After an afternoon in Epcot, we stopped in France at L’Artisan des Glaces for a cone of ice cream each (sorry, no pictures!) I don’t eat ice cream very often (dairy isn’t always my best friend), but I had to try one of the flavours from here. I went for the cinnamon apple crumble, and Luke chose the salted caramel. We used a snack credit each on a single scoop (cost = $4.69 each). We started eating our ice cream, and then realized what time it was – it was almost time for our supper reservation! We set off walking, eating our amazingly delicious ice cream along the way. It was so good! I loved the flavours of both, but I think I’d give the slight edge to mine. This is a good use of a snack credit too!

We checked in for supper and only had to wait a few minutes before we were led to our table at the revolving restaurant Garden Grill! I was really looking forward to seeing Mickey in his farmer’s outfit, and Luke was looking forward to Chip and Dale. I was also excited to eat food which Disney had grown themselves!

I had never ate at a revolving restaurant before, but the movement was so slow you barely noticed it at all. I could tell we were moving, but it did not give me an overwhelming feeling while I ate (which I was actually a little scared of).

The first course they brought out to our table was the salad, a lot of which was grown on property (as seen in Living With the Land). I’m not a fan of eggs or tomatoes, so I didn’t eat any of those from the salad, but the rest of it was good! I even enjoyed the dressing which came on the salad, and that is something I’m typically very fussy about. They also brought out a basket of bread with butter that had sea salt and orange blossom honey on it. I don’t think I have a refined enough palate, since I could not taste any orange flavour at all…It was still good though – it’s hard to go wrong with warm rolls!

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The meal was excellent, there was so much food brought to our table! It was served family style, with a prix-fixe menu so there are no options to choose from. We were given a large rectangular platter containing roast beef with red wine demi-glace (which is basically just a fancy name for a wine-based sauce, it was just ok), turkey breast (served with turkey gravy), sausage, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and bacon and leek stuffing.

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I claimed any of the beef pieces which were the most well done, and I ate the majority of the turkey on the platter. The mashed potatoes were so good, so nice and creamy. I’m not a huge sausage fan, so that was all Luke’s (he did enjoy it though!). I’m also not a fan of cranberry sauce, so I didn’t try that either. I had some of the stuffing, it was good (but I love Stove Top dressing from a box haha, so I don’t have the fanciest of tastes).

We were also given the fish of the day, which was tilapia raised in Disney’s fish farms. I don’t eat any seafood (I know, I’m the worst Maritimer ever!), so I didn’t try this either. Luke isn’t a huge fan of tilapia, but he did give it a try, and said it was pretty good, especially with the sauce that came with it.

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The platter of sides contained mac and cheese with goldfish crackers, broccoli and sweet potato fries. I gave the mac and cheese a try, but I just don’t get the hype about this food at Disney – not for me at all. The broccoli was fine, the sweet potato fries came out a little soggy. There was so much food on our table, we didn’t care though.

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You can ask for extras of anything at any point, but we couldn’t even finish what we were initially brought. So much food! But overall, really fantastic!

Then it was time for dessert – short cake topped with mixed berries and whipped cream. This was amazing! We were so full we couldn’t even come close to finishing it, but we tried! I ate so much at this meal, I felt like I needed to be rolled out afterwards!

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Of course, the stars of this meal were the characters! I loved the outfit Mickey wears here – so cute! Chip and Dale were a lot of fun too. The restaurant isn’t very big, so we ended up seeing each character a few times and getting some really cute pictures!

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The cost of this meal was $41.99 each, but we used one table service credit each. I think if you are on the dining plan, character meals are the way to go to maximize your cost savings – plus they are fun! We are not using the dining plan on our next trip, but have already made reservations at Garden Grill again – we liked it that much!

After spending the morning going on a few rides and watching the marathon runners go through Epcot, we decided we were hungry for some lunch. We knew we wanted a quick service option, so we went to Sunshine Seasons. This place is great! The menu was much larger than I thought it was going to be, and we had no trouble finding things that sounded great! It also was not busy at all – and we were there right at lunch time (around 12:30)

I opted for the pork chop, served with BBQ sauce, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. I also grabbed a bottle of water and a coconut macaroon for dessert. I loved everything about this meal! The BBQ sauce was great, the pork was cooked well (but still juicy!) and the mashed potatoes were fantastic. I didn’t eat all of the corn, I love it but it’s a food that does not love me back (I have trouble digesting it with my Crohn’s disease). And that coconut macaroon – OMG. Amazing. I kind of wish I had have picked up another one to go, just to eat the next morning or something. It was one of my favourite quick service desserts of the entire trip!

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Luke went for some kind of pressed sandwich (a Cuban maybe?), served with potato salad and he also grabbed a bottle of water and a key lime tart. He really enjoyed his meal as well, but didn’t have much detail to say about it. He’s pretty easy to please when it comes to food, and I think he came close to finishing everything.

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We used 2 quick service credits for this meal, and it covered everything pictured. If paying out of pocket, the cost would have been $12.99 (pork), $13.49 (sandwich), $5 (2 water), $3.49 (macaroon), $4.29 (tart) = $39.26 + tax. Once again, I was impressed by the quality of Disney quick service food!

I apologize now, I have no pictures of my own from this meal either

After we finished our not-so-great pretzel snack, it was time to head out of the park. We took the boat to the Yacht Club (I just really wanted to go on a Disney boat) and then caught a bus from there to Disney Springs. Once we arrived at Disney Springs we headed straight to Morimoto Asia to meet up with my cousin and her boyfriend, who live in southern Florida. I probably would have never put this restaurant on my must-eat list, but I let my cousin decide since she’s been a strict vegan for almost 20 years and had limited options. There really was not too many items on the menu that appealed to me since I don’t eat fish of any kind, but I decided to go with the orange chicken ($20). It was a huge order, I barely ate half of it. It was pretty good too! It was basically just chicken fingers in a sweet orange sauce, but it is something I would order again (and remember – I’m picky!)

*Photo credit once again to Disney Food Blog*

Luke went for a bento-box style meal (looking at the menu, I believe it was the “Morimoto Lunch Set”). He seemed to enjoy it, he ate almost all of it. This is the description of it – Morimoto Lunch Set – includes miso soup and house salad. Choice of California Roll with white or brown rice. Choice or orange chicken, kung pao chicken, braised black cod or vegetable tofu medley accompanied by dumplings and pickled seasoned vegetables. $26. I want to say he ordered the cod, but I can’t really remember now…

*Photo credit to Yelp, found using a google search*

We took our time eating and talking and catching up since I hadn’t seen this cousin in a few years. I had originally invited her to come to Disney with us for a few days, but she wasn’t able to make it work – her and her boyfriend had already planned a night away for the night before somewhere north of Orlando to swim with manatees. She messaged me as soon as she realized how close she was to Orlando, and we made the plans for this lunch meetup. We lucked out and this was meant to be our Disney Springs day anyway, so we didn’t even need to rearrange any of our plans!

I can’t remember exactly what my cousin and her boyfriend ordered – my cousin had something vegan, and I think her boyfriend had a couple different kinds of sushi? My cousin also insisted on paying for our meals, which was so sweet of her!

Would we go back to Morimoto Asia? Maybe, but there is a huge list of other places I’d want to try first.

We spent the morning back at Hollywood Studios doing a few rides and walking around. After using our last Fastpass of the day, we realized we were starting to get a little hungry, since we had just snacked on the things in our room for breakfast (cookies, muffins, chips, etc – thank you Amazon!).

Luke really wanted to try the jalapeno pretzel, he loves anything spicy, but of course as he gets to the front of the line after 10+ minutes, they announce they are sold out. He opted for the cream cheese ($5.50) one instead, and I went for the classic Mickey pretzel with cheese sauce ($6). We each used one snack credit to pay. I once again failed at taking my own pictures of these…

*Photo credit to the Disney Food Blog*

Also – the cream cheese pretzel was not Mickey shaped, it just looked like a standard soft pretzel.

We found a little ledge to sit on close to the exit of the Great Movie Ride so we could enjoy our pretzel snack – unfortunately we did not enjoy them. At all. I found my pretzel dry, and I remembered after my first bite that I don’t really like processed cheese. I was hungry, so I did end up finishing almost all of it, but it is definitely something I can live without, and will not be buying another one anytime soon. Luke’s was ok, but neither one of us loved it either.

That said, I would have been sad if we hadn’t tried such a classic snack at Disney!

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!

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.

*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.

*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!

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 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!)

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.

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!

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!