Drink It In MAN! One week trip feat. F & G Fest and lots of offsite intrigue

[dixonsontour]

IHOP looks yummy

[Floridaagogo]

Just caught up.loving it 😀

[Megandllsmum]

Just read through and really loving it so far... I'm not much of a drinker anymore but I could seriously be tempted to try a few of the drinks you've shown they look and sound amazing.
The mint lemonade looked really good.
We stayed at Rosen inn @ pointe last April and found it a fantastic base with some brilliant places to eat and drink nearby... looking forward to reading more to see if you went to any of the places we went to eat

[sheluk]

Cocktails look scrummy! Not sure about the poutine... I don't know why as individually everything sounds great!

[KarenG]

Originally Posted by LadyDebs86

Hiya, we paid just less than $9 including tax for each portion which whilst still a bit much seemed fair to me in the context of being in the Disney bubble. Probably why we're pretty much bankrupt now... !

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I hear you

[LadyDebs86]

Day 2

We had quite a busy and varied day today, we started it off with breakfast at Perkins. I think Laura had a voucher for 20% off which always helps!

Me, Laura and Chris all went for the 'Build a Breakfast', which involves picking three options (a meat, a potato and a sweet option or toast) along with 2 eggs how you like them.

Me - scrambled egg whites, sausage links, tater tots and sourdough toast

This was a fantastic breakfast and the first time Ive ever had nice toast in America. Normally I find the bread just tastes sweet, almost like cake. This was lovely. I only managed one of the two slices but it was good.

Chris - eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns and a blueberry muffin

I tried a bit of the muffin, it was tasty. Me and Chris also ordered an extra fruit cup which consisted of melon and grapes. Chris ate the whole thing before I could blink or take a pic so I ordered my own bowl of just grapes:

Laura: eggs over easy, bacon, tater tots and toast

Rob went for eggs benedict which came with hash browns and a fruit cup:

I hadn't been to Perkins since my first Florida trip when I was 8 years old and thoroughly enjoyed it this time. Our waitress was great and we also saw one of the wrestlers arriving for breakfast as we were leaving!

After brekkie we had some time to kill so we decided to drive into Downtown Orlando to scope out where the Amway Centre was (a lot of the events were there) and visit the giant WWE belt that had been erected next to Lake Eola. Ridiculous photos posed for...

...we headed for a wander round. It was market day so there were hundreds of stalls set up round the lake. It was warm so we grabbed a strawberry slush:

Yum! Downtown Orlando was surprisingly gorgeous and I wish we could have spent more time wandering, I am a big dog lover and it seemed almost everyone had a dog! There were also a couple of rescue centres with stalls with some dogs you could stroke, they were so cute and if I could have I would have adopted all of them

Anyway. Our afternoon plan was to attend a WWE event called Axxess where basically you can meet some of the wrestlers, get pictures/autographs, see some demonstrations etc. We had been quite excited about this however it was a bit of a letdown really, there were so many people there that the queues to meet anyone were about an hour long and there was no one we were really bothered about enough to queue for that long. Before we left me and Chris shared a beef rice bowl:

Not something I'd ever choose to order personally but it was actually pretty tasty apart from the coriander (I hate that stuff).

That evening Rob and Laura were attending the NXT show so me and Chris headed out to I Drive for some dinner. We walked down with a list of possible places and decided to see how far we could get before stopping. We ended up at Tony Roma's - another place I haven't been since I was very young.

I started with a cocktail, the 'Tropical Eclipse Romatini' - "RumHaven® Coconut rum, Passoã® passion fruit liqueur, pineapple juice, crushed pineapple."

This. Was. HEAVEN. Definitely my favourite drink of the trip. The waiter brought it in the shaker, and shook and poured it tableside which was a fun touch. There was probably another half glassful in the shaker so you got plenty. Didn't stop me ordering another though...

Chris had a Sam Adams Seasonal, hes demanded that I include a photo:

I ordered the baby back ribs (you have to really don't you..?) which came with fries and coleslaw:

Chris had the filet steak which came with bacon-chive butter and mash:

We also ordered a side order of roasted corn "with smoky bacon and peppers"

All of this was so tasty, I tried some of Chris's steak and it was cooked to perfection, the bacon-chive butter was amazing! My ribs were amazing, I probably could have eaten more of them if they'd brought them to me, they were just ace. Can never find ribs like that here, there's nothing sadder than a clearly microwaved plate of ribs from Wetherspoons... the corn was also lovely and we finished it all.

We decided to share a dessert, I didn't want loads so I let Chris pick. He chose the banana cream pie:

I cant even explain how yummy this was. It was far more 'moussey' than creamy and came with an Oreo cookie crust with more crumbled Oreo on top. We were fighting over this in the end, it was amazing.

All in all we really enjoyed our visit to Tony Roma's, the food was excellent although the service was a little inconsistent. Half the time he was a great attentive waiter but he seemed to get distracted by another table he had which had a lot of people, he forgot our bread entirely (despite saying he was off to fetch it) and went missing quite a bit. In fairness the big table was quite hard work and all of them wanted separate bills so I decided to let him off and we left a pretty decent tip.

We were going to go and play mini-golf at Pirates Cove after as it was right over the road, however the queue was massive and we'd had enough of lines for one day. We had a couple of soft drinks in the hotel bar and called it a night.

[KarenG]

Have you tried Keke's ever? After years of Perkins, Denny's, IHOP etc for breakfast, we went there for the first time this year and it was GOOD. The atmosphere felt calmer, the food was really beautifully presented and tasted like it was better quality, and the staff were awesome. I'd wholeheartedly recommend and can't imagine choosing any of the others again

It was a touch more pricey - $55 for four adults where the others were in the region of $45-$50. But honestly it was worth every extra cent.

[LadyDebs86]

Originally Posted by KarenG

Have you tried Keke's ever? After years of Perkins, Denny's, IHOP etc for breakfast, we went there for the first time this year and it was GOOD. The atmosphere felt calmer, the food was really beautifully presented and tasted like it was better quality, and the staff were awesome. I'd wholeheartedly recommend and can't imagine choosing any of the others again

It was a touch more pricey - $55 for four adults where the others were in the region of $45-$50. But honestly it was worth every extra cent.

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Spoilers for day 4 there KarenG!

[Ciano]

Loving you report thanks for taking the time x

[LadyDebs86]

Day 3 - My Birthday AND Wrestlemania Day!

So today was my 31st birthday! And more importantly for the others, it was Wrestlemania Day

All I knew was that I was being taken for a surprise in the morning. I had a hunch as to what it was as I'd been told to put on a dress, and as we drove by the WDW gates I was pretty confident that I was right! We arrived at the Contemporary and then I knew I was - we were going for brunch at the California Grill!

As part of the booking we received complimentary valet parking which was a nice touch. We felt very fancy. We checked in at the desk and were asked if we were celebrating anything. We said it was my birthday so he asked if I wanted a celebration badge... errrrr what do you think?!?!

After a short wait (we had arrived a bit early) we were taken up in the lift to the restaurant. I will never get over how gorgeous this place is or how incredible the view is. There was a jazz duo on playing a mixture of standards and Disney songs:

We were given a fantastic table right by the window with the most magical view of MK. We've only ever been for dinner before so seeing everything in the daylight was just amazing, particularly the hoards arriving every time a ferry docked! The waiter took this picture, its not the most flattering of us but shows how great our table was!

I could have watched it forever, it was like the worlds best ever version of Theme Park Tycoon, but there was food to be eaten and drinks to be drunk - namely bottomless mimosas!

I think I had about five they were so tasty.

You were welcome to help yourself to the appetiser buffet along with making an entrée order, here's the choices:

My first plate - nigiri, a California roll, cheese, caramelised onions, charcuterie and pickles:

I went back for a second plateful because BIRTHDAY - Iceberg wedge salad, mini bagel with cream cheese, shrimp tempura sushi and winter pear and goats cheese salad. I also had a yoghurt parfait with balsamic strawberries and basil.

The shrimp tempura was the star of the appetiser buffet for me, it was soooo good.

For mains, me and Rob both had the Grilled Hanger Steak - two eggs any style, chimichurri sauce, marble potato hash, charred red onion:

We both went for this medium rare and they were cooked perfectly. This was one incredible plate of food. I didn't manage to finish it due to the number of appetisers I had but Chris helped me out and agreed it was stunning.

Laura and Chris both had eggs benedict with lobster:

They both enjoyed this, I tried some lobster and it was beautiful. Chris did comment that he wasn't sure lobster really worked with eggs benedict though and I think he'd just stick to having them classic style in future.

At the end we were presented with this beautiful array of petit fours, we couldn't finish them all but had them boxed to go. The madelines were to die for.

Our waiter also brought some Mickey confetti to sprinkle on the table as it was my birthday he left the little bag so I could take it home with me!

We spent quite a bit of time each of the outdoor walkways, it was amazing to have all of this to ourselves and take pictures at our leisure.

That last one was the moment after they let the fireworks off for Mickeys Royal Friendship Fayre...took it just a second too late, damn!

I'm not sure how much the whole thing cost but I gather it was quite a bit, it really was an amazing experience though and I must admit to quite a lot of tears! It was a bit odd being so close to MK and being able to see it all knowing I wasn't actually going to be going in on this trip but it was still an awesome surprise and a lovely, classy, laid back experience.

We headed back to the hotel, got changed and headed off to Downtown Orlando to catch our shuttle to the Citrus Bowl...

The organisation at the stadium was awful to be honest, they ran out of soft drinks pretty early as well as some food, but the event itself was actually amazing, and that's coming from me who isn't the biggest fan of wrestling. There were more fireworks than Disney! The scale was amazing. Plus my husband looked so happy I couldn't begrudge him the experience even if it had been rubbish!

I stuck to boring soft drinks (then water when they ran out), and the only food we had was some chicken tenders and fries. These were alright.

Amazing day!