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

[ariane37]

Just found your dining report We did HDDR a couple years ago and both my boys loved it! We found the food to be good; I'm not a big fan of ribs or fried chicken, but I could've eaten the cornbread and strawberry shortcake all night

Good to see a positive review of San Angel, it's making me want to book it for our Nov. trip. DH and I were thinking of trying it on our adults only trip last Jan. but ended up cancelling because of mixed reviews. Your food sounds awesome though!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

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!

Yep we were on the deluxe! I actually calculated it out this afternoon just based on menu prices and tax and we came out about $300 ahead of what we paid for it. It definitely works for us, but I'm sure there are some naysayers about it.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

Just found your dining report We did HDDR a couple years ago and both my boys loved it! We found the food to be good; I'm not a big fan of ribs or fried chicken, but I could've eaten the cornbread and strawberry shortcake all night

Good to see a positive review of San Angel, it's making me want to book it for our Nov. trip. DH and I were thinking of trying it on our adults only trip last Jan. but ended up cancelling because of mixed reviews. Your food sounds awesome though!

Yes do San Angel! I'm starving and sure wish I had that queso stuff now! I actually emailed guest relations yesterday to tell them how wonderful our server was.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

your dining report is so good, thanks for sharing!

Thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying it next time there will be pictures!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

Where we left off, my crew was headed to Kidani village for dinner at Sanaa! We arrived a few minutes before restaurant opened and enjoyed walking around outside and looking at the animals. We were seated right at 5:00 for our 5:15reservation.The restaurant was beautiful, and I loved the big windows. It appeared that the resort fed the animals about this time and the animals were grazing right outside! The baby loved this and played peek a boo with some large bird that walked right up to the window. I wish I could figure out how to upload pictures because I have some precious ones! (DH would not be fond of me putting him on the internet thought...)We started with the bread service. I was surprised to learn that you get all the sauces when you are on DDP. Score! This was a great start to our meal and I'm pleased to report that we ate all of it! My favorites were the garlic and jalapeno sauces. The naan bread was unlike anything I've ever had before. It was like lighter pita bread that had been flash fried maybe. We also ordered the salad sampler. This was served with three different small salads. The first had chickpeas cucumber and tomato. It was good, but all three of these salads lacked any type of seasoning. The second had watermelon in it. Again, it was refreshing. But, there was very little seasoning. The final salad had beets in it, and it was very crunchy. This was was definitely my favorite. I liked the coolness of the salads paired with the heat in some of the sauces from the bread service. But, I probably would not order this again.For dinner, my husband and I decided to order two of the Potjie entrees. I ordered the butter chicken and the spicy durban shrimp with the basmati rice. Our waiter warned us that the shrimp was very hot and the spice lingered. He was for sure accurate. Being from South Louisiana we are very accustomed to spicy food. This spice was a different type of heat. I would recommend you stay away from it if you have any sensitivity to spice at all. I was surprised that the shrimp was very fresh. They were also pretty large. I usually avoid shellfish when we travel outside of Louisiana because nothing compares to the freshness we have here. But, Disney has become the exception (well and those big steamed crab legs when we go to the beach !
The butter chicken was something that I saw a lot of reviews about on here. Honestly, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. The chicken was boneless and served in sauce that did not have a lot of flavor. Of course, maybe it just couldn't stand up next to the spice in the shrimp. The chicken was cooked very well and tender. It would be a great choice for picky eaters.
DH ordered the braised beef and coconut milk seasonal vegetables. I believe the vegetables were lima beams. They were not memorable in any way. The beef was nice and very tender. It was in a red tomato sauce.
I believe I had two glass of pinot grigio as we watched the animals graze and picked at our food.
Overall, we loved bread service and the view. We skipped dessert because we were stuffed.
I know I'm going to get a ton of flack for this, but I really just didn't understand what all the fuss was about with the rest of our meal. It is somewhere we would go back to, but I'm not going to make it a priority like it was this trip. DH thinks we should have ordered the steak and lamb instead. Who knows...
Up next- a quick breakfast at pepper market and Skipper Canteen for lunch! Also the title of my report is explained finally!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

I just realized I totally left the baby off of my last review. We can't let that happen! He loved the naan bread. He also has a weird obsession with tomatoes so he ate a lot of the salad. He also ate some rice and a piece of beef I believe. The way we ordered it was super easy to let him try all the different entrees etc.

 

[OasterP]

Definitely enjoying your review! This is the first time we will have a "free" child but she doesn't eat anything yet We will see in two months!
Love so many of the places you visited. If I ever go on a single trip or one with a bunch of girls, I plan to try some more interesting places. With my picky husband, our choices are limited

I get what you are saying about the Dining plan. I always say it's not worth it for what I eat, and financially it's not, but this trip we won't have it, and I already found myself looking for the cheapest places to eat. So yeah...with it I'm paying more, but get more interesting choices!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

Definitely enjoying your review! This is the first time we will have a "free" child but she doesn't eat anything yet We will see in two months!
Love so many of the places you visited. If I ever go on a single trip or one with a bunch of girls, I plan to try some more interesting places. With my picky husband, our choices are limited

I get what you are saying about the Dining plan. I always say it's not worth it for what I eat, and financially it's not, but this trip we won't have it, and I already found myself looking for the cheapest places to eat. So yeah...with it I'm paying more, but get more interesting choices!

Enjoy your trip with your little one!! I'm so glad we made those memories.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

The next morning we had an early date with Hollywood Studios! We intentionally skipped HS on our last trip, and I was excited to see Launch Bay and the park for the firs time since I was 11. The baby really likes Star Wars even though he has only seen snippets of it when we had a viewing marathon one weekend. He calls Darth Vader "VaVa" whenever he sees him on tv and sings the imperial march song. We had a great meeting with Chewy and enjoyed a few other attractions. We met Kylo Ren and the baby had a darth Vader sweater on. Well Kylo Ren immediately picked up on that and pointed at his chest and said "the spark is strong with this one." Hence the title of this dining report. The pictures from this are hilarious because you can tell the baby really wants to interact with him, but he's a little scared of him at the same time. I don't blame him at all the way he moves so methodically is a little scary!

BUT, I know y'all are just here for the food though so lets get to it!!That morning we ate a pepper market. Nothing new to report since we had the exact same entrees as our first visit. We ordered the baby a fruit cup as a snack credit and let him eat bacon and hash browns off my plate which was plenty for him. We got to HS pre-rope drop and stayed a few hours. By 11:30 we were ready to hit another park. I originally had an Epcot meal scheduled for this day at San Angel. But, when we got to WDW on Monday DH decided that he didn't want to eat Nine Dragons on Tuesday right after dinner at Morimoto. So we cancelled nine dragons and moved San Angel up to Tuesday lunch. This was a smart move (but don't tell DH I said so . We decided to hit the Magic Kingdom for a few hours so I pulled up the MDE app to see what was available. I was looking for Tony's or the Plaza. We hadn't tried either. I know neither one gets stellar reviews, but we wanted to do a sit down meal. Well, I was pleasingly surprised to see a reservation at 1:20 for Skipper Canteen. This was a place I really wanted to try and somehow in all the hustle I completely forgot they were taking same day reservations. We switched around our fast passes and rode Jungle Cruise right before our meal. We arrived a little before 1:20 and were seated within five minutes. The restaurant is beautiful especially the bathrooms! I had been eyeing the menu since it opened, but I made a game time decision that was ultimately my demise. I ordered the hot and sour soup and the head on shrimp. DH had the Baladi salad and the char siu pork.The hot and sour soup had a good amount of spice to it which I really liked. However, again someone with a spice sensitivity should steer clear of this dish. The soup had ALOT of tofu in it. I'm not the biggest fan of tofu, but I know it is served in hot and sour soup so I was put off by it. I just ate around it. This was a nice size portion and the soup had a nice rich flavor.The shrimp was a little of a disappointment. I really should stick to my guns about not ordering seafood when we travel, but I didn't want something super heavy so I thought this was a good option. The shrimp were a good size. The body was peeled, but the head was left on. There were only five shrimp on the place which is a small entree in my opinion. I had the white rice which was unflavorful and the Chinese broccoli. My biggest complaint about the dish is I think the shrimp were marinated a little too long. They had a little bit of a mushy texture. I know when i make kaboobs I barely let the shrimp marinate to prevent this.. I would not recommend this dish.DH really liked his salad. He said the dressing was tart. But, he liked it so much that our waitress brought him some more on the side. Oh BTW our waitress was fabulous. Our appetizers took a loonnggg time to come out, but she was aware of the situation and it was clear that it was a kitchen issue. I don't remember her being "in character." But, honestly I didn't mind one bit. I didn't go in expecting a show. The CM who walked us to our table was very much in character to the point that it was a little excessive for me.DH really liked the pork. I tasted a bite, and it did have a good flavor.We ordered the baby the kids mac n cheese without the meat. He didn't touch it, but I chalk this up to him being almost two and not because it wasn't good. I ate almost all of it. Who can resist straight bechamel sauce! I would like to try it with the meat though. To me it tasted like pasta alfredo so I think some parents with non-reading children could totally sneak this by them as pasta alfredo I know I mentioned on another post that SC was very accommodating with kids, and this really seemed to be the case. Our waitress had the manager come out to see if we could swap a dessert for a side for the baby. However, they did not have fries which is what I was going to order him. The manager explained that most kids really liked the mac n cheese without the meat so we went with that. I also saw a little girl next to us with chicken nuggets and french fries. I don't know if she had an allergy issue, but it looked like maybe they were offering this as well for picky eater.Now on to the absolute best part of this meal... dessert!!! I would come back to SC just for this dessert. We had the kungaloosh which is chocolate cake with a caramelized banana, caramel ice cream and coffee dust. I did not get a strong coffee flavor from this dish which i liked. The ice cream was phenomenal. I could have eaten a bowl of that stuff. The caramelized banana was perfectly done, and I didn't let DH try any of it oops!! The chocolate cake was nice and moist with a very good flavor. This was by far the best dessert we had on our entire trip.All in all, I liked the atmosphere of SC. It was nice to have a laid back meal in the MK. Service was slow though so it ate up about an hour and a half of our day. I loved my soup and dessert. I would definitely try a different entree and steer clear of the shrimp. I think we will give this place another shot on our next trip at least just for that dessert!

 

[pumba]

great reviews...thanks for taking the time to do this

 

[Jgeauxmo]

After we ate at skipper canteen we hit a few rides and the baby took a two hour nap! Score one for the good guys! I think we hit almost every gift shop in magic kingdom while the baby napped. We even rode haunted mansion with him in my arms. I also got a lefous brew which I absolutely loved. It was very sweet but I was prepared for it. I really liked the toasted marshmallow taste paired with the frozen Apple juice. We had a late reservation at 8:15 for CRT. I had never been inside the castle so I was excited to see it. We were able to watch the Main Street electrical parade from the front of the castle while we waited. We went inside a little after 8:15.
This is kind of where our dinner went downhill. We waited almost 45 minutes to be taken upstairs. When we sat down the fireworks were going off which was nice to see. We immediately ordered. The waitress was so nice about our wait and brought the baby a fruit and cheese cup at no charge. She also asked if he could have chicken nuggets which we wouldn't be charged for. I think she saw my frustration with our wait.
I ordered the cheese plate. This was the worst dish I had of the entire trip. The cheese was almost
Completely dried out and there was maybe a pea size bite of jam on the plate. The bread was also horribly dry. DH had the salad which was good but not memorable.
For our entrees we both had the steak and shrimp. Unlike my shrimp at lunch, these were the perfect texture. The filet was cooked to the perfect temperature and very good. I had no complaints with our entree other than I was starving and could have eaten two or three
For dessert I had the signature chocolate cake. I was so dry I couldn't eat it. DH had the Gus and jack mouse. It was ok but very bland.
This is a restaurant we will be skipping in the future. While the filet was good, we can a good filet elsewhere. It was not worth the hassle or subpar appetizers and desserts.

Up next...our last day and a return to really good food!!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

great reviews...thanks for taking the time to do this

Thanks! I've really enjoyed reliving our trip and it helped with the Disney withdrawal symptoms lol next time I'll sneak some pictures!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading, but I'm determined to finish this dining report so I can have it for our memory book. Our last day started with breakfast at Ohana. This was a first for all of us. We had some trouble getting a magic kingdom bus I fact it took almost an hour for one to arrive full! We ended up taking a bus to hs then taking a bus from there to the poly. I wish we would have done this sooner. Although we loved csr and staying in the cabanas, I did not like how we could never get a bus to magic kingdom in the morning. I guess you love and learn.
When we got to Ohana we only waited about ten minutes then sat down. I loved how quiet this restaurant was for a character meal and we had a great view of the castle.
Fruit came first and the baby immediately picked out all the raspberries. Our server was great and got him a bowl of just raspberries. Our food arrived hot. The eggs were scrambled and nice and fluffy. The sausage was in links and very flavorful. Even the standard home fries tasted better here. It was served with waffles and biscuits which the baby ate a lot of. Overall we loved the slower pace of this restaurant and the food was really good. The character interaction was all pretty good except Lilo who was in a major hurry. After the debacle at TH earlier in the week, I think this has become our new favorite character breakfast!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

We didn't have an add for lunch for our last day and we needed to use a bunch of snack credits. Dh had the beef noodle bowl from the qs restaurant in the China pavilion. It was done really well with a boiled egg, spinach I believe, broth and noodles of course. I presume it has beef as well but I didn't get a piece. This is one of the only thing dh wants every time we go to wdw.. I think it's a weird request but it makes him happy! I had an order of egg rolls with a snack credit while we relaxed. The baby ate half of one as well. I'm pretty excited at what a good eater he is turning out to be.
We then went to England and got fish and chips to split. I mostly wanted to get it so the baby could have lunch. Now, our waiter told us this was the same fish served at Rose and Crown earlier in the week. It was definitely not battered the same and was way more greasy. It was still good, but j think Rose and Crown has me spoiled.
We went to Germany and used a bunch of snack credits on a caramel apple, two bags of caramel corn, a cookie and a bacon caramel candy. I was able to switch our one of our unused ts credits for three snacks here. We were on deluxe so there was no differentiation between ts and qs credits. This wasn't a great value, but I'm really glad they were still used. Also, we still came out ahead on the dining plan so I'm happy with it.
We also had several adult beverages while the baby took his afternoon nap. We started by splitting a gran mariner slush. I really liked this but I prefer the grey goose citron one. We also has the sparkling sake from Japan. I loved this!! It has the sake flavor but obviously sparkling like champagne. This went straight to my head. Later in the evening I had a glass of Chardonnay from the cart in Norway before we hit some rides in future world. I had to say it sure makes journey into your imagination better!!
Up next our final meal at WDW

 

[OasterP]

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading, but I'm determined to finish this dining report so I can have it for our memory book. Our last day started with breakfast at Ohana. This was a first for all of us. We had some trouble getting a magic kingdom bus I fact it took almost an hour for one to arrive full! We ended up taking a bus to hs then taking a bus from there to the poly. I wish we would have done this sooner. Although we loved csr and staying in the cabanas, I did not like how we could never get a bus to magic kingdom in the morning. I guess you love and learn.
When we got to Ohana we only waited about ten minutes then sat down. I loved how quiet this restaurant was for a character meal and we had a great view of the castle.
Fruit came first and the baby immediately picked out all the raspberries. Our server was great and got him a bowl of just raspberries. Our food arrived hot. The eggs were scrambled and nice and fluffy. The sausage was in links and very flavorful. Even the standard home fries tasted better here. It was served with waffles and biscuits which the baby ate a lot of. Overall we loved the slower pace of this restaurant and the food was really good. The character interaction was all pretty good except Lilo who was in a major hurry. After the debacle at TH earlier in the week, I think this has become our new favorite character breakfast!

I'm still reading! I think I would have been a bit annoyed if they told me that they didn't have fries and then they showed up on someone else's meal. Either way - it seems like you had some amazing meals! That's a bummer you didn't have a great experience at the castle - I loved that one. I can see how it could get extremely rushed though.

Thanks for the review!

 

[Jgeauxmo]

I'm still reading! I think I would have been a bit annoyed if they told me that they didn't have fries and then they showed up on someone else's meal. Either way - it seems like you had some amazing meals! That's a bummer you didn't have a great experience at the castle - I loved that one. I can see how it could get extremely rushed though.

Thanks for the review!

You know the thought never crossed my mind about the fries! I'm going to chalk it up to the little girl had some kind of food allergy.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

For our last meal, we ate at Via Napoli. Wow! Was I surprised by the food quality at this restaurant. I'm not a pizza connoisseur by any means. To be honest, I wasn't really fired up for this restaurant. But, DH picked it last minute after I cancelled our Brown Derby reservation. We shared the calamari appetizer which was your standard fried calamari. It was very good, but nothing different than you get at any other Italian restaurant. I also had the caprese salad. The mozzarella was outstanding! The baby had the kids meatballs and spaghetti. He actually ate it which I was shocked about because he isn't crazy about red sauce. The meatball was very moist and had a good flavor. DH actually commented that it tasted alot like my homemade meatballs. I think we had the baby worn out by this point in our trip. We took our time and relaxed at this meal and we were there almost two hours. He happily sat there and colored for about an hour then watched a little Mickey on his kindle. We didn't hear a peep from him the entire meal.For our main course we split two individual pizzas. We had the quattro formaggi which is a four cheese pizza. OMG! This may be one of the best dishes we had the entire trip. I loved the blend of cheese. They paired perfectly together. I ordered the Capricciosa which has eggplant artichokes cotto ham and mushrooms. This was also very good although I didn't feel like the toppings stuck to the crust enough if that makes any sense. For dessert we had pistachio gelato and tiramisu. The gelato was out of this world. It had a stronger pistachio taste than regular pistachio ice cream and it was rich and just perfect. The tiramisu was a huge portion. I felt bad for only taking a couple of bites of it. The texture was great and it had a good flavor. I was just stuffed!I also had a white wine that was on a "special" where you received a half caraffe for $16. I thought this was a bargain for disney world. I also had a champagne at the end of dinner that was recommended by our waitress which was outstanding.Overall, I am very happy we cancelled our Brown Derby reservation to try this place out. It actually will be one of the few places that we are repeating this November. Yes! We are going back the last week of November. I just booked this week. Thanks for reading along on my first food report. It was fun reliving our trip!

 

[suse66]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful reviews. I am so tempted to try Skipper's Canteen now based on your review of the dessert alone! Like you, I am in the midst of planning a return trip (going solo in August to celebrate my 50th!). Did you upgrade to an annual pass? I did, it was a good savings as opposed to buying a new ticket for my bday trip.

 

[Jgeauxmo]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful reviews. I am so tempted to try Skipper's Canteen now based on your review of the dessert alone! Like you, I am in the midst of planning a return trip (going solo in August to celebrate my 50th!). Did you upgrade to an annual pass? I did, it was a good savings as opposed to buying a new ticket for my bday trip.

We are thinking about it. I need to research it more. We are going to have my mil with us and I'm not sure what that would do to our myw package. Plus our lo just turned two and I thought I saw that you couldn't get one until three?

 

[ariane37]

The butter chicken was something that I saw a lot of reviews about on here. Honestly, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about

I know I'm going back a bit here with the Sanaa review but I just had to say I'm sorry you weren't thrilled with your meal there. We've been to Sanaa 3x and I've ordered the buttered chicken every time, I love it! But to each his own and that's the beauty of Disney There's something for everyone

We also had several adult beverages while the baby took his afternoon nap

We started by splitting a gran mariner slush. I really liked this but I prefer the grey goose citron one.

I prefer the grey goose slush to any drink in WDW, or the rest of the world for that matter

We LOVE Via Napoli! Unfortunately when we ate there last Nov. I was still getting over the stupid stomach virus that had ruined Thanksgiving for me the day before I had felt pretty good during the day, started feeling crappy again shortly before our ADR, ordered what I wanted anyway and then by the time the food came - no way. So I'm debating booking there again this Nov. But I'm glad you guys enjoyed it so much!

Speaking of this Nov. are you guys going the week of Thanksgiving or the week after?