May 2019 - Food Diary

[elm]

Inspired by UnexpectedPenny's post about her holiday food, I thought I would do the same as I also have a LOT of food pics from our 11 night stay at POFQ at the start of May. All pics were taken on our phones, purely for WhatsApp'ing back home to mum and dad, as they're doing Disney in October, so the pics won't be the best quality.

Day 1 - Magic Kingdom and Disney Springs
Day 2 - Animal Kingdom Lodge and Disney Springs
Day 3 - Epcot and Animal Kingdom
Day 4 - Hash House a Go Go, Hollywood Studios and After Hours Event at the Magic Kingdom

Pre-Travel Day
We traveled down to London by train and were staying at the Premier Inn at Gatwick North, prior to flying the following morning. We had looked at the menus of the few places to eat at the airport, but didn't fancy any of them, so a few weeks before our booking I called and reserved a table at Thyme, which is within the hotel. So glad I did. There was a long queue for those who had made a reservation and over an hour wait for those who hadn't.

For dinner I had the Chicken Makhani curry. This was just ok. Tasted a bit like a supermarket microwave curry. I wouldn't have it again.

My brother opted for what I think was a cheese and bacon burger.

For dessert, my brother had a brownie.

I had something they were calling a crownie, which was meant to be a cross between a cookie and a brownie. It had a cherry centre and was good.

Travel Day
We had pre-paid for the dinner and breakfast meal deal at the hotel. I don't have any pictures of breakfast, but it's your standard Premier Inn buffet breakfast. I'm a bit of a nervous flyer, so didn't have much.

We were flying with Virgin this time and headed to the gate as soon as it appeared on the board. When we got there they were letting people board straight away. We were up in the bubble, at the back on the left hand side. I can't remember the seat numbers, sorry. Quite a nice spot and those lockers underneath the windows were great. Anyway, this is meant to be about food! We had a quick nosy at the menu as we still had just under an hour until we were due to leave.

When it was time for dinner, my brother had the chicken in mushroom sauce. He dislikes mushrooms, but I think was the lesser of three evils as he didn't like the sound of the other two at all. He enjoyed this and said he couldn't taste any mushrooms.

I had the chili con carne. This was ok, a bit bland, but I guess that's the safest way to be when they're catering for hundreds. I preferred the food with Norwegian last year. Why are those little Gu pots always something weird and wonderful, and usually bloody awful?! Neither of us bothered with the salad, it looked like it had seen better days.

Later on in the flight they came around with a Fab lolly and their version of afternoon snack thing of a pesto and cheese roll, plus a scone, jam and clotted cream.

We were about an hour and a half late landing into Orlando as they had closed the airport due to a storm. After much circling and various announcements from the captain about how much fuel we had left and whether we would need to divert, we thankfully landed at Orlando airport. We were lucky with immigration and got into the hall just in time, not long afterwards the queue was all the way back to where you first enter. It took us around 45 minutes to get through. Eventually we managed to get our bags and find out way to the Magical Express and were on our way to our hotel.

We had made some late evening fastpasses at Hollywood Studios, but after the rough flight and long day, we were knackered and just stayed at the resort. We collected our refillable mugs and took a wander to the food court at Riverside.

I had wanted to try the chicken nuggets last year, but didn't get round to it.

I also swapped my drink for a dessert and got a strawberry cheese cake.

My brother went for the foot long hot dog with pulled pork on top.

He also swapped his drink for a dessert and had a brownie.

Needless to say neither of us finished it all

After dinner, we topped up our drinks and took a slow walk back to the French Quarter and to our room.

I will try and update this with a few more days later on this evening.

[loves2plan]

Ooo, a new food report! They're always very welcome. A good start and can't wait to read along

[Goldia]

That brownie looks lovely, can't wait to read the rest.

[Forest32]

We loved the food at FQ when we stayed there last year. Looking forward to seeing and reading more!

[Bellesdream]

Oh I can't wait to read this! We will be at POFQ soon! 😊

[elm]

Day 1 - Magic Kingdom & Disney Springs

When we were booking our ADR we didn't bother with Be Our Guest for breakfast. We did it last September and whilst we enjoyed the theming, we weren't that taken with the food. However, I had started to think that an early reservation may be useful so that we could ride Mine Train before the crowds descended.

A couple of months after our ADR window opened I spotted a 8:10 reservation and snapped it up. We got there for opening and were clapped in (anyone else find that a bit awkward?!).

We sat in the Grand Ballroom, grabbed a table by the window and before long our food arrived. I would definitely recommend ordering in advance, it was so much quicker for us to get in, even more so later in the trip when we went for lunch.

I'd order the Feast á la Gaston - Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, and Roasted Potatoes served with Fresh Fruit.

My brother had ordered the Croissant Doughnut - Fried Doughnut topped with Banana-Caramel Sauce, Pastry Crème, and Chocolate Ganache served with fresh Fruit and a selection of pastries.

We had also ordered a peach bellini and a mimosa. Breakfast is also served with a plate of pastries.

We shared the breakfasts, with the Feast á la Gaston being barely luke warm. If I hadn't wanted to get out and onto Mine Train I would have sent it back. The doughnut was nice, but obviously quite sickly. Beware the little chocolate looking muffin. I don't what it is, but it's definitely not chocolate!

We were out and queuing for Mine Train by 8:40. They soon let us on and we were able to ride it three times in a row.

Looking back at our WhatsApp messages, it looks like were able to do 12 rides by 12:30, including those initial three on Mine Train. Not bad going.

We started to get a little peckish around 1pm. We didn't want anything too big as we had a Homecomin' reservation at 5pm, so we popped to Starbucks/Main Street Bakery and grabbed two drinks and one large muffin (I think it was the Mouseketeers Cupcake). I was able to use 1 QS credit for these three.

The drinks are a venti Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino on the left and a trenta Mango Dragonfruit on the right.

We left the park at around 2:30pm and headed back to the resort for a bit. Once back in our room and freshened up, we got the boat down to Disney Springs, had a mooch round before heading to Homecomin' for dinner.

We weren't very impressed with the front of house staff. We had arrived a few minutes early and were told they were just clearing a table and we would be sitted shortly. 10 minutes later, and after several other people had arriving and being shown straight to a table, I queried the wait with the members of staff behind the front desk. I was again told 10 minutes. Again more groups of various sizes arrived while we waited and were shown to a table straight away. There was my brother and I and one other group who had been waiting nearly 20 minutes past our reservation time by this point.

Eventually we were seated and being a bit past hungry now, we decided to share.
We ordered the Fried Chicken and Doughnuts - Two pieces of Chef Art Smith's famous fried chicken served with house-made sugar doughnuts and creamy mashed potatoes,
but subbed the mash potato for mac and cheese, which had an additional $2 charge.

The chicken and the mac and cheese were SO good. Really really nice coating on the chicken and the mac and cheese was super cheesy. The doughnuts were nice, but neither of us liked the sauce they came with. Would certainly eat here again, was just a disappointing start.

We went onto Hollywood Studios after Disney Springs. I had hoped to try the key lime pie on a stick, but I didn't realise the stand closes around 6:00pm.

Lots of steps on day one!

[GezzasGem]

Good choices on the drink swaps! Glad you can do this at resort QS places 👍

[lorrie36]

I don’t stay onsite. I’m happy looking at pictures of food/meals that are eaten offsite and if anyone eats snacks or goodies around the parks.

[summersun]

Following along x

[theCMG]

looks good, following. I'm going to put it in the dining report tracker because it looks like a food report but if you disagree let me know and I won't