"Wow, that's a skinny squirrel!" - January 2012 TR *Updated 05/09

[archdandy]

I've never been to Yatchsmen Steakhouse before. The foods looks wonderful.

It was more than wonderful! I could eat there every day!

 

[archdandy]

We got up at the bright and early hour of 6am and I was wide awake. DH on the other hand was not so wide awake. I had to coax him out of bed and into the shower which is really weird. Usually he is pretty good about getting up in the mornings.

After the shower we got dressed and packed up all of our things in our park bags and headed out. We were on the way to our ADR at The Wave for breakfast.

While walking to the front of the resort to wait for our cab I took some pictures of the resort along the way. You can see it was still dark out and it was a bit chilly. We weren't used to Florida being this cold as we had always come when it was really hot (June and September).

Our cab was waiting for us when we got there so we hopped in and were on our way to The Contemporary. I dont remember how long the ride was but I do remember it cost us about $15. We headed towards the restaurant and I went to go take a picture of the outside of it when I realized I didn't have my camera with me I knew I had taken it from the room because I took pictures of the resort on the way. Then I remembered I heard something drop in the cab but didn't really pay any attention because I briefly looked down and didnt see anything. Oh no!

We rushed back out to the front but the cab had already left. So we asked the lady who was at the podium outside the resort if she could call the cab company for us and let them know we think our camera was left in the car. She talked to them for a bit and she said the cab driver found our camera and that they could come back and bring it to us but that it would cost us the fare it would take him to get back to the resort. We agreed relunctantly, but what were we going to do, leave our $100+ camera in the cab?

He came back about 10 minutes later and DH got the camera back from him. We had assumed we could pay by credit card because thats how we paid originally but the cab driver said it was cash only this time. We didn't had cash on us so luckily the driver said don't worry about it! Phew!

Now that we had the camera back we finally went back inside and were a little later for our reservation but it didn't matter because the restaurant wasn't busy at all.

We were seated right away and our waiter came out to take our drink orders. I just got tea and DH got orange juice. We opted to do the buffet instead of the a la carte and we were glad we did! They had everything that was on the menu in the buffet and it was unlimited, so it was a much better deal. Not that it mattered since we were on the DDP. I took a lot of pics of the buffet even though I'm sure the people there thought it was weird But I'm a DISer through and through.

We got back to our table and I couldn't wait to dig in! I had waited to try the sweet potato pancakes for a loong time! And let me tell you, they didn't disappoint. I loved them! I wish I could eat them everyday for breakfast!

The with the lime sauce was delicious as well. I would have gladly ordered that as an entree and been happy.

I know DH had a second plate but I can't find it on my camera. I think the second plate had some meat on it.

We finished eating and debated asking our waiter if we could get hot chocolates to go. DH didn't want to because he was worried they would say no, I insisted they would allow it because I had seen other people's dining reports where they did this. So finally I got up the courage to ask our waiter and he was very obliging! He said it was no problem and shortly after came back with some delicious hot chocolate in to go cups.

After settling our bill we headed out. It took us a little while to find the monorail but we managed. This would be our first time on a monorail so I was kind of excited. The wait was a little longer than I thought it would be but soon we were zooming towards Epcot.

I'm going to stop this update here and hopefully I will have the next one up soon. I am going to try and update faster because I'd like to get this TR done as we are going on four months now since the trip. If there are any lurkers out there feel free to say hi!

 

[archdandy]

**First off I want to apologize for the lack of pictures in this update. I guess through the course of the day I didn't realize I wasn't taking many pictures.**

We last left off with us taking the monorail to EPCOT. We made it to the entrance about ten to twenty minutes after opening and the line was still a bit congested. We got made good time getting in and bag check went smooth. Finally we were in our first park of the trip!

The first thing we did was head to Soarin'.

The time posted was 15 minutes so we decided that was reasonable and waited it out. The ride was good as always. I love the smell of those oranges!

We were already in the The Land pavilion so we decided to the Living with the Land attraction as we had never done it before. I was curious to see the huge lemons that I've seen in other trip reports. There was no wait for this ride, bonus!

There they are! This was a really interesting tour. I really liked thep different ways they were growing produce. I would definitely do this next trip.

After that we talked about doing The Circe of Life because it was right there and there was no wait but we decided to leave it to our next trip. We don't like to do everything at once because that leaves nothing new for our future trips.

I wanted to go down to Sunshine Seasons to check out their offerings because we've never eaten there but always hear great things about it. Nothing really caught my attention though so we kept moving.

We walked out of The Land pavilion and didn't really have a burning desire of where to go next so we kind of strolled along until we came to Figment. This was another new one that had no wait so why not do it?

...this wasn't one of my favorite attractions. I know a lot of people like it because its a classic and they find it cute but this just wasn't for us.

We took our time looking through the gift shop though because they had some unique stuff in there.

Our string of new attractions continued as we headed towards Captain EO. The wait for this ride was a bit long, not because there were a lot of people but because of the introduction video and it took a bit for us to be admitted to the room for some reason.

Let me just say ! Oh, man! That show was good. It was purely awesome for its LOLz.

After having ourselves a couple of chuckles we headed in the direction of Test Track and Mission Space. The lines were long for both attractions so we got a FP for Test Track and waited it out for Mission Space. It took us a while to decide whether to do green or orange because DH gets really queasy on rides lately. In the end we chose orange for me

I love this ride! It's such a different feeling and when you're done taking off and you're floating around in space it feels so real after that huge GFORCE simulation. Of course DH got queasy.

It was time to take a little bit of a break. We sat on some benches and drank some water to give DH time to recover. Our plan was just to sit it out until our FP for Test Track were good. But as we were sitting we started to get annoyed at the sun in our eyes. And yes we both forgot our sunglasses this trip!

The only thing to do was to go to Mouse Gears and pick out some glasses. We had some time to kill anyways. After paying for our stuff we walked back to Test Track because our FP were finally good!

The ride was good as usual. It's not DH's favorite but it's one of mine in EPCOT. At this point it was nearing lunch time and we had an ADR for Coral Reef. We weren't really feeling that restaurant though so we decided to walk around World Showcase and see if there were any CS options that appealed to us.

Some of the christmas decorations were still up. I was happy about this but also kind of sad. I wanted the first time I saw the christmas decorations in person to be during the christmas season on one of future trips.

We entered through the Canada side, of course! My plan was to just get Mexican CS but we had to walk around basically the whole world showcase for DH to decide what he wanted. Nothing ended up appealing to him but the fish and chips. So we had to go all the way back around.

The line for the fish and chips was kind of long so we hatched a new plan! we had ADRS for Rose & Crown for later anyways so we decided we would see if they would take walk ups for lunch. And yes they were taking walk ups! It would be about a twenty minute wait so we used that time to walk across the "street" and look through the UK shops. I wanted to buy some of the tea really bad but didn't end up getting anything. I can't remember why now though?

Finally our beeper went off and we basically skipped over to the podium to be seated!

I'm going to leave the review here for now. I hope you enjoyed this installment!

 

[pld5]

I am loving your trip report. Especially the food reviews. Can't wait to read more.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Thanks so much for this trip report. We've booked our first meal at Yachtsman this trip and my DD is determined to go for the Porterhouse LOL it looks bigger than she is.

 

[IheartDDuck]

Mmmm, your Yachtsman photos just made my mouth water. Such a good restaurant.

 

[Britard]

I'm enjoying the report so far and joining in for more!!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Your breakfast at the Wave looks great! Sweet Potato Pancakes

Glad you got to see the giant lemon for yourself! Yay for R&C taking walkups!

 

[archdandy]

Your breakfast at the Wave looks great! Sweet Potato Pancakes

Glad you got to see the giant lemon for yourself! Yay for R&C taking walkups!

Ahh, I don't even want to get started on how delicious those pancakes were. Thanks for reading!

I'm enjoying the report so far and joining in for more!!

Thanks for joining!

Mmmm, your Yachtsman photos just made my mouth water. Such a good restaurant.

It is indeed an awesome restaurant. We are going back on our next trip and can't wait!

Thanks so much for this trip report. We've booked our first meal at Yachtsman this trip and my DD is determined to go for the Porterhouse LOL it looks bigger than she is.

It is a HUGE steak! LOL. I'm surprised DH finished it but I guess that explains why he didn't eat the side that came with it.

I am loving your trip report. Especially the food reviews. Can't wait to read more.

Ahh, yes, who doesn't love food? Thanks for joining!

 

[archdandy]

When we last left off we were just about to head in to the Rose & Crown after successfully being taken as walk ups!

The hostess sat us at our table and our waitress came shortly after. I finally managed to remember one of our servers names, haha, it was Gem. She went through the menu a bit with us and explained some of our options on the dining plan.

We ordered our appetizers and entree's at the same time and waited for our drinks. DH ordered lemonade and I ordered tea. Of course it was Twinings tea which I was grateful for instead of that other stuff they serve at a lot of places. The only problem was that all of the bags she brought me were decaf Looking back on it now I should have said something to our waitress but at the time I didn't bother because I wasn't familiar with the brand and didn't know if decaf was the regular or something.

Anyways, for our appetizers we ordered:

Cheese Platter (DH)

Potato & Leek Soup (Me)​

My soup was delicious, much better than the stuff I make at home. I only ate about half of it as I was saving room for the entree's. DH's cheese plate was really good as well. I was surprised he ordered this as he is not usually very adventurous with food. The cheese's were all pretty mild except for the last one. It tasted exactly like a barn smells

We both ordered the same entree's.

Fish and Chips​

These were delicious! The fries were very thick cut and I love them when the are like that. They were crispy and warm and just thinking about them makes me hungry. The fish was excellent as well. The batter was crispy and not soggy and the fish had a nice flavor to it.

By this point we were so stuffed from our big breakfast and lunch and we couldn't get dessert down. The one thing I will mention about our waitress was that she was kind of pushy for us to get dessert. She just kept reminding us that it was part of the dining plan. Yeah, we got it, thanks.

We settled our bill and continued our trek around the world. We passed through France and checked out the Boulangerie Patisserie. I'd never been inside so I was curious and I wanted to scope out some goodies for later consumption! It was very crowded in there and we didn't stay long.

We made our way to Morocoo and browsed through some of the shops. I'd never really looked around in the country before so it was all new to me. We continued on until we got to Germany. Of course we had to stop in Karamel Kuche. My family on my mom's side is are all German so this is my favorite country in Disney. Everything in Karamel Kuche is drool worthy but we both ended up settling on the same thing.

Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes​

These were alright. The cake was very moist but the icing wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it would be more of a buttercream frosting but it wasn't. It wasn't bad just not what I thought it was going to be. It had a kind of gritty texture to it as well.

By this point we were kind of losing our steam and we wanted to go back to the resort for a rest. I don't think we even made it to the rest of the showcase. Or if we did we just briskly walked through them. Shame on us right? I believe we had intentions of coming back that night to watch Illuminations.

On our way out we walked back through the Mission: Space area and spotted a cart that was selling cinnamon and sugar pretzels. We couldn't resist getting one and we didn't even get a picture of it before it was gone. That's how good it was.

Slowly but surely we made our way out of EPCOT and to the bus station. It's always so confusing coming out of this park to the buses because we always end up going the wrong way.

 

[Victoriasmom98]

I am so glad to hear you liked the Rose & Crown. We loved it the last time we ate there. The waitress even gave me some of the papers they line the dish with for my scrapbook!

 

[archdandy]

We got back to the resort and decided to take a nap. After our rest we got cleaned up, showered and talked about what we wanted to do for the night.

Originally the plan was to go back to EPCOT for dinner and watch Illuminations. But at this point neither of us felt like doing that. So we hatched a new plan that involved getting dinner at the resort and then going downtown to watch a movie. It might seem like a waste to spend an evening at Disney in a movie theatre but we both love going to the movies!

So we made our way to the Riverside Mill and checked out all the options. I'm not a big fan of counter service meals in Disney and I have a very specific diet I need to follow because of my stomach issues so there weren't a lot of options for me. In the end we chose:

Roast Beef with Potatoes and Carrots, Red Velvet Cake (Me)

Pepperoni Pizza, Apple Slices​

My dinner was good. The roast beef was very tender but I wish it had more seasoning on it. The potatoes were delicious and the veggies were just cooked veggies. The cake was not what I was expecting. Normally red velvet has a cream cheese flavored icing but this was just sugary icing. I only had a couple bites of it as it wasn't really to my liking.

DH's pizza was standard Disney pizza which he enjoys. And the apple slices were apple slices. They were very fresh though.

After our quick dinner we took the boat to DTD. I tried many times to get this picture while on the boat and this was the best one.

We knew we wanted snacks for the movie and movie theatre prices are outrageous so we stopped at Goofy's.

DH got a massive chocolate peanut butter cookie. I thought I had gotten a picture of it but I guess not. He said it was really good but it was so big it took him a couple days to finish it.

I got these:

Gummy Worms​

These were just sugar coated gummy worms but I love candy so they were delicious to me.

We took our time walking towards the theatre as it is all the way in Pleasure Island. We stopped in a couple different stores and looked around. A common theme throughout this trip was stopping in all the places that carried Vinylmations because DH has a Toy Story collection going. But no matter where we went there were no Toy Story one's. Did they discontinue this line or something?

We finally got in to the theatre and we decided on seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I disliked this movie but DH thought it was good.

It was a really long movie and when we got out of the theatre it was around 1:30am! DTD was desserted and I worried for a little bit about if the buses would still be running. Luckily they were and one arrived shortly after getting out. We were the only one's on the bus. It was a bit eerie to be walking around DTD when it was so completely empty, haha. We made it back to the room and dropped like flies.

 

[archdandy]

I am so glad to hear you liked the Rose & Crown. We loved it the last time we ate there. The waitress even gave me some of the papers they line the dish with for my scrapbook!

What an awesome idea for a scrap book! I always want to make a scrap book for our Disney trips but I've never done one before and I guess I get intimidated with all the stuff that goes with it and never end up doing one If you have pictures up I would love to see some of the one's you've done!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

What an awesome idea for a scrap book! I always want to make a scrap book for our Disney trips but I've never done one before and I guess I get intimidated with all the stuff that goes with it and never end up doing one If you have pictures up I would love to see some of the one's you've done!

Oh I love to scrapbook. I started in 2003 and have done it ever since. I will have to get some photos together of my scrapbooks and post them. That will take me a while.

 

[archdandy]

Oh I love to scrapbook. I started in 2003 and have done it ever since. I will have to get some photos together of my scrapbooks and post them. That will take me a while.

Definitely let me know if you do because I would love to see them!

 

[archdandy]

We slept in until about 8:30am today because we had been up so late the night before from the movies. After getting ready we made our way to Riverside Mill food court. I got tea in my mug and we both picked up an orange juice. For our meals we ordered the same thing.

French Toast with Bacon​

It was packed in the cafeteria and there was no where to sit. Luckily we saw a sign posted saying there was additional seating at Boatwright's. So if you ever find yourself needing seating during the morning rush, try there. It was completely empty.

We tried to eat fast because we knew we were going to be pretty late for rope drop our plan was to go to Hollywood Studios today, both of our favorite parks. The bus pulled up just as we were walking to the bus stop so we had to make a mad dash for it. While we were on the bus I noticed an ad for the new movie, Brave, and I got super excited. Of course I had to take a picture.

By the time we actually got to the park it was about an hour and a half after park opening. That wasn't too shabby. The first thing we did was make a run for Toy Story Mania. Those are in DH's top 5 movies so he enjoys this ride.

The fast passes were already at 3:55pm. I guess we are lucky we even got them. After securing those precious pieces of paper we tried to decide what to do for now as we had a long way to go before they could be used. So we made our way over to Rock 'N Roller Coaster.

I guess everybody else had the same idea The wait wasn't too bad so we waited in the stand by line. I love this ride! It's the only roller coaster that I will go on that goes upside down.

Next we decided to see the Beauty and the Beast show because we never got to do it on our last trip and it's one of my favorite disney movies. I didn't take too many pictures because I just wanted to enjoy the show.

While we were waiting for the show to start I noticed a huge group of people coming towards our section with flags! It turns out they were a brazillian tour group. It turned out to be fine though. My first experience with a tour group turned out pretty decent, so I was relieved. I will say that I had a worse experience with the family behind us. The child kept putting his feet up on the bench where my butt was and kicking the bench underneat me so it was really irritating. The parents told him to stop multiple times but he never did I tried not to let it bug me and enjoy the show. And it was great as usual!

After the show it was getting pretty close to 12:45 which is when our lunch ADR was. So we decided just to walk around and take in the sights while we waited. We slowly made our way towards Sci-Fi and took some pictures.

Sadly we never did make it to the Muppet Show on this trip. So it's on our list for sure next trip.

We finally made it to our destination!

This was a first for us eating in Sci-Fi but we were really excited because we both love going to the drive in so this was perfect for us. I knew the food wasn't going to be great so our expectations weren't high going in.

We checked in and we were seated with no wait. It was pretty packed in there though and a lot of people were trying to get walk ups.

 

[ag98]

We are planning a January trip so I'm enjoying your TR. Please don't stop posting.

 

[bee86]

Loving your TR

 

[RachelNinja]

Disney is definitely a reward. Hope the trip really helped you guys relax after having such stress!

Love your Disney calendar! What's so cute! I'd love to have something like that hanging in my apartment. It'd be fun to see what picture is next.

Boo, they had him throw away nail clippers? How could that have been used as a weapon of any sort? Haha, I understand his pain; it's so difficult finding awesome nail clippers!

Mmm, your appetizer at rainforest Cafe looks really good! That's something that I would totally order.

I don't pay much attention to cuts of meat either because I'm not that big of a fan. I would've ordered the filet mignon cuz I'd expect it to be tender, but my family is always telling me it's the part that doesn't have the strongest flavor. I probably would've regretted it after tasting someone else's steak too especially since we were at a steakhouse!

PHEW for getting your camera back and not having to pay!

Mmm, I haven't yet eaten breakfast, so all the items at the Wave buffet look really good! Rose and Crown stuff looks really good too! I've had the fish and chips at Columbia Harbour House and LOVE it. I always wonder what the pub version would be like!

Can't wait to see what you thought of Sci-Fi! We went there as walk-ups just last month. We too weren't expecting much in terms of the food, but we really wanted to enjoy the atmosphere!

 

[archdandy]

We are planning a January trip so I'm enjoying your TR. Please don't stop posting.

I haven't abandoned it yet and I don't have any plans to, its just taking me a little longer than I thought to get it finished Hopefully you will enjoy your trip, the crowd levels were fantastic!

Loving your TR

I'm glad your enjoying it! I promise to try and update more often

Disney is definitely a reward. Hope the trip really helped you guys relax after having such stress!

Love your Disney calendar! What's so cute! I'd love to have something like that hanging in my apartment. It'd be fun to see what picture is next.

Boo, they had him throw away nail clippers? How could that have been used as a weapon of any sort? Haha, I understand his pain; it's so difficult finding awesome nail clippers!

Mmm, your appetizer at rainforest Cafe looks really good! That's something that I would totally order.

I don't pay much attention to cuts of meat either because I'm not that big of a fan. I would've ordered the filet mignon cuz I'd expect it to be tender, but my family is always telling me it's the part that doesn't have the strongest flavor. I probably would've regretted it after tasting someone else's steak too especially since we were at a steakhouse!

PHEW for getting your camera back and not having to pay!

Mmm, I haven't yet eaten breakfast, so all the items at the Wave buffet look really good! Rose and Crown stuff looks really good too! I've had the fish and chips at Columbia Harbour House and LOVE it. I always wonder what the pub version would be like!

Can't wait to see what you thought of Sci-Fi! We went there as walk-ups just last month. We too weren't expecting much in terms of the food, but we really wanted to enjoy the atmosphere!

Yeah I don't really understand how someone could use nail clippers as a weapon, but whatever, I wasn't going to argue when I was one my way to Disney

We are going to Yachstmans again next trip so I will definitely order the porterhouse this time. It was soo yummy!

I'm going to be doing an update on Sci-Fi right after finishing up this post.