Thank you, I wasn't sure if this was still the date. I've been gone a week at WDW and over 80 pages behind!
In case anyone is interested, I'll share some thoughts from my trip last week.
RESORTS
This was my first time at AKV(home), CCV and SSR.
We stayed 5 nights at AKV Jambo. Beautiful resort, loved, loved, loved the animals outside the balcony. Boma was excellent as expected. Pool was also very nice...DD3 enjoyed the slide.
The one thing that I disliked was the room location. This was the first time my faxed room request on touring plans did not come through. I requested a room close to pool, Zebra trail. I was on the opposite side, Kudu trail, as far as you could get. That walk was horrible and made us not even want to go to the room to change for the pool after walking the parks all day, just to walk all the way back to the pool. It also wasn't convenient to fill our drink mugs at the quick service restaurant. They had nice Halloween mugs though and a great spiked coffee.
We stayed 1 night at CCV. I did not put in a room request and we had the best room! Right near the elevator that led to the pool, and we could see the fireworks at MK! That was a nice surprise. Room was great with the wood floor, and we enjoyed the boat transportation to MK early in the morning. We attended the Snow White Dinner at Artist Point which was very cool. The Evil Queen was so in character and had everyone laughing. I'd definitely stay here again.
SSR was our least favorite. It didn't feel Disney to me and it was just so large. I requested Grandstand and got Main Entrance?? Looking on the resort map it had no food or pool and you needed to bus to both by the looks of it. I'm not familiar with the resort so I could be wrong. Anyway, I decided to ask for a new room location after having a terrible location at AKV. I asked to be put in any section that had a pool so DD could swim without getting on a bus. They happily obliged and put us in Paddock section. It had a nice pool and DD really enjoyed the kiddie splash area there. I had an excellent drink at the pool bar as well, Poolside Iced Tea. Room seemed a little dated. I did not try any of the restaurants in the main section.
FOOD
I loved my meal at Homecomin the most. I had the Fried chicken, doughnuts, and mac and cheese. That mac and cheese is soooo good! DH said his meal was just ok, but he isn't a big southern food person.
Tusker House was very good, I especially liked the salmon. I found Tusker similar to Boma. I enjoyed both buffets.
The Snow White dinner was good for the character interaction but not my favorite food.
Akershus breakfast was actually pretty good, of course DD loved it with all the princesses. I had some sort of spiked coffee here too (on the dining plan if you can't tell, lol)
San Angel Inn dinner- I wanted to love this one but odds were working against me. DD was so tired and not behaving or eating. I ordered the red snapper, which I've never had before, and didn't really love it. The chocolate mousse was very good, though. Not in a rush to go back.
Quick service worth mentioning- the jerk chicken lettuce wraps at Pecos Bills! I was very surprised how good these were. DD really liked the breakfast waffle sandwich at Sleepy Hollow. Corn dog nuggets at Casey's are always a good go-to.
We tried a few things at Food and Wine. DH and I both loved the scallops from the Wine and Dine Studio, definitely our favorite. A close second was the butternut squash ravioli from the same booth. YUM!
Other things we tried worth mentioning- Passion fruit slushy from France, Frozen Rose from Alps, Filet from Canada, Lamp Chop from Australia, and liquid nitro chocolate truffle from Chocolate Studio..mmmm.
DH had the spam from Hawaii and liked it. I had the tuna and it was just ok.
I was able to get my Remi passholder magnet and Minnie coasters! The lines for these were the longest I've ever seen them. They had a line in the breezeway. Last time I got a magnet I just walked into the store and got one easily so wasn't expecting that. The weather was hotter than I had expected and the
MNSSHP I attended was crazy busy, not sure I'd do it again. We went dressed as Gabby Gabby (me) Bo Peep (DD) and Woody (DH). We got tons of candy which we carried on to the plane.
All in all though, we had a great 8 day trip. DD3 was tall enough to ride some new rides including her new favorite..Hi Ho ride (SDMT). We rode 5 times throughout the trip. Her second new favorite was Kali River Rapids. She thought it was hilarious to get squirt by the elephant, and then squirt other people with water, haha. She met 26 characters in total, and although I was completely exhausted by the end, she was happy and it was worth it