Cafe Orleans – Lunch – January 30, 2017

After really enjoying our meal here a few days prior, we checked the app and were able to get another reservation at Cafe Orleans no problem!

Both times we ate here, we heard them turning away anyone who didn’t have a reservation (or letting them know it would be at least a 45 minute wait until they could seat them) – so make a reservation if you’re interested in eating here!

This time we were at a small table inside the restaurant – there are not very many tables inside, it’s really tiny in there!

Here’s the menu, even though we knew exactly what we were going to order:

We both went for an order of their Pommes Frites – Traditional French Fried Potatoes tossed with Parmesan, Garlic, and Parsley served with Cajun Spice Remoulade.

These are so good. I love shoestring-style fries, and the gar-parm coating is delicious! I once again just shoved the cajun remoulade off to the side, I don’t feel that it really adds anything to them – they have more than enough flavour on their own!

Of course, we also both had to had a mint julep!

I had already drank some of mine by the time I remembered to take a picture… these things are amazing (and bottomless!). I think my glass ended up being refilled like four times (and we didn’t spend that much time there).

I have heard that in the few weeks since we were there, the recipe for the mint juleps has changed, and that makes me so sad if it’s true 🙁

Since we weren’t ordering full meals, we tried to eat as quickly as possible, and we also let our waitress know so she wouldn’t need to keep coming over to check on us.

Since I had the Premier Annual Passport, we saved 15% off our bill. Our bill was under $20 for 2 mint juleps and 2 orders of fries, and it was exactly what we wanted and it tasted amazing.

Cafe Orleans has solidified itself as one of our must-do’s on our Disneyland trips 🙂

Once we had secured our stay at Old Key West, we started researching it a bit more, and discovered that Olivia’s Cafe was considered a bit of a hidden gem in the Disney dining community. So, obviously we had to check it out! Initially, we had booked this reservation for 8:15am, however once we found out that the Race Expo was opening at noon, not 10am like we had planned, we were able to bump our reservation by an hour to 9:15am – extra sleep!

First of all, OKW is gorgeous! Olivia’s is located in the main building, along an open-air hallway with the main lobby directly across from it. How friggin cute is this restaurant?!

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We didn’t have to wait very long before we were led to our table – a booth that easily could have fit 4 people It wasn’t super busy, so I didn’t even feel guilty about sitting at a full-sized booth! According to the picture I took of our bill (which I did for just about every meal mainly for this report…), our server’s name was Andres. I don’t remember anything about him, I guess he was good enough that I don’t remember him being terrible, but he wasn’t one of the best we had on this trip either.

I ordered a glass of water, and Luke went for an orange juice. Nothing fancy for either of us, and no pictures either, sorry.

Here’s the menu:

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I didn’t really need to even look at the menu, I knew exactly what I was going to order! I ordered the Banana Bread French Toast – topped with Bahamian Banana-Rum syrup, Coconut whipped cream, and served with choice of bacon, sausage or ham ($14).

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I went for the ham, which was served with some nice grill marks on it. The ham was ok, but the french toast – oh man! It was so good, but really sweet! It was also a very generous order – remember those are slices of banana bread, so they were quite heavy and dense. I don’t remember any specific coconut flavour from the whipped cream, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there – it just means I’m not the best at describing tastes sometimes haha.

I would order this again, but only if someone agreed to help me out with eating it. When I finished eating, there was still enough for another meal on my plate…

Luke decided to try the Eggs and Hash: 2 eggs served any-style over sweet potato ham hash, topped with key lime hollandaise, served with a buttermilk biscuit ($13).

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He decided on poached eggs, and said they were really well done. He loved this meal, and said he would absolutely order it again! I tried the sweet potato/regular potato ham hash, and it was so delicious! I’m not a huge hollandaise fan, but I tried it and you could really taste the key lime in it – it wasn’t overpowering, but it added a nice little something to it. The biscuit was just ok, especially after the amazing ones we had the night before at Homecoming…

Our bill came to $32.48 after tax. We both left this meal full and happy

We had our plans all made, ADR’s were in place, and I just kept coming back to this menu. I eventually decided to squeeze it in on our arrival day, and then spent the next 2 months looking forward to eating here. Seriously, I was so excited, and I’m not typically considered a foodie.

As we were sitting on the Magical Express at the airport, I started worrying about timing. I was still worried when the bus dropped us off at Old Key West, I was worried as bell services drove us to our room in a golf cart, I was still worrying when I boarded a Disney Springs bus. And of course, we ended up being 5 minutes early for our reservation – all that worrying for nothing!

Once we checked in, we were handed a pager and told it would be a few minutes – our pager went off about 90 seconds later. We were led to our table, a two-top directly behind the hostess desk. It was nice, because there was a wall so we couldn’t see the front door, and it also meant we only had a table on one side of us. I didn’t take pictures of our table, but here are some of the decor:

I loved the light fixtures!
The Florida mural above the kitchen was great!
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I wish I could tell you how many hours we spent on All Ears, reading the menus and planning out what we would order at each meal on our trip. We had come to the conclusion that Homecoming would probably end up being our most expensive meal, as there were so many things we wanted.

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We each decided to start with a moonshine cocktail, I had the moonshine mash: watermelon-infused moonshine, fresh watermelon, lime juice and simple syrup, $12

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Oh man. I’ve had moonshine before, and it typically has a very…strong taste. This was by far the smoothest moonshine I’ve ever had in my life, it was amazing! Luke hates watermelon flavouring, he gave this drink his approval as well – it was much more of a light, natural watermelon flavour. So good.

Luke went for the waitresses suggestion, and ordered the Bootlegger: Rumshine and dark rum, blackberry jam, house-made grenadine, simple syrup, lime juice, $12

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This sounded weird to me, but again – holy smokes! It was so amazing!

Luke decided to order an appetizer and went for the Church Lady Deviled Eggs: Homecoming-style whole deviled eggs, $10

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I’m not a huge fan of eggs, even at breakfast, so I didn’t try any of these. Luke figured he would just have a few, and then pack them up and eat them for breakfast the next morning. Yeah, that didn’t happen. He loved them so much he ate all 6 of them (keep in mind, we hadn’t ate much all day and were STARVING by the time we got there). He also loved the house-made hot sauce, and was a little sad when he found out he couldn’t just buy a bottle to bring home.

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For entrees, Luke ordered the Art’s Famous Fried Chicken – buttermilk brined for 24 hours then perfectly fried and garnished with our house-made hot sauce served with creamy mashed potatoes, a cheddar drop biscuit and love. $27

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Again, this place was impressive. This was a huge serving, and absolutely incredible. The chicken was so tender and juicy, and had been butchered so that there were no bones present on the plate.

I wanted to try something else, and went for the Chopped Pork BBQ Plate: Dressed with HFK sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, served with momma’s mac and cheese and a cheddar drop biscuit, $24. I’m not a fan of mac and cheese, so I asked to switch to mashed potatoes instead. This was no problem at all, and both of us also had our potatoes topped with gravy (which was a little spicy, but so good!)

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This pork was so good! And the BBQ sauce – ugh. I’ve run out of adjectives for amazing. The mashed potatoes were so buttery and smooth. I think I could live off those biscuits, it was incredible.

All of that food, and I still wanted dessert.

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I had my eye on one thing – that Shine Cake: Chef Art’s signature dessert. An adult-only butter cake soaked with moonshine syrup. Served with a seasonal fruit gastrique and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream $10. This thing was so lovely, I had to take two pictures of it:

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What a way to end this perfect meal! This cake was so nice and moist, and you could taste the moonshine. I’m not much of a drinker typically, and I usually hate the taste of liquor, but for some reason this tasted fantastic to me. It was strong though – I see why it’s adult’s only! I honestly got drunk from eating cake. Now I want more of that…

Luke also ordered another moonshine cocktail to have with dessert, the Apple Pie a la Mode: Ole Smokey Apple Pie Moonshine, vanilla vodka, apple juice, cinnamon, house-made simple syrup and a dash of lemon $12. I forgot to take a picture of it, I was too busy shoving alcoholic cake into my face. I did try a sip, and it was ok. It was by far our least favourite of the three drinks we tried.

In case you couldn’t tell, we LOVED this meal. I think it was a combination of being really hungry, the first meal of the trip and just being an amazing restaurant. This is actually the current #1 choice for our wedding reception when we get married at Disney next year…

The total cost of this meal was $107, or $113.96 after tax. It was worth every penny!

Our waitress, Tricia, was also great here, very attentive without hovering, and very friendly. We left her a generous tip

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This is listed as a “make your own pasta – choose your pasta and sauce combination with choice of Beef Meatballs, Panko-crusted Chicken, or Shrimp”. I went for the penne pasta with chicken and marinara sauce, which also came with a breadstick and a side salad. For dessert I grabbed a chocolate dipped Mickey rice krispie ($3.99) and to drink I picked up a bottle of Coke ($2.99) to save for later, and then used my refillable mug.

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Luke went for the Hot Italian Sandwich with cucumber salad ($9.49), a Mickey rice krispie (one without chocolate) ($3.99) for dessert and a bottle of water ($2.75) for later.

My pasta was once again really impressive – I wasn’t expecting much from a quick service food court in a value resort, but it was nice to be wrong Luke enjoyed his sandwich as well, and said he would buy it again. He also ate his rice krispie treat and enjoyed it. I ended up taking my rice krispie back to Canada with me, ate some of it but threw most of it out. It’s never been my favourite type of treat, but I had to say I tried one!

We used our final two quick service credits for this meal. Total cost would have been $34.70 plus tax.

After our disappointing meal at Yay&Yeti Quick Serve, we went on the Safari, walked the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and watched FOTLK before Luke decided to grab his last Dole Whip of the trip from Tamu Tamu Refreshments – this time with a shot of coconut rum!

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I didn’t order anything, but one of the cast members working there noticed my birthday button, asked me when my birthday actually was (it was the next day, January 13th), and then walked back over and handed me this She told me it was close enough to my birthday, I should start the celebrations a day early. It seriously made my day!

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We found a quiet spot to sit and enjoy our snacks. Luke of course loved his Dole Whip, and the coconut rum was a great addition! My elephant ear was also great! It was coated in honey I think, so it had a nice sweet taste. I couldn’t finish it though, but I did my best!

Total Cost: $7 out of pocket for the Dole Whip, the elephant ear was free thanks to some pixie dust from a CM

When we woke up, we had to check out of our hotel, so we had a few snacks from the stuff in our room before turning over our luggage to bell services and heading to Animal Kingdom. After meeting Dug & Russell and using a FP+ for Dinosaur, we realized we were hungry. We decided to stop at the Yak & Yeti quick serve location, and we were one of the first few people in line as they were opening for the day (at 11am).

I ordered the Teriyaki Beef Bowl ($10.99)

*photo credit to Disney Food Blog*

Luke went for the Korean Stir-fry BBQ Chicken ($9.99).

*photo credit to EasyWDW*

We were both getting so sick of desserts that we swapped out for a pork egg roll ($3.29) and a side of chicken fried rice ($3.99). I ordered a root beer to drink, and Luke had a Coke ($3.19/each).

*photo credit to a google search*

Honestly, this was by far the worst meal of the entire trip. The food tasted like microwavable frozen dinners – the beef in mine was tough and chewy, and both were seriously lacking in any sort of flavour. The chicken fried rice was just ok, and the same for the egg roll. I know some people will say “what did you expect, it was cheap”, but I just feel like Disney can do so much better! And I hear reviews all the time about how great the table service Yak & Yeti is, but it’s going to take me a few trips before I can bring myself to add it to my list. As for this quick serve location, I can’t see us ever returning.

I also dislike the paper straws you have to use in AK. I get the whole reasoning behind it, but I’m not a fan of using them.

We used one quick serve credit each, but it would have cost $34.64 before tax if we were paying out of pocket.

The best part of this meal was the sitting area. It was outside, and HUGE! There was a water feature where a bunch of birds were hanging out, so we sat and watched them for a bit.

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After a PPO breakfast and an early lunch at BOG, we had to wait until the very end of the night for a super late dinner reservation at Crystal Palace. To hold us over, we did have snacks during the afternoon – Luke had a Dole Whip float:

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There’s not a lot to say about this snack. It’s pineapple whip served with pineapple juice. I’m not a big fan of pineapple, but I always sneak a few spoonfuls of this and really enjoy it. Luke loves pineapple, so it’s a no brainer that he loves this!

I had a popcorn for a snack. It was salty and oily and delicious, and I ate it so quickly I forgot to take a picture of it.

After watching the Main Street Electrical Parade, we made our way very slowly through the crowd over to Crystal Palace to check in for our reservation.

I apologize, I only took one picture of one plate of food we had here, but here it is:

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Starting at the bottom and working our way clockwise, there’s peas and corn, broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey and gravy, green beans, corn dog nuggets, a roll, ceasar salad and chicken nuggets. We were there at the very end of the night, so the food was basically what you would expect from an end-of-the-night buffet. It was edible, and we were hungry so we ate a lot, but it wasn’t as fresh as it could have been. That was all on us though, booking a reservation that late at night. I’d imagine the food would actually be quite good if you went during a peak time!

I just asked Luke what he remembered about the meal, and he said he ate a lot of chicken nuggets there because they were really good.

I didn’t take any pictures of dessert, but they do have a self-serve soft ice cream machine, so I did have some of that. Luke remembers loving one of the desserts – he said it might have been a fruit crumble or maybe a square of some kind – I know, super helpful note taking from this meal

On the flip side, because we were there when it wasn’t very busy, we had some of the best character interactions! When Piglet came by our table, Wishes was starting. Piglet was perfectly in character, and was acting all scared of the loud noises happening outside.

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Pooh was cute, but I don’t remember anything special about the interaction.

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Tigger was bouncy and fun:

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And then there was Eeyore. He is my favourite Disney character, and this was one of the best interactions I’ve ever had. I had an Eeyore bow in my hair, and when he noticed it he gave me the biggest hug!

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After taking a few pictures, Eeyore linked arms with me, waved to my boyfriend and then started walking me across the restaurant. His handler started laughing, and asked if he was trying to steal me, and Eeyore nodded yes.

I love that the characters don’t care that they are dealing with two adults, they were so much fun and didn’t make us feel awkward at all about meeting them without any kids. It made my night, and now I’m kind of sad we didn’t make an ADR here for our next trip…

We used our final two table service credits on this meal. If paying out of pocket, it would have cost $89.44.

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We had a super early wake-up today, our alarm went at 6am so we could catch a bus at 6:30. We got to the Magic Kingdom fairly quickly, and then had to stand around in the cold for awhile. Around 7:30 we were able to go through security, and then after scanning our Magicbands to ensure we actually did have a breakfast ADR, we were let into the park around 7:45am. It was pretty special to walk down a mostly empty Main Street, and to get Photopass pictures like this:

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We checked in a few minutes early for our reservation (8:15 reservation, we checked in at 8am and it was no problem at all). We had both pre-ordered, so we were handed a plastic tracking device rose and headed off to find a table. Note: the line wasn’t bad at all for people who hadn’t pre-ordered, since it was so early in the day.

We had ate in the main ballroom for dinner last week, so we wanted to sit in a different room – and we were able to find a table in the West Wing (it filled up pretty quickly!). We set our rose down, and then went to grab our drinks from the self-serve fountains. We were both cold from standing outside too long, so we both wanted something warm – a coffee for Luke and a hot chocolate for me (no pictures of those, sorry!). We did not have to wait very long before a little cart was rolled over with our food!

We were given a plate of pastries to share, which is included in the cost of your breakfast. It had mini croissants, mini muffins, a danish, etc. I think these were sitting in the fridge before being brought to us, they were really cold! I’m the person who ALWAYS warms up my muffins, scones, croissants, cookies, etc so I did not enjoy these – they would have been a bit better if they were even left at room temperature. Luke ate some of them, but we did not finish the plate. I think I will try to remember to bring ziploc baggies with me next time we eat breakfast here though, I would have shoved them in my purse or backpack and snacked on them later (once they heated up a bit from being in my purse/backpack )

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Luke ordered the open face bacon and egg sandwich, which is described as: Poached eggs, Applewood smoked bacon, brie cheese and Arugula on a toasted Baguette served with Fresh Fruit. We were there before the price increase, so it was $19.99 (looking at the menu now, I see the price is up to $24.99). According to Luke, his breakfast was really good and he enjoyed it very much. Not much description, but he did eat it all. He drank his coffee, but said it was the same terrible coffee he found everywhere on property (for some reason he didn’t go to Starbucks once while we were there, but he did complain about coffee a lot…)

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I ordered the Croissant Doughnut which was topped with banana-caramel sauce, pastry creme, and chocolate ganache, also for $19.99. This more than made up for the lackluster pastry plate! I loved this thing, but it was so sweet! It was nice and hot, and the banana-caramel sauce was warm too! The fruit was just basic fruit, but it was fairly fresh and I did eat most of it. It felt good to be putting something healthy into my body for a change, after all the delicious Disney food I had been eating over the past week . I couldn’t come close to finishing the entire thing, since it was extremely sweet as a breakfast food, but I will be ordering it again when we go back to BOG in January!

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Before leaving, we both grabbed a new cup and filled it with water. The drinks are self-serve here, so you can have as many refills as you’d like. After Luke’s terrible coffee and my just-ok hot chocolate it was nice to have some water.

A lot of people dislike the prices of breakfast here. Yes, it is a bit pricey for what it is – but if you are on the dining plan it’s a wonderful use of a quick service credit! If paying out of pocket, I would say it’s only worth it if you can get one of the coveted early morning reservation times so you can get pictures in front of the Castle with next to no one else. Also worth noting – we left the restaurant at 8:45 (15 minutes before official park open) and the Mine Train was already running! We actually went on it and didn’t even have a full train! By 9:15 we had ate breakfast and went on the Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight and Winnie-the-Pooh. To me, that is worth the cost of this breakfast!

We used 2 quick service credits, but it would have cost $39.98 (or $42.38 with tax) if paying out of pocket.

Would we go back for breakfast? Absolutely! We actually have a reservation already made for our January 2017 trip!