Tusker House is probably our favourite character meal on WDW property (no, we haven’t tried all of them, but of the ones we have tried – this wins hands down).

In 2016, we had made a reservation for 1pm, but for our 2017 trip we wanted to try and hit both breakfast and lunch so we made our reservation for 10:45.  I was also super sick the day we were there in 2016, so this was my chance to fully enjoy my meal here!

We arrived pretty much right on time, maybe a few minutes early, and only had to wait a few minutes before being escorted to our table.

Since this meal is a buffet, there’s no menu or choices to make – except how you’re going to load up your plate! I’ve mentioned before about not being a huge breakfast person, but this buffet had lots of non-breakfast options as well!

As soon as we were led to our table, we placed our drink order with our waiter – I don’t remember exactly what they called it there, but we both had the POG juice (passionfruit-orange-guava) – they might call it Jungle Juice there? We didn’t even wait for our drinks to arrive, we just hit the buffet so we could catch the breakfast offerings (Luke loves breakfast food!)

My first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise: tater tots and ketchup (fairly standard, deep fried deliciousness), some kind of omelet – ham and cheese maybe? (I don’t really remember now, but I know I didn’t like it – it was filled with gross onions haha), basmati rice with a curry chicken (this was great, not too spicy but lots of flavour!), a plantain – meh, ham – good, bacon – always good and a Mickey waffle – you just can’t walk past them!

Luke’s first plate, starting at the top and going clockwise:  a sausage patty (one of Luke’s fav breakfast meats), rice and curry chicken (same as the one I had up above), tater tots, a Mickey waffle, an egg, bacon, ham, salmon, a piece of cornbread and bobotie – which Luke LOVED. On the smaller plate is the banana bread pudding with vanilla sauce – omg, so delicious!

We also grabbed some biscuits and gravy to share. Bad idea, this was disgusting.

Once we had our first plates of food, and had started eating, the characters started coming around. First one to show up at our table was Donald 🙂

Next was Goofy!

Then Daisy:

The fourth character to show up at our table was the main mouse himself, Mickey. When I saw that he was getting close, I decided to Facetime my mom since she was in New Brunswick visiting my grandmother in the hospital. When Mickey reached me, the smile on my Nanny’s face was priceless, and she started waving to him and saying “Hi Mickey!”. The cast member in character that day was incredible, and as soon as he/she realized what I was doing, he started waving and blowing kisses to my grandmother. Luke did manage to snap a picture of me and Mickey on Facetime. This was such a simple thing, but I am so glad I did it – I lost my grandmother less than two months later, but I just have to remember the smile on her face that day and it makes me smile too 🙂

Luke had to get a picture with Mickey as well.

In between all the character visits, we did go back up for more food.

For my second plate, I didn’t want very much, but I wanted healthy – so I grabbed some green beans, some grapes, a square (that was awesome!), some pork, a cube of cheese, some carrots/corn and a small scoop of mashed potatoes with gravy. This plate looks pretty sad haha, but sometimes I just want fruit and veggies!

Luke  also got a second plate – more salmon, a pickle, more rice with curry chicken, I believe the next thing was a tofu dish, some desserts, more bobotie (sp?), pork with some kind of sauce (the downfall of writing these reviews months later haha) and some green beans.

Now that I think about it, the plates pictured above might have been our third servings, but it’s all I have pictures of.  Just now that we both left STUFFED! I love the food here, and the character interactions have always been fantastic.

I also need to give a shoutout to our waiter,  Lee. He was hilarious and kept cracking jokes with us – nothing too inappropriate, but things he probably would not have said if there were children at our table haha. He kept our table clear of dirty plates, and our glasses full of water and juice. He was one of the top two servers we encountered on this entire trip – I hope to see him again next year!

This meal is a bit pricey, at $45 per person, but it’s one that will continue to be at the top of our must-do list every time. We were there for at least an hour and a half, and we didn’t eat again until 7pm that night (like 8 hours later).  There are food options for everyone – if you want to be adventurous there are some great options, but fussy eaters will also have no trouble finding something on the buffet here as well.

On our first full day in California, we had made an 8am reservation at La Brea Bakery Cafe, located in Downtown Disney. We took an Uber to the park, and made it there about 2 minutes past 8. The restaurant was not very busy, and we were seated at a 4-top table outside right away. It was a bit of a cold morning, so we were right below a heater which was nice – the weather didn’t bother us too much but I could tell our waiter was freezing!

First things first: the menu:

For drinks, Luke ordered a coffee, fairly straight forward.

Luke decided to try something different for him, and ordered the Chorizo Frittata – potatoes, jack cheese, avocado, salsa fresca and cilantro with a side of mixed greens, $17

Luke describes this an omelet/pan-scrambler hybrid but with more eggs and less potato. He says it was nice and light, fluffy and flakey, and filled with flavour. He also loved the addition of the creamy avocado on top – according to him it added a nice little something extra.

The mixed green salad on the side was “whatever” (in Luke’s words haha) – there was nothing wrong with it, the greens were nice and fresh but the frittata was just that good. This was served with a balsamic vinaigrette .

If you’ve read any of my other trip reports, you’ll know I’m not a huge breakfast person, so I was really excited when I was informed I could order anything from the menu, not just the brunch options. I decided on the Grilled Three Cheese – a blend of three cheeses on garlic rubbed rustic bread served with a cup of our tomato bisque – $16.

This was so good! The bread was fresh – great bread can make or break a sandwich for me (Wonderbread will always get a big fat no from me!). The cheese blend was mild but creamy and delicious – I’m really fussy and prefer basic cheeses like mozzarella or cheddar so this was up my alley. The ratio of cheese to bread was pretty much perfect as well, which can be a major complaint of mine when it comes to grilled cheese (some places just over do-it – I like cheese, but there’s a fine balance haha).

And then there’s that soup – omg, so good! I love pretty much all tomato soup – and this was not even in the same league as a can of Campbell’s haha – I want to buy cans of La Brea tomato soup at the grocery store now!

The total of our meal was $36.37 – this includes a 10% discount thanks to my annual pass.

This is one place we plan on visiting again on our next Disneyland trip! Now I just want tomato soup…

Luke here. Fallon asked if I wanted to ghost write any of her trip report. I said “nah that’s your thing” but the tone of her okay had some disappointment. I can’t have that. But since we’re talking disappointment, let’s use it a segueway to Be Our Guest Breakfast!

In 2016 we were on the Disney Dining Plan. As such, we had secured breakfast, lunch and dinner reservations at this most desired establishment. And for the most part those experiences were good. We had a very good supper, a solid lunch despite not being famished and most importantly – we learned how valuable a pre-park open breakfast reservation was.

Last year we were able to get photos in a mostly empty park, had pre-ordered our food and were able to secure a table in the coveted west wing and were able to ride Seven Dwarves Mine Train & Peter Pan’s Flight without fastpasses AND I was able to have 1.5 very mediocre coffees.

So the plan in 2017 was to repeat that as best we could. And we kinda did. With mixed results.

I’m not sure where Fallon is with her reports so this might be a spoiler of sorts. But after 5K race day we’d learned how easy it was to get from the Contemporary to Magic Kingdom. It’s less than a 10 minute walk. So on this day we used that knowledge to make our 8AM reservation. We called an Uber and told the guy at the Contemporary gate we were heading to an ADR. It’s important to phrase it that way because saying “we have an 8AM at Be Our Guest and frankly don’t want to get dropped off at the TTC” prolly doesn’t work. Honesty aside.

So we walked to MK from the Contempo and slipped through the much shorter resort side security checkpoint. So far so good. Then things started going not as planned…

I forgot the wallet. With all the dollars. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

Most people just shake this kinda stuff off. Like the whole “Oops. People make mistakes.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That’s… not really my style. I’m more of a seethe and beat yourself up and never cut myself a break kind of guy. One of the things I love about myself and find super easy to change. Yup. Totes magotes.

…UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

So while I was being super easy on myself, we experienced the new pre park open procedure. The railroad was down for refurbishment so now anyone showing up for rope drop is ushered into Main Street USA and cut off at the square if the don’t have a reservation for Cinderella’s Royal Table, Crystal Palace or Be Our Guest. They can get a breakfast hot dog though. Which is 90% likely a better choice than actually eating the food at BOG…

…UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

We show our ADR confirmation number at the checkpoints and meander our way though MK. No more empty park photos because of everyone congregating for the opening show. C’est la vie. A downer, sure. But them’s the breaks.

We get to the restaurant and check in.

We knew to pre-order for our food though. Be Our Guest is quick serve at Breakfast and Lunch (the best QS credit use on the DDP based on pricing too) so people go to these kiosks to place their order. That’s cool. But dreadfully slow if you don’t know what you’re doing. We know the skinny though so we had pre-ordered our food. When you do this you bypass the kiosks and head right to the register to pay. It saves you ~10-20 minutes really. And that’s time you can use to bask in the warming and welcoming glow of Nicholas Cage as he ushers you into the building.

…UUUUCK!!!! I’ve got like 70 bucks in my wallet for all day at Magic Kingdom. It’ll have to do since Fallon’s is at the hotel (with ducats galore) because I forgot to pack it. I suck. My muck up is AMEX’s gain. We pay and head to the West Wing.

If we hadn’t pre-ordered there’s no chance outside of dumb luck we’d be able to snag a spot here. The west wing is the most coveted section of Be Our Guest and it is super cool. There’s the torn portrait of the beast, the rose losing its petals and a pretty good Coca-Cola fountain too.

Be Our Guest is kinda neat. You pay for your food and get this rose that submits a radio frequency so servers can know to bring your order to your location. While we sat, Fallon headed to the commode because she knows that being in the bathroom = your food showing up while you make #1 or 2..

You snagged a Be Our Guest reservation. Congratulations! These are hard to come by (Hack tip: if you can’t get a reservation for 2 – look for reservations for 1 within a shorter time frame at breakfast or lunch because it’s a quick serve at that time and you can just pay separately and show up at the same time since it’s general seating inside anyhow). Always always always pre-order your food. It save so much time. And you can pre-order up to 30 days in advance.

Our reservation was for 8. We had our food by 8:08 or so. We’d pre-ordered Gaston’s somethingorother – it’s bacon & eggs. And a grey stuff cupcake. And a coffee.

Here are the reasons to go to Be Our Guest for breakfast:

1. Impeccable theming (see below)
2. Prime location in fantasyland for post-meal rides
3. They have that hand soap in the washroom that smells good
4. …
5. Solid use of QS credit
6. uh…
7. the food

In 2016 our food was decent. Fallon had the Cronut and I had their version of eggs benny. It was alright. Not amazing. Nowhere near the worst meal of that trip (Looking at you Yak & Yeti Quick Serve). But alright.

This time – the pastries you get with your food had improved. The rest… not so much. Fallon’s cupcake was meh to the mehest. Also – what gives with those cupcake baking cups that can’t be peeled off a cupcake without destroying its structural integrity? And my meal was coooold. As a Canadian, I feel qualified to certify temperate coolness. My eggs were cold. Like they weren’t even microwaved properly. The bacon was pretty standard fast food fare and the potatoes were unworthy of wasting ketchup on.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter.

Because nobody goes to Be Our Guest for the food. And nobody heads there before 9AM to stay inside long. Because if you know what you’re doing – you’re not paying $24US for a mediocre at best scrambled egg breakfast. You are buying 2 extra fastpasses.

We’d finished our foodstuffs by 8:43 or so. Grabbed a coffee refill and headed out to the Mine Train. Unlike 2016 – this was roped off.  But a line was forming of Be Our Guesters who wanted first dibs when the park open. And like last year – that’s what we got.

At about 8:55 they ushered our group into the line. By 8:57 we were off the ride. It’s super cool to get to be the absolute first people on this. I would never ever wait 210 minutes to get on this ride. It’s a super cool, smooth, roller coaster with an awesome animatronic segment with Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and the other guy. But no way is it worth that amount of time. It is worth paying twice as much for a breakfast you can get at a resort quick serve to walk on without a fastpass though.

And the best part? Since we were done Mine Train before 9, we were able to scurry along to Peter Pan’s Flight and walk on that by 9:10. Another ride that’s good and cool – but I don’t really get. Sure it’s the vastly superior of the Disneyland 1955 Originals – but it’s not worth 2 hours of your time (despite how cool the queue is).

But it is worth choking down luke-warm potatoes so you can use that Fastpass for Space Mountain instead.

This came across as more negative than I’d like it to. I’d like to reiterate this. Ultimately a bad meal at Disney World is irrelevant. Because you’re still at Disney World. Life is pretty good when that’s the case. Nobody gets there by accident. So gulp down your standard sausages, ride a roller coaster, use your credit card and have a great damn day.  That’s what we did. It was great 🙂

P.S. if you’re one of those people who makes a pre park open reservation then just buys a 69 cent Mickey straw so you can take advantage of the Mine Train loophole – you’re the problem and should probably get diarrhea.

This was a restaurant we didn’t really read many reviews of, and just don’t see mentioned all that often to be honest. But, we were staying at Saratoga Springs for 4 nights so we had to make a reservation to try it!

We made our reservation for fairly late at night, on the same night as the Star Wars Dessert Party – our reasoning was that we would be skipping supper to have our dessert first, and then after we returned to our resort we would have a late supper.

The restaurant itself is located in the main building at Saratoga Springs, at the end of a hallway.

If you read my review of the Star Wars Dessert Party, you’ll know that we were both feeling pretty good, and had drank quite a few of the cocktails offered there… and we were still feeling the affects of that when we arrived at The Turf Club.

We checked in, and did not have to wait very long before we were led to our table. Our waiter came over immediately to introduce himself – his name was Coy and he was amazing! He was probably the best waiter we had this entire trip, and I’m not just saying that because we were both drunk haha.

Here’s the menu that Coy dropped off for us to look over:

And they were also offering this Prixe Fixe Menu:

Luke decided to keep the drinking going, and ordered a Mint Julep – bourbon muddled with fresh mint and agave nectar, $11.25

So, they definitely stuck a piece of mint on top for garnish, but I’m pretty sure that entire cup was just ice and bourbon. Luke says it was one of the stiffest drinks he’s ever been served at a restaurant. I tried it, and I think they forgot to add the muddled mint and agave and it was just straight bourbon. Luke just decided to suck it up and drink it though, but our server noticed that he was struggling with it so he brought over a glass of ginger ale to mix into it. This was not something we asked for, but it was appreciated!

Waiter Coy also dropped off some bread:

With butter (and I don’t remember what was on the salt, sorry! Just be happy I remembered to take pictures haha).

The plan was to just order appetizers, since we had ate/drank so much at the dessert party, but then I saw this on the menu, and it was screaming my name.

This is the Rigatoni Fiesolana – rigatoni pasta, creamy tomato sauce with sausage, portobello mushrooms, parmesan and fresh basil, $22. I asked for it without mushrooms of course, but everything else in that description was ok by me! This was so great, but I didn’t come close to finishing it. I did take the leftovers with me though, and reheated it in the microwave in our room and it still tasted good!

Luke decided to stick with our original plan of appetizers, and ordered the Buffalo Chicken Dip – spicy ranch sauce with saratoga chips, $10. This was much better than we expected, it was shredded, white meat chicken mixed with what I assume is just ranch and Frank’s Red Hot, served with lots of homemade kettle-style chips to dip in. This was a huge serving, and meant to be shared – which we did. Also, here’s proof of how much we had drank that night – this is the only picture I took of this dish:

Yep, I should probably quit my job and become a professional food photographer based on that last picture….

Luke also ordered the Braised Beef Short Rib – creme fraiche- parmesan polenta, baby heirloom tomatoes and crispy fried potatoes, $13. I have no idea what creme fraiche is, and no idea what polenta is (I assume it’s that odd-coloured smear on the side of the plate), but Luke really enjoyed this. I tried some of the meat, and it was so fall-apart tender and delicious!

Overall, we really enjoyed this meal, and would not hesitate to return to the Turf Club if we’re ever staying at Saratoga Springs again. As I mentioned earlier, we loved our waiter, he was attentive, friendly and funny!

Our bill came to $63.63 (I forgot to mention up above that I ordered a coke to drink at $3.49).

After paying, I stopped on my way through the main lobby to use the bathroom before walking back to our building. While I was in there, Luke realized he had drunkenly forgot his hat in the restaurant and had to go back to get it – so then when I came out of the bathroom I had no idea where he was. Once we found each other again, we headed back to our room and called it a night!

After waking up at an ungodly hour, and putting way more steps on my Fitbit than I care for, we were both exhausted by the time this reservation rolled around. We thought about cancelling it, we weren’t even that hungry after just eating at Peco’s Bills a few hours earlier, but we also really wanted to see the inside of this restaurant – who doesn’t love dinosaurs?!

So, after leaving Magic Kingdom and heading back to Old Key West to change, we made our way over to Disney Springs to check in at T-Rex.

That place was slammed! And our reservation was at 2pm – not exactly peak time for lunch… luckily we did have a reservation so we only waited about 10 minutes before being called.

We were led to a little two-top table right beside a – whatever this dinosaur is. Triceratops? Let’s go with that. (I actually don’t know much about dinosaurs…)

The menu had lots of things that appealed to me, but I was so exhausted I didn’t think I could eat much of anything.

We looked at their cocktail list, and most of it sounded amazing but I just wasn’t feeling it at that point. So, I ordered a fancy glass bottle root beer ($4.99) and a glass of water.

Luke got way too excited about ordering a Blue Raspberry Icee, $4.99. If you read my Disneyland trip report from his birthday, you’ll see he also ordered an Icee the night we went to the movie theater – they don’t sell them in Canada so he has to get one whenever he has the chance in the States. He also ordered a coffee (not pictured), $3.79

Despite not being hungry, one item on the appetizer menu was calling my name – Mega Mozzarella – seared mozzarella, marinara and mozzarella fingers, $9.99

Just look at that beautiful plate of cheese! This was nothing special, but it was exactly what I wanted at that point, and Luke was kind enough to spilt it with me (eating that much cheese all at once would make me sick!). The mozzarella fingers (finger? who calls them that? They are mozzarella sticks!) were standard but delicious. I had never heard of seared mozzarella before, but it was exactly as described, and quite tasty!

We also decided we needed to share a dessert, so we ordered this beauty:

This is the Ice Age Indulgence – layers of ice cream sandwiches, fudge sauce, whipped topping, Heath Bar Crunch, $9.99 (for two). This was awesome! It’s a very generous serving, and is definitely meant for two people. It was so good.

The total for our meal was $35.20 – pretty cheap meal!

The restaurant itself was really awesome!

This was not a very exciting meal, but we were so tired we would not have enjoyed a full meal. After we paid our bill, we actually went back to OKW and had a long-overdue nap that was wonderful…

After our crazy early morning and completing my first ever 5km, and a few busy hours at Magic Kingdom, we realized we were hungry. So, we had to go to one of our favourite quick service locations – Peco’s Bills!

Luke decided to keep it the same as last year, and ordered the fajita platter – with barbacoa beef and chicken, cilantro rice, beans, and tortillas, $14.99.

The main difference from 2016 to 2017 was the meat. In 2016, we had a choice of beef or chicken, but in 2017 you receive both on the platter. I believe you can still request all one or the other, but it’s nice to have the option of both!

I went for an option that wasn’t on the menu in 2016 – the beef nachos – tortilla chips topped with seasoned ground beef, tomatoes and lettuce, $11.99. Of course I requested mine sans tomato – because gross!

The nachos do not come with cheese, but this is a very easy fix – Peco’s Bill’s has a really fantastic “fixin’s bar” – they have little plastic cups and self-serve salsa, shredded cheese, guac, sour cream, etc. Here’s our food and tray after our visit to the fixin’s:

Not pictured is the large Coke we purchased to share, $3.29.

We didn’t realize until we sat down just how tired we were. It had been such an early morning, and once we sat down, it took awhile before we were ready to stand up again haha.

This meal was fantastic once again, and easily remains one of our favourite food options at Magic Kingdom! I love that the fajitas are build your own – so you can add as much or as little as you’d like (you receive 3 flour tortillas – that’s what’s inside that tin foil), and the nachos were super basic – which is right up my alley!

Our total cost for both of us was $32.24.