The Girl With The Whale Tattoo eats Disney- onsite DDP/offsite food report May 2019- COMPLETE

[Cinderella]

Mmm key lime pie 👍

[DollyDimples]

The Keylime pie looks like just my thing, must try to remember about it.

The hotel QS breakfasts look fairly uninspiring (on other peoples food reports too). I think our plan is going to be a snack credit on pastries or cereal bars in our room for most of the days. I guess it will in part depend on how we get on using our QS credits the rest of the time.

[EllieP]

So glad you enjoyed POR we are staying there next year for the first time. I’m hoping to request the magnolia section as preferring the look of this area. Would you say any of the Buildings in this section are a better location than others? Loving the look of the ‘famous pizzas’ I think my teenage daughters are going to love them! We have also upgraded to DDP.

[SquishTheWhale]

Originally Posted by EllieP

So glad you enjoyed POR we are staying there next year for the first time. I’m hoping to request the magnolia section as preferring the look of this area. Would you say any of the Buildings in this section are a better location than others? Loving the look of the ‘famous pizzas’ I think my teenage daughters are going to love them! We have also upgraded to DDP.

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I think building 85 is the best one as its closest to reception, but the next one over to the right would be fine too. The other two mansion buildings are royal rooms only, so if you have a standard room booked and request magnolia bend you should be put in one of the first two. We really didn't want to be in AB so I was glad we got our request! I certainly wouldn't bother paying for any special views or anything as you have the blinds closed most of the time due to the outside corridors. We might have even preferred a car park view as we had some noise issues with people in the pool late and also the generator.

Originally Posted by DollyDimples

The Keylime pie looks like just my thing, must try to remember about it.

The hotel QS breakfasts look fairly uninspiring (on other peoples food reports too). I think our plan is going to be a snack credit on pastries or cereal bars in our room for most of the days. I guess it will in part depend on how we get on using our QS credits the rest of the time.

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We had a QS breakfast in the Riverside food court later that was a bit better. Mostly we ate cereal in the room as I'm not a big pastries person. Plus we were saving our snack credits up for the flower and garden festival!

Originally Posted by Cinderella

Mmm key lime pie 👍

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It was so good!

[SquishTheWhale]

Dinner at Boma, Animal Kingdom Lodge

We took an Uber over to AKL- we could have taken a bus to AK and then another bus to AKL, but as usual hubby was faffing around and running late so we didn't really have time. We had quite an early ADR at 5.30 as I figured we'd still be adjusting to the time zone. Arriving a little early we had time for a nice mooch around AKL. I nearly considered paying the extra £400 to book here over Riverside and to be honest am glad I didn't. As pretty as it is, its not as relaxed or scenic as Riverside and the savannah was a little dissapointing. I did see a Pelican though which made me happy as someone with a weird pelican obsession!

I named him Percy.

Arriving on time for our Boma reservation we had to wait around 10 minutes to be seated. The restaurant was only half full so who knows why. If you don't know, Boma is an all you can eat buffet with an African theme. The price includes soft drinks, and on the DDP you can order an extra drink like a cocktail on top. We weren't really feeling alcohol so I had a diet coke and DH had a juice (Jungle juice or POG juice? I feel like they are the same thing anyway?).

Our server was nice enough but rattled off a list of all the choices on the buffet at 100 miles an hour which was a little overwhelming! I'm happy to just go see for myself thanks. She also kept topping up our drinks every 30 seconds or bringing me fresh glasses of coke when I wasn't even halfway through one which felt wasteful and we hate food waste. Sometimes US service is a bit too much for us.

Anyway- food! I know buffet plates don't make the most attractive pictures, so apologies for that and I'll try and remember what they actually had on them.

There was roast beef, pork, chicken, Oxtail stew, African things like fufu, mash, spiced cabbage, asaparagus, rice and various sauces. The beef was a little rare for me so I asked if the chef had any medium-well- he didn't but he was happy to stick a bit on the fire for me while I waited! They did have well done ready for anyone to ask for as well. There was also a kids section which is where the mac n cheese came from- no hot dogs and chips or anything like that though! Everything was delicious and it felt even kinda healthy. The spiced cabbage came through as a surprise hit of the day.

I also had some curried coconut seafood soup (first pic). This was so good, the flavour was super intense- in fact so intense I couldn't finish the bowl as it became a bit overpowering! Delicious though. The only thing missing was plantains, I know they have these at breakfast but DH is plantain obsessed so he'd have loved them at dinner. In fact maybe its a good thing as he'd have eaten a whole trough of them and gone into a plantain coma.

Couldn't resist getting one of each of the little desserts to try

And DH got some of the bread pudding, a brownie and a little madeline cake thing

I was looking forward to the legendary zebra domes but they didn't massivley do it for me. Didn't hate, Didn't love, 6/10. The little oreo cheesecake (far left) was the winner on that plate. DH liked his bread pudding, I can't get along with the texture of bread pudding, blurgh. The surprise winner from all the desserts was the little madeline cake thing! It tasted almost like a mini syrup sponge pudding and was really good.

The bill was $100 and we didn't have any extra drinks so not cheap. We tipped using the gift card, this was easy- just do it exactly like leaving a credit card tip. Write the amount on the line and hand over the card. We did ask the server what to do as we weren't sure with it being the first DDP TS meal we've had. She said just write the tip down, not the total including tip. If you aren't sure, just ask! We tipped the 18% amount shown on the bill.

After waiting a while for DH to recover from his food coma I insisted we take a trip the the Premium outlets and I really didn't want to buy anything at Disney without checking the Disney outlet first! I think we visited a bit late in the day as it was kind of ransacked. We did get a mens tshirt, keyring and mini starbucks mug MK xmas tree decoration for around $12 so not too bad. I also gave into temptation and dropped $48 on a bracelet in Swarovski, oops. We weren't supposed to be shopping much this trip.
DH really wanted some new trainers but there wasn't many bargains to be had- I think with the exchange rate the days of epic bargains are long gone.

End of day 2!
Credits used: 4QS 4 snacks 2TS
Credits remaining: 10QS 12TS 24snacks

[Guest]

Boma looks good. It has been on my list for a while but not made it yet.

[3disneykids]

Ha ha me and DH had a giggle at Woody's lunchbox though I wonder if they did that on purpose
Looks great so far look forward to following

[JudyC]

I'm really enjoying your report. I've not dipped into the Florida trip reports for a while, but I'm glad I've found this one 😀

[collybird]

The plane food sounds pretty decent as plane food goes. My first thought on the afternoon tea was also ‘that’s a pretty box’.

I love the food court at Riverside, all of the Cast Members are so lovely too. QS CMs work SO hard. Disney pizza is AMAZING. You should get DH to try the Chicago Town Takeaway pizza, it’s the closest thing we’ve found.

Your room sounds lovely I’ve always wanted to stay in a mansion building (I think they are the prettiest area on property) but we’ve only ever had a Preferred some at POR so always been in Alligator Bayou.

We are useless with refillable cups too; I can never be bothered carting them everywhere. Both breakfasts look rather sad, QS breakfasts aren’t the greatest. I do like the omelettes though.

I was quite surprised to hear how high the waits were so early in HS. Makes me even more scared about post-GE life.

I am making a point of going to Andy’s Lunch Box this year, I’ve even cancelled at Sci-Fi ADR I am so serious about it. Glad to heat you enjoyed your sandwich, it looks great.

I hadn’t heard about that Key Lime Pie on stick before, adding that to my list!

I can’t talk about Starbucks mugs and the various changes; it hurts too much.

Really interesting to hear your thoughts on POR vs. AKL. Deluxe vs. Moderate is such a difficult comparison to make, you could argue that the balcony is worth an extra £400. I don’t normally condone with paying for views, but when it comes to balconies it really is all about the view for me and Savannah View is £££. So I agree you definitely did the right thing, having to pass through a busy lobby every day versus just strolling through all the resort grounds is also something I always think about.

Absolutely agree about the exchange rate these days, I don’t even bother trying to convert prices in my head anymore, I just think of everything being in pounds.

[Wismgari]

Just found this so I am following along

The pizza does look good, perhaps not as amazing as your DH thought it was though! Woody's lunchbox also looks really good - mmm that brisket! I am a little alarmed by the colour of the key lime pie, although I do love a key lime pie!

Looking forward to seeing what is next