Awesome...Wow! A Disney and Universal Food Report April 2018 - COMPLETE!

[Tangled88]

I’m so glad to see this report, can’t wait to follow along x

[LadyDebs86]

I'll start off with a quick run through of the cast!

I'm Debs, I was 32 this month and this is my fourth DIBB food report, and my 11th (I think!) trip to Florida.

I really like cocktails!

My other half is Chris, he's 33 and doesn't like photos with characters...

But he does like Jurassic Park!

Here's us!

We joined the DVC last year so this was our first trip as members. It had been heavily planned to the nth degree but somewhat paradoxically I really wanted this to be a more laid back trip. More rest time, less ADRs, less rides and more time spent taking things in. All in all I'd say that was pretty much exactly what happened (even though we still fell into bed exhausted every night!) so we had an absolutely fantastic trip. The beauty of being DVC members is that the pressure to squeeze absolutely everything out of a trip because you don't know when you're coming back is gone, so you can take things at a slower pace and you don't feel devastated if you miss out on a ride or show. There will always be another chance!

So the day before travel we were in Manchester anyway (we're Man United season ticket holders - the less said about that day's game the better!) so we booked a Premier Inn in the centre and had an evening out. We went to Junkyard Golf, an indoor mini golf venue which serves drinks so I think this belongs in the report, right

This was a 'Welcome to Jamrock':

"Havana 3Yr, Chambord, Lime, Elderflower, Raspberry, Apple and Lemonade"

I remember the drink itself being a bit non-descript but the Jammy Dodger was nice!

We went round the 'Bozo' course which was themed to creepy clowns.

It was really cool and over too quickly really! We'll definitely come back to do the other courses. You may think this isn't relevant to a food report and you're probably right, but I wanted to include it because I beat Chris and I want as many people to know that as possible.

I never beat him at anything remotely physical so I was very excited by this. I had another drink, this one was the Porn In The USA:

"Absolut Vanilla, Passoa, Pineapple, Passionfruit and Cream Soda"

This one was goooood

We got a quick tea from Pizza Express, I didn't take pictures but here's some stock pictures of what we had

Bruschetta



Calamari



Pollo Pesto



Penne Bolognese



I promise no more stock photos will appear in this report!

[darsch1982]

Following

[Leia77]

Following 😊

[H_C-2017]

Following!
Also from Manchester. I won at Junkyard Golf last time I went. I beat my other half by one point so naturally i'm amazing at golf :P

[Kat11]

Following 😁

Kat

[Rescuer]

Yeah. Looking forward to your report.

[Inky]

Following

[debojahh]

Huzzah i'm really looking forward to this

[LadyDebs86]

Travel Day

We had been planning to get the train to the airport however when we asked at our hotel reception they advised that they had an agreement with a local taxi firm so a trip to the airport was only £20. To save faffing we booked one the night before and had a lovely easy trip to Manchester T2 that morning. We got there and were through check-in and security less than an hour after leaving the hotel so it all went nice and smoothly.

In previous years we've booked into the Escape Lounge however we decided it wasn't really worth the cost for what you get. So we headed to Frankie and Benny's for some breakfast instead.

Chris got a coffee and I decided to get a Mimosa because why not.

In the excitement of this early morning drinking I had a complete photo fail and managed to completely ignore Chris' breakfast. He had bacon and fried eggs on wholemeal toast, I've just asked him and he said it was 'lovely'. Helpful as ever

I had some porridge with red berry compote:

You had the choice of having it made with milk or water, I said milk which was an error as it was just too creamy. I didn't finish it but hey, the Mimosa was nice.

We boarded the plane super excited! We were flying on Virgin VS75, our plane was Tinkerbell.

We were in economy, the menu is below:

The drinks service soon followed, I had a vodka and coke and Chris had a Tiger beer, both came with little pretzels:

During the drinks service, the horrible man in front of us literally grabbed the steward by his belt loop really roughly to get his attention. You could tell the steward was really quite angry however he kept it together, he had to walk away though as it clearly really bothered him. When he came back Chris asked if he was ok and mentioned how out of line it had been, so he chucked him a load of extra pretzels which was quite sweet

Some people really do not know how to conduct themselves, it really bothers me when people are rude to staff who are there to serve them.

Food service then followed, I had the sausages and Chris had the chicken:

Mine was ok actually, Chris's was nicer though. I cant speak for anything else on the tray as Chris ate all mine

Later in the flight we got a mini Twister lolly:

Much prefer this to the Fabs they used to give out!

About an hour before landing we got an afternoon tea consisting of cheese and tomato chutney sandwich, a small bag of crisps, a chocolate and (very randomly) a Fisherman's Friend.

I enjoyed the sandwich and crisps but gave Chris the chocolate. Didn't touch the Fisherman's Friend - despite my dad being from Fleetwood I've never actually had one and I wasn't about to start now!

We were given a little pack of Love Hearts for landing:

This was a nice touch, we'd felt really looked after and well fed and watered on this flight, it was great. Given where we were headed I thought this one was quite apt:

We were through immigration brilliantly quickly and our longest wait was for our bags. In what felt like no time at all we were checking into our first hotel, the Hard Rock! Lovely as usual.

We were feeling pretty great considering the travelling (the 10:30 am flight time was just perfect for us) so after quick showers we headed out to spend the evening in Universal. We walked over and I just felt so happy to be there.

After rides on Rip Ride Rocket and The Mummy we popped into Louie's Italian Restaurant which is a quick service near Transformers which specialises in pizza. We shared a slice combo which was a slice of cheese pizza, a side Caesar salad and a garlic breadstick:

I say a 'slice', it was pretty much a whole quarter of a very large pizza! This was perfect just to share and really hit the spot, we got a Fanta to share too.

We had only really gone in for a visit to Diagon Alley although we managed to do quite a few other rides as the park was pretty quiet and we had those magical FOLP! Prior to riding Gringott's we visited Florean Fortescue's for ice cream. It was really busy in here but the line moved pretty quickly. I had my beloved Granny Smith Apple soft serve in a cup and Chris got chocolate hard-pack ice cream in a cone:

I remember last time I had this I struggled to even eat three quarters of it, but this time I absolutely inhaled it, that's what long-haul flying does to you I suppose! It was absolutely delicious as usual and Chris really enjoyed his too.

After we'd finished with the ride we strolled back to the hotel and forced ourselves to stay up until 10pm. We played a few rounds of Gin Rummy then succumbed to sleep... a great Travel Day!