Our 7 days of free dining on the DP - Nov. 2014 Review

[sarahmae3]

Hi all,
I started my trip report and thought I would go ahead and do our dining reviews over the next week or two before I forget everything!

Here's a link to my trip report if you are interested:
Our first ever trip finally happened!

There were six of us all together, four were considered adults, and two children eating for 7 days (6 nights) on the dining plan. Some of us are pickier than others, but we all like to eat! Here we are on our first day:



Our trip was Nov. 16-22nd and we had free dining! The places we ate:


Hoop Dee Doo

Sunshine Seasons

Dinner in our Cabin

Sci-fi Dine-In

Pizza Planet

Crystal Palace

Be Our Guest (lunch)

Snacks/Cosmic Ray's

Trail's End to go


Meadow Trading Post
1900 Pare Fare
'Ohana

 

[sarahmae3]

Hoop Dee Doo Revue:

They had the bread, butter, and salad already on the table when we were let in. The salad was fine, but oh my the cornbread was delicious! We ate both loaves in minutes and eventually asked for more. Yum!

Later they brought out the chicken, ribs, and sides. I thought it was a little long of a wait between the salad and the main course...
My hubby loved the ribs and the kids and I all thought the chicken was very good. The mashed potatoes were great, but the corn - was amazing! I'm sure it was coated in a pound of butter but it was delicious!

Of course, once we were stuffed on all of this food they brought us the strawberry shortcake which was great also! My DH wished we could've brought this home with us to eat later because we were all stuffed.

*I know I took pictures of some of the food here, but they seem to have disappeared! There will be some pictures later on in my dining review.

 

[ibcindyb]

Great start, can't wait for the rest of your reviews!

 

[vettegirl]

Sounds delicious

 

[sarahmae3]

Great start, can't wait for the rest of your reviews!

Thanks!

Sounds delicious

It was!

 

[sarahmae3]

Sunshine Seasons:

The next day was our EPCOT day so we decided to have lunch at Sunshine Seasons, using our quick service meal credits. I thought this would be a great place for us with lots of options, but I didn't realize that even though there were several stations the options were fairly limited. I also didn't realize just how chaotic it would be!!




On to our meals: I got the chicken Cesar salad with the pumpkin soup, a bottle of water to drink (I pretty much only drink water) and a brownie for dessert. The salad was pretty good, pretty standard. I didn't really even want the soup but I did try a bite and it was very pumpkiny. The brownie was quite good, very chocolaty! I only got a couple of bites because the kids ate most of it.


I honestly don't know what DH got, but it was probably the Mongolian Beef and he seemed to enjoy it as he ate it all.

The big boys got the sweet and sour chicken with noodles or rice, which they always love. They each had their own meal, but got basically the same thing and neither of them finished their meals. I tried a bite and thought it was pretty good, but IMO we have better "Asian fast food" at our local mall.



DS7 and DD got kid's meals. DD picked the PB&J at almost every QS place we went and then didn't eat it every single time! She did 'help' me and her big brothers eat our meals though, and of course she ate her cookie and drank her chocolate milk.

 

[CanadianPaco]

Off to a great start!!!

 

[sarahmae3]

Not really a dining review, just hotdogs and chips in the cabin. LOL. They were good though! We bought them at the Trading Post.

 

[accountingbabe08]

thanks for sharing your reviews with us

 

[sarahmae3]

Off to a great start!!!

thanks for sharing your reviews with us

Thank you both!

 

[ribollita]

Enjoying your reviews!

 

[sarahmae3]

I booked us for a late lunch at the Sci-fi Dine-In because I knew our whole family would love the experience and the hopefully the food. It was really cold outside so we checked in just a little bit early and were told we would have a bit of a wait. The waiting area was packed so my DH and our DS7 decided to go looked around outside and in the near-by shops/cafe, etc. Well, not 5min. later and they called our name! So I had to send ODS out to go and get them before they would seat us.

We got a 3 row car, and our server was nice but I don't remember his name. DD and I were in the front row of our car.

I ordered the Build-Your-Own Angus Chuck Burger with bacon, cheese, and lettuce with fries. I asked for hot chocolate to drink but they didn't have any so I went ahead and got a shake even though I was freezing! The shake was really good anyway!

For dessert, I ordered the Warm Glazed Doughnut
Stacked with Cinnamon Apples and topped with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream - no caramel sauce on mine. (This was Dh's picture.) YUM! It was really nice to have something warm for dessert before we had to go back out into the cold.

I would go back to Sci-fi again just to get this dessert. It was soo good! I don't know what those little pearl looking things on there are but they were crunchy and I felt that they added to the taste of the dessert. My DH didn't even know they were on there until we looked at the pic because it is so dark in there that you can't even see your food! We both wished that was not the case as we like to see what we are eating.

DH got the Flame-broiled New York Strip Steak,Topped with Blue Cheese Butter and served with Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetables, and crispy Onion Rings because he couldn't believe it was included on the dining plan! He said it was pretty good but he would've liked more onion rings!

He just had a Coke to drink. He also had the Warm Glazed Doughnut
Stacked with Cinnamon Apples and topped with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Caramel Sauce for dessert.

DS13 also got the Build-Your-Own Angus Chuck Burger with cheese, and fries. I belive he had a shake to drink and the Ice Cream Sundae for dessert.

DS10 didn't want anything from the adult menu, so they were nice enough to give him an adult sized portion of the popcorn chicken. He said it was pretty good. He had the Ice Cream Sundae for dessert.

DS7 also got the kids popcorn chicken and fries, which he ate all of! For dessert he had the kids Ice Cream Sundae.

DD ordered the kids Macaroni and Cheese, she ate some of it. I didn't try any but it looked pretty good. For dessert she had the kids Ice Cream Sundae. It was really cute w/ Mickey Sprinkles on it.

 

[crazymonkeycheese]

We ate at Sunshine Seasons too, and it was one of our favorite CS meals of the trip!

 

[Misha72683]

OMG, that donut looks amazing!

 

[jknicholas]

OMG, that donut looks amazing!

right?! my mouth is watering right now LOL

 

[sarahmae3]

OMG, that donut looks amazing!

right?! my mouth is watering right now LOL

I know! It was SO good!

 

[buckeev]

OMG, that donut looks amazing!

I might just hafta peek in there later this month and see if I can that to go!

 

[sarahmae3]

I had told my DS7 that we could eat at Pizza Planet while we were at WDW, as he loves the Toy Story movies and all of my kids love arcade games. So we made sure to stop in before it closed for the day!

The menu is pretty basic, DH and I both got the Pepperoni Pizza served with Caesar Salad, I had a bottle of water and he had a fountain drink/soda.
The boys had Cheese Pizza served with Caesar Salad and fountain drinks. The dessert options were limited and everyone chose the Chocolate Chip cookie, except for me... I picked the Cappuccino Cupcake after having seen pictures of it on here I couldn't wait to try it! I was sadly disappointed. I don't know if its because I had built it up so much in my head or what, but the cappuccino flavor was overwhelming. I guess I hoped it would be more chocolate with just a little cappuccino flavoring. I did manage to eat half of it though!

From the kids menu, I ordered the Kid's Cheese Pizza and I think they got grapes as the side and a milk to drink. I had my younger two split this meal. I also ordered the Kids' Mickey Check Meal - Power Pack with Dannon® Danimals® Yogurt, Apple Wedges, Carrot Sticks, Goldfish Crackers, Apple-Cinnamon Snack Bar and a Lowfat Milk. We packed this up to take back to the resort with us. It seemed like the kids never ate much when we were in the parks, but once we got back to the cabin they all wanted to snack so this worked out well!

 

[sarahmae3]

On our MK day, we had an ADR at Crystal Palace for a late breakfast! We had to wait outside for a few minutes until our spot was ready, and once we were seated it didn't take too long for one of my favorite characters - Eeyore to come over!

We all ordered hot chocolate because it was cold outside! I thought it was great, but the kids didn't like that it was minty so they ended up getting juice later.

We were all able to grab several plates, and most of us enjoyed the breakfast buffet. My DD mostly ate cold cereal... which she could have done in our cabin.

I thought the two different types of potatoes were delicious! The cheese biscuit was good too, but a little hard.

This was okay - it looks better than it tasted, IMO! It was the puffed french toast w/ fruit topping. Maybe I would've enjoyed it more without the fruit topping.

It was neat seeing all of the characters, only Pooh seemed rushed. He was also the only one with a 'handler' as far as I could tell...

They did one of the little parades when we were there but my kids didn't want to participate, they did however enjoy getting signatures in their autograph books! I also liked the characters made out of flowers.

Overall, we enjoyed this meal and it seemed like a good variety for breakfast plus the kids liked meeting the characters!

 

[sarahmae3]

I was really excited to get a FP for lunch at BOG just a couple of weeks before our trip! I was able to pre-order our meals and everything. We checked in and walked over the bridge and were given a red rose pager.

We had to wait for just a little bit, and then were asked our names again, but for some reason they couldn't find our name so they had us go through and order our food again. I re-ordered everything the same for all of us, except for DS7 who said he wanted the kids meatloaf instead of the grilled cheese...

We found a table (in the main dining room) and DD asked one of the CM's if Belle or Beast were home. We were told that Beast was busy getting ready for this evening and that Belle was not home. I told her that we could go and visit Belle later on. We waited for a little while, and then our food and drinks were brought out to our table in one of the carts and we were instructed where to get our silverware. My DD noticed out the window that it was snowing outside! She thought it really was.

Dh had the Carved Prime Chuck Roast Beef Sandwich served warm on a Baguette with Horseradish Sour Cream and Pommes Frites, and the Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcake for dessert. He said his sandwich was okay, but he really enjoyed the cupcake.

I had the Carved Turkey Sandwich served warm on a Baguette with Dijon Mayonnaise and Pommes Frites. I thought it was quite good, especially the fries! I'm a chocolate lover so for dessert I had the Triple Chocolate Cupcake
Chocolate Sponge Cake, Chocolate Mousse Filling and Chocolate Ganache which was very rich but quite delicious!

Both of my older boys ordered the Croque Monsieur Grilled Sandwich of Carved Ham and Gruyere Cheese and Bechamel with Pommes Frites. My oldest ate about half of his, but my 10yr. old only ate a couple of bites which is not like him. Neither of them really cared for this sandwich, they would've rather had just a simple deli sliced ham sandwich. For dessert they got the The Master's Cupcake Chocolate Sponge Cake topped with Lumiere’s special “Grey Stuff”. My oldest doesn't really care for most sweets, especially chocolate so after a couple of bites he gave the rest to his little sister but my 10yr. old loved his! I tried the "grey stuff" and it basically tasted like whipped cream to me.

Both of the little kids ordered the Mickey Meatloaf Turkey Meatloaf - one with Broccoli Florets and one with fries, served with Orange "Stuff" for Dipping. Neither of them ate it. Both Dh and I tried it and didn't care for it either. They like my traditional meatloaf and this was not it. They also did not like the "orange stuff". They did eat their broccoli and fries though, plus they each had milk and a cookie.

Overall, it was really cool to eat in Belle and Beast's castle and we enjoyed the atmosphere and our fries. However, I think that for our family we would've been better off eating lunch somewhere we could have gotten "simpler" food, something like chicken nuggets or a hot dog for the kids.