First time Disney dine! Complete!
 

Hi all

So we got back from our amazing holiday last October, with the intention of doing my food report within the first month. Obviously that didn't happen but better late than never!

We are a family of five me Lyndsey 38, chief planner and lover of Disney and Universal. Then there's my husband Wayne - 41, then our three boys Tom 19, Josh 17 and Ben 13, they all love the thrill rides and Marvel.

I really wanted to try out staying at Disney, have been to Florida quite a few times but never at Disney. So we booked 1 night at the Hard Rock Hotel in order to get the past passes. Then 14 nights at Disney's Old Key West in a 1 bedroom villa, we could have all squeezed into a studio but with the kids being older we didn't fancy this, we like having a living room area.

Pre Travel Day


We travelled down to Manchester which is about 2 and a half hours away. We stayed at Heald Green Premier Inn which we had done on our 2015 trip. They have a Beefeater which we enjoyed last time.

I started off with a Rekorderlig :) Wayne and Tom had lager, Josh and Ben coke

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We all got Steaks except Josh who got chicken and ribs


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The kids then got brownies for dessert, I only took one pic, me and Wayne had a couple more drinks

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The steaks were just ok, we enjoyed them but nothing special. We had a good evening though

Day 1 Travel Day
 

So we got up went down for breakfast around 7am, our flight wasn't till 12pm. We had paid for breakfast with the room bookings, we stayed in 2 rooms, and paid £9.50pp for 3 adult breakfasts and got the other 2 boys for free.

Ben just got pancakes, the rest of us got a full English, I must have forgot to take a pic of one

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We then went to the airport, the kids went in the shops and purchased a few bits. We then all went to the bar. Me and Wayne got a drink each, Tom and Ben went to Starbucks and Josh just got a soft drink

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We flew with Thomas cook on the airtanker, thankfully it was one that had the seat back entertainment. We bought sandwiches and snacks in case we didn't like the plane food but it was ok. Ben loved the curry which was good as he hates plane food. Prosecco was really nice!

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I will post the rest of the travel day shortly with the HRH and Bubba gumps for tea

We arrived at HRH at around 6.30pm, we had booked a regular room but on arrival they had given us a free upgrade to a suite on the Rock Royalty floor (club level). We were over the moon! The room was amazing. You also get unlimited soft drinks in the lounge all day plus food snacks at selected times. Alcohol is free from 5pm-7pm, we only got 20 mins of free alcohol but was an added bonus. We got two drinks each and all had a few snacks which were spring rolls, wontons, crisps and a few other things. I forgot to take food photos but got our drinks.

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We didn't have too many of the snack as we had already planned on Bubba Gumps with our Landrys card. City walk was heaving tonight, Microsoft had hired out Universal for the evening for what appeared to be thousands of staff. What a perk! We still got in Bubba Gumps with no wait with our card

I got salmon and rice and a frozen strawberry margarita

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Wayne got chicken and prawns and a lager

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Tom got steak with mash and a coke

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Josh got fish and chips with a coke

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Ben got fried chicken and chips with a mocktail

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All five of us got a souvenir glass...I have a soft spot for souvenir glasses, mugs, popcorn buckets. We really enjoyed Bubba Gumps, we were a bit tired as it had been a long day but service was great so didn't take too long.

Awesome start , free upgrades at the HRH ... well jel.. looking forward to reading your adventures , all the best

Definitely better late than never! Looking forward to reading along :)

What an excellent start to your holiday with the upgrade!
You now have the fun of enjoying your holiday all over again with doing this report.
M.

Day 2 Universal and IOA
 

We decided to try to get round as many of the Universal and IOA rides in a day and did practically everything apart from the little kid rides.
We started the day with breakfast in the rock royalty lounge at HRH, free breakfast


We had doughnuts, cereal, croissants, coffee and cokes. Loved the HRH, would definitely recommend. Sorry about the picture quality, in fact my pics throughout are probably not the best!

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We all enjoyed this. Then off we went to Universal. We stopped for lunch at the Simpsons food court. Wayne had loved his crusty burger last time we went, this time was just ok. It's awkward when people want things from different counters as there was a long wait at some counters but not at others. So the pizza took forever. We will probably try somewhere different this year.

Ben and I shared fish and chips

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Wayne and Tom got Krusty (the clown from the Simpsons, not horrible crusty lol) burgers

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Josh got a meat feast pizza

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Tom and Josh aren't big snackers, Ben is! So we always get the big pink doughnut and then he wanted a caramel apple which is another of our favourites.

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We stayed till around 5 and then off we went to Old Key West to check in. I absolutely loved this place! It's just a perfect setting, the villa was lovely and spacious. I had asked for a top floor refurbished room and that's what we got. So pleased.

We decided to try OKW quick service and use some of our dining credits. We also all picked our drink mugs which are included as part of the dining plan.

I can't have took a pic of everyone's but here are some of our selections. The rice and chicken was mine as I get sick of burgers, it was lovely. The burgers were a bbq pulled pork burger which I think Wayne and Tom had. Ben and Josh generally had nuggets and fries if we went here. The kids got a brownie each instead of a drink with being able to fill their drink mugs for free anyway. I got a frozen strawberry daquiri.

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The selection at OKW quick service isn't massive with it being largely a DVC resort but it was enough for us the few times we went. That was the end of day one on dining plan, we only used QS credits... this is a theme, dining plan was too much food for us we had a load of left over credits. A lot of this is because we still went to a lot of other theme parks other than Disney and we also ate in the room for breakfast where we could have used snack credits but I would still do the dining plan again without a doubt. We loved it.

Day 3 Animal Kingdom
 

So day 3 we were off to Animal Kingdom, we started off the day with a quick breakfast in the room which was pop tarts and Krispy Kreme we had picked up at Walmart the day before.

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We had also picked up some soft drinks, we usually take a cool bag with some cans to Disney. You aren't allowed to take them to Universal, only water but we had bought the refillable mugs at Universal. We also got some snacks at Walmart for the villa...and some alcohol.

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For lunch we went to Yak and Yeti, I hadn't booked a time with having a Landry's card. This was a table service credit. There was a long wait but we were seated in about ten minutes because of the card. We loved it in here, definitely want to go back.

I had honey chicken with fried rice, the rice wasn't great. The jasmine rice would have been a better option so Ben let me have some of his. The chicken was lovely as was my sangria.

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Wayne had surf and turf, he loved this and a lager

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Tom had the burger which looked amazing

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Ben had duck, he loved it

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Josh had chicken tikka masala which he also really enjoyed

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Wayne and Tom didn't get dessert. I got the wontons, wow they are sooooo good! Josh and Ben got the chocolate pudding cake, Josh liked it Ben hated it but he is fussy about cake. They also gave us all a fortune cookie.

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Later on we headed back to the hotel. I was shattered so stayed at the villa whilst the others all went to Disney springs to find something to eat. Everyone except Ben went to Blaze for a pizza and they brought them back to the villa. Ben got fish and chips in Cookes of Dublin and enjoyed them. The pizzas are so nice so a quick service credit. I don't have any pics of snacks we ate that day so not sure if we got any or not. I had a bottle of once upon a vine sparkling wine that I got in the OKW shop.

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Blaze pizza is now one of our favourite quick service places. It's definitely worth a try.

Blaze pizzas always look really good

great start, thank you for sharing :)