Disney Dining... Part One

Ok, as promised here is your Disney Dining Post!  Actually, I'm going to split this up into three different posts because I thought yesterday's was a little long and kind of all over the place and there is a lot of information to go in here.  So, today I will tell you a little about the Disney Dining Plan and why we love it so much and then I will review the restaurants we've eaten in that are in the parks.  Tomorrow I will review the resort restaurants and there are many more of them than ones we've tried in the parks!  And lastly I will go over some of the not-so-ordinary quick service meals that are available, especially if you are deciding not to do the dining plan.

So on with it...

First off, we just discovered the dining plan and how amazing it is on our Christmas trip.  It is not something new and those of you who have been to Disney a bunch of times already know about it and how to use it.  For those of you who have not used it or don't have any idea how it works, then listen up!  If you book a Magic Your Way Package (room and tickets for each night of your stay at Disney), you can add the Disney Dining Plan.  There are different tiers of the dining plan, but we just use the standard one and it works great!

For about $40/person per day of your trip, you get one quickservice meal, one table service meal and one snack.  Trust me, that is all the food you will need in a day!  When we used this over Christmas, I think we brough home about 4 mickey rice krispy treats that counted as "Snacks" because we had to get rid of them before we left! 

Ok, getting into the basics.  Some of you are probably like "what in the world is a quickservice/table service?"  I like to refer to quick service as "kennywood food."  Standard burger, hot dog, chicken nuggets and fries and pizza.  Although, there are other options that I will go over in the third blog of disney dining.  Table service are basically sit-down resteraunts, located across Disney property and there is honestly some restaurant that every single person would love!  They are so diverse and all of them wonderful.  In this category, however, you have to be careful because a handful of table service restaurants are "signature dining" experiences.  For these restaurants, you will need to use 2 table service points.  The other cool thing about the dining plan is that you can use as many points as you want on any day, you just will have to borrow from other days.  So, if you want to do a signature dining, you will just not be able to do a table service another night.  If you're coming for the wedding, this works out perfectly because you could do a signature dining and just use the points that you would have used from the wedding night, since we will be feeding you!  This is definately what we are doing!

One big thing is that reservations for restaurants can be made 180 days in advance, so if you have your heart set on dining in Cinderella's Castle, those reservations need to be made at the 180 day mark!  We're not quite there yet, but I'm just putting it on your radar!  Even though we are getting married in value season where the crowds will be small, it is marathon weekend, so there will be a little more activity than normal so you are going to want to make reservations in advance.  They can be made by calling 407-wdw-dine or online.  Of course you can always call me and I will help too!

Now that you understand how dining works, or at least have the basics, here are some reviews and suggestions!

We'll start with the Magic Kingdom.  The only restaurant that we have eaten in there is the Plaza.  It overlooks the castle and is a diner-style setting that serves mostly burgers.  We ate there when we lived down there and liked that it overlooked the Castle and Main Street while the parade was going on.  In all honesty, not worth it.  The food was a half-step up at best from quick service and the atmosphere is not that great.  We both agree that we would never eat there again.  Sorry to start off on such a negative note!  We are hoping for much better MK dining when we are there in July!

Epcot

San Angel Inn (Mexico) -- We have eaten here on every trip we've taken!  We love this restaurant.  It has a really cool "outside" feel, even though it is in a building.  It is extremely romantic and the food is great and the margaritas are amazing!  They serve chips and dip as you are waiting for your meal and it is overall a great experience and one we will continue to enjoy on every trip.  It's also the kind of restaurant you don't really need a reservation for.  In fact, we have never had a reservation to eat there, especially for lunch.  And since they serve chips and dip, you can get away with splitting two appitizers as your lunch!  Overall, one of our favorites!

Coral Reef -- This is the restaurant probably most showcased on every show you've ever watched that went to Disney World.  Most notably in Full House, this is where Jesse and Joey do their underwater radio broadcast and Danny attempts to propose to Vicki.  I have been here three times.  On my very first trip to Disney World in 6th grade, on a trip my mom and I took while I was in college for a few days and this is where Kevin and I shared our Christmas dinner this past year.  Another winner.  The atmosphere is amazing with the floor-to-ceiling aquarium and the food is just as great.  Of course we had seafood and it was wonderful.  A definate recommendation.

Hollywood Studios

50's Prime Time Cafe -- Amy and I went here on one of my solo trips and it is ok.  The portions are large and the food is good and the decor is amazing.  The only thing I didn't like was that the "atmosphere" is supposed to represent life in the 50's and you get yelled at by your "mother/waitress" for not eating your green beans, have to stand up and be embarassed and get told you aren't allowed to order dessert.  That's just not the kind of thing I prefer to pay for.  Now, my experience was great (i.e. neither one of us got yelled at!) but we did witness another table getting scolded!  If that's your thing or you think it's funny, the food is worth it, very homestyle!

Hollywood and Vine -- This was another one of our favorites from our Christmas trip.  It's a buffet located right next to 50's Prime Time Cafe.  The food is great and we really enjoyed ourselves.  They serve a little bit of everything, so it was nice to eat some fresh fruit and salad in addition to our prime rib!  All of the food was fresh and hot and they were constantly swapping food out so it never sat around long, which is a common problem with buffets.  This is one we will be returning to in the future for sure!

That wraps up our parks restaurant tour.  As you can see, we don't eat in the parks all that much.  The resort restaurants are much better and most of them are more fun!  Tomorrow I will review the eight resort restaurants that we've tried! 

Orlando in July

I'm not going to lie... I hate Orlando in July!  (No, I did not intend for that to rhyme!)  So then, why you ask, are we planning our Orlando vacation in July?!  Simple.  We are not able to do a planning session until 6 months before the wedding because that is when they are able to lock in our prices.  If we go in August, the prices change to the 2011 prices and there will most likely be an increase.  We would like to lock in the 2010 prices we are comfortable with!

So, as much as I would rather wait until September, we are going in July.  I booked us a room at POP Century resort, which is one of our wedding resorts.  We have never stayed in a value resort before and truthfully, I'm a little nervous.  I was going to just say the heck with it and spend the extra $200 and stay in a moderate, but then saw that it was only $150 more than that to stay in a deluxe.  I had to hurry up and book the value before I ended up spending more on our planning trip report than our whole honeymoon will cost and before Kevin killed me!  All in all, I'm glad we are staying at POP.  I've swam there before and I think it has a fun vibe to it.  I have heard nothing but great things about the resort and the only reason I was nervous is because it is SO BIG!  We loved staying at Port Orleans French Quarter because it was small and quaint.  If we were flying down and using Disney transportation, I would have INSISTED we stay in at least a moderate because the busses get extremely crowded in prime season.  Since we are driving and will have our car there, I don't care about Disney's transportation and just figure we will drive most of the time anyway!

I figured by staying at POP that I can give our guests an honest recommendation of how I felt the hotel was.  We stayed at Coronado Springs for our first trip on property together and absolutely loved it.  We almost blocked rooms at French Quarter instead because of the size, but we wanted to give our guests a resort that had sit-down dining and Coronado also has two outdoor bars!  We will be staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge and although we haven't stayed there yet, we have been there for dinner and it is amazing!  All this resort talk makes me want to go to Disney right now!

So, in true Meagan fashion, what started out as a simple, lets go to Disney for a few days, we will share meals and have our planning session turned into an all out Disney extravaganza!  This is the first time Kevin and I have ever been to Disney where we are not meeting up with anyone, so we are looking forward to the relaxation part of the trip, although we will miss seeing Amy and Jeff!  However, since I discovered that they now offer the Disney Dining Plan (the best thing in the world!) to annual pass holders (yes, we will officially have annual passes starting in July!), I have been rushing to make dining reservations at all of the restaurants we've been dying to try!!  One really cute thing about Kevin is that he gets really excited (like me!) when we start talking about our Disney trips!  Most of the time he is so go-with-the-flow and when we start talking about Disney, he gets so into it and puts in his thoughts.  So we have three days of restaurants booked, I just need to figure out two more.  Kevin put his vote in immediately for a breakfast with the characters buffet (I told you he's adorable!) since we would have enjoyed Cape May Cafe more if we hadn't celebrated our engagement with Amy and Jeff the night before at Jellyrolls... 

For Kevin, I booked us at Chef Mickey's for breakfast in the Contemporary, which is somewhere that we are never able to get reservations for!  I also booked us dinner at the Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom for the night we arrive and Ohana in the Polynesian one night.  These are all places we have been trying to get into forever!  We are still debating over where to have our "really nice" dinner.  Our choices are California Grill on top of the Contemporary, Narcoossee's in the Grand Floridian or Jiko in Animal Kingdom Lodge.  We have never been to Cali Grill or Jikos so we are not sure what to expect.  I went to Jikos in the bar area once because we found out Dave Matthews had dining reservations there (and he totally sat down at our table and talked to me, Amy and Tonya and it was amazing) but all we had were drinks and a flatbread.  After not being extremely impressed with Citricos on our Christmas trip, we are nervous about trying something new.  Kevin votes for Narccoossee's.  My mom and Blaine took us there for my early birthday dinner in 2008 and it was really good.  Although I'm not sure if I remember how good the food was or how my mom made sure we had the perfect seat right in front of the castle during fireworks and tapped on the glass when someone outside stood in front of our table! :)  Unfortunately the restaurant we've been dying to try in Epcot's Canada, Le Cellier, is booked solid for dinner the entire week we are there!  They have lunch times available, but that is a heavy meal for lunch and we really wanted to enjoy it right before Illuminations.  Oh well, something we will save for the wedding week I guess.

In addition to eating, we have other things jam-packed through the week.  I will be doing a hair and makeup trial since we will not be back before the wedding (according to Kevin...)  We will also be having our engagement picutres taken while we are down there.  We are having them done at the Polynesian/Grand Floridian resorts by our photographer (www.mistymiotto.com).  I am so excited that we get to meet her and work with her before the wedding so that on our wedding day it will be like seeing a friend, instead of a complete stranger watching our every move.  I guess I need to get on the ball and call her and get a contract started for the engagement sesssion....  add it to the list of things to do!

And for the main reason for the trip (or at least how I rationalized it was so important we go down!) the planning session.  One of the days we are down there, we are working with our sales coordinator now to get the date finalized, we will be meeting with our wedding planner.  During this meeting we will discuss everything we want at the wedding.  We will design all of the floral, table settings, music and the cake!  We get to taste test a bunch of cake samples (Kevin's super excited for this!) and pick out exactly what we want.  Disney can make anything we wish come true, so this should be a really fun day!  We also get to do a menu tasting at the Grand Floridian for what we want to serve for our guests.

I keep wavering between a buffet and sit down.  Normally a sit down would be a no-brainer, but with the amazing food Disney has to offer, a buffet can showcase a range of food and offer our guests many choices.  As you can see, eating is a big part of our trip down there.  I think Kevin ate prime rib for about 5 out of 9 meals during our Christmas trip!  Thank goodness for the Disney Dining plan!!  But because we know that not everyone coming down will be making lavish dining plans that week, this would be a really great way to show them some of our favorites.  One really cool thing about Disney is that you can take things you like (i.e. Canadian Cheese Soup from Epcot) and have them at your wedding!  Now I dont think the cheese soup will make it onto our menu, although I HIGHLY recommend having it during your trip, but there are bunches of things we have enjoyed throughout our dining expereinces that we would love for everyone to try!

Coming Soon.... Disney Dining reviews and some tips for using the Dining Plan! 

I'm a bad blogging bride!

I admit it, I'm a bad blogging bride!  Honestly, right now there isn't too much to share, and the things that I am doing are in such early phases that they aren't ready to be shown to the world (or the three people that read this!)  I guess this "planning blog" is going to morph into a little planning and some other life things. In addition to not too much to share, I've been busy with school work and trying to get this house all together!  We are taking on a roommate, my friend Michelle, which means that I HAVE to have one of the extra bedrooms cleaned out by this weekend as she will be moving in April 1st!  We are really excited to have Michelle come live with us for awhile.  She is from Indiana (the state) and was living in a lonely apartment on the North Shore and is staying here until at least August, when she will move back home with her fiance and get married!  We are going to have so much fun wedding planning while she is here!  Hopefully that will mean more updates too!

So, as I promised, I am updating the Save the Dates.  I blew the magnet up and besides it being a little pixel-y and the fact that apparently my scanner needs cleaned asap, it doesn't look too bad.  I also have one part of the newsletter that went out with it.

I am going to try to be a better blogger now that school will be coming to a close next month.  Maybe tomorrow I will update on our planning session trip we have planned!  Stay tuned....

Save the Dates

Our Save The Dates went out today.... finally.  I cannot tell you the anguish that I went through to get these suckers out!  I know, I know Disney sends out formal STDs, so why send my own?

Well the answer is simple... Disney waits until 7-8 months out to send them.  I wanted to let my guests know as soon as possible (especially the ones we haven't gotten to see since the engagement) so they can begin thinking about their plans.  My original plan was to have these puppies mailed the second week of February.  Well, I'm about two weeks behind!

The sad part is I designed them and had them printed in January right after we got home from Disney!  I just kept dragging my feet making the newsletter.  Then one day, I had a brilliant idea.... make the newsletter at work while I'm bored!  SUCCESS! 

So, if you've been waiting, you should be receiving your Save the Date any day now.  And if you don't get one, too bad... hahaha... no just kidding!  I really only sent them to out-of-town guests and guests that we don't see on a weekly basis!  So no fears if you don't receive one from me.... you will get your formal one from Disney!

I will post them on here in a few days after everyone has received theirs so if you weren't on the list, you won't miss out!