COMPLETE Universal, Disney and offsite live food report August 2019

[Eccle]

Originally Posted by Disney Planning

Great prices at Chillis, somewhere we’ve never been. The apple cinnamon toast looks great.

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If you do ever have the chance, Chilis is worth trying, I could happily go there just for the tortilla chips!

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Late getting started with your report.
The food at club level in Portofino looks good. Nice that you get proper hot breakfast items - rpr club level was good but didn’t have that.
Got to love Sals pizza - best pizza on property by a mile.

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It was really good, breakfast particularly. The pizza was great too, and a nice easy alternative for the kids!

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Lots of good disney food. I’m glad you had a positive experience at Storybook, we loved it the first time at Christmas but not so much in the summer.
Polite Pig looks great again, kicking myself for not doing that.
Those snack credits build up even on short trips - Ghiradellis at Disney springs is always the answer to too many snack credits although you look like you did well with your haul.

Kekes looks brilliant, that’s been on my list for about the last 6 trips and we’ve still never done it - next time for definite.

Hope you are having a great time.

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The kids are keen to go back to Storybook on another trip, I worry slightly a second time wouldn’t be as good knowing that experiences seem to be mixed there.

Thanks for the Ghirardellis tip, I had thought about it but should have planned better to get something there sooner as it was easier to go somewhere closer by the time we were using them up

Definitely worth doing Kekes on your next trip if you can

Originally Posted by collybird

Pizzarizzos gets a hard time but I really love those basic Disney pizzas and the overdressed Caesar salad.

Butchers Board at Polite Pigs really does look good, and great value, thanks for the tip about it being on the DDP. I can’t see us making it there this year but one for the future.

Big fan of Garden Grill breakfast, a great choice and glad you managed to get on Soarin’. It must have been sad to leave the Beach Club for the final time.

It is a sobering thought that the tips in Disney cover an entire meal offsite isn’t it!? I try not to get hung up on it as it’s just the nature of the beast. I also agree about struggling to find room and time for snacks in Disney, I have an extensive snack list (longer than the amount of credits we actually have) but I am at a loss as to when we’ll actually be hungry enough to eat them.

Fingers crossed your flight leaves as scheduled and you get home. Thanks for sharing your report with us, really interesting to read about your first time on DDP.

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The boys wanted to go back to Pizzerizzo when we were in HS on the Friday, but sadly it had already closed for the day. Garden Grill was really good. It was sad to leave Beach Club, though I have to say we were glad of the space in the villa.

We are home safely now thank you

Originally Posted by nicolacasino

Totally get this, we are a family of five and we all had the adult plan. Hubby hated paying 50 bucks in tips in time! We even cancelled some meals because of this (he said he was tired but ).

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It does add up, especially as a bigger family. I felt bad that the offsite servers were getting so much less of a tip from us in absolute terms!

[Eccle]

I had taken with us a box of weetabix (safe option for the kids!) and a couple of multi packs of Kellogg’s cereal mini boxes that had been on offer for £1 in Morrisons before we left. The mini boxes I had wondered about using whilst at Beach Club, but in the end everything came to the villa with us so these were used on days we weren’t out for breakfast.

After a morning at the outlets, which took longer than expected due to the enormous queue at the Disney shop, we went to Sweet Tomatoes at Crossroads for a late lunch.

We love Sweet Tomatoes for a mid holiday chance for some slightly more healthy food. They have a huge salad bar as you go in, then loads of soups, jacket potatoes, breads, some hot pastas and pizza, and soft serve ice cream (advertised as low fat!) plus some cake type things for dessert. All buffet based so you help yourself to whatever you want.

Pictures are limited I am afraid as my phone battery died!
My salad bar selection

A chili soup that was really lovely

Macaroni cheese and mushroom Alfredo

Everything was good. Sebastian was very happy to have jacket potato and cheese which he loves!

Standard prices here at lunch are $10.39 for adults, $6.39 for 7-12 year olds and $4.39 for 3-6 year olds. If you sign up to their club online they send regular vouchers, we paid $38.88 for the 5 of us including fountain drinks for me and David (kids had milk included)

Later on we picked up some doughnuts at the Seven Eleven, a mixture of chocolate and Boston creams, and had those with our Disney left over ice cream (very healthy!)

[Disney Planning]

Great value at Sweet Tomatoes. We try and visit when we go.

[Loobylou_82]

Just caught up. We really like Polite Pig too. Never got to Keke's it's on my hit list for next time, that pancake looked massive, love french toast too, i would be spoilt for choice!

[Eccle]

This morning we were in MK. I bought a Cheshire Cat’s tail as I had really wanted to try it but never had the appetite when we were on the DDP.

This was nice, warm with melting chocolate chips inside. However it was over $6 with tax, and I think the chocolate hazelnut croissant I had at Beach Club was better, I would have been better getting it when I had snack credits!

Late morning we went to Aloha Isle as Barnaby was asking for ice cream. He, Alex and I all had vanilla dole whip, and David had the upside down cake with pineapple dole whip. These were $23.41. Again nice but should have done it when we had snack credits! Sebastian doesn’t really like ice cream so had some crisps we had taken with us.

For our main meal we went to Olive Garden. This is a long time favourite of ours since our first visit to the US 15 years ago! Monday - Thursday 3-5 they have early dinner duo offers where some dishes are $8.99 including salad and breadsticks.
Salad

Breadstick (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, otherwise it would look more appealing!). These are warm and very tasty

I had fettuccine Alfredo and added chicken as an extra. I love this and am very boring and always have it at Olive Garden. Much better than the Tonys one

David has lasagne which is also lovely

Alex had spaghetti with tomato sauce and a meatball, with a side of fries (because who doesn’t need double carbs! ) He wasn’t a big fan of the meatball but ate everything else

Sebastian had pepperoni pizza with a side of fries

Barnaby had fettuccine with meat sauce and grapes as the side

We also got a pudding to share and had zeppoli, which are like a doughnut/ beignet kind of thing with a chocolate dipping sauce.

The total cost was $60, including the dreaded tablet games (the choice was to give in and have a vaguely happy 3 year old or spend the whole time fighting him! I curse these things on the table)

[Eccle]

This morning David took the older two to Typhoon Lagoon, I stayed at the villa with Barnaby. They took some snacks with them.

We had been going to Longhorns for our meal, but an email reminded me that Tuesday was kids eat free at Millers, and they also had an $8.99 steak offer.

David and I both went for the steak, he paid an extra dollar to add a New Orleans topping. The steak wasn’t a big one, but was really nice and came with a garlic butter. The fries were good too, and for once the portion size felt about right

Alex and Barnaby both had hotdogs, with fries and apples respectively

Sebastian had spaghetti and meatballs. You couldn’t have a side included in this, and he really wanted some fries, so as Barnaby was also likely to want some we ordered a portion of fries

The kids meals came with ice cream or a sherbet push pop. Sebastian went for the push pop as he doesn’t do ice cream, but wasn’t a fan!

We shared the Captain Jack’s Buried Treasure dessert. This was huge and gorgeous, layers of ice cream and biscuit

The total bill was $44, I was amazed we could get two of the kids’ meals free even though we ordered the special. I really enjoyed this meal and it was great value.

Later in the evening we took some snacks with us to watch Fantasmic

[Goldia]

Dinner sounds fab, even with the tablet cost it's still very reasonable especially compared to the dole whip and the Cheshire cat tail, ouch they are pricey without snack credits aren't they?

[Eccle]

Originally Posted by Disney Planning

Great value at Sweet Tomatoes. We try and visit when we go.

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It is great value, one we always try to do too

Originally Posted by Loobylou_82

Just caught up. We really like Polite Pig too. Never got to Keke's it's on my hit list for next time, that pancake looked massive, love french toast too, i would be spoilt for choice!

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The pancake really was massive, huge and thick. I couldn’t finish one never mind if i’d ordered the three on the menu! Definitely worth doing if you have the chance

Originally Posted by Goldia

Dinner sounds fab, even with the tablet cost it's still very reasonable especially compared to the dole whip and the Cheshire cat tail, ouch they are pricey without snack credits aren't they?

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They really are pricey, and make my $2.25 bananas seem a poor use of a snack credit to then later buy more expensive things when we were offsite!

[orlandoamber]

That dessert at millers looks excellent! As does all the food there actually - can’t believe the price of the steak

[collybird]

Olive Garden looks so good!

Over $6 for a pastry, my eyes are almost popping out of my head, our trip next year is after the free dining offer has finished and we're facing OOP for the first time. I may starve.