Somehow I just made it over here - arghhh! I hope you have a good trip and a good time with the 5k! I'm glad your ankle has healed up!
Everything was great about Brunch at the Top except for the price..80pp. Yikes! Thank goodness we had TIW.
This looks soooo good. I'm even more intrigued since you got to use TIW! I remember way back when
I think on one of your TRs we were chatting about free nights at the Dolphin
We ended up doing a 4 day trip to WDW last month to see wedding places in person, and getting APs was cheaper than buying tickets for then and next fall. We ended up getting TIW too because I was trying to guesstimate, and it seemed like we we'd be close to breaking even so we did it. I figured that if we had a couple drinks, or picked up a bill for parents/grandparents, I'd be kicking myself for not doing it lol. Another point for Brunch, or really any Contemporary restaurant (and really a lot of points)... is our current plan is 6 nights at the Dolphin on points, and then we ended up doing a Theme Park view studio at the Contemporary for 5 nights (dvc points). So we'll be right there!
I saw you got to use TIW on the CP package too... We did a Broadway Concert package for the
Festival of the Arts, maybe I should have asked lol... the worst they could have said was no.
The kids meal comes with a drink so we got some chocolate milk.
Same drink choice here
That was the main reason I considered kids meals for breakfast in January.
The honey butter used to be a slab of butter drizzled with honey and sea salt but now it's just whipped butter and honey.
That sounds delicious. We ate at Garden Grill, so here is my funny story: Originally we were going to splurge on Le Cellier when we went, because the trip was just after of 5 year dating anniversary, so I booked a 7:30pm reservation. We flew in late on Friday, so our Saturday plans were to go visit the wedding ceremony site, have lunch at House of Blues in DS because we're having lunch there after the ceremony, then go to Epcot. I had big ambitions for HOB because neither of us had been to one, and we got to pick a set menu with 3 entree choices for our guests plus appetizer plus starter, so I wanted to order a lot of the items and split them on this visit.
Then we saw the Festival of the Arts Broadway acts, and the one during our weekend had someone from Beauty and the Beast, and for our first date we saw BATB in 3D... so we decided to switch to that from Le Cellier, and save it for the honeymoon. When DF called in to book the package, because you couldn't online, the only time they had left was 4:00pm. So on Saturday, we started with Mickey waffles at the Pop food court, at 11:30am at HOB we split the philly, pulled pork sandwich, and steamin' tot mess app (I wanted to get the gumbo too, because that's our starter, but we had no room!), and then we went to Garden Grill for our dining package. Our server probably thought we were crazy because we didn't eat very much for an all you can eat restaurant!
The pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans were great, the turkey I didn't care for as much (but I am not a huge turkey fan), and the sausage didn't really taste like Italian sausage, but it was fine. I definitely missed the fish they used to serve. Maybe it wasn't popular? I just thought it was a nice variety before and now it's just a lot of...meat. LOL. Still, a pretty tasty platter. The stuffing was just ok, it wasn't as good as I remembered.
Here's our sides of sweet potato fries and mac n cheese. Both were quite yummy. Mac n cheese is reminisce of Velveeta, but I happen to like plastic cheese...
I liked the pot roast, green beans, and potatoes too. I liked the turkey also, because it wasn't all dried out like it usually is (I like turkey, but I never order it anywhere because it's always dry... and I'm a snob because my mom used to smoke a turkey for the holidays, and it was SO much better than the oven lol). I also like plastic cheese... my great grandma's "homemade" mac and cheese recipe uses cheese whiz, though I usually use velveeta when I make it. I had to scoop the goldfish off the top though, they were too weird for me
The sausage was fine, I didn't think anything special but DF liked it - but he's never met a sausage he hasn't liked. I don't do stuffing or sweet potato fries... or fish very much, but I think a sustainable fish would fit the restaurant theme better than the sausage. I liked the salad too, and I'm not a salad person - green stuff is for rabbits!
I really loved the characters here! I think that's what has me torn on going back here in September... We've got some family who's going to stay for up to a week in Florida, and we'll probably plan a few days or at least half-days with them. We had so much fun taking DF's parents to Storytellers in DL this summer, because Chip, Dale, and Pluto are such fun characters, and I just think it'd be really fun to take my grandpa to a character meal (he used to go to DL because he grew up out there, but hasn't been to a Disney park since he was a teen). We were the first dinner seating, and one of the only tables in the restaurant, so Mickey came by 2 or 3 times, and the other 3 did not leave us alone
They were taking our bread basket, our drinks, messing with the little menu cards on the tables... and we got lots of hugs and smooches (for me lol). On one hand, there's so many places to eat in the World, but on the other hand, this would be great for a Character meal - and we could do it on my grandpa's birthday and DF's parents anniversary (they're the same day). But do those tables work well for a large group? Dun dun duhhhhh... We've got exactly four weeks til our (first) ADR day... decisions, decisions!
