Sweat and fun in the August Florida sun, tell me what you think

[DisneyMomFanatic]

So, we decided to plan another trip to DWD. When to go? Well that was the main question. So many choices. Definitely have to go after school lets out for the summer. Well, then there really is only one time to go, Free Dining!!! Free Disney Food, it's a no brainer. Yes, we fully realize that means the end of August and way too much heat and humidity for any normal human being. But the one thing I have never been called, that's normal.

I truly blame this trip on my children, DS 13 and DD 10 (age at time of travel). They were given the choice of a cruise or Disney World, and without hesitation they both, in unison shouted, Disney World! So, here we are.

Who we are:

ME : Karla/Mom, 42 (will be 43 at travel). I love Disney and love taking my family to the world. Food wise, I am not terribly adventurous. I love a good steak. I like some seafood, starches, and a handful of fruits and veggies. I can get scared easily if I don’t recognize something in a description. I look like I enjoy many desserts, but I don’t normally eat them much. But I will say that if I get it free, I will find something to eat and like it.

DH : Matt/Dad, 42. He was turned on to Disney by me many years ago when we were engaged. He doesn’t say no when I or the kids say we want to go as our family vacation, as long as it’s in the budget. Food wise, he is a carnivore! Medium rare and the larger the better. But he is more adventurous than me. He also loves seafood, pork, and poultry. If there is a good salad, he won’t rule it out. He will eat many veggies and fruits. He is one that would try just about anything once, so long as he knows what it is.

DS: Alex, 13. This is his 10th trip. He likes Disney, but sometimes has issues with too many people too close. He is high functioning Autistic. Disney, as crazy as it can be, is a love for him, so we make it work. Food wise, he loves shrimp. If he can get shrimp, he is happy. He likes most types of meat and starches. But he is finicky about his fruits. He doesn’t do condiments or dips.

DD: Paige, 10. This is her 7th trip. She LOVES Disney (maybe as much as her mommy)! She loves her princesses and her pirates. Food wise: She is all over the board, likes most anything and will try new things. She will occasionally have a new dislike out of the blue. Only likes small salad shrimp, not larger ones. LOVES mashed potatoes.

So, that is us. Now on to our plans, we were originally going to stay at the new Art of Animation until our travel agent called and said that that was blocked for free dining. What??? Ok, make a new plan and move on. We are doing our trip in 2 segments. August 23rd-25th, and August 25th-31st. So we are now staying at Coronado Springs. We have to checkout and check back in, here’s hoping we can just stay in the same room. So, the second part of our trip is free dining but we upgraded to the Deluxe Dining plan. Here’s what we have planned…..


August 23rd- Lunch @ Raglan Road
- Dinner @ Yachtsman Steakhouse

August 24th- Breakfast @ Akershush
-Lunch @ Teppan Edo
-Dinner @ La Hacienda

August 25th - Breakfast @ Tusker House
- Lunch @ Yak and Yeti
- Dinner @ Maya Grill(with my parents)

August 26th - Breakfast @1900 Park Fare
- Lunch @Tony’s Town Square
- Dinner @ O’hana’s (again with my parents)

August 27th – Breakfast @ snack credits at HS (probably Staring Rolls)
- Lunch @ Sci-Fi Dine Inn Theatre
- Dinner @ 50’s Prime Time Café

August 28th – Breakfast @ snack credits at Coronado Springs
- Lunch @ Wolfgang Puck Express (with my parents)
- Dinner @ Spirit of Aloha Show

August 29th – Breakfast @ Sunshine Seasons
- Lunch @ Le Cellier
- Dinner @ Biergarten

August 30th – Breakfast @ Crystal Palace
- Lunch @ Liberty Tree Tavern
- Dinner @ Cosmic Ray’s

August 31st- Breakfast @ counter service at Resort

So, I await your comments. Please feel free to let me know what you think. More to come later.

 

[goofyintoronto]

looks like you and i will be at CSR around the same time! We will be there aug.26-sept.1. First time there, cant wait! Anyway, my comments are in red. Enjoy your trip!

So, that is us. Now on to our plans, we were originally going to stay at the new Art of Animation until our travel agent called and said that that was blocked for free dining. What??? Ok, make a new plan and move on. We are doing our trip in 2 segments. August 23rd-25th, and August 25th-31st. So we are now staying at Coronado Springs. We have to checkout and check back in, here’s hoping we can just stay in the same room. So, the second part of our trip is free dining but we upgraded to the Deluxe Dining plan. Here’s what we have planned…..


August 23rd- Lunch @ Raglan Road - love this place! yummy.
- Dinner @ Yachtsman Steakhouse

August 24th- Breakfast @ Akershush
-Lunch @ Teppan Edo - love the filet mignon, noodles, and desssert!
-Dinner @ La Hacienda

August 25th - Breakfast @ Tusker House - we LOVE this place! the best breakfast food! characters (esp Daisy) are a riot!
- Lunch @ Yak and Yeti
- Dinner @ Maya Grill(with my parents)

August 26th - Breakfast @1900 Park Fare - yummy! real bacon! mad hatter is hilarious!
- Lunch @Tony’s Town Square -YUCK! I would never eat here again. Gross food. I'd recommend Plaza...heck, even caseys! ANYTHING but Tonys!
- Dinner @ O’hana’s (again with my parents)

August 27th – Breakfast @ snack credits at HS (probably Staring Rolls)
- Lunch @ Sci-Fi Dine Inn Theatre - such a fun and unique place to eat. great burgers and shakes!
- Dinner @ 50’s Prime Time Café - yummy comfort food. antics are hysterical. PB&J shake is TO DIE FOR!

August 28th – Breakfast @ snack credits at Coronado Springs
- Lunch @ Wolfgang Puck Express (with my parents) - OMG THE BEST PLACE EVER! Im salivating just thinking about it. I had the spag/balls. WOW! Blew me away. My son had the pizza and couldnt get enough. btw you are going to the WGPE at marketplace right? AVOID the west side location!
- Dinner @ Spirit of Aloha Show

August 29th – Breakfast @ Sunshine Seasons
- Lunch @ Le Cellier - meh. i didnt care for this place but many others love it.
- Dinner @ Biergarten - not a bad restaurant. pretty decent food. a lot of fun.

August 30th – Breakfast @ Crystal Palace - always had a great meal here.
- Lunch @ Liberty Tree Tavern - YUMMY! good choice!
- Dinner @ Cosmic Ray’s - decent place for QS.

August 31st- Breakfast @ counter service at Resort

So, I await your comments. Please feel free to let me know what you think. More to come later.

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

We will be there at the same time ... also checking in at Coronado on the
23rd and then re-checking in on the 25th! But we are staying until the 3rd. We also upgraded to Deluxe. We like too many signatures not to!

We will be at Tony's (we love Tony's for lunch, hate it for dinner!) and 'Ohanas on the same day!

Eating at many of the same places but the rest are on different days!

Here's the heat, humidity and free food!

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

Thanks for your reply. This will also be our first time staying at Coronado Springs Resort. The last time we were there we were supposed to stay there but I secretly upgraded us to the Contemporary Resort to surprise the family. So this time around, we are going to stay there because we really like the look and feel of the resort (eaten at Maya Grill before and love it.).

Some of our ressies are repeats and must do's and some of them are first times.

Raglan Road- first time to eat there, heard lots of good things about it and since we have the time, we figured we would finally do it.

Yachtsman Steakhouse- our first time and first signature. We all love a good steak. Can't wait for this one.

Akershush- We like the food at breakfast and the princesses.

Teppan Edo-must do each trip, we all love it!

La Hacienda- first time, looked like a good menu.

Tusker House-Been there, liked it, going back for more

Yak and Yeti- liked the selection and the atmosphere

Maya Grill- we love this place. Not a big hit on the boards, but we love it and try to fit it in as often as we can.

1900 Park Fare- love dinner here, first time for breakfast

Tony's- I am not the biggest fan(I am half Italian, this just doesn't cut it for me), but DH likes it and wants to go back. Have to give him a few meals.

Ohana's- must do on our list, we just love this food and atmosphere

Sci-Fi- I am not a fan of the food but I love the atmosphere, DH loves food and atmosphere. He is a Science fiction fan.

50's Prime Time Cafe- This is my all time favorite for fun, good comfort food and a must do each trip.

Spirit of Aloha- heard some bad reviews, just want to say we have done it and while the kids aren't too old.

Wolfgang Puck Express- first time for us and we will take your advise about the location.

Le Cellier- We love this one. Must do for now, last visit was a little off, we will see how this goes and if it stays a must do.

Biergarten- new to us. I am also half German, figured it was time I try this. DH thinks it sounds yummy, we shall see.

Crystal Palace- Kids are past Pooh and friends, but it's a good breakfast buffet. decent food

Liberty Tree Tavern- Only tried dinner, gonna see how lunch goes.

Cosmic Ray's- great QS! We love it, one of our favorite ones. Good choices.

I am so excited for our trip and can't wait.

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

That is cool to know that we will have disboard friends at the resort and the restaurants.

We are at Tony's for 2:30pm and at Ohana's at 8pm. It would be nice to meet some disboard members. Let me know if that might be possible. Where are some of your favorite signatures. Yachtsman is our first. Dh likes 3 squares a day and our son needs some consistency in his schedule. I am really hoping to do a dining report when we get back and will be taking many pictures and notes while there and I have a good new camera that I am learning to use to get awesome pics while there. Hoping it works.

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

That is cool to know that we will have disboard friends at the resort and the restaurants.

We are at Tony's for 2:30pm and at Ohana's at 8pm. It would be nice to meet some disboard members. Let me know if that might be possible. Where are some of your favorite signatures. Yachtsman is our first. Dh likes 3 squares a day and our son needs some consistency in his schedule. I am really hoping to do a dining report when we get back and will be taking many pictures and notes while there and I have a good new camera that I am learning to use to get awesome pics while there. Hoping it works.

We are eating earlier at both ... Noon at Tony's and 5 at 'Ohanas.

The Yachtsman was definitely our favorite meal last trip! I also really love Cali Grill and Flying Fish. DH & DS really enjoy Artist Point. I loved it our first visit but was disappointed last year. Hopefully it will be better for me this year!

I am pretty sure we will be at DHS on the same day (just not eating at the same places). Would be cool to meet up!

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

That would be great to meet up! I would enjoy that very much. We can work that out closer to the time. Do you eat at the Brown Derby while in HS? My DH just doesn't like the look of the menu. I still think his problem is with signatures in general. He wants to get the most bang for his buck/entitlements and thinks that doing signatures are not the way to go. I will eventually win him over because I want to (someday in the future) be able to say we have eaten at every table service restaurant. I think signatures might be easier when we don't have to worry about kids.

 

[GoofySon'sMom]

That would be great to meet up! I would enjoy that very much. We can work that out closer to the time. Do you eat at the Brown Derby while in HS? My DH just doesn't like the look of the menu. I still think his problem is with signatures in general. He wants to get the most bang for his buck/entitlements and thinks that doing signatures are not the way to go. I will eventually win him over because I want to (someday in the future) be able to say we have eaten at every table service restaurant. I think signatures might be easier when we don't have to worry about kids.

I want to be able to say that, too. My "kid" is 16 and a huge foodie so he loves the signatures. We are eating at Brown Derby this trip. We tend to go every other trip. I love the Cobb Salad. We are going to Mama Melroses and HBD in DHS this year. DH is not really a fan of Sci Fi or 50's. He will eat at either one but they are not his favs.

We prefer to eat lunch plus a signature dinner and we always make out well on DxDDP. Plus we spread our credits to our last day so we get that extra day.

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

My kids will try some different things and like some things that most kids don't like. For instance, brocolli, calamari, and seafood. Most kids we know don't like those things. Maybe because we exposed them to it early, they grew to like it. They always order off the adult menu when we are on our cruises and we always ate in the main dining room when it was open. They love going to all the table service meals at Disney. We also don't mind the time spent at a sit down meal because, A) it's cool in there, B) they have great food, and C) we have been so often that we don't do commando style touring at WDW anymore. We go to our favorites, anything new or revamped, and anything else we feel like at the time. It works for us and we can enjoy our vacation that way.

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

So, since I last responded to all you lovely folks, we have made a big change to our reservations.....

We decided to change our Resort. When we originally booked, we were going to stay at Art of Animation. We found out that we couldn't get the free dining promotion at AoA so we changed to Coronado Springs. I found out last week that Disney changed their mind and is now allowing reservations for free dining at AoA. So, what did we do....

We changed back to ART OF ANIMATION!!!!! This is where I wanted to stay from the beginning so when I could get the Disney Trip I wanted, I went for it. Maybe our next trip we will finally get to stay at Coronado.