COMPLETE Trip Report- Toff's Trip to Disney Oct/Nov 2017

ToffPrincess

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 10, 2017
The Toff’s Travel Report
After the Index you will find my review on the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa and a restaurant summery.​

Travel Day
Gatwick to Orlando & 1900 Park Fare
DH the worst flyer ever, DS manages to stay awake to meet his first ever characters and I do a lot of crying!

Day 1- Magic Kingdom
1900 Park Fare & California Grill
The magic begins for this little family!
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Day 2- Magic Kingdom
Crystal Palace, Gaston’s Tavern, Liberty Tree Tavern & Jiko
We keep eating & eating

Day 3- Hollywood Studios & Epcot
Ohana’s & The Garden Grill
The day we decide Hollywood Studios is not for us..

Day 4- Magic Kingdom
Be Our Guest, Jungle Navigation Co Ltd Skipper Canteen & 1900 Park Fare
The rest of our family arrive. Be Our Guest breakfast horror but 1900PF saves the day!

Day 5- Magic Kingdom
Ohana, Liberty Tree Tavern & Kona Café
Ohana means family but DH is getting on my last nerve!

Day 6- Universal Studios-Harry Potter Universe & Seuss Landing
The Three Broomsticks then Epcot Food & Wine Festival for dinner
The day we get to try Butterbeer and ride the Hogwarts express!

Day 7- Epcot
Garden Grill
The day DS gets sick and we have to cancel spirit of Aloha.
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Day 8- Animal Kingdom & date night at Disney Springs!
Tusker House, La Nouba Cirque de Soleil & Morimoto Asia!
The night we try to be romantic..

Day 9- Magic Kingdom
1900 Park Fare, Grand Floridian Café and 1900 Park Fare AGAIN!
The day we seem to eat nowhere but the hotel on the request of family members..

Day 10- Universal Again
Bubba Gump & California Grill
We get to watch the fireworks from California Grill and decide we aren't Universal people!

Day 11- Magic Kingdom on Halloween
Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree Tavern & Be Our Guest
DH sick and out of action but a lovely, if crowded day!

Day 12- Magic Kingdom
Pinocchio’s Village Haus & 1900PF
The day we cancelled Animal Kingdom as DH was still sick but still had a nice day!

Day 13- MK & Typhoon Lagoon
Ohana’s, Counter Service at TL & Yachtsman Steakhouse
The day we tried a water park with DS who doesn’t really love water

Day 14- Last Full Day Magic Kingdom
1900 Park Fare, Jungle Navi Co & Spirit Of Aloha
Our last day of Magic

Travel Day Home
1900 Park Fare, Grand Floridian Cafe
Orlando to Gatwick…

GRAND FLORIDIAN REVIEW

I stopped adding photos to my reports as mid way through the trip I realised I wanted to take less photos and be more in the moment. Plus I payed for memory maker so let someone else take the photos. Sorry guys but best decision ever for me!

Restaurant Reviews​
Of course this is just my/our opinion but we hope it is of some use!​
CHARACTER MEALS
(Judged by mostly by character interaction but also by staff & food)
1900 Park Fare 10/10
Tusker House 9/10
The Garden Grill lunch 8/10
The Garden Grill breakfast 7.5/10
Ohana’s 7.5/10
Crystal Palace 6/10
A quick note.. if I ever do Disney without DS sorry to say I would go to none of these places. I do it purely for him.. character meals aren't really my thing!

RESTAURANTS
(Judged by food & service)
(10/9 Amazing * 8.5/8/7.5 Very Good * 7/6.5 Good * 6/5 Acceptable but not great * 4/3 Bad * 3/2/1 Terrible)

California Grill 10/10 (first visit it was a different class to the rest! Putting second visit's 7/10 down as a fluke..)
Jiko 9.5/10
The Yachtsman Steakhouse 8.5/10
Liberty Tree Tavern 8/10
Jungle Navigation Co Ltd Skipper Canteen 7.5/10
The Garden Grill Lunch 7.5/10
1900 Park Fare Breakfast 7.5/10
1900 Park Fare Dinner 7/10
The Garden Grill Breakfast 7/10
Tusker House 7/10
Ohana’s Breakfast 6.5/10
Kona Café 5.5/10
Crystal Palace Breakfast 5/10

QUICK SERVICE & STANDS
China Stand Epcot Food & Wine 9/10
Norway Beer Stand- 9/10
Aloha Isle 8/10
Ireland Stand Epcot Food & Wine 7.5/10
Plaza Ice-cream parlour 7/10
Germany Stand Epcot Food & Wine 7/10
Tortuga Tavern 6.5/10
Pinocchio’s Village Haus 6.5/10
Gaston’s Tavern 5/10 (the brew is a 2 but the cinnabun is a 7 what can you do!?)
Gasparilla Island Grill 3/10

That’s a lot of eating you may be thinking. Yes, yes it is! We do generally eat a lot just much healthier. I tend to cook 85% of the food we eat and of course it doesn’t really include bacon and waffles. We eat a very Mediterranean diet back home and only have meat a few times a week. I know your wandering with all the eating we did, did we put on any weight? I did yes. 1.5kg. 15 days of eating 3 full meals (mostly unhealthy ones) and multiple snacks, no exercise other than walking.. 1.5kg? I’d say it was more than worth it! Then again I have no Thyroid so maybe someone else would have actually lost weight walking that much!!

Rides, characters and thoughts for next time..
We were traveling with DS who just turned 3 and takes a day time nap. So generally we hit the main attractions in the morning and retired to the hotel around 2.30pm daily for a rest before any evening activities which with us are normally food based. I have a step counter that said each day we averaged about 6-10km a day.
I would have loved to re-enter the parks more in the evening but DH was very tired most days and our dining reservations were usually hotel based. I do think the Park Hopper Plus tickets we had are worth it though as we did park hop and a few times I re-entered MK when everyone was napping to pick up some souvenirs.

MEMORY MAKER- So I took the memory maker package for our family. I do think it is great value for money and a great way of getting family shots of the whole group. I would have one comment though.. some of the photographers are TERRIBLE. I think during our stay we used the photo opportunities maybe 10 times. 50% the photos are blurry, totally out of focus, contain nothing that they should in the background and are unusable. Not one taken in Epcot was useable and we stopped at three photo points. The other 50% (mostly Magic Kingdom and in the hotel at breakfast) are AMAZING. Frame worthy. Next time, to get better value for my money I plan on using many more photo ops to balance the odds. Every time we did Haunted Mansion the photographer by the hearse vanished by the time we got out so I would love to do that!

NEXT TIME
Less dining. This was an indulgence trip as it was our first as a family and my first back in 20-something years. It was lovely but I don’t have a huge desire to do it again. Too much food! Next time, for DS I will make sure he has a character meal every second day as he lives for them but we have no need for 3 full sit down meals.We are so beyond stuffed I actually can’t wait to have a protein shake and go to the gym. Not like me at all! Also next time I would pack differently. I will do a post on that at a later date!
I would like to do/try the following things next visit-
V&A’s
Citricos or Narcoossees
Visit Epcot more in the evenings as I love the World Pavillion
Visit Animal Kingdom at least 2x
Splash Mountain


My top MK rides are
1. Peter Pan’s Flight
2. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
3. Prince Charming’s Carousel
4. Haunted Mansion
5. Pirates of the Carribean
I’d love Splash Mountain to be open next time we come as I think it will be my no 1.

DS (age 3) top MK rides
1. Prince Charming’s Carousel
2. Tomorrowland Speedway
3. Small World
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
5. Aladdin’s Magic Carpets

DS’s Favourite Characters to meet at Disney
1. Drizella & Anastasia
2. Chip & Dale
3. Tigger
4. Cindarella’s Mice
5. Lady Tremaine


So there you have it.. it's all summed up for you to read. I hope you enjoy reading and I hope that if you take anything from my words it just enhances your trips to Disney!

Thank you for reading! :D
 
Next trip loading here and about to be updated as now we did our WDW trip for they year I had a few changes of heart..
 
Thank you for all for the comments and messages on my 2017 Trip Report & Reviews!! 2018 is loading.. click HERE for the latest update!
 

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