Why is the rum always gone? We might be responsible! UPDATE 7/13: My photos are back and other stuff

[Raeven]

Following along! I've heard the chips at the Rose and Crown are good, I'm going to have to try them next time now!

 

[nursejackie]

When we ate there I got something called "Bubbles and Squeak" I think, it was mashed potatoes with cabbage and bacon, if I remember right. It was during our 2014 trip. It was soooooooooo good. Is that common? Because I seriously want to make it all the time. LOL

Bubble & squeak, yes it's delicious. It was one of those dishes thought up in the olden days to use up left over food but I think it turned out better than the components on their own.

 

[nursejackie]

I wonder how Rose & Crown would measure up for you? I have no idea how authentic it actually is. I can see how your group would want to skip it to try more of what you're not already able to get at home, but maybe you can convince them to go and "research" for purposes of comparison!

Or maybe an ADR for one! When we first went to Epcot when I was 16 (I'm 47 now) I was so desperate to get a job in 'England' but never realised my dream

 

[kastoney]

The next day was our first full park day and we headed to Epcot! Have I mentioned how awesome it was staying at the Beach Club and being a five-minute walk from Epcot? Loved it

How awesome!!! I've always wanted to stay at Yacht or Beach, but the price has just never been right. We did do a few nights at boardwalk a few years ago though and it was great to be able to walk places.

He “let” me have the cucumbers off the t

Yum!!!! This looks delicious, but I'm a sucker for all things korean and kimchi.

So this is where I think our karma for not being jerks about our table the night before came back around. We were seated at what has to be the best spot ever, a big round table on the corner of the lower patio level right on the water. We weren’t crowded at all and had a perfect view of World Showcase Lagoon and the surrounding pavilions:

Wow!!! This has to be about the best table I've ever seen in Disney World. They most definitely don't have enough outdoor seating, but to snag not just an outdoor table but one right on the water is pure perfection.

This was a lovely meal with excellent service and an unbeatable setting. We all left happy, and will definitely go back in the future.

You've sold me! For some reason we've never been to Rose and Crown. But have to see if I can get us that table next time ; )

This was pretty much the whole reason I wanted this ADR, thanks to many of your reviews, and it did not disappoint. This was huge, and we got the 2-scoop version! My hat is off to anyone who takes down the full-size. A couple of tables ordered the Kitchen Sink while we were there. Those things are crazy.

Man this looks amazing. We all split ice cream on our last trip, but sadly for Jason my peanut allergy kept us away from this. The one we had was good, but theres no way jose it was better than yours

Yay, thanks for reading Kari! You are one of my DIS foodie idols!

Wow, that is so nice of you to say. Keep your eating and drinking up and we can idolize each other

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Following along! I've heard the chips at the Rose and Crown are good, I'm going to have to try them next time now!

Thanks for joining in! I enjoyed your last review

 

[ariane37]

Joining! We also love staying in the BW area for the convenience in getting to both HS and Epcot. We haven't been to Rose and Crown in years but the view from your table was excellent! As I'm sure the view of Cute Peter was
I'm a tad embarrassed to say I did once order the No Way Jose just for myself I swear though I didn't finish it!!!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Joining! We also love staying in the BW area for the convenience in getting to both HS and Epcot. We haven't been to Rose and Crown in years but the view from your table was excellent! As I'm sure the view of Cute Peter was
I'm a tad embarrassed to say I did once order the No Way Jose just for myself I swear though I didn't finish it!!!

Awesome, thanks for joining in! I am so in love with Beach Club that now I don't want to stay anywhere else. I will be needing to get over that unless my plans to win the lottery work out

You should definitely check out R&C on your next trip and ask for Cute Peter! And no judgment at all on the No Way Jose. If Nathan hadn't been up for sharing I would totally have ordered it just for myself!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

How awesome!!! I've always wanted to stay at Yacht or Beach, but the price has just never been right. We did do a few nights at boardwalk a few years ago though and it was great to be able to walk places.

I should be up front about this, the price definitely was not right, but I really wanted to stay there and...well...there you go. LOL

Wow!!! This has to be about the best table I've ever seen in Disney World. They most definitely don't have enough outdoor seating, but to snag not just an outdoor table but one right on the water is pure perfection.

It really was. And there was a nice breeze. Ahhhhh...I wish I was there right now!

Wow, that is so nice of you to say. Keep your eating and drinking up and we can idolize each other

Deal!

 

[ncc1701]

Great reviews. We had a 2 bad dinner meals a few years ago at R & C . Happy to hear your meals were so good. Maybe next trip we will go back for lunch

 

[Terra Nova guy]

Hello Amber! You had me at rum It's off to a great start. I like your choices so far. I have not tried Trattoria before but it looks good.

He said he really liked this, even though he was suspicious that there were ground up vegetables hidden in the meat filling. I should probably mention that my kids refuse to eat vegetables.

It's not just your kids. So do I for the most part and it hasn't killed me yet

 

[Vernie822]

Hi Amber!! Following along, your boys are so cute. Love the food so far, my husband has been wanting to try Rose and Crown and it looks like it did not disappoint!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Great reviews. We had a 2 bad dinner meals a few years ago at R & C . Happy to hear your meals were so good. Maybe next trip we will go back for lunch

Oh no! Was the food bad, or the service, or both? Having bad meals on vacation is such a bummer

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Hi Amber!! Following along, your boys are so cute. Love the food so far, my husband has been wanting to try Rose and Crown and it looks like it did not disappoint!

Thank you so much, and thanks for following along!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Wow! Your report is off to a fantastic start. You have a great writing style!

I love the Beach Club too - cannot. Eat the ability to walk to EPCOT & HS!

Ugh on the Trattoria experience. 9:40 is late but don't blame you for asking for a different table - that first one sounded awful!

Hurrah for breakfast at the bakery in France. I think it generally is pretty uncrowded. Unfortunately last time I tried it I arrived just after a large school group ordering individually and gave up.

So glad the table gods made up for the prior night with a great one at R&C!

Looks like you sampled some good F&W offerings as well! I loved that pork slider as we'll and the mayo totally looks like a hidden Mickey.

Can't wait to hear more - including your time at Universal!!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Hello Amber! You had me at rum It's off to a great start. I like your choices so far. I have not tried Trattoria before but it looks good.


It's not just your kids. So do I for the most part and it hasn't killed me yet

LOL! Well, good to know that they can make it to adulthood without eating veggies. Thanks for joining in!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Wow! Your report is off to a fantastic start. You have a great writing style!

I love the Beach Club too - cannot. Eat the ability to walk to EPCOT & HS!

Ugh on the Trattoria experience. 9:40 is late but don't blame you for asking for a different table - that first one sounded awful!

Hurrah for breakfast at the bakery in France. I think it generally is pretty uncrowded. Unfortunately last time I tried it I arrived just after a large school group ordering individually and gave up.

So glad the table gods made up for the prior night with a great one at R&C!

Looks like you sampled some good F&W offerings as well! I loved that pork slider as we'll and the mayo totally looks like a hidden Mickey.

Can't wait to hear more - including your time at Universal!!

Thank you so much! I still sort of regret the whole Trattoria experience but that table really was bad. Worth it for the good karma at R&C I guess?!

Also glad I'm not the only one who saw the hidden Mickey on that slider

Thanks for reading and commenting!

 

[ncc1701]

Oh no! Was the food bad, or the service, or both? Having bad meals on vacation is such a bummer

Service was ok but my fish & chips were soggy and DH's shepard's pie was cold. It had always been a must do so maybe if we go next year we will give it another try.

 

[margareton27]

Following along. Great start! Love the story about the bed - lol.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Following along. Great start! Love the story about the bed - lol.

It wasn't my finest moment, LOL. Thanks for following along!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

October 18, 2016

So I will start by saying that this day was a total fail for food pictures. Some of that wasn’t our fault, and some totally, completely was.

This was our Four Park Challenge day! We had a pretty ambitious plan to hit the parks in the following order: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. We also had a late ADR at Via Napoli so actually we were in Epcot twice. Did we do it? Let’s forge on and see…

We left the Beach Club around 7:45 a.m. and caught a bus over to Magic Kingdom for the 9:00 a.m. park opening. It wasn’t crowded and we had a good spot right in front of the train station to watch the welcome show which we hadn’t seen before:



This was cute and a fun way to start our day. We headed straight to Fantasyland and rode Peter Pan which we never, ever go on since the line is always sooo ridiculously long. Seven Dwarfs already had a giant line so we hit Haunted Mansion and Pirates. We wanted to do Splash Mountain but it was down, so we headed back over to Jungle Cruise and then made our way out of the park around 10:45 a.m. We stopped at Main Street Confectionary and grabbed a Mickey cookie and a couple of rice krispie treats for later which I did not take a picture of. Fail #1. We did however manage to get a picture of all five of us together before we left:



Yes, I made everyone wear matching shirts this day. LOL

We caught the monorail over to Epcot, where we hit a huge line at bag check. The entrance at International Gateway is where it’s at, people. I have been totally spoiled by staying at the Beach Club and I never want to enter or leave Epcot any other way from now on! Unfortunately Disney has not built me my own personal monorail that drops off at that particular location, so we were stuck in line at the front of the park.

Anyway, the boys were STARVING at this point and accusing us of TORTURING them. I bet those cereal bars they turned down before we left for MK were sounding pretty good right about now. DH and I decided to divide and conquer before we had a rebellion on our hands. He and Dylan headed to France to Les Halles for a chocolate brioche for Dylan. They also stopped at the Ireland booth on the way and DH tried the Seafood Fisherman’s Pie which he said was too soupy and “just OK.” They did not take pictures of either. Come on people, get with the program! Fail #2.

I took Nathan and Sean the opposite way around World Showcase where we hit China again for more pot stickers for Sean. They looked exactly like they did the first time we got them so I won’t bother with a picture. Nathan ordered the Black Pepper Shrimp with Garlic Noodles:



He ate all of this and said he really liked it, even the green onions.

After I recovered from the shock of watching one of my offspring eat something green we rendezvoused with the other guys over in France, made a quick stop back at our room, and then caught the boat from the Beach/Yacht Club dock over to Hollywood Studios for our 1:20 p.m. ADR at Sci Fi Dine-In Theater. We cut this pretty close, but checked in on time and were seated within 10-15 minutes in one of the cars. Nathan and Sean were the drivers, Dylan was in the middle seat as the backseat driver, and Devon and I were the hitchhikers in the back. Our server, Mary, was very friendly and helpful and paid a lot of attention to the boys.

OK, so this is where we have Fail #3 of the day but this one wasn’t our fault, it was just way too dark to get any decent pictures. I also had the inside seat and was basically trapped, so I just resigned myself to not photographing this meal. I did somehow manage to take a picture of my beer though:



It was in the mid-to-upper 80s again this day and I thought a cold beer sounded like a fine idea. This was excellent decision-making on my part.

The boys had sodas and lemonades…probably? I don’t know. I could barely see Dylan, let alone the two in the front seat. Devon had a vanilla Coke. I was so pleased with my excellent beer selection that I ordered another one. Mary helpfully told me that she could put any that was left into a to-go cup for me. This did not prove to be necessary

For food, Nathan ordered the Build-Your-Own Angus Burger with cheddar and bacon, Sean had the kids’ popcorn chicken with fries, Dylan had the kids’ grilled cheese with fries (which I don’t actually see on the menu), and DH and I split the Smoked Turkey Sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and avocado mayo. He also ordered the Sci-Fi Salad which is mixed greens, dried cranberries, granny smith apples, blue cheese crumbles and sunflower seeds tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette.

DH really liked his salad, which did look good (you’ll just have to take my word on this). The sandwich was pretty good, but a little too bready in my opinion. DH didn’t seem to mind. Our server accidentally put in an order of mac n’ cheese for Dylan then realized her error and fixed it, but they still brought us the mac n’ cheese and a side of fries, along with everything else. This was actually nice because DH and I had ordered sweet potato fries with our sandwich which I did not like, so I snagged some of the extra regular fries.

Side bar: I usually *love* sweet potato fries, but what do they put on them at Sci Fi?? It tasted like cinnamon and sugar. This is an odd choice to me since they are being served with sandwiches and burgers and the like. It also seems like they should point this out to you when you order them, which Mary did not (that would be my only quibble with our service). Anyway, I thought they were kind of gross but DH ate them.

Mary also brought out a kids’ ice cream sundae for all three of the boys, which was nice, though I don’t think they ate much of them for some reason.

So to summarize this picture-less meal, our food was all fine and my beer was excellent. Sci Fi obviously isn’t gourmet, but we’re not really in it for the food to begin with. The atmosphere is fun and the boys had requested that we go here again—we enjoyed it and I’m sure we will go back in the future.

We had FPs for TSMM and Star Tours, rode the Great Movie Ride, and then went over to the Launch Bay for a while to kill time until our 4:50 p.m. FP for Tower of Terror. En route, Sean got his BB-8 cup which is probably my favorite souvenir of this trip—it is so cute!



I am pretty sure this is also when we picked up our Halloween popcorn bucket:



Nathan is the only one who will ride Tower with me, so the other guys headed back to the hotel and Nathan and I made our way down Sunset Boulevard. On the way I stopped into Fairfax Fair and grabbed an Angry Orchard Cider:



Liquid courage! Tower was even better than usual—we screamed our heads off, then left the park and caught the boat back across to the Beach Club.



As you can see, it was another beautiful day. We were so lucky this trip! We got back to the Beach Club around 5:45 p.m. and I took some photos of the hotel. In this one you can see from the outside where our room was located:



Nobody probably cares about this, but since I pretty much only managed to take pictures of my beverages so far I felt like I should include photos of *something.*

We left the Beach Club around 6:30 p.m. and drove over to Animal Kingdom. We pretty much (accidentally) timed this perfectly and walked into the park and right up to the viewing area for the evening’s first lighting of the Tree of Life. This was beautiful! We also decided to make a quick trip over to Expedition Everest since this would be our only opportunity to ride it at night. Nathan, Dylan and I rode it first (Sean is not down with Everest) and then DH rode with the boys again. While they were in line one of the CMs saw Dylan’s MagicBand, which I had decorated with a Yeti:



The CM loved it so much that he gave Dylan a paper Rider Switch FastPass for three people to come back and ride any time in the next two weeks. So nice!

This was all so much fun, and the park looked awesome in the dark. I love all the cool lanterns and lamps they’ve put in, and the string lights everywhere. Everest is lit up all purple, and the area for Rivers of Light really looks great—can’t wait until that is up and running. Some day



After that we left the park and drove back to the Beach Club for a short break, then walked back over to Epcot for our 9:25 p.m. ADR during EMH at Via Napoli. We had a nice walk over to Italy while IllumiNations was happening, and were seated promptly, in the sort of atrium room off the main dining room. At first I thought this was kind of nice because the main dining room can be so noisy, but it was COLD in there and we were all freezing halfway through our meal. Oh well. Our server was good at least. DH and I ordered the Prosciutto e Melone appetizer and a bottle of Prosecco:



Get ready for the most epic food fail of the day here. Somehow this is the only photo we took. I wish I could explain why, especially since Via Napoli is one of our favorites and we were all looking forward to eating here…I am chalking it up to exhaustion and the fact that we’d been going strong for almost 14 hours at that point. Fail #4 for the day.

The appetizer was good. Hard to go wrong with anything wrapped in prosciutto. We all ordered pizza—DH and Nathan split a sausage and olive, Sean and Dylan shared a half pepperoni, half cheese (surprise!), and I got my own individual pizza with red peppers, artichokes, olives, and mushrooms because that is how I roll and the carnivores in my family want nothing to do with my pizza preferences.

While I did fail to photograph our pizzas this time, because I am a creature of habit I *can* show you the picture of the pizza I had there last November, which was essentially the same though it looks like I got tomatoes on it as well that time. At any rate, the one from this trip looked a lot like this one and was just as delicious:



We love the pizza here and everyone was happy except Sean, who was just 100% done with everything and wanted to be in his bed in his jammies with his Kindle. DH ended up taking him back to the hotel while the rest of us finished our dinner and I polished off the Prosecco. The older boys and I then made our way back to the Beach Club. We got back around 11:00 p.m. and pretty much collapsed. I think Nathan and Dylan ate their rice krispie treats from that morning and then we all passed out. Here’s my Fitbit report for that day:



More food and fun awaited us the next day!