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Old 21 Mar 18, 08:28 AM  
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#21
Juliemack
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Subscribing! great start...we used to love Planet Hollywood and went every trip. I really don't like the re-furb and our meal there last year was below par at best. I also fell for the souvenir glass thing after just ordering a beer, my daughter insisted she wanted the glass even though I suspect she just didn't want me to moan.

Love the extra descriptions of your food and look forward to your next post
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Old 21 Mar 18, 10:18 AM  
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pinktraceb
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What a great start! Looking forward to reading along :-)
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Old 21 Mar 18, 11:02 AM  
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MrsSilverStar
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Love a food report! Can't wait to read more. Although I'm dieting and this may just torture me
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Old 21 Mar 18, 11:17 AM  
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Great start looking forward to reading along


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Old 21 Mar 18, 12:40 PM  
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firsttimedream
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Great start Would love to hear more 😊
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Old 21 Mar 18, 01:02 PM  
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Looking forward to following along. You are posting it just in time for us as we book our ADRs next month for our first time on ddp so looking for tips to fine tune our list. We have Planet Hollywood as a maybe, DD is keen so good to hear you enjoyed it 😀
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Old 21 Mar 18, 02:07 PM  
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Ooh so excited for this. Loving the amount of detail.
Thanks for sharing xx
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Old 21 Mar 18, 02:46 PM  
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I am so excited to read the rest of this! The DxDP is so tempting so I can't wait to see what you made of it and whether it's worth it!

I love a KFC now and then but have never tried the Big Daddy!

And the food at PH looks surprisingly good. It's never really appealed to me but I'm a buffalo wing fiend so am now being tempted to give it a try!
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Old 21 Mar 18, 06:54 PM  
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collybird
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Originally Posted by Disney_time View Post
Oh great. My favourite kind if Trip Report! Toying with DxDDP for our May trip and have booked ADRs accordingly. Only have regular DDP reserved though. Hoping you will help me make up my mind.
How exciting Chris, I hope we can help, and I am very interested to see what you decide. I had wanted to do DxDP for years. How many are in your party?

Originally Posted by Juliemack View Post
Subscribing! great start...we used to love Planet Hollywood and went every trip. I really don't like the re-furb and our meal there last year was below par at best. I also fell for the souvenir glass thing after just ordering a beer, my daughter insisted she wanted the glass even though I suspect she just didn't want me to moan.

Love the extra descriptions of your food and look forward to your next post
The re-furb is just odd, it just doesn’t feel like Planet Hollywood anymore, more like a poor man’s Hard Rock Café. I did see some movie memorabilia, but not in the area we were sitting in. I hate souvenir glasses, love the idea of them, but do not like having to lug them home and then find a place for them to gather dust!

Originally Posted by pinktraceb View Post
What a great start! Looking forward to reading along :-)
Thank you! Thanks for following along.

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar View Post
Love a food report! Can't wait to read more. Although I'm dieting and this may just torture me
I am torturing myself, I keep thinking I have finalised my ADR plans for this year, but then I’ll look at my pictures and start wanting to tinker with things! I hope your diet is going well. Thank you for reading.

Originally Posted by mick View Post
Great start looking forward to reading along


Joan
Hello Joan, thank you for reading!

Originally Posted by firsttimedream View Post
Great start Would love to hear more 😊
I am hoping to post Day 1 today. Thank you for reading!

Originally Posted by DisneyDaffodil View Post
Looking forward to following along. You are posting it just in time for us as we book our ADRs next month for our first time on ddp so looking for tips to fine tune our list. We have Planet Hollywood as a maybe, DD is keen so good to hear you enjoyed it 😀
Oh I am so excited for you to try out DDP, you will have to let us know what you book when the time comes, the first time we had DDP I felt like I’d joined the elite. We liked the simplicity of Planet Hollywood, nothing fancy. Thank you for reading!


Originally Posted by LLamb View Post
Ooh so excited for this. Loving the amount of detail.
Thanks for sharing xx
Thank you, I do like to ramble, and I was worried I was harping on a bit haha. Thank you for reading.

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer81 View Post
I am so excited to read the rest of this! The DxDP is so tempting so I can't wait to see what you made of it and whether it's worth it!

I love a KFC now and then but have never tried the Big Daddy!

And the food at PH looks surprisingly good. It's never really appealed to me but I'm a buffalo wing fiend so am now being tempted to give it a try!
They were really good wings Helen, and we’ve eaten many, many wings. The menu is pretty standard American fare, but we didn’t have many of those type of meals planned, so it was very welcome. I was gutted we couldn’t have the nachos, as wings and nachos are about as good as it gets as far as I’m concerned. Thank you for reading!
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Old 21 Mar 18, 07:30 PM  
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collybird
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Hi everyone, thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment, I am very touched. Also, anyone who is lurking, thank you to you too, don't be shy, please say hi!

***

DAY 1
Thursday 21st September 2017


CHEF MICKEY'S
Last year, we started our trip with breakfast at Chef Mickey’s, I think it’s the perfect start to a trip for several reasons. Firstly, they start serving at 7am so perfect for that jetlagged first morning, it’s an iconic Disney venue, you meet the Fab Five, and, most importantly, the food is good, so we decided to once again make a 7am ADR for Day 1.



We drove to the Contemporary and self-parked as we planned to head to Hollywood Studios after eating. We checked in, were given a buzzer and told we could have our photo taken by a Photopass photographer if we wanted, they hadn’t even finished taking our picture by the time our buzzer went off. We had a great table near the window with a lovely view of the sunrise over Bay Lake.



Unfortunately, I never plucked up the confidence to take buffet pictures, you can see the menu here.



My first plate (clockwise from 12 o’clocK) - tater tots (love these), Western scrambled egg (ham, peppers and onions - this was so yummy), breakfast potatoes (just okay, a little soggy), corned beef hash (very similar to the breakfast potatoes), bacon (not a fan of American bacon but this was particularly bad, very limp and soggy), smoked sausage (another favourite), and, in the centre, cheesy potato casserole, this was nice and warm but lacking in seasoning.



Apologies, I took a bite of one of my pastries before remembering to take a picture! On the left is a pain au chocolat and on the right, a maple turnover, both of these were delicious, the pastry was buttery and the fillings were generous. They had a nice variety of pastries and it was hard to narrow down the choice!

I didn’t take a plate of Nik’s food as his was largely the same as mine, normally at buffets we’ll have numerous ‘courses’, bagels, fruit and yogurt, cereal etc but today we were anxious to start our day so asked for the bill. As on previous visits to Chef's Mickey's, we had a lovely friendly server who was quick to replenish drinks and remove empty plates.

The restaurant is busy, and very loud, but that is to be expected given that it is a character meal on an open concourse. The napkin twirling is a lot of fun and captures the Disney spirit well. The character interaction is good, and they are great at reading how much you want to participate. Breakfast for two adults came to $85.20, this is fantastic value if you are on the Dining Plan but I am not sure you could justify the spend out of pocket! Nik is keen to go back again next year (he was a big fan of the Western scrambled egg), but I have grown a little tired of the madness of character meals and would prefer to return to The Wave instead.

***

We spent the morning at Hollywood Studios and had an early lunch at:

HOLLYWOOD & VINE

Hollywood & Vine gets a hard time but we have eaten dinner there previously and were really impressed, they have a fantastic variety of food and it is all good quality and warm!

They have recently expanded Minnie’s Seasonal Dine to include lunch as well as dinner. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy are in attendance in outfits themed to the current season, September meant Halloween! Mickey, Donald, Daisy and Goofy greet you table-side but Minnie, as the host, is stationed near the door in a Photopass opportunity, you are given a ‘ticket’ to take up to meet Minnie whenever it suits you, the character handlers were fantastic and came to tell us when the line was short so we saw Minnie with no wait.



The food was all given fun Halloween twists names (like vampire repelling garlic mashed potato) which I thought was a nice twist. The buffet is double sided, i.e. two different sides with the same choices on both, which is a big help with lines.



My first plate – lobster mac and cheese (deliciously creamy, not fishy), salmon with olive tapenade (I ate a lot of salmon on this trip and this was by far the best, it just melted in the mouth, so moist), bread, corn dog, Caesar salad (I always love how liberally dressed Disney salads are) and fried shrimp (really good, just like the ones at Columbia Harbor House).



Round two – roast beef with gravy, garlic mash (I loved this, contender for best side dish of the trip) and corn.



I don’t seem to have a picture of Nik’s food, but he had pumpkin soup which was nice, like a spicy butternut squash, followed by the barbecue meatballs which he has been raving about since our last visit. Everything we tried was fantastic and there was so much more that I just couldn’t find room for – roast chicken, a trout dish, pork loin and carved turkey.



I had actually forgotten I had booked this meal as part of the Fantasmic! Package so we were also given tickets for that evening’s performance.



Service was of the usual high Disney standard; our server had forgotten her name badge though and wasn’t wearing the ‘Chris from Orlando’ badge that they usually have to wear when they do this! It was quite the scandal, I wanted to ask her about it, but I didn't want to embarass her. You can find some buffet pictures in Josh’s review at EasyWDW, although his visit was almost a year ago the menu was similar, if not identical, on our visit.

This came to $121.41 which makes for a pricey lunch, again, great value on the dining plan, particularly when you include the F! seating, as the dining package viewing area is the best (in my opinion).

We had great memories of our first visit to Hollywood & Vine, which we had loved despite many a scathing review, and this time didn't disappoint. Nik keeps asking if we are going back again this year (he really loved the barbecue meatballs, and talks about them all time), and I am planning on it, but for breakfast this time, as it's the only buffet we're yet to partake in. We love all of the Studios restaurants, and are really spoilt for choice over where to eat, it is just a shame that 50's Prime Time isn't available as part of the F! Package.

***

OLIVIA’S CAFÉ

I always struggle with tiredness on the first day so booked an early dinner at Olivia’s for 4.45pm, this meant that they were still serving the lunch menu, which worked perfectly for us as there was a few lunch-only items we were keen to try. Olivia’s is at Old Key West resort, we stayed there for the first time in 2016, and although I wasn’t wowed by the resort we loved Olivia’s and ate their multiple times, so we were really looking forward to returning.

The restaurant was very quiet when we arrived, a staff meeting was actually being held in a side room, and we were seated promptly. Our server didn’t ask if we were on the dining plan, which we were grateful for as we weren’t in mood for appetisers, although the conch fritters are very good!



On all of our visits last year Nik ordered their French dip sandwich, he was gutted when it was removed from the menu and replaced with the Beef and Blue. He ordered the Beef and Bluethinly slice prime rib, blue cheese, fried onion, arugula, horseradish cream and tomato jam. He replaced the blue cheese with cheddar which our server thought was a great idea, and sympathised about the loss of Nik’s favourite sandwich, explaining that every few years Disney restaurants rotate their chefs and thus their menus.



Nik didn’t love this, instead he ended up switching plates with me, I thought it was nice, very similar to The Original at Earl of Sandwich but not a patch on the French Dip.

I really wasn’t hungry, all year I had been planning on ordering the surf and turf burger but in the end, went for something ‘light’ in the Conch Flats Club SandwichRoasted Turkey, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Mayonnaise on Multigrain Toast. You can have house made chips, French fries or coleslaw with your sandwich, I opted for coleslaw which was refreshing and a nice change from fries. Olivia’s roasts and carves their own turkey instead of using pre-packed meats and you can definitely tell, it is so tender it is almost impossible to believe it is turkey! Nik ended up preferring this to his dish and polished half of it off, beginning a new-found love for club sandwiches.



The restaurant had been redecorated since our last visit, it previously had photograph of DVC families covering the walls, which I loved. When I asked our server Ken (who claimed to remember us from last year!) about the new décor he said that the big bosses didn’t think the old style was ‘corporate’ enough, seems silly to me as I doubt OKW sees many business travellers.

Like at Planet Hollywood we took dessert to go, two Key Lime Pies, which also never saw the light of day. The check came to $55.36, which for two courses and unlimited drinks I thought was great value, particularly in comparison to the buffets. We will definitely be back next year as we love to visit our ‘old’ resorts and reminisce.

Olivia's is a bit of a hidden gem as far as I'm concerned, their breakfast menu has a few unique items that make it worth a visit, (my favourite is the Sombrero Beach Omelet - anything with sour cream is my love language), lunch menu is fantastic value, with some really appealing options, and for lunch and dinner, amongst other things, they serve a delicious fried chicken dish. We love resort dining as it's fun to check out part of Disney you don't see when you're at the parks. I hadn't particularly enjoyed our time at OKW, but returning made me feel very nostalgic, and I would consider staying again.

TOTAL SPEND SO FAR $354.54
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