated within 10 minutes and off to the buffet we went. It was crowded but not awful. There were plenty of choices for everyone, even our picky eater DS Sam. Sam and DH Paul loved the french fries on the kid area (DH says they are the best french fries). Sam also ate the falafel, the chicken (again both Paul and Sam loved this-they said it was really moist), and the mac and cheese (Sam hated the Mac and Cheese everywhere he tried it and Boma was no exception and he typically loves mac and cheese). I ate some of the beef. It wasn't Prime RIb it was roast beef, but it was pink and that is what mattered to me. I don't think I would have noticed a difference but I rarely eat red meat so I am not a beef expert! Paul said he definitely noticed the difference in the beef. I loved the sauces to add to the beef, I had the tamarind sauce and the slightly spicy one with the chopped pecans. I also ate the falafel, the salmon topped with the tamarind BBQ (I liked this and Paul did not), the potatoes with affritude ( I was the only one to like these), the spinach and corn pudding (my favorite thing, fresh spinach leaves, really unique), the spinach and quinoa salad (can you tell I love spinach? This was really unique and yummy), and had some of the soups. We all liked the butternut squash soup the best, although it was too sweet to eat very much of it. We all disliked the she crab soup and we all love crab! The corn chicken chowder was so so. The soups disappointed us a little. That was what we had loved so much the last time we came. I have no idea what DSmBen ate for his first plate, he somehow got through the line and ate his whole first plate before the rest of us were back!

Onto the desserts...I had read a thread about how all the desserts contain alcohol and you have to be careful about what your kids choose...well Ben went through the dessert line and came back with a full plate without me. But when I went to get my desserts, the only item labeled "contains alcohol" was the rum chocolate sauce so they must have taken the alcohol out of the other items. I actually noticed that the zebra domes tasted different than the last time-I liked them more but still didn't love them. My favorite dessert was the pineapple cheesecake and I usually don't care for this combination. It was light and creamy. I also liked the chocolate mousse in the little chocolate cups. The fresh fruit is so yummy-perfectly ripe and fresh. Ben's favorite dessert of the entire trip was the coffee tartlets. I would be embarrassed to tell you how many he ate (you can count the ribs on his body and he has less than 3% body fat but he can eat!). Sam's favorites were the little chocolate mousses and the chocolate chip cookies. Paul thought the fruit cobbler was better than he thought it would be especially if it was fresh. He also liked the chocolate chip cookies but not the rest of the desserts. I had saved my drink to have decaf coffee with dessert. I was spoiled with all the offerings of lattes and cappichinos at Kona but only plain coffee on the DP here. It was fine.

We would all recommend Boma. Even with our few disappointments there was more that enough choices for us all to be happy. We were set to return here for dinner on Friday night. We were curious if we would have the same choices or a different rotation of food.

Up next: Pinnochios, Main Street Bakery, and Chef Mickeys (did it disgust us?). Stay tuned.