Shari's Disney Dining Review - Yorkshire stylee! (With pics!)

[Disney Mommy 3]

Hey Shari!! Loving your report!! I am trying to get my ADRs in order for our January trip and this report is 'smashing'!! I love it--keep it coming!! Very entertaining

 

[mamaboogie]

Hey Shari!! Loving your report!! I am trying to get my ADRs in order for our January trip and this report is 'smashing'!! I love it--keep it coming!! Very entertaining

Thanks Disney Mommy! I'm trying to post one day every day - but I'm back at work tomorrow! so we'll have to see how we go!

Thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting.

Shari xxx

 

[LuccaDrake]

YUMMY! Bring on more food!

~Beka~

 

[mamaboogie]

YUMMY! Bring on more food!

~Beka~

Oh Beka....there was an awful lot of food!

My appetite is still all over the place now I'm home! We had such wonderful food experiences and I'm just so happy to be sharing it all with you!

Shari xxx

 

[sherry8253]

Great reviews & pics. Eagerly waiting for more.

 

[Vavasmon]

I just wanted to let you know I am really enjoying your report. The photos are great. No WDW for me in the next year so I am doing "virtural" vacations through everyone dining and trip reports.

 

[leanan]

You cracked me up with the comment about beer being more drinkable at lunch than wine. It is such a cultural thing and completely depends on how your family raised you I think.

Dad says in his family beer is what you drink by yourself and when with company you are supposed to drink scotch. Mind you he hates scotch so it makes me giggle. That was his Irish/Scottish Grandma's opinion.

Where as my mother who is of Belorussian descent saw all the men in her family drink Vodka like it was water and hated drinking completely.

I find peoples opinion of drinking culture to be amusing and yet ever so fascinating.

 

[adsrtw]

Wow! Tusker House looks yummy. I really had written them off ~ read some not so good reports.

 

[jeminni]

Shari, what building we you in at CBR? Just wondering how far of a walk it is to Old Port royale.

Waiting for your Coral Reef review. I just emailed the manager there for a personalized menu for my DD this December and can't wait to go there. Although she will kill me whe she sees one of the pics on there was from her first trip to WDW when she was 10 and couldnt wait to see Pooh. Now she is 21 and cant wait to drink around the world.

 

[mamaboogie]

I just wanted to let you know I am really enjoying your report. The photos are great. No WDW for me in the next year so I am doing "virtural" vacations through everyone dining and trip reports.

Thanks Vavasmon - I feel your pain about not going to WDW - we are in the post Disney blues phase with lots of chats about when we think we could ever afford to go back.

You cracked me up with the comment about beer being more drinkable at lunch than wine. It is such a cultural thing and completely depends on how your family raised you I think.

Dad says in his family beer is what you drink by yourself and when with company you are supposed to drink scotch. Mind you he hates scotch so it makes me giggle. That was his Irish/Scottish Grandma's opinion.

Where as my mother who is of Belorussian descent saw all the men in her family drink Vodka like it was water and hated drinking completely.

I find peoples opinion of drinking culture to be amusing and yet ever so fascinating.

You see, this was my dilemma in my quest for a glowtini. I really wanted to try one, they looked really nice but they seemed like something you could sip in some elegant bar somewhere, not while you are chowing down at an all you can eat buffet!

To be honest, most of the time I would be happy with a glass of water with my meal - I like to focus on the food!

Wow! Tusker House looks yummy. I really had written them off ~ read some not so good reports.

Like I say, we had quite low expectations of this meal - we just wanted somewhere in AK that we could sit down and have a meal. And it turned out to be delicious. That's the wonderful thing about Disney dining - there's always lots of lovely surprises!

Shari, what building we you in at CBR? Just wondering how far of a walk it is to Old Port royale.

Waiting for your Coral Reef review. I just emailed the manager there for a personalized menu for my DD this December and can't wait to go there. Although she will kill me whe she sees one of the pics on there was from her first trip to WDW when she was 10 and couldnt wait to see Pooh. Now she is 21 and cant wait to drink around the world.

We were in building 11, Barbados. It was about a five/ten minute stroll to OPR. I would request the same building if we went back. It was close to the bus stop and quite close to the custom house which was handy for checking in/out and also for catching taxis/towncars when we went off property.

My 14 YO loves to see characters more now than when she was little! And talking about drinking around the world - she and I have an interesting moment over a trifle at the Grand Floridian!

Well, I supposed I'd better get ready for my first day back at work! (Sigh!)

Shari xx

 

[meryll83]

You'll notice we didn't go to the 50's Prime time Cafe!

I keep wondering whether we should try there coz it looks fun, but then the fear of being told off by "Mom" for leaving our veggies scares me too much!

 

[mamaboogie]

Good Evening all!

Well, we're onto Friday 15th August and this was EPCOT day. We were there as the park opened and spend a crazy couple of hours going on rides - Test Track, Soarin' Mission Space etc. before deciding that we were mighty hungry! Enough with the fun - let's eat!

As we came off Soarin' we went for brunch at Sunshine Seasons. This was a big airy place with lots of seating. The food choices were pretty good too. I had my first American breakfast, as did Simon:

Nothing special but all quite tasty. Sarah had a turkey sandwich. Witness:

Kate got a ham one. The girls also had dessert. Here's Sarah's Key Lime pie which she kindly let me share (oh, alright! I ate most of it!)

After brunch we went and did a load of exciting stuff. The idea was to spend this day in Future World and next time in EPCOT we would hit World Showcase.
Now can you guess what was being embibed in these pictures?

There's only one thing it could be! The one and only Beverley at Club Cool! We'd heard the reports but we had to see for ourselves if it was really that foul. And it was!! I liked the coke from Costa Rica - it reminded me of a drink I had in Trinidad (the real one not CBR! We were visiting family) it could possibly be the same one.

We were waiting for our ADR at Coral Reef but we decided to veer off the plan and nip into 'England' (Sarah had a mindless obsession to find Alice in Wonderland!) We listened to The British Invasion and Simon sneaked off to buy some Yorkshire County Chips!

You see, being from Yorkshire (near the original Harry Ramsden's fish and chip shop) I was determined to try them but an hour before a table service meal was not an ideal time! I had to restrain myself from eating the whole tray!

Shari's verdict: These were very nice chips and had I not been eating soon I would have happily polished them off. HOWEVER, these were not chip shop chips in the way that I know them. It must be the way they fry them. They were similar in my mind to the Columbia Harbour House fries - thick and crunchy and tasty. But NOT Yorkshire chip shop chips.

(Note: I do find authentic chips later in the holiday. Where will it be?)

Anyway, it was soon time to go over to Coral Reef for our ADR.

The restaurant was lovely with the huge fish tank. We were 3 rows back but didn't really mind as we had a good view of everything. Here are Sarah and I enjoying the funky blue glasses the water came in!

We had crusty warm bread and dipping oil to start with - yum! Si and I ordered a different glass of wine each to complement our main courses. I ordered the grilled Mahi-Mahi with cashew rice:

I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this - but it was delicious! The fish was meaty and the rice was great - especially the cashews!

Unfortunately, they tried to give Simon the Mahi Mahi also, despite the fact that he'd ordered the blackened catfish! I think the trouble was our server hadn't written the order down, just kept it in her head and she gave Si the same as me - despite the fact we had different glasses of wine for our differing main courses!

The girls both had the chicken which look really good and they polished it off:

To the restaurants credit, they soon brought Simon the correct food out - although he probably wishes he'd stuck with Mahi Mahi as he didn't really enjoy the catfish and grits. He didn't hate it - he was just underwelmed with it really. I tasted the catfish and I had to agree that my dish was tons better!

The desserts were very good. Si and I had the JD and Baileys Mousse - yummy! Kate had the famous chocolate wave and Sarah had sorbet and fruits.

To sum up - we quite liked Coral Reef and most of the food was quite good. As other people have noted, it is very noisy and the servers all seemed very busy. Our server (sorry, can't remember her name!) was okay but not as good as the ones we'd had up to now. She made us feel it was our fault she didn't bring the right meal out. This was the first meal of the holiday we opted for the 18% tip instead of 20%.

We were glad we tried Coral Reef - but if we went back to WDW we would probably would leave it off our ADR list.

Coming up: Shari is pleasantly surprised (again!) at Hollywood Studios.

 

[honeybee213]

Great reviews. It was nice to hear about Shutters, as it isn't reviewed often. I can't wait to find out what happened at the tea.

 

[adsrtw]

I'm sorry your trip to Coral Reef was less than spectacular. I'm craving the desserts in the pic for sure!

It looks like your family enjoyed club cool.

Oh my gosh! Did Sarah's mouth hurt after trying to eat that sandwich? It looks tasty, but maybe some bread with less poof?!?

I'm living vicariously right now through the pics. Only had 1 TS meal and a few CS meals that I wouldn't write home about during my 3 other trips to WDW. Needless to say, I can't wait to have a real vacation. Thanks for taking the time to post!

 

[mamaboogie]

I'm sorry your trip to Coral Reef was less than spectacular. I'm craving the desserts in the pic for sure!

It looks like your family enjoyed club cool.

Oh my gosh! Did Sarah's mouth hurt after trying to eat that sandwich? It looks tasty, but maybe some bread with less poof?!?

I'm living vicariously right now through the pics. Only had 1 TS meal and a few CS meals that I wouldn't write home about during my 3 other trips to WDW. Needless to say, I can't wait to have a real vacation. Thanks for taking the time to post!

The desserts were yummy! I'd heard some real horror stories about Coral Reef so at least we didn't have the complete disaster I feared it would be.

We had fun in Club Cool - Sarah and Simon went back a few days later and bought some Coke stuff they'd seen in there.

Sarah was defeated by some HUGE sandwiches in America - we're just not used to them that size in the UK. She enjoyed them but often only ate half.

I'm with you on the ratio of good to bad meals. As you'll see, I'm annoyingly positive about most of the meals I had - but I will point out if there was something that could have been improved.

The catchphrase of our holiday was 'Wow! Can you believe we're getting all this amazing food for FREE?!'

Thanks for reading!
Shari xx

 

[mom2taylorandemily]

I'm enjoying your review so far!!!

 

[rentayenta]

Enjoying your reviews!

 

[mamaboogie]

Great reviews. It was nice to hear about Shutters, as it isn't reviewed often. I can't wait to find out what happened at the tea.

Yes, I had trouble finding out anything about Shutters before we went. I'm not sure many people take the trouble of travelling to CBR just to eat there. But it is actually worth it.

Oh yes, the afternoon at the Grand Floridian....watch this space!

Shari xx

 

[~Fisharefriends~]

really enjoying your reviews, we also liked shutters when we stayed at CBR.

 

[The Marsons]

Really enjoying your reviews!

Must dry one of those Bailey's Mousse's, it looks lovely