[collybird]

Sorry for the delay on getting the next day to you guys, it's been a super busy weekend in Chicken Land

DAY 5

Another day, another cancelled ADR. I was feeling really down this morning; we were badly missing our cats , and Mum wasn’t enjoying Disney, I needed something to perk me up so I decided we should go on an adventure. I feel like this is an enormous confession, but… we ate offsite and cancelled our 9.25 am ADR at Trattoria al Forno, which coincidentally was the hardest of all our ADRs to get!

One of my favourite films is
'I Am Sam', and iHop features as Sean Penn’s character’s favourite restaurant, ever since I first saw the film (over 15 years ago!), I’ve wanted to eat there as it just seemed so quintessentially American.

iHop

Honestly, I was hugely excited about iHop, we have been to Florida seven times, yet never been. You can see the menu here. I practically danced into the restaurant.

I knew what I wanted before I even opened the menu. Smokehouse Combo - Smoky and savory, our combo comes with two smoked sausage links, two eggs ade your way, hash browns and two fluffy buttermilk pancakes

This was as good as it looks, the smoked sausages are delicious, I had my eggs scrambled and they were hot, fluffy and creamy, and the hash browns, which aren’t usually my favourite of things, were tasty.

You can upgrade the pancakes that come with the combo to any on the menu, it was so hard for me to choose but in the end I went for Belgian Dark Chocolate Mousse Pancakes - Chocolate pancakes will with chocolate chips and layered with creamy Belgian dark chocolate mousse, then topped with more mousse & chocolate chops, dusted with cocoa powder and crowned with whipped topping.

I chose wrong! I love chocolate, but I don’t really like chocolate flavoured things, so I don’t really know what I was thinking with these. They were just too chocolatey! The promises of chocolate chips was what had swayed me towards these as I regretted not trying the ones at Boma, but the chocolate chips had melted into the pancakes so they were just like extra mousse!

Mum had the Seasonal Pancake Combo -Choose a two stack of one of our seasonal pancakes and make it a combo with eggs, hash browns and more!

She had eggs and sausages. She loved this, said it was the best breakfast so far, and iHop’s coffee was much, much better than Disney’s

She chose the Pumpkin Spice Pancakes - Two pumpkin pancakes made with real pumpkin and seasonal spices, crowned with creamy whipped topping to go with her combo.

These look delicious, and they were! I think the sweet potato pancakes at The Wave were better but these are really nice, and it was fun to try one of the seasonal offerings. I really wanted mum to try the Cinna-A-Stack ones with cinnamon bun flavouring but she said she ‘didn’t want any buns’

Nik had the Create Your Own Melt - [i]Grilled artisan sourdough filled with scrambled eggs, Swiss, American and your choice of sliced ham, hickory-smoked bacon, shredded corned beef or fire-roasted poblano peppers and onions.

He opted for the bacon, this also comes with your choice of pancakes or hash browns. He loved this, he said he felt like he was in heaven eating it

I also added a side of Turkey Sausage Patties

I thought these might taste like my beloved sausage patties from Tusker House (which I presume are pork), but they didn’t, they tasted like turkey, dry!

This meal came to $44.20. Now, I’ve read enough trip reports to know it is cheaper to eat offsite, but seeing it in front of me was a bit of a game changer. We loved our meals, the server was fantastic; our glasses were never empty, she offered us drinks to go, helped my mum out when she wasn’t sure how she wanted her eggs cooked, and she filled us in on seasonal offers, including sharing her own favourites, she seemed genuine when she did this, not like she was being a salesperson. Breakfast for 3 people cost less than the (undeserved) tip at Artist Point. I loved The Wave and Boma, but were they better than iHop?! No.

The thing that struck me most about off-site eating was the difference in the tips. I know I am probably taking too simple a view of this, serving is an art in the US, and the servers that work at Disney have likely worked hard to get there, but it just seems wrong that there are excellent servers in offsite restaurants doing the same job but earning only a percentage of the tips Disney servers do.

***

Stuffed from breakfast we headed to Epcot, the plan for today had been valet parking at the Boardwalk and then strolling to World Showcase after breakfast just in time for it opening. Now we were offsite, we decided just to park normally and finish off the Future World attractions we’d missed the other day.

Nik and I shared our favourite Vanilla Bean Crème Frappuccino from Fountain View

Mum had an Iced Strawberry Green Tea. She liked this, I thought it was horrible, another thing I thought tasted like medicine.

***

Lunch was supposed to be Chefs de France but stuffed from breakfast we changed our plans again. I had planned a late lunch as we were going to the Happily Ever After Dessert Party in the evening so wanted to save room for it, we switched our plans to an early dinner instead.

Before we left Epcot we stopped at Electric Umbrella for something to drink. I got a Frozen Strawberry Slushy which was again more like a smoothie than a slushy.

Whilst we were at Electric Umbrella we had a look at the menu and Nik said he would quite like to eat there, he had tried some of my nuggets at Columbia Harbor House and he wanted some more. He really doesn’t ask for much so I said we could change our plans for the following day so we could try it. It was EMH at Magic Kingdom that evening so I said we could stay later than planned, skip our Crystal Palace breakfast in the morning, have a lie-in instead, then head back to Epcot for lunch then do some World Showcase.

***

The Plaza

By the time our dinner ADR arrived we were all absolutely starving and skipping lunch seemed like a bad idea! We were so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of the menu, which you can see here/.

There’s not much on offer in the way of appetizers here, loaded fries, wedge salad (which I hate, it’s just lazy, chop it up!), or seasonal soup. I had the Loaded Fries - French Fries topped with Melted Cheese, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomatoes and Ranch Dressing.

These were really good! Hot and crispy fries with just the right amount of dressing that meant they didn’t go soggy. We shared them and cleared the plate.

Nik and Mum both had the Seasonal Soup, which was tomato bisque.

They both really liked this, I thought it tasted like Heinz Tomato Soup.

Mum and Nik ordered the same main too, I told them they were spoiling my trip report! Baked Honey-Barbecued Brisket Mac & Cheese - Baked Pasta in Cheddar Cheese Sauce sprinkled with Crispy-Fried Onions and Scallions topped with a Savory Barbecued Beef Brisket

Mum said she liked this, and did speak about it a few days afterwards, so I think she was telling the truth, but she left a lot of it! Nik liked it too but he thought the brisket and the mac and cheese should have been two different dishes.

I had the Angus Chuck Cheeseburger - Served on a Brioche Bun with Lettuce, Tomato, Onion and choice of Toppings – Bacon, Cheddar, American Cheese, Grilled Mushrooms, or Grilled Onions. Served with your choice of Seasonal Vegetables, Homemade Chips, or French Fries

I had cheddar on my burger, and fries as the side, I don’t know why I ordered more fries! When we ate here in 2013 I wasn’t asked how I wanted my burger cooked leading me to think they served QS burgers in here, this year it was freshly cooked to order, which was a good improvement. It was a simple dish, but perfectly done.



Mum had the Plaza Restaurant Sundae - [i]Ice Cream of your choice topped with choice of Hot Fudge, Strawberry Sauce, Crushed Pineapple, Chopped Nuts, Whipped Cream, and a Cherry]/i].

She said ‘I’m going to have the sundae, that will be small’ She chose strawberry ice cream, but had already had a strawberry shake as her drink, ice cream overload!

More in tune with Disney portion sizes I asked for the Mickeylodeon.

This is the kids’ dessert with mint chocolate chip ice cream, it was just the right size. I love that in America anything goes, restaurants will give you anything you want, the server didn't even flinch when I asked for the kids' dessert.

Nik had an All-You-Care-To-Enjoy Milk Shake - Hand-dipped Milk Shake topped with Whipped Cream and a Cherry.

Cookies and cream wasn’t listed as one of the available shake flavours but Nik asked anyway and they were able to do it for him. He enjoyed this. I don't know what is going on with this picture, I think I'd gone too long without having anything to eat, and by the end of this meal I felt a bit sick.

We were all really happy with our meals here, and I would have happily returned another day in the same trip as several items on the menu appealed to me. Prior to now, Nik and I hadn’t returned after our 2013 visit as we had a poor experience then (cold food, cold restaurant), but we are really happy we gave The Plaza another chance. The service here was very quick, we were still on the bus to MK at 5.10 and our receipt says we had finished our three courses by 6.07! There's lots of things on the menu that appealed to us and if we'd have the time we'd have probably returned another day in the same trip.

CREDITS USED 45
TOTAL IN $$ 1,259.14

***

Fireworks Dessert Party – Plaza Garden Viewing

We headed straight from The Plaza to check in for the dessert party, we had no intention of eating any desserts, I had simply paid for the viewing area. We were given our wrist bands and taken to a table, then I popped off to take some buffet photos.

New this year, was a S’mores Action Station. I saw the finished article on a few peoples’ tables and they looked really nice.

These are the infamous cheeseburger spring rolls, this is the only thing I tried, these were on my must-do snack list and I didn’t like them! They were really greasy, and didn’t taste like McDonalds’ cheeseburgers like it was promised they would

I am sure this spinach dip tasted nicer than it looked

This was our view from the Plaza Gardens, still pretty good considering we showed up 10 minutes prior to the show starting.

I think the view from the gardens is so much better than the Tomorrowland Terrace.

The one disappointing thing about our Dessert Party experience was that number of people in the Plaza Gardens had increased dramatically. Since last year Disney have introduced an after fireworks dessert party which allows guests access to the Plaza Gardens for Happily Ever After viewing, afterwards they head to the terrace for desserts. Disney claimed that the number of people in the Gardens would remain the same despite two different dessert parties running, they were lying, it was far more crowded than last year. Furthermore, last year everyone sat down on the grass to watch, this year everyone stood up, it was like some kind of Mexican wave, the people at the front started it, then everyone else had to follow. The family in front of us actually apologised, the dad was annoyed, as he said we had all paid to be able to sit and watch. Nevertheless, we were still happy with our view, and will pay for the party again next year, probably the after party just to see how it compares.

The Plaza Gardens version of the dessert party costs $69 per adult.