There is no WAY we could have eaten it all-FINISHED!!!!

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

After dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe, we walked through the lobby to see this:

Way bigger and better than the one that we saw in Epcot a couple days earlier! My daughter was drooling all over herself.

They were selling things out of this one as well, but we didn't get in line to see what it was, we were all still too stuffed from dinner to even think about more food.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Day 6 was a little chillier. As we left the hotel, I grabbed my jacket and told the monkeys to grab theirs. Only the youngest did. The others just stuck their heads outside and swore it "wasn't that cold." By the time we were in the parking lot, I noticed my daughter was rubbing her arms. I told her to run back and get a jacket for crying out loud! Again, she swore she didn't need it. I looked right at her and firstborn and said "Do you see this jacket?" (pointing to the one I was wearing) "It's mine and I plan to keep it on. I'm not going to give it to you just because one of you gets cold and I'm not going to come back and get you a jacket if you change your mind!" DD ran back to the hotel room and grabbed a jacket, DS1 stubbornly got in the car without one, he swore he wasn't cold.

By the time we parked at MK and got on the ferry, he had finally realized it was cold. He was huddled against my back and shivering on the boat ride over. Shortly after we entered the park, he told me he was cold and asked if I would I please drive him back to the hotel to get his jacket? He must have known he was on thin ice, I just raised one eyebrow and he said "Sorry! Sorry! You were right! I'll listen next time!!"

No, I didn't drive him back to the hotel- I knew it would be warming up soon. (I checked the weather every day) But I did feel sorry enough for him that I took them in here:

I could see the line was already nice and long, so that would mean some decent time indoors to thaw out, so I made some impromptu breakfast plans. No one was that hungry when we first got in line, but the smell of all those fresh baked piles of yumminess changed their minds. Since we were on the dinning plan, a meal was a pastry or bagel, a fresh fruit and a drink. I was a little disappointed since I had wanted to get an Egg, Ham, and Cheese Croissant, but oh well.

We got two of the famous cinnamon rolls, two oranges and two hot chocolates. There wasn't a single empty seat to be had inside- so back out we went. (I made sure we found a seat in the sun.)
The hot chocolate was a big hit. It came VERY hot, so we weren't able to drink it right away, but that's ok, it made a wonderful hand warmer while we waited. It was good, 8/10.

The cinnamon roll was large gooey and sweet. Perfect for little monkeys like mine, but a bit overly sweet for me- I mostly stuck with one of the oranges. 9/10 from the monkeys, 7/10 from me.

And for the first time this trip, we finished all our food!! Of course we had only ordered two meals for the four of us, but it was the perfect amount. We all felt satisfied without feeling stuffed.

While we were there we got a visit from this little family:

The first ride we went on after breakfast was Stitch's Great Escape. (DS2's favorite character) By the time we got off that it had warmed up plenty and all was well.


BTW, twice since this vacation we have gone somewhere and I told the monkeys to get their coats/jackets and DS1 gave me that line about not needing one. I just gave him a slowly raised eyebrow and both times he apologized and went back to get one. Lesson learned.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

For lunch on day 6, we had an ADR for Liberty Tree Tavern. My Dad was eating with us and I picked it for his sake, he's into colonial type stuff and I thought it would be fun for him.

We showed up right around prime dinning time and there were lots of people trying to get in. From what I overheard, I think some of them were turned away. Thank goodness we had ADRs.

Before I start in on the food, I noticed something weird about the drinks. My youngest thought the hot chocolate from that morning was so good, he ordered another one for lunch. They brought him a mug of hot water and a packet of hot cocoa, he had to mix it up himself. It was Carnation, the same stuff you see in the grocery stores all the time. I've never seen that before in a restaurant. I'm sure there are plenty of others who use those packets, but it always comes out premixed. Now, take a look at the size of the glass:

It's a good sized mug and they only gave him one packet so it turned out much too watery. We had to ask for a second packet. As for my drink- at most of the other restaurants, I had ordered bottled water and they always brought me these nice big bottles of Evian. Here they brought me this tiny little bottle I had finished in no time. Odd. But on to the food-

Dad got the Pilgrims Feast:

While he ate it all, he didn't seem to love it. He said the gravy was a little too cold and the turkey a little bit dry. But again, he did eat it all so it couldn't have been TOO dry...
6/10 from Dad.

My daughter got (drum roll please................) the pasta!

She is not a mushroom fan and so she ordered this without the mushrooms. She was quite happy with it. I was too, I had some of this and would order it for myself. The chicken was moist and well seasoned and the pasta was cooked perfectly.
9/10 from me, 10/10 from my daughter.

The youngest got the pot roast:

And he was incredibly happy with this dish. When I make pot roast, I usually do it in a crock pot and I cube my veggies (including the potatoes) and throw them in to cook with the meat. These potatoes were mashed and he LOVED having it served that way instead of the chunks of potatoes he gets with mine. He was talking about how good it was that way, how much he liked the gravy and that he wished we could have it that way at home. It must have suddenly struck him that I might be offended because he suddenly turned bright red and then started apologizing to me. I let him know that I had absolutely NO problem with him comparing my food to anything made by trained chefs and I wasn't bothered in the least. I told him I agreed with him that it was a very tasty dish. I thought it was cute he was worried about that.
10/10 from him

The oldest monkey got a hamburger:

The menu said you could order with with bacon and cheddar OR mushrooms and provolone. After he saw his sister make a special request when ordering, he decided to shake things up. He asked for bacon and provolone and was beaming ear to ear when the waitress said he could have that. Seriously, it was downright cute how tickled pink he was to get a special request.
Over all, it was a standard burger and fries. Well cooked though. He gave it a 7/10

I got the Tri Corner sandwich

It came with fries, soup or fruit and as you can see, I got the soup. To be honest, I was so busy eating my daughters pasta and my sons pot roast, I didn't end up touching my sandwich. (BTW, that was a big sandwich!) I did eat my soup and it was ok, but nothing I would have ordered again- not when I was enjoying my kids dishes so much. I actually ended up packaging the sandwich to go. My aunts and cousins were in the park that day and they had no lunch scheduled. When I realized my sandwich might not be eaten, I texted to ask if anyone was interested and they told me to bring whatever extra food we had.
6/10 from me (but I'm rating the soup only since I didn't try the sandwich.)

Dessert was next! The youngest two got Martha Washingtons cake:

Now, this is a chocolate cake with coffee/chocolate flavored icing. I don't think they or I read the menu closely enough, if I had, I would have steered them another way as they do not like the way coffee tastes. My kids both had one bite and declared it was 'burnt' and wouldn't eat anymore. DS2 did eat all the blueberries on his. (My aunts had the cake later on and enjoyed it)
2/10 from my daughter, 4/10 from my son.

Dad got the fruit crisp

He liked this very much and so did my daughter. He was more than happy to share with her, and between the two of them, they polished this off.
8/10 from both.

The firstborn and I both got the Ooey gooey toffee cake

Now, while I can see what all the fuss is about, I will say a little goes a long way. Yes, it's good, but it's SWEET and I think it's a dish best shared. Lucky for me, I had my youngest monkey to split this with since he hadn't liked his own dessert.
8/10 from me and DS2
10/10 from DS1 (who has noooo problem with super sweet!)

When we left we had two halves of a very large sandwich, a big pile of fries, some pasta and two slices of cake. Now to find my two aunts! They ended up getting full from that and never bothered getting their own lunch.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Liberty Tree Tavern had it's own version of gingerbread house. It was a little seaside village made from an assortment of edible items, gingerbread, rice crispie treats, rock candy, chocolate, powdered sugar, gelatin, ect. (the people and embellishments were not edible.)

And I also noticed that the citrus on their lobby tree was real. My daughter even squeezed one to confirm it when I pointed that out. I was surprised because the other trees in the park with oranges on them were all fake.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Dinner on day 6 at Pinocchio Village Haus, but before I get into that, let me say how much FUN it was to spend the afternoon/evening in a large group. We spent the rest of the day with my dad, two aunts, two cousins and my ALMOST cousin in law. Everyone but my cousin knew that her boyfriend planned to propose to her down in WDW.

It was fun being in on the secret.

Anyway, we all had dinner at PVH, but were so busy having fun, we didn't take any pictures at all.

We got two pepperoni flatbreads and one cheese flatbread. I believe these came with side salads, but I don't have any pictures to back that up. Between the rest of the relatives we were with, we also got two salads (not the sides), chicken nuggets and another pizza. I did not order a fourth meal my family as I was too full from lunch still and was planning to share. However, when the trays of food came and we got everything all passed out, we realized we had an extra meatball sub that no one ordered. DS1 ran it up to the front to let them know and they said to keep it if we wanted it and throw it away if we didn't. So I ate some of that.

Pizza- 8/10 (note- we are rating this as a fast food pizza, not comparing it to a table service restaurant.)
Sub- 6/10

For dessert, we had ordered three gelatos. (no extras there, dang it.) We got two chocolate and one mango. YUM! So much better than the pre-packaged cakes at some of the QS places.

We loved the decor and the location of this place. It was fun to see the ride going by. The food was decent and we probably would go back. I see that they now have chicken pizza as well.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Now up until this point we hadn't had used very many of our snack credits, other than the first day in Epcot where the kids had a break down....

But on day six we were having so much fun that we stayed at MK as long as we could- until they kicked us out. So they monkeys got hungry enough for snacks.

Firstborn got this:

And liked it so much that he got a couple more right before we left as souvenirs for his cousins back home.
9/10 from him (and later, his cousins back home also gave their approval!)

On a side note, do you see how close he cuts his fingernails? I'm always on his case about it, I'm worried he'll damage his nail beds. Darn stubborn monkey thinks that if his nails are long at all, he'll look like a girl... That's also his thumb top-left in the picture below.


DD and I split this:

So stinking cute! I'd buy it again just for it's looks! Luckily it was also yummy! Toasty warm, the right amount of salt and it was nice and soft inside.

The youngest got this:

And was completely thrilled with it. He ending up getting another a couple days later.

 

[WDWaddictt]

Hi I am joining in, especially after reading your review about Le Chefs. The laughing and belching had me laughing out loud, so much like my family. I try to be strick about the behavior but it doesn't always work out. Sorry for your experience with the waiter and handler for Remi. I am going here in our upcoming trip, hopefully it is better

 

[nicole0992]

I just found your reviews tonight and have read them all in one sitting. Looking forward to more! Your pictures are great and love hearing about the adventures of your monkeys.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Hi I am joining in, especially after reading your review about Le Chefs. The laughing and belching had me laughing out loud, so much like my family. I try to be strick about the behavior but it doesn't always work out. Sorry for your experience with the waiter and handler for Remi. I am going here in our upcoming trip, hopefully it is better

Oh, I wasn't disappointed in the waiter, he was a decent waiter. The thing with the lost card was just a fluke and more amusing/weird then stressful. I actually felt sorry for him. He looked so confused at first and then stressed when he couldn't find it right away. Besides, let's face it, everything that happened that night sure made for a better story to tell on Disboards!

That handler was a different story. He was rude IMO, but I'll willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was just having a bad day. Heaven knows we all have them! Perhaps he's normally perfectly charming?

I hope you and your family have a wonderful time!

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

I just found your reviews tonight and have read them all in one sitting. Looking forward to more! Your pictures are great and love hearing about the adventures of your monkeys.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

Thanks Nicole! It's always good to hear.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

On day seven we were in Disney Studios.
Before I jump right in, do you remember that bag of cotton candy the youngest monkey got the night before? He had only eaten about a third of it at this point and when we left the hotel room, he brought it with him. I suggested he leave it behind but he gave me this horrified look and clutched it his chest. That got a giggle out of me, so he milked it further. He covered up Dumbo's ears and said in a very serious voice "Mom! Don't say such a thing about Dumbo. A Disney soldier never leaves a man behind!"

So off we go with the cotton candy in hand. We had TWO different cast members mention it when we got to the park. We arrived shortly after it opened for the day- I don't remember what time that was, but I got: "Wow! Cotton Candy for breakfast? My mom never let me have anything like that." and "Hey mom, isn't it a bit early to buy them that much sugar?"
I didn't mind, but after the second comment, DS2 got a little bit indignant on my behalf. He shot back "Hey! She's a good mom and she bought this for me last night!"

He actually didn't start eating it until later on. But seeing as how we had left over desserts for breakfast a couple times on this trip, it wouldn't have been terribly shocking if he had..

Onto the food! We had lunch at the 50s Prime Time. I really liked the decor, it really felt like you were going back in time walking in there. Now, I'll be perfectly frank here and say that the food is not the biggest draw here, it's the atmosphere that really did it for us. I suppose if you got a 'bad' waiter, this wouldn't be the best dining experience, but we got a great one. We had "Mom" and she did a fantastic job! Here she is sitting by my dad. She hollered at him to 'scoot over!' and then plopped down to take a load off. She explained the menu in between talking about her long day and complaining about how we never call or send her mothers day cards. All the monkeys were giggling nonstop at this behavior.

After we ordered food, she gave us a homework assignment and my dad pulled out his iphone to look something up. DS1 warned him that was 'cheating'- and that Mom had told us not to cheat. But he didn't listen and was caught. Mom took away his iphone and scolded him in front of the entire place. I don't think his grandkids could have laughed any harder!

This place let you order specialty drinks on the dinning plan, and I knew I'd be getting the PBJ shake. I'd read about it on disboards.

Yup, this shake is everything I read about. The monkeys agreed and couldn't keep their hands off it. Good thing they gave me extra in that silver thing! DD got a shake as well. She went for chocolate, which was ok, but not nearly as good as mine.

DS1 got a root beer float. He drank it all, but liked mine better. He kept begging me to trade with him, but I held my ground!

And DS2 got a berry smoothie. He said he liked it, but he had less than half- because he was full from stealing my shake!

I don't remember what my dad ordered to drink, I don't seem to have pictures of anything for him.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

The food here is home cooked style food and maybe a tad on the generic side. They monkeys all say it reminded them of my cooking. (I'll take it that as a compliment though.) My father and daughter both got the chicken.

My daughter said she liked it but she didn't eat very much. She mostly had her potatoes. My dad at most of his and then helped her with her veggies when I warned them that we might get in trouble if we didn't.
7/10 from her, 8/10 from dad.

DS1 and I both got the sampler:

This was OK, for veggies I had collard greens, green beans and carrots. I did make sure to eat all my veggies and I liked them. I thought my meatloaf was a tad on the dry side and so I ate it with mash potatoes smeared on top. The chicken was exactly what fried chicken should taste like- but since I don't like fried chicken that much I just picked at it. The pot roast was the biggest disappointment for me, I only had a tiny amount on the plate, but it was pretty darn fatty.
DS1 ate all his meatloaf and most of his chicken. I don't remember what he thought of the pot roast. I warned the monkeys that 'Mom' might get upset if we didn't eat our veggies (it also says so on the menu!) But he wouldn't even TRY his collard greens and he didn't have very many green beans. We saw someone get put in time out by their waiter for not eating his veggies, and we were all eager to see what would happen to DS1, but nothing ever did. Sigh. Oh well, he tried.
I gave this dish a 6/10 and DS1 gave it a 7/10

The youngest monkey got the pot roast.

Now, in defense of the pot roast- he loved his dish. He did say it wasn't as good as the pot roast at Liberty Tree Tavern, but he was enjoying it so much that I tried some of his. Well mine might have been fatty and unpleasant, but his was quite tasty and I can see why he liked it so much.
9/10 from him.

When mom came back to check on us, my dad had his elbows on the table and got a scolding for it. (teehee) And while she was worked up, she noticed that DS2 had spilled some of his gravy on the table. Instead of making DS2 clean it up, she made my dad do it, which made it even funnier. (We loved Mom as a server)

For dessert, I honestly don't remember who ordered what because we just kept passing them around the table and we all tried some of everything. Nothing was finished because we were all pretty full. (If this was a dinner, we might have gotten them to go, but we still had a long day ahead of his in the park.) Our dessert-tasting-adventure includes caramel sundae, cheesecake, cobbler, s'mores, brownie and parfait.

The picture for the parfait is MIA...Sorry!


Overall, while the food might not have been exactly stellar, but the service sure was and it was so much fun, we would certainly go back!

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Snacks and Pizza Planet- No pictures, sorry!!!


We decided to watch the afternoon parade. While we waited for it to start, we had some snacks from staring rolls. Yum yum, everything looked so tasty I made a mental note to come back there for dinner. We got a carrot cake cookie and two slushie/icee type drinks. The drinks were refreshing but that COOKIE??? My oh my. I need to find the recipe!!! 10/10!

Shortly after the parade, my daughter announced she was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. My dad volunteered to take her and off they went. After we hit a few more rides, I called to see how she was and found out they were still in the park. Did you know they have beds there? She's was off sleeping in one! Crazy, I had no idea. Apparently, there is a whole section for that near the first aid. I don't know exactly what it was like, I wasn't there. But when I called my daughter was sweetly sleeping while my dad was chatting up some interesting couple from Australia while their son napped. In the end, she had nearly a three hour nap. I offered twice to swap with my dad but he said he was fine. So sweet of him to do that.

At dinner time, we went back to Staring Rolls since I had been eyeing somethings from when we stopped on our snack break. It was closed for the day. So then we tried Catalina Eddies- it was closed for the day. We went to the Studio catering company and it was closed too. AGGHHHHH!! It was around 5 when we started looking for dinner, I guess I assumed these places would be open for dinner as well as lunch, but they weren't. By six we finally found Pizza Planet open. I saw some trays of pizza go by and it didn't look very appealing to me, so I ordered two meals for the boys and none for me.
There were only two dessert options- a cappuccino cupcake or a chocolate chip cookie. My monkeys saw the picture of the cupcake and really wanted that until I told them it would taste like the cake they didn't like at Liberty Tree Tavern. I thought this was odd. Pizza Planet would be a place that would appeal to kids more than adults, wouldn't it? So why not have a more kid friendly dessert menu? Or are my kids the only ones that don't like their chocolate tasting like coffee? The cookie was this small prepackaged thing that no one really cared for.

This is one place I would not go back to. It was too loud in there, the pizza was on par with frozen pizza, the salad was wilted the desert options were limited. My dad and daughter showed up half way through dinner and were going to get some food until they took a look at what we had on the table. It didn't look good to them either.

We went on more rides until it was time for Fantasmic. While we were waiting for it to start, my daughter (who didn't get dinner) decides she is hungry so her brothers ran to the snack bar they have there and picked out a few goodies. No pictures of this either, but I believe they got her popcorn and a sprite. She was happy with whatever it was.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

By the time we left Disney Studios, both my dad and I were quite hungry so we stopped at Riverside Mill food court.

Dad got a bacon cheeseburger with fries and I got a sandwich with fresh made chips.

I didn't eat the hamburger, but I'll give my sandwich a 7 and the chips an 8.

While we were in line to get our food, my daughter said her throat hurt, so Dad got an orange juice as his drink for her. He also go a shake- which you can see in the photo above. DS1 kindly ate that for him.
I ordered an apple juice for DD and for my dessert I got DS2 another one of his beloved magic cookie bars.

He was so funny about this. He spent nearly half an hour debating on if he wanted to eat it or save it and take as a souvenir to savor at home. He kept going back and forth on what he wanted to do until his older brother finally snapped, ripped it out of his hand and sliced the dang thing in half with the side of my fork and told him to just 'shut up and eat half now and half later!' DS2 solemnly stared at his cookie for a while and then shrugged and ate half!

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

Day 8- When we woke up my daughter begged to be allowed to go back to sleep, she said she was in no mood to go to the park and that she was just still too tired. I asked if she was sick and if her throat was still hurting her and she said no, she was just tired. I ran to Riverside and got her more juice and fruit and we made plans for her to sleep in and then call when she was ready to join us. I called and told my dad and then left my cell phone with her planned to call her from my dad's cell phone.

As soon as we got there, we went straight to the safari ride. I had read on disboards that the animals are more active earlier in the morning. We passed pizzafari on our way there and they had a menu posted out front that DS1 was interested in. We quickly did the safari and Rafikis planet watch and went back to Pizzafari only to find out they stopped serving breakfast seven minutes before we got there and the cast member taking orders was not going to make an exceptions. The monkeys had been drolling over the thought of food, so we ordered lunch for breakfast.

They picked pizza and the Italian sandwich. I warned them that the pizza would probably taste like the crap from pizza planet, but they got it anyway..

Guess what? It tasted like the pizza they had the night before and didn't really like.
5/10


The good news is the salad here was better, it wasn't wilted.

This got finished right away and both boys gave it an 8/10


My favorite was their sandwich.

Yum, I would order that again. I liked that the meat and cheese got toasty but the salad was not wilted. 8/10
Those chips got thrown in my sons bag and he ate them on the plane ride home the next day.

The deserts reminded me of pudding snack cups that I put in my kid's lunches. I wasn't the biggest fan, but the monkeys sure were!

5/10 from me, 8/10 from the boys.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

This was our last day in the parks and I realize we had a ton of snack credits left on our cards. I started pushing the monkeys to eat more. After we went to see the Lion King- (A-MA-ZING!!!) we got some Mickey bars.

These tasted better than normal because they were shaped like Mickey.
Yup, we'd get them again.

My daughter called to check in and said she still wanted to stay in the hotel. I offered to bring her lunch, but she turned that down and said she just wanted her juice in the fridge. I kept asking if she felt ok and she said she wasn't sick, but I had strong suspicions by now.

We went ahead and ate at Yak and Yeti counter service. We split three meals between us and my Dad. The first was the asian chicken sandwich.

It did not look interesting to me at first, but I really liked it, this was my favorite dish from lunch. Some nearby birds seemed to agree with me.

When I got the food, nearly every table was full, we had to squeeze around a tiny little one in the back of the dining area. (As far as I could see, it was just outdoor seating) Anyway a family near us kept feeding the birds. and yeah, they were feeding them people food. After that family left, the birds came to us for seconds. Sigh. We're not fans of people who do that. My youngest monkey is a BIG animal lover and already knows so much more about most animals than I do. He solemnly told my dad all the reasons you shouldn't give wild animals people food. Half way through the lecture, this struck me as funny (my youngest 'teaching' my dad) and I had to fight back the giggles. Bless his little heart!

Back to the sandwich- yum, 9/10 from me, 7/10 from my monkeys. The chips went in my sons back for later.

Next was the honey chicken-

I had seen people post on disboards about how this dish can be annoying to eat because all the rice is at the bottom and the chicken/sauce is on top. So when I ordered, I just asked for a couple plates and we did this:

This dish had decent flavor in the sauce, but the chicken tasted like it had been kept warm for a while if you know what I mean. That surprised me because this restaruant was packed, so food should have been turned over pretty quick. Maybe they make it in massive batches? I don't know.

6/10 for me, 8/10 for the monkeys.

Our last dish was the orange beef.

This was everyone's least favorite. I don't remember much except I really thought it could have been better. (sorry that's not very helpful!)
I gave it a 5/10 and the boys said it was a 6/10



They have three deserts here and we got one of each-

Chocolate mousse (a little bit better than the pizzafari chocolate desert) 7/10
Banana cream parfait (perfect for monkeys) 7/10
and Frozen lemonade (you can ALMOST see it in the picture!) Nice and refreshing but I must point out that if you take a bite of the other two deserts and THEN have a bite of this, you'll be slapped around by it's tartness....I like tart, I really do, but I don't think going from a sweet desert to a tart one was the best idea...

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

During the afternoon I kept pushing kids to get more snacks so we could use up our credits.

First it was ice cream-

We got two of these, one for both monkeys and since it was a hot day, they enjoyed them quite a bit. Do you see that truck in the background? That's where they got them, isn't it cute? I love the way they painted it.
8/10 from both to them.

When we sat down to watch the parade, I grabbed some more snacks.

I got this for my animal loving youngest son. Since he had now been on the safari ride twice at this point, he couldn't bring himself to eat the elephant. He went for the cupcake and loved it. Since there was coconut on the top, his older brother wouldn't touch the frosting, but did eat some of the cake part and liked it. The elephant went into the bag and came home with us. By now you've probably seen several posts of mine about taking things home. I was worried about it, but everything from the solid chocolate mickey to this elephant survived the trip and looked fine and tasted great back home in Utah. Someone must have sprinkled pixie dust on it all for us.


Next up was a MASSIVE brownie:

Which I got for my oldest, but all he had was a toe print before telling me he was too full from the ice cream, the breakfast/lunch and the lunch/lunch.
This was packed up for the flight home as well but only made it as far as Texas before the monkeys gobbled it up. They liked it.
8/10

Right before we left the park, we stopped at a gift shop and got a bunch of prepackaged snacks. Naturally, those also got packed up and taken home. We got them for the moneys cousins. They had so much fun picking out treats for everyone, I loved hearing them talk about who would like what and which character everyone liked the most.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

At 3:30, my daughter finally called and said she was ready to join us.
Dad said he would go get her since he wanted to change his clothes anyway. So off he went. After he left I realized that he had his cell phone and my daughter had mine and I wasn't sure how we would meet back up. Hmmmm... Not exactly the best plan.

I had told him we had dinner ressie at Boma at 6:30, and I was hoping he just would meet us there if we didn't meet up in Animal Kingdom. That night was the dis party at Harry Potter land and since he had my rental car, I wasn't getting them without them. Once it was time for dinner, the boys and I took the shuttle over to AKL and waited.....and waited....




I had checked in, but since the whole party wasn't there, they didn't seat us. They finally gave our spot away and said we could re-check in when everyone got there. I reached the panic state, but there was nothing I could do. I tried calling my hotel room, but no one was there and the cast members at AKL wouldn't let me call the cell phone numbers since they were long distance numbers.

Finally a little after 7:40 they showed up-dad was clearly stressed and cranky. My dad said he followed the GPS and it took him out to the middle of no where. I tried pointing out that we had followed the GPS that morning to get to Animal Kingdom and since AKL is right next door, he could have taken the same route instead of reprograming it for a different location. I got a VERY dirty look for my efforts. So I did what any good daughter would do. I shut up. Firstborn monkey didn't take the hint though and loudly whined about how we were going to be late for the Harry Potter party. (he got a dirty look too....)

On to dinner. Allow me to present some of the worst photos of the trip. This is a dark hotel! The restaurant was dark too. (in lighting, not in atmosphere) and since our camera is a bit on the pathetic side....well...sorry. Many of these pictures turned out too dark to see. However, I am pleased to have captured a picture of the most expensive strawberry in the world! Prepare to be amazed!

That last plate is my daughters. She ate exactly one thing on it- the biggest strawberry (the one in the back.) It looks nice, right? Dark red and juicy? I keep telling myself that since it was a $36 strawberry....

At this point I asked AGAIN if she was sick and again she told me no. Shaaaw, whatever. I've been a mom too long to believe her. I felt her forehead for fevers- nothing, but I still didn't believe she was well. I made her brother trade me spots so she could sit by me. More about that later.

But Boma's is a great place. I liked the food and overall atmosphere. However, I can see how not everyone will. It's a bit open and loud, so that might not appeal to some. It's also full of flavors that you don't normally taste. (mixed in with some traditionally spiced dishes...but still mostly more exotic.) Now in my opinion, these unusually flavors and spices were a good thing- very good. But my oldest is the kind of person who likes to stick to familar food and he didn't like this place very much. Eat here if you like to be a bit adventurous in your meals. But if you are looking for standard flavors, you might want to skip it.
9/10 from me and the youngest
8/10 from my dad
5/10 from the oldest
My daughter didn't eat enough to vote really...but she did say she liked her strawberry.

 

[AwfullyBigAdventures]

We were NOT late for the Harry Potter party, although we did cut it close. I believe we got there 15 minutes before it started. Since it's not Disney, I wont say much other than we had a BLAST and the butterbeer got tens across the board from the monkeys and I. However, the youngest and I thought the frozen butterbeer was the best and my other two thought the regular butterbeer was the best.

About a half hour before the party ended, DD got a fever. I KNEW it!!!
Poor thing.

By the time she woke up the next morning, she had full on flu symptoms. As we walked on the jetway to board the first plane, she started gagging and almost puked. I've never seen that many people move out of our way as fast as those people did.

Needless to say it was a miserable end to a wonderful vacation. The worst part is that even though I picked seats when I bought the tickets, we didn't get those seats and on the way home we were scattered across the plane. I begged to be sat together but there was no room. In fact, they over booked the plane and had to ask three people to volunteer to stay behind. So my poor little boo had to be sick all by herself from Florida to Texas. She never threw up on the plane, thank goodness, but she still had a rough time. From Texas to Utah there was more room and I was able to get two seats for her and I together.

But all the snacks we brought home for the cousins were big hits and everything got rave reviews from my nieces and nephews. I just wish we could have taken them all with us!

We can't wait to go back and we would certainly consider doing the dinning plan again. It made things so easy for me. I didn't have to carry any money other than what I would need for the tip.

Hope you all had fun reading our reviews and thanks for sticking with me!!!

 

[WDWaddictt]

Glad you had a great trip. Sorry your daughter was sick. It sure is not fun being sick on a Disney vacation.

Your report was great, thanks again for sharing!