8 days of paid for DDP plus the rest, November 2012.

[sha9]

I decided to start this years dining report earlier before my memory dissolves! Those of you who read last years will find this very familiar as we're creatures of habit! I tried to remember to take photos but there are some missing. There's me and my sister Marie and I'll do my best to describe Marie's food as usually the best I get is "good" or "awwright". Awwright means it was edible but nothing to write home about!

Travel day (and the evening before).

Dinner the evening before travel was at the Wetherspoons at Edinburgh Airport. We were staying at the Hilton Edinburgh Airport as our flight was 6.20 am. They had their own restaurant but we had headed over to the airport to see how long the walk was and realised we were hungry when we got there. Having been to Wetherspoons before we knew we'd be fairly safe. I chose fish & chips and Marie lasagne with a side of chips. The fish was battered haddock and one of the nicest pieces of fish I've had. The batter and the chips were just ok but the fish more than made up for them. Marie said the lasagne was nice so I had a little bit to try. It was nice enough but I've had better. No photos as I didn't have my camera.

Breakfast the day of travel was on the flight from Edinburgh to Gatwick given it was so early although I did have a piece of shortbread that we got with the tea/coffee making stuff in the hotel! The food on the flight was a cooked breakfast which was to quote Marie, awwright. It filled a gap. We were booked into the No.1 lounge in the North terminal so took advantage of the food on offer. We both had a bacon roll and some pastries. The food was just ok and I don't think it would be reason enough for me to book an airport lounge in the future but it meant we didn't have to buy any.
Our next meal was on the flight to Tampa. Choices were chicken curry, sausage and mash or pasta in a "creamy" sauce. We both chose the pasta. It was actually quite tasty although Marie didn't think much of it. We also got a small smoked salmon salad but I didn't eat the salmon. Dessert was a Lily O'Brien chocolate mousse which was also nice. Later we got "afternoon tea" which consisted of a chicken salad sandwich and a breakaway biscuit. The sandwich was lovely and on a par with a Greggs chicken salad sandwich.

When we arrived at Pop we were knackered and hungry so ended up with chicken nuggets. No pictures as we were too tired to remember! It was standard Disney chicken nuggets. Just ok. It cost us a counter service credit which in hindsight was probably a waste. We picked up our refillable mugs and got a bottle of water as our drink with our meal for the next day. We decided for dessert to get muffins for breakfast in the next day to keep us going until our ADR at Tusker House as we knew we'd be up really early!

[sha9]

Day one was Animal Kingdom. We had a breakfast ADR at Tusker House this morning (our only breakfast of the holiday). The queue to check in was quite long which surprised me as we've never had to queue much before but didn't take much time. We had arrived at around 8 for an 8.20 ADR so had plenty time. We actually got seated very quickly and pretty close to the 8.20 despite the queue. As usual Tusker House didn't disappoint. I tried a couple of things I hadn't had before. With us getting up ridiculously early my stomach felt more like it was lunchtime so I was more adventurous and tried the beef bobitie quiche, spicy potatoes and coconut sweet potato. The beef bobitie was nice but I didn't like the other two dishes. Character interaction was great as usual. I have photos but buffet photos never look that great! They always offer you their Jungle Juice which you can only get here and Boma (I think). It's a mixture of orange, guava and passion fruit and it's lovely. I always drink loads as they refill your glass!



As you can see I'm trying to keep the maple syrup on the Mickey waffle away from the savoury stuff!

[sha9]

Lunch was quite early, more because it was lunchtime than we were hungry. We were also conscious of the fact that we had a dinner ADR at 5.45pm so didn't want to eat too late. We went to the Yak & Yeti CS as it was nearby and we had never tried it before. We got a honey chicken and sweet & sour chicken with the intention of sharing but because they come in those boxes it was difficult to do. The rice is all at the bottom too so it's hard to get to without eating all the chicken first! I really enjoyed it but we probably weren't hungry enough to do it justice. The honey chicken was a bit too honey though and tasted like the sauce was actual honey rather than a sauce made with honey IYSWIM. We got another bottle of water as our drink and for dessert we got a frozen lemonade which was quite large and we didn't manage the whole thing.




This is the sweet & sour.


Honey chicken.

[sha9]

Dinner was Liberty Tree Tavern which is one of our must-dos whether we have DDP or not. I love the whole roast dinner thing! As usual it lived up to our expectations. The only problem here is I can never eat as much as I would like! LTT for dinner is served family style which means they bring plates of food to the table and everyone helps themselves. It starts with a salad which this time I felt had been marinading in the dressing a bit too long and wasn't as crisp as I'd have liked. I didn't eat too much as I wanted to have room for the main course. There are also nice warm bread rolls with maple butter which were nice and soft. This is roast beef, turkey and ham with stuffing, mash potato, seasonal veg (green beans and roasted root veg this time) and macaroni cheese. I've never understood the mac & cheese being included but I always have some! They always offer to bring more but we didn't take anything this time. Dessert was a sponge with craisins and ice cream which was lovely but we were stuffed and couldn't eat much of it. Our server was good, professional and friendly without being in your face.

[finnsmum]

Originally Posted by sha9

Lunch was quite early, more because it was lunchtime than we were hungry. We were also conscious of the fact that we had a dinner ADR at 5.45pm so didn't want to eat too late. We went to the Yak & Yeti CS as it was nearby and we had never tried it before. We got a honey chicken and sweet & sour chicken with the intention of sharing but because they come in those boxes it was difficult to do. The rice is all at the bottom too so it's hard to get to without eating all the chicken first! I really enjoyed it but we probably weren't hungry enough to do it justice. The honey chicken was a bit too honey though and tasted like the sauce was actual honey rather than a sauce made with honey IYSWIM. We got another bottle of water as our drink and for dessert we got a frozen lemonade which was quite large and we didn't manage the whole thing.




This is the sweet & sour.


Honey chicken.

See more...

This was the first year we had been to Yak and Yeti too, we had the sweet n sour chicken and i really enjoyed it. I was surprised how tasty it was.

We got one of the milkshakes from there too but was disappointed with it, it was just super thick chocolate soft serve ice cream. Thickers than McDs and too thick to suck through a straw, i dont think it said anywhere that it was a thick shake either.

[Jojo]

Mmmm I love Liberty Tree Tavern. Could just eat that right now ! Looking forward to reading more...

[Hannikins]

great start!

[sha9]

Day 2 was Magic Kingdom. This was always going to be awkward food wise as we had a dinner reservation at Crystal Palace at 3.30. We decided the best thing would be to have a CS breakfast and then maybe a couple of snacks. I had the Bounty Platter and Marie the Pop waffle. Mine had sausage, bacon, egg, biscuit, breakfast potatoes and French toast sticks. While breakfast is a poor use of a CS credit this was possibly the best breakfast option plus I was really hungry. It was OK. The food is pretty much standard across Disney, especially when it comes to breakfast and this includes what you would find at the buffets. We used our mugs for coffee and took water as our drink for the parks.


You can see the waffle in the background.

At around 10ish we started to get hungry and found ourselves next to a stall selling cinnamon glazed almonds. These were fab! They were still warm and just so tasty! We used one snack credit to get a bag between us which was enough to keep us going for a while. We discovered these scattered about the parks and noticed they did pecans as well. In the end I kind of sickened myself with them!



Later at around 11.30 we got hungry again. Marie had a hankering for chilli cheese fries so we checked our dining app and found that they did them at Cosmic Rays for a snack credit. This was an excellent use of a snack credit as it was really filling. I think on any future trips if we have free dining we'd have something like this for lunch and have more 2 TS credit meals.



We later used another credit to get a Dole whip float to tide us over until "dinner". I found I really enjoyed using our credits this way. We didn't feel we had to time our snacks to ensure we would still have room for lunch/dinner and just ate when we were hungry.



Dinner was the Crystal Palace buffet. The only time we could get was 3.30pm as we'd left it quite late. We decided though that this was quite a good time as we would most likely still be in the park. Food was standard Disney buffet fare. I enjoyed it but I'm not one of these people that likes a buffet because of the amount of food but rather the variety and I didn't find a huge variety here. Desserts were just ok. Character interaction was good and we got pictures with all the characters. I have pictures but again because they're buffet pictures they're not that great.






You can see the desserts in the background. One of them is a pumpkin bread pudding thing that I didn't really enjoy. It's fairly obvious which one I think!

On arrival back at Pop around 7 we were slightly hungry so split an individual pizza and breadsticks. The pizza was really nice but the breadsticks weren't that great. We paid OOP for these which cost around $10.

[sha9]

Day 3 was an Epcot day because we had a Le Cellier ADR at lunchtime which I'd booked before checking the busy day guide. We were up really early again so decided to pay OOP for breakfast at the food court. This time I got the French toast platter and Marie got pancakes. These were nice enough, typical food court fayre. This cost around $6 each and we got coffee with our mugs.





When we arrived at World Showcase at opening time I was starting to get peckish. I'd seen the lamb chop from Australia on the Disney Food Blog and decided I wanted one so it was handy that the Australia booth was at the right end of World Showcase! Unfortunately this was a bit disappointing. It was a Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies (crisps) and was either an excellent use of a snack credit or a rubbish one. It cost $5.75 so a good use from that point of view but took me a minute to eat it so in that way a poor use! The pesto was a bit greasy and the "crunchies" pointless as they just fell off. The lamb itself was nice. Luckily it was in no danger of ruining my appetite.



We wandered round World Showcase and got to Canada at the right time for our ADR at Le Cellier. The bread here always comes with the Le Cellier signature pretzel bread which I love! We have in the past asked for just pretzel bread but I didn't want to fill myself up!



At Le Cellier we both had the filet mignon as usual. I always feel while on DDP it's a waste not to! It's served with a wild mushroom risotto and white truffle sauce. It was lovely as usual but as I had noticed previously a bit salty around the edges. Since we both like it well done they always ask if we want it butterflied and we always say yes to get it quicker!



We both chose the creme brûlée for dessert as it's nice and light and we were full. I'm sure this has been served warm in the past so I was slightly disappointed to find it was cold. Maybe I remembered wrong. It was still nice though. For some reason I didn't take a photo.
Dinner time we had planned to go to Wolfgang Puck's Express as the only evening we didn't have a TS booked. I got BBQ chicken pizza and Marie got spicy chicken pizza. We also got a side of fries which really was too much but I love the fries here. The pizza was lovely but I couldn't eat it all. Dessert was a choc chip cookie and Marie gave me hers because she didn't want anything and she knows how much I love the cookies here!


BBQ chicken


Spicy chicken

[sha9]

Day 4 was Islands of Adventure and we didn't get up early enough to go to the food court for breakfast. We had bought some donut holes the day before and decided these would suffice to keep us going in the morning until we got to the parks. We washed it down with chocolate and strawberry milk as Pop doesn't have a coffee maker and we couldn't be bothered with the walk to the food court to fill our mugs.
We got to IOA for opening and went straight to FJ which had a 10 minute wait. After it we felt hungry so wandered into the Three Broomsticks to see what they had to offer for breakfast. The last time we ate here we had to have lunch at 10.30 am so were hoping at 9.30 am we'd have better luck! They do a $14.99 breakfast which includes a drink. I decided to have the English breakfast out of curiosity and Marie had pancakes. The English breakfast was real bacon, sausage, black pudding, tomato, mushroom, scrambles eggs and potatoes. Both also came with a croissant (?). Mine was just ok but may have been better if it had been hot. It was just lukewarm. Had I been in a normal restaurant I'd have sent it back and in hindsight I should have asked for a fresh plate but I think it was a consequence of how they plate up the food, waiting on each item separately. I'm not sure we'd have breakfast here again but when you're hungry . . .


This is the menu.


Full English.


Pancakes

Lunch was at the Florida Mall food court. I really fancied a burger so went to Five Guys. There are a lot of very positive reviews on this website about this place although I had never remembered it to be that great but I was prepared to accept my memory may be wrong. It wasn't. I find the burgers here quite tasteless and the plastic cheese they put on it melts into the burger which doesn't improve it any. The fries aren't nice at all either. I don't have any photos as I feel a bit self-conscious about taking food photos in a food court!

Dinner today was an ADR at Nine Dragons. I always think of this place as a hidden gem and had a lovely meal here last year. I already planned to have the same - sweet & sour pork with spinach noodles. I had also seen the walnut shrimp toast on someone elses dining report and really fancied trying it. This was a mistake - not because it wasn't nice, it was lovely and Marie declared it the best prawn toast she'd ever had, but because it was huge!



Even though we split the shrimp toast between us by the time our main course arrived we were quite full, maybe we had lunch too late, so neither of us managed to eat much. It was lovely as I'd remembered and I was really disappointed. Because we were really full we obviously couldn't eat dessert so got it to go. This left us with few options so we got the ginger cake. This actually became breakfast for me the following day! It was lovely and light and it didn't have a strong flavour. Ideal for breakfast!