To Universal & Beyond - bites & sights! ***COMPLETE
 

Hello and welcome along to our 4th food report. :wavey:


Please click here if you would like to read our previous reports


Index

Day 0 - Pre-Travel Day
Day 1 - Travel Day
Day 2 - St Pete Beach
Day 3 - Cabana Bay, Universal & Volcano Bay
Day 4 - Universal, NBC Sports Bar & Grill and Coldstone Creamery
Day 5 - Universal, Sunset Lakes and Buffalo Wild Wings
Day 6 - Golden Corral and Panda Express
Day 7 - Panera Bread, Kennedy Space Center and Bob Evans
Day 8 - Miller's, Carlos Bakery and Volcano Bay
Day 9 - Super Target, Publix, Celebration and Chuy's
Day 10 - Denny's, Crazy Golf and Universal
Day 11 - Bob Evans, Celebration, Sweet Tomatoes and The Boardwalk
Day 12 - McDonalds, The Cowfish, Voodoo Doughnuts and Volcano Bay
Day 13 - Panera Bread, Monorail Resorts, Disney Springs and Longhorns
Day 14 - Texas Roadhouse, Universal and Toothsome Chocolate Emporium
Day 15 - Panera Bread, Wendy's and travelling home




Pre-trip thoughts/plans

With just under 8 weeks until we return to “our happy place”, thought it was time to head back to the dining forum & start our pre-trip-pie. Thanks autocorrect! Mmmm pie... :D:D

I’m Melissa/Mrs P and I share my husbands account on here. Wife to one, Mum to two and nurse to lots! I am a creature of habit and always seem to choose anything on a menu with blueberries, chocolate and salmon!

Graeme (Pumba75) is the planner, driver, ultimate bag carrier and BBQ fan! He's looking forward to returning to Bongo's and Chef Art Smith's Homecomin'.

From Kim (Leyfy) & Phil’s wedding. 👇🏻




We have 2 daughters who are 15 & 12. Eldest is an avid book reader, Harry Potter fan and favourite foods include olives, pickles and cheesecake! Youngest loves playing netball, loves all the big rides and happily eats most things. They both push their plates towards me now before taking a bite!

We love holidays and I love taking photos. Especially food photos. It’s my guilty pleasure to capture the memory & taste buds. As I’m getting older my short term memory seems to be getting worse, but I can look at a photo of a plate of food and can tell you where we were, what we ate and what we were doing!




G & I went to Florida many years ago for the first time for our honeymoon and then as a family of 4 went for our “once in a lifetime holiday” and yet here we are. Returning for our 9th time & the girls 8th! Each holiday has been different - onsite, offsite, parks, no parks, budget, DDP, beaches, national parks, full on and relaxed. We’ve loved them all. And we love the food! We have our trusted old favourite restaurants and enjoy trying out new places.




This year we are also being joined by 3 others. Two of our closest friends and their daughter. This is their first time to Florida. We have been friends for many many years and all holidayed together before. They are used to me and “tolerate” me taking photos but I won’t push it! Haha. We recently went round their’s for a BBQ and some holiday planning, so thought I would start as I mean to go on! ;)






No Disney this year so this won’t be happening.




Only tickets we are purchasing are for Universal, Volcano Bay (first time) and Kennedy Space Centre. We were last there 4 years ago so looking forward to seeing & experiencing new things. Planning on returning to Celebration and hoping to explore Winter Park and/or Winter Gardens for the first time too.


We are all big Harry Potter fans. This was one of our daughters birthday cakes.




I’m looking forward to the Frozen Butter Beer again.




However, we are planning on getting our Disney fix in Disney Springs and we’ve also been discussing doing a Disney monorail crawl and having a drink and snack at each of the hotels, possibly on my birthday.







Previous food reports I’ve done live, but don’t think that is going to be possible this year, so will update on our return.

Edited to add - Hoping to convince G that we can do this as a joint venture, just like our California/West Coast trip report. He writes & I take the photos! :inlove::kissing:


I did like the look of this notebook. I normally write notes on my phone, but you can never have enough notebooks right?!




The girls also pointed this out recently whilst shopping for the holiday. Cheeky! As. If. :pgig::pgig:





So the plan...


Premier Inn booked at Gatwick. Dinner and breakfast included.




Fly drive booked with BA direct to Tampa. Homeward bound via Miami into Heathrow.




2 nights at The Grand Plaza at St Pete Beach. This will be our 3rd stay here. 4th if you include Christmas Day Dinner. Dinner & cocktails at Bongo’s is a must.




2 nights at Cabana Bay.




10 nights at Sunset Lakes in a dibb villa.





On our Food list:

Old favourites

Skidders
Bongos
IHOP
Denny’s
Sweet Tomatoes
Longhorns
Teak Neighbourhood Grill
Buffalo Wild Wings
Red Lobster
Millers
Bob Evans
Texas Roadhouse
Perkins


New places to try

Keke’s
Hash Hash a Go Go
Cowfish
Bayliner diner
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium
Voodoo Donuts
The Yard House
First Watch
NBC Sports Bar
Chicken Guy

Will sign up for vouchers just before we leave.


Any other recommendations would be greatly received.



Not long to go now...




Hope there won't be too many of these. Apologies in advance if there are!




Thanks for reading along this far. Hope you enjoy and find it useful.



M x

IG: deliciousdisneydelights

Sounds amazing- you need to do Trader Sams if you go for your drinks crawl :)

Well done. I do like a food report. Looking forward to this one.:)

Enjoy Bongos as it closes tail end of this year and is moving to Margaritaville up on the 192.

Love a food report and really looking forward to reading yours.

Looking forward to reading this. Our holiday starts off very similar to yours, we’re also flying in to Tampa and spending a couple of nights at St Pete beach. I can’t wait to hear about your meals and cocktails at Bongos beach bar. 😀

Oooo yay another food report to follow! Looking forward to it!

We travel on the same day!
We re VA into mco.

Live a food report... maybe i should do 1 too... 🤔🤔
Little concerned u seem alot more organised tham me ≈≈≈≈

Looking forward to your report. We stayed at Sunset lakes in May, and are returning in September - it's so close to everything, great location. We went to the Grand Plaza for the first time this year, and had the most amazing time, loved the cocktails and watching the sunset. We went to Madfish following a suggestion on here - it was the best meal we had anywhere, and it is just a 2 minute walk from the Grand Plaza. We went for the early bird, and it was amazing value. Would highly recommend. I think we will do 2 nights when we go again. We also tried Steak n Shake for the first time - didn't realise what I was missing :grin::thumbs-up

sounds great, thanks for sharing :thumbs-up

Looking forward to eating vicariously through you! :D
Jo xxx