Storybook Dining

[windsor2005]

I’ve got a dinner reservation at Artist Point storybook dining and the new Repunzel breakfast this month. Has anyone been to either of these? How were they?

 

[Capang]

Storybook is fantastic. The Evil Queen truly plays the part. Food was great, although there have been mixed reviews.

Rapunzel breakfast....do you mean Bon Voyage at Trattorio al Forno? It is not new but it is a great character meal. The breakfasts are huge and the interactions are wonderful.

Both meals have been the subject of multiple threads and reviews, a quick search for either should turn up quite a few.

 

[Niki Andiokno]

Yay!! I have Storybook Dining planned for May!!

 

[Amber Addamo]

I have heard so many good things about storybook dining, cannot wait to try!!

 

[xlsm]

Happy Friday!!

It's kind of a gloomy day here, but I'm so ready for the weekend. I'm still moving slowly and having trouble breathing from this dumb lingering cold, and I'm hoping that some extra sleep will help.
It's raining, and it's supposed to change over to snow and give us 1"-3". I have done no shopping or anything, because we never actually get the snow they say we will. With my luck this will be the time we end up with a foot of snow or something.

I'm going to have DH get our fireplace going this weekend...over the holidays there is so much greenery and decoration on the fireplace we don't even turn the gas on until after it's all taken down so we don't burn our house down

The kids adapted well to being back in school. X had a schedule change for second semester. He had Theater Appreciation for a fine arts half credit, and now has what is technically a PE class. It caused his 2nd and 5th hour to switch, so he moved from one Spanish 2 class into another?? That makes no sense to me. It's the same Spanish teacher, but I think it's weird to change the class period of a full year class to accommodate a PE elective?? But what do I know.

Hey, let's talk about Disney!

Chapter Three: Dinner in the Wilderness

One thing I knew I did not want to change was our dinner reservation for the new character meal at Artist Point! It's no secret that I'm a fan of Snow White, it's like this meal was tailor made for me!

I was DisBounding this night, which I've never really done before, unless you count my Minnie costume for MNSSHP in 2017.

We decided to get to the Wilderness Lodge by taking the boat to MK, and then the boat to WL.

The Polynesian is so pretty in the evening!





We got to the boat dock and the line was pretty long, and then overheard someone say the resort monorail was down. Great. We weren't able to get on the first boat, but the captain said they had an extra one coming along soon to help with the crowds b/c of the monorail.

If you're stuck somewhere, the boat dock isn't a bad place!



We made it on the second boat and then waited for our WL boat and I forced everyone to take selfies







X insisted on making that miserable face in every. single. picture. Even if he was smiling beforehand, as soon as I tried to take a picture he'd frown. I almost threw him into Bay Lake.

Before long we were leaving the Magic Kingdom behind



And arriving at my faaaaavorite place in all of Walt Disney World - The Wilderness Lodge!!



Nothing compares to this for me in all of WDW. Animal Kingdom Lodge comes close, though!

Our dinner was scheduled for 6:15pm, and we arrived a little after 6:00. We checked in, they took my phone number, and said they'd text when our table was ready. We waited maybe five minutes, not long at all.





We were seated toward the back of the restaurant, not far from where DH and I were seated when we ate there alone a few years ago. On our way back, we ran into the Evil Queen as she was heading for a break. She saw my purse and said, "Ah, I see you have brought me the head of the dwarf, good work."
I loved the little apples attached to our silverware/napkin:



The menu is cool, presented in a leather covered booklet. It was dark in there, so I didn't go crazy with photos, but I have this from the first page:



If you can't read it (it's tiny, I know!) it says:

Long, long ago in a forest enchanted,
the seeds of the story we tell had been planted

They grew from the soil this place that stands here,
where someone like you might be wandering near

With creatures and critters both friendly and foe,
A princess, a Queen, and some friends you might know

We've got merriment, music, and feasting to do
And a place at the table that's set just for you

So gather around, take a seat, settle in -
Your dinner adventure's about to begin!

Cute right??

Our waiter came and took our drink order ( just water for X, unsweetened tea for me and DH, sprite for L) and explained the menu and how the meal would work: Shared apps, individual entrees, shared desserts.

Snow White came around right away:



She was beautiful, as you can see, and was really talking up her gooseberry pie. I assured her I was going to try it, and she skipped away to the next group.

The waiter brought our drinks and took our entree order, and then our appetizers came out. Chicken hand pies, butternut squash soup, and the Wicked shrimp cocktail.



Everything was delicious! The chicken pies were not at all what I expected, they tasted kind of like an eggroll We all enjoyed them, and the jam that came with them was amazing, I could have just eaten all of it by itself.

The shrimp cocktail has been called boring by some reviewers, but I think maybe they just didn't put any of the stuff on it. They come in a little jar and the sauces are in the bottom. You have to put the sauce on your piece of shrimp. They were good shrimp and the sauce was GOOD. It's like an avocado crema and some spicy sauce (that isn't all that spicy). Is it life changing? No, but it's tasty.

The butternut squash soup on the other hand, I could have drank a gallon of it. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so rich and buttery, and even though I'm not a superfan of sweet with my savory, the marshmallow really went well with it. I'm not sure what's in the marshmallow, a peppercorn or something?? but it works and we all scraped our tiny cauldrons clean.

Dopey and Grumpy came out back to back:







After the dwarfs left, our entrees arrived.

X and I ordered the veal. Now, in the past I've had not necessarily a moral problem with veal, but there was definitely something along those lines that kept me from ever ordering it. However, with it being the most positively reviewed main, and the fact that I don't *love* gnocchi, I decided to go for it.

It was amazing. Fall apart tender, and the potatoes were perfect with it!



DH got the gnocchi, and it was soooooo good!! The texture of gnocchi is not my favorite, but the sauce was so creamy and perfect, that I'd definitely order it in the future.



We ended up stealing quite a few bites of each other's food.

L ordered the snapper, and it was good, but quite a bit lighter than the other two entrees on our table. I think if I hadn't tasted my veal and DH's gnocchi, I'd have been more impressed with it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it had a lighter lemony flavor vs. the rich flavors of the meaty veal and creamy gnocchi.



The restaurant was full but not overwhelmingly crowded, but I think they were understaffed. We barely saw our waiter, he had a ton of tables. I never got a drink refill, except for once with water. DH and L both got another tea and sprite respectively, but X was in my boat and only got the one water refill. Since all he had was water, it was annoying. Several management type CMs seemed to be the ones bringing food and clearing tables.

Our entree plates were taken away and dessert arrived not long afterward. I was really looking forward to dessert, and while good, it was the weakest of the three courses.

The little sour apple mousse things were the prettiest



but as far as taste, the gooseberry pies were the very, very best!! I would have eaten all four if I could! The little cake things were kind of gross. I mean, it was fine, but clearly not on the same level as everything else. The frosting was thick and heavy, but had a good flavor. I HATE those little chocolate rock things, and have complained about them before (most recently last year at the Star Wars dessert party, they were on the BB-8 cupcakes), so I tried to scrape them out of the way to eat the cake, but there were so many of them.



The final dessert, the Huntsman's Gift to the Queen, or whatever it's called, came out with our bill. I almost forgot to take a picture, but luckily the server stopped scooping out the popcorn and chocolate so I could get one with stuff still in the box:



The popcorn was just fine, and the chocolate was chocolate, but wow! What a flashy and fun presentation. It really did end the meal on a special note, and put smiles on everyone's faces.

As were were getting ready to leave, a CM came over and said the Queen was getting ready to go on break, so if we wanted to meet her we needed to go up in the next couple of minutes. We grabbed our stuff and hurried up front. She meets in a terrible location, but honestly I'm not sure where else they could put her? Standing in line for her, I felt in the way.

I am only sharing one picture, because I look awful in all of them, but less so in this one:



When she saw me she said, "Ah yes, you were the one who brought me the head of the dwarf, next time why not bring me the whole dwarf? You have three huntsmen with you, it shouldn't be too hard!"

She was wicked and evil and perfect in every way!!

I was so excited to have an opportunity to meet such a rare villain. I think I've mentioned this before, but on my first ever WDW trip, 1900 Park Fair had a villain dinner that I was lucky enough to attend, and it was one of the best things I've ever done. This was a nice call back to that!

After dinner we took the boat to the Contemporary and the monorail to the Polynesian. I managed to take this picture of the gingerbread display:



It was in a terrible spot this year! Way back behind the shops on the main level, in a narrow space where not many people could fit comfortably. The past two years it's been underneath the Mary Blair mural, so I wasn't expecting this.

We went upstairs to the monorail and the line was really long. It always feels backed up here and at the Grand Floridian. I want to stay at the Contemporary sometime, and the monorail is obviously a draw, but the line moves slower here than anywhere else, I swear.

Once we got back to the resort we called it an early night - we were planning to be up early the next day - it would be New Year's Eve!!

So the final verdict on the Snow White dinner?? We would absolutely do this again, and based on food, not just characters. They did a fantastic job of changing Artist Point into the enchanted forest without making it tacky. I loved the twinkling lights in the forest canopy above, and how they transformed the wooden pillars into tree trunks. If the quality of the food stays the same, along with the price (and the similar prix fixe set up at BOG now), I don't expect this to remain a one credit meal for guests who use the dining plan.

That's it for now!! I'm going to try and get the first part of our NYE day up later, but no guarantees. Have a great weekend if I'm not back again to say it later today!!

Here's my Storybook Dining review from our New Year's Eve trip report - we loved it!!

 

[Kingdome8]

Awesome. Got them both booked for June. Can’t wait.

 

[KenHutch]

The 18 year old insisted on Trattoria this past June to meet Rapunzel (still her favorite princess) and I surprised at how good the meal was. The 9 year old got that tower of pancakes but gave up after an hour of trying to eat them all.

 

[Jack_Sparrow_NJ]

Storybook is fantastic. The Evil Queen truly plays the part. Food was great, although there have been mixed reviews.

Rapunzel breakfast....do you mean Bon Voyage at Trattorio al Forno? It is not new but it is a great character meal. The breakfasts are huge and the interactions are wonderful.

Both meals have been the subject of multiple threads and reviews, a quick search for either should turn up quite a few.

Already have ADR for both in July