Thanksgiving at OKW

[Peddler]

Hi All,
I just booked two ea 2 bdrm's at OKW for the week of Thanksgiving, planning to have my 2 dd's and the grand kids with us.
Wondering about Thanksgiving dinner has any one cooked a turkey there?
How about recomendations for eating out on Thanksgiving!
I know it's a bit early for this but it's fun to plan ahead.

 

[BriarRose59]

We ate at the Garden Grill 2 years ago for Thanksgiving. It was pretty good. I have heard you can buy prepared dinners at the local grocery stores. We are staying at SSR this Thanksgiving and are hoping to purchase our dinner at the new food court and take back to our room to watch the Cowboys and nap (depending on how the game is going, the nap may be at the same time as the game ).

 

[goofy4tink]

We'll be checking in to BWV on Thanksgiving Day. Our family voted for Chef Mickey's for dinner. Now, that will be different!!!! Like you, we love the planning. Yes, it's early but hey...it's fun.

 

[Nanajo1]

We've done Thanksgiving 3 times at OKW with the ever growing family now up to 15.
We preorder dinner at Publix,pick it up on Wed and reheat on T'giving day. We love the left overs. I bring baggies, glad ware etc for the strorage, Clean up was easy. It feels so traditional in a Disney way!

 

[joepoe]

We are alos going to do T-Giving at OKW for the first time. DW's sister and family will be at the Grand Vista at the same time. We have not decided what to do. Does Olivia's do a traditional dinner?

 

[RweTHEREyet]

I will gladly second the pre-cooked turkey from Publix. We did this for Christmas this past year at OKW. It was very reasonably priced, included turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry and orange relish and seems there was something else, too, can't remember and price seemed to be around $36.00.

Turkey is already cooked, sealed in a bag, packed inside another bag. You remove it from the other bag and reheat it in the oven for so many minutes a pound. It was delicious and easy. We prepared a couple of our family favorites to go with the whole meal. Everything was packaged so nicely for transporting back to the room, so there was no spillage. Our one turkey servied 8 with some leftovers.

I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant about ordering this way, but I would do it again without thinking twice. With a large crowd, you can also get their spiral sliced ham and some other sides. You can pick it up the day before and you have everything you need ready to reheat. Just make sure you call and reserve. My hubby picked ours up and he said there were probably 40-50 meals waiting to be picked up, so lots of folks do this.

This was a lot cheaper than we could have eaten out and it sure was more "homier" than herding everyone to a restaurant. I took Christmas placemats, etc. to decorate the table.

 

[RweTHEREyet]

Does Olivia's do a traditional dinner?

I can tell you that we were also at OKW at Thanksgiving this past year (Son was down there on the College Program so we went to visit him over the holidays) and we ate breakfast on Thanksgiving morning. Our server told us that they were serving 500+ meals on that day, that they were turning reservations away and that it was the busiest reservation day they had ever had at Olivia's. So, if you are planning this, I would book it early to make sure you get the time that you wish. Sorry I can't tell you what they served.

 

[NancyDVC]

On our Thanksgiving trip 3 years ago this became a big issue. My father's family always gets together for Thanksgiving and that can be as many as 50+ people with traditional [at least for us] items. So my folks wanted to go out for a big traditional meal at WDW. My sister and her 3 'kids' (at that time ages 21, 19 and 15) wanted to do the parks-rides etc.). We also were concerned about the usual holiday restaurant frenzy. With 8 of us we compromised.
The Candlelight Processional was pemiering the night after Thanksgiving so we opted for the CP dinner package. We made PS after our arrival the weekend before Thanksgiving. We saw CP first then ate at the Biergarten in Germany. Wonderful show and a great dinner! We all ate and sang and danced! It was a great time and for us an unusual way to celebrate Thanksgiving.
By the way on that trip I made time to meet several DVC members who I had been emailing previously. Two couples-one from the UK and the other from Louisiana (who had a 6 year old son). All of them had chosen to eat a 'typical' Thaknsgiving dinner at one of the sit down restaurants. When I ran into them later they all said it was disappointing. Crowded, not like homemade and limited menus. Looks like our 'unusual' choice was better.
So my advice is to go for the unusual, try something different be it a different restaurant or way to celebrate.
And don't forget to wish all the CMs who are busy working to make your day special a Happy Thanksgiving. (That suggestion came from a former CM who I met online.) I did wish evcery CM I met that day a Happy Thanksgiving - from the bus drivers, to the gate folks, to the horticulture staff, to the supervisors with their radios to the ride CMs etc. Many were surprised by my greeting but all returned it with a smile!

 

[CarolAnnC]

I will be residing at OKW Thanksgiving week, too!

Last T'day we were at BWV and had ordered a Turducken off the internet. It was shipped to Fl and boy was that an excellent meal! It contained a boneless chicken, boneless duck and boneless turkey (cept for the drumsticks) all cavities also filled with yummy dressing. I highly recommend it! We thoroughly enjoyed our family T'day at the BWV!

 

[AZKathy]

We have also done the Publix dinner and it was great; we plan on doing it again this Thanksgiving. It is really easy and the leftovers are great to have.