April 2011 - Newbies on the DxDP - Updated 5/12 - Akershus & Sunshine Seasons

[chasemac]

Our family of 5, plus my dad booked our April 2011 trip in early January and also booked the deluxe dining plan to go along with it. We thought we were done... until I started researching things and found out we were supposed to have ADR's for all of these meals, OOPS! After reading several threads/posts on the DIS (and thank goodness for the DIS), I made a plan of what parks we were going on which days and from there started to make my ADR's. The good news is that even just a few weeks out we were able to get most of the places we wanted. All of our lunch ADR's were made within a few days of our arrival, as I had a last minute panic that I should have planned lunch each day instead of winging it.

Along for the trip: me, DH, DS 15 years old, DD 6 years old, DS 3 years old and my dad. All of us were on the Deluxe Dining Plan, except for my dad who was paying out of pocket. I met a lot of resistance from my dad and my husband when it came to planning the ADR's and also our days in the park. My DH is one of those "I come on vacation to relax and sleep in" kind of people and my dad just didn't want to be tied down to set reservations. Thankfully, I stood my ground and everything worked out.

I love reading detailed reviews, but didn't go into my trip thinking I would do a dining report, so I didn't take any pictures Of course, now that I am back, I really want to write reviews of all of different places. And, I really wished I had pictures but hopefully you will enjoy my reviews without the pictures.

So here we go... I will be reviewing the following places:
Boatwright's - Dinner
Liberty Tree Tavern - Lunch
'Ohana- Dinner
Akershus - Breakfast
Sunshine Seasons - Lunch
Le Cellier - Dinner
Kona Cafe - Dinner
Prime Time 50's - Lunch
Yachtsman - Dinner
Tusker House - Breakfast
Yak & Yeti - Lunch
Whispering Canyon - Dinner

I hope these reviews will be helpful to those planning their upcoming trips!

 

[chasemac]

I had read very mixed reviews about Boatwright's and this is probably the reservation I was most unsure about. However, it fit the bill being that it was at our resort. Our flights arrived around 2 pm, by the time we got checked in and settled we were ready for our 5:30 ADR. Our luggage had not arrived, so we were still in travel clothes but were able to freshen up a bit. We checked in and after a 10 minute wait, we were seated near the back of the restaurant.

The atmosphere was very neat at Boatwright's. The unfinished hull of a boat hangs overhead the main dining room and there are different tools and implements on the walls. My dad and DH both enjoyed looking at this stuff as both are handy with tools and my dad enjoys boats.

Since 3 of us were on the DxDP, we got 3 apps. We ended up ordering 2 orders of the Bourbon BBQ shrimp and 1 order of the crawfish bites. The crawfish bites were good, the BBQ shrimp, not so much. The sauce of the BBQ shrimp was thick almost like A1 sauce and had a funny taste. Being from the south and a veteran of cajun cuisine, this was not what we were expecting. Usually BBQ shrimp at a cajun restaurant back home or in New Orleans has a much lighter sauce. For entrees, my dad, DS15 and I all ordered the same thing - the grilled tenderloin medallions. These were delicious. They had a great taste and were very tender. We all ordered them medium rare and they came out just right. The side items were good but not great. My DH had the pasta with shrimp, which he disliked immensly . He only ate a few bites. To be fair to Boatwright's, this was probably not a problem with the dish but moreso that my DH didn't really look very closely at the description. It is clearly meant to be a mediterranean type dish which is not my hubby's thing... he thought it was going to be a cajun type dish. The food was served with cornbread and butter which was good and went well with the food and style of the restaurant. For dessert we had 2 orders of the bananas foster angel food cake and the no sugar added lemon cake. The bananas foster cake was just average. The cake itself was very dry and the sauce a little overpowering. The lemon cake was very dense and dry and had little taste, although the berries were good.

Overall the meal was okay. We enjoyed parts of it (the tenderloins were very good) and other parts were average or below average. Our server was not good at all, we had a hard time communicating with her and she did not do a good job on refilling our drinks. When we got our check, we were soooo glad we had the Dining Plan. I can't remember the exact amount, but our check was for well over $150 and definitely the cost did not match up to the overall quality. Also, just a note... my DS3 and DD6 are not adventurous eaters. They ate chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and the like at almost every restaurant. So, I probably won't go into detail on their meals unless there is a reason.

Looking back if I had to rate this compared to all of our other experiences at Disney it would probably be a 6 out of 10.

 

[MickeyNicki]

Count me in!

 

[butiflfeet]

Great start! I'm looking forward to reading more

 

[chasemac]

This was a last minute reservation, I made it just a few days before we left on our trip and I am glad that I did. I was unsure if we would want to waste valuable park time at a sit down lunch, but it worked out great. We got to the MK at 7:30 am for an 8 am rope drop. Our ADR was for 11:30, so by the time that rolled around, we were hungry. We only waited a couple of minutes to be seated. I wish I could remember our server's name, because he was awesome. One of the best servers we had the entire trip.

We ordered 3 apps - 2 orders of the tavern fried cheese and 1 order of the crab and spinach dip (even though it said it was for 2, our server let us count that as one app credit). They were both very tasty and we were very hungry because we gobbled them up and there was not much left.

We were also very thirsty and our server kept on top of this, keeping our drinks refilled. I ordered the pot roast, DH ordered the Freedom Pasta (and I believe they let him get both chicken and shrimp in the pasta), my dad ordered the burger and my son ordered the tri-corner sandwich. The pot roast was very tasty and was a nice size portion. My dad really enjoyed his burger and said it hit the spot. I tried a bite of the tri-corner sandwich, which was bascially a roast beef and cheese sandwich on focaccia. It was very good, maybe a little heavy on the horseradish. DH, enjoyed the pasta but did note that it was the same basic pasta as the night before, albeit with a different preparation.

Desserts were the apple tart with butterscotch ice cream (soooo good) and 2 orders of the ooey gooey cake which was also very decadent. I really wanted to finish the apple tart but knew I still had hours left at MK, so only ate a few bites.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal a lot more than our dinner at Boatwright's the night before. The timing was perfect, it was a nice break from the park. The service was excellent and the food was good. Our rating for Liberty Tree Tavern was an 8 out of 10, compared to our other Disney dining experiences. Also, I am editing this to add that this was the only server who did not add the requisite 18% tip on for our party (we had 6). He got much more than 18% because he was a great server!

 

[EeyoreEma]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[peanut520]

Count me in. We are planning to eat at a lot of the same places on our first trip in September.

 

[chasemac]

Yay! I have followers! Hope you enjoy the reviews.

We ate at 'Ohana following our first full day at Disney. I thought we would go straight from MK to eat, but we were worn out by 3, so went back to our resort for a rest, then freshened up and headed to 'Ohana. We took the bus to the MK, then the boat to the Poly and it was very nice. The poly is beautiful, we would have loved to stay there. (Next time, maybe!). Our reservation was for 8:00 pm. We checked in and waited about 10 minutes before our buzzer went off. We had a nice size table (There were 6 of us) and the tables were not squeezed in too close. I was a little nervious about this because when I first booked it, I heard great things, but then later on some not so great things.

This ended up being one of our favorite meals. My 3 year old was a little cranky, but once they started bringing the food out he perked up. As soon as we sat down, we were served bread followed by salad. My kids devoured the bread. The salad was okay, in my opinion the weakest part of the meal, but that could have been that there was not a lot of dressing. Soon after, we were served chicken wings and pot stickers. The chicken wings were delicious! My husband cannot eat seeds of any kind and there were little seeds on the wings. He asked our server if she could get him some without and they were happy to oblige... bringing us a huge plate of wings without the seeds. More than enough for our table. My older son devoured the pot stickers. Soon after our server brought the noodles. These were delicious, one of my favorite parts of the meal. i could have eaten 3 bowls of these! About this time, I realized there was not going to be much my 6 year old daughter would eat, and our server was happy to put in an order of chicken nuggets for her, even though it was not "on the menu" so to speak.

We were soon bombarded with skewers of chicken, pork, steak and shrimp. I had a few bites of each, but was getting full fast. My dh, 15 year old son and dad are all big meat eaters (the 15 year old's nickname is Oreck, like the vacuum). They ate and ate and ate and then ate some more. My guys prefer their steak Medium Rare to Rare, so asked our server and once again she was glad to oblige, bringing over 2 skewers of Medium Rare beef. I thought the shrimp and the pork were fantastic, with lots of flavor. The pork was seasoned really well. The shrimp were super good, but a lot of work (and messy!) to peel. The chicken was the weakest of the meats to me, it was a little dry but still very tasty. In between bites, the guys were praising me for my choice for dinner that night. I don't even remember what the sauces were, I know there were 2 that we really enjoyed and one that wasn't a big hit with our group. One of the complaints I read about was people getting too much of one type of meat and not enough of another. We did not have that problem, we recieved generous portions of everything and it was all timed very well. I passed on dessert that night, but the guys had dessert, I think it was a bread pudding. We were all stuffed and happy, the best way to leave a restaurant!

All in all, this was in our top 2 or 3 for the trip. The atmosphere was fun, the food was delicious. It was very busy in there, and I think our service suffered a little bit because of it, but was still pretty good. We enjoyed watching the kids parade around, but my little ones were worn out. They both fell asleep on the boat and bus on the way back to the resort. On my scale of 1-10, I would give 'Ohana an 8.5. This will defnitely be on our to-do list if (no, when) we return to WDW.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

subscribing - like the sound of Liberty Tree Tavern lunch - we have never been since they lost the characters but may have to give them another go.

 

[Stellaluna]

Thanks for posting the Boatwrights review. I don't see a lot of them. We are staying at POR next go around and I was debating eating there one night since it would be convenient. I think now we may skip it.

And we love love loved O'hana too when we were there, can't wait to go again.

Great reviews!

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

Great Reviews even without pictures!

 

[chasemac]

Great Reviews even without pictures!

Thanks so much... I am kicking myself for not taking pictures. As I am already plotting my return trip, I will make sure to take pictures then!

I have a question... hopefully one of you guys can help me out. When I am doing these reviews, I would like to link them in my original post, like I have seen other reviewers do. I cannot figure this out, I am usually pretty good at this kind of stuff, but this one has me stumped!

 

[chasemac]

Thanks for posting the Boatwrights review. I don't see a lot of them. We are staying at POR next go around and I was debating eating there one night since it would be convenient. I think now we may skip it.

And we love love loved O'hana too when we were there, can't wait to go again.

Great reviews!

Thanks! If we stay at POR next trip, Boatwright's will not be on our list of preferred places to eat. It was not awful.. but definitely not worth paying OOP. I thought it would work out perfectly since it was at our resort and the ADR was for day of arrival. However, we went to Downtown Disney after dinner and could have easily eaten at some great places there. The beef tenderloins were really good - very tender, cooked well and had a great flavor. But, the rest of it was kind of "meh". It is probably a good idea to look elsewhere.

 

[Stellaluna]

Thanks so much... I am kicking myself for not taking pictures. As I am already plotting my return trip, I will make sure to take pictures then!

I have a question... hopefully one of you guys can help me out. When I am doing these reviews, I would like to link them in my original post, like I have seen other reviewers do. I cannot figure this out, I am usually pretty good at this kind of stuff, but this one has me stumped!

To get the url of your review post, click on the post number in the upper right hand corner. It will open the post in a new window. Just copy that url and use the post tools to make your original list link to the individual posts.

 

[Trinity524]

I'm in!

I hope you will say in the end if you thought the Deluxe was worth the additional money. I keep going back and forth with my decision.

 

[princeryanandevan]

Loving your reviews so far - can't wait to read more!

 

[ilovepete]

Great reviews! I normally don't stick around for ones without pictures but I am enjoying yours.

 

[Disneyfreak616]

Great reviews so far! Thanks!

 

[danalee]

Great job, cant wait for more

 

[chasemac]

Hi guys, sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this. This has been one of "those" weeks. DH has been out of town off and on and between kids activities and packing for a weekend trip... busy busy.

So, I am going to jump back in with my review of Akershus Princess Breakfast at Epcot, which was our 2nd full day at WDW. I had originally tried to book Cinderella's Royal Table at just a couple of months out, I tried several times to get reservations but no luck. CRT was actually the only place that I wanted reservations that I could not get. While I was a little bummed, I figured that my six year old DD (Caroline) wouldn't know the difference.

We lucked out and got an 8:05 ADR, which allowed for early entry into the park. Caroline dressed in her new Rapunzel dress and was very excited. We walked all the way through Epcot without a crowd, stopping to look at the amazing topiaries along the way (this was during the Flower & Garden festival). Our favorites were the Winnie the Pooh and friends topiary and the Lightning McQueen topiary. My 3 year old son was thrilled with this one.

We checked in right at 8 and were taken in with just a few minutes wait. Upon entering, we stood in line for about 3 minutes, then went into a little room where Belle was holding court. Caroline was star struck as this was her first princess sighting. My 3 year old would not go in there. After talking with Belle and posing for a picture, we were shown to our table. Our server was a lovely girl from Norway, who was working her last week at Epcot before heading back home. The restaurant itself is themed great - banners hanging from the ceiling, ornate chairs and tapestries. It really felt like you were in a medieval banquet hall. We were seated at a table near a window overlooking the Norway courtyard.

After taking our drink orders, our server directed us to the cold buffet, which had an assortment of danishes, muffins, fruit, yogurt and some Norway specialties, which included salmon and herring and some cheeses. The fruit was really fresh, the blackberries were delicious. After getting plates for the 2 younger kids and myself, there was a hot dish brought to the table. This was served family style with scrambled eggs, bacon, link sausage, potato casserole and biscuits. Everything was cooked well and served at the right temperature. We recieved refills of the eggs and bacon.

My husband was the only one of us brave enough to try the herring and salmon and he greatly enjoyed it, even going back for seconds.

As were finishing our meals, we heard murmurs and rustling around in the restaurant and sure enough, the princesses had made their entrance and were coming around the room. First up to our table was Cinderella. She was very pretty and sweet, taking a few moments to greet each of us and talked a bit to Caroline. After taking pictures, she moved on to the next table. Snow White was next up. She was very complimentary of Caroline's Rapunzel dress, and asked us if we had seen any of her little friends wandering around. Sleeping Beauty came by and was very taken with our autograph book that made a noise upon opening (like a magic wand noise).

The last princess by was Ariel. She was by far our favorite princess of the day. She was very bubbly and took the most time with us. Also, my 3 year old Son's favorite movie is the Little Mermaid. He had been very shy with all of the other princesses, and didn't get in any other pictures, but as soon as he saw Ariel, he was a goner. The look on his face was priceless. When it came time for pictures, he didn't waste anytime hopping down and standing by her. We have a great picture of him just looking up at her with a look of pure love. He had a grin from ear to ear for about 10 minutes after she left!

Soon after Ariel left our table, the princesses came by with bouquets and each chose one girl to lead a parade around the banquet hall. It was a lot of fun to watch and Caroline had a great time marching around with all of the big and little princesses.

Overall this was a great experience. The whole experience took just over an hour, but we had so much fun meeting all of the princesses. The food was good, but not outstanding. It was very filling, we really ate too much. We were moving slowly after this, which did not jive well with my original plan to race for Soarin' fast passes directly after breakfast! The stars here certainly are the princesses. Also, I love that a picture with Belle is included in the price of the breakfast. I would give this a 7.5 out of 10 in relation to all of our experiences at Disney.