17 nights of allergy-friendly DDP - Sept/Oct 2015 **DONE! **

[stan_the_man]

Couldn't think of a catchier title I'm afraid, possibly because this is my first ever report I've done for here!

We had 17 nights of DDP which we had upgraded from QSDP as we usually do when staying at a moderate (CSR). We chose restaurants that we had eaten at before as we knew that would pretty much guarantee something good.

This was also the first time we experienced the allergy menus (DW has a nut allergy). This wasn't available at all places - specifically Tutto Itali and Via Napoli, I guess because they are operated by a non-Disney company? On a previous trip we always spoke to the chef, but this time they asked if we wanted to or not after seeing the menu, and we didn't at any time. They are very easy to understand and provided a good choice of food (including various desserts which made DW happy, in the past she would get stuck with either a fruit platter or boring flavoured sorbet).

I will include a majority of the QS meals we had but I may not have taken pictures at all of them so will just provide a description! No prices included, but most menus are available online if needed. We rarely have breakfast (I think we had it once the last day) which is why there isn't any included!

So the cast is:

Me - Matthew (aka Stan), 33, Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician. Basically I do what they do on Silent Witness but it's not as glamourous! This is my 8th trip (5th with the DW)

DW - Gemma, 34, PALS assistant, so she deals with the living side of hospital patients . Diagnosed with severe tree nut and mild peanut allergy 5 years ago so this is always a treat as Disney are great with allergies.



So, onto the schedule:

Sept 21 (Travel Day)
Virgin plane food!
Pepper Market (dinner)

Sept 22
Yak and Yeti CS (lunch)
Coral Reef (dinner)

Sept 23
Seaworld Expedition Cafe (lunch)
The Wave (dinner)

Sept 24
Restaurantosaurus (lunch)
Sanaa (dinner)

Sept 25
Peco Bills (lunch)
Citricos (dinner)

Sept 26
Discovery Cove (breakfast/lunch)
Grand Floridian Cafe (dinner)

Sept 27
Kona Cafe (lunch)
Cosmic Rays (dinner)

Sept 28
Mama Melrose (lunch)

Sept 29
Pepper Market (lunch and dinner)

Sept 30
Pepper Market (lunch) and Be Our Guest (dinner)

Oct 1
US Monsters Cafe (lunch)
Sci Fi Dine In (dinner)

Oct 2
US Circus McGurkus Cafe (lunch)
Tutto Italia (dinner)

Oct 3
Yak and Yeti CS (lunch)
Jiko (dinner)

Oct 4
Cosmic Rays (lunch)
Yachstman Steakhouse (dinner)

Oct 5
Electric Umbrella (lunch)
Via Napoli (dinner)

Oct 6
SW Expedition Cafe (lunch) and Dine with Shamu (dinner)

Oct 7
Electric Umbrella (lunch)
Artist Point (dinner)

Oct 8
Pepper Market (lunch) and Virgin Plane (dinner)

Final Thoughts

[stan_the_man]

Sept 21 (Travel Day)

No photos I'm afraid!

We had the standard full english at our B&B and then got dropped off at Gatwick for 10am.

Our flight was scheduled for 1pm (I think it was closer to 1:45pm when we took off) and after the standard drinks/pretzels the food came round. The choice was either chicken curry in cashew nut sauce, or pulled beef in tomato sauce with mash and boston BBQ beans. I chose the pulled beef as if I have nuts I'm not allowed near the DW

I was quite surprised as it was really delicious for plane food! Even the french cheese spread (I think it was boursin) on the crackers was nice. Dessert was a GU passion fruit pudding, yum!

DW had a plain cheese sarnie from Boots and some wheat crunchies due to her allergy (even Virgin's nut free meal choice "may contain nuts" ) but she didn't mind as she sees the flights as a means to an end.

Around an hour before we landed the snack came round, I can't remember both choices but I chose the sweet chili chicken wrap. This came with the Tyrells 'plane' crisps and a millionaires shortbread slice, all very tasty!

[stan_the_man]

Sept 21 (Travel Day)

Pepper Market for dinner tonight! Again, no pictures as I was so tired I forgot to take my camera

I'm sure most of you understand, you get to the resort, get to the room and change out of your travel clothes, and just want to eat something and get to bed.

We wandered over to the Pepper Market to have a look to see what was what. This is the first time we have been since they have moved the cash registers to before the seats, which makes more sense.

I ordered the Texas Bacon Burger which is a 1/2-lb burger served with candied bacon, chipotle bacon, bacon aioli, BBQ sauce, and cheddar cheese, with garlic parmesan fries on the side.

DW ordered a grilled turkey burger with fries.

For dessert we got a cookie and a box of churros (this is good for a CS dessert as you get about 6-7 churros and a choice of dipping sauces i.e. chocolate or caramel). We also got 2 bottles of drink to take away as we got our free refillable mugs at this point and used them for our dinner.

My burger was really tasty for a CS choice, especially with the interesting toppings! DW wasn't too fussed about hers, she just wanted something to fill her up that wouldn't sit heavy. The fries were only lukewarm however as they had been sitting out under a hotplate, but we learnt in future just to ask for fresh to be made if we wanted them hot.

I had the churros for my dessert and took the cookie back to the room for breakfast! DW didn't have any desserts from the Pepper Market as they can't guarantee nut free, so I usually ended up eating one and saving one for myself.

[stan_the_man]

Sept 22

Yak and Yeti CS lunch

We were at AK so stopped at our favourite place for lunch, Yak and Yeti. We tended to get lunch around 11am so it was always quiet, and if offered the chance for DW to ask to speak to a manager about allergies without holding a queue up. Because of this we tended to revisit CS places we knew were ok.

I ordered the Korean Stir-Fry BBQ Chicken and DW had the honey chicken. For dessert I had the Pineapple coconunt cake and DW had the frozen lemonade cup





(no photo of the honey chicken or frozen lemonade this time, but there is on another day!)

I quite enjoyed my meal but after sampling some of the Honey Chicken, I prefered that (and ordered it the next time we ate at Y&Y). The dessert was a standout for me. The cake was moist with a nice pineapple flavour and coconut cream topping, and it had coconut flakes on top. It sat in a raspberry compote type thing which added a nice flavour.

My biggest disappointment today was that the Y&Y meals no longer come in the cute boxes! . They still have them, but only if you order a side of rice. I guess this way it is easier to eat/mix up your food should you want to do that.

As for the frozen lemonade cup, these are standard Disney dessert fayre, although they are so big even between us we didn't manage to finish it off!

Next up, dinner at Coral Reef

[Grapesoda]

Yipee, another report to drool over! Can't wait to read the rest, thanks for taking the time to share.

[stan_the_man]

Sept 22

Coral Reef (dinner)

Off to Epcot tonight for Coral Reef. Unfortunately this wasn't as nice a meal as what we've had in the past. It was a combination of things - the allergy menu for DW was very limited (although that is mainly as she doesn't eat seafood and her only non-seafood choice was the steak with plain sides) and although I do like seafood, nothing really appealled to me, so I ended up with the pork. After seeing the allergy menu, DW was also concerned that all our other TS choices would be pretty boring for her (but that turned out to be very untrue, so just a bad start to our TS meals!)

Thankfully we had a table for 2 in the middle of the ground floor, so quite near the tank. We have had tables on all levels here, and although you are a bit in a thoroughfare on the ground floor, it isn't that bad.

Our server scanned our magic bands before we ordered and ran through the whole DDP spiel. I don't mind this, but after a few times it gets boring. I wish their hand scanners told them if we had already eaten at a TS location so knew the spiel! This became the norm for all places except Citricos where they scanned at the end before paying. This also allows them to charge anything to your room without you putting your pin in again (you put it in at the start) so keep an eye on your reciepts/room charges if that sort of thing worries you.

First up, the thing we miss here in the UK, bread service!



I can never remember what different salts they put on their butter, it is usually something exotic and smoked, but it was lovely.

For my main, I ordered the Roasted Pork Belly with roasted potatoes, carrot silk and spiced pork caramel. DW ordered the Grilled New York Strip Steak with roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables and bercy butter (on the non-allergy menu this comes with cheddar mashed potatoes).





The pork belly fell apart on my fork, and the spiced pork caramel complimented it beautifully. The standout was the carrot 'silk' (essentially a puree). The carrot taste was so strong and I could have easily eaten a bowlful of it. I wasn't sure on the mini turnips and beets that were dotted around, but they weren't too bad. Only 3 bits of pork belly doesn't look a lot, but it did fill me up!

For dessert I ordered Vanilla Panna Cotta Tart with Florida key Lime, and DW ordered the Chocolate Wave with raspberry gelato.





This was interesting as it wasn't what I consider a panna cotta. It was a graham biscuit shell base with key lime filling, then the 'panna cotta' on top (which wasn't as wobbly as I thought it should be), then a mango/passion fruit type jelly on top. Saying all that, it was quite tasty. DW assures me her dessert was lovely, it looked like a fondant to me as it came served warm with a liquid centre.

Up next, Expedition Cafe at SW...

[Guest]

Loving this... hurry up! Want more lol.

[stan_the_man]

Sept 23

Expedition Cafe at SW

We haven't been to SW much so weren't too sure where to eat or what to get. As we had a TS booked for the evening, we just wanted to find a regular CS location to tide us over. It also happened that we had been on the new penguins ride and exited out in front of the Expedition Cafe.

As no-one was waiting to be served in here it gave DW the chance to ask the servers about allergies. I have to say SW were brilliant here. A manager came out with a binder that had every entree in a seperate file, listed all the ingredients, and even had photos of the ingredients labels from the manufacturers if it was something like a batter or dough base.

So, satisfied she could have it, we ordered a 3 piece fried chicken meal each. There was a choice of sides but we went with mac & cheese, and it also came with a biscuit (which was good for me as I love US biscuits but DW doesn't, so I get two!)



Nothing amazing here, although later in the trip we had the same choice again and were very disappointed with the chicken that time, but more of that later.

I also wasn't a fan of the bench seating here, I thought they could split them up a bit more for families to be seperated. The theming is quite nice around the area though.

Up next, the Wave...

[Tor32]

Fab start!

[stan_the_man]

Sept 23

The Wave (dinner)

Bit of a nightmare getting here. We had a 6:35pm ADR, so headed out from the resort at 5:30pm to go to the bus stop. As we were walking near the car park, an elderly gentleman asked me and another guest to help him move his wifes ECV from the back of his car to the floor. Well, being the good samaritan, I obliged. As I was putting it on the floor, we saw the MK bus in the distance pull up, and then leave :angry:

So after missing that one, it seemed like every other bus that could turn up did, apart from another MK one. Then when it eventually did (at 6:10pm) it seemed to take forever to get round the resort, and then hit every red light on the way to MK. We eventually arrived at MK at 6:35pm (me thinking "great, it is now our ADR time") and it parked about as far away as it could from the walkway to the Contemporary . What happened next was the fastest walk we have ever done in Disney , we made it to the Wave at 6:48pm but they were fine about us being late, I guess it happens quite a lot. On the plus side, after giving us the buzzer, we had only just sat down to wait when it went off, so that was good.

Anyway, quite a nice bread service here, it was some wholegrain affair, and the salt was hawaiian smoked (if I remember correctly)



For entrees, I ordered Grilled Colorado Lamb Chops with barely buzzed mac & cheese, grilled asparagus, and rosemary butter. DW ordered Free-Roaming Ashley Farms Chicken Breast - with fingerling potato hash, applewood-smoked bacon, caramelized brussels sprouts, and a huckleberry barbecue sauce.





To be honest I can't remember a lot about this, but I rarely have lamb at home so like to order it if I'm out. This also seemed to set up a trend of most menus having mac & cheese with a meat main course. I seem to remember a few years ago I had a filet steak with mac & cheese at Jiko, which was quite a novel concept, but it seems to have become the norm now.

For desserts, I had the German Chocolate cake with caramel sauce and heath bar ice cream. DW had vanilla creme brulee (this cropped up quite a bit for nut allergy sufferers). As she had never had creme brulee before, she wasn't sure about ordering it, but she found out she quite enjoyed them!





I think mine had been sitting out for a bit due to my melted ice cream. A friend of ours who was out there at the same time had it another night with no melted ice cream! But it was tasty nonetheless. The ice cream was the standout (Heath bars are like Daim bars)

Up next, Restaurantosaurus...