theDIBB - A great big beautiful - Cocktails and Food Report Complete

Welcome to A Great Big Beautiful - Cocktails and Food report :wavey: otherwise known as the 'fastpass to bankruptcy' food report :erm:. Have you seen the price of cocktails in WDW ;)?

I've been writing a pre trip report for summer holiday which you can find here if you would like to dive into the detail.

Like many of us on here we love the food in Florida and it’s become a big part of our trips. We’ve had 5 trips to Florida and on 4 of them we had the Disney dining plan. So, this trip will be different for us :omg:. No more ‘free’ cocktails with our meals, this time we will have to pay OOP for them all. But, by golly, please don’t worry that the fact we actually have to part with cash will mean we are more restrained :tongue:. We won’t be holding back as we’ve waited a long time for this trip. We have 16 nights onsite at WDW, then we have 4 nights at Universal. So, this trip will involve lots of onsite eating along with a little offsite.

Let’s start with the intros and a little bit of history

I’m Abby, my husband is David and we have two children, Max and Kate. Our last holiday to Florida was in 2019 with my parents.

This year will just be three of us, me, Dave and Kate. Max has finished his A Levels and decided he doesn’t want to holiday with us :cry:. We are all going to miss him on this trip :cry: :cry: :cry: and I have already told him I will be video calling him every day to make sure he’s still alive :blush:! In my head I know he’ll be fine as he’s a fully grown man, but I’m still his mum… For those who have read some of my previous food reports no Max does mean we won't be getting any of these special buffet plates this year.

He sure knows how to work a buffet :pgig:

Anyway, onward with the intros.

We first went to Florida on a truly once in a lifetime trip (or so we genuinely thought at the time ;)) in 2014, the kids were 9 and 7. On that trip we had the free QSDP, we returned in 2016 and had the free DDP. This was a real eye-opener. We returned in 2017, but stayed offsite, we experienced the delights of I Drive and Universal restaurants. Then in 2018 and 2019 it was back to onsite and the full DDP.

So, as you can see we are used to eating onsite and we are used to it ‘feeling’ free :omg:. I know this used to cause lots of debates on here as of course the price we paid for the hotel room was at the full rate, so I am well aware that it wasn't free but merely paid for in advance. But, it sure did feel free during the trip and I really enjoyed the feeling of not having to say no to the kids if they wanted an ice cream or the most expensive steak on a menu :).

It certainly made character buffets do-able…this year we won’t be eating at any character meals. In all honesty this is only partly down to the fact they are extortionate as it's also because Kate is now 15 and decided a while ago that she was not going to get an autograph book this trip as she wasn’t that fussed about meeting characters. We’ve done Tusker’s House, CRT, Garden Grill, Crystal Palace, Hollywood and Vine before some of them multiple times so we won’t be missing out.

Here's a couple of photos from Garden Grill and Crystal Palace for those of you who love the character buffets, I'm sorry but that's the last of these you'll see here, unless the plans change :omg: which is entirely possible ;).

Right, so now you know what we won’t be eating, it’s probably about time that I tell you when we are going, where we will be staying and what we will be doing. Oh, and a little bit about what we will be eating would also be handy given this is a food report!

When

Soon, very soon! Like many of you we have had our trips cancelled and moved into the following year a couple of times now. This will be our first post COVID trip. We leave in 11 days. Eek :spin:. I can’t believe the countdown is looking so healthy :d:. We are knocking on the door of our single digit day and I can’t wait.

We leave for the airport hotel on Tuesday 26th July and we fly home on Tuesday 16th August, so that means we get to stuff ourselves for 3 weeks.

Where

Stick with me as this is where it gets complicated as we have 6, yes 6 :omg:, different hotel stays on our trip. What? Surely that can’t be right there must be a mistake? Nope, it definitely is 6.

Premier Inn – night before we fly
All Star Sports – just 2 nights here
Copper Creek Villas at Wilderness Lodge – 8 wonderful nights in our DVC home resort :inlove:. This is our first stay as DVC owners and our first stay at Wilderness Lodge
Boardwalk Villas – 6 nights in a DVC studio
DoubleTree Hilton – 4 nights here for the Universal part of our stay, this hotel is near the entrance to Citywalk and is far cheaper than any of the Universal resorts
Royal Pacific Resort – during our DoubleTree stay we check in for 1 night at RPR so we can get the express passes ;)

Phew, a lot of moving around, but at WDW it’s relatively easy to change hotels and we will drop our luggage off at Bell Services head into the parks, then just go home to our new resort, picking up our luggage from their Bell Services. And the moving around means that we really get to immerse ourselves in all the great restaurants at both the Seven Seas Lagoon and Crescent Lake Resorts.

What

Well frankly, that’s obvious from the where we are staying part of the post. We have tickets for WDW and will reactivate our annual passes for Universal. I haven’t bothered with Seaworld or Discovery Cove this year. I have booked all our park days at the Disney parks and I have lots of ADRs booked up.

Ok, so get on with the actual food

Yes, I can hear you all shouting at me to get on with some specifics about what we will be eating and drinking.

I can promise you lots of quick service cocktails a bit like these

I can promise you lots of table service cocktails a bit like these

I can promise you lots of breakfasts a bit like these

I can promise you lots of savoury treats a bit like these

I can promise you lots of sweet treats a bit like these

Oh and I can promise you a lot of coffee a bit like these

I think that is enough writing for the opening post. I will be back soon with more details about where we plan on eating and all the ADRs I’ve made.

:wave: