A Disney Family's Dining Review - we magically even got some pictures!

[MommytoaSweetie]

I’ve found these boards so helpful, and I thought it would be so nice to “return the favor” with a review of our recent trip. I’ve noticed that many dining reviews don’t include families of young children… I’m not saying there aren’t any out there, but they’re harder to find. Well, hello, that totally makes sense to me – just eating with young children is work. I know it... we have a now 2 and 4 year old! But, it’s also very helpful (to me) to have an idea ahead of time of what we’d like to get, where to find favorites and healthy options, etc… so I decided to try my best at a dining review. There aren’t pictures for everything – it is darn HARD to remember to take a photo of food with so much else going on, but I was able to some… I found that keeping my iphone in my pocket was the easiest way for me to snap food photos. So I did my best.

To start, I’ll provide a little history on our food preferences… since food reviews are so personalized by each person’s own likes and dislikes, reviews can vary so drastically! So here’s us…

Me, the Mommy… I’m almost 30 and stay at home with my kids. I currently try to feed our family as healthy as possible – with moderation. We still have sweets and such, but we try to balance things out and include lots of veggie and fruit options. Honestly, until we had children, our diets were NOT very healthy – we got married young, were pretty broke, and my husband is pretty picky so he was happy eating hamburger helper any night. Produce is more expensive, so we didn’t spend too much money on it... DH only ate TWO vegetables when we got married, so cooking for myself was just boring and I tried to add in good stuff, but I just didn’t. We went to WDW twice before kids and were happy to eat junk most of the time – burgers or sandwiches and fries, just going for the cheapest options. Needless to say, we changed those bad habits and are MUCH different eaters than we were 5 years ago. But oh, sweets… well I just have a huge sweet tooth. Huge. LOVE THEM. Especially chocolate. I also LOVE seafood, but the rest of the family isn’t usually into it so I don’t cook it often – so I get a lot of fish at Disney.

DH, the Daddy… he’s 30 now and a little more conscientious about what he eats. He now eats a lot more vegetables, and most fruits… woah!! He doesn’t necessarily LIKE them all, but he’ll down them with water. He actually chooses salads now sometimes, and doesn’t always get fries as a side. It’s a huge improvement, although I hope that in another 5 years we’ll be even better. He’s my vanilla man – he loves fruity desserts, which I never choose, and thinks vanilla ice cream is delicious by itself. Crazy.

DD1, the just-turned 4-year-old… she’s a pretty good eater and not too picky. Won’t touch lettuce (although she loves cilantro) or ground beef, but is willing to try most other things – especially if trying something new might mean she’ll get a dessert or treat. Her favorite foods are peanut butter and jelly, strawberries, and desserts.

DD2, the just-turned 2-year-old (she turned 2 right after our trip)… she’s a little more picky about her veggies, although she LOVES fruit. She doesn’t have anything major that she WON’T eat (and loves to share salads with me). She’ll try some new things but is more willing to just be done with her meal and not try something if she doesn’t want to rather than eating a bite so she can get a treat if we’re having one. Other than fruit, her favorite foods are cheesy… mac & cheese, grilled cheese, and pizza.

We booked our package for a week in February with the Free Dining promotion. It was actually our third time using the Disney Dining Plan - we had an idea of what we were doing, but this was our first time with a child’s plan so that was new for this trip. We find it very valuable – our gut reaction anywhere is to order the cheapest options… we rarely splurge. On the Dining Plan, we feel that we can order things we don’t normally eat – seafood for me, steak for DH, desserts, etc. It really makes vacation fun for us! We stayed at Pop Century for this trip so we got the Quick Service plan free, but upgraded to the regular dining plan because it was cost effective to add in a few character meals, which is our favorite way to meet characters. It was totally worth it!!

For this trip, our dining itinerary included…

Whispering Canyon Café dinner
Crystal Palace breakfast
Pinocchio’s Village Haus
Contempo Cafe
Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House
Rainforest Café – Downtown Disney dinner
Sunshine Seasons lunch
Akershus Princess Storybook Dinner
Akershus Princess Storybook Lunch (yep, you read that right!)
Everything Pop dinner
Cosmic Rays lunch
Cosmic Rays dinner (yep, we did it again!)
Toy Story Pizza Planet lunch
Chef Mickey’s dinner
1900 Park Fare Breakfast
Mara lunch

[sahm2two]

Looking forward to reading your reviews! We're going in June with our almost 3 y/o DD and almost 2 y/o DD and have a lot of ADRs for places you're reviewing I just upgraded to deluxe, so I need to make a couple more ADRs...

[PrincessPaczki]

Hi. I can't wait to read about your reviews. Your lineup of restaurants look delicious!

[DLo]

looking forward to your reviews and few pics

[phabric]

Looking forward to your reviews.

[pinkxray]

I can't wait for your reviews. You ate at many of the places we will be trying in May.

[MickeyNicki]

Count me in! I had the hardest time when I brought our 2 nieces to WDW...I learned that they filled up on a big buffet breakfast as they both love all breakfast foods but lunch and dinner were a nightmare!

And BTW, I love vanilla ice cream too

[kymmyk13]

I'm in and very excited

[bluejasmine]

Im here Im ready!

[lblume91]

Count me in too!!

[GinnyBear's_mom]

We'll be eating at Akershus for the first time in October with our 2 year old, can't wait to see how you and your girls like it!