The "don't you dare embarrass me" Dining review 8/24-8/30

[Renee845]

For dessert Grumpy and I both had the Key Lime tart, let me tell you, this thing was soooooo good!!!! It was both sweet and tart in perfect balance and the fluffy white top was more like melted marshmellows then egg whites and sugar. Unfortunately, I was only able to eat half of it but DH happily polished off his and the rest of mine!!!

Princess Picky had the make your own sundae which thrilled her to no end, I mean lets face it, give a kid ice cream, m&m's, chocolate sauce and sprinkles and you are going to have a happy little person.

So I would have to say, this was one of the best meals of our trip. This might be because the majority of our meals were buffets, but we really enjoyed ourselves here.

Would we go back? Definately! The view alone was worth the trip.

 

[MickeyNicki]

Boy were we looking forward to this one!!!! When I say WE of course I mean me and DD! We had an ADR for 8:55 or so, but we got there really early, it was so nice to stroll through Epcot when it was empty! Everything was just starting to wake up and it was such a pleasant morning.

Quick question for you, we did the Princess Breakfast at 8:30am before and the park was empty no one waiting to get in line for the entrance or anything. Did you find the same to be true at 8:55? That is the time I have booked for our Jan trip and I dont want to be packed with people that are trying to get into the park for rope drop.

Thanks!

 

[Renee845]

I should first start off by saying that this night had the recipe for disaster!! Shortly after we got on the bus to head over to MK for the first time it started to POUR, and I mean hard!! We waited under the awning for awhile thinking it would pass, it didn't. So finally we came to the realization that we had to make a run for it. DH brilliantly decided before we left that we did not need to take the rain gear with us...dope!!!! Luckily, DD had her stroller with a shade on top and her rain coat, so she definately did better than we did. What made it worse was, since we had never set foot in MK before, we had no idea where we were going. The girl that took our tickets was very sweet and directed us through the buildings on Main Street to help minimize the rain explosure. She did however mention I should buy a sweatshirt on my way through, which I didn't, and I was really sorry I did not listen.

We finally get to the Crystal Place and the place was packed!! I think a lot of people were just seeking shelter from the rain but the wait was a long one. I was seething mad, mostly because I was wet, I hate being wet. I may have changed places with Grumpy that night.

When we got to our table it was all decorated with mickey confetti to acknowlege DD's b-day, which was cute and DD was very happy to see that.

 

[Renee845]

I have to say, the food here, was some of the best buffet we sampled. I had Salmon with some sort of mustard/honey glaze that was really, really good!!! I also had a pasta primavera with an alfredo type sauce and really enjoyed it, in fact, I went back for more, the pasta was nicely cooked and the sauce had the perfect flavor. I also had some mashed potatoes and a variety of different salads and green beans. There was lots of other things that could have kept me going back for more, but I was still wet and now freezing, so I was less than a happy camper. I will say that the quality of the food lifted my spirits. I just remembered the corn bread, this stuff was food but burned my face off!!! It was some sort of spicy thing that was tasty but HOT.

Princess Picky had some chicken nuggets, green beans and pizza, she really enjoyed the pizza and the green beans - to the point where I got her more of both, and if you have been reading all the while, you know that this is unheard of for her!!! The chicken she declared was good too but it did not get as much attention.

Grumpy went to town on a variety of different things too and deemed them all good, unfortunately I don't really remember what he ate, UNTIL he hit the dessert table. I swear to you, the boy was giddy!!!

 

[Renee845]

Now I pretty much tasted everything Grumpy brought back to the table, there was, he tried so many things!! There was a chocolate layer cake with some sort of whiskey going on (YUM), tiramisu, banana bread pudding, and various other cakes. But the one that stuck out in my mind the most was the red velvet cheesecake - OH MY GOD, that was super yummy and quite frankly, made my night!! Every few minutes Grumpy would scout that table and come back with something new and a sparkle in his eye - needless to say, he enjoyed himself.

DD had ice cream and was perfectly happy.

So as we ate, of course we were visited by Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eyeore and Piglet. DD declared Piglet "just about the cutest thing EVER!" They were all lots of fun and thrilled DD to no end. They also did a little parade around the room which, much to my surprise, DD jumped right into. I am not sure why but I expected a little more from the characters because of some of the reviews I read but it was fun and despite being cold and wet I enjoyed myself.

Would I go back, most definately, if not for the desserts alone. I will say though, I thought this was the best buffet food we had all week, and possibly one of the better dinners we experienced over all.

 

[Renee845]

Quick question for you, we did the Princess Breakfast at 8:30am before and the park was empty no one waiting to get in line for the entrance or anything. Did you find the same to be true at 8:55? That is the time I have booked for our Jan trip and I dont want to be packed with people that are trying to get into the park for rope drop.

Thanks!

I think we got there about 8:30 as well, we were early for that one, there were a few people milling around the entrance but for the most part it was empty, I would say get there a little early and you should be fine. Although I have never experienced January, but since we were there the first week of free dining I am sure it is somewhat comparable.

 

[Renee845]

So today we hit Magic Kingdom, without rain

We got there at rope drop and hit FantasyLand. It was our every intention to stop for breakfast but since the lines were practically - walk-on we just kept going!! Finally, when we could not take it anymore we went to Casey's for an early lunch. There was nothing really remarkable here, we each had a hot dog, a soda, french fries (DD had apple slices). And since we are on the dining plan I picked up two brownies and a bag of cracker jacks. Princess Picky did not really eat much, she picked at the french fries, had a apple slice or two and a bite of her hot dog. Grumpy and I ate like we had not seen food in weeks! Overall, the hotdog was good, not great, I have had better, but they were BIG, the fries were nice and crispy. The sodas you get on the dining plan are HUGE or you can get a bottle of water so that worked well for us.

We ended up having dinner there one night too while we waited for Spectro and Princess Picky ate the WHOLE hot dog, so take that for what it is!

I will say that timing is very important with this place, when we got there early for lunch I walked right up to the counter and ordered, the night we had dinner it was quite a wait to even order.

So for something familiar and easy, Casey's works in a pinch!

 

[Renee845]

We were not really sure if this dinner was going to happen. The weather was really threating and it was constantly thundering with lots of lightning flashes. We we got lucky and was able to see the whole show.

We had catagory 1 seating, it was good, but could have been better, we were off to the side a bit with another table in front of us. The show itself was pretty true to the reviews I read, the first half of the show was pretty stupid but entertaining in a cheesy way - DD was happy anyway. The second half of the show was GREAT, we really enjoyed all the traditional dances and the fire dancer in the end was just amazing.

Food wise, when we sat down there was salad, pineapple and pineapple/coconut bread on the table. The dressing on the salad was sweet and I thought really yummy, Princess Picky deemed it too sweet (she is a balsamic girl) and Grumpy had no opinion either way, I think I ate the whole pineapple myself, Grumpy and DD don't "do" pineapple. I love it. I did not think it was the most amazing pineapple I ever ate but I liked it. The bread was really yummy though, you could just taste a hint of the coconut and pineapple and Grumpy ate it with gusto, Princess Picky would not go near it because it "smelled wrong" and I really enjoyed it.

 

[Renee845]

The main entree came out on a platter with chicken, ribs, rice, veggies. All three of us really enjoyed the chicken, it was not dry at all and had a really good flavor. I also got DD a hot dog - just in case and she took a few bites but seemed to enjoy the chicken more - who knew? She also really liked the rice - I liked it too but was pretty sure I could get the same results from a Rice a Roni box The ribs were tasty, but like the Hoop Dee Do, they were a little on the tough side - not as bad as the Hoop, but still tough. The veggies were mainly broccoli and carrots, we are not big broccoli people so I am not sure how much of the veggies were sampled there. Grumpy declared that he liked both the show and food here better than the Hoop Dee Do, I have to agree with him, I enjoyed both shows, but I think given the choice I would do the SOA again before I did the HDDR.

I should mention drinks here, Grumpy declared he wanted this huge 14.99 drink in a coconut head, it had what seemed every alcohol known to man in it, but you can keep the head, and he wanted it - well, we are on vacation, why not! I will post a pic up with I get a chance, the drink head was as big as his!!! Oh, and a warning, it was not a real coconut, just some stupid styrofoam thing, kinda a let-down. I had, naturally, a pina colada, I was in Hawaii after all right??? It was good

 

[Renee845]

For dessert we had the chocolate volcano. Once again, the fan fare that led up to the dessert was better than the actual dessert! It was basically chocolate mousse shaped into a volcano with some sort of rasberry thing going on in the middle - DD proudly explained to her parents that this was supposed to be "lava" - yes honey, thanks.... I am not a huge fan of the combo of chocolate and rasberry together so I did not love it. It was good, it was chocolate, but, given the choice, I think I liked the strawberry shortcake better.

As an extra bonus, just after the show ended we were able to walk over to the beach at the poly and watch the fireworks over the castle, I had hoped it was going to be timed right and I was pleased to see that it was!

Overall, we had a really nice time, it was a really nice night.

Would I go back? Yes, in a heart beat.

 

[Renee845]

We spent the entire day at Hollywood, it was a long one, we ate at Hollywood & Vine for thier character breakfast, Studio Catering Co for a quick lunch and Mama Melrose for dinner (Fantasmic package).

So our ADR was nice and early at Hollywood, the park had not opened yet so it was nice to get in before the crowds (I highly recommend this approach in every park). We go there at least a half hour before our seating time but was able to be seated relatively quickly. Now, I have heard alot of mixed reviews on this place, most of them not so great food wise, but most of my friends who had been there said they had the most fun at this character meal so I had some high expectations - characterwise.

We were seated off the main floor which was a bit of a bummer because all the entertainment happened with their back to us (and when I say all, yeah, not much, but I will get to that later).

I think this was our actual first breakfast buffet, the last couple we went to were family-style so I was pleasantly surprised at all they had to offer, you name it, they had it, they even had a toaster, which was a good thing because Picky Princess insisted that she wanted TOAST - she is such a pain in the butt! Both Grumpy and I had the typical scrambled eggs, bacon, some sort of potato casserole thing, mickey waffles, the same thing we seem to have every morning. I am guessing if I was feeling better I would have been more inventive, they had lots to offer, breakfast fajitas comes to mind. They had cold cereal which was a good thing since Princess is a big cold cereal fan. I did find however that she ate next to nothing that day. It is a good thing that we were on the free meal plan, when I think about what she did not eat, I would have wasted a fortune on her!

 

[Renee845]

Everything tasted ok, I thought the potato casserole was gross though.

A word about the characters, of course they each went to our table and played with our daughter and had some little moments of dancing, but I just expected more, I guess this is more of a lunch thing, my friends who have gone kept telling me that this was the most fun they had......I am not sure how or where they had that fun, we must have missed it!

Would I go back? hmmmmm, well, most likely, the food was fine for what it was, I would like to try lunch simply for the fact that I feel like I missed the "fun" all my friends were raving about.

 

[Renee845]

We found ourselves getting hungry and since we had such early dinner reservations we stopped here for a quick bite. Grumpy had a chili dog and fries, Princess Picky had a hot dog (shocker, I know) and some apple slices and I had the Caesar Salad wrap and a bag of grapes. I think I picked up some cookies or brownies or something here dessert wise, they were portable and we were not really planning on making this a long meal.

I did not like the wrap at all, I may have barely eaten half of it, there was just too much dressing on it and you just could not taste anything else. Grumpy ate his chili dog with no complaints, Picky girl took one bite, that was it, I finished off her hot dog and honestly, I thought it was good, it was better than Casey's in my opinion. I also like the fact that they toast the bun, to me, that makes a difference. The fries were good, nice and crisp, but really, how bad can you mess up a french fry?

I doubt we will go back here, we were not really there on purpose anyway, it was right in front of us when we decided we should eat something and the crowds were low so it was just convenient.

 

[Renee845]

First, I hate that we had to make this ADR sooo early, I think it was for 4:30 or something, but, we ended up getting there late, Picky HAD to see the Muppets RIGHT NOW or she was going to die and rather than deal with that, we went.

Even though we were late, we were seated pretty much right away, I did notice that as our dinner went on, the place got more and more packed. It was cute to look at but I have to say, our waitress was not the most pleasant person on the planet. We were informed that because we were doing the Fantasmic package, we were entitled to appetizers even though we were on the basic meal plan. So I had a basic salad with some cheese covered bread and Grumpy had some sort of bread platter with a variety spreads, there was a tomato pesto, a half head of roasted garlic and some very scary colored greenish brown "stuff" after being dared to try it I determined it was some sort of olive spread. I tried them all, they were ok, I mean how much can you really say about bread?

 

[Renee845]

Both Grumpy and I had the Penne Ala Vodka and Picky Princess had slices of grilled chicken and pasta (no sauce). Neither Grumpy or I were thrilled with the pasta dish, it was edible but I have had much, much better at our local resturant. I should also say though, I was feeling really terrible at this moment (when I got home I went to the doctor, I had strep). Grumpy declared it was "terrible", he ate the whole thing though - how bad could it have been I wonder?

Picky Princess hated everything about her dinner, and to be fair, it looked pretty bad, the grilled chicken looked gross and apparentely tasted so because she spit it right out. She was given elbow pasta (with all the other choices in here, why elbows?), she ended up mixing some sauce in it and ate some of it.

For dessert I had the spumoni ice cream, it was good, but anything cold on my throat would have worked at that point, Grumpy had some sort of lemon cream with strawberries, this was a strange choice for him, he ate it though and Picky had ice cream

 

[Renee845]

Overall, we were all very dissapointed with this place, I read the reviews so I knew going in that this was not going to be an amazing eating experience but I suppose it could have been worse. I will say that I liked the idea of the dining package and having the reserved seating Fantasmic (the highlight of our day I am sorry to say, but that will have to be reserved for the trip report).

Would I do it again? Hard to say, I like the idea of the dining package, I would not go to Hollywood & Vine for just food so unless I decide to splurge and go for the Brown Derby then yes, I guess I would go back, I think that I would try to work it out so we made it to the Brown Derby though, I get the feeling it would have been a much better experience.

 

[Renee845]

We had a 8:00 ADR which made me very happy, I wanted to be ready to go when the park opened! We get there more or less on time and had really no wait to get it. Unfortunately, we were seated waaaaaaaaaaay in the back of the resturant - are you kidding me?! We had to go through two rooms to just get our food, and the characters? Yeah right, we will be lucky to see anybody at this rate.

So once again, we had scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, mickey waffles, you know, the more I think about this, the more I blame being sick, tired and flustered by Picky Princess about my breakfast choices. With so many different things to try I was really having none of it. It was a challenge every day to get the PP to eat anything and balancing her plate and mine got to be too much by this time I guess. At this point I was SICK. Grumpy, not feeling much better than me had the same breakfast too. They had a special jungle juice thing going on (tasted pretty much like what we had at Ohana), it was good. Princess ate nothing, I filled her plate with the hopes that she would get something out of it, but no luck.

 

[Renee845]

I can't tell you how aggravated I was by this location though, I think this really dampened my spirits, it got to the point where we had been there an hour and just saw one character. I sent Grumpy out for fast passes to the safari and Princess and I continued to wait for Daisy, we HAD to see Daisy.

I had heard really great things about this buffet and was excited to go there, maybe I was just too tired at this point to take advantage of anything new? Maybe it was too far away or too crowded? I don't know what my excuse was.

Would I go back? Probably, I liked the idea of being there early and close to the safari, I HATED where we were seated so maybe that was the real problem here. The food was fine, I did not really see a difference between this or any other buffet at this point.

 

[Renee845]

It was HOT and we were DONE (well, not really but we just could not go any further) so instead of eating at the Flaming Tree as planned we headed back to the resort for a much needed swim and re-grouping. We had lunch at the Pepper Market. I can understand why people complain about the confusion with the cards, etc. but once you "get it" I think it is a nice idea. I also like the fact that we were seated and had our drinks brought to us, made life a little easier.

Grumpy had an individual cheese pizza, when I asked him how it was, his response was "I should have known better than to get pizza this far from NY" He said the sauce was clearly a "Ragu" and the crust was tastless. It smelled and looked good in my opinion and well, he ate the whole thing so I don't know what to tell you. Maybe if you are not a New Yorker, you would like it?

Princess Picky - had a kids meal of chicken fingers, french fries and a cookie. She RAVED about the chicken!! She was either really, really hungry or it was just that good!! Either way, it was nice to see her enjoying something.

I had the 1/2 chicken with veggies and french fries. The chicken itself was tasty but very dry, the french fries were really good, the veggies were a HUGE dissapointment, they looked wonderful, big chucks of eggplant, zucchini, squash, peppers and onions, they tasted terrible!! I am not a big veggie eater anyway but these are my favorites, they just were not good, they also left the skin on the eggplant which I don't like.

For dessert Grumpy had a churro and seemed to enjoy that, I had hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream it was GOOD, in fact, at that point I was enjoying it so much I felt like it totally made up for the lunch I just ate maybe half of!

 

[Renee845]

Overall, I think when it comes to the Pepper Market you have to be careful what you order, I saw some people with taco salads that looked wonderful, so who knows, maybe we just missed the boat with this place or something??