Winging It - Disney without a dining plan May 2018 ***COMPLETE***

[Unexpectedpenny]

Ooo looking forward to this! Great start and a lovely moment for Geoff.

[hornetgirl]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Oh wow, you're back with another report. Fab start, dole whip right up front!

How lovely to buy the balloon and release it at Splash Mountain in memory of Geoff. I'm sure this was a poignant moment.

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There will always be dole whip

We tried very hard to remember what Darrin said but I did get something in my eye while we watched the balloon.

[hornetgirl]

Originally Posted by Unexpectedpenny

Ooo looking forward to this! Great start and a lovely moment for Geoff.

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Thank you

[Floridaagogo]

What a lovely thing to do.xxx

[Jaspercat10]

Yippee great start looking forward to reading along

[Ycryan]

Fantastic start, really enjoying reading along x

[Minnie Mum]

Enjoying reading along. Lovely way to remember Geoff😊

[wilma-bride]

Loving this so far, at least you are getting better at remembering to take pictures of your food What a lovely way to honour Geoff.

Looking forward to more.

[hornetgirl]

Today was the day of the Royal Wedding, so we watched a little bit of it on TV before Sean went off to get some coffee. Even though the room had coffee making facilities, he preferred to go for a little stroll most mornings. Once back he had toasted bagels with cream cheese.

I had cereal, yogurt and orange juice.

Our plan was to spend the morning at Animal Kingdom. After riding on the Na’vi River and watching the new bird show we needed some refreshment, so Tamu Tamu was our destination. No prize for guessing what we had. Sean remembered to bring one of the bottles of rum from the flight out with him, so we provided our own enhancement.

For lunch we decided to give the new (well new to us) pre-ordering system a try. We selected Satu'li Canteen and chose our food on the app while we were still sitting at Tamu Tamu, then just hit the final order button once we were ready to eat. The whole process was very efficient and I was able to walk straight up to the counter to collect our food. If you are on the dining plan you can use your credits, otherwise it gets charged straight to your credit/debit card – not to your room.

I chose the beef bowl and Sean had cheeseburger steamed pods. We also had an iced water each.

The food here was absolutely delicious and we can’t wait to come back and try some more of it.

Once we were done at Animal Kingdom the intention was to go back to OKW and enjoy some drinks and snacks beside the pool. The weather gods had other ideas and no sooner had we got settled than the heavens opened. Never mind, beer and chips on the balcony while watching the rain taste good too.

For our evening meal we decided to take the short journey from OKW to Port Orleans French Quarter to give Sassagoula Floatworks a try. My expectations were quite high for this one, having read good things in other people’s food reports. Sean enjoyed his bacon cheeseburger but my prime rib was a bit meh. Everything had clearly been cooked for some while and then left sitting on a hot plate. I didn’t eat it all and probably wouldn’t bother returning here, it had a very canteen like feel to it and not much atmosphere.

To round off the day we took the boat to Disney Springs to sample some Ghiradelli chocolate. The rain got very heavy again, so we didn’t stay too long and soon headed to the bus stop and back to POFQ, where we had left the car.

[hornetgirl]

This morning we didn’t really have any breakfast as such, just a tea for me, a coffee for Sean and a few pieces of watermelon each. This was because today was the day of our second ADR – a 10:45am booking for brunch at the California Grill to celebrate my birthday.

We valet parked at the Contemporary as this is free if you are dining at the California Grill and headed straight in, pausing only to take a photo of the funky doormat.

As we were a little early we browsed the shops for a bit before heading down to the check in podium. Our valet parking ticket was validated and we were taken over to the lift which whisks you straight to the restaurant.

We were seated straight away and provided with the first of our *several* glasses of bottomless mimosa. In the past we’ve had traditional mimosas made with orange juice, but today it was blueberry flavoured and served with boba berries, which seem to be very much en vogue in WDW at the moment.

Our server, Jenny, was a great sport. She engaged well with us and as we were there for my birthday, curtsied every time she passed our table.

After ordering our main courses for later, we got to work on the various buffet stations. Everything was fresh and delicious.

There was also an omelette station but we didn’t try this as we wanted to leave room for our main courses.

I went for the chicken and waffles which was just ok. The coating was well flavoured but I found the chicken a little bit dry.

Sean had the steak and eggs, which he loved.

Just in case this wasn’t enough food already, we rounded the meal off with a plate of pastries. This was flamboyantly presented by Jenny, complete with candle and birthday sprinkles.

There was no way we could eat it all, so she kindly boxed it up for us to take away. A proper cup of tea finished things off nicely.

Once again we remembered to present our DVC card for a 10% discount.

After a quick look at the view from the terrace

we waddled round to the Magic Kingdom to walk off some of the calories we had just consumed. We didn’t have any further meals today but we did decide to try something a bit different – we had a citrus swirl to share. Orange and vanilla ice cream in a cup of very lurid looking fizzy orange.

I’m glad we tried it but I won’t be having another one.

We also inspected the curious phenomenon that is the purple wall. No idea what all the fuss is about but we felt we had to do it. There was even a photopass photographer there.

To end the day off we watched the Happily Ever After fireworks from the Top of the World terrace and ate a couple of our left over pastries there, followed by some beer and wine back at our studio.