TRAVEL DAY
Wednesday 20th September 2017
I never eat breakfast as I’m either hurrying off to work, or asleep, so I’d been anticipating this for a while. We had really enjoyed our breakfast at Frankie and Benny’s at the airport last year so there was no contest, we were heading there again!
FRANKIE & BENNY’S – GLASGOW AIRPORT
We were seated quickly, and had a short wait for our server to arrive, when she did she was extremely brusk and didn’t write down the order. Not writing down the order instantly made me nervous as this is a huge pet hate of Nik’s.
I ordered a
Big Breakfast –
Two rashers of bacon, two fried or scrambled free range eggs, sausage, black pudding, Heinz baked beans, roasted tomato, a flat mushroom and your choice of herb potatoes or a tattie scone
Surprise, surprise, my order was wrong – I had ordered herb potatoes but got a potato scone, which I don’t like, the waitress placed the food on the table and then turned away before I had the chance to say anything. It was just okay, it looks nicer than it actually was.
Nik ordered a
Three Egg Omelette –
Three free range egg omelette served with cubed potatoes and half a roasted tomato with cheese and tomato with a side of white toast
Nik’s toast was also missing, no-one checked in on us during our meal so we never got the opportunity to ask for it. Nik wasn’t overly impressed with this, it needed more variety of fillings.
We had a long wait for the bill, this is my dining pet hate, in the end Nik had to go in search of the waitress to settle up, we hadn’t been charged for the missing toast.
This came to
£24.80, not bad for an airport breakfast but overall a disappointing experience, next year we’ll eat at the Wetherspoons. We didn’t tip and Nik pointed out that this would be the last time we would have bad service for a while.
I originally planned to take menu pictures but most are so big they never turn out well, so I’ll link to the menus instead, you can view the breakfast menu
here.
THOMAS COOK IN-FLIGHT MEALS
Ah, plane food, the kindest thing I can say is that it tasted nicer than it smelled! We had bought sandwiches from Boots but I took the meal to take up some time. Lunch was
Roast Chicken, Lemon, Herb and Leek Pearl Barley Risotto, I took one bite and it was awful. Someone across the aisle had the other option, which was beef, this looked nicer. Dessert was cheesecake, which I don’t like so I didn’t have. In the end I ate the cheese and crackers. I appreciated that the roll and butter weren’t rock hard like they often are on planes.
Thomas Cook only offer tea, coffee or squash with meals, this wasn’t a big deal, as being aware beforehand we had brought drinks with us. They do bring a trolley around a few times offering drinks and snacks for sale and the prices aren’t too bad - £1.80 for a nice chilled can of Pepsi, £1.30 for a Kit Kat and £1.80 for a mini tub of Pringles.
Later in the flight we were brought a mini Lily O’Briens ice cream cone which was nice. Closer to landing we were brought Afternoon Tea which was lovely; cheese & onion and egg & cress finger sandwiches, a scone with clotted cream and jam and a mini shortbread. I don’t like egg sandwiches, I find them a love/hate them kind of thing and am always surprised how often you see them on planes, so Nik gave me his cheese one in exchange for mine.
PLANET HOLLYWOOD
Many a time the topic of whether or not a table-service meal on arrival night is a good idea has arisen on the Dibb, I always advice against it because you are guaranteed to be exhausted. Last year, we attempted a travel day table service meal for the first time at T-Rex, I didn’t eat a bite as I was so tired and hot I felt sick. This year I was adamant we would have quick service on our first evening, but then I upgraded to DxDP and was determined to get the best value out of it, and all common sense went out the window.
Originally, we had booked Wolfgang Puck Café, but this closed during the summer, so we settled on Planet Hollywood as it was somewhere we hadn’t eaten before, and also, we weren’t particularly fussed about eating there so if we were too tired to enjoy it we wouldn’t feel disappointed.
Our server was Faith, she was great, asked if we were on Dining Plan and explained everything; we weren’t allowed to pool our credits together for any sharing appetizers (no nachos – boo) and the New York strip ($50) wasn’t available.
To start, we ordered
Five Cheese Dip –
a flavorful, gooey dip made of Swiss, mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan, and Asiago cheeses with spinach, artichoke hearts and roasted tomato, served with corn tortilla chips and toasted herb flatbread
I had been looking forward to trying this after seeing it in other trip reports, it was nice enough but disappointingly just tasted like regular nacho cheese sauce, I did enjoy having the choice of chips or flatbread though.
We would have been happy to share this, but the DxDP pushed us into ordering a dish each so we also opted for the
Twice-Cooked Buffalo Wings –
chicken wings baked and then fried to perfection and tossed in buffalo sauce, served with celery, carrots, and blue cheese dressing
I loved this, one of the best things I ate all trip! They were
very spicy, but so juicy with plenty of meat which just fell off the bone. Both appetizers were massive portions made for sharing!
For his main Nik ordered
Bird is the Word –
crispy fried all-natural chicken breast, buttermilk ranch dressing, pickles, cheddar, slaw and honey hot sauce on a garlic-buttered brioche bun
I used to think of Nik as a picky eater, but now I’d say he is more cautious, he likes to stick to what he knows but every year he seems to be growing in confidence with his meal choices and I am really proud of him, in the past this dish would have been out of question because he would have been worried about the honey hot sauce. He loved this and was amazed at how juicy and tender the chicken was.
We enjoy
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives so I was excited to try out one of Guy’s burgers. I went for the
Straight-Up with Cheese –
Cheddar, SMC, LTOP, and donkey sauce on a garlic-buttered brioche bun
The menu explains Guy’s lingo, SMC = super melty cheese, LTOP is lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles, and Donkey Sauce is mayo, roasted garlic, mustard, Worcestershire and salt & pepper.
As you can see the toppings come on the side and you build your burger yourself. I had been starving before I sat down but the mammoth starters had defeated me and I was ready for bed now, I could barely force myself to take a bite of this. I did, and it was nice enough, not the best burger I’ve had in Florida! The bun was really nice and I enjoyed the donkey sauce, it was a bit of a faff having to add the toppings myself.
Both burgers came with fries, these were a little odd, there was a mix of two-different types of fries, regular skinny fries, and then some which were more like wedges, they were seasoned with something that made them quite spicy and very salty. I didn’t eat many of mine, and I love salt!
Faith knew that we had just endured a long-haul flight and after noting that I hadn’t eaten much offered us dessert to go, which we accepted. The dessert menu wasn’t extensive and only certain ones could be taken to go, we opted for key lime pie and a brownie, these were sadly stuck in the fridge back at the resort and never touched, so no pictures, sorry! Their milkshakes looked awesome and Nik was sad not to get to try one.
Faith efficiently brought the check alongside desserts, everything came to
$92.57. Annoyingly she didn’t offer us the option of charging the gratuity to the room; I was really keen to leave so didn’t want to have to wait for her to bring another check for me to sign so just left cash, this wasn’t ideal as I had only brought $100 in cash, all small bills intended for tipping mousekeeping and when valet parking.
I was a little worried about the atmosphere at Planet Hollywood, concerned that it would be loud like Hard Rock, but it wasn’t too bad. There was no movie memorabilia in the area we were seated in, which was disappointing, and I didn’t feel comfortable wandering around in search of it when people were trying to eat. The inside of the ‘observatory’ has multiple huge screens but instead of playing movie clips like I had expected it was music videos. Nik is a film buff so would have liked to have seem a bit more movie theming but we enjoyed our meal and would definitely come back, there was a lot of things that appealed to us on the menu.
We’ll definitely be eating quick service on travel day next time!
Planet Hollywood Observatory menu
TOTAL SPEND SO FAR $92.57