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!

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!