The Picky Kid and Foodie Mom (with less tiny tummy) Return!... and eat! Updated: Epcot!

The one thing I just could not fit into our trip schedule was Ample Hills and I'm sad about it all over again looking at your photos.
 
Joining. Congrats on your weight loss! You look Great! Love your reviews! I think we are going to have to try that Garden Grill Breakfast next time we go. My daughter and I take trips when we can, usually every 3-4 years. She is on the spectrum, along with OCD, ADHD, and dev delayed. We LOVE our Disney trips! Those chicken and waffles at wilderness lodge look pretty awesome also.
 


Day 2: Sunshine Seasons Lunch!

I am half wondering if the amount I enjoyed that show had anything to do with that, but I guess I will never know.

Up Next: Food Booths!

Funny Story, my sis and I see this particular show/booze session regularly and we always state we have no idea if the show is actually good or not since we've never seen it sober. Your comment just really made me LOL
 
Enjoying your report. My DS is also on the spectrum and can be a picky eater, also, so seeing what is available for a picky Disney adult is helpful.

I was :rotfl2:with what you said about taking the wine in the water bottle. Sounds like something I would have done.

Carry on...
 


Day 1: Crystal Palace Dinner!

So by about 4:30 we were REALLY dragging after our long day and the kiddo wanted to check in early for our Crystal Palace dinner. At first I thought it would just cause trouble but then I realized it was a less than prime time and they still had ADRs so we went over and checked in and were seated pretty quickly.

Crystal Palace is one of our (ok my) not to miss meals at WDW, but we usually do breakfast because I'm too cheap to pay for buffet dinners and because dinner food is better made to order than it is on a buffet, while I find disney breakfast to be pretty much the same buffet or made to order to be quite honest. Also. I'm cheap. Also. breakfast lasagna. But since I decided to do the DDP and capture our more expensive TS meals at the front end of the trip, this seemed like pretty much the ideal first day dinner.

We have seen Christopher Robin a bunch of times, which has given my child some interest in Pooh beyond "it makes mom happy." So he was looking forward to this meal too.

I have read pretty meh reviews on the lunch/dinner buffet here - last time I was here in 2014, though, I remember enjoying it just fine, so I was honestly not sure what to expect. I kept my expectations pretty low, but they were exceeded by a mile and we ended up really really enjoying this meal. I mean it's a buffet, but in general everything was hot (that was meant to be!), well prepared, fresh and delicious, if not the most interesting thing in the world. The restaurant was about half empty at that time of the day and it did not feel like a regular zooey character meal. It was actually a pretty chill overall experience and much appreciated at the end of a long travel day where we'd been going for 12 hours already.

Our last dinner buffet was H&V in December 2016 and although that was far better than I expected (I was prepared for the worst) the food was MUCH better here. Honestly I'd happily do either breakfast OR dinner here again ... even though dinner is pricier, if it fit into my schedule better (as this did) I would not feel bad about doing it - whereas H&V I left feeling like I would not pay OOP for it and might only do it again during a holiday where I wanted to see the characters (Halloween or Christmas) AND on the DDP. There was nothing BAD about it but nothing that left me wanting to do it again.

Anyway on to the food!

The kid got up and attended to by himself while I waited for the server to show up and take drink orders (only benefit of having a disney adult kid is that they can pretty much attend to themselves in the bathroom and at buffets). No pics of drinks but pretty sure the kid got a chocolate milk as he usually does and I got a glass of Fess Parker Riesling. I have no real memory of it which means it was fine... it was not mineraly or I would have remembered that (I do not like that in a riesling). I think it is fine and since it is my favorite type of wine I appreciate having some form of riesling on all of the Disney menus rather than just pino and chardonnay, neither of which I love.

He was starving and honestly I am thinking I may always do a buffet for arrival day dinner because it's nice to not have to wait for ordering and prep and just be able to sit and chow down immediately.

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Bread. Mac and Cheese. Nuggets. Permissive vacation mom was in full force as I briefly thought about making another trip with him right then and there to see what he could try but then decided I was too bone tired to do that so I let him be.

For my first plate I tried a bit of everything that looked interesting.

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Starting at about 11 o'clock and going clockwise I had some weird slaw salad (did not like), some tomato and feta salad that I have no memory of, which means I was probably neutral on it, marinated cucumber and red onion salad that was delicious - vinegary and sweet and fresh and crunchy and some of the beet salad which was deliciously sweet... the little cubes of sweet beet went great with the more bitter greens. Then I had a couple of peel and eat shrimp with way too much cocktail sauce - these were solid tasty peel and eat shrimp with no off flavors or textures. Just your basic solid shrimp and the cocktail sauce has a little horseradish bite and does not taste overpoweringly like high fructose corn syrup like supermarket cocktail sauce does, so I enjoyed it. Next is the honey soy salmon which was absolutely delicious, with a sweet (but not cloyingly so) crispy glazed top and cooked the way I like it - I don't like rare salmon, I know that is not the foodie way to go but I don't like the texture (or salmon sushi, but I do like tuna). I always choose a piece from the thick part and it was done without being dry. Next are the pierogis, which I freaking LOVE and I have not had in nearly 2 years and I don't care if they are basically mini Mrs. T's pierogis, they were delicious topped with shredded parmesan and caramelized onions and fresh chives. I LOVED these. And then in the middle is jambalaya, which I basically mined a couple of shrimp and a couple of cubes of sausage out of and whatever little bit of rice stuck to it. This had more of a kick than I expected and and I really liked it a lot.

The characters came around while we were eating plate one and as tired as I was, we enjoyed them. Got the handler to take a pic of us with Pooh but I do wish they would make more of an effort to get kids to look at the camera rather than just snapping away... my child needs you to get his attention. Oh well.

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I will say I have also heard mixed reviews about character interaction here. There were a lot of little kids and the characters did not really seem to want to dawdle at our table UNTIL we started talking to them, and then they got really interactive. The kid LOVES Christopher Robin the movie and I mentioned we had seen it, Pooh got a LOT more perfunctory when I said that. So I would say on character interaction... sometimes you get out what you put in. If you give them something to latch on to they are happy to give you a more personalized experience but if you just stand and pose for photos, it's more likely you'll just get something more standard.

Anyway we both ended up going back for a second plate, as I can graze quite a bit of food in (for me) if I sit around and eat over the space of an hour, which is what we ended up doing. Kid's second plate

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This time I helped him get some carved strip loin from the carving station, which I then trimmed up for him. He liked it fine, and more mac and cheese.

My second:

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More of the same with the addition of one chicken nugget and a tiny spoon of the corn spoonbread. I have read this is disappointing as well but it was delicious, sweet and warm and comforting... maybe because I don't normally eat carbs I am less picky, I don't know. The chicken nugget was standard disney chicken nugget - salty and crispy and delicious... the nuggets at the buffets are tiny though, that's about the size of a quarter. 2 bites at most! Second plate is always "eyes bigger than stomach" and i just picked at this and left most of the salmon as protein really fills me the most.

Then it was time for dessert. CP does have an ice cream machine, which is a favorite of the picky kid. The kid got himself a big bowl and topped it off with a toffee molten brownie bite. What can I say, he's my kid and has his priorities right. We don't do cake a la mode, we do ice cream with a little cake!

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Here is my dessert plate:

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On the back is an orange chocolate chip brown pudding which I tried because I love bread pudding but it tasted like what I expected, that kind of gross sharp tasting fake orange and this was a big miss for me. I tried the toffee brownie bite thing and honestly was going to just have a bite (I am usually fine with a bite or two of something sweet after dinner.. I don't need an entire dessert and didn't even before surgery) but this was so delicious I ended up eating the whole thing. One thing anyone considering bariatric surgery should know is that if you don't have dumping (and I have the sleeve, so I don't) carbs go down REAL easy without making you feel full at all. I am not really so much into desserts so it's not a struggle for me really but I think that is how a lot of people gain back weight... sweets and chips and what they call "slider foods" that just go right down without making you feel full. Even though I was pretty full I still had room for that thing and a little bit of ice cream!

Overall even though we were both EXHAUSTED by now after being up at 4am for our flight, this was a great meal.

I would give it a solid "Disney Buffet" A. I don't think it is fair to rate a Disney Buffet against regular TS meals and although the food is not quite up to a Boma, with the addition of characters it gets the "A" for overall experience with very tasty food and solid character interaction. Crystal Palace remains on our do not miss list and although I'd still rather pay breakfast prices, I will not fear the lunch/dinner either.

Dining Plan Value Tally ($604 total): 1TS, 1QS, 1 Snack, $62.80 + $109.28 =$172.08 - $431.92 to break even (note, AP discounted prices are used for TS since we would have gotten the 10% off)

so for one day worth of eating, minus 3 snacks, we are running about $21 in extra value. Not bad!

Up next: PPO Garden Grill. A big hit last time, does it live up to the memory??? Stay tuned and see!
I'm following along - for what its worth I LOVE the kid candid photos and would prefer having ones where kids are looking at the characters- your boy is so cute looking at Pooh :)
 
Day 2: Garden Grill PPO Breakfast!

I won't lie, this meal has been one of our favorites on both of our last trips... which to me, sets up high expectations, which raises the chances of disappointment. I try not to repeat TOO many things because I find that between trips your estimation of how great it was last time grows and the experience has bigger and bigger shoes to fill every time. But our last two times doing this it was such an incredible awesome way to start our Epcot day, it was one of the kiddo's top 5 requests for "must do" so we did it.

Also I will say that in my 20+ years going to Disney, I have never taken the bus. I always rent a car, I don't like buses really... but I have a 7 night fantasy cruise planned for February 2020 (and they just announced the Star Wars Day at Sea! YEAH!!!!!!) which is currently #1 on my bucket list of things to do with my kiddo. He will be 11 by then which IMO is the sweetest spot of all to be in on the cruise - still young enough to do the "kid" stuff which is up to 12 (including Jedi Training) but also old enough to hang with the tween crowd, 11-14. So in an attempt to save money to put toward the cruise, I skipped the car.

So it was kind of unnerving trying to get to Epcot for a PPO breakfast, but unlike the published schedules - the buses WERE running between 7-8am and we got on one and were there by about 7:30... unfortunately to find out that the procedure had changed and they hold the PPO breakfast people OUTSIDE the gates until just a couple of minutes before 8am. I asked a CM how you're supposed to make an 8am breakfast if they won't let you in until 8am and he said "they know at the restaurant." yeah well, I booked it at 8am so that we could be seated at 8am so we could have time to get on Soarin'. So I was super edgy waiting and not real happy about the change in process.

But we were through the gates a couple of minutes after 8 and maybe 10 minutes late for our ADR (I do NOT run for anything at Disney) but we were seated almost immediately, only delayed a couple of minutes because I asked for a lower booth and we were accommodated. Fortunately that little bump in the road turned out to be nothing honestly. Our waitress was fantastic and right on it, and we were greeted by the big cheese himself immediately upon being seated!

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a couple of minutes later the food started showing up and we were HUNGRY

First comes the sticky bun, fruit and beverages.

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mama had to have some coffee, and of course my beloved POG juice. in my experience the sticky bun thing is kind of hit or mess depending on how fresh it is even at PPO. My kid is less picky than I am so always loves it, but me being not much of a sweets person, I am VERY fussy about that kind of a thing. I will say that this time the sticky bun was the best we'd ever had. Fresh, warm, loaded with icing. YUM. This should mean a lot from a not super into sweets person!

This is my plate while waiting for the good stuff and yes I managed to only eat that much sticky bun!!!View attachment 380128

I will say too that Disney fruit is very hit and miss (everyone knows this) especially way out of season in January but the fruit here was all delicious! The strawberries were much better than they looked and even the melon was good.

After not too long and more character visits (they come around QUICKLY there at this time of morning) and our usual huge fun with chip and dale over the kiddo's chip and dale ears, the hot food came out.

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starting at 12 o'clock it's tater tots, bacon, waffles, scrambled eggs, and sausage.... see how the fruit doesn't look so great? It tasted WAY better than it looked. Also you can see the fresh salsa and the little container of chocolate hazelnut sauce peeking out int he lower right corner.

And here is my plate, which I think showcases the food better:

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Honestly, this is the BEST experience we've had at Garden Grill breakfast yet. You can maybe see a bit from my plate how perfectly everything is cooked (actually the sausage looks weird but it wasn't, haha). The bacon was perfectly crisp and not greasy, the tots were perfect crisp, the eggs were light and fluffy and not dry nor runny and the waffles were hot and fresh and crisp, and I do have a thing for Disney breakfast sausage. That salsa was To. Die. For. If you do not like garlic you won't like it, as it has plenty of fresh, raw chopped garlic in it... this was unexpected but OMG so good. I loved every bite of this meal, and even tried my son's famed "tater tots dipped in nutella" trick from last time:

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the kid was definitely onto something. That said this time he just went all out sugar rush and poured the chocolate sauce on the sticky bun. Permissive vacation mom was definitely in the house because I let him. oh well!

Breakfast was over and done and paid in about 45 minutes including seeing the characters at least 2x each (Mickey 3x including one last hug on the way out). We got right on Soarin' and were off by a couple of minutes past 9. This remains our absolute favorite start to any Disney day... the food, while basic, was spot on this time and the character interaction was fantastic as always. We've also always had great, efficient, friendly servers here.

I give this an A+ for food and characters, will not miss next time.

This meal was OOP for us on the DDP because I had 4 big dinners planned... even moreso when I decided to add the Broadway package to it because it was under $50 pp for 2 credits - not a good value at all. I have read you don't NEED the broadway package but it cost me about $9 more per person after they added AP discount to this package for what turned out to be AMAZING seating on the first show of the first day of the Festival... I had been planning to do GG anyway and it was totally worth the extra $18 for that guaranteed seating. The theater DID fill up behind us during that show and it was worth it for the peace of mind. I am not sure I'd book a meal I hadn't planned on for it but it was worth the upcharge for something I was doing anyway. Here is the non zoomed in view, we were about row 4 a little stage left of center.

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Also, the show was AWESOME. Kiddo was in his school production of Mary Poppins and we had a great time at this show.

Up next: Sunshine Seasons for Lunch, and "is that a bottle of pee you're carrying???"
I'm wondering about this show- can't see it with the Garden Grill in August...
Kids loved GG ( Mac n cheese with goldfish crackers) but I wasn't very impressed. We only looked at the top scenes from below and only had Chip and Dale for characters...
 

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