The Deluxe Dining Adventures of a Princess & her Mommy (Updates: 12/30)

[TigerKat]

Signing on!

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Arrival/Boatwrights
December 11th

After a long day of travel, we arrived in Tampa around 4pm. We had rented a car so that we could just drive out and save a ton of money on the airfare. I'm kinda glad that we flew into a small airport in retrospect, because it wasn't crowded. It wasn't even crowded when we left on the 20th! The Denver airport was massively crowded that day, but that's another story for the end of this report!

Anyway, we arrived at Disney World, very excited to get our trip started. I was elated to see this coming up:

As you can see, the sun was beginning to set and we were worn out from the 8+ hours of travel that we had done that day. Little did I know that it would turn into a pretty long night for us.

After a very short drive, we arrived at our resort.

We made our way inside and checked out the lobby, which was not very crowded.

I liked the look of it. We had done online check-in, but were informed that the hotel was upgrading and was therefore experiencing some issues. Great. For the sake of brevity, I would just like to number and list the number of times that we had to return to that lobby over the course of four days:

1. Check in.
2. Had to return since we walked into "our" room to find it already occupied with other peoples' bags.
3. The second room that they gave us had people in it AGAIN!
4. After going to the parks on our first day, we found that our park tickets weren't working. They let us in, but we had to go back after a long day in the parks and literally sit there for an hour while they re-booked the whole package. They booked MJ as an adult, which sometimes caused confusion at restaurants.
5. The next day, I came to find out that when they re-booked the package, they never gave me back the charging privileges on my card. Made another trip to the lobby to fix that.
6. After using a snack credit, I found that my snack credits were short by 4 (because they had re-booked us a day after we had arrived), so another trip to the lobby was in store. The desk manager said that he had fixed it, but I ended up having to call to have it fixed a day later.

Let me say that they did compensate us a couple of times. We were given some resort credits and were upgraded to a King room with a water (fountain) view. But in the end, the whole thing kinda killed the magic for me for the first four days while we were running back and forth to the front desk.

Anyway, after coming back from the lobby after being put into an occupied room for the second time, we came outside to find that something had happened at the bus stop and our rental car was literally boxed in by fire trucks and ambulances. Fabulous. I was told that we could just go to dinner and get the car after we were done. So that is what we did.

Now, don't get mad, but I didn't take any pictures of this meal. It is the only one, I promise. I was just so freakin' mad and tired that, by that time, I was in no mood for it. The waitress left us sitting there for about 15 minutes before taking our orders.

The cornbread was good. I got the gumbo for an appetizer and it was pretty good. There were large chunks of chicken and sausage, but the actual liquid was a bit too watery. I had the prime rib which was okay, but I could tell that it had been sitting out for a while.

Mara had the mac and cheese. I will say this about every mac and cheese in Disney World: they all tasted like this Stouffers microwave dinners. They tasted exactly the same. She didn't care, she's 3. I just thought that maybe they could do a little better for what people pay, you know?

I don't remember what we had to dessert, but I can tell you that we passed the hell out once we finally got settled into a room.

I promise that there will be plenty of pictures for the rest of the report, which will be coming up soon! Thanks for reading.​

 

[M-J's Mommy]

And by the way, how do I change the title of the thread?

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique
December 12th

We woke up early this morning to get to the Magic Kingdom for a very special day. They let us in about 15 minutes early, so we hurried on over to the Boutique. Oddly enough, they didn't even open until about 15 minutes after our appointment time. They did, however, have tons of staff on hand to help everyone. MJ already knew which dress she wanted, so we let them know right away and they had her dressing room ready very quickly.

After getting in her dress, MJ hopped into the chair and got the royal treatment.

Can you tell that she's still tired?

She perked right up, however, once she got to see the end result!

Very exciting. This look was perfect for what we had coming up right afterwards: Cinderella's Royal Table!​

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Cinderella's Royal Table
December 12th

After MJ's appointment, we walked right across the way to our breakfast. Since we were about 30 minutes early, the lady at the podium asked us to wait about 15 minutes. We went over and rode the carousel, then walked back over to check in.

After finishing that, we were led into a room where we had to wait for Cinderella to make her way over. We were the first in the line, which was nice. After about 15 more minutes, Cindy found her way over and we got our picture with her.

The picture that I got for the package had just MJ and Cinderella and it is way cuter. I just haven't gotten around to scanning it yet.

After having our picture taken, we had to sit and wait again for our names to be called. It didn't take long, though. After a couple of minutes we got to take the "magical" elevator to the dining room.

We had a special moment here. MJ was following the hostess when Sleeping Beauty tapped her on the shoulder from behind. MJ was very surprised, but hugged her tight. Sleeping Beauty asked if MJ had been in her wardrobe as they looked the same. It was very cute.

After that, we finished making our way to our table. This was our view:

We were first given our juice (which was very pulpy-most OJ at The World tended to be), then pastries and fruit during which time our waitress took our orders for the main course. All of the pastries were very good (I fell in love with those chocolate crossants throughout the trip), but we never got around to eating any of the fruit.

Somewhere along the time, MJ got a wishing star and a magic wand, which were cute. After just a little while, our plates came.

The bacon sucked, but there would be very few restaurants that we visited that actually had real bacon, not this thin, paper kind. The potatoes were actually really good. They were cooked with little pieces of diced ham. They were probably my favorite breakfast potatoes of the whole trip. Everything else was pretty good. Nothing was bad (except for maybe that bacon).

MJ ate the eggs and bacon and was happy with it. But she would eat just about any form of bacon really.

Obviously, you're not going to go to this meal for the food. It wasn't bad, but we had an awesome time meeting all of the princesses. It was well worth it in my opinion. Absolutely worth it if you're on the dining plan and have a little kid in your family. We would absolutely return.​

 

[M-J's Mommy]

The Plaza Restaurant
December 12th

After some hours in the park, we made our way over to the Plaza Restaurant for our lunch reservations. Once checked in, we were given a pager and were told to stay close. We ended up talking to a nice lady who had an awesome 'it's a small world' blanket, which we ended up getting for ourselves later that day. very cute. After talking to her for a couple of minutes, our pager went off and we were led to our table toward the back of the restaurant.

The meal was okay, if rather uneventful. The service was prompt. For my lunch, I had the burger with cheese and bacon, with fries:

It was pretty dry. I also thought it was kinda strange, but the meat was hanging way over the sides of the bun on all sides. It was to such a degree that it was almost comical. The fries were pretty good, though I did get one that was pretty undercooked. But I guess that you can't win 'em all, huh?

MJ got grilled chicken with white rice. I told them not to bring any fruit because she wouldn't eat it, but they sent some anyway. It didn't offend MJ or anything, I just hate wasting it.

She didn't eat very much of her food. She doesn't eat much usually, but it seemed like she didn't really like it.

For dessert, she had cookies and milk and I had a brownie sundae.

These were the best part of the meal. MJ ate all of hers and I put a pretty good dent into mine. They were both excellent.

Up next: dinner at the Wave.​

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

sorry for the start of your vacation, I would have been if going to 2 rooms and it was occupied. Glad things worked out.
Your princesses is very beautiful and glad you guys had a good time at CRT...love where you guys were sitted.

 

[M-J's Mommy]

The Wave
December 12th

After a long day at the park without a break, we hopped on the monorail to get over to the Contemporary resort for a nice dinner. We were a bit early, but we were seating pretty quickly.

After being seated, we placed our drink orders. A couple of minutes later, our water brought us our drinks and some bread. I would like to note that this was the only place outside of the Animal Kingdom area where I saw the paper straws. I wasn't quite sure why they had them here, but they did.

Neither MJ or I cared for this bread. It was very whole grain. As in it had big seeds and grains floating around in it. I also didn't like that there were several pieces that had really thick chunks of flour crusted to the top. If you accidentally bit onto one of those pieces, it would feel like sand in your mouth. Yuck.

For my appetizer I had the scallops.

These were excellent. They were cooked perfectly and the corn and bacon topping went with them very well. It was really good and I would gladly order it again.

I would like to pause here and say that a lot of the pictures that I took in restaurants were taken without a flash (except for a few, like Sci-Fi), and I was really pleased with how well most of them came out on my camera.

For my main course, I had the beef tenderloin with potatoes.

This was also pretty good. The potatoes were done in something of a hash-brown manner, but formed into a cake and grilled on the bottom. They were creamy and tasty. The steak was cooked the way that I had ordered it, but there were several parts on the outside that ended up being a bit charred, as if the flame was up too high or something. That really detracted from the flavor of the steak, I think. You can also see some greens in the back. I don't remember exactly what they were, but they were soft and garlicky and I liked them.

I don't really remember what MJ had and I guess I didn't take a picture of it. I can show you the make-your-own sundae that she got.

It was cute and she had fun making it, but it was around this time that she discovered that those little Mickey head sprinkles are as hard as little rocks and don't taste very good. I think she was a little disappointed, but she just had me scrape them off and she went on with eating the rest of it.

I had this dessert trio (all of their desserts are little trios of things):

On the left was a cheesecake which was good. Not great, but not bad. On the right was a chocolate mousse that was infused with olive oil. It was good, but I wasn't crazy about the texture with the olive oil in it. In the middle was a coffee creme brulee. I had to send it back the first time, because someone put the sugar on top and forgot to take the flame to it, so it was just a soggy mess. When it came back, it was a little burned, but I wasn't going to sit and wait for another one again. If it hadn't been burned, it would have been excellent. The coffee flavor in the custard was really nice.

After that long day, we headed back to the hotel to pay another visit to the lobby and to get some much needed sleep for our Epcot day coming up!​

 

[M-J's Mommy]

sorry for the start of your vacation, I would have been if going to 2 rooms and it was occupied. Glad things worked out.
Your princesses is very beautiful and glad you guys had a good time at CRT...love where you guys were sitted.

Thanks. Even with all of the problems that we had, the trip ended up being very special and magical. The people who work there are really awesome at trying to make things right, even if they aren't in charge and can't do much.

 

[tyandskyesmom]

great pics...love a good food report with great pics!!!

 

[M-J's Mommy]

great pics...love a good food report with great pics!!!

Thanks for reading. Writing all of this is making me want to go back! I hope you and others enjoy it.

 

[Pooh&OurHunny]

glay you had a great trip even with a couple of the problems. Thanks for the great update on The Wave...we were suppose to go there but ended up cancelling b/c I got sick.

 

[M-J's Mommy]

glay you had a great trip even with a couple of the problems. Thanks for the great update on The Wave...we were suppose to go there but ended up cancelling b/c I got sick.

Funny thing is, we ended up having to cancel something because we got sick, too. But I will talk about that later on!

 

[M-J's Mommy]

It Was Cold!!!

I just wanted to share how dang cold it was for most of the time that we were at Disney World. Below are some assorted pictures from various days. Bear in mind that some low temperature records were set overnight on some nights. I couldn't even believe it. Good thing I got MJ a puffer jacket and a blanket for those (literally) freezing mornings at the parks!

And some proof!

This next one was taken right before the picture above. Yeah, that's me scraping ice off of my windshield with a photopass card! It's not like they equip rental cars with ice scrapers in Florida!

It was horrible. The ice kept spraying up onto my bare hand. It was so cold that it hurt! And finally, I would like to finish with a shot from the weather channel that I snapped one evening after we had come back from Epcot early because the wind and cold was just miserable.

I have to say, at least it wasn't 95 degrees with 100% humidity, but damn! I was not prepared for that kind of cold.​

 

[umieesa]

oh God, you're scaring me! I hope it's not like this in January!! We're trying to escape the cold not travel to it!

Looking forward to your reviews!! Can't wait...

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
December 13th

We arrived at Epcot, ready for breakfast and to get out of the freezing cold. This was the windiest day that we had while here, so it made the 30-something degree weather awful.

After we were let in, we hustled over to the Norway Pavillion for our princess breakfast at:

After checking in, we waited for a few minutes (outside) before being called in for our picture with Belle.

We were seated and brought some juice by our waiter (who was freakin' beautiful). After that, we hit the cold buffet.

This was probably the only buffet where I got shots of the whole thing. I found it too difficult to watch the little one and get good pictures. Below is my plate from the cold buffet.

By the time that we got back from the buffet line, our waiter had already delivered our hot food.

They had real bacon! The eggs were creamy and I absolutely loved the potato casserole thing. It had both hash browns and cubes of soft potato that were mixed with some kind of creamy sauce and baked. I loved those potatoes!

Everything here was great and we can't wait to get back there someday!​

 

[M-J's Mommy]

oh God, you're scaring me! I hope it's not like this in January!! We're trying to escape the cold not travel to it!

Looking forward to your reviews!! Can't wait...

I think that what we had was more of a wild weather shift. From what I could tell, it doesn't get like that very often. I'm just glad that I listened when people on here would say to pack for anything!

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Coral Reef
December 13th

Around lunch time, we made our way over to the Seas area and to Coral Reef. We checked in, were handed a pager and sat down on the floor. There were tons of people waiting to be seated so there was nowhere for us to sit that wasn't the ground. We waited for about 15 minutes before our pager went off. As we were being led to our table, there were a lot of people that I noticed were still waiting and I overhead (okay, eavesdropped on) that they had been waiting for a while, too. I assume that there are still a lot of people who book these vacations and don't have a clue as to how they should made advance reservations.

Anyway, on to our meal.

We were seated at the very back of the restaurant, though you can see the tanks from any table. I was kinda glad about where we were sitting once a lady down below started yelling and screaming at her awful kids. All's well that ends well, I guess.

After getting drinks, we were brought our bread.

The bread was still warm and it was really good. But again, what's with all of the flour that they leave on the top? Who knows. Shortly after that, my appetizer (the Land and Sea) came out.

The beef and shrimp were cooked well and had a nice flavor. I didn't like the polenta that much, but probably because I don't really like it in general. There was nothing wrong with it.

Up next was MJ's pizza. She ate almost the whole thing.

I had the New York Strip, which was a little over-cooked, but nothing drastic. The mashed potatoes underneath were (I think) horseradish flavored and went well with the meat.

For dessert, MJ didn't want anything. It was too cold for ice cream and she doesn't eat fruit. I had the creme brulee.

This was good. As far as I remember, it was just plain (as in no special flavors). The candy shell on the top was a little thin, but it was still really good.

We will probably come back here someday, though there are a few other restaurants at Epcot that I would love to try first. As you will see with our next meal, there is one more that I have to add to the list of ones to do in the future.​

 

[athenna]

Great reviews so far! I can not believe the start to your vacation Glad it improved from there!

 

[M-J's Mommy]

Great reviews so far! I can not believe the start to your vacation Glad it improved from there!

Thanks! It just helped to keep a positive outlook and not dwell on the bad stuff.