Merry Stitchmas! An onsite and offsite Dining Report, December 2016

[Excitedx4]

Great food report so far

[Wismgari]

11th December: Garden Grill and the candlelight processional

Today was a day I was really looking forward to – the candlelight processional!

Firstly though, I took a quick trip to Magic Kingdom this morning whilst my bf had a lie in to recover – he is not a fan of the early mornings! I had taken some cereal bars with me from home, so I had this and a bottle of water (filled up in the food court for free) on the bus to the park. I had a lovely couple of hours in magic kingdom and browsed some of the wonderful looking Christmas treats in the shops:

And I took one of my favourite pictures of Magic Kingdom at Christmas from the train station platform:

I then hopped on a monorail to Epcot and met my bf there for a couple of rides before our garden grill lunch. Now I had wanted to do the breakfast candlelight processional package as they are crazy expensive meal packages out of pocket, with breakfast being the cheaper option and I really wanted to try the sticky bun bake. However, this was his one and only on site request to go back for lunch or dinner (we had gone on our previous trip and it was his favourite). So… I agreed, although I nearly cried when we got the bill!

On arrival I asked for the booth seating on the lower level so we could have a view of living with the land and were told this would be a longer wait, but we will only waited 5/ 10 minutes. We were then taken to our table and met with the cute Mickey plate design:

The food here is all you care to enjoy and they bring it to your table. We started with the salad and bread… not my favourites and clearly I wasn’t bothered enough to take photos… sorry! I was distracted by some of these adorable fellas!

Then the main course arrived – a platter of meat (turkey, sausage and pot roast), with mashed potatoes and green beans, and then a side plate of sweet potato fries and macaroni cheese. I asked for all the sauces for the meat on the side as I am fussy!

Now… when did they replace the sliced beef with pot roast? The lovely beef was my favourite from last time so I was really disappointed. The turkey was a bit dry as well sadly. The sweet potato fries were delicious though so I just ate a lot of those! Dessert was a slab of cake with berrys and cream on top… not very good either sadly. I think the risk of coming back to revisit your favourite meal from the last trip is that it can just be really disappointing, which is what happened here. It wasn’t helped by the crazy price tag - $137.61 (including tax and tip) – offsite eating when you don’t have a dining plan is the way forward! For me, it was one of the most disappointing meals of our trip, but I think a lot of that was because of how much we had loved it previously. It also served its purpose as we ate so much food we didn’t need another meal today (it was a late lunch at 2.20pm) and it got us guaranteed seating for the candlelight processional tonight. Next time, I will be routing for breakfast if we return!

After our late lunch we popped back to the resort for a bit of a rest. We actually caught the Art of Animation bus, rather than waiting for our own, and snapped a photo of the Christmas tree on the way through:

In the evening we headed back to Epcot to see the candlelight processional and this was AMAZING! Robbie Benson (the voice of the Beast) was our narrator and he was so good – even yelling “GET OUTTTT” to us in the Beast’s voice at the end! It was just stunning and I would love to go again sometime.

Afterwards we watched Illuminations, the extra bit added on the end for Christmas was so good – I was feeling so happy and Christmasy after this amazing evening!

Total spends: $137.61 (all on one meal! )

[Wismgari]

Originally Posted by Goldia

I'm still loving all the shots of the Christmas trees. It's a dream of mine to one day go to wdw at Christmas.

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Thanks for reading It was amazing, I would love to go back!

Originally Posted by MissFortune

I love a good food picture or two but all those trees! Wow

Thanks for sharing!

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Thanks for reading All of the Christmas decorations were so amazing. I am sad I never got to see the Osbourne lights, but it was still very impressive! Another tree or two in today's update

Originally Posted by Excitedx4

Great food report so far

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Thank you so much

[Disney Bear]

Loving the latest instalment. Really looking forward to our trip now and I know where we're not eating!

[Wismgari]

12th December: IHOP, Florida Mall, Buffalo Wild Wings and Epcot

We headed to IHop again this morning – a different one this time though, the one on South Orange Blossom Trail as it was in the right direction for where we were heading afterwards. We actually really liked this Ihop, it was really clean and the staff were so helpful. He had a coffee ($2.39) and I had water. We then spied the speciality holiday pancakes and we were sold! I ordered a portion of chocolate and peppermint pancakes (I am not sure how to justify this as breakfast as it was clearly a dessert before 10am! ) ($4.99). He ordered the egg nog pancakes in combo deal – eggs, hashbrown, 4 pieces of bacon and the pancakes ($7.99). Two of his pieces of bacon were for me as it was cheaper to get this combo than order a side of bacon for me!

This breakfast was AMAZING! I have been craving these pancakes ever since… This cost us $19 including tip – bargain!

Next up we headed to the Florida Mall to have a wander round – we found festive M&M snacks (although didn’t buy any)

This attractive Christmas jumper:

And a Christmas tree Crayola style:

We then headed to steak n shake to get a milkshake each – I got mint cookie and he got black raspberry - $7.86 for both. No picture… sorry! Mint was good, but his was much better! They were so thick and massive (even though we both got a regular size!). We drank these at the bar for a bit, and then drove to Typhoon Lagoon and finished them off there.

After a lovely sunny December afternoon at Typhoon Lagoon we headed back to Buffalo Wild Wings for some dinner. My bf requested we go back here as it was his favourite meal. We ordered the same as last time, but with different sauces this time! We had a strawberry lemonade each ($3.39 each), he had a small wings, half with mango sauce and half with thai curry ($5.90 – half price as it was Tuesday), I had a snack size boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce on the side ($8.79), we shared sides of cheese curds ($5.89) and wedges ($3.89). Picture from last time, sorry I forgot to take one this time:

He loved his food again. The sauce on the side of my wings was really horrible… so strong, yuck! Luckily they swapped it for some BBQ sauce for me, which was very kind of them. Once again, the cheese curds were delicious… next time I may just eat cheese curds! Total cost was $38.43 including tax and tip. My bf really loved it here – great food and basketball on the big screens, I think he would have eaten there every night if he could!

There was a pretty sunset in the carpark when we left too:

This evening we headed back to Epcot for a bit for illuminations and magic hours. The bf got an iced cappuccino (It had been a long day and he needed the caffeine!) - this cost $5.75.

After illumiations I had a fist bump with my favourite personal healthcare companion:

And then we collapsed into bed after a long day!

Total food spends: $71.04 (Including tax and tips)

[Floridatilly]

Great trip report! I am very hungry now lol

[gettingthere]

Loving this report for two reasons,i love food reports and this year i get to see the parks done up for christmas for the first time.THANK YOU for sharing xx

[Lau-nicole]

I NEED those chocolate peppermint pancakes in my life!

[Leia77]

Wow, all the food looks amazing! Buffalo Wild Wings is on our list for this year, so it's great to read that it's so good! Oh, and the xmas trees and decorations! I do think we'll need to go at that time of year, just once. Thanks for your report so far, really enjoying it

[dixonsontour]

Loved all the food and Christmas tree pics.