Florididdypop Volume 2 - Day 18: Chef Mickey, Animal Kingdom, Yak & Yeti and Rainforest Cafe

[moosha]

Day 18 - Sunday 4th May 2014

An early start today (just for a change) as our rescheduled Chef Mickey breakfast (see day 16) was booked for 7.15 am. We took the boat from the Wilderness Lodge over to the Contemporary at about 6.45 am. On the way over, we had a little chuckle with a lady who was trying to convince her small child (about 4 years old) to have something at Chef Mickey's other than the same cereal she has at home, based on the fact that the child's breakfast was costing her about $20. We were all present and correct at the Chef Mickey check-in at 7.10 am. Good timing.

We had our photo with the Mickey statue outside the restaurant and it was added to our Memory Maker (no we didn't buy the hard copy at the extortionate price they charge. I swear they could drop the price of these if they didn't print off thousands per day that are unwanted, and then only printed the photo if you wanted to buy it, at a more reasonable price.)

We were seated dead on at 7.15 am, our server brought coffee and was efficient but not especially warm, and we hit the buffet. Freya had two huge bowls of Fruit Loops (it is holiday after all, she wouldn't be allowed at home) and I had fruit (tinned peaches - yum) and a pastry and then more fruit. I haven't written down what the other half of the family had, but knowing them it would have involved scrambled eggs, maybe bagels and pastries.

First up was Goofy. I know some people don't like Chef Mickey but we've had good, efficient character interaction here both times. He did his 'Goofy' bit, the girls had photos and autographs and then he was off. Job done. Next was Mickey.



After the main mouse had moved on, I looked back at the photos and realised the Goofy ones hadn't taken . Flippin' unreliable camera. I have no idea how many photos it didn't save during the trip as we didn't always notice until it was too late but I'm just glad we have a new one for this year.

With our Goofy photos missing, Mat took the girls over to the handler CMs near Goofy (now a few tables away) and explained the situation, asking if they could have another quick photo, just standing where he was now, not expecting him to come back to our table. They were a bit funny about it. More grumpy jobsworth CMs; it took literally ten seconds. Some people hold the characters up at their table for ages with multiple photo configurations, we do two quick snaps and they're off again. And it wasn't like Mat had jumped into another family's precious moment with Goofy, he had quietly spoken to the CMs and arranged it between tables.



The girls then met Donald.



And then it was napkin waving time. And why not?









Then it was Minnie.







And Pluto. I love Pluto .









We had a little wait to settle the check which is one of my pet hates, but soon enough we were on a boat back to the WL. We collected the car and drove to Animal Kingdom, arriving at about 8.30 am. Now this was obviously pretty good going, having already done a character meal this morning BUT Animal Kingdom had extended opening today from 8 am to 8 pm. So when I had planned today, before we had to slot in Chef Mickey, the plan was that would have already ridden Kilimanjaro Safaris and Everest by now. Anyone who has heard me banging on about easywdw.com before will know that I'm a big fan of Josh and his site. Animal Kingdom had been a recommend park today, and when the extended opening was added pretty late in the day, Josh didn't change it to non-recommended as I don't think he was expecting it to be busy. Well this is the only occasion I'm aware of when he has gotten it wrong. Today was very busy indeed. Afterwards Josh conceded that it had been busier than he expected and that part of the issue was that all the parks were busier today after two horrible days weather wise. So I'll let him off.

We became aware that Animal Kingdom might be busier than anticipated today when we drove into the car park and were directed to park on the grass verge between the Dinosaur and Unicorn 'lots.' (Yes I speak the lingo .) At 8.30 am. The car park wasn't already full but the fact they were already packing cars into spaces where cars weren't usually to be found had alarm bells ringing, and me cursing my usually beloved Josh.

We walked across to the tram stop and timed it just right. We climbed aboard, the power hungry jobsworth, I mean CM, called 'no further boarding' but of course some people don't think that applies to them :angry: so we had to listen to the safety spiel a second time before we could be offski. People (me) were not amused at having to sit on a stationary tram for an extra few minutes. Eventually we were off, pulling up at the park entrance a few minutes later. It was definitely going to be a busy day judging by the number of people already entering the park at 8.30 am.

First stop was for the girls to sign up for Wilderness Explorers at the kiosk on the way to the Tree of Life. We knew the girls would love this, and as today was to be a long day at the park, we had planned to spend some time looking at the animals as well as doing the rides.





First ride of the day was the safaris as per usual and we were pleased that the wait at this point was only about 10 minutes. A rare (blurry) photo with me in:



Today our guide was Karen, who had been our guide in 2012 too. What are the odds of that? There seem to be so many CMs driving the safari trucks that we were really surprised to have the same guide as two years previously. Karen is a really good safari guide, she really knows her stuff and is very enthusiastic about the animals and conservation. She does bang you over the head a bit with the conservation stuff just before you disembark, but we were ok with that. The park is supposed to be educational, at least in part.

Cue obligatory safari photo overload:

I know how he feels:



It's a crocodile, in case that's not clear:




















He's awake:















Continued below...

[moosha]

... continued

When we left the safari, there were people everywhere and we decided to do the Pangani Forest Trail as we were right by it and this was new to us. The girls did a couple of their Wilderness Explorers badges and the CMs doing these were great. We were really impressed with the WE stuff and the girls definitely want to do it again this year, especially since they didn't manage to finish all their badges last time. While on the trail we saw reptiles, meerkats, colobus monkeys and gorillas (sort of, they didn't want to come close to the glass while we were watching them so it was a long distance sighting.)







We also saw a very tame, cute little rabbit.



We also enjoyed the aviary, especially Freya who is a big lover of birds. They have bird spotting guides you can borrow, and we enjoyed trying to work out which birds we could see.









Thank you, camera zoom:







It was now time for our Everest FastPass+. Mat had decided he didn't want to ride again after not enjoying it the other day, so it was down to me to ride twice, once with each of the girls. Now we all know I am also a bit of a wimp (although not as much as my husband), and Everest is a 'challenge' for me, but I love it as well as being scared of it.

When I went on with Seren, I asked the CM at the entrance if I could use Mat's FP+ to ride again with Freya and she just kind of nodded. Seren and I pretty much walked on with the FP+ and were assigned row 18 (the back row.) I told the CM I was too scared to ride at the back and he sent us to the front for the following train. While we waited I freaked out a bit about being in the front row and told the other CM I didn't want to sit at the front . I know this sounds a bit prima donna but the extremes of front and back are a bit of a step too far when you're scared. The CM, a woman in her 50s, rolled her eyes and scowled a bit which I thought was a bit harsh. She swapped us with the guys in row two, a man and his teenage son and they were very sweet about having to move for a wimp like me. In fact I think they were excited about being in the front row so I did them a favour. The only thing was we were now sat between them and the female half of their party so they were shouting to each other and exchanging smiles and looks over us.

The whole thing with being assigned two rows I wasn't brave enough to sit in had made me even more nervous about riding, but I survived and I think I was starting to relax a bit on the ride now I was more familiar with it (this being my third time.) We got our ride photo added onto Memory Maker and then I went round to swap a Seren for a Freya and go back on. I scanned Mat's band at the Mickey reader, and the CM, who was now a different person, didn't even look up to check whether or not I was a man called Mat.

Freya and I were given more sensible seats in the middle of the carriage so this fourth time was a piece of cake. We added our ride photo and re-grouped with Mat and Seren. It was now coming up to 12.15. We had lunch booked at Yak and Yeti at 12.30 so we decided to head there now. The CM who checked us in said we would probably be seated at around our reservation time but we were actually called through at 12.20. We were taken upstairs and given a table by the window with a lovely view of the park. In 2012 we had been seated directly underneath, again by the window so we'd struck it lucky table-wise both times.

Our server was Autumn and she was fab, probably our best server of the holiday. She was so sweet and friendly and never missed a beat. So... great table, brilliant server...it's going to be a fantastic meal, right? Wrong. This one's up there with Flying Fish in claiming joint first place in the ranking for worst meal of the holiday.

So as per usual, the server says that a chef needs to come out to discuss Seren's allergy. There was a bit of a wait before anyone could come over. I do understand that speaking to a chef about allergies is Disney's policy and that they'd rather be safe than sorry, but it did become annoying when we would have to wait an extra ten minutes or so before we could order our food. Particularly since there was never anything on the menu containing any of the nuts that Seren is allergic to, bar the odd cookie or dessert (which we probably would have been wary of anyway.) While we waited for the chef, we ordered our drinks. I had a Shanghai Express which was good.



The chef arrived at the table and it was Chef Michelle, whom we recognised immediately from our 2012 trip, when she was rude to us and wound us up. It's all detailed in my 2012 trippie but basically Seren doesn't like noodles which were the only vegetarian option on the kids' menu. We asked Michelle when discussing Seren's allergy then whether she could have something else that she liked such as rice or just a plate of fries and she responded as though we had asked her to hand over the moon on a stick. So you can imagine how pleased we were to see us standing in front of her again today.

As in 2012 she was pretty unfriendly but told us that everything on the childrens' menu was fine for Seren. She went away and Seren again said she didn't want the vegetable lo mein noodles which are still the only vegetarian option on the menu, and there's no fish option either. When Autumn came back to take our food order, we told her that Seren didn't like the only dish available to her. She said she'd get a chef back out. So Michelle came back out, arrived at the table, looked down her nose and said 'you have a question?'

We explained the situation and for some reason, I guess because we were discussing cooking an alternatives (I think a rice dish), she mentioned that the vegetable lo mein noodles contains oyster sauce.

Mat said 'so is it not vegetarian then?' Her response was that it wasn't a vegetarian dish because it contains eggs. Mat kept trying to tell her that if someone doesn't eat eggs they're vegan, vegetarians eat eggs but don't eat fish, so the oyster sauce means it's not vegetarian. But she was having none of it. She was really rude and kept talking over him. We were both very angry, firstly because she didn't know what she was talking about, and really, in her position, she should. And secondly because she was so rude to us as customers. In the end she agreed to make the vegetable dish with rice instead, and Mat, who is the only 'proper' vegetarian among us as he doesn't eat fish, asked her to make his adult vegetable lo mein with the vegetarian sauce she said they do have rather than the oyster sauce. It still amazes me that in America there is no vegetarian labelling on restaurant menus, and vegetable dishes that appear vegetarian often aren't (such as tomato or vegetable soups.) End of rant.

I also asked her, and maybe this was pushing it too far with someone who had the customer service skills of a wasp, if the girls could have broccoli as their second side (children get two sides with their meal) rather than the apple sauce or possibly something else I can't remember that was on the menu. I could see other children with broccoli despite it not being listed as a side. She looked at me like I had asked her to hand over her first born child and reluctantly agreed to give the girls some broccoli along with their bag of carrots.

When Autumn came back to finally take our food order, she said 'is everything ok now?' in her sweet way and I was so angry I couldn't help but tell her how rude Michelle had been. It was such a shame that I had to have a moan when we had the sweetest server on Earth, but Michelle had made me so cross and I couldn't just let it go. I really couldn't hold it back anymore .

Autumn said she would get a manager over, which she did. His name was EB and he was apologetic. He said he would speak to Michelle, and also 'what I can do for you is, if you come back again while you're here, I'll arrange for a different chef to come out and see you.' Wow, what a fantastic offer .

I had the wok fried green beans to start which were the highlight of the meal, and to be fair, the main reason I had wanted to come back to Yak & Yeti in the first place. Unfortunately my nearest and dearest were all trying to steal some of my beloved beans.



We'd been sat there so long by this point that I was now onto my second cocktail (usually I can make one last the entire meal.) I had a Yak Attack which was a frozen cocktail and I didn't really enjoy it. I'm not a big fan of frozen cocktails with meals, it was very filling.

My entree was really disappointing. I had the crispy mahi mahi in breadcrumbs with rice and vegetables. The fish was overcooked, and the sauce wasn't very pleasant. It tasted peanut-y, like a satay but it was a red sauce and I don't think it was supposed to be satay.



Neither Mat nor Freya enjoyed their vegetable lo mein noodles. Mat's (actually vegetarian) vegetable lo mein:



Freya's:



Luckily Seren really enjoyed her vegetable rice after all the hard work it had taken to get it.



I should add that Michelle actually brought Seren's meal out to her and didn't say anything other than 'here you go Princess.' It was a bit awkward, and we didn't know whether or not she'd already had her dressing down from the manager when she came over.

We didn't want to stay for dessert, we just wanted to be out of there. I did fill in the comment card they gave us with the check, making sure to really praise Autumn as she really was a star, but of course I had to write about our experience with Michelle on the card too. We left a big tip for Autumn and vowed never to return to Yak & Yeti. By the end of the day, we'd vowed never to return to any Landry's restaurant, but we'll get to that a bit later.

After lunch we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament. The park was very, very busy with long queues for all the rides, and our remaining FastPass+s were not good for a couple more hours. We'd decided over lunch that we didn't want to do the safari for a second time that day, so had changed our late afternoon Safari FP+s to It's Tough To Be A Bug at 5.40 - 6.40 pm (which we never used.) Struggling to find something to do right now with these long queues, we tried to change the FP+ again to anything available right now, but there was nothing at all showing up on MDE. We walked to the nearest FP+ kiosk to see if a CM could help with rearranging our FP+, but she confirmed that there really was nothing available. We had a chat with her about how it was much busier than we had expected. She said Sunday was now their busiest day and that two days of rain did seem to have brought everyone to the park today.

We had a little sit down on the floor just across from Yak & Yeti, reapplied the sunscreen and tried to come up with a plan. We decided to head to the 3 pm Flights of Wonder show as this was something we had never seen before. When we arrived, they hadn't yet started letting people in and there were a lot of people waiting outside. We joined the crowd and it was a bit too busy to relax while we were stood there, everyone was a little too close for comfort. One of her CMs from Flights of Wonder had brought out a couple of the birds from the show to entertain the masses waiting. She had the birds fly over the heads of people waiting. It killed some time and soon enough we were let into the theatre.

The show was pretty good, a decent way to fill the time when we were out of other options. The girls enjoyed it too. When it finished it was time to stake out a spot for Mickey's Jungle Jammin' Parade which we'd never seen before and we knew was closing a month or so later. We found a spot a little way down from the bird show, close to a refreshment kiosk. There was white tape on the ground marking out where people could stand to watch the parade and we made sure we were well behind that. There were a couple of CMs walking up and down, telling everyone that a gangway behind us needed to be kept clear. We were all doing this, staying as close to the line as possible and leaving space for people to walk behind and access the refreshment kiosk and toilets behind us. While we were waiting, a woman came along and squeezed herself in between us and the next family, and then about six members of her family came along and also squeezed themselves in :angry:. This meant everyone else was squished and the gangway was narrowed. Luckily they gave up and moved on before the parade started. A couple of CMs entertained the crowd by drawing Mickey (and I think Donald) on the ground in water.



Just before the parade was about to start, a supervisor CM came along and tried to tell us all we couldn't stand where we were as it was an access route during the parade. A woman nearby replied that the other CMs had told us we were all ok to stand here as long as we kept a clear path behind us, and added that we'd been waiting twenty minutes for the parade (in the 30 degree heat) and didn't really like the idea of being moved at the last minute. The jobsworth supervisor said we could all stay where we were but if it became a problem during the parade, she'd have to move us all. Yeah right, I'm sure that would have gone down well. Don't put the parade route markings there in the first place if you don't want people to stand there.

The parade was pretty good:







...continued below

[moosha]

...continued

We quite liked some of the big mechanical animals but my word, the CMs operating them must have been hardcore in that heat and so strong to operate them for the length of the parade. Just standing there waiting for and then watching the parade, about 45 minutes in total, was an endurance test in itself.



























Animal Kingdom seems to feel hotter than the other parks in my opinion, and once the parade was over we staggered to Tamu Tamu refreshments for a much needed drink.



We found a shaded table in the little courtyard behind the Tamu Tamu counter and talked about what else we wanted to achieve today. The list was Maharajah Jungle Trek, Rafiki's Planet Watch and some character meets, before the park quietened down (we hoped) in the early evening and we could get on some of the rides with short lines.

We knew we wouldn't have time to fit all of that in and prioritised the Pocahontas meet which we hadn't managed in 2012. We arrived at her meet and greet just as the line was closing. We were the last family the CM allowed to join the queue before telling people Pocahontas was going on a break and turning them away. Pocahontas was spending quite a bit of time with each party even though she was due a break, bless her, so we did have to wait a good few minutes before we reached the front of the line. She was very sweet and patient when the family in front of us wanted a photo of every configuration of all 15 family members. I mentioned this to the CM who nodded and rolled her eyes in agreement. I guess she is used to seeing that kind of muppetry over and over again every day .

Even though Pocahontas could have rushed meeting Seren and Freya so she could get off for her break, she didn't at all and was really good with them. Another very impressive character meet. We seemed to be having lots of those this trip .







After Pocahontas I checked My Disney Experience and realised our Finding Nemo the Musical FastPass+ was 4.40 - 5 pm rather than 5.40 - 6 pm as I had thought, so we'd just missed our slot . I was starting to think I couldn't be trusted to be in charge of MDE, what with this and the missed Chef Mickey ADR. I think with all the rushing around and tiredness, it's easy to do though. That's my defence anyway.

We decided to take the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch and went into the Conservation Station which was new to us.





We had a look at the vet's surgery through the window (Freya wants to be a vet when she grows up) but there was nothing going on in there. The girls did three more Wilderness Explorers badges...



... and then Mat asked them if they'd like to meet Rafiki. Seren replied with a very enthusiastic 'Yay!... Who's Rafiki?'







Next we went outside with a plan to go into the petting area. The CM wouldn't let the girls in with their Wilderness Explorers books (I guess because the animals would try to eat them) and said we'd need to put them away. That would be fine except Mat had disappeared once we'd left the Conservation Station and he had the rucksack. We wandered around the area looking for him. To be fair it had been a few days since he'd done one of his amazing disappearing acts that he's so good at on holiday. I was still annoyed that we couldn't find him as we were running out of time before Planet Watch closed and, well I'm just an impatient person .

Eventually we found him in the line to meet Chip and Dale. When we'd come out of the Conservation Station he apparently had headed straight to the Chip and Dale queue so the girls could meet the chipmunks but had forgotten to take the girls with him or tell us where he was going. The line was short so he kept getting to the front and letting people go past him. If the line was short, why didn't he just leave the line and try and find us? Anyway, I don't think the girls had met Chip and Dale before and it was a really good interaction, they came away very happy .





At this point, 6 pm, we knew we had to rule out the Maharajah Jungle Trek as it was time to hit the rides. We took the train back over, stopped so the girls could play the drums:



... and wandered along to Chester and Hester's Dinorama. Seren and Mat wanted to go on Primeval Whirl. I waited with Freya who really wanted to ride but was still too short (she hadn't grown much since our previous trip the week before.) When they came off, having loved the ride again, Seren was adamant that I should ride it with her. I was nervous because the drop looked quite big (to me) but it was actually lots of fun and I really enjoyed the drops and spinning. I'm really looking forward to us all being able to ride together this year as Freya is over 48" now.

Next was Dinosaur, my favourite Animal Kingdom ride and one of my favourite rides in Orlando. When we arrived at the front of the building I was gutted to see that it was down. The CMs were lined up outside and there were lots of people waiting around. Apparently it had been closed for two hours. Luckily for us it re-opened within a couple of minutes of us arriving, so we were among the first to get in the standby queue. Unfortunately there were a looooot of FP+ returners arriving, either who had not been able to use their FP+ earlier because of the downtime, or whose hour slot was open right now. We gave them the evil eye as they were all admitted in front of us, but to be fair we still only had to wait five minutes to get into the pre-show. I just love this ride .

We made it to Everest at about 7.25 and I took Freya on first (Mat was still being a chicken.) It was pretty much a walk-on and as earlier, we were assigned the back row. This time I didn't bother to put up a fight, thinking the Universe was trying to tell me something and decided to just suck it up. It would be fine. Except when I pulled my bar down (they are individual lap bars here), it didn't click down as far as it usually did. When the CM checking the bars came along I said to him 'it usually goes down more than this.' He pushed it down to check it was locked, raised his hand to give the signal to his colleague that the ride was all clear to depart, and at the same time said to me 'it's good enough!' as we shot off for our encounter with the yeti.

I think being in the back really helped me break through my fear of this ride. It was much faster than at the front or even the middle. Even the first little drop before you go into the lift hill is fast in the back. We went down the big drop so fast and I screamed so much that my stomach very possibly came out through my mouth.

Once we returned to civilisation, I lined up at the photo counter to add the ride photo to Memory Maker (am I right in thinking I don't need to do that this year, that they add to your account automatically via the band? I flippin' hope so as I waited for TEN MINUTES to add the photo on.) Everyone at the counter was buying a hard copy of their ride photo (is this still a thing?) and it was taking ages. It was about 20 minutes until park close now and I needed to take Seren on the ride for fairness before it shut.

The lady behind the photo counter laughed at our ride photo because I look so petrified. photopass photos will be added in shortly.

Seren and I were able to get on the ride, by now it was a walk on. We were given row 8 which was a piece of cake compared to the back row. It took another five minutes to get this ride photo added on as there were still several people buying hard copies or CDs or photo packages. Come on people, get yourselves a Memory Maker and save us all a bit of time.

...continued below

[moosha]

...continued

We left the shop at 7.55 pm and took a slow wander through the park towards the exit taking photos of the place now the lights were starting to be turned on. This was the latest we had ever been at Animal Kingdom and having seen photos of the park at dusk all lit up, I really wanted to take some. Not sure I was that successful as our camera was rubbish and it wasn't really very dark so there weren't many lights on.



















































We reached the Rainforest Cafe at 8.10 pm (we had an 8.15 ADR) and we couldn't believe we had been at the park for almost 12 hours, particularly since a lot of people call it a half day park. The crowds had been against us, but we managed to have quite a chilled out day, see some new things and do our favourite rides. We were all feeling the long day and were ready for a good sit down and some refuelling. We hadn't been to this Rainforest Cafe before, although Mat and I had enjoyed a good couple of meals at the Downtown Disney one on our honeymoon 13 years before. I got the impression that the quality had gone downhill a bit from reviews I had read, although I did read that the Animal Kingdom one was better than the DTD one. We certainly weren't expecting fine dining. We had booked this restaurant for the theming as we knew the girls would love it, and also because it was a convenient pit stop on the way home from Animal Kingdom.







The girls loved looking at everything in the shop on our way to check in for dinner, but we were adamant that we wouldn't be purchasing any of the tat in here.



So we checked in five minutes before our ADR along with half of the day's other Animal Kingdom guests, it seemed. I'd imagined it would have been nice and quiet at this time but that was most definitely not the case. We stood waiting in the check-in area, feeling a bit fed up, until 8.25 pm when we were called to be seated. There was some amusement to be had when a hostess came out to all the waiting parties looking for a family with a reservation in the name of Karen. They must have missed being called the first time, and the CM said a few times 'party of four in the name of Karen?' Some woman responded with 'I'm Carol?' Oh yes, that's it, you get to go in because you have a similar sounding name.

The restaurant was busy and were taken to our table which was a bit pants because it was right in a gangway by the kitchen with an aisle behind and to the side of my seat. Every time the servers brought out a birthday dessert or one of the big sharing Volcano desserts, accompanied by a fanfare, they had to walk right by us whooping or singing which got old quickly. It was very dark in there and I felt it was a bit dirty, especially this late on in the day.

I wish I could say the food and service made up for it, but they really didn't. Our server Brenda was a bit brash, pretty disinterested and not very friendly. Mat and I were entitled to three courses here on the deluxe plan, and the girls two courses. To start, I chose onion rings and they were meh. Plus there was about a million of them. Mat had mozzarella sticks and they weren't any better. For entrees, Mat had a veggie burger which he said tasted like it was from a van at Wembley Stadium. I had coconut shrimp which were too chewy and had a skewer all the way through them so were really hard to eat. The fries weren't good either.



Freya had kids' Poppin' Shrimp and Seren had kids' pizza. Mat and I weren't interested in putting ourselves through a third course, but Seren really fancied some cheesecake which was on the adults' dessert menu, so Mat ordered one to share with her. Even that wasn't very nice.

My first cocktail, a Panama Punch was good...



...and when that disappeared I ordered an Island (strawberry) Daiquiri. It was huge and just tasted of ice.



When Brenda came over, Mat said to her, 'Is this a virgin daiquiri? It tastes really weak.' She replied with 'No, there's a shot of Absolut in there.' I said 'It just tastes of ice.' She walked off .

While we were eating, we became aware of a 'thing' happening at the next table. There were six ladies at the table, various ages. When their server came to check their food was ok, one of the younger ones, maybe early twenties, said she didn't really like her entree, she didn't realise what it came with, wasn't enjoying it and could it be taken off the check please? The server said, 'Can I get you something else?' The young lady replied with 'No thanks, I'm just sharing hers' (pointing at her neighbour. The server went off to get a manager who ran through the same conversation and then agreed to take it off the bill. The guest had been very pleasant about it but she was clearly taking the Michael. She hadn't said there was anything specifically wrong with the dish, said it had been her mistake as she 'hadn't realised' what was in the dish, plus she'd eaten some of it and then had just scrounged off her neighbour. We couldn't believe how cheeky she was, particularly after the manager left and one of the others said to her 'You're always so good at doing that.'



Tired:



By the time we left we were feeling really peed off about the meal and our overall experience with Disney dining so far this trip. Rainforest Cafe, our lunch at Yak and Yeti and our disastrous evening at Flying Fish a few days before had all left a nasty taste in our mouths and we were so disappointed by our meals in general at Disney World this holiday. We'd had pretty much all round excellent food during our first experience of the Deluxe Dining Plan in 2012, but now we felt it had been a mistake to repeat the DxDDP. Apart from Artist Point, Narcoossee's, Jiko and a couple of decent buffets, our first week of Disney dining this year had been terrible in places and mediocre at best.

When we got back to the Wilderness Lodge, we went over to reception to speak to a manager. There were a group of CMs chatting behind the reception desk, none of them seemed particularly thrilled to have to do their job and speak to some guests, including the manager that was summoned from the group. He asked us what the problem was and we politely explained the situation. He listened, offered an apology and then offered to credit our room account with $100. We were happy with this 'gesture of goodwill.' We had free dining plan included with our holiday and had already paid the upgrade to deluxe plan in advance, so technically weren't having to 'pay' for our meals at each restaurant, but we felt this money would go some way to offset some of the tips we had left at the worst restaurants.

We went upstairs and decided to treat this as a line in the sand. We were going to get up tomorrow morning and our meals would be better for the rest of the trip. We were going to approach each meal positively now despite our experiences up to this point. The good news is this did seem to magically do the trick, and our meals in the second week were generally good. Yay .

[dixonsontour]

What a full day We always spend alot of time at AK

Shame about the food issues. From spending too much time on american disney dining forums 'Vegan' seems to be understood but not much re Vegetarian.

Good job you found out re the sauce - you would assume veggie lo mein was veggie.

[EllieP]

I love animal Kingdom and always find it a whole day park. It is a shame about the meals you experienced over the past few days 😞. We've said we would love to try some of the table restaurants but don't think we would pay OOP for them. Maybe we will stay onsite one year and try it out 😉

[collybird]

I'm glad you managed to squeeze in Chef Mickey's but when you were dragging yourself out of bed so early with such a long day ahead of you you probably weren't so glad!

I want to be a Wilderness Explorer

I felt a bit ill reading about your back to back rides on Everest; I can't decide if I think being at the back or front would be worse!

Yak and Yeti looks VERY disappointing, your fish looks burnt! We enjoyed our meal here but it screams CHAIN to me. Rainforest Cafe, however, we didn't like at all.

I have had customers pull the 'I don't really like this, can I have my money back/something else?!' one on me before; granted very, very rarely. Every part of me wants to say 'hell no' but it's usually just easier to keep the peace. I really can't believe the nerve of some people though.

Great day at AK. You seemed to fit such a lot in despite how busy it was. Such a shame the Parade has gone! And you are correct ride photos are automatically added to Memory Maker now.

P.S. I am insanely jealous of your countdown, WARM WEATHER!

[sheluk]

LOVE that photo of the girls with Donald it looks so cute!

Fab day at AK (meals aside)

[juliab]

I don't know how you managed to get up so early for your Chef Mickey ADR, especially with it being a fair way into your holiday.

Our kids really enjoyed being a Wilderness Explorer, well we all did

Seeing your lovely photo's of the parade as made me remember how much I loved that parade. I was so sad when they stopped it

Another great day, looking forward to more

Julia x

[rich2820]

We agree that AK is definitely a full day park - you did well keeping going right through to the evening though. It's a shame about the poor meals you had today however. I'm glad things get better from now on.