Ben and Libby’s Fabulously Frugal Festive Food! Christmas 2015 Dining Report **COMPLETE!**

[oh_darling]

Ben and Libby’s Fabulously Frugal Festive Food!

Hi guys! Okay sooooo ever since we got back from our magical Christmas trip I’ve been umming and ahhing about whether to commit to a full trippie, or just do a dining review. I took notes every day, but I didn’t take nearly as many photos as previous trips! Also, the notes sometimes stop halfway through the day and I’ve got so much on my mind at the moment I don’t think I’ll be able to remember it all!

On the other hand, I took photos of all the food we ate and I have a pretty good memory for food! But then again I love having all my trippies to look back on and remember the trips!

OOH it was a tough decision! Ultimately though, I don’t want to put myself under loads of pressure to do a trippie when I’ve got so much to do for the wedding/honeymoon/planning the holiday itineraries of quite a few of our wedding guests haha, so after a brief consultation with Benj I’ve decided to do a kind of ‘extended’ dining review - photos and descriptions of all our meals, interspersed with a few additional memories/descriptions of things that happened if there’s something I particularly want to record! So I really hope that’s okay with everyone! Feel free to skip the non-foodie bits if you’re all about the food! (‘bout that food, no treble!)

Okay! Now that I’ve blabbered on for way longer than anyone really needed, let’s get this food party underway!

The Cast

So, the basics! I’m sure you all know us by now as I’ve been hanging around these boards for TIIIMEEE but if not, hi, I’m Libby! My fiance is Ben! This is us!



The Trip

We travelled to Orlando on the 19th December 2015, and returned home on the 2nd January. Yep, we were out there for Christmas AND NYE! It was amazing! Most importantly though, this was a Budget Tip. We are saving very very hard for our upcoming wedding, and to make this trip happen (in which we planned aforementioned wedding with Disney <3) it had to be as cheap as possible! We stayed off-site, used our ‘free’ annual passes that we got when we booked our Disney Fairytale Wedding (i use the term free loosely hahah) and set a budget of $100 a day for all food, drinks and souvenirs! We did have an additional budget of around $450 which we were very kindly gifted by parents/family as our Christmas presents, and we put this on a FairFX card and called it our ‘Fun Money (or sometimes just ‘Funny’ hahaha ohh) We mainly used this on alcohol as we both enjoy a cocktail and $100 doesn’t go very far when you’re drinking cocktails at Disney! I’ll try and mention when we were using Funny and not the daily budget, but I hope you’ll still find this dining review useful if you’re on a budget for your next trip. Christmas Day was a day we used a lot of Funny as we ate at Chef Mickey’s and Yachtsman Steakhouse, plus lots of cocktails throughout the day. Because hey, it was Christmas Day! But also, $$$$$$. So that’s a good indication of when our daily budget got blown, but it was fine as we’d planned for it and that was why we had the Funny

Overall though, I’d say it is 100% possible to feed two people a day for $100! I know this is a really frequently asked question on the boards, and we honestly didn’t feel hard done by at all! Sure, there was no frivolous Food and Wine $9 steak ‘snacks’ (but luckily food and wine wasn’t on! ) but don’t forget we both like a drink (or 3) and we were able to have those, and eat in some amazing places. We were careful about what we chose, we ate breakfasts in our room, and we ate off-site where we could. It was a different holiday to our previous trips but we still had an absolutely amazing time and we would 100% do it again if we needed to!

In terms of food..we like it. A lot. Ben’s a vegetarian for ethical reasons so doesn’t eat any meat or fish products. He loves spicy things and particularly enjoys mexican food. I eat most things, I love anything with cheese on, steak, seafood, and anything peanut-butter and/or chocolate flavoured!

And now…..it’s food time!


Day 1 - 18th December 2015

IT WAS HERE! That most exciting of days, the day before! We both had the day off which has never happened before but it was amazing! We spent the morning cleaning the flat and finishing off packing! Ben had a haircut, our friend Jason came to look after our kitty <3 and before we knew it we were ready to go! Ben’s Mum came to pick us up at 1.15, we said goodbye to Saffie and we were off! We got to the train station, the train I thought we were getting didn’t actually exist (awkward) but there was a connecting train at 1.50pm so we got on that instead and just had to change once. All good! I’d bought sandwiches from the Co Op the night before so we ate them on the train mmmm!

We got to Gatwick at 3.30 (can you tell my notes from this day are super detailed!?) and walked through to find bus stop 8 which was going to the Travelodge. It was a super quick journey and in no time we were there! Our room was incredibly spacious haha! Ben dried some clothes that hadn’t quite finished drying on the floor so it was handy!



Benji on the bed!



Quick outfit shot!



We just chilled for the next few hours and it was sooooooo relaxing! We cracked open a bottle of wine, I showered and painted my nails, we watched Friday afternoon TV, and it was just the best feeling! I couldn’t believe how chilled out I was feeling, I literally had not a care in the world! Soooo different from 2013 when I was so stressed for no reason, I felt really proud of myself

About 6.45 we decided to go down for dinner as TFI Friday was on earlier than we thought and as Alan Partridge was presenting it (!) we wanted to watch! The BarCafe was pretty dead when we got there which we were surprised about! We grabbed a table, Ben got us some drinks (wine and beer) and we perused the menu (even though I’d already spent quite a lot of time perusing it in our room…) . We eventually decided what we wanted. It was like crazy cheap, I’ve got in my notes £28 which was for two 2 course meals, with a beer and a wine. It took me aaaaaages to order though as the guy put the two burgers down as 3 burgers. Errr no mate, 2 people, 2 burgers. His manager came out to help him though and they both thanked me for my patience (I’d already had 2 glasses of wine by this point hahahah) and I went to sit back down.

We passed the time by taking photos





Ben made me laugh!



And then our food arrived! Yay! I took this photos with my ancient Panasonic camera and I switched to my iPhone the next day, and then used my iPhone the whole holiday! So apologies if these photos aren’t the best!

We decided to share the cheesy garlic bread, and the loaded potato skins. The garlic bread was amaze but the skins were dry Never mind!





We then both opted for the big greedy boy burgers mmmmm - mine with beef, Ben’s with veggie burgers. These were lovely but so filling! And I was already kinda full from the starters and wine!





We did our best but they defeated us No pudding obvs (we hardly ever get pudding just as an FYI if you’re a pudding lover, apologies!) and we were both feeling really knackered all of a sudden! So we bid farewell to the Bar Cafe and headed back up to our spacious room. Once I had my brand new Hogwarts PJ’s on I felt lots better, and we enjoyed a couple more hours relaxing in bed watching TV before setting the alarm and going to sleep. Tomorrow - FLORIDAY!

Total spent - £38 for drinks and dinner!

[16offtodisney!]

Ohh, looking forward to this, we too were out the for Christmas 😀

[christybell]

Yay Libby... any kind of trippie will do Thanks for taking the time to share

[christybell]

Oops, double post...

[mobeckwith]

yaaaay its begun,i thought we were only getting highs and lows, so bonus mo x

[ILoveDaveLamb]

Great start, Libby. You are looking very slender and happy. Look forward to reading along. x

[Dan's Mum]

Fab start xx

[Guest]

Always enjoyed reading your trip reports and I love me a good food report so look forward to this. Great start.

[Guest]

We are considering Christmas for this year - so subscribing

[Ycryan]

Sounds fantastic, can't wait to read some more. x