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-   -   Merry Stitchmas! An onsite and offsite Dining Report, December 2016 (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=997982)

Wismgari 2 Jan 17 01:14 AM

Merry Stitchmas! An onsite and offsite Dining Report, December 2016
 
Hi everyone and welcome to my first ever food report! I read a lot of food reports before this trip and I wanted to have a go at doing my own. As you may have guessed from the report title I am slightly in love with Stitch, and the holiday took part over the Christmas period. The title actually comes from this very cute badge (button) that I purchased from Etsy before I went… I wish I could wear it all year round!



So, first up I should apologise as I did forget to take a few pictures throughout, but I did keep all receipts and have a lot of pictures so hopefully it will be OK. I may also throw in a few non-food pictures of some lovely Christmas decorations (we toured a lot of the resorts) or other things that take my fancy, but I don’t have anywhere near enough details for a full trip report.

Now, introductions and trip information... it was just me and my boyfriend visiting – this is us, hanging out with our close buddy Jiminy earlier this year (last year now I guess...).



We are both 30-somethings, who enjoy visiting the Disney parks (although one more than the other!). This was my third trip (all as adults) and his second – it was also out second trip of 2016! We visited in April and he enjoyed it a lot more than I thought he would. In about September I jokingly said, I wish we could go back for Christmas. He said, “this year?” and I wasn’t going to say no was I! So, what was originally going to be a complete budget trip (offsite, using hotel shuttles/ uber), turned into less of a budget trip and we stayed at Pop and rented a car (for the first time). We did not have a dining plan so we ate offsite a lot and tried to not spend too much money on food. We also only visited Disney this trip to save money and spent a lot of time touring the resorts to look at Xmas decorations as well. Food wise, I am a bit fussy, but I do love American food, but not a lot of healthy food (no salad for me thanks!). He is much less fussy and will try most things, but also has to be encouraged to try something different sometimes.

Hopefully, I will get it all uploaded pretty quickly and I hope you enjoy :)

Wismgari 2 Jan 17 02:18 AM

3rd December: Travel Day

I am starting my first ever food report as a complete failure… I somehow have no pictures at all of food from today! I will throw in a couple of random photos of non-food items to keep it interesting!

So, we had spent the night at a Premier Inn near Gatwick airport, as although we were on the 1pm Virgin flight, we live about 3.5 hours drive from the airport (if the traffic is good to us), so it was just a lot easier. At the premier inn we stayed at there was complementary warm breakfast rolls, parties and Costa coffee from a machine. He had a bacon roll and I had a chocolate croissant to keep me going until the airport.

After dropping the car at the parking and getting a minibus to the airport we dropped off our bags and got through security really quickly. Then we were on a mission to find a late breakfast/ early lunch. However, we (I) got sidetracked by this…



It was the day the Mickey and Minnie line for Cath Kidson had launched! So, after purchasing a passport holder, luggage tag and a new wallet (oops the spending started early!) we returned to our search for food. Now, there used to be a Frankie and Benny’s in this terminal and I hadn’t realised it had gone…. I was most upset! After wandering around getting annoyed for a while (I am not good with British breakfast foods, and Weatherspoons weren’t serving lunch until 12pm) we stumbled upon the Grain Store. I had a slightly weird meal here of a ham and cheese croissant (£4.50), with a wide of garlic fries (£3) and an apple juice (£3) – I was trying to fill up before the plane, as I don’t usually manage to eat a lot. He had a croque monsieur (£8.50) and a side of garlic fries (£3), with a latte (£.2.90) – he does like plane food, but was just hungry! It was pretty good and the total bill was £25.90.

On the flight, as predicted, I did not think much of the offerings. We chose the teriyaki chicken and the chilli with wedges between us, with the idea being I would probably eat the wedges and maybe a bit of chicken and he could eat the rest… which is pretty much what happened. Dessert was something chocolatey which I ate and enjoyed. I then munched on mini dimes and pringles throughout the journey. Afternoon tea was some sort of sandwich (I really should have taken some pictures!), a mini chocolate treat thing and some really horrible crisps… lemon and pepper?! Why? Safe to say, I was back to the pringles!

After getting through immigration quickly, waiting ages for our cases, waiting ages for customs and then waiting half an hour for a magical express we finally arrived at Pop and I was starving!





I swear I took photos of our dinner, but I can’t find them, sorry! I do get better!

We ate in the Pop food court this evening. I had chicken nuggets and fries (I do love a Disney nugget!). It was far too much food though and I thought I should have ordered a child’s portion (I did learn from this as you will see). This cost $10.49. He bought a large slice of pepperoni pizza with salad, which he enjoyed and it cost $9.99. We both also bough refillable mugs (which we got a lot of use out of this trip!) for $17.99 each. Total cost including tax was $60.14

We then went and collapsed into bed, to get ready for our first day in animal kingdom!

Food costs for the day:
£25.90
$60.14 (including refillable mugs for the whole trip)

I do get better with pictures the next day I promise!

Goldia 2 Jan 17 10:57 AM

I always love a food trippie! Cannot wait for the next instalment. Looking forward to the resort Christmas decorations. I saw a vlog which had the gingerbread house from gf in. It looked amazing. :spin:

Wismgari 2 Jan 17 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldia (Post 12187043)
I always love a food trippie! Cannot wait for the next instalment. Looking forward to the resort Christmas decorations. I saw a vlog which had the gingerbread house from gf in. It looked amazing. :spin:

Thank you :) I hope you enjoy! I am sure many Christmas pictures will sneak their way into my "food" report!

Wismgari 2 Jan 17 01:22 PM

4th December: MK day
 
You will be pleased to know there are actually pictures of food in today’s food report!

I had a very restless night so was exhausted today. My bf seemed to have slept fine, he never seems to struggle much with time changes! Breakfast today was at Everything Pop – this was a pretty good food court, I really liked it. So, I had a kids Mickey waffle meal (I had learnt from the giant portion last night!). This was great value as it is two Mickey waffles, some strawberries, a piece of bacon, a sausage, a small drink (water or cartons of juice) and a small bag of fruit (grapes or apple slices), all for $5.32 (including tax). I didn’t have the strawberries today (no clue why…) and I had 2 pieces of bacon instead of sausage (not a fan of the sausage patties they do over there), took a small bottle of water to take to the parks, a bag of apple slices that never got eaten, and filled my mug up with some delicious orange fanta – I love fanta over there and it is almost the same as orange juice for breakfast right?!



He had an adults Mickey waffle meal, which looked huge, and it cost $9.05 (including tax). He would have filled his mug up with lots of coffee to keep him going for the day!



And this was the gorgeous view from our room, looking out across the lake to Art of Animation:



We then caught the bus to Magic Kingdom and I was excited to see it all decked out for Christmas.





At about midday we were peckish and decided to share a QS meal. I had never tried a corn dog and really wanted to so we headed to Caseys for a corn dog nugget meal and 2 cups of ice water, $8.51 (including tax). It is worth mentioning here that we drank a lot of water in the parks and would bring a bottle in with us (which will be purchased at Walmart later today) and would refill it with free cups of ice water from QS locations.



This was really good! I really enjoyed the corn dog nuggets and there were plenty of fries to share! Since we had shared lunch we decided we could definitely fit in dessert again and this had to be a dole whip! We got one of these each, so it cost $8.93 in total.



Yum! We love these so much. Although, sadly this was the only dole whip of this holiday, not really sure how that happened!

After another couple of hours we caught an Alamo shuttle from the Contemporary to Disney Care Care Centre to pick up our rental car. Neither of us has ever driven out of the UK before so we had decided not to collect the car from the airport, when half asleep, and we use the Magical Express and collect on day 2 instead. This worked well for us and Guest Relations had helped us book our shuttle that morning (although it had taken a while to explain to the guy helping us what we wanted.. Me: “I need to book a shuttle to the Disney Car Care Centre to collect my car, are you able to help please?”. Him: “Is that a restaurant?”. Me: …..). Anyway, I digress, once we had the car, I insisted he drive (we were both insured) as I was terrified and off we went! Turns out, I was also terrified with him driving! Somehow, we made it to Walmart without dying on the I4 and we stocked up on goodies! Neither of us have ever been to Walmart before and so we may have gone a bit mad….



We managed to spend $91.28 (including tax) on a load of junk food (and a few presents for friends that weren’t in the photo, as this was posted to Facebook).

After spending a ridiculous amount of money on junk food we headed off to my restaurant of choice, Olive garden! I went here twice in New York earlier this year and absolutely loved it (those breadsticks, mmm). He had never been, so I insisted we must try! We went to the one on Vineland Road, on the way back from Walmart. Now, I didn’t love it here, but it may have been because I was over hungry and over tired by this point and just wanted to sleep. In hindsight we should have probably gone for a quick meal somewhere, but never mind. We both ordered a raspberry lemonade ($2.99 each) and we had the fried mozzarella to start, who doesn’t love fried cheese? Also, it had an alfredo drizzle, and as you may very soon learn, I am slightly obsessed with alfredo! This was very delicious and also free as we had a voucher for joining their email club.



I eagerly awaited the breadsticks and he enjoyed his salad (I don’t like salad and didn’t fancy any soup) so was just planning to eat my weight in breadsticks. I kept waiting…. And waiting…. And then I asked for them…. And then they finally arrived!



I was so excited for these, but I was so disappointed. They had no flavour on them at all and were just a bit doughy and undercooked. Never mind I thought, I still had my main to come, which I had had before and I knew was also delicious! For some reason I did not take pictures of our main courses and I have no idea why (I had been doing so well!). So I had ordered the create your own pasta meal with wholewheat linguine, garlic alfredo sauce, and grilled chicken ($14.28) – this was so good! However, for some reason by this point I just felt really tired and full and barely made a dent in it. He had the tour of Italy ($17.99), which he really liked, but only managed to eat about half of, which is most unlike him! We got boxes to take our food back with us, but never did eat it as there were too many other places we wanted to try! The total bill was $40.74 (including tax) and we left a 15% tip of $7.13, as service hadn’t been great.

After this we drove back to Pop, parked in a car park miles from our room, refilled our mugs and collapsed into bed exhausted after a long day!

Total food spends (including tax and tips):

Walmart shop for goodies: $91.28 (but a lot of this was stuff to take home, so I am not really counting it in my food spends!)
Meals: $65.32

Guest 2 Jan 17 04:31 PM

Great start! I love a good trippie!

Disney Bear 2 Jan 17 05:19 PM

Loving this. Great Picture of the Christmas tree in MK.

Wismgari 3 Jan 17 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mancdisney (Post 12187634)
Great start! I love a good trippie!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Disney Bear (Post 12187733)
Loving this. Great Picture of the Christmas tree in MK.

Thanks for reading :wave:

debsym62 3 Jan 17 01:30 PM

Look forward to reading more.

mick 3 Jan 17 08:53 PM

Enjoying reading along :spin:look forward to the rest!:grin:
Joan :wave:


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