Stop Making Me Laugh Or I'll Pee My Pants! Go Back! I Lost My Shoe! Trip Report!

[tink1957]

Love the poncho pics! I noticed that we will be at WDW around the same time although it will be a short trip for us only 2 nights May 24-26. Hope we see you there.

Oops, never mind...I just noticed we will miss each other by 1 day.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Once I regained my composure and had my poncho on the right way, (It helps to have it on correctly because you can't see very well through plastic.), we decided it was time to brave the stormy weather and make a dash for The Land pavilion. We made sure everything was tucked underneath our ponchos, hunkered down, wiggled our way through the still standing crowds, opened the doors and, it's barely raining. Crapadelic! We just spent almost $30.00 on our ponchos and it's hardly raining.

Oh well, we had them on now and we were going to keep them on, by golly! Of course, John wanted to take his off right then and there but I used the excuse that we had no time to wait on him.

We walked pretty fast over to The Land pavilion and took off our ponchos before going in. We rolled them up and I put them in the ziplock bags in the backpack.

As soon as we walked in, I could see all of the people standing around in front of the Garden Grill. Ugh! That's not a good sign. We continue around the walkway and I check in. There were people sitting everywhere and most had beepers in their hands. The hostess couldn't tell me how long our wait was but she gave us a vibraty thing and told us to watch for it to light up.

Before we got comfy on the floor, we made a pit stop in the bathrooms. When we came out, there were still lots of folks standing and sitting around. Guess we'd join 'em.

I took these while we were waiting on our vibraty thing to light up.

John Boy can fall asleep anywhere!

If I am remembering correctly, we waited about 15 minutes before our beeper went off. I had to nudge John to wake him up. We were seated on the lower level of the restaurant in a booth. Soon, our waiter was taking our drink order and bringing the plates.

Notice how they set the bowls and plates out to make a Mickey:

I tried to take a picture of the menu but they didn't turn out so great:

Before our drinks were even delivered to the table, the characters started coming around. Hunter and Lacey had decided that they would have each character dance with them. First up was Dale:

Just as Chip was leaving, our waiter brought the salad, rolls and drinks out. I love salads and I have found over the years that Disney's salads are the best! The Garden Grill salad did not disappoint. The rolls, however, did. We like our rolls all soft and warm. These were a bit hard on the outside. No problem, we just dug out the centers and buttered them with the delicious honey butter.

Just as we were finishing up our salad and bread, our platter of food came out.

Before we were able to help ourselves to some food, Farmer Mickey was there to greet us. The kids had Mickey bustin' some moves!

**Stopping here to find the rest of my Garden Grill pictures. Photobucket is forever moving around my pictures!

 

[Jareds_mommy]

thanks for the pictures
We ended up moving GG to a lunch and giving up lecellier and adding the germany buffet for dinner(I can remember the name but can't spell it lol)
We got a free dining pin today so for quick service
we added it took off the 35% off the room
and upped DS (8) to a disney adult from the kids plan and we still saved $40 from our orginal package
but the value of the savings was $448 for DS to move up to an adult he will be so happy to not be stuck with kids meals
DD would live on fries and mayo 3 meals a day 24/7

 

[FairyGodmotherJen]

I'm glad you liked the Garden Grill! We really enjoyed it on our last trip, as well. The did change the menu a little since Sept. 2008. It was some kind of fried catfish all the time, and I remember that the kids got decorate your own cupcakes for a dessert. We had a puffy berry pastry of some kind. It was all so good, though. Of course, we were there for lunch, too. Are they still doing characters at lunch and dinner? I was thinking that soon after we left they started only doing characters at dinner. We were going to make it there again in June, but somehow I snagged a lunch ADR for 16 at LeCellier , so we won't be headed there this summer.

 

[jenseib]

That was Dale...not Chip! LOL We had catfish too when we were there in March of 08. The catfish was our favorite, but I have read the "new" fish" isn't so hot.
I'm loving Hunters moves.

 

[pocahontasgal87]

Nice character pictures, even tho im 22(23 March 6th!) I still love having the character interaction, soo fun!

 

[jusero]

That was Dale...not Chip! LOL We had catfish too when we were there in March of 08. The catfish was our favorite, but I have read the "new" fish" isn't so hot.
I'm loving Hunters moves.

A CM told me an easy way to remember which is which. Chip is the one with the brown nose ... like a chocolate chip. Thought that was a great way cuz I could never remember.

 

[Kathy Jetson]

Dinner is looking like fun so far can't wait for more pics!

 

[tncplace]

It has taken me two days but I have reached your current post. We are staying at CBR in May and your post has wonderful pictures and info about the resort - so i wanted to say thank you.

Also, in one of the pictures of the resort I saw a outdoor pool table - is there only one on property and is there a charge to use? Seems silly that we would want to play pool on vacation but since having our little one we just don't get out much anymore.

Thanks!

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Fun update! I was looking at the Garden Grill today...wondering which characters were there. Love the dancing...great job! Hunter and Lacey

 

[racefanof88]

I don't know why I haven't been over to your TR in so long? I guess my brain is going .

Don't you just love the plastic sauna's? I hate having to wear those ponchos so I hope it doesn't rain one drop while we are there.

The food at GG looks soooooooooo yummy. I would love to eat there. Hmmmmmm I may be changing an ADR.

 

[jenseib]

A CM told me an easy way to remember which is which. Chip is the one with the brown nose ... like a chocolate chip. Thought that was a great way cuz I could never remember.

Yeah I've heard that too, but I go by the teeth. Dale has the teeth that are spread apart, Chips are together.

 

[Nettaboo]

Another great installment!! I love the shots of the kids dancing with the characters!! too funny!!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Ya'll, I'm sorry I haven't been back yet. It's billing time at the office and I hate it! The boss has been driving me nuts too so I haven't done much Dising. I promise to come back and catch up with everybody!

 

[DisneymoonJess07]

I am sure I missed a lot, but I wanted to stop in and say hi!!! I love the dancing with mickey and the gang!! So cute!

 

[erika412]

I love Lacey's expressions. She looks like she's having a blast.

 

[BPATSMouse]

We really enjoyed the GG back in December. The Berry Buckle dessert was very good and GG is the only place on property I found that has FRESH brewed sweet tea . The sweet tea from the soda fountians has a really strange taste to it. My wife and I have used the ponchos we bought on our honeymoon in 1992 (back then they were a heavier plastic) every year. It rained one day on our last trip non stop all day long . I took it off and on so many times that I ended up ripping the head hole wide open and also caught it on a table corner in Mexico and had to throw it away . Anyway I feel Johns pain about ponchos.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Morning (just barely but still morning)!

I've been trying to catch up with all my subscribed threads this morning but have only done about half of them. I am going to write up another installment at lunch time that will finish up Garden Grill and I hope most of Illuminations.

 

[weezy26nm]

There! I'm all caught up and now I'm heading over to read your pre-trip report.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Let's get back to some dancin' with the characters.

I think I posted these two in the last installment so if I did, just look at 'em again and think "poor Lisa, I'm surprised she remembers how to get back and forth to work sometimes".

See this little blue smiley face with the hands goin' round and round? This one: That's the "stir the soup" dance and that's what Lacey was doing with Mickey:

We sat down and started eating. I have to admit that I had a few "issues" with the Garden Grill platters of food. It's a silly issue and it's probably not an issue that anyone else would have. I don't like my food touching on my plate. I want to have my meat in one part, my veggies in another, my bread in another. Well, all on one plate but not touching each other. Let me rephrase that. I don't like the juices from one food item running over with the juices from another food item. I know! I know! What's the big deal since it's all going down the same hole? I don't know! I just don't like it and platters of food don't work well for me. Weird I know. Believe me, everybody's told me how odd that is but I've never said I wasn't odd.

Anyhoo! The food on the platter was really good. But, ya'll know we are from the Deep South....Louisiana to be exact, and when we fry catfish, we bread it all up and deep fry it until it's all crispy and yummy. Disney's idea of catfish isn't quite like our's. We ate the fish and it was good, just not Louisiana good. Just a note for those crispy fish eatin' kinda folks out there.

While we were eating Pluto came around and Hunter had to do a little dance with him too.

You'll notice Lacey sorta has an open mouth and pointing theme going on in the pictures:

Up next on the character hit parade was Chip. Chip and Hunter were really gettin' down with the boogie which had lots of other guests cheering and clapping.

You'll notice that Lacey wasn't in the picture with Chip. She had to go to the potty and missed him.

The waiter brought us the fruit buckle which John immediately fell in love with. His sweet tooth must have been itching pretty mightily because he ate a lot. I don't like cooked fruit at all. I did eat a little of the topping but that was it. The waiter was nice enough to bring Lacey and Hunter both a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

By the end of the meal, we were full as could be. We knew that we needed to try and find a spot to watch Illuminations and it was a litte later than we had intended to leave the restaurant. We figured it was because we were seated later than normal since it was raining and everybody was dwadling over their meal.

**Up next: Illuminations!