Wow! Been home for a week now and STILL ready to go back. We booked 4 nights at the Carribean Beach Resort with dining plan. I'll start with review of the resort. We got in on early Sunday afternoon got checked in, dropped off the bags in our room, and made a bee-line for the pool! Now to back up just a bit, we got the Pirate themed room. It was neat, very clean but, a bit small for 2 adults and 3 kids. Anyway, the pool is the highlight of the resort. Kids had a BLAST in the kiddie pool. It's themed like a ship-wrecked pirate ship and kept our kids entertained for hours. Now the location of the building with the Pirate themed rooms (Trinidad South) and 'Old Port Royale' (where the pool, eateries, shopping, etc.) is located is one of the 2 downfalls we found with the resort. The walk from our building to 'Old Port Royale' was not bad but, difficult with 3 kids. The other down fall was the transportation. Trinidad South is one of the last (if not the last) pick-up spots. We never managed to get on the 1st bus for any park. They were full by the time they made it back to our stop. On one occassion, a CM had to call for an empty bus to Epcot since about 30 of us had been waiting for over 40 minutes. Overall, resort wise, it was nice but, we would not stay there again until the kids are older. I'll give my food review in the next post!
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Trip Report: 26-30June 2011
- Thread starter Kirk88
- Start date
Ahhhh, one of my favorite parts of WDW, the food!
1st night: Pollo Campero/Fresh a Peel-Some of the best quick-service food we've ever had. My wife had the Buffalo Chicken Salad, I had the veggie burger, kids all had hot dogs. Everything was great! Now, it may all sound like normal quick service type food but, do some research on the restraunt. Pollo Campero & Fresh a Peel use hormone free meat and everything is fresh. It's the closest to organic we've found in a restraunt. Highly recommend!
2nd day (EPCOT): Got up early, headed to Old Port Royale and got some quick-service breakfast. Kids all got Mickey waffles and sausage (can't go wrong there). My wife and I both got the steak, egg, & cheese quesadillas. We probably should have ordered 1 and split it, they were HUGE....and good! This may have been the best quick-service meal we had at the resort. That day for lunch, we had reservations at Akershus for the Storybook Princess Lunch. Now, the key to eating at Akershus is to go into it with an open mind and a taste for something new. Most of the reviews I read prior to eating here was that the food was terrible. I highly disagree! My wife and I both spent time in Europe when we were younger and were looking forward to some Norweigan food. It did not disappoint! Kids got normal kid fare (pizza & hot dogs). My wife got the Mushroom-stuffed Pasta and I got the Traditional Kjottkake (meatballs). Holy cow, was it GOOD! I don't even like mushrooms but took bite of my wife's and it was amazing. Can't say enough about the character interaction! The Princesses were great. My daughter had a look in her eyes that can not be duplicated, priceless. My 2 boys even got them to sign their autograph books and took pictures with the Princesses. Ariel even planed some big red lip marks on my 2 year old son's cheek, hysterical! Highly recommend this place for ANYONE! That night the kids were getting tired and cranky so we headed back to the resort and hit up Old Port Royale again for some quick-service. Kids all got chicken nuggets, always a winner for them. My wife got sliced turkey with mashed potatoes and mac & cheese. I got sliced pork with mashed potatoes and broccolli. It was OK. I'm sure if we had been in the mood for burgers, it may have been a better choice. Anyway, this was it for quick-service at the resort.
3rd day: This was our 'chill' day, no parks. Since we had an 11:00 reservation at 1900 Park Fare, my wife headed down to Old Port Royale and grabbed muffins, danished, juice, & coffee for breakfast in the room. Great choice on our part! 1900 Park Fare did not let us down! This may be the BEST breakfast buffet I've ever eaten at. EVERYTHING was excellent! Omlettes made to order, waffles, scrambled eggs, breakfast pizza, etc. The character interaction was jsut as good as the previous day at Akershus (if not better). The kids LOVED Alice & Mary Poppins! Another highly suggest stop! That night, we lucked into reservations at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club resort. My goodness......best luck of the trip! As far as dinner buffets go this one is #1 in my book. Our kids ate GREAT too! Everything from the calimari to dessert was excellent!
4th day (Animal Kingdom/Magic Kingdom): Did the muffin & danish routine again for breakfast and headed to Animal Kingdom. Caught a quick-service lunch at Pizza-fari. Good stuff! My wife and I had the Italian sandwiches and the kids opted for pizza. Everything was very good. Had dinner reservations at Magic Kingdom for Liberty Tree Tavern. Yet another great meal! Family style buffet: turkey, roast beef, pork brisket, green beans, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, stuffing, & apple cobbler w/ice cream for dessert. Needless to say, we walked out full!
5th day (last one :veryconfu): Did danishes, cereal, & fruit at Old Port Royale before we checked out and head to Downtown Disney for some last minute shopping. Headed to Earl of Sandwich for lunch. Delicious but, if your meal plan has run out it's a bit pricey! LOL
This wraps up my food review! Next, I'll hit on the parks.....
1st night: Pollo Campero/Fresh a Peel-Some of the best quick-service food we've ever had. My wife had the Buffalo Chicken Salad, I had the veggie burger, kids all had hot dogs. Everything was great! Now, it may all sound like normal quick service type food but, do some research on the restraunt. Pollo Campero & Fresh a Peel use hormone free meat and everything is fresh. It's the closest to organic we've found in a restraunt. Highly recommend!
2nd day (EPCOT): Got up early, headed to Old Port Royale and got some quick-service breakfast. Kids all got Mickey waffles and sausage (can't go wrong there). My wife and I both got the steak, egg, & cheese quesadillas. We probably should have ordered 1 and split it, they were HUGE....and good! This may have been the best quick-service meal we had at the resort. That day for lunch, we had reservations at Akershus for the Storybook Princess Lunch. Now, the key to eating at Akershus is to go into it with an open mind and a taste for something new. Most of the reviews I read prior to eating here was that the food was terrible. I highly disagree! My wife and I both spent time in Europe when we were younger and were looking forward to some Norweigan food. It did not disappoint! Kids got normal kid fare (pizza & hot dogs). My wife got the Mushroom-stuffed Pasta and I got the Traditional Kjottkake (meatballs). Holy cow, was it GOOD! I don't even like mushrooms but took bite of my wife's and it was amazing. Can't say enough about the character interaction! The Princesses were great. My daughter had a look in her eyes that can not be duplicated, priceless. My 2 boys even got them to sign their autograph books and took pictures with the Princesses. Ariel even planed some big red lip marks on my 2 year old son's cheek, hysterical! Highly recommend this place for ANYONE! That night the kids were getting tired and cranky so we headed back to the resort and hit up Old Port Royale again for some quick-service. Kids all got chicken nuggets, always a winner for them. My wife got sliced turkey with mashed potatoes and mac & cheese. I got sliced pork with mashed potatoes and broccolli. It was OK. I'm sure if we had been in the mood for burgers, it may have been a better choice. Anyway, this was it for quick-service at the resort.
3rd day: This was our 'chill' day, no parks. Since we had an 11:00 reservation at 1900 Park Fare, my wife headed down to Old Port Royale and grabbed muffins, danished, juice, & coffee for breakfast in the room. Great choice on our part! 1900 Park Fare did not let us down! This may be the BEST breakfast buffet I've ever eaten at. EVERYTHING was excellent! Omlettes made to order, waffles, scrambled eggs, breakfast pizza, etc. The character interaction was jsut as good as the previous day at Akershus (if not better). The kids LOVED Alice & Mary Poppins! Another highly suggest stop! That night, we lucked into reservations at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club resort. My goodness......best luck of the trip! As far as dinner buffets go this one is #1 in my book. Our kids ate GREAT too! Everything from the calimari to dessert was excellent!
4th day (Animal Kingdom/Magic Kingdom): Did the muffin & danish routine again for breakfast and headed to Animal Kingdom. Caught a quick-service lunch at Pizza-fari. Good stuff! My wife and I had the Italian sandwiches and the kids opted for pizza. Everything was very good. Had dinner reservations at Magic Kingdom for Liberty Tree Tavern. Yet another great meal! Family style buffet: turkey, roast beef, pork brisket, green beans, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, stuffing, & apple cobbler w/ice cream for dessert. Needless to say, we walked out full!
5th day (last one :veryconfu): Did danishes, cereal, & fruit at Old Port Royale before we checked out and head to Downtown Disney for some last minute shopping. Headed to Earl of Sandwich for lunch. Delicious but, if your meal plan has run out it's a bit pricey! LOL
This wraps up my food review! Next, I'll hit on the parks.....
This trip, our main 2 goals were EPCOT & Animal Kingdom (with the hope of making it to Magic Kindom at some point....which we did). We got into town on Sunday afternoon, goofed around at the resort and headed to EPCOT Monday morning. Now, I've already mentioned the bus debacle in my resort review so, I'll let that dog sleep. By the time we got to EPCOT the kids were already in rare form (cranky from the bus wait). Since the line for Spaceship Earth was literally wrapping around the base of the attraction, we headed to Mission: Space and Test Track for Fast Passes and then headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. We had a blast! By the time we got off, it was time for our Storybook Princess lunch. After lunch we grabbed Fast Passes for Maelstrom and back tracked to Mexico for a little 3 Caballeros action! Big crowd pleaser since it's one of our kids' favorite movies. Headed back to Maelstrom after that and made our trek through World Showcase.....in the rain. OK, the rain wasn't that bad but, making the walk around World Showcase with 3 kids was. They weren't that bad but, they were ready to keep riding. This was our 'learning experience' for this trip. Anyhow, my wife took our daughter to meet Tinkerbell and me and the boys headed to Journey in the Imagination with Figment! I was excited to share this one with the kids since it has always been one of my favorite rides at EPCOT. Now, I haven't been to EPCOT since 1996 and my how this attraction has changed. The kids loved it. I however, was a bit disappointed. Not a big fan of the 'update'. After the ride we got back to the Tinkerbell meet & greet just in time to meet my wife and daughter coming out! Back to Journey into the Imagination! From there we found Nemo. What a great upgrade to the Living Seas! The Nemo ride was neat but, Turtle Talk with Crush was a riot! Not sure who liked it more, the kids or my wife! From there we cashed in our Fast Passes for Mission: Space. My 7 year old decided on the 'orange' (more intense) version for us since he wanted to see if Daddy would puke (I didn't by the way, ha ha, score 1 for Dad). Really neat ride, wish it was longer! After that, it was time for my wife and daughter to ride Test Track. My 3 year old daughter had been waiting all day to ride and fell asleep when it was time. My wife told me to go ahead and ride. I went......by myself. It was OK. May have been more fun with my wife. By the time I got off, the kids were tired and hungry so, we decided to call it a day and head back to the resort for a quick meal and bed.
Tuesday was a 'chill' day and Wednesday was our tale of 2 kingdoms, Animal Kindom & Magic Kingdom! I took everyone's advice and headed straight to the Fast Pass for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. After getting those we strolled down the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We had a great time, especially my 2 year old son who has a thing for monkeys right now. He was cracking us up when he saw the Silverback Gorillas! By the time we came off the trail it was time for our Safari ride. What a neat experience! We saw everything from elephants to lions....up close and personal! From there we caught the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch so the kids could meet Rafiki, Jiminy Cricket, & Pocahontas. The kids loved it but, there was not much organization with the meet & greets, mostly because grown adults don't know how to act. It took my wife 3 tries to get a decent shot of the kids with Pocahontas because people kept walking in front of her. Anyway, we caught the train back to the main park and grabbed a bite to eat. After lunch we met Flik and watched 'It's Tought to be a Bug'....what a riot! The line to get into the movie was great as well since in wrapped through the roots of the Tree of Life. Kept the kids entertained! Did I mention at any point that there were at least 7 Brazilian tour groups in the park? We found this out after the movie when the boys and I went to catch up with my wife and daughter (while waiting for the movie, my daughter had to use the bathroom so my wife told us to go on and they'd meet us near the exit). While they were waiting on us they were physically shoved out of they way by a tour group that decided the middle of the park walkways were an appropriate place to stop. My wife, not taking kindly to a teenager shoving our 3 year old daughter, shoved back and had a few choice words for the young man. She had tried previously to be polite but, that approached failed. At that point there was a line just to get into Dinoland, U.S.A. We decided it was time for the kids' big surprise with a bus ride to Magic Kingdom.....caught them totally off guard and made them extremely happy! 1st order of business was Fast Passes for Big Thunder Mountain and then it was off to Pirates of the Carribean and the Carosel (in the rain). From there we got Fast Passes for Winnie the Pooh and then we headed to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. After we got our tummies full we caught Philharmagic for the 1st time. We were all highly entertained! We cut back to Frontierland after this since we had a break in the weather and we were all itching to ride Big Thunder Mountain. My wife and daughter rode 1st and my 7 year old son and I entertained our 2 year old son. We made the switch at the exit and my son and I rode. Headed back to Fantasyland after that for Winnie the Pooh and the Tea Cups! Took a trip to Tomorrowland from there to get Buzz Lightyear Fast Passes and to take a realxing ride on the People Mover. Correct me if I'm wrong but, wasn't there stuff to see on the People Mover?! I remember getting more that the Tomorrowland nickel tour back in the day. Anyhow, we cut across to Adventureland and took the kids through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House to kill time for our Buzz Lightyear Fast Passes. The kids were pretty worn out by the time we got done in the Tree House so we blasted Zurg and headed for the gate. On the bus ride home, I had all 3 kids sleeping on me. This is probably the one memory that will stand out in my mind forever!
Tuesday was a 'chill' day and Wednesday was our tale of 2 kingdoms, Animal Kindom & Magic Kingdom! I took everyone's advice and headed straight to the Fast Pass for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. After getting those we strolled down the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. We had a great time, especially my 2 year old son who has a thing for monkeys right now. He was cracking us up when he saw the Silverback Gorillas! By the time we came off the trail it was time for our Safari ride. What a neat experience! We saw everything from elephants to lions....up close and personal! From there we caught the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch so the kids could meet Rafiki, Jiminy Cricket, & Pocahontas. The kids loved it but, there was not much organization with the meet & greets, mostly because grown adults don't know how to act. It took my wife 3 tries to get a decent shot of the kids with Pocahontas because people kept walking in front of her. Anyway, we caught the train back to the main park and grabbed a bite to eat. After lunch we met Flik and watched 'It's Tought to be a Bug'....what a riot! The line to get into the movie was great as well since in wrapped through the roots of the Tree of Life. Kept the kids entertained! Did I mention at any point that there were at least 7 Brazilian tour groups in the park? We found this out after the movie when the boys and I went to catch up with my wife and daughter (while waiting for the movie, my daughter had to use the bathroom so my wife told us to go on and they'd meet us near the exit). While they were waiting on us they were physically shoved out of they way by a tour group that decided the middle of the park walkways were an appropriate place to stop. My wife, not taking kindly to a teenager shoving our 3 year old daughter, shoved back and had a few choice words for the young man. She had tried previously to be polite but, that approached failed. At that point there was a line just to get into Dinoland, U.S.A. We decided it was time for the kids' big surprise with a bus ride to Magic Kingdom.....caught them totally off guard and made them extremely happy! 1st order of business was Fast Passes for Big Thunder Mountain and then it was off to Pirates of the Carribean and the Carosel (in the rain). From there we got Fast Passes for Winnie the Pooh and then we headed to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. After we got our tummies full we caught Philharmagic for the 1st time. We were all highly entertained! We cut back to Frontierland after this since we had a break in the weather and we were all itching to ride Big Thunder Mountain. My wife and daughter rode 1st and my 7 year old son and I entertained our 2 year old son. We made the switch at the exit and my son and I rode. Headed back to Fantasyland after that for Winnie the Pooh and the Tea Cups! Took a trip to Tomorrowland from there to get Buzz Lightyear Fast Passes and to take a realxing ride on the People Mover. Correct me if I'm wrong but, wasn't there stuff to see on the People Mover?! I remember getting more that the Tomorrowland nickel tour back in the day. Anyhow, we cut across to Adventureland and took the kids through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House to kill time for our Buzz Lightyear Fast Passes. The kids were pretty worn out by the time we got done in the Tree House so we blasted Zurg and headed for the gate. On the bus ride home, I had all 3 kids sleeping on me. This is probably the one memory that will stand out in my mind forever!
Overall, we had an absolute BLAST on this trip. Education wise, we learned the difference between Deluxe and Moderate resorts (we stayed at Wilderness Lodge on our previous trip) and we learned what NOT to do with young kids at EPCOT. We also learned that EARLY June is a better time to go versus LATE June. If you drive down, don't be afraid to drive around Disney property! It can actually turn out to be more convenient. The biggest conclusion we came to is that we will probably spend the extra money and stay at either the Polynesian, Wilderness Lodge, Grand Floridian, or Contemporary until the kids are older. The convenience is worth it. I hope this proves to be useful to someone! Thanks for letting me share! Oh by the way, the Fantasyland Expansion is coming along nicely! We noticed that Ariel's castle is starting to take shape!