Sadly I don't think either of those places are for me (no sushi, no heads or tails on my protein), but they do look like lovely establishments and I can see why you look forward to repeat visits.Thank you for highlighting other places to give your readers some other local examples for the food diversity!
Joe's crab shack was really good. We went to the one near/in Icon park. We went a little later 7:30-8:00 pm. It was still busy at that time of night and people were still coming in as we were leaving. I had a platter of some sort...there was an assortment of different items, I believe there was battered fish (which I thought was good - light, fluffy and NOT greasy) and coconut shrimp, fried shrimp, popcorn shrimp and hush puppies! It was delicious. It seemed the crab buckets were the popular items there. Next time we would try that! My drink was really good too...it was a hurricane - fruity with lots of different rumsHow was Joe`s Crab Shack? Last time we went it was deserted and made us nervous as it used to be heaving every night and filled with cops which is always a good sign.....but food was poor as was service. It was the one in LBV we went to.
Where did you eat in Disney Springs?? We`ve only tried Boathouse there and thinking of somewhere different this time......WBG and the sushi place appeals right now......but there are a good few options.
Yep, food is a huge part of our trip.......
If I had a choice for another meal there, it would either be Paddlefish or Morimoto.
Joe's crab shack was really good. We went to the one near/in Icon park. We went a little later 7:30-8:00 pm. It was still busy at that time of night and people were still coming in as we were leaving. I had a platter of some sort...there was an assortment of different items, I believe there was battered fish (which I thought was good - light, fluffy and NOT greasy) and coconut shrimp, fried shrimp, popcorn shrimp and hush puppies! It was delicious. It seemed the crab buckets were the popular items there. Next time we would try that! My drink was really good too...it was a hurricane - fruity with lots of different rums
We went to the Boathouse as well. I did have a reservation for Paddlefish - but found this one at Boathouse for an earlier time, which was better for us. We did walk by Paddlefish and looked at the menu, and dh said he would love to go back and try there as well. The Boathouse was great and we eat an embarassing amount of food. It was our first meal in almost 24 hrs as we flew overnight, getting settled at the hotel etc etc etc and we enjoyed EVERY morsel we ate
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Well, technically yesterday was 6 weeks till we fly......I just never got around to posting.....one of those days!
.......but 4Rivers is somewhere again, we missed going to for many years, but, once we discovered it, it was on our list of regular haunts. 
And now I have to wipe up the Homer Simpson pool of drool off of my desk
I am a fluffy girl who loves a good food blog!!!!!
Omg the desserts look so good
but, they were lovely. The coconut cake was the second best coconut cake I’ve ever tasted.
unless it`s fajitas. I can`t eat onions and hate cilantro, so not much on the menu for me in places like that......lol......I'm in - excited for this trip report!!Yes, we`re back again and ready for another build up to hopefully our first trip of 3 this year to beautiful Orlando.
I say hopefully as, although we seem to be over the worst of the pandemic here, no one can really guarantee anything with travel anymore. But, after almost 2 years I`m more than ready to get back into a routine. It`s hard to imagine it was 2 years ago right now we were beginning to realise that our May 2020 Trip might not happen. The rest of course is history and the world seemed to go to hell in a handcart.......yes, it was a long 2 years and we were completely over the moon to be able to get back this past November/December for what was a very much awaited for trip.
But, now we are looking forward to May 2022, and our first trip of the year.
So, here we go again.........and I do hope you enjoy this one too
For anyone who don`t already know us and there will be many I`m sure.......we are Carole 'n' Tom......a joined at the hip couple who just love travelling to Orlando for our vacations. Our first trip there was in 2007 and we were instantly hooked on everything Orlando from the parks to the heat and sunshine.
One from 2007.....and it really does seem a lifetime ago now looking back.
A one and done trip it was never going to be and we haven`t missed a year since and managed several trips a year in the last 5 years since Tom took early retirement. So, we really do have a love for Florida and everything it has to offer.........
In case you don`t know us, this is us in November last year, we didn`t get too many pictures of just the two of us, but we did like this one taken in the Club Lounge at RP.
This year in September we`ll be celebrating 30 years of blissful marriage, and at the risk of sounding corny beyond belief, it has been blissful and we look forward to celebrating then with a month in Orlando. We did think maybe we should do something different, go somewhere new.....but we were drawn to stick with where we love. But, that`s for another Trip Report.
We have one son, Kyle who is quite honestly the best son anyone could hope for. And he loves the fact we still spend all our time together and our vacations are such a joy......we are so incredibly proud of him and relish the times he will possibly join us in the future. One of our couple friends are in Orlando right now with their adult son who decided to go back with his parents for one more trip before he gets married and they are having the best time together. I think he is enjoying being spoiled before grandkids come along for his parents. But, Kyle has his own situation now and his own vacations which is lovely.
And yes, he is still the biggest fan of chocolate cake.........
To get back to this trip, we knew when we wanted to travel roughly, we love travelling in May, and finally rebooked these flights last June, when the May 2022 flights were released. These were again flights that had been deferred from the year before due to them being cancelled due to no travel being allowed. Virgin made it very easy for us to do this online as they had issued what was really a credit note for the previous flights and all we had to do was add the difference in the new flights and of course we knew they were never going to be cheaper!! But, it is what is it and we just smiled and paid up, and actually it could have been worse.
We also had the offer of taking a full refund from all the cancelled flights, but we opted to keep the money with VA and hoped they wouldn`t go bankrupt, we didn`t really think they would to be honest, but many did and of course you do what suits your own circumstance best.
We do love flying Virgin, while we do have other options, they are our preference as we like to fly from Manchester instead of Heathrow and they do fly direct which is absolutely our preference.......I know some folks don`t mind 2 and 3 hour layovers, sometimes longer in places like JFK or Philadelphia, but for us the almost 10 hour flight is quite long enough thank you and won`t consider flying indirect.
The flight is just a means to an end of course, but we have never had a bad flight with them and for us it is part of the vacation.....well, 10 hours is a long time to be stuck in one place. Although the flight passes not too bad usually by the time we are fed a few times, watch a couple of movies and apparently now I seem to sleep for about 3 hours of the flight!!! And I miss the wonderful turbulence experienced by all accounts. Tom is always amazed I can sleep through all of it, but I seem to manage.
We do where we can, book Premium seats if they`re available and we do like certain seats, which aren`t always available, but as long as they`re Premium generally we`re good with that. They are much more spacious than regular seats and in November we were surprised just how comfy they were.....for plane seats anyway.
At the moment we have booked the front row of Premium coming out and the last row coming home which is our preference as you have no one behind you, so you can fully recline without disturbing anyone else. There is still room to recline, but most don`t fully recline on others, of course some do and it`s just your luck who you get in front of you.
We fly out on May 2nd this year and as of today it is exactly 9 weeks .........is it too early to start a Pre-Trip Report.........it may very well be, but after missing the last 2 years I am so excited to be planning our trips again and some of the ladies on here know we are just bursting to get back again.......
I have the time to do it and as we aren`t having the nicest weather in the UK right now, I`m not doing much else, so I can vent some of the excitement in this pre trip as all of you understand that excitement for a trip, especially after the last few years of many of us not being able to travel at all.
As of today, the only testing we need to do is the day before we fly out.....yes, that will be incredibly nerve wracking leaving it so late. Last trip we had to test within 3 days of flying out and that was bad enough, it felt very last minute if we tested positive. But a day ahead seems almost barbaric!! I think this time as it`s the day before we`ll just do the tests at the airport that are supervised and results immediately. It was quite stressful when our computer camera wouldn`t work for a time for the supervised tests last year, so this might just be easier. Although it would suck if we were positive and had to come home from the airport same day........lol........
We are both double vaccinated and boosted, so we`ve done all we can do to be honest. Who knows what the testing requirement will be by then for entering the USA.
9 weeks is a long time in many ways, but we all know how time passes so quickly so I can yammer on about plans for our trip in that time.
There`ll be the usual habits like park times, eating out around Orlando, day trips to places like New Smyrna Beach, maybe Dunedin, certainly St Augustine which is one of our most favourite places, Mount Dora and hopefully a couple of new additions for our travels. We have an ever growing list of places we`d like to visit, but just never get around to it, we always say we`ll fit it in another time.......
But, for now....it`s a start to our Trip Report for our May visit to Orlando for 23 nights at the beautiful Sapphire Falls again.
Hope to see some familiar faces and new ones too for the ramble ahead....it`s always a pleasure to read your comments along the way.........
Love Sapphire Falls! The staircase and lighting remind me a little of the Gringotts staircases - in a good way!!HOTEL CHOICE
This is always an interesting discussion for us as we have two favourite hotels in Orlando and we do like to mix our stays between both places.
Royal Pacific is our original choice and somewhere we absolutely love staying and have done since 2009, but the same can be said of Sapphire Falls. I have been known to make a Freudian like slip when one friend asked which hotel we were staying in this May trip......I automatically responed by saying we were staying at Strong Water.......You can guess where my mind is at this point going forward........
For our previous May trips we have always seemed to gravitate towards staying completely at Sapphire as opposed to a split stay like we do in September, so, even though this is a little longer stay, we thought we would like to just stay here...and again, one of the considerations is just how many nights we usually end up in Strong Water Bar.....if we`re already in Sapphire it certainly saves walking all the way back over to RP I guess.
Sapphire is still fairly new in regard to Universal hotels, and we genuinely didn`t realise just how much we were going to love it when it was being built.....although we were assured we would, we did doubt it slightly. However, when we saw it and spent time in it, we did fully appreciate just how lovely a place it actually was.
The lobby is one of the largest and brightest around and still manages to look warm and welcoming at the same time. At night it does have a homely feel and especially at Christmas with the huge tree, it is beautiful.
When you arrive by the boat, for us it is one of the nicest sights to see as you come back home from the parks. It shows the hotel at it`s best, albeit the back of the hotel.
And at night the views are stunningly beautiful when you can see some of the park lit up as well as the hotel.
Some folks always ask if we ever get fed up staying at the same places and the answer is always no. We never get fed up staying at either hotel for our stays.....why would we......they both have everything we need for our trips and it really is like a home away from home for us.
And of course Sapphire Falls has several food options that suit us. We don`t tend to use the Dutch Trading Co very often except maybe if we need a coffee or maybe a pastry. Quick service places we tend not to use, but this one is very nice albeit maybe too small for the size of the hotel. You can see long lines at certain times of the day and we have only tried a couple of the hot food options which were absolutely fine.
They do stock the usual snack items and alcohol too.
Amatista is a lovely restaurant with a fairly small menu, but it covers a good choice of food items from sandwiches to steaks, so I think most folks could get something and the setting is lovely as it overlooks the waterway and boat dock with huge windows that just flood the room with natural light.
We have never been disappointed by the food from here and we have met other friends there to eat and they`ve enjoyed the offerings too. They do an excellent breakfast buffet every day and I`m sure we`ll take one morning to enjoy that over our trip.
The Mother`s Day buffet will be on too while we are there in May. Although UK Mother`s Day is in March.......I can celebrate it twice......no excuses needed here!!! It was one of the best Brunches we have ever been to and as soon as we can book it we absolutely will. I can thoroughly recommend it for sure.
I`m going to cover Strong Water in another post....it definitely deserves a post of it`s own!!!
One of the unique points of the hotel is the central stairwell off the lobby. It takes you directly down to Amatista and the boat dock, we just found it very pretty and the bottom area has been known to hold small events and certainly holds the rum theme throughout.
We don`t spend a lot of time at the pool in any hotel. We do enjoy an evening on occasion watching the Dive in Movies and get some food from either hotels, and I have to say both hotels doe excellent pool food and being able to order from your lounger is very nice indeed.
It does have a pool slide which is very popular of course.
Sapphire for us is as homely as RP has ever been to us over the years.......it`s a relaxing atmosphere with some amazing staff who do look after everyone from when you check in.
Those are just a few of the reasons we love this hotel so much, there are so many more reasons....and yes rum does fit in there somewhere!!
