The Return of Violet and Chernabog: Now with Bonus Sprogs! 7/14: 'Ohana Breakfast

[tink too]

I don't know where you are ... he grew up in Dundee in the '80s, so I can believe they didn't know how to make real éclairs. They just called the buns éclairs. Dundee is not exactly the culinary capital of Europe.

Ah, Dundee - the city of roundabouts! It's a place I only ever drive through to get to Glasgow airport and is famous for its pies.

We're in Aberdeenshire in a fishing town about 30 miles north of Aberdeen.

 

[TillyMarigold]

So, Belle and the kids having arrived, we headed over to the MK for Woody's first-ever roller coaster ride, arriving about 7:00 on a night the park was open until 9:00. Chernabog and I had gotten 4 FastPasses earlier, so Chernabog took Woody on the ride first [we never did child swap with Mickey--he objected emphatically to the idea of being left alone with me or Chernabog without either Belle or Woody being there] and while we waited, Belle and I decided we didn't actually mind not riding. After a quick stop to press a penny for Woody's collection, we headed to Pecos Bill's.

It was closed.

We headed to Columbia Harbour House. It was closed.

We headed to Pinocchio's. It was open, but when we got all the way down to the cash registers, they were shut down for the night.

So, now you know--despite the fact that the Times Guide claims all the restaurants are open until 9:00 when the park closes, they actually close at 8:00.

It was decided we would each go back to our own resorts and eat at the food courts, which of course are open until 11:00. On the way out, Belle bought Mickey and Woody a vanilla Dole Whip to tide them over until dinner. (They're used to eating dinner at about 8:00.)

 

[TillyMarigold]

So, having failed to find dinner, we scooted our way out of the park, admitting defeat and planning to eat dinner at our respective food courts.

Chernabog and I headed to The Mara, where dinner was being cooked to order only. We were told that the only vegetarian things on their menu were the cheese or vegetable flatbreads, or the falafel wrap. I ordered the vegetable flatbread (the menu said it had olives, but I figured I could just eat around them) and Chernabog ordered the wrap with couscous. Frankly, I had expected more out of The Mara.

Unfortunately, when I saw "Vegetable Flatbread with Olives" I assumed that there would be other vegetables on the flatbread in addition to the olives. But no. (Well, there were caramelized onions, but that's all.)

I suppose if you like olives, this would have been fantastic. It was all perfectly cooked, hot and fresh, and the cheese (it was either feta or goat cheese) and onions worked together perfectly. However, I spent a large amount of time picking olives off and it still tasted a bit like them. Blech. Plus without the olives, it wasn't actually very much food (remember, we hadn't had a meal since breakfast and no food at all since a pretzel and churro at 4:00, 6 hours earlier). I ate half of it and gave the rest to Chernabog--who, even though he hates olives as much as I do (they're both of our least favorite food), said he liked the flatbread with the olives (as I was unable to pick all the olives off my half, I can tell you definitively that I did not like it with the olives).

Chernabog ordered the falafel wrap with couscous, and pronounced it the best falafel he'd ever had (and the man eats a lot of falafel). he valiantly gave me about a third of the wrap and I had to agree: the best falafel I've ever had, either. Much better than Tangierine Café's (this is getting ahead of myself, but The Mara's was slightly better than Boma's, possibly because The Mara's had been made fresh only minutes before, or possibly because The Mara's were larger so there was proportionally less crispy outside--I like my falafel with the inside very soft). It also had crispy fresh lettuce and fresh tomatoes, and the pita was warm and very soft.

He ate all the couscous (of which there was a ton--you can see it behind the wrap) and pronounced it exceptionally good couscous as well, but I went up and ordered myself a side of fries because I was still hungry.

I got a fountain drink, Chernabog got a bottle of peach-mango Fuze, and we got zebra domes and cheesecake to share:

The cheesecake was really good--you can see it was a slice cut from an actual cheesecake, not one of the prepackaged ones.

It was at this meal that Chernabog's zebra domes addiction began. Now, I'd heard a lot about them, and I was expecting to like them, and I did. But man, Chernabog just loved them. He ate three, I ate one (the picture was taken after we'd each had one), and then he pouted when I told him I wanted to save the last one for another day.

I have heard nothing from Belle on what she or the kids ate at the Intermission Food Court. I can tell you that every night she bought a small carton of milk and warmed it in her electric kettle that she brought with her, and she had tea before bed and the kids had warm milk. I can also tell you that she thought the food at the food court was fine and no one had any complaints about it. But I don't know what she and the kids actually ate there for any of their meals, although I have a vague memory that she mentioned eating a salad with chicken on it one night.

 

[TillyMarigold]

I'm not really a planner for my park days, in case anyone hadn't figured that out yet but with Belle and the kids only there for 3½ days, we did do some serious planning. Wednesday was our Animal Kingdom day, and I had really wanted to take the kids to Tusker House for breakfast (Mickey Mouse is both of their favorite character--the boys take after their Auntie Violet in that ). Tusker House wasn't available, but 'Ohana was, and I figured that would give Mickey a chance to ride the monorail, since trains are his most favorite thing ever. While Chernabog and I waited for Belle, Woody, and Mickey to arrive, I couldn't resist buying the boys small gifts at the BouTiki--a book for Woody's penny collection and a tiny toy monorail for Mickey. (Also, for the Wonder Dog, I bought a bandana that proclaimed "My Humans Went to Disney World and All I Got Was This Lousy Bandana.") We checked in right when Belle and the kids got there (at 9:05 for a 9:15 reservation) and were seated about 10 minutes later, having declined to have our photo taken with tiki masks.

We were given a table with a bench against the wall on one side, a column at one end, and chairs along the other side. Chernabog and I took the chairs and Belle and Woody took the bench seat, with Mickey between them. The waitress explained that the characters will take that as a sign not to approach the kids, so if the kids wanted to see them, they'd have to come out when the characters approached. We assured her that's why we'd done it ... Woody was a tiny bit unsure, but Mickey was definitely anti-fur-character.

The first thing that happened when we were seated was we ordered drinks--juice for all of us, coffee for me and Chernabog, and hot tea for Belle. The tea came in a little caddy with several types of teabag to choose from, a pot of hot water, several things to sweeten it with, and a little pitched of milk. She was very impressed.

The second thing was that the chef (a young woman with long blonde hair whose name for some reason I think was Jennifer) came out and asked about Belle's allergies. I had listed on the reservation that she is allergic to tree nuts and none of the three of them eat pork. She explained that the waffle batter (and I think also the biscuits) are made in a bakery where other things containing nuts are also made, and the pastries are stored in an area where things containing nuts are also stored, but there were no nuts in any of the things on the menu. Since Belle's allergy is fairly mild and she had her drugs with her, she decided that would all be okay. We also ordered the skillet without any bacon or sausage ... Belle actually wouldn't have minded, but since I wasn't going to eat any anyway, I figured the simplest thing would be not to tempt the boys with it (because they're used to turkey bacon and so forth).

The first thing that was brought out was a tray of grapes, pineapple, and assorted melon.

As you can see, one of the boys loves grapes and the other loves watermelon, because they started eating before I could get a picture. (I forget which was which.) The fruit was all really good and we were starting to get excited.

Next came the skillet: scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes, and biscuits. Shortly after, we got a tray of pastries. Woody, Mickey, and I didn't have any, but Belle and Chernabog said they were delicious.

Mickey waffles were also brought around. I'd actually never had one (I know! sacrilege! I'm not really a waffle person, though) but they were really, really good waffles. The eggs were also very good and so were the biscuits, but the standout was the potatoes. They were so good. We all ate tons of them.

The first character to come around, unfortunately, was Stitch. I say "unfortunately," because, well ...

Notice something missing?

Yeah. Mickey was afraid of Stitch. We'd known he would be, but he (and Woody) both really, really wanted to meet Mickey Mouse (lest you think I had arranged to torment my honorary nephew for my own enjoyment). It's just a shame that we were at such a place in the rotation as to meet Stitch first. Woody, however, was up to the challenge and got everyone's autograph.

Lilo was next, and Mickey was still unconvinced:

By the way, Belle's pictures of the character interactions are much better ... sort of. Her memory card in her camera was old, so a lot of the pictures came out with parts of other pictures overlaid on them. But she had everyone looking at the camera, and everything.

Just before Mickey Mouse reached our table, the parade started. Woody and Mickey declined to participate, but enjoyed watching it. When the character rotation resumed, Mickey Mouse came straight to our table, and this time, Mickey was ready:

Sorry for the weird angle--clearly they only had eyes for Belle.

Pluto was last, but we don't seem to have any pictures of that meeting. After that we all headed down to the buses to the Animal Kingdom. I took a picture of Belle, Woody, and Mickey in front of the waterfall.

Edit: Here are a couple pictures Belle took of me and Chernabog with Mickey Mouse and Pluto:

 

[Dani&TJsMom]

Just found your reviews and really enjoyed reading them. Restaurant Marrakesh sounds good. I was thinking of switching from Akerhus to there. I have ressies at Ohana for breakfast on our AK day too. I was wondering how long it took you to get from the Poly to Ak and how did you use Disney transportation? Thanks!

 

[TillyMarigold]

Just found your reviews and really enjoyed reading them. Restaurant Marrakesh sounds good. I was thinking of switching from Akerhus to there. I have ressies at Ohana for breakfast on our AK day too. I was wondering how long it took you to get from the Poly to Ak and how did you use Disney transportation? Thanks!

Honestly I'd rather eat at Akershus than Marrakesh (we had dinner at Akershus on the last trip) but as we all know by now, I don't like couscous. My DH would probably go for Marrakesh over Akershus though. We liked both.

Honestly I have no idea how long the trip from the Poly to AK took. We did take Disney buses. That picture in the Polynesian lobby was taken sometime between 10:15-10:30 and I'm sure we were at the Animal Kingdom by 11 but it was probably sooner--I think we had a short wait but nothing outrageous, and I know we didn't stop anywhere else on the way. I can tell you that the bus from the MK to the AKL takes 20-22 minutes so the time from the Polynesian to the AK is probably about the same.

 

[Dani&TJsMom]

Thanks for the info!

 

[TillyMarigold]

I asked DH and he says he would also choose Akershus over Marrakesh assuming they have the same sorts of menus they did when we were there, but if the Akershus menu has become even more Americanized than it was, then he'd go for Marrakesh. One of the things we like at WDW is the chance to eat at the sorts of restaurants we don't have here, and we can get American food anywhere.