We Won't Let A Head Cold Stop Us From Enjoying Disney Dining! Dec 11 Dining COMPLETE!

[jerseytinkerbell]

Hello everyone! Jerseytinkerbell back again for the second time this year! The last time I saw you great people I told you all about my Aug/Sept 2011 trip with my DH, now I'm here to tell you about my Christmastime trip with my dad. This is my dad's first trip to WDW in 22 years. I was 6 years old the last time we were together in the Happiest Place On Earth, so after years of looking at pictures of trips I've taken to WDW with my mom and then my husband, my dad was ready to come back and experience WDW again.

A little background on us and our trip. First there is me, jerseytinkerbell aka Jeri. I am a bit of a WDW junkie/know-it-all. This is my 17th trip to Mickeyland. I am a serious planner, but willing to go with the flow once we are actually on vacation. As far as food goes, I'll try anything and I love almost everything. Except for mustard. NO MUSTARD!

Then there is my dad. This is only his third trip to Disney. He left all the planning to me and trusted me to pick out the best places to eat. He is not very adventurous with food. He's pretty much a meat and potatoes kinda guy.

Here we are together on our first day at the parks.

Now a little bit about our trip. My dad wanted to come down and spend a few days with DH & I on our last trip but didn't really want to mess with the August heat. After DH & I returned from our trip my dad asked me to price out a trip for December for the three of us. I found a great deal with the free meal plan offer. DH couldn't go because he was finishing up a semester at college, but he gave his blessing for me to go without him. Before I knew it I had booked our trip at Pop Century from December 12-16 with an upgrade from quick service dining to the regular dining plan! And as an added bonus my dad offered to pay for the whole trip as a Christmas present! Do I have it good or what?! Oh, and for this trip we traveled by train with Amtrak so I even have some train meal and snack pictures for you as well.

One more thing. As you can tell from the title of this food report there was a very bad head cold on this trip. My poor dad got sick the day before we left and was super sick the whole time. But he's a trooper and really pushed himself to get the most out this trip despite his cold. So, you will see a lot of juice pictures on this trip because I was doing everything I could to not get sick myself.

This was my first trip to Disney at Christmastime and I'm so excited to share it with all of you! Food pics coming up next!

Day 1
Amtrak Club Car-Dinner

Day 2
Magic Kingdom-Snacks
Liberty Tree Tavern-Dinner
Pop Century Food Court-Late Night Snack

Day 3
Pop Century Food Court-Breakfast
Kusafiri Bakery-Snack
Kona Cafe-Dinner
MVMCP-Snacks

Day 4
Pop Century Food Court-Breakfast
La Cantina de San Angel-Lunch
Karamell-Kuche-Snack
Rose & Crown-Dinner

Day 5
Starring Rolls-Breakfast
Sci-Fi Dine In Theater-Dinner
Pop Century Food Court-Late Night Snack

Day 6
Pop Century Food Court-Breakfast
Colombia Harbour House-Lunch
Aloha Isle-Snack
Grand Floridian Gingerbread House-Snacks
Amtrak-Disney Snacks

 

[CRSTEPHE]

Looking forward to your review. Also, would you recommend taking the Amtrak on future trips?

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Looking forward to your review. Also, would you recommend taking the Amtrak on future trips?

Yes, I would definitely recommend Amtrak! Through the advice I got about Amtrak over on the Transportation board I discovered the Amtrak credit card. I applied for it before the trip and was approved and I received enough bonus points after my first purchase to get our tickets for free! Now I'm using my Amtrak card instead of my Disney Visa because I will get more out of the Amtrak points than the Disney points. Now I'm saving up points for a roomette for DH & I for our next trip. Our train ride was about 21 hours. It was long, but we were prepared with snacks and entertainment. I usually drive straight through from Jersey, so it was definitely better than driving. It was also a lot roomier in the coach seats than I thought it would be. I was pretty comfortable the whole trip.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Travel Day! DH dropped off my dad and I at the train station and before I knew it we were out of cold, dreary New Jersey and headed for warm, sunny Florida! Our train left at 5:30pm on Sunday and I had been too nervous to eat dinner before we caught the train, so once we had been on the move for a little while I started to relax and realized I was actually pretty hungry. The dining car on the train looked a little pricey, so we opted for the club car. My dad and I both got a hot dog and a soda and we split a bag of chips.

Well, what can I tell you. It was a microwavable hot dog, Lays potato chips and a Diet Pepsi. At least it felt nice to get out of my seat for a few minutes and sit in the club car and eat. This gourmet feast set my dad back a whopping $14. Oh well, what can you do. Gotta eat some kind of a hot meal when you're traveling for 21 hours. Up next... we finally reach Disney World and get some yummy snacks!

 

[MickeyNicki]

Poor dad! Glad he was able to push through his cold and enjoy his vacation!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Poor dad! Glad he was able to push through his cold and enjoy his vacation!

He really impressed me with how much he did despite being so sick. I ended up getting the same thing he had 2 days after we got back and I was so completly exhausted after a trip to the grocery store that I took a 3 hour nap when I got home! So, if I was that beat after a half an hour I can only imagine how much exhaustion he pushed through on this trip! I give him a lot of credit.

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

It's day 2 of our train journey and after 21 long hours our train pulled into the Orlando train station. Now vacation really starts! We checked in at Pop, grabbed a quick shower and headed off to Magic Kingdom!

At this point it was about 3pm and all we had eaten all day was a prepackaged muffin on the train (which I didn't take a picture of, but trust me, you're not missing anything). We had dinner reservations at LTT at 6:40pm, so we didn't want to eat anything too heavy. My dad didn't want a sweet snack either, so I set off in search of a Mickey soft pretzel.

After walking past a few other food carts I found what I was looking for.

Mickey Soft Pretzel! I know it's just a soft pretzel, but I swear that the Mickey Mouse shape made it taste better. I used our first snack credit of the trip on this little beauty, which was well worth it since the OOP cost would have been $4.50.

My dad and I split the pretzel and we also got a bottle of Diet Coke to split as well.

And since he was sick I stopped and got a cup of ice too. This way I don't have to share his germs along with our drink.

Ahhhh! A Christmas Cup! Too cute! I love everything Christmas! Even paper Disney Christmas cups.

I used a snack credit on our drink too, even though it was only $2.50. 2 snack credits down. 6 to go.

Okay, we really needed that snack. We were getting a little cranky. And by we I mean ME.

After a few rides my dad decided he wanted a little something sweet. He asked me, "Do they sell candy anywhere?" Uh, only in every single store. So, we ducked into a shop and I pointed out all the cute boxes of candy they sell now. He settled on some Snow White themed chocolate nonpareils.

They were pretty darn good too! They were about 4 times the size of a Sno-Cap and had a really good dark chocolate flavor. My dad ate quite a few boxes of these throughout the trip. Now I know what to bring him back as a souvenir on future trips at least!

Up next... Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern!

 

[tluvstink]

Your off to a great start That pretzel looks good!

Terri

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Your off to a great start That pretzel looks good!

Terri

Thanks! And it was as good as it looks!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

We were having a great day at Magic Kingdom and eagerly anticipating our dinner, but I was looking forward to something else even more. The lighting of Cinderella's Castle!

The 7 minute show they do for the lighting was fantastic! It was making me a little teary-eyed actually. I just have to include this pic of the castle all lit up because it's just to beautiful to not be shared.

Awww! Now back to the food!

As soon as the castle show was done we headed over to Liberty Tree Tavern for our 6:40pm reservation. I was excited to try dinner here. DH & I ate here for lunch in August and we absolutly loved it, so I was curious to see how dinner was with the family style format. After we arrived we waited around for maybe 10 minutes and then we were seated.

First up we ordered our drinks. I wanted to start doing anything I could to prevent myself from catching my dad's cold so I ordered a glass of apple juice and a water. I need all the vitamin C I can get!

I just love the glasses here! Too cool!

To start we had rolls with honey butter.

As well as a salad of mixed greens with a strawberry vinaigrette.

Great start to the meal! All the veggies were fresh and tasty and the dressing was really good too. We enjoyed the rolls too and I really loved the honey butter. I ate two plates of salad and two rolls before the rest of the food even arrived!

For the main part of the meal they brought everything out on different plates and set it on our table and then we could get more of anything we wanted. Let's start with the veggies.

First there was cauliflower.

I really liked that they served cauliflower. I very rarely (if ever) see this served at restaurants, so it was a nice change of pace to have this veggie with dinner.

Next up for the veggies we also had Green Bean Casserole.

Oh baby do I love green bean casserole! I think I ate more of this than anything else. Delish!

Next up we have the side dishes. Let's start with the mac & cheese.

This was just okay to me. Just a pretty basic mac & cheese. Nothing amazing.

Next we had Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.

This was really good! The mashed potaoes were really creamy and the gravy was nice and thick.

Then there was all the different meat. There was Turkey Breast, served along with stuffing, an herb crusted pork and carved beef.

All of this was really good! Especially the turkey. Loved the turkey!

This is what my first plate looked like.

Yum! We were too full for seconds of anything, but we had saved just enough room for dessert. I didn't really like the sound of the dessert they were currently serving and I was going to ask if there was anyway we could get something different, but I decided not to be a pain and just went with the seasonal dessert. Johnny Appleseed's Cake. White cake filled with apples and craisins and topped with vanilla ice cream.

This was actually really good! I didn't think I would like it. I picked the craisins out, but I liked the apple in the cake and it was a fairly light dessert, so I didn't go around the rest of the night feeling too stuffed to move. It was a nice end to the meal.

While I really liked this meal I don't know if I would do it again. I think I prefer lunch here to dinner. I also really liked the Garden Grill on my last trip, which was similar to dinner at LTT only better and with characters. My dad really enjoyed the meal too and it was good to get him off his feet for awhile and rest before heading back into the park for a few more rides.

Up next... a late night snack!

 

[Jing]

Great report so far! I grew up in upstate NY and we always took Amtrak for our annual January Disney vacation - nothing like going to sleep in 20-degrees with dirty snow and waking up to palm trees1

 

[auntfrannie]

Sounds like your trip got off to a great start. Can't wait to read more!

 

[GoofyGirl1717]

Thanks for all the info so far. LTT is one of our favs also. Looking forward to more of your reviews.

 

[st4rrab0vemybed]

Great reviews so far! The castle all lit up is beautiful!

Looking forward to trying LTT on my next trip. The food looks delish!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Great report so far! I grew up in upstate NY and we always took Amtrak for our annual January Disney vacation - nothing like going to sleep in 20-degrees with dirty snow and waking up to palm trees1

Thanks! Wow you had a much longer train ride than me! While I enjoyed the train I think if I tacked a few more hours onto the journey I would have gone a little bit crazy. You're right, that transition from cold to warm was pretty fantastic!

Sounds like your trip got off to a great start. Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for joining in!

Thanks for all the info so far. LTT is one of our favs also. Looking forward to more of your reviews.

LTT has definitely become a favorite for me too! I can't believe I had never eaten there until this year!

Great reviews so far! The castle all lit up is beautiful!

Looking forward to trying LTT on my next trip. The food looks delish!

Thanks! I just loved the castle like that. It's gonna be hard to go any other time of the year after this trip. I think I'm a Disney Christmas addict now.

LTT really is great. Hope you enjoy it on your next trip!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

After a few more hours at Magic Kingdom my dad was exhausted and was ready to call it a night. Neither one of us were going to make it until the park closed at midnight. We hopped on a bus and headed back to Pop. I was in the mood for a little something sweet and I knew exactly what I wanted.

Tie Dye Cheesecake!

I found it in the Pop food court and grabbed a container of milk and I was ready to head back to the room with my late night treats.

For some reason I couldn't get the best picture of this. The flash kept washing it out for some reason. I also tried to get a close up pic of a bite with all the layers. This was the best I could do.

This was everything I hoped it would be! The cheesecake was creamy and delicious and the red velvet cake on the bottom was moist and tasty. All together it was a yummy treat!

Well, that's just what I needed. Cheesecake right before bed.

Up next... An Early Morning Food Court Breakfast

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

After a very refreshing night of sleep my dad & I awoke bright and early and got ready to start our busiest day of the trip. Today we are planning to be at Animal Kingdom for rope drop, stop by Downtown Disney to check out the sights since my dad has never been there, go to Poly for dinner at Kona and then to cap off our evening we're headed to MK for MVMCP. Phew! That's quite a day we have planned. I told my dad we could not do DTD and come back to the room and take a nap if he's too tired, but he is determined to fit a lot into this day. Well then, we are gonna need some fuel. Off to breakfast!

We walk over to the food court from our room in Building 10 and scope out the selections. I'm in the mood for savory over sweet and my dad is looking for the biggest thing he can find so we both end up over at the same station. I got the Bacon Croissant with Breakfast Potatoes.

Alternate view

This was surprisingly good! The croissant was fresh and flaky and didn't taste like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for 3 hours. The bacon was cooked perfectly too. I hate undercooked bacon, but this was done just right. The potatoes were really good too! When I had some on our August trip they were way undercooked, but these were tender.

My dad got the Bounty Platter with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, french toast sticks and a biscuit.

Knowing how picky my dad is I thought he would hate this and complain that it was too small of a portion for the money and too generic tasting, but he surprised me by raving about it. He said it was actually a good value for all that you got and that everything tasted great! Well, what do I know? So far my dad is loving the food which makes me pretty happy.

Now it's time to get on the move and get to Animal Kingdom!

Up next... The Best Cupcake Ever!

 

[Jonesloonybin]

Loving your reviews so far! I would love to go to WDW while they have the Christmas decorations up!

I am sorry to hear of your dad's cold, but what a trooper. My DH had a head cold for most of our trip last May (our first) and he didn't complain once. Unfortunately youngest DD caught it the last two days of our trip.

I cannot wait to read more!!

Terri

 

[Linda67]

Loving your reviews

What a wonderful Dad you have, not only buying you the best Christmas present ever!! but he battled through feeling sick as well, what a trooper

Looking forward to reading more

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

Loving your reviews so far! I would love to go to WDW while they have the Christmas decorations up!

I am sorry to hear of your dad's cold, but what a trooper. My DH had a head cold for most of our trip last May (our first) and he didn't complain once. Unfortunately youngest DD caught it the last two days of our trip.

I cannot wait to read more!!

Terri

That's a shame that a head cold made it's way through your family on your last trip. That definitely puts a damper on vacation.

Christmas there was really amazing! If you ever get the chance to go during that time of year I highly recommend it.

Thanks so much for reading along

Loving your reviews

What a wonderful Dad you have, not only buying you the best Christmas present ever!! but he battled through feeling sick as well, what a trooper

Looking forward to reading more

Thanks for joining in! I really do have a wonderful dad. How he walked around the parks all day for 5 days, I'll never know.