Change of Pace - No Dining Plan, More Quick Service and few ADR's - March 2018

[Madison2018]

We are usually creatures of habit but we changed things up in a big way on our most recent trip to WDW. In the past we have always had the Deluxe Dining Plan, have rarely eaten at Quick Service restaurants and always had ADR's booked well in advance. This time, we had no dining plan, few ADR's and more Quick Service than we should have, ha!

This will be an overall review of all of our dining during the week of 3/9-3/16 as well as final thoughts on what worked and what didn't. Sadly, I lost all of my pictures (thank goodness for the Memory Maker and friend's photos or I would have very little photographic evidence of our trip. But that means that this dining report will remain photo-less.

Our Cast of Characters - Me, I love Disney - even though its an exhausting "vacation" I would come here every 3 months if I could afford it money wise and time wise. But this is our 5th trip since 2011, so clearly I don't come as often as I would like! My DH is less enthusiastic, mainly because he will ride very few rides and doesn't like to be hot or walk long distances. So basically, WDW is not his ideal vacation spot, but he is always a good sport when we are there and does enjoy seeing us enjoy it. Our two Disney "Adults", DD age 12 who is a picky eater, thrill seeker and loves all things roller coaster-y and DS age 10 who loves Star Wars, gift shops and maps (in that order) and basically just wants to eat only meat.

DD had a cheer competition for the first few days of our trip, then we were planning on spending one day at the dark side (aka Universal) and one day at a water park. Best laid plans and all that... We also had the opportunity to do a VIP tour for two of our days. So, with the uncertain schedule our first few days because of cheer and the myriad of plans the other days, we decided to forego the Dining Plan and made very few ADR's. We then set off for our trip and into new territory.

These were our only sit down table-service meals at WDW for our trip, usually we would have had at least 2 each day. All of these restaurants we had eaten at before.
Whispering Canyon - dinner
Mamma Melrose dinner
San Angel Inn - dinner
T-Rex - lunch
Ohana - dinner
Kona Café - breakfast

I will review each one along with our quick service meals along with impressions and things we would do again and/or change. I will also compare costs without plan vs. with the plan. The regular DDP would have cost us $2113.72 and our usual DxDP would have cost us a whopping $3254.72. Hope some of you can find some useful info. Although I rarely post I have been a long time reader of this site and always research the heck out of my trip before I go. (I had another profile but lost access to it, so I had to start all over!) I love reading dining reviews/trip reports and hope mine will be of some interest/help to others.

 

[Madison2018]

Arrival Day - Quick Service lunch at Roaring Fork and Dinner at Whispering Canyon
I will start off and say I didn't plan this day very well, sigh. First day in and off to a bumpy start food wise.
We arrived at MCO about 10:20 and were at the Wilderness Lodge by 11:15, much sooner than expected. We had left our house at 4:30 am and the kids had only had a grab and go breakfast at our airport. Everyone was starving by the time we arrived. Our room was not ready on arrival, and my initial plan was to head to Magic Kingdom and grab lunch there then come back in time for a too early dinner before heading to cheer practice at All Star Sports at 7pm. The 7pm practice time put a damper on my originally planned dinner time of 8, so our choices were to move it up to 5:30 or move it back to 9pm given that we had no idea how long practice would last. We opted for the earlier dinner time, which in retrospect was not the right choice.

But, lunch first - since everyone was starving we decided to grab lunch at Roaring Fork in hopes that we would get the room ready text while eating. No such luck. But I had the pepperoni flat bread, DD had a cheese flatbread and the boys had chicken tenders. We also had a couple of the mickey brownies which were super cute but sadly super dry. The flat breads were delish and the chicken tenders tasted like chicken, ha. After buying 4 soft drinks I really decided I missed not having the cups that come with the meal plan. But we really couldn't buy them then because we had place to store them when we went to Magic Kingdom shortly. It was a good first lunch, but one of way too many quick service meals at Roaring Fork. And the total cost was $64.65, eeek!

After a fun couple of hours in Magic Kingdom we stopped at Storybook treats. I had a hot fudge sundae, while DH had a coke float, and DD and DS had a chocolate cone. It was the perfect tasty treat. Total Cost $26.14. Now it was back to the WL to settle in our room, get dressed for cheer practice and head to dinner.

So, at about 5 ish I really started regretting the ice cream snack we had earlier in MK because none of us were hungry and we knew Whispering Canyon was a lot of food. Whispering Canyon was one of our favorite experiences during our first few visits to Disney but we weren't able to fit in the last trip. We were all really looking forward to the food and the antics. This is one where I wish we had made a different decision and gone with the later meal, but I just wasn't sure what to do with the weird schedule we had for the day. Eat early and not be hungry or eat late and be exhausted/starving/cranky - ugh. So we got there promptly at 5:30 and the place wasn't even half full. However, it still took them about 10 minutes to seat us then about another 10 minutes before a server came by. We all ordered a soda and then decided to split the Gold Rush Chips, which were sooo good. Probably our favorite dish of the meal. The queso is yummy and the salsa has quite a kick and its a huge portion. My kids were unimpressed with the adult menu offerings. Well, DS would have gladly ordered the ribs but that was just too much money for a kid to spend and as much as he loves ribs, I don't think he would have finished that portion. So, we asked about the kids menu and yada yada yada, we can give them kids meal but we will have to charge them more for an adult sized kids meal. So, with that said, DD ordered the mac and cheese and DS ordered the grilled chicken. I ordered the meatloaf and DH had the all you can eat skillet. We enjoyed watching all the kids get excited about passing the ketchup around the restaurant. And sadly we realized, we didn't have any reason to ask for ketchup with our meals, . But we had a few antics along the way but it just wasn't as fun as I am sure it would have been later in the evening. Food came quickly, my husband enjoyed his skillet but didn't get any refills on anything. He did share a couple of ribs with DS who was really sad he didn't get ribs. DH said the sausage and the ribs were the star of the meal. Oh and the cornbread, it was tasty too! My meatloaf (aka mystery meat according to our server's jokes) was really good. I liked the sauce topping it and the mashed potatoes were carby goodness. DD was not a fan of her mac and cheese at all. DS thought his grilled chicken was just okay and wished for about the 100th time he could have gotten ribs. About this time I started worrying about getting to All Star Sports by 7, so DD and I left the boys to finish up and settle the bill while we caught a Minnie Van to Sports. Total for Whispering Canyon $135.72 including tip.

After cheer practice DD and I stopped in at Roaring Fork and bought 4 of the refillable cups and 2 or 3 desserts for all of us to share back in the room. Total $88.34.

Day 1 was complete! Total Spent on food and cups $314.85.

We didn't have to be at ESPN until noon the next day, so I decided at the last minute to snag us a breakfast the following morning at Kona Café. Stay tuned!

 

[Kim J Mobley]

Excellent review. We have only had WCC for breakfast but maybe one day we will make it for dinner.

 

[Madison2018]

Excellent review. We have only had WCC for breakfast but maybe one day we will make it for dinner.

Ahh we enjoyed it for dinner just wished we had done it on another night! And since we were staying at Wilderness Lodge, I had breakfast booked there but we ended up canceling it and never made it there for breakfast, which was a bummer!

 

[DLo]

Reading along. Thanks for taking the time to review.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Reading too!

 

[jhoannam]

Following along

 

[Madison2018]

Thanks all for joining in. Life kind of sucker punched me this week with some major things going on at work and at home . Sorry for the delay, but glad to know I will at least have a few readers!

I plan on posting Day 2 and maybe Day 3 tomorrow. See ya then!

 

[Meghan4]

I'm following along as well, thanks for this review. We will be staying at WL in September, so I am excited to hear about your stay.

 

[Lizzards]

I am following along too!

 

[JerseyJanice]

I’ll be reading.

 

[klacey1]

Following along! Aww that bums me out that your son couldn’t get the dinner he wanted!

 

[Amanda999]

... the mashed potatoes were carby goodness....

Thanks for the LOL; I'm going to use that term: carby goodness.