The "Mr. and Mrs." Report--6 days DXDP, partly vegetarian, with pics, 8/26-9/1

[Minniespal]

Excellent

 

[smartestnumber5]

I totally agree about the massive meals. They are SO big. We figure you don't have to eat it all though. I usually eat about half. It sometimes gets a bit embarrassing when the server takes away my plate and says, "You didn't like it?!" and I have to say, "It was great, but I'm full!!" Although that tends to happen at pretty much all American restaurants - HEAPS more food than in Aussie restaurants!

Once in the Hawaii Cheesecake Factory, DH ordered an enchilada, and it was bigger than his forearm. Seriously. We laughed for about 5 minutes at the size of it.

Yeah it's amazing how big those meals are! I don't know how people have room for cheesecake. (Maybe most people have more self control than me ).

 

[smartestnumber5]

I love Cheesecake Factory! We don't have one near us either so whenever we travel we search out a Cheesecake Factory. Thanks for the review!

I know we don't have any in the entire state of Michigan apparently.

We drive to my family in PA every year and pass through Ohio so last year we had the idea of stopping in Cleveland (or was it Cincinnati?--I mix up those two cities a lot ) to eat there. It actually hadn't occurred to me at all to check for The Cheesecake Factory in Orlando because this was the first trip where we rented a car and/or spent any time staying off-site.

I'm so glad I thought of it because now we can schedule a Cheesecake Factory dinner on every trip!

 

[smartestnumber5]

I've never been to the Cheesecake Factory. Honestly, I thought it was a dessert only place. That looks tasty.

I used to think it was only dessert too (or at least that dessert was the thing to go there to eat). But actually they have a humongous menu--it's a spiral notebook format and it just goes on and on.

I'm thankful I'm a vegetarian when I'm there, because at least that narrows my choices quite a bit for me!

As far as the pregnancy concern goes, if it is true, you will be one wealthy person!

But probably minus one GF unless I had a darn good story!

 

[smartestnumber5]

Excellent review of RR. We're going there on our next trip for the first time. Could you elaborate on the appetizers available for one person on the DxDP versus those available for two by sharing a credit? Their menu lists six for "solos" and seven for "sharing". I'd hate to be limited to only three.

Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what the appetizers were, but I know that the menu was divided into "solo starters" and "starters for sharing."

I had checked the Allears menus before we left and I guess the lunch menu on Allears is actually a year old because it was different there. (I think the entrees were different as well.) Are you going for lunch or dinner though? The menu might have more solo appetizers for dinner than for lunch.

Yes, the solo section of the menu we had listed only three things--soup of the day, the Goatstown salad, and one other meat based appetizer (GF says she thinks it might have been a steak salad). Then under the "starters for sharing" were listed probably at least 5+ appetizers that are made for two. I don't know what all of them were, but I am sure that the Dalkey Duo (the cocktail sausages) were on there.

I asked the server how the appetizers worked while using our credits and she said that if we got any of the "for sharing" appetizers that would count as both of our appetizer credits. So I suppose if you know that you can agree with someone else in your party you could pool your credits and get any appetizer--but that does kind of ruin the fun of everyone getting to pick their own.

 

[NWOhioAngela]

I know we don't have any in the entire state of Michigan apparently.

We drive to my family in PA every year and pass through Ohio so last year we had the idea of stopping in Cleveland (or was it Cincinnati?--I mix up those two cities a lot ) to eat there.

If you're driving Michigan to PA and passing through Cincy, remind me to never ride with you!

 

[smartestnumber5]

If you're driving Michigan to PA and passing through Cincy, remind me to never ride with you!

I just looked at a map!

I guess it was Cleveland!

 

[NWOhioAngela]

I just looked at a map!

I guess it was Cleveland!

Must be a Michigan thing! GO BUCKS!

 

[smartestnumber5]

After Raglan Road we headed over to Goofy's Candy Company. With all of those snack credits to spend we just had to create our own treats. (This is a must do even when we don't have snack credits!)

I sometimes make some vacation exceptions as far as the vegetarianism goes, meaning sometimes I eat marshmallows or things with gelatin or meat based stock. I was trying to be good this trip though and decided to stick with the stricter interpretation of vegetarian, so I decided to forgo the marshmallows and rice crispy treat "make your own"s. I'm not a big gingerbread fan (especially not with chocolate, nuts, and caramel on top ) so that treat was out as well. Pretzels and cookies were all that was left.

I decided on 1 pretzel creation and 2 cookie creations. For the pretzels I had one of each of the following: 1) white chocolate and m&ms, 2) dark chocolate and caramel, and 3) milk chocolate and sprinkles. The first cookie was peanut butter flavored filling dipped in milk chocolate and coated in peanut butter cups. The second was vanilla filling with butterfingers, chocolate chips, and caramel. (Yes, I am a candy feign who acts like a 5 year old in Goofy's Candy Co!)

GF decided she wanted a caramel apple. She had tried one last trip and had trouble eating it because it was so large. It didn't go much better this time. She got it dipped in chocolate and coated in pecans, caramel, and sprinkles. (There is a fourth pretzel with sprinkles because one of them broke while they were making it, so they just threw in the broken part and made me another whole one.)

Goofy Candy Co

Create your own pretzel—3.5
Create your own cookie—3.5
Create your own cookie—3.5
Tax--.63
Total—11.13 3 S


Create apple—6.95
Tax--.46
Total—7.41 OOP

We sent in our orders and then went next door to look for some souvenirs. When we came back in we heard GF's name being paged--the creation artists had a question about her apple. We took a seat near the creation area (there is a new seating area which didn't exist during our last trip) and waited. There was a family who was also waiting near the counter. They were chatting with one of the cast members and seemed to be having a great time, laughing a lot.

My name was called as my first creation was done. The cast member gave it to me and I proceeded to knock it right off the counter. The entire family standing there and the cast member gasped loudly and I caught it at the last minute before it hit the floor! Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The cast member shouted, "That was a masterpiece--you almost dropped it!" The family then proceeded to tease me about my lack of care. They teased me even more as my name kept getting called over and over. I told them I was stocking up!

When we got in line to pay there were a few other adults who were purchasing large numbers of treats from the store with no 'children in sight. One of them told me that you can actually order the creations online! (I refuse to contemplate getting a Goofy's Candy Creation except while at WDW--it's just too dangerous otherwise ) I was glad I was not the only sugar loving, candy worshiping adult.

Since we were so full from lunch we didn't eat our treats at the time. Instead we headed back to POFQ for a rest.

After our rest I went and grabbed the resort mugs we got on the DXDP for free.

Sassagoula Food Court
Resort Mugs--24.98 2 Mug credits

I believe we only used the mug one time during the entire trip for iced tea. GF can't stand the Nescafe coffee. And I can't drink any carbonated beverages. In the past at Pop I got a lot of the icees, but they weren't available at POFQ. So iced tea was pretty much my only option. But that was also what I drank at every meal, so I really didn't feel like more of it when we were at the resort. So I just stuck to yoo-hoo and water.

Then we headed out to the grocery store before dinner. We'd never had a car at WDW before and never had a fridge (we stayed at Pop during past trips) so we never did any grocery shopping. I think given our inexperience we bought too much:

Winn Dixie
Wine—11.99
Paper towels—2.29
Zip bags—2.99
Yogurt--.67
Yogurt--.67
Yogurt--.75
Milk—1.59
Package of water—3.69
Nutra grain bars—3.49
String cheese—3.59
Saltines—2.99
Yoo-hoo—3.29
Choc full of nut coffee—3.99
Tax—1.34
Total—43.33

The saltines, string cheese, and nutra grain bars were actually just to have around in case my "morning sickness" came back and I needed to get something into my stomach in the morning. GF ate the entire package of string cheese (she loves it), but I only ate one nutra grain bar and a few crackers during the rest of the trip. ("Morning Sickness" went away after the 2nd morning--yay )

The yoo-hoo was my drink for the morning. I can't drink coffee or most kinds of juice given my acid reflux and given the morning sickness I thought milk might not be a good choice. But yoo-hoo is just chocolate flavored whey (Whatever that is! All I know is little miss muffet ate some) and water--that can't be too harsh on the stomach right?

Turned out we didn't need the paper towels (I thought they would be helpful for the car as I was sure we would spill something at some point, but we never opened them). The water was a great purchase given that WDW charges $2 a bottle, and for $1.69 more we got 12 bottles.

GF was excited to be able to have coffee in the room given the coffee pot, but we actually didn't end up opening it. The first morning that I tried to make her coffee, I realized that we didn't get any filters. So I tried to make just the regular coffee that the hotel provides (which comes in a ready made filter) and the coffee pot proceeded to spit water everywhere. We realized later that the actual pot was not the right size. It wasn't tall enough to push up the dripper allowing the coffee to come out. So that was the end of the coffee for GF. Without the coffee the milk was of no use either. Though actually the milk was useless anyway because we found it frozen in the fridge on the morning after our shopping trip, so we had to toss it.

Really we should have just bought wine, string cheese, and water and saved $25.

 

[Mom of 2 Wife of 1]

Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what the appetizers were, but I know that the menu was divided into "solo starters" and "starters for sharing."

I had checked the Allears menus before we left and I guess the lunch menu on Allears is actually a year old because it was different there. (I think the entrees were different as well.) Are you going for lunch or dinner though? The menu might have more solo appetizers for dinner than for lunch.

Yes, the solo section of the menu we had listed only three things--soup of the day, the Goatstown salad, and one other meat based appetizer (GF says she thinks it might have been a steak salad). Then under the "starters for sharing" were listed probably at least 5+ appetizers that are made for two. I don't know what all of them were, but I am sure that the Dalkey Duo (the cocktail sausages) were on there.

I asked the server how the appetizers worked while using our credits and she said that if we got any of the "for sharing" appetizers that would count as both of our appetizer credits. So I suppose if you know that you can agree with someone else in your party you could pool your credits and get any appetizer--but that does kind of ruin the fun of everyone getting to pick their own.

Thanks for the response. We're going for dinner -- I noticed you went for lunch. Most likely they had fewer choices at lunchtime as most venues scale down their menus for that time of the day. At least I'm hoping that's the case. I get what you're saying about agreeing/sharing an app with someone else in my party, but my husband is a big eater, and although he loves me, he has obligations to his hunger. And I do mean obligations...

 

[TPCShauna]

Thanks for the RR review. I am seriously considering this locale for our upcoming trip but would need to do some serious altering to fit it in. I am reading every review I can get my eyes on to help with the decision. Sorry it wasn't to your liking.

 

[wilma-bride]

Thanks for your reviews so far. We love cheesecake factory but agree that the portions are huge! When we went last time, my DH ordered the lunch portion of pasta which, here in the UK, would have been a small bowl full. It came out and was massive. Not only coul dhe not finish it but he had absolutely no room for cheesecake and had to get his to go.

We have enjoyed Raglan Road both times we've beent here but I thinkt he service (and food) can be a nit hit or miss.

 

[iluvpluto27]

Great updates. It's a shame there's no veggie appetiser for two at Raglan, as when one of your party is vegetarian, it does limit your choices.

And we're also two adults without children who always hit up Goofys for the make your own treats, I just love them!

 

[TINKB72]

Waiting patiently to hear more reviews.......

 

[TigerKat]

Signing on a bit late....

 

[smartestnumber5]

We had ADRs at California Grill for 9:10 pm. We left POFQ around 8:45ish and arrived with a few minutes to spare. How nice to be able to jump in the car 20 minutes before an ADR and arrive on time! We will never go to Disney without a car again .

As we arrived we saw the new restaurant--The Wave--next to the front desk. We had talked about possibly trying to go there for dinner on the night we were going to Pleasure Island, but when I called we couldn't get anything for earlier than 8 to 9 pm. (Originally we wanted to go to Wolfgang Puck Cafe but were told they only do walk ups. Later I found out that they actually take reservations but not through Disney, but there were none available for that night so we weren't sure we wanted to take our chances with doing walk-up.) We stopped to take a look at the menu and GF suggested that we ask the concierge about an ADR. We did and the castmember found an ADR in the 6pm hour right away--but for 4 instead of 2. She booked it and said, "Just tell them the other two in your party decided to stay at Magic Kingdom." So we got exactly the time we wanted .

We headed up to the 2nd floor to check in and were given a pager. We were told it was a 20-25 minute wait at that point and were sent over to the elevator. About 30 seconds later the pager went off before we had even gotten off of the elevator.

We walked over to the hostess who took our pager and said--in a French accent--"Mr. and Mrs. Smith." I think I must not have been processing because I just nodded without thinking at first before I actually processed what she was saying.

Now GF does wear men's clothes and she does have short hair. And some people do refer to her as a male after a quick glance sometimes. But usually on second glance the breasts make them realize their mistake. At the very least, we usually see a moment of realization cross their face. But in this case, the hostess didn't seem to notice that GF is female. She just seated us and told us our server would be right with us.

We thought it was odd that not only did she assume that GF was male, but she also just assumed that we were a married couple, and that we shared the same last name, and that I use the title "Mrs." We couldn't help but . For the rest of the dinner i kept referring to GF as "Mr. Smith."

Here is what we ordered:

Dinner—California Grill
Iced tea x 2—4.38
Big Bang Roll—19
Scilian Flatbread (charged as pork apple flat bread on the receipt strangely?)—12
Kappachio fish—33
Vegetarian Unplugged—19
Cheese plate—17
Peachy keen dessert—10
Tax—7.44
Total—121.82 4 M credits


Our server was very nice and helpful as we asked what we thought of a couple of dishes. We decided to use one dessert credit for a cheese plate for our first course. Strangely we ended up not getting any bread--the first thing they brought us was the cheese plate and after that out came the appetizers.

The cheese plate was delicious as always. Actually this was one of the best ones we've had at any restaurant in Disney.

The left-most cheese was a soft brie that called "Brillat Savarin." It tasted like honey and it was great with some honey on top (though honey wasn't actually the accompaniment meant for that cheese). The description of the cheese plate explained that the cheese was named after a French 18th century gourmet who is famous for his quote "tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." That's taking food just a little too serious for us . But If we are what we eat, then GF is definitely a fish of some kind, and I am a block of sugar.

The other cheeses were Mahon (cow's milk described as sharp, lemony, salty), Monte Enebro (goat cheese), Pecorino Foja di Noce (sheep's milk), Fourme d'Ambert (blue cheese). I also liked the Mahon, Pecorino, and the blue, but I was not so into the goat. GF liked every cheese on the plate and didn’t find any of them offensive (usually there's at least one she finds at least one disgusting). All were delicious. It was one of the top cheese plates we’ve had.

After the cheese plate came the Sicilian flatbread and the Big Bang Roll.

The flatbread usually came with Sopressata, Tomato Compote, Provolone Cheese and Pepperoncini Relish. I asked for the sopressata (some type of meat) to be taken off. The first bite I took of the flatbread was not so great—it seemed to be missing something. I realized that bite didn’t include any pepperoncini—the second bite was much better with the relish on it. But I do think that the meat probably would really have made a difference. It just didn't seem like as good a dish as we're used to at the California Grill.

GF felt similarly about it. She thought it was something which would be good at a mid-price Italian restaurant, but she expected more at Cali Grill. It did give us good idea for making something like that at home though.

The sushi arrived on long thin plate. It was pretty to look at—lots of fish eggs of 2-3 different colors. Strangely it was served with no soy sauce, but with a huge blob of wasabi, a thick brown sauce, and lots of ginger. GF really wanted soy sauce as the brown sauce didn’t do it for her, but she did without. She enjoyed the sushi, but as usual it wasn’t anything special. She said she felt like she could have gotten it for $6.95 at local sushi restaurant--that it included two tasteless kinds of fish, and a couple of crunchy things she couldn’t identify, and then eggs. (Every time we've gone to CG and she gets sushi because no other appetizer appeals to her and she's disappointed. Next time we go I’m going to make her get veggie appetizer so I can have some since she doesn't really appreciate the sushi anyway!)

Time for entrees. My Vegetarian Unplugged had four dishes: 1) heirloom tomato flatbread (2 pieces): tomato, provolone, roasted garlic, arugula, 2) salad with blue, sweet toasted nuts, and peaches, 3) gnocchi/mushroom/corn dish, and 4) unknown (potatoes, tomatoes, some kind of paste/pate thing.

I couldn’t identify #4 and didn’t really like it that much, so I didn't eat much of it. Looking at the menus now, I suspect that it was the side which was served with the salmon: roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Yellow Beans, and Porcini Mushroom Vinaigrette. #3 was very good. It was served with the Seared Hawaiian Kona Kampachi which GF had. #2 was also good, though it was only a salad so less exciting. And #1 was a better flatbread than the Sicilian one which we had for an appetizer. It was probably was better as a vegetarian flatbread because it was designed that way--not made vegetarian by me asking them to remove the meat.

GF got the Seared Hawaiian Kona Kampachi.

It was the first entrée at CG she really loved. She said the fish was cooked amazingly well—it was buttery, moist, tender on the inside, and slightly crispy on the outside. She liked the sauce which came with it--a creamy butter and corn like sauce. She though the corn and gnocchi and seaweed side dish was a little less successful. The corn and gnocchi was good on its own, but with buttery bland fish nothing really stood out; she thought the side needed to be more flavorful. But still, the fish was the highlight of the dish and she enjoyed it a great deal.

Since we had used one of our dessert credits for the cheese plate we only had one dessert credit to share. We usually get the Bananas Buzz at CG, but decided to try something new this time. We compromised and went with the Peachy Keen: Peach Cheesecake, Bellini "Bubble Tea", Spiced Tea Cake with Vanilla Creme Glace.

GF was very pleased with the dessert. Splitting it meant it was not too much at end of a large meal. Her favorite of the three items was the bubble tea because it tasted like "fresh squeezed peach juice with hint of sugar." I did not like the bubble tea very much because it only had a hint of sugar! She thought the tea cake with vanilla creme was really good—flavorful and rich but not too sweet. She didn’t like cheesecake as much and the peaches on top of the cheesecake had "a weird spicy taste" which she didn’t enjoy. But overall thought it was perfect end to the meal.

I was surprised about how good it was. I don’t usually love peach, but I was feeing full so was up for most anything. I thought GF would really like that dessert so I said yes to that one. The bubble tea didn't do much for me, but the other two desserts were yummy.

Overall this was a great meal. It's pretty much always our favorite and this trip didn't disappoint.

 

[smartestnumber5]

Next up was 1900 Park Fare at 9:20 am. This was earlier than we usually get out and accomplish something at WDW, but we were trying for an early schedule this trip.

Our bill included:

Breakfast—1900 Park Fare
2 adult breakfast buffets = 37.98
tax = 2.47
total = 40.45 2 M
tip= 6.84


We left this breakfast with numerous pics of GF looking pained while posing with characters. GF later announced, "Mornings are hard enough without characters." She can be such a curmudgeon sometimes, but at least we have funny pictures.

Here are our various plates:

GF isn’t a huge breakfast person so the buffet was more for me than for her. She was most interested in the smoked salmon--nothing else was particularly note worthy.. She went up to the buffet a second time and couldn’t get to anything because so many people were waiting in line for omelets. The only thing she got on the second run was bread pudding with vanilla sauce. When she got back I went up to get a second plate and she had her bread pudding sitting on the side of her main plate she was still picking at. The server came by and just picked the bread pudding plate right up after GF had only gotten one bite. The server must have though it was a used plate to be picked up and didn’t bother to ask and I guess GF didn’t say anything. After that GF didn't even bother trying to go up a third time.

My thought was that the buffet was not as good as I remember (I'd gone a few times with my family say 6 or 7 years ago). I like breakfast a lot, but nothing here was that good IMO. I really was in the mood for eggs, but they had poached with lobster I couldn’t eat, omelets with a really long line, and scrambled eggs which were really watery. I did try to eat the scrambled ones, but they weren't hitting the spot as they were kind of gross. (The scrambled eggs I've had at the Pop food court were definitely significantly better.) I also tried a cheese Danish, a mickey waffle, French toast, breakfast potatoes, bread pudding, some fruit, and a bagel with citrus cream cheese.

Nothing was that good. Danish didn’t seem to have any cheese in it. The waffle and French toast were fine—same thing you get at Pop food court. The breakfast potatoes were fine but a little weird. The bread pudding was good. Fruit of course was good. The bagel was bad--not bagel like at all.

On the second run through the buffet I tried again with eggs and toast but once again, eh. I felt like I could have had the same food at a buffet like Golden Carrol or something. And while it's nice to have pics of GF looking uncomfortable with characters, we really didn't need them. So this meal was less than successful.

We decided that in the future if we want to do a breakfast, we should definitely do a non-buffet restaurant where things are made to order.

 

[Rebelmom67]

You have the absolute best reviews!!! I'm drooling!

 

[wilma-bride]

Everything at Cali Grill looks great. We have only had breakfast at 1900 Park Faire once but really enjoyed it, especially the Strawberry Soup.

 

[iluvpluto27]

Loving your reviews. The vegetarian unplugged looks good, but sorry GF didn't enjoy her sushi, I normally love the sushi there but I've never tried the Big Bang Roll.