We Love Food! - Day 14 - Thu 26th May 2022 - Olive Garden, Lounge & Plane Food

[Fuellady]

We Love Food! - An offsite dining report - May 2022

Day 14 - Thursday 26th May 2022

Villa Breakfast, Olive Garden, Lounge & Plane Food

So now, all of a sudden, it was our last day. Luckily, we had a late check out from the villa as our flight wasn’t until 8pm so we used up the last of our bread to make toast for breakfast (no pics, I thought you had seen enough of our villa breakfasts! ) and spent the morning by the pool after finishing off our packing.

Olive Garden, Rolling Oaks

We had long since decided that we would have lunch at Olive Garden on our way to the airport. We ended up at the one at Rolling Oaks because I also wanted to pop into Walmart for a couple of last minute bits to take home so it made sense to get up onto the US192.

We arrived there after 2pm, and although it was reasonably busy we had no problem getting a table. We ordered drinks (coke & sprite) and both chose from the weekday lunch menu.

Of course, breadsticks and minestrone soup had to be enjoyed first…

Neil chose the Lasagne Classico (Layers of pasta, parmesan, mozzarella, romano and homemade meat sauce, prepared fresh daily). I thought his portion looked small, but he said it was plenty for a lunchtime along with the soup and bread.

I went with Spaghetti & Meatballs (the only description is “with meat sauce” - I guess they feel it’s self explanatory! ). This was really nice, but I did feel I could have eaten a bit more! I ate this VERY carefully, as I was wearing a white top for travelling in.

It was nice to eat here as our last holiday meal out, we paid up $30.92 + tip before heading to the airport.

This was our total food/drinks spend for today $30.92

The Club MCO (Orlando Airport)

After checking in, because we were flying Club Class we had access to a lounge. The check-in clerk actually told us where we should go once we had cleared security, so it was nice and easy to find. It was a nice enough lounge, sorry no photos of the lounge itself. We each had some water, and Neil had a gin and then we had soup (tomato) and sandwiches after a while.

British Airways Flight MCO-LHR

Once seated in Club Class, we were offered orange juice or water (they hadn’t loaded on the champagne apparently), so we each had an orange juice. We were also given the menu for the journey home and asked if we wanted another drink after take off. I ordered water, not realising that I would be given a bottle of water anyway, so I ended up with 2 waters! Neil ordered a gin for the flight. These “after takeoff” drinks came with a packet of nuts.

The flight was over an hour late taking off, so dinner wasn’t served until just after 10pm. Bearing in mind, the last thing we had eaten was a wee bowl of soup in the airport lounge 5 hours earlier, we were starving. We had both ordered the roast rib of beef. Neil said this was the best airline food he had ever tasted. I had really been looking forward to the beef, but actually found it to be a little tough. It was tasty though, and of course came with the usual bread, cheese, salad, crackers and a dessert, in this case, strawberry cheesecake which was very nice. I ate most of it, except the bread which I didn’t like. I enjoyed a white wine with my meal, and Neil had red (and another gin).

After a little bit of sleep, breakfast was served (super early, I thought ) before 4am! Neil had been awake for a while, and not fancying any of the menu options had been given a yoghurt (no pic). I chose the bacon and tomato chutney toasted sandwich, which looked nice but I couldn’t really face it so I nibbled the bread a bit (it was nice) but didn’t like the tomato chutney so I left most of it. I ate the yoghurt and a bit of the cereal bar.

After landing, we had a couple of sandwiches in the BA Lounge at Heathrow T5, and were offered a meal on our next flight from LHR to Inverness (Salmon or Fennel Salad). I did take a meal on the plane, but didn't eat much of it. Sorry no pics, just too tired to care by then! Also, I had switched my phone off and it was in my bag.

And that’s a wrap! Our food journey and holiday is over.

General observations would be that service in Florida is not as efficient as it was pre-covid. I understand that they are struggling for servers, ALL of the restaurants have signs up that they are hiring. Some of the serving staff are amazing, you can see how hard they are working, and are really putting in the effort to be chatty and helpful with their patrons, but others are just rude and uninterested, and this can spoil the experience a little.

We experienced pre-added tips a couple of times at the beginning of our stay, and thought this might be the way things were going. But after our first couple of restaurants, we didn’t experience it again and were able to choose the tip we paid.

We all know that the prices have gone up, but my experience would be that it’s mainly in supermarkets. We noticed a huge increase in the food prices in supermarkets, with some quite basic items costing a lot more than they used to.

I don’t think it cost us much more to eat out this time than on previous trips. Comparing receipts from Bob Evans from our 2019 trip, and this one, breakfast costs around the same. Keke’s is around $6 more expensive than last trip, so $3 per person, just over £2. As an average, it cost us around $10 extra for the 2 of us to have an evening meal out, but considering the poor exchange rate, and the passage of time (2 ½ years) that doesn’t seem too bad to me. Of course, we’re only paying for 2 people - with a bigger group, these increases would make quite a difference to the cost.

All in all, we enjoyed a good mix of eating out and eating in on this trip. We discovered new places to eat, and visited old favourites.

Thank you to everyone who has read, liked and commented. We appreciate you all.

[MarionG]

We have used the Club lounge a couple of times now. The food is pretty decent, I think we had soup and crackers last time.
Thanks for posting, interesting about the prices in the supermarkets. We tend to eat in a few times so will have to see what we can find in Aldi. My countdown isn't set in stone, just a hopeful one as it will depend on cost etc.
Hope the jet lag isn't too bad.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by MarionG

We have used the Club lounge a couple of times now. The food is pretty decent, I think we had soup and crackers last time.
Thanks for posting, interesting about the prices in the supermarkets. We tend to eat in a few times so will have to see what we can find in Aldi. My countdown isn't set in stone, just a hopeful one as it will depend on cost etc.
Hope the jet lag isn't too bad.

See more...

I didn't like to take photos in the lounge, but I think the only other choices apart from the soup/sandwiches were crisps and cakes. Maybe some salad bits?

We didn't go to Aldi, but that might have been a bit cheaper than Walmart etc., for essentials.

Hopefully you get something booked up soon. Thank you, the jetlag wasn't too bad... unfortunately, Covid got us once we'd been home for a couple of days

Thank you very much for reading along and commenting Marion

[mrsdjh]

Thanks for the report - loved reading along. Hope you were both ok with Covid.

Diane

[ClaireNJ]

Thanks for your report I’ve loved every mouthful
Olive Garden is a must for us always a good meal & like you I do worry about wearing a white top 🤷🤦🤣🤣🤣
So glad you had a fabulous holiday

[mick]

Thank you for taking the time to do your trippie I have really enjoyed reading along.

Sounds like a good holiday

Joan

[pinktraceb]

Thanks for sharing, all the food looked yummy! I've really enjoyed your trip report

[Sparksy72]

Thank you so much for a great report, lots of our favourites and it’s good to hear that despite some price increases, for the most part the food is still great! 😁

[Goldia]

A fab trip report as usual Lynda. I've really enjoyed reading along, such a lot of tasty treats. Interesting to read your thoughts about price increases, things have gone up all over in the last two years and as you say a couple of dollars per person at breakfast doesn't seem unreasonable. Annoying that supermarket prices have increased such a lot. Overall it seems you had lots of tasty meals and I hope you both had a lovely time.

[WIGGYSMUM]

Lynda thanks a million for such a great food report 🤗
The late check out really makes for a more relaxed last day and stopping for a bite on route to the airport is a great idea although we do love a last day breakfast 🥞
Can’t believe you didn’t get any champagne on the flight
What a good round up of the difference in prices , thanks for sharing and I’m now looking forward to the rest of the trip report, yes even the pool days
Take care , Emma xx