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Disney, Food Review

Intermission Food Court – Late Night

Intermission Food Court – January 8th, 2016 – Late Night Snack​

After watching the Star Wars fireworks and the 2nd showing of Fantasmic, we finally made our way back to our hotel. I realized while sitting on the bus that I was actually hungry, seeing as I had barely ate anything for supper. We stopped in at the trusty food court at All Star Music (we ate here way more often then I thought we would!) so I could grab a snack.

I decided I actually wanted a slice of their greasy pepperoni pizza after seeing a few other people going with it. Luke decided he wanted a salad, so he ate the side salad my pizza came with. I also picked up a muffin to eat in the morning and a bottle of a pre-packaged Strawberry Banana Smoothie (which Luke drank a few days later). Sorry for no pictures, but it looked like a standard greasy slice of pizza (that tasted great).

I used one quick serve credit which covered the $9.69 for the pizza, $2.99 for a muffin and $4.79 for the smoothie.

I ate fairly quickly for me, and then we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow…

Disney, Travel, Wedding

Disney Lingo

I use some of these abbreviations a lot, so this should help you understand what I’m actually saying:

  • 7DMT – Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, a ride in Magic Kingdom
  • ADR – Advance Dining Reservation, can be made 180 days out
  • AK (or sometimes DAK) – Animal Kingdom theme park
  • AP – Annual Pass
  • BOG – Be Our Guest, a Beauty and the Beast themed restuarant located in Magic Kingdom
  • CM – Cast member, an employee at Disney
  • DLR – Disneyland Resort, located in Anaheim California
  • DME – Disney’s Magical Express, the bus that takes you to/from the airport
  • DVC – Disney Vacation Club, the timeshares we rent
  • ECV – Electric Convience Vehicle, a motorized wheelchair or scooter
  • FoTLK – Festival of the Lion King, a stage show at Animal Kingdom Park
  • FP+ – Fastpass +, allows you to enter a shorter line for rides
  • HS (or sometimes DHS) – Hollywood Studios theme park
  • MDE – My Disney Experience, an app that will become your best friend
  • MK – Magic Kingdom theme park
  • OKW – Old Key West resort
  • QS – quick service meal, a take-out counter or cafeteria-style usually
  • ToT – Tower of Terror, a ride at Hollywood Studios
  • TS – Table Service Meal, an actual sit-down restaurant
  • WDW – Walt Disney World Resort, located in Orlando Florida

 

 

Disney, Food Review

Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater

Sci Fi Dine-In Theater – January 8th, 2016 – Supper​

After a busy afternoon at Hollywood Studios, we checked in for our supper reservation. We waited around 15 minutes for our names to be called, and then we were led to our table. We were seated in the back seat of a blue car towards the very back of the room. There was a young man and his son sitting directly in front of us, and the wife was sitting in the front seat.

We had a great location to be able to see the entire room!

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I’ll apologize now – after our crazy early morning, I was so exhausted by this point that I didn’t take any food pictures :( The pictures you’ll see in the rest of this post have been found on a google search, and do not belong to me.

I hadn’t ate much all day but I really wasn’t hungry and up to eating a full meal since I was so tired, so I just ordered the Spinach & Artichoke Dip and a glass of water.

Image result for sci-fi dine-in theater spinach dip

*Photo credit to www.themouseforless.com*

It was just a standard hot dip covered in melted cheese and served with tri-coloured tortilla chips. It hit the spot though, it was exactly what I wanted at that moment. It wasn’t the best spinach dip I’ve ever had, but it was also nowhere close to being the worst, it was what it was. No complaints, I ate the entire thing.

Luke decided to go with the Sci-Fi Angus Burger – a burger with pulled pork, Sriracha barbecue sauce, swiss cheese, and pickled apple slaw served with fries. He also ordered a coffee (he was starting to fade – which is fair since he’d been up since 2:45am and had run 10km that morning). He really enjoyed his burger, but said the fries were just ok – nothing special. He did finish his entire burger, but not all of the fries.

Image result for sci-fi dine-in theater sci-fi burger with pulled pork

*Photo credit to the official Disney website*

I wish the video showing on the screen was a little bit longer. It was really cute, but it only took about 45 minutes before it cycled through and we were seeing the same thing again. Maybe most people don’t pay that close attention to it and don’t notice?

The theming here was great, but overall I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed by the food at Hollywood Studios. Both restaurants had great themes, but the food did not blow us away at all. Our servers were good, the atmosphere was new and exciting for us, but they just were not my favourites. I’d be willing to give both places another chance, but it’s not going to be happening on our next trip.

We paid out of pocket for these meals since I did not want an entree, and Luke did not want dessert. It cost $8.50 for mine, and $19 +$2.79 for Luke’s – so a pretty cheap supper!

Disney, Food Review

50’s Prime Time – Lunch

50’s Prime Time – January 8th, 2016 – Lunch​

It was a very early morning for us this day, as Luke ran in the 10km as part of Marathon Weekend. I ate my chocolate muffin from supper the night before, since I wasn’t running and could get away with chocolate for breakfast. Luke ate his snack credit yogurt he had picked up the night before, as well as a mini box of cereal he had purchased at the food court and some fruit. After his race, we came back to our hotel room so he could shower (and I could change into dry clothes, since it had rained most of the morning and I was soaked from sitting for a few hours). We ate a few of the snacks we had delivered to our room from an Amazon order, and some of the things from the post-run box they gave Luke. After showering/changing/warming up, we headed out to Hollywood Studios for the day.

We had an 11:30 reservation at 50’s Prime Time, and I was really looking forward to it (it came heavily recommended by family/friends). We checked in a few minutes early, and only waited a few minutes before they called for us and led us to a table – one with a TV!

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I had read all about this restaurant, and knew exactly what to expect – and of course our server called me out for having my elbows on the table within the first 5 minutes of being there…

I had also read the menu online, so I knew exactly what I wanted to order. Here is a wonderfully lit picture of the menu for anyone who is interested haha:

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I went for the chicken pot pie with a glass of water and a vanilla coke since it was included on the dining plan. I love vanilla coke, but for some reason it has only recently started being sold in Canada (and only in 500mL bottles – I’d be buying cases of that stuff if I could!)

For some reason I couldn’t get the lighting right for a picture of my food, but the picture of Luke’s food turned out awesome?

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Luke ordered the Peanut butter and jelly milkshake and the sampling of mom’s favourites – fried chicken, pot roast and meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and green beans.

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See what I mean about the lighting for the pictures of our two meals?!

I really would have loved to have a milkshake, but I knew my stomach would not be happy with that – I still wasn’t 100% from the day before – so I just stuck to the vanilla coke.

Luke loved the milkshake, and has already said he wants to stop by 50’s Prime Time on our next trip just to get one. He also really enjoyed his meal a lot. I’m not a meatloaf fan at all, but I did try his pot roast and chicken and they were both great! His potatoes and gravy were also pretty tasty, I might have snuck a taste of those too haha.

My meal ended up being my least favourite of our entire trip. I don’t know if I just didn’t like the chicken pot pie (which is absurd – I love that stuff!) or if I just wasn’t myself that day. As mentioned earlier, I still wasn’t feeling 100%, and we woke up so early my body might have just been angry at me. Don’t get me wrong, the food wasn’t bad, I just thought the flavours were simply ok.

When our server, who was an older man who’s name I can’t remember – but he was awesome – came to take our dessert menu my first thought was “ugh! Dessert again!?”. I rarely, if ever, order dessert at a restaurant, but since it was paid for already and included on the dining plan I felt obligated to order it with every meal.

I decided on the apple crumble a la mode, one of my favourite desserts, but I asked for it with less ice cream than they would normally serve with it. I’m not sure if this request was honored or not, but it didn’t really matter. This was so sweet I could only eat a few bites of it before calling it quits. I was quite sad about that, I hardly ever cook or bake (Luke is the chef in our house) but apple crumble is one of my go-to desserts to make and I’d have to day mine is better than the one at 50’s (which is really saying something – and trust me it’s the only thing we ate on the entire trip that I would say that about).

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Luke went for the cheesecake, which was served with raspberries, whipped cream and a fresh mint leaf. He enjoyed it, and let me try and I agreed it was much better than the dessert I had ordered.

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Overall, the restaurant was a lot of fun! Our server was a lot of fun, he was an older gentleman who kept calling me Peggy Sue. We watched as a person at a nearby table was punished by standing with her nose against the wall, and a group of tables of strangers being led to shout things in unison. We didn’t have to deal with any embarrassing punishments, except our server kept reminding me of how I had my elbows on the table when we first got there.

I really wanted to love this place, and maybe I just ordered the wrong things off the menu? I’d be willing to give it another shot, and probably order the pot roast next time, but you won’t hear me raving about this experience.

We used two table service credits for our meal, and only paid the tip out of pocket. If we were not on the dining plan, it would have cost $21.99 (Luke’s meal) + $5.99 (PB&J shake) + $5.99 (cheesecake) + $19.99 (chicken pot pie) + $3.49 (coke) + $7.99 (apple crumble) = $69.70 after tax. But – if we were not on the dining plan, we definitely wouldn’t have ordered dessert – we didn’t end up finishing either one.

Disney, Food Review

Wine Country Trattoria – World of Color Package

April 17, 2015

Before heading to California, we did very little research on Disney. Neither one of us had ever been to any of the Disney parks before (and to be honest, we didn’t really think of it as a high priority – just a “maybe someday once we have kids?”). Turns out we should have had this at the top of our list – we both loved it!


Even if we had wanted to research like crazy for this trip, the quick turn-around from booking flights to actually landing in Anaheim would not have allowed for it (we decided to go on the trip on a Monday, and flew down on Thursday that same week, which you can read about here). I did however take some time to talk to a few co-workers who I knew had taken their families to Disneyland within the past few years. The one thing I was told over and over – don’t miss World of Colour at California Adventure Park. One co-worker mentioned that he really regretted not booking a fastpass or a dining package for preferred viewing – so I went online and looked into it. There are three restaurants that participate in this – Ariel’s Grotto, Carthay Circle Restaurant and Wine Country Trattoria. Ariel’s Grotto appeared to serve a lot of fish (go figure), and anything that comes from the water is disgusting and I refuse to eat it. Luke also has a slight shellfish allergy, so that eliminated that restaurant. The Carthay Circle Restaurant had a weird menu (I’m extremely fussy and bland with my palate) so that left Wine Country Trattoria. When you book the World of Color dining package, you can not just order from the normal menu. You select from a pre-determined menu at a set price per person, but your meal will include an appetizer (such as soup or salad) as well as dessert. The menu changes from each location. 


I made a dinner reservation (I didn’t spend enough time researching to know that lunch at Wine Country costs only $29.99 while dinner costs $42.99), but I also would not have cared about that. For our starters, Luke chose the salad, which did not have a single thing in it that I would eat. That left me asking for the soup selections – they had minestrone that day which is something I will eat, hurray! For entrees Luke chose the chicken breast, which he really enjoyed. I went for the filet mignon – but of course I insist on all meat being cooked well-done. I prefer my steak to not still be mooing on my plate, thank you very much. (I take so much heat for this all the time – “You just ruined a great cut of meat!”). The first time they brought my steak out, I cut into it and it bled all over my plate so I of course asked to send it back (I try not to send things back at restaurants very often, it’s pretty much only steak). I then had to wait over half an hour before they brought it back out to me (so Luke was finished his meal before I even started eating my filet mignon. When I did finally get it back however, it was cooked perfectly! Also, I was such a Disney newbie that I didn’t even take any pictures of our food! Shame on me!


Then came dessert – and omg. It was fantastic! It was a sampler plate with 2 of each of the following: European macaroons, cream puffs, tiramisu and panna cotta. We were both full from our meal, and weren’t able to clean off the dessert plate, but we did make sure we sampled everything. 

When our waitress brought us our bill, she also brought over our paper fastpasses for a reserved section to watch World of Colour later that night.


To make up for the long wait I had for my steak to be re-cooked, our waitress offered us a fast-pass for the Radiator Springs Racers which we gladly accepted (they didn’t have to offer anything, and The Cars ride had by far the longest waits of any ride in the park – and was also one of the most impressive). We paid our bill and headed over to use our Fast-pass, only to find out the ride had broken down 🙁 A cast member directing people told us we could come back the next day to use the fast-pass, but we weren’t coming back so it ended up going to waste. I didn’t even think to try and hand it off to someone else. Oh well! We decided to just head to the reserved area for World of Color even though it didn’t start for another 45 minutes. Turns out we made the right decision – we ended up being front and centre for it! We could actually feel the heat off the flames and some of the water from the cannons ended up landing on us. 


The show itself is not to be missed – it is incredible. I was so caught up in watching it I ended up not taking a single picture of it (which is totally not like me at all!). For almost half an hour I just stood there in awe of what I was watching. The price of dinner was well worth having the best reserved viewing area – you can get fast-passes early in the day for the show, but the views are not as centered. 


Next time we go back to Disney’s California Adventure Park I will absolutely be booking another dining reservation for World of Color! I highly, highly recommend it and am so glad it’s the one thing I booked in advance!

Disney, Travel

Disney California Adventure – Part Two

April 17, 2015

After our ride on Goofy’s Sky School, we went on the Silly Symphony Swings – a classic carnival staple! It’s a simple ride, but it’s one I’ve always loved and this was no exception. dscn9784

Next up was The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. This was another Cole’s Notes version of a ride, which involved sitting in a large oversized sea-shell while it took you through a dark, animatronic-filled re-telling of the story. I’d have to say my favourite part was the two 20-something guys in the shell ahead of us who were belting out “Under the Sea” at the top of their lungs.

At this point in the day, we decided to make our way over to Cars Land as it was getting close to our fastpass time for Radiator Springs Racers.

We decided to go on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree first, which I thought was really cute. You sit in a little trailer being pulled by a tractor (like the ones that Mater takes Lightning McQueen to tip over in the middle of the night) and it moves around like a square dance while Mater sings.

There’s  a photo opportunity just outside this ride, which is pretty adorable, and had no line. 

I loved the attention to detail in Cars Land! We didn’t get a chance to on this trip, but I’d love to eat at Flo’s some day when we go back, it looked so cute!

We passed the statue for Stanley on our way to use our fast-passes, and of course I had to take a picture.

It was then time to ride the Radiator Springs Racers – the darling of rides at the California Adventure Park. We were there during a fairly slow time of year, and were walking on to most rides, and this one had a posted wait time of 75 minutes. Thank goodness for fastpasses! We ended up waiting about 10 minutes even with our passes, but it was so worth it! What an amazing ride! The animatronics were great, the scenery was fantastic – this was impressive. After getting off, Luke and I were talking about how much that ride must have cost to build – “That must have cost Disney like $20 million to make!”. Turns out we have no idea how much building a ride costs – according to google that ride actually cost $200 million to make – we were only off by a bit haha.

We decided we were getting thirsty, and could use a drink. I also knew I wanted to buy at least one souvenir mug, and I had seen a few people with the ones from the Cozy Cone Motel over the course of the day and I knew it had to be that one.

So, I bought the 16oz souvenir cone mug filled with root beer for $8.99 and Luke got the 24oz cone filled with coke for $11.99. It was pretty difficult for us to admit we had just spend $20US on two non-alcoholic drinks, but look at how stinking adorable these mugs are! After finishing them, we washed them out in the bathroom so they wouldn’t be sticky, and we did bring them back to Canada with us 🙂 We have used them a few times since buying them.

After leaving Cars Land we walked around the wharf again.

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We stopped to watch a performance by the green men from Toy Story!

We walked through the bakery (where we got to taste some delicious sourdough bread) and then we headed towards Toy Story Mania. It had long lines all day, but we decided to just suck it up and wait, and we’d have good luck with lineups up to that point. The posted wait time said 30 minutes, I think it ended up being closer to 40 or 45 though. It was fun! I don’t like waiting that long for rides, but I’m glad we did. Of course, Luke beat me, but just barely.

We then walked back over to Hollywood Land, where Luke enjoyed the name of this hot dog quick-serve location. 

We wanted to check out Turtle Talk with Crush, but we had no idea what it was. We finally got into the theatre, and it was really cute, but not something we’d do again. It is great for kids though, they were all loving it. We actually cut out a little early as we wanted to watch the Pixar Parade. We ended up with a great spot to watch the parade. As I’ve mentioned before, Luke and I love Pixar movies so we thought this parade was fantastic! My pictures ended up mixed up, so they are probably not in the correct order of the parade, but you’ll get the idea.

Ooohhhh! The chosen ones!

After the parade, we still had a bit of time before our dining reservation so headed to the Mickey Ferris Wheel. We decided to hop in the stationary gondola line, as it had a posted wait time of 10 minutes, but the swinging one had a wait time of 35 minutes. I guess the swinging one is a little too intense for a lot of people, because we watched while they washed the vomit out of 2 different swinging gondolas. This made our wait time to be pushed closer to 20 minutes, so I was starting to worry that we would be late for our reservation. Turns out it was fine, we had to wait about 10 minutes for a table to be cleared off for us once we arrived at Wine Country Trattoria.

Our night ended with World of Colour – a water, music and lights show that lasts almost half an hour over the water in Paradise Pier. It was unbelievable, and well worth the dining reservation for our front-row centre viewpoint. The following pictures are of the pier lit up while we were waiting for the show to start. I didn’t actually take any pictures of the show itself, I was so caught up in the beauty of it.

Overall, I think we did a good job of covering the park – we were able to cover almost every attraction in the park, minus only a few – Soarin’ was closed for refurbishment, and we didn’t go on King Triton’s Carousel or California Screamin’ Roller Coaster (we had even grabbed fastpasses for this, but I couldn’t work up the courage to get on it after watching it – I’ve never been on a roller coaster that goes upside down. I know, I’m a wimp. Maybe one day…

Disney, Travel

Disney California Adventure Park – Part One

April 17, 2015

We did very little research on Disney before going to California for the first time, it was not a destination at the top of our list. Luckily we went during a slower time of the year; in April after all spring breaks and Easter breaks were over, but before school let out for the summer. We knew we had Friday and Sunday free to check out Disney parks on the weekend we went, so we bought a 2-day pass (no parkhopper, we figured one park per day would be fine for our first trip).  Here’s the link to the post about our overall trip 🙂


Friday we decided to check out California Adventure. 

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Most Disney people will swear you have be there at rope drop. I am not a morning person, especially when I’m on vacation, so that didn’t happen. I think we arrived at the gate around 10:30 – our hotel was only about a 15 minute walk from the entrance. As soon as we entered the park, we stopped for a quick photo with Pluto – my first Disney character meet and greet!

After meeting a giant dog, we went and grabbed Fastpasses for Radiator Springs Racers, as instructed by one of my co-workers in the two days we had to plan this trip. This kiosk is located close to A Bug’s Life Land, so we decided to start our day there. 


I had only ever watched A Bug’s Life once, and it was years ago, so I didn’t remember anything about it. (I know, I’m the worst Disney person ever – but don’t worry, I watched it shortly after getting home). But the decor was not lost on me, I thought it was pretty awesome!

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The first ride we went on was Flik’s Flyers, because the lineup looked super short. We only ended up waiting maybe 5 minutes before getting on the ride. Luke was really hoping for the Chinese Food box, but we ended up sitting in the Raisin box. This was a very tame ride, the perfect way to start the day 🙂


From there we headed over to Francis’ Ladybug Boogie, where you sit in a ladybug that spins around (the speed depends on how fast you spin the wheel in the centre, very much like the teacups at Disneyland). We had another wait that was less than 5 minutes.

Next up – Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies. Again, another ride we basically walked on to. This is essentially just bumper cars, but all the cars are designed to look like Tuck and Roll, the Hungarian pillbugs. There are little speakers inside each car that sound like them too! My car worked great, but Luke’s did not unfortunately.

Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train was next. This is a children’s slow-moving train ride narrated by everyone’s favourite caterpillar as he tells you about his favourite food. It was cute, and we didn’t even care that we were the only ones on the ride without kids. We also walked straight onto this ride with no wait. And of course there was giant candy corn!

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Before we went I had told Luke I was not going on the Tower of Terror, I was not a fan of free-falling rides. We walked over to see the building anyways, and saw that there was only a 15 minute wait. Luke really wanted to do it, so I reluctantly agreed. Turns out I loved it! Worth noting – we did not buy any of our on-ride photos on this trip, so any you see are pictures I took with my phone haha.

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At this point, we had already been on 5 rides – and had only been in the park for about an hour. We were doing so well! 

After leaving Tower of Terror, we walked around the Hollywood Land area, where we saw these guys performing while driving around in this old car. 

We then headed towards Monsters Inc – Mike & Sully to the Rescue. I don’t have any pictures of the ride itself, but it’s a slow-moving ride that Luke liked to describe as a Cole’s Notes version of the movie. Cute, nothing like the previous ride we had been on (TOT) but it was worth seeing for us – we both love Pixar movies. It also had a fairly short line, we waited under 10 minutes for it.

Next on our list was to head to the Grizzly Peak area to ride Grizzly River Run. It was a really fantastic water ride, but I had my camera and phone tucked safely into a plastic baggie, hence no pictures. This was one of our longest waits of the day, I think we had to wait close to half an hour before getting on this ride. Sadly Soarin’ was closed for refurbishment, so we didn’t get to go on that (we’re pretty much destined to never get on that ride…)

At this point we started heading towards the Paradise Pier area – how freaking beautiful is this place?! We were also starting to feel a little hungry so Luke grabbed a turkey leg (review here). 

I knew I had no interest in a turkey leg, so I found the Paradise Garden Grill (review HERE).

After our snack, we decided to go on the Golden Zephyr – which is just a spaceship looking thing that spins you around – almost old-school carnival-like. It doesn’t spin too fast, and would be safe for almost everyone. It’s kind of boring, and I don’t feel the need to go on this every trip.

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We noticed a short line for Goofy’s Sky School Roller Coaster, so we jumped into that line. In less than 10 minutes, we were twisting and turning with Goofy! This ride was ok, it’s essentially a crazy mouse style roller coaster with some sharp turns.

Disney, Food Review

Paradise Garden Grill

April 17, 2015

After Luke grabbed his turkey leg, I went in search of food that a fussy eater like myself would enjoy. I found the Paradise Garden Grill, and after reading the menu decided to give it a try!

I was a Disney food newbie, so I didn’t even take any pictures of my food! I know, shame on me!

I ordered the grilled steak skewer with tzatziki sauce, rice pilaf, cucumber salad and pita bread for $11.99. It was a huge plate of food for the price, and I was really impressed by the quality! Luke ended up preferring my food to his turkey leg, and together we managed to lick that plate clean!

I would not hesitate to order this again!

 

 

Disney, Food Review

Turkey Legs

April 17th, 2015

Around 1pm, after being in Disney’s California Adventure Park for a few hours, we realized we were starting to get hungry, and we were still hours away from our supper reservation. So, Luke decided he needed to try a turkey leg after hearing so much about them!

It did not interest me at all, but I did try a bite just to say I did. Neither one of us are dark meat people, and we never typically order the leg at a chicken restaurant. Luke did eat quite a bit of it, since he was hungry, but I can’t see him buying another one again anytime soon.

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