"Eat, Drink and Be Merry, For Tomorrow - We Diet!" April/May '19 DDP - The "Nearly" Food Report

[DisneyStacey]

The "Nearly" Food Report

Last year, I was certain I was going to do a food report from our trip.

I failed - miserably.

After a day and a half of photos of half eaten food, I gave up.

This time, I tried again!
I fared a bit better, but still not great.
And by no means did I manage to photo everything (there are a few meals and a lot of snacks missing) - what I did manage to photo may be subject to a bite or two missing

I'm just not cut out for this!
So, to all those who have managed to complete a food report, I salute you.

It is so much tougher than I ever thought!

So, to start:
We travelled from Manchester to MCO with Virgin on the 27th April, staying at Premier Inn Runger Lane North the night before.

There was just the three of us - me, DH and DD(10)

We stayed at Saratoga Springs and were on the DDP. We had a studio booked, but were upgraded to a 2 bedroom villa in Congress Park overlooking Disney Springs.
Huge dose of pixie dust and Disney magic right there.
We felt almost guilty that it was wasted on us, but none-the-less we absolutely loved it!


Anyway, to kick it off:

Friday 26th April

Myself and DH had both been at work, but managed to finish early. I stopped off at home after finishing and loaded the cases in, picked DH up from work and then we both went to collect DD from school.
She was so excited!
Traffic wasn't too bad on the drive up to Manchester (from Nottingham) - especially given the time of day! (We set off at 4pm)
We arrived at the Premier Inn around 6:15pm and we were starving! I'd been so busy trying to get finished up at work that other than a cup of tea, not a single thing had passed my lips all day!
We checked in, dumped the bags in the room and went straight down into the Thyme restaurant for dinner!
It was busy so service seemed a little slow - I think we were just so hungry.


We had a cheesy garlic flatbread to start which we all shared:

This was delicious - and it was a good portion size!
The bread was really soft and it was so cheesy. We must have devoured it all within 2 minutes!


For mains:

I had the Spicy King Prawn Burrito - which was king prawns, salsa, jalepenos and a bit of lettuce in a wrap.
This was served with white rice, a salad, and guacamole.
It was enjoyable. It was quite spicy (the waitress did warn me), I was okay with it - I like spicy food - but it was hotter than I was expecting.

DD had gammon with egg, pineapple, mushrooms, peas, chips and a grilled tomato.
Can't go far wrong with gammon, her only complaint was that her egg wasn't as runny as she would've liked.

DH had the surf and turf. 8oz sirloin, garlic and parsley king prawns, prawn and lobster sauce with chips and salad.
He had his steak cooked medium rare, which it was. He said his prawns were a little overdone and the sauce was a bit bland - but he ate the lot.


We decided against dessert. Me and DD had seen the ice-cream vending machine on our way in and conspired to send DH down to fetch us some later on!

Which he did! Bless him.

We got a tub each of the Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew.

Heaven in a tub! Caramel flavoured ice cream with little chocolate caramel buttons in it. Thoroughly enjoyed!


Tomorrow is to be breakfast at the Cabin Bar (Manchester Airport), Virgin plane food and Artist Palette (SSR QS).

[Kat11]

Great start, following along. 😃

Kat

[Sofiamouse]

Keep going. I’m reading along x

[Swimmer68]

Brilliant start - looking forward to reading along

[dixonsontour]

Great start and what a fab upgrade

[Goldia]

Well you did brilliantly with photos on your pre travel day. The garlic bread does look really tasty.

For my first food report I had quite a few photo fails, lots of blurry photos when I actually did remember to take them and some half empty plates! No one seemed to mind too much, eventually I got better!

I'm looking forward to your report, what a fab upgrade. Do you have any photos of the villa? It'd be great to see the rooms if you don't mind sharing them too.

[Wismgari]

Following along Looks good so far! I have only managed one food report and I forgot so many photos!

[Guest]

Good luck with your report this time. I did my first one earlier in the year, I did it live though, I don’t think I would manage to do it retrospectively.

[DisneyStacey]

Thanks all for your supportive words!

Pleased to know I wasn't the only first-time food-reporter with photo fails!


Saturday 27th May

After an early start (and a VERY through security screening), we made it into Terminal 2.


Very little on offer at Manchester Airport T2. We decided to eat at The Cabin Bar (like usual). To be honest, the only reason we ever go here is because we like to see all the planes out the window.


It's overpriced and generally poor quality - that's food and service!


Me and DD had a glass of orange juice. DH had a cappuccino and a pint of San Miguel - we were on holiday after all

I wasn't sure what I wanted - I'm not really a breakfast person (this is generally a theme throughout the holiday).

In the end I went for the vegetarian breakfast - poached eggs, beans, tater tots, grilled tomato and a toasted muffin.

I'll let you all come to your own conclusion of what my eggs looked like, but it was off-putting to say the least. Apart from the beans and toasted muffin, the whole thing turned my stomach.


DD had a toasted muffin with jam and a rasher of bacon. They forgot to send her jam out with her muffin so DH had to go back up to ask for that!

DH had eggs benedict with a sausage. Strange I know. He declared his as "okay".

The whole lot set us back £44.20 - not a great start.

Flight out was fine - I always enjoy the outbound flight. Excitement gets the better of me I think.
We were a little delayed departing and had been on the plane for over an hour before we took off - an issue moving the containers in the cargo hold.

Cabin crew handed out water and juice and turned the entertainment system on, so to be honest the wait wasn't too bad.


Once we were in the air, first up was a drink service and pretzels.

I had a vodka and cranberry, DD had an orange juice and DH had white wine. The pretzels are always my favourite.

Menu was handed out and lunch wasn't long after:

(and drink menu if anyone was interested!)

I had the pesto pasta - which was surprisingly nice. I enjoyed everything on the tray (even the salady thing), but that little GU pudding pot thing was even too sweet to me.

DD and DH had the chicken - they both said they enjoyed it and ate the lot. (Apart from the pudding again. Too rich for DD and DH doesn't each sweet stuff!).

Obligatory Fab lolly photo!

Mozzarella, pesto, tomato and rocket roll (minus two bites ) – I actually quite enjoyed this, but DH wasn’t quite as keen. He did also have a BLT sandwich from Boots as well though. DD had a tuna mayo sandwich from Boots too. The scone wasn’t great, but overall we were well fed and watered so can’t complain.


We were lucky to land when we did – as we were late taking off, the second Manchester flight was only 5 minutes behind us, as well as a Gatwick flight meant there were soon to be some 1000+ people in the immigration hall. We were off the plane reasonably quick and through immigration in an hour (could have been worse). Looking back at the queue behind us, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I heard they were waiting 3 hours!


We got the Magical Express to our resort this time – not done this before as would’ve usually hired a car. Having priced up all of the trips we’d need where we couldn’t use Disney transport on Uber and Lyft, we came to the conclusion it would be cheaper for us not to hire one. I loved the freedom it gave me also – and the cocktails it meant I could drink!


When we checked-in at Saratoga, I was told that we would be checking into a 2-bedroom villa and had been given a complimentary upgrade from Mickey! A tear or two definitely escaped from my eyes. Things like this just never happen to us!

We had got FP’s for FoP for the evening, but (since we already had them for 3 other occasions also) we cancelled them and decided to unpack, have a walk round the resort and hang around in our room(s) instead.

Couldn’t work out whether we were hungry or not – maybe just tired. So we just grabbed a quick bite in Artist Palette.

Lobster Club for me and DH – Lobster salad, smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato and lemon mayonnaise served with house made chips. It was packed full of lobster and was really fresh.

DD had the hot ham and cheese sandwich – black forest ham, smoked gouda cheese and Dijon mustard with Quattro Formaggi cheese spread served with house made chips. She only managed half of this, but really enjoyed it. The mustard was quite strong, but she’s used to it and didn’t mind at all. It had so much ham in it that she had to take some out so she could fit it in her mouth!


We had our refillable mugs, so didn’t need drinks with these. Instead we got some grapes, strawberries and apple slices with caramel dip. We ate a few with the meal, but the idea was to put them in our fridge for breakfast in the morning!

Not food, but before we went back to the room, we stopped for a quick drink in the Turf Club Bar.
DH just had a Bud which I don’t think I got a picture of (but we all know what a Bud looks like!).

I had a Pina CoLava – Bacardi Razz Rum blended with Pina Colada mix and raspberry puree. It was so delicious. It is really thick and coconutty. It’s like a blended frozen type drink. Quite heavy on the stomach though!

DD had her favourite – a Watermelon Lemonade. Odwalla Lemonade and watermelon syrup topped with a lemon and lime foam. Although, this time, she was given the wildberry foam which is served on the All-Natural Lemonade. Don’t know why, but she enjoyed it all the same.

Next up is Artist Palette (Breakfast), Cosmic Rays Starlight Café (Lunch) and ‘Ohanas (Dinner).

[dollydaydream7]

Looks great so far but those eggs 😂😂😂