Hello all!
This is my first time writing a dining review so be kind to me...
First of all, let me give you some background on my family....I am 35 (although I was a mere babe of 34 when we went on this trip), and my husband is 35 as well. We have one daughter who is 4 going on 14, and one son who is now 4 months but was 3 months when we made the trip, and therefore consistently had the best attitude of all of us seeing as how he couldn't whine or complain, and slept through nearly everything. I am a WDW vet and have been going to the world since I was just a baby myself. I am also a card carrying member of the Disney Obsessed and Over-Planning Membership (or DOOM as I affectionally like to call it)....and if you are reading this post, you are probably a member as well (should we create a secret handshake?). DH loves Disney, but doesn't understand my obsession to plan our trips months (or even years) in advance and therefore lovingly humors my compulsion to constantly ask his opinion on my latest touring plan (which changes by the minute, so I am looking into having him nominated for sainthood). DD loves princesses, so of course loves Disney as well, and DS just loves to sleep and spit up at this point, so the jury's still out on his feelings about Disney. I'm afraid that I don't have any food porn for you guys, as DH's willingness to humor me did not extend to taking flash photography of food inside of dimly lit restaurants.
In the past, we have always paid OOP for our food, but in my planning zeal, I decided that it was time for us to put the dining plan to the test. After a mere 3 months of debating the merits of the regular dining plan versus the deluxe with DH....this consisted mainly of me outlining the pros and cons of each to him on a daily basis while he wearily nodded his head and mumbled "Whatever you want to do is fine with me"....I finally decided on the deluxe plan. I did have a difficult time making this decision....I had read so many comments about how it was just too much food for most people...but DH and I are big eaters, so I thought it might make sense for us. For those people who are debating this same choice, here's my list of pros and cons:
Pro: We can eat more table service meals.
We can do some things we wouldn't ordinarily do, like the luau.
We don't have to keep track of how many counter service meals we have to split between us because we will have 3 meals per person each day.
We will have more flexibilty....i.e. if we have a table service reservation made, but aren't hungry we can skip it and grab a counter service meal elsewhere later. Or if we are very hungry and had planned to grab a counter service meal, we can switch to a table service meal (incidentally, this happened on 3 separate occasions).
The resort mugs are included (and we always buy them)
We will have plenty of snack credits for water & drinks.
Cons: It costs twice as much
While it would seem like an obvious choice given the above lists, the one con was a big one to me. I was concerned that we would not get our money's worth out of the deluxe plan. But once I laid out the list of places that we would like to eat (some of which we would have to pay for OOP since we wouldn't have enough credits to cover them on the regular dining plan), and calculating the approximate total cost between the regular dining plan and the OOP expenses (have I mentioned how completely obsessed with planning I am?), I came to the realization that the deluxe plan would only cost us about $200.00 more. As most of you know, $200.00 in the grand scheme of a WDW vacation is a mere pittance....so bring on the deluxe plan, I thought!
Day 1:
We arrived on Saturday, May 3rd at around 12:00, and since we'd been up since 4 a.m. and had survived to this point on airport danishes and coffee, we were starving and a more than a little caffeine buzzed. We didn't want to waste a day of our tickets on less than a full day in the parts, so we headed straight to Downtown Disney and Wolfgang Puck's Express. We had never eaten here before but I had read so many good reviews of the place that I was dying to try it. All I can say is that it definitely lived up to it's reputation. I had the BBQ Chicken Quesadilla, with a chocolate fudge cookie. This was an absolutely perfect dish...the tortilla was grilled just right...nice and soft in the middle and just crunchy enough on the edges...and the barbecue sauce was a good blend of sweet and spicy. And since I was giving the baby a bottle while eating, it had the extra plus of being able to eat with one hand! DH had the Rigatoni with Chicken Alfredo and soft serve yogurt for dessert. His pasta was great as well....the alfredo was nice and creamy, and the chicken had a great grilled taste. DD had the kids cheese quesadilla and a chocolate cookie...and since she ate about half of it, I would say she must have enjoyed it (she's a lightweight when it comes to eating). The place was almost empty when we got there, as it was close to 3:00 by the time we arrived, and since it was not terribly hot that day, we ate outside. The outdoor seating area was really very nice (and completely shaded, which is rare for outdoor seating at Disney), and since there weren't too many people around, we were able to turn DD loose and let her chase after the birds (her intention was to feed them, but she doesn't believe that you have to drop the food on the ground and they will come get it. She thinks they will eat it out of your hands...this is what comes of watching Disney princess movies where they all frolic with small birds and woodland creatures). The only issue that we had with WPE was that when they brought out our food, they forgot to bring DH's salad, so he had to ask for it. Then we watched as the server we asked to bring it walked by us while leaving because her shift was over....so he had to go up to the counter to get it. But that wasn't a big deal, and certainly not enough to keep us from returning. This one is definitely on our list for next trip.
DH ate his soft serve...which tasted like soft serve, although they did have some chocolate sauce to put over it, which was a nice touch, but DD and I stowed the cookies for later. Why, you ask? Why because we were on our way to Goofy's Candy Co to customize some rice krispy treats and marshmallows, that's why!
We have never done this before....but having read about it on the boards I made it a must do on my list for this trip. DH chose a rice krispy treat, and DD chose marshmallows. I wisely chose not to get anything, because having seen the pictures on the boards of other people's treats, I knew that the two of them would have more than enough to spare. DH got his dipped in chocolate, drizzled in caramel, and then dipped in M&M's and Butterfingers. DD got her's dipped in chocolate and then dipped in M&M's and sprinkles. I just have to tell you, these were both the most enormous concoctions I have ever seen it my left, and for one snack credit apiece, were probably the best bargain at WDW. We got them to go as we didn't want to waste any valuable shopping time at DTD on eating treats. We broke into them later on and let me warn you, as the voice of experience, don't give these to your kids right before bedtime, or bedtime will come much later than it usually does.
We had reservations that night for Chef Mickey's, another place that wed had not eaten before (we are usually creatures of habit, but I wanted to expand our horizons on this trip). After arriving 15 minutes late, we were still seated almost immediately. This might have had something to do with the fact that it was 9:00 at night, and not many people were still eating dinner that late. We sat down, and dutifully following the instructions of the hostess, immediately told our server that we were on the deluxe dining plan. Our server's cheery response...."You don't need to tell me that until later". Okay, we thought...slight miscommunication between the host stand and the servers....no big deal...and we were off to examine the buffet. Let me say right here that we are fans of buffet eating in general....we like to have lots of choices and we like to be able to eat all we like. We usually find a plethora of choices at most WDW buffets. But we found that Chef Mickey's was a little lacking in variety. The food was very good...which I was a little surprised by, as I had read several negative reviews of dinner there....but there wasn't just a lot to choose from. The parmesan mashed potatoes were yummy (as everyone says they are), and I also liked the prime rib quite a bit, and the mango barbecue ribs. DD loved the Mickey Ravioli (in fact she cleaned her plate, something that very rarely happens). And the desserts were very good....DD stuck with the sundae bar (and who could blame her), while DH and I sampled from the dessert tables. I particularly enjoyed the oreo with the chocolate mousse Mickey hat on it, and the bread pudding. The character interaction was good....although it seemed like the rotation of the characters was an odd loop and hard to follow, which meant that we were constantly darting back to the table while making trips to the buffet line to make sure that we didn't miss any characters. But the thing that will make me probably never return to Chef Mickey's was the service. As people who have done our tour of duty as waitstaff, it takes an awful lot to get a poor tip out of DH and I. But the server we had there managed to accomplish that feat. Her name was Charlotte....if you get her while on your next trip to Chef Mickey's, I recommend that you ask to be seated elsewhere. We had to ask for refills on our drinks no less than 3 times apiece before those refills came and it took her forever to bus our dirty dishes. But the kicker came at the end, when she presented us with our check (without asking if we were ready for it), and it was not the dining plan bill, but a regular bill as if we were paying out of pocket. This would not have been a big deal...after all, when you serve as many people in a day as this woman does, it would be very easy to forget at the end of the day that someone had mentioned that they were on the meal plan. But when my husband said to her, "Oh, we're on the dining plan", she looked at him and said (and this is a direct quote), "Well, you should have told me that earlier." Excuse me....but I'm pretty sure we did say that earlier, and when we oh so gently reminded her that we had, she said (and this is another direct quote)..."No you didn't". Oh Charlotte....I'm afraid that the tip meter just dipped very low for you.
And thus ends day 1. I'll be back later with more...unless of course all the replies I get from you are all that I am boring you with my verbal diarrhea and that you don't want me to return.
This is my first time writing a dining review so be kind to me...
First of all, let me give you some background on my family....I am 35 (although I was a mere babe of 34 when we went on this trip), and my husband is 35 as well. We have one daughter who is 4 going on 14, and one son who is now 4 months but was 3 months when we made the trip, and therefore consistently had the best attitude of all of us seeing as how he couldn't whine or complain, and slept through nearly everything. I am a WDW vet and have been going to the world since I was just a baby myself. I am also a card carrying member of the Disney Obsessed and Over-Planning Membership (or DOOM as I affectionally like to call it)....and if you are reading this post, you are probably a member as well (should we create a secret handshake?). DH loves Disney, but doesn't understand my obsession to plan our trips months (or even years) in advance and therefore lovingly humors my compulsion to constantly ask his opinion on my latest touring plan (which changes by the minute, so I am looking into having him nominated for sainthood). DD loves princesses, so of course loves Disney as well, and DS just loves to sleep and spit up at this point, so the jury's still out on his feelings about Disney. I'm afraid that I don't have any food porn for you guys, as DH's willingness to humor me did not extend to taking flash photography of food inside of dimly lit restaurants.
In the past, we have always paid OOP for our food, but in my planning zeal, I decided that it was time for us to put the dining plan to the test. After a mere 3 months of debating the merits of the regular dining plan versus the deluxe with DH....this consisted mainly of me outlining the pros and cons of each to him on a daily basis while he wearily nodded his head and mumbled "Whatever you want to do is fine with me"....I finally decided on the deluxe plan. I did have a difficult time making this decision....I had read so many comments about how it was just too much food for most people...but DH and I are big eaters, so I thought it might make sense for us. For those people who are debating this same choice, here's my list of pros and cons:
Pro: We can eat more table service meals.
We can do some things we wouldn't ordinarily do, like the luau.
We don't have to keep track of how many counter service meals we have to split between us because we will have 3 meals per person each day.
We will have more flexibilty....i.e. if we have a table service reservation made, but aren't hungry we can skip it and grab a counter service meal elsewhere later. Or if we are very hungry and had planned to grab a counter service meal, we can switch to a table service meal (incidentally, this happened on 3 separate occasions).
The resort mugs are included (and we always buy them)
We will have plenty of snack credits for water & drinks.
Cons: It costs twice as much
While it would seem like an obvious choice given the above lists, the one con was a big one to me. I was concerned that we would not get our money's worth out of the deluxe plan. But once I laid out the list of places that we would like to eat (some of which we would have to pay for OOP since we wouldn't have enough credits to cover them on the regular dining plan), and calculating the approximate total cost between the regular dining plan and the OOP expenses (have I mentioned how completely obsessed with planning I am?), I came to the realization that the deluxe plan would only cost us about $200.00 more. As most of you know, $200.00 in the grand scheme of a WDW vacation is a mere pittance....so bring on the deluxe plan, I thought!
Day 1:
We arrived on Saturday, May 3rd at around 12:00, and since we'd been up since 4 a.m. and had survived to this point on airport danishes and coffee, we were starving and a more than a little caffeine buzzed. We didn't want to waste a day of our tickets on less than a full day in the parts, so we headed straight to Downtown Disney and Wolfgang Puck's Express. We had never eaten here before but I had read so many good reviews of the place that I was dying to try it. All I can say is that it definitely lived up to it's reputation. I had the BBQ Chicken Quesadilla, with a chocolate fudge cookie. This was an absolutely perfect dish...the tortilla was grilled just right...nice and soft in the middle and just crunchy enough on the edges...and the barbecue sauce was a good blend of sweet and spicy. And since I was giving the baby a bottle while eating, it had the extra plus of being able to eat with one hand! DH had the Rigatoni with Chicken Alfredo and soft serve yogurt for dessert. His pasta was great as well....the alfredo was nice and creamy, and the chicken had a great grilled taste. DD had the kids cheese quesadilla and a chocolate cookie...and since she ate about half of it, I would say she must have enjoyed it (she's a lightweight when it comes to eating). The place was almost empty when we got there, as it was close to 3:00 by the time we arrived, and since it was not terribly hot that day, we ate outside. The outdoor seating area was really very nice (and completely shaded, which is rare for outdoor seating at Disney), and since there weren't too many people around, we were able to turn DD loose and let her chase after the birds (her intention was to feed them, but she doesn't believe that you have to drop the food on the ground and they will come get it. She thinks they will eat it out of your hands...this is what comes of watching Disney princess movies where they all frolic with small birds and woodland creatures). The only issue that we had with WPE was that when they brought out our food, they forgot to bring DH's salad, so he had to ask for it. Then we watched as the server we asked to bring it walked by us while leaving because her shift was over....so he had to go up to the counter to get it. But that wasn't a big deal, and certainly not enough to keep us from returning. This one is definitely on our list for next trip.
DH ate his soft serve...which tasted like soft serve, although they did have some chocolate sauce to put over it, which was a nice touch, but DD and I stowed the cookies for later. Why, you ask? Why because we were on our way to Goofy's Candy Co to customize some rice krispy treats and marshmallows, that's why!
We have never done this before....but having read about it on the boards I made it a must do on my list for this trip. DH chose a rice krispy treat, and DD chose marshmallows. I wisely chose not to get anything, because having seen the pictures on the boards of other people's treats, I knew that the two of them would have more than enough to spare. DH got his dipped in chocolate, drizzled in caramel, and then dipped in M&M's and Butterfingers. DD got her's dipped in chocolate and then dipped in M&M's and sprinkles. I just have to tell you, these were both the most enormous concoctions I have ever seen it my left, and for one snack credit apiece, were probably the best bargain at WDW. We got them to go as we didn't want to waste any valuable shopping time at DTD on eating treats. We broke into them later on and let me warn you, as the voice of experience, don't give these to your kids right before bedtime, or bedtime will come much later than it usually does.
We had reservations that night for Chef Mickey's, another place that wed had not eaten before (we are usually creatures of habit, but I wanted to expand our horizons on this trip). After arriving 15 minutes late, we were still seated almost immediately. This might have had something to do with the fact that it was 9:00 at night, and not many people were still eating dinner that late. We sat down, and dutifully following the instructions of the hostess, immediately told our server that we were on the deluxe dining plan. Our server's cheery response...."You don't need to tell me that until later". Okay, we thought...slight miscommunication between the host stand and the servers....no big deal...and we were off to examine the buffet. Let me say right here that we are fans of buffet eating in general....we like to have lots of choices and we like to be able to eat all we like. We usually find a plethora of choices at most WDW buffets. But we found that Chef Mickey's was a little lacking in variety. The food was very good...which I was a little surprised by, as I had read several negative reviews of dinner there....but there wasn't just a lot to choose from. The parmesan mashed potatoes were yummy (as everyone says they are), and I also liked the prime rib quite a bit, and the mango barbecue ribs. DD loved the Mickey Ravioli (in fact she cleaned her plate, something that very rarely happens). And the desserts were very good....DD stuck with the sundae bar (and who could blame her), while DH and I sampled from the dessert tables. I particularly enjoyed the oreo with the chocolate mousse Mickey hat on it, and the bread pudding. The character interaction was good....although it seemed like the rotation of the characters was an odd loop and hard to follow, which meant that we were constantly darting back to the table while making trips to the buffet line to make sure that we didn't miss any characters. But the thing that will make me probably never return to Chef Mickey's was the service. As people who have done our tour of duty as waitstaff, it takes an awful lot to get a poor tip out of DH and I. But the server we had there managed to accomplish that feat. Her name was Charlotte....if you get her while on your next trip to Chef Mickey's, I recommend that you ask to be seated elsewhere. We had to ask for refills on our drinks no less than 3 times apiece before those refills came and it took her forever to bus our dirty dishes. But the kicker came at the end, when she presented us with our check (without asking if we were ready for it), and it was not the dining plan bill, but a regular bill as if we were paying out of pocket. This would not have been a big deal...after all, when you serve as many people in a day as this woman does, it would be very easy to forget at the end of the day that someone had mentioned that they were on the meal plan. But when my husband said to her, "Oh, we're on the dining plan", she looked at him and said (and this is a direct quote), "Well, you should have told me that earlier." Excuse me....but I'm pretty sure we did say that earlier, and when we oh so gently reminded her that we had, she said (and this is another direct quote)..."No you didn't". Oh Charlotte....I'm afraid that the tip meter just dipped very low for you.
And thus ends day 1. I'll be back later with more...unless of course all the replies I get from you are all that I am boring you with my verbal diarrhea and that you don't want me to return.
Very enjoyable and informative
You're off to a good start
