***The spark is strong with this one*** a February 22-27 dining report updated 3/24 complete!

[Jgeauxmo]

We just returned from a magical six days in the world where we stayed at Coronado Springs. I am having serious withdrawals so I decided to do my first dining report. We ate at a ton of places and most were our first time. Let me start with a little about us.

My husband and I have been married for three years and have an almost two year old little boy who is definitely growing up Disney. My husband has two daughters from a previous marriage as well. He fell in love with Disney when his second was little. My son is raised on Disney (He is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) and this was his second trip. This trip was technically my third trip although I was very young when I went the first time and my memories are spotty at best of my first trip.

We are very adventurous when we eat out. We live thirty minutes from
New Orleans so I like to think we know what good food is and seek it out on vacation.

My husband left most of the planning to me with the exception of a few places he insisted we repeat from our trip last January. Here is the line up:

Morimoto-dinner
Pepper market- breakfast
Be our guest- lunch
Hoopty doo- dinner
San Angel inn- lunch
Rose and crown- dinner
Tusker house breakfast
AK Kiosks in Asia- lunch
Sanaa- dinner
Pepper market- breakfast
Skipper Canteen- lunch
CRT-dinner
Ohana-breakfast
England qs cart-lunch
Lotus blossom-lunch
Via Napoli- dinner

I didn't take many food pictures, but I will try to link some here and there.

We arrived in the world late in the afternoon on a Monday. I had never been to Disney springs before, and I was stalking the various Facebook pages tracking it's progress.

When reservations for Morimoto opened up, I knew I had to try it. We originally had a reservation at T. rex because I was convinced that ds would love it. When we passed T. rex, I was so glad we changed our mind. The place was packed and so loud. I don't think it would have been very enjoyable after and eight hour ride. We had some time kill so we shopped for about an hour before we tried to check in. Raglan road was also, but it looked like fun. I instantly had a little remorse that we did not eat there.

The baby passed out on dh at some point and we sat at a bench outside the restaurant. It was about 4:30, and our reservation wasn't until 6:30. However, the hostess, who was not very friendly, agreed to go ahead and check us in for when the restaurant opened at 5.

We were seated not too long after five and greeted by a wonderful waitress named Ginger. She was absolutely wonderful! I had read several negative reviews of the wait staff at Morimoto and I was a little apprehensive. She instantly put is at ease.

We ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio for me (my favorite you will see this a lot and a captain Morgan and Coke for my husband.

Ginger recommended the kakuni pork bao( steamed buns with pork belly). We also ordered the egg rolls. At some point ds woke up, and we placed an additional appetizer order for the edamame because it is his favorite.

The pork buns had an excellent flavor. My only complaint is the pork belly seemed to have an excessive amount of fat on one end so one bite was almost all gelatin fat and bun. The egg rolls were pretty standard. However, the dipping sauce they were served with was amazing!!!
The edamame was standard edamame and the baby are almost all of it by himself.

For our entrees, we orders the LA bbq kalbi and Lomein with beef and chicken.

The kalbi was great! It was served with kimchi which was well balanced and a very hot sauce. This was the standout dish of the night.
The Lomein was also very good, but it was not spectacular.

All in all morimoto was a very good choice for us for our first night. The atmosphere was very nice and our waitress was outstanding. My only complaint is that maybe it is slightly overpriced for some of the more traditional dishes. However, I would go back and ordered the kalbi in a heart beat!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

For or second morning, we decided to eat breakfast at the resort. On our last trip, I had a character breakfasts planned for each morning. It really backed us up with our plans, and we didn't get to start enjoying the parks until noon. This trip I tried to include a few easy breakfasts at the resort food court so we could get to the park earlier.

We got up pretty early and walked over to pepper market. The selection here for breakfast left a little to be desired, but then again I'm not a huge breakfast person.

My husband and I decided to split the breakfast scramble since we had an early lunch reservation at be our guest. It was your standard scrambled eggs with ham and cheese. Then it had salsa over it. The eggs were served with a side of meat. We chose bacon, and it also came with home fries. The eggs were cooked perfect and the bacon was nice and crispy. The home fries were very good but standard. This easily filled us both up. We ordered a kids Mickey waffle for the baby. He didn't eat much of it besides the bacon. All in all this was a quick and easy way to fill us up!

We were on the deluxe dining plan, but we paid for this meal out of pocket. We had several two service restaurants booked at this time. At some point during the trip, I miscalculated our credits after we changed our reservations around and we had a ton to burn the last day. I'm happy to report that we successfully used them all!

 

[TeresaNJ]

Good start! Looking forward to the rest of your report!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

Where we left off, we had just finished breakfast at the resort. We thought we had plenty of time to get to magic kingdom for the baby's first haircut on Main Street. Man was I wrong. It was about 8:30 and we waited for at least half an hour for a magic kingdom bus to show up. When it did, it was full. We decided to hop a bus to Epcot. A monorail ride and a ferry ride later we were there. It was about a quarter to ten and the baby's hair cut appointment was scheduled at 10. Bag check was a mile long. When we finally made it through, our bands didn't work. So we were delayed another twenty minutes in the guest relations line which has to be the most unhappy place in Disney! The lady in front of us was on a tirade about how she would never return. Good riddance! Once we got to the window, we learned that they were experiencing some kind of delay loading our park ticket to our bands. They thought it had something to do with the fact that we had a room only reservation the night before and we had to technically check out and back in that morning to start our myw package.

Needless to say I was frazzled at this point because we had missed the baby's first haircut that I was looking forward to. Guest relations ultimately made it right. They rescheduled our appointment and gave us two anytime fast passes. By this time, it was close to our lunch reservation so we went straight to Be Our Guest! I needed the adult time out so to speak.

We ate at BoG for dinner on our last trip and really enjoyed ourselves. I couldn't get a reservation for dinner this trip as I booked our trip about a week after our reservation window opened. In fact this was the only reservation I could not get. But, that was ok since we already experienced it.

We ordered our food online which allowed us to skip the lonnnnggg line to ordered. We waited about ten minutes to check in and sat in the West Wing. I thought it was a little too dark in there and sometimes loud. Nevertheless, we found a table next to the rose. Our food arrived pretty quickly.

I had the carved beef sandwich and substituted my dessert for the french onion soup. The soup was very good. Sometimes French onion soup arrived so hot that it scalds your mouth. This was not the case and it was the perfect temperature. The beef on my sandwich was cooked perfectly and I really liked the hint of horseradish. My only complaint was the baguette was a little hard. However, being from south Louisiana, I know that French bread is often served this way so it wasn't off putting.

Dh had the croque Monsieur which was excellent. It had a nice creamy taste to it which paired well with the salt from the ham. He ate all of it very quickly and really enjoyed it!

Both were served with fries which the baby absolutely loves. It was so nice that he was still young enough to eat off our plates, and we didn't have to worry about ordering for him.

DH ordered the grey stuff cupcake for dessert. The baby eyed it at some point during lunch and stole it. He loved the icing and ate most of it. DH and I managed to get a bite of it when he was through. The cake was very moist and the grey stuff which I believe is Oreo whip cream was very good!

Overall the food here was very good for lunch. The dinner we had last trip was slightly more enjoyable as the steak was perfectly cooked and we liked getting to meet the beast. We may skip this restaurant on our next trip just because the restaurant is a little loud and chaotic. We really like more quiet sit down restaurants (well except for hddr which is our all time favorite which is up next!)

 

[tluvstink]

Great start and I'm looking forward to your next installment

Terri

 

[DnA2010]

Sounds like a lot of fun and yummy eats so far!

 

[suse66]

Great reviews so far! I am looking forward to reading more about your adventures!

 

[SGMCO]

We're wanting to eat at some of the same Restaurants you ate at--looking forward to your reviews!!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

enjoying your reviews. We have BOG lunch reservations for our next trip. We really miss the breakfast buffet at the Maya Grill at CSR. It was a dealbreaker for us but we have enjoyed trying out other resorts.

 

[Candycane83]

following. I'm taking my DS2 (he will be 2.5 in Dec) for the 1st time this December and would love some tips if you have any to share!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

For dinner on our first day we had reservations at the Hoopty Doo Review. My husband only requests three things when we go to Disney, hoopty doo, rose and crown, and a noodle bowl from the China pavilion (I think the last one is Strange but whatever he indulges my obsessions)
We decided to take a break after the afternoon parade in magic kingdom before our late reservation at hddr. This turned out to be a huge mistake. The baby takes a two hour nap at daycare usually. But, he was so wired that we couldn't get him to even begin to settle when we got back to the room. We ended up changing clothes and heading to the little bar outside the main lobby at Coronado springs for a margarita. We then hopped on a bus to the magic kingdom around 6:30. The baby ultimately fell asleep on the boat ride from the magic kingdom to fort wilderness. We spent some time talking on the porch of trails end and enjoyed a glass of wine and beer while he napped. I was very tired and starting to regret the late reservation.

Because we were on the dining plan, in order to get category one seating we had to do the 8:30 show. I was shocked that the theatre was mostly empty. No one was seated upstairs and the first floor was half empty. On our last trip it was packed even for the 8:30 show.
We were seated in the middle of the second row. This was great because the baby got to see everything and the performers interacted with him a lot.
The food was very good as usual. I was extremely hungry since our lunch reservation had been at 11:15. We started with salad which had a pretty standard Italian dressing. Then out came the ribs and chicken. Our ribs were super tender and well sauced. Even the baby ate several of these. The chicken was super crispy and not greasy at all. I only eat white meat, and it was moist on the inside. The beans were your standard baked beans and very good. The corn and potatoes were also pretty standard but nevertheless very good.
Our waiter was excellent. He kept my wine glass filled the entire night.
When the dessert came out, the baby dug right into the whip cream. It was super cute. I think he was shocked since we usually don't have dessert at dinner and just couldn't wait. The strawberries were well sugared and the cake was cooked perfectly.
We had absolutely not complaints at this dinner. The food was excellent, service was good, and everyone really enjoyed themselves. It will definitely continue to be one that we will repeat every time we go.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

following. I'm taking my DS2 (he will be 2.5 in Dec) for the 1st time this December and would love some tips if you have any to share!

We found everywhere to be super accommodating. The easiest places were definitely the all you care to eat places. Most places asked if we wanted his food to come out with the appetizers. Since he wasn't quiet yet two he didn't have a dining plan. But a couple of places gave him an entree off the kids meal for free. At skipper canteen we ordered him the mac and cheese without the meat which was a good option. Also, I saw a little girl next to us with chicken nuggets which aren't on the menu so it seems the are accommodating. The best dinner we did for him was at Sanna. Get an early reservation and arrive right when it opens. They feed the animals at the time the restaurant opens and the animals came surprising close to the window.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

The next morning we decided to skip breakfast and head straight to Epcot. It was raining and we were trying to time our trip to the bus stop around the rain. We gave the baby some Cheerios and rolled out. We had a great morning exploring the seas pavilion and meeting pluto in the front of the park. We also did character spot and headed to Mexico for our early lunch ADR at San Angel.

I was super apprehensive about the restaurant because of the mixed reviews. But the baby loves chips and salsa and I really wanted to try the avocado margarita. So when dh suggested we add this reservation, I gave in.

Our waitress was Marva and she was amazing. I actually need to email guest relations and tell them how wonderful she was. My dh and I eat at our local Mexican restaurant all the time so we told her we wanted to try something more authentic.

She suggested the queso fundido for an appetizer. This is not you liquid queso like at the tex mex restaurants. It is a thick cheese mixed with peppers onions and meet. It's comparable to the inside of a quesadilla and is served with tortilla to make a quesadilla like fold over sandwich. The flavor of this dish was wonderful! I would eat this as a meal in a heart beat.

I ordered my avocado margarita and OMG!! Best drink of the trip. I could have drank these all day. It has a pronounced melon flavor and was so smooth! I actually went back on our last day and ordered another one from la cava. I wish I had one right now!

Marva recommended the beef and pick dishes. Dh ordered the
Puntas Motuleñas which is described as:Beef strips, Poblano peppers and onions over a bed of homemade tortilla, cheese, refried black beans, roasted serrano peppers, and roasted tomato salsa, topped with peas and plantains.
The beef was super tender and the plantains somehow paired perfectly with this dish.DH said it was wonderful. He actually said this may be his new favorite restaurant.

I ordered the Lomo de Puerco en Salsa Verde. It is described as follows: Pork in roasted green sauce and Poblano peppers served with corn-potato puree, melted cheese and nopales
(Sorry for the font issues I'm not sure what's going on with my phone)

This was delicious!!! It was definitely Mexican comfort food. The pork was super tender and the potatoes rich and creamy. I love green tomatillo sauce so it was right up my alley. I would eat this every day of the week.
I was blown away by the food here. I have no idea why this place gets such terrible reviews. Our service was phenomenal and the food was amazing! We will be repeating this one. I think if you rely on your server and not limit yourself to tacos and enchiladas this can easily be a standout of your trip!!!

 

[DisneyJo]

Enjoying your reviews

 

[TeresaNJ]

Glad you enjoyed San Angel Inn. It's one of our favorite restaurants, and we've always had great meals here. I have no idea why it gets such bad reviews either. I am definitely trying that avocado margarita on our next trip!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

After our wonderful lunch at San Angel, we spent the afternoon walking around the World Showcase. I was so excited to try the Grape Fruit beer in Germany which I loved. My husband was indifferent to it, but this wasn’t a surprise. He usually doesn’t like beer. We also had a lemon slush in France. This was awesome!! I could drink a gallon of these things!. We originally had reservations at 7:05at Rose and Crown. We planned to have a long dinner and see illuminations. Well, we were both exhausted and the baby didn’t take a nap so we decided not to push it. We checked in about 6:30 and were seated not too long afterwards.

The food at Rose and Crown was excelled last trip which is why we decided to repeat it. We started with drinks. DH ordered a leaping leprechaun. This was very good and did not taste like alcohol at all. I wonder if it actually was a weak drink or one that would just sneak up on you. Nevertheless, it kind of reminded me of powerade. I had my usual, a glass of pinot grigio.

We ordered a scotch egg and the cheese platter for appetizers. The scotch egg was a boiled egg wrapped in sausage then breaded and deep fried. It is served with a salad and mustard. My DH absolutely loved this! I thought the sausage was a little strong still I like the flavor combination and it paired well with the mustard.

The cheese platter was probably one of my favorite dishes of the entire trip. The platter had blue cheese paired with almonds and cranberries. The middle cheese was a milder cheese with onion jam. I actually asked our waiter if you could purchase onion jam because it was that good. It tasted like caramelized onions mixed in a little sweeter sauce. The final cheese was a cheddar cheese topped with pickled vegetables. The vegetables had minced cauliflower in it and I believe carrots. The combinations all paired perfectly together and I wish I would have ordered two!!!

For dinner we both had the New York Strip and fish. The fish is cod that is deep fried. Our waiter told us that it is the same fish that is served at the food cart outside. Well, I can tell you having tried the cart outside a few days later, the fish in the restaurant is miles above the fish served outside. It had the perfect amount of breading and was not greasy. I love how light and fluffy the batter is. My steak was cooked perfectly and I really enjoyed the peppercorn sauce. The steak was paired with Yorkshire pudding which to me tastes like a twice baked potatoes. It was really good! I believe it also came with green beans which the baby ate. Our waiter let us substitute a dessert for a side of fries for the baby as well. By the time dessert came around, we were stuffed and we decided to skip it (I know blasphemy!!!). We left the restaurant around 8:15 and I have no regrets on skipping Illuminations. We saw it once last years, and I just wasn’t interested in dragging an overtired almost two year old through the crowds at the end of the night to get to the bus.

Up next….Tusker House Breakfast and snacking at AK!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

we went to Rose and Crown last trip - I had always vetoed going to the UK when we were visiting the USA but last trip my DD chose this restaurant as one of her three cs choices. I was really not looking forward to it but we loved it. Had the same main course as you and although the combination is slightly weird (traditionally our Friday dinner and Sunday dinner combined) we all loved it. Not returning this time as we have gone for the qsdp this trip but if we were on the ddp I would definitely return. Enjoying your reviews - our first trip dd was 20 months so I remember the changing our mind at the last minute well

 

[Jgeauxmo]

We got up bright and early for our 9:25 reservation at Tusker House. This was our favorite character meal last trip so we were really looking forward to it this time. Somehow we managed to get out of the room early. We were at animal kingdom at 8:30. The gate attendant went ahead and let us in since it was kind of cool out as long as we promised to go straight to the restaurant . We checked in and were seated not long afterwards. As far as variety, this is still my favorite buffet on property. I love the carving station which has this nice salty ham on it. I also found the cheese blintz this time. This was amazing. It tasted like a crepe with some kind of lemon ricotta stuffing (maybe this is exactly what it is, but I've never had one before). I also tried to corn beef hash for the first time and it was very very good. The baby ate his weight in donut holes, bacon and tater tots. This was great since he was free! I also had sausage and bacon and eggs with ham and cheese I believe. These were pretty standard. DH had a huge helping of the corn grits which I helped him polish off. The character interaction was still really good and we saw everyone without waiting too long.Now, here comes one of my few complaints for this trip. We were seated at the first table along the aisle in the main dining room. It was very chaotic at this location and the restaurant was a ot louder than I remembered. At one point, I put the baby down so he could give Donald a hug and he was knocked to the ground. He was fine and didn't even whine. But, I preferred the atmosphere of this restaurant a lot more on our last trip. We will probably skip this breakfast next year and try lunch at Yak and Yeti. We had originally planned to skip lunch this day to make up for dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby our last night which would be two table service credits. Well, at some point during the trip, DH decided that he wanted to spend our last day at Epcot. So, I dropped the Brown Derby reservation and picked up Via Napoli at 6:30 which I was very happy with. However, this is where my plan to use all of our meal credits ultimately derailed.

SIDE NOTE: I know people have various feelings about the dining plan, but here is my two cents. We would not book a Disney package without the dining plan. When we ate at Morimoto on our arrival night before our package started, our bill was almost $200 with tip. It just stresses me out to see those kind of bills. I would much rather pay for the DDP up front and not have to worry about it on vacation. This way I know that all I'm going to have to pay for is alcohol and a tip which we found to consistently be $20-$30 at our dinners. Also, we did not go crazy keeping track of the amount we spent at each restaurant, but we do enjoy table service dinners. I did make sure we used all of our credits. In the end, I was able to swap one meal credit for three snacks in Germany and we used a meal credit to order the baby a fish and chips on the last day. I know this isn't a great value since the deluxe is all table service credits, but we really didn't care. I did feel like we got a good value on our trip with the dining plan. We booked with the MYW package was 30% off and I didn't have to buy anything out of pocket for the baby other than mickey waffles the first day. This package was actually cheaper then when we booked with free dining. Like I said just my two cents on how we like to travel.Now, back to our snacks at animal kingdom! We first tried the teriyaki beef slider and edamame from one of the food carts in Asia. The beef slider was shredded beef in BBQ sauce with a thick bread and butter pickle on it. I loved this snack and really should have ordered two. We also split an order of edmame. I'm use to this being served hot; however, it was served cold at the cart. It was very refreshing for a mid day snack and the baby ate almost all of it by himself. After we ate a little, we went to the Drinkwallawallah stand and ordered coke icees with Captain Morgan. These have to be stirred up a lot, but they were sooooooo good. The baby napped while we went through the Maharajeh Trek and sipped our icees. (This was actually his first nap of the trip and I was so relieved that I would have a happy baby at dinner! He was such a trooper this trip and other than wanting to get out of stroller we really lucked our with his temperament. I confess that I let him watch cartoons at long dinners, but he was quiet and was able to sit through several two hour meals.Its obviously not something we do at home. But worked for us this trip! This especially came in handy when we were seated over on hour after our reservation at CRT which I am still ticked off about, but more about that fiasco in a later post.)

The next stop was back in Africa where we split for our first ever dole whip!! We added the coconut rum to it. This was an amazing combination. After the baby woke up, we ordered him a fruit a cheese tray for a snack which he really enjoyed and it was a good use of a snack credit. At about 4:00 p.m. we were ready to say goodbye to animal kingdom and hopped a bus to Kidani Village for dinner at Sanaa!

 

[PirateRachel]

your dining report is so good, thanks for sharing!

 

[Vernie822]

Loving your dining report! I have always wanted to eat at R&C, especially for the fish and chips. Looks like we will need to try it sometime!

Tusker House is a great buffet IMO. I loved it when we were there but I TOTALLY see what you mean about the craziness and fast pace of that restaurant. Especially sitting in the aisle way with your little one trying to meet the characters - chaos!

All of your AK snacks sound so delicious.. I think I will have to try the Captain/Coke slushie.

You guys did the Deluxe DDP, right!? I know you said that's the way you like to vacation.. we're trying it for the first time next month. We have only done the regular one once. Last trip we were there for 8 days and I did the gift card method of putting $100ish on gift cards per day. Well we went over by about $200 which wasn't a big deal, but like you said seeing those receipts is stressful. I try not to look at prices on the menu but I know for a fact if I'm on the DDP I won't care one bit how expensive an entree is!