DAY 5: Disney Springs, H&V Minnie's Holiday Dine w/F! package
So again if you'll indulge me in a couple of trip report-y paragraphs and non food photos to round out my reliving of my Disney experience, I'd appreciate it
We spent the day at Disney Springs. I have to say, I've never been much of a Downtown Disney person and I am even LESS a Downtown Disney person with the changes. We parked in the lime garage and it just felt so big and outdoor mall-like rather than quaint and Disney like to me. But we went over to the marketplace, which has everything I wanted to go to it felt familiar and was fine. This was also (luckily) the only day of our trip that it actually rained.
My MUST-do list for DS was: the christmas shop (I always get a personalized ornament to commemorate my trips), Santa (since we wouldn't have a chance to see Santa with how compressed the holiday season was for me given the vacation in the middle of it) and the
Lego store. As it turned out, standing on line at the christmas shop for personalization was the longest line we stood in the entire trip. It took about 45 minutes! insane. During that time the skies opened up and it absolutely poured so I guess if it was going to pour and if we were going to be in line for that long, it was not a bad time for either of those things to happen. The kiddo got pretty bored and end up laying down in a pile of mickey plush. Before telling him not to do that, I grabbed a quick picture because he was so cute:
after that he had a ton of fun building and racing his lego car at the lego store:
after we did the legos I realized the pager we got for Santa never went off. We walked back over there and I asked about it and she said they lost power while it was pouring and it reset the pagers but we could go in and see him right now. There was a short wait of a couple of kids ahead of us. This is one of my favorite pictures from Santa... my kid always has the funniest expressions when seeing Santa.
Having accomplished all of my goals, we left and went back to the room for a bit to prepare for our evening at Hollywood Studios, which had exactly 3 things on the agenda: Dinner at H&V with F! package, Toy Story Midway Mania FP+ and F!. This was supposedly our down day but honestly it did not feel like much of a down day because we spent all day on our feet standing around at DS, which was exhausting. But we didn't have a whole lot planned for HS either so it worked out ok I guess. I find standing in one spot is harder on my feet and legs than just walking around.
We checked in at about 4:15 for our ADR and didn't wait too long, I think we were seated RIGHT at 4:30. We waited in a short line to see Santa Goofy and right when it was our turn to see him, a child with special needs was inserted into the line. It was obvious this child's needs way exceeded those of kiddo, but it was a tough shift for kiddo to make as well as he expected to be next and had been waiting patiently only to be told we could not see Santa Goofy. They did give us a card that indicated we hadn't seen Santa Goofy yet, and an apologetic CM offered to come over and get us when there was a lull in the line so we didn't have to wait again. I pointed out to kiddo that the other child was wearing earmuffs and reminded him how some things are very tough for him and suggested that maybe waiting for Santa Goofy was even more difficult for that child than for him and that Disney probably knew how far he had come at being a super flexible thinker and knew he would not mind letting that little boy have a turn first. Appealing to my child's sense of protectiveness toward other kids almost always works and he got past it quickly and we were able to be shown to our table. I think the fact that he was pretty hungry as we hadn't eaten since breakfast was not helping either.
Right after we got our food we were able to go see Santa Goofy but it was pretty disorganized and rushed, like they were trying to fit us in between other people, and I didn't really care for that part of it. We left our food getting cold on the table while we rushed up and I forgot that I wanted to get a picture with both of us until we started to turn and walk away and they refused to let us BOTH take a photo with Santa Goofy because we had "already had our turn" when I realized it about 3 steps away and there wasn't even anyone else in line yet. I decided not to fight that battle but I felt kind of meh about the whole Santa Goofy thing and how it was handled. I would have thought after my child was asked to be flexible for someone else that they would not be quite so strict about their rules about no one seeing Santa Goofy twice, especially since I was not really focused on that since we had JUST gotten our food when we were herded up there, but whatever. Kiddo seemed to not care that much and I was tired after standing on my feet all day at DS so I decided not to make a fuss about it.
That said, I will say that the rest of the meal was just fine. I didn't let it ruin my mood and kiddo was starving and wanted to get back to his food anyway and promptly forgot about it. This is one meal I REALLY agonized over. The reviews are really ALL over the place, from horrible food to really delicious food and everything in between. To be honest, if it were just me, I would have picked Mama Melrose with F! package... it is an old favorite of mine that I haven't been to in ages and I just LOVE the atmosphere here. I went back and forth many times about which one I should book and ultimately decided on H&V for the following reasons: 1) Characters in Christmas costumes 2) Meal I would be least likely to pay for OOP at another time of year due to how expensive it is with F! package 3) the mama melrose menu is not that great for kiddo and I did not want him ending up eating plain pasta, and knew he'd have a lot more variety at H&V. So we ended up at H&V. I'm not sure that I've ever been there before due to my aforementioned lack of enthusiasm for dinner buffets before having a picky kid so it was another first for me as well, like Biergarten.
The Santa Goofy kerfluffle aside, I will say that my overall impression of H&V is this: The food was decent. I would say it was better than "just ok" but not "amazing" as others have reported. It was definitely not "Hollywood & Vile" but as in all buffets, some items were better than others. I had also read that character interaction was really great there, but I take those kinds of reviews with a grain of salt because I feel like that is highly dependent on... um... how the particular character is feeling that day (kiddo sometimes reads over my shoulder, lol) but I will say that the character interaction was much longer and more playful here than any other character meal we went to. I wondered if that was because it kind of felt like the place was half empty half the time. The characters fooled around with each other, fooled around with kids, came around multiple times and spent quite a bit of time with kiddo. Not sure what was up with the Santa Goofy security force out front because the characters inside were really fantastic.
So onto the food. While at every other place we were given a choice of a specialty non-alcoholic beverage (not in a souvenir cup or with lights or anything though) without refills or a soft drink WITH refills as part of the
DDP, at H&V it was soft drinks, milk or juice ONLY. They did have that light pomegranate lemonade that I've read about... again some people like it, some hate it. I asked for that for my beverage and I actually liked it quite a lot. If I ever had the chance to actually use my refillable mug on a regular basis, this would be a great option for me.
The kid had... you guessed it... apple juice. I believe it was given to him in the same huge glass.
Here is the kid's first plate:
starting at 12 o'clock and going clockwise he had: apricot roasted pork, bbq meatball, mac and cheese from the kid's buffet, chicken nuggets, carved turkey, marinated flank steak and tater tots and corn dog nuggets in the middle.
I know it says "apricot roasted pork" but I think that it was stuffed with alternating apricots and prunes or something. This piece had a prune. It didn't matter what it had as the kid wasn't going to eat it but he did eat the pork when the offending dried fruit was removed. He ate everything on this plate except for the BBQ meatball, which I suggested he try and he agreed to at the buffet but then thought better of when he got it back to the table, which is fine. I did carefully select a piece of steak without much chimichurri on it though.
Here is my first plate:
In the bowl is butternut squash soup. From 12 o'clock and going clockwise is pear and pomegranate salad, a little piece of salmon, mashed potatoes, apricot roasted pork, marinated flank steak, I think the pasta stuff is called shrimp alfredo, and in the middle is a pumpkin ravioli with creamy tomato sauce.
The butternut squash soup was just ok. I normally love butternut squash soup and it's something that I make at home but it was a little sweeter and thicker than I prefer it so maybe that is why. My first experience with butternut squash soup in my life was years and years ago at Wolfgang Puck Express and I make a version of his recipe at home. It could have also been that I was grumpy about Santa Goofy though, or maybe just was not in the mood for it because it honestly didn't seem THAT far off from what I usually like Maybe I just was not in the mood for soup.
The pear and pomegranate salad was good. I do not like fennel so I left it behind and the fennel did not permeate the rest of the salad. The arugula was fresh and slightly peppery, the pear was crispy and sliced very thin, the pomegranate was fresh and not slimy and the dressing was very light (the argulua was dressed with a light vinaigrette before the other stuff was placed on top). I am not embarrassed to admit that I hunted for more pear and pomegranate to better balance the salad on my plate because as presented it is mostly arugula. It was good and a very holiday salad.
The salmon was good... not as good as the Biergarten poached salmon because this one was roasted, but it was decent. I do not like rare salmon (even though that's the way it is "supposed" to be) so buffet salmon, especially with a bit of sauce, is usually ok for me. It was well done (temperature) but not dried out and I believe it had some kind of olive tapenade on it even though I can't find a reference to what is on it anywhere on the web and I did not take any photos of the buffet.
The garlic mashed potatoes were delicious, as you'd expect. They were buttery and creamy and garlicky and had chunks of red potato in them and french fried onions sprinkled on top, which were mushy by the time I ate them so I think I skipped them on my second plate... there was no texture contrast with them and they looked better than they tasted.
The apricot pork was quite good. Again, as most buffet meats are, this was cooked well done but was that sweet spot between "well done" and "shoe leather." I prefer my pork a bit more rare actually and didn't find that this had much seasoning at all.
The flank steak was also just ok. Not bad, not great. At least it was not overdone though.
What looks like "seafood mac and cheese" was not actually labeled as such when I went. I believe it was called "shrimp alfredo." I believe this is a re-labeling of the old shrimp and lobster mac and cheese except they removed the lobster and called it alfredo. Unlike the bright golden mac and cheese on the kid menu, this had a lighter yellow cheese sauce. It was not an alfredo sauce no matter what it was labeled and it had the teeny tiny salad shrimp in it. This was also decent though, not for the seafood content though... it was just a decent slightly more grownup mac and cheese. The shrimp were so tiny and there were so few of them it didn't really impact the flavor one way or the other, it was almost like a shrimp fell into it from the neighboring dish or something.
Right in the middle is the pumpkin ravioli with tomato cream sauce. In previous reviews I have read this was not actually a ravioli but was rather a gnocci. When I had it, it was definitely a ravioli, with a pumpkin and ricotta filling that was delicious and also a tomato cream sauce that was really delicious. It was nicely balanced between tomato and cream and seasoned well but quite thick and you had to go hunting in the serving dish to find enough for your ravioli, which I did. This was my favorite bite of the whole buffet.
For the kid's second plate, I actually let him go up to the buffet himself. Because he wanted to and because I try to encourage his independent streak when it shows itself. Also because the kid's buffet hurt my back to lean down into. He did ok but there was a big line for the kid's buffet and I ended up circling back over there to see if he needed help by the time he got up there, but he was doing just fine and was very careful and deliberate about serving himself. Another, older kid was behind him getting very impatient too. Back in the days when I had no kids and knew everything about parenting, I would have been horrified at how rude this kid's tone was... he complained very loudly to his mom that people were "in his way" and he was practically crawling up my butt and she was desperately trying to get him to lower his voice and change his tone a bit and back off, but he seemed like he was getting more agitated. Now that I have a kid on the spectrum I recognized both the tone and the manner and I turned around and said "well be done in just a minute, and then it's your turn buddy." He changed his tone immediately and said "oh ok, thank you" and his mother looked so relieved, I really felt for her. I only relay this little story in case you run into some kid at disney who looks big enough and old enough to know better but who has an impatient and apparently very rude tone... I think it more likely that the kid is on the spectrum and has issues with tone, volume and waiting patiently and a little kindness goes a very long way. I know for my kid, the unknown of how long something was going to take created a lot of anxiety and I guess for this kid too, hearing it was his turn next seemed to do the trick in calming him down. I know it has for me in the past when I was mortified by something my kid was doing, knowing he looks completely normal except for his behavior and seeing the mix of horrified stares and people awkwardly looking away and it felt good to help this poor mom de-escalate the moment for her kiddo. When my son was first diagnosed it made me so sad that his life would be more difficult for him, but I think it has truly made BOTH of us much more empathetic toward other people.
Anyway, sorry for that preachy little paragraph. Here is the kiddo's self-composed second plate. I think he was kind of relieved to hit the kid food after all of the steaks and goat cheese ravioli and all that stuff...which he did great with, but sometimes you just want a chicken nugget and some mac and cheese!
tater tots, chicken nugget, corn dog nuggets, mac and cheese. He had done his duty and tried a few things on the first round so I was happy to just let him have what he wanted. He finished what he took.
as always from 12 o'clock and clockwise: mashed potatoes, "shrimp alfredo", pumpkin ravioli with tomato cream sauce, salmon, one chicken nugget and two fried shrimp with tartar sauce.
the mashed potatoes were yummy again. The neither shrimp nor alfredo "shrimp alfredo" was good on the second serving too. The pumpkin ravioli was still very very good, with extra creamy tomato sauce scooped on top. The salmon was very dried out this time - I took a thicker end piece hoping it would not be but it turned out that that thicker end piece was actually a paper thin piece folded in two and it was very dry. I didn't eat it this time. The chicken nugget was amazeballs as disney chicken nuggets are. The fried shrimp was delicious too... I LOVE fried shrimp and I had missed out on it during my first round entirely.
In between dinner and dessert, I witnessed the second most horrifying thing I witnessed at WDW. It was a father having a complete meltdown at his son at the dinner table. I have no idea what this kid did and having lost my crap a time or two, I try very hard to not judge other parents... but if that had been my husband there would have been a huge brawl right there in the restaurant. I could not believe the humiliating and horrible things he was saying to his son, telling him he was an ungrateful brat and threatening to never feed him again... I can only imagine that the kid had complained about the food or something... the kid was sobbing and begging forgiveness, the mother was attempting to comfort him, the father was liberally dropping the f-bomb and slamming things around calling the kid all kinds of nasty names. My kid had his back to the mess and when he is in a place with a lot of noise like that, the whole background blends together and he is oblivious... but I got the full show even trying to ignore it.
Anyway in an attempt to get away from the scene we went up and got dessert. Broken record, I am not much of a dessert person but the one thing I DO like about buffets are the little mini desserts because they generally scratch my two bite sweet tooth itch.
Here is the kid's dessert plate:
The kid tends to be fairly conservative when it comes to dessert. He got I think what looked like a donut hole except I think it was some dense chocolatey minty truffle thing that he did not like... a chocolate chip cookie and a red velvet cupcake with santa mickey ears. he liked the cookie and the cupcake. He actually self regulates very well when it comes to dessert and doesn't really overdo it... he will actually leave half a dessert most of the time, so I usually just set him loose. He was tickled that the decoration on the cupcake matched his santa mickey ears:
Here is my dessert plate:
I got a pecan tart, an eggnog cheesecake and some soft serve ice cream with both caramel and chocolate sauce. I took one bite of the eggnog cheesecake and it was just too sweet for me. the pecan tart though was probably my second favorite bite of dessert of the whole trip (the bavarian cheesecake being #1). I don't like white chocolate so I removed the decorations. The pecan tart was in a crunchy cookie shell (I do not like pie crust) and was the perfect little 4 bites of pecan pie, especially served with ice cream. The soft serve was soft serve, it was fine but not life changing. the kid helped me eat this too.
And here are a couple of character shots. As I said earlier, I DID find the character interaction to be really quite good here. Here is a shot of my child having a long "conversation" with Daisy about pokemon after she noticed pikachu on this shirt. I could not believe how communicative she was in pantomime. It was a highlight of the meal and one of the highlights of the whole trip:
I have no clue what is up with the funky camera angle except I was rushing to capture a moment, lol. It was a true bit of magic and more than made up for the rushed Santa Goofy interaction.
and a nice composed family shot taken by
@areno79, who happened to be eating there at the same time:
And just to round out the review, here is a shot from Fantasmic! The seats are GREAT with the dinner package, but I am pretty sure that is known far and wide. here is Mickey vanquishing Maleficent as dragon:
So in summary, I am as much on the fence about ever doing this again as I was when it was a complete unknown. The positives were the characters in ADORABLE christmas costumes, the stellar character interaction and the amazing seats for Fantasmic. The negatives are the price (it's a great value on DDP and I would much more likely do it again on DDP than I would OOP), the food... which was just fine and tasty but really the best tasting things were all things you can get at counter service as well... so again on DDP I'd be more fine with this, but I might have a hard time swallowing the $56 price tag OOP for fried shrimp and starchy sides. The more "expensive" foods like salmon and other meats were just so-so and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get a delicious specialty lemonade as my beverage without paying extra. Also, I have found that I MUCH prefer the breakfast character meals. For one, I LOVE basic breakfast food and the with the lower price I am not thinking at all about value, I just eat what I feel like. Also I have found the atmosphere to be less tense. It is the morning, kids are fresh and excited, adults have not reached the point in the day when they have had ENOUGH and no one is tired and cranky yet. I generally don't pay attention to what is going on around me but sometimes people make it harder to ignore than others. The problem with H&V is there is no breakfast option with the Fab 5. I think if I did the F! package again I'd want to do Mama Melrose but the kiddo LOVED this meal, had a great time, enjoyed his kid food and character interaction... so chances are if he begged me I'd do it again for him... but probably only during either christmas or halloween when there are the truly special character costumes, and only on the DDP. If it was during the summer and the kid wanted the beach theme I'd go to cape may breakfast. So not sure ultimately how helpful that review will be for anyone. I was not the horror show some people have stated it is (except for some of the other guests) but honestly if it were priced closer to $40 than $60 it would be more worth it to me. It's a generic Disney buffet. You will not go away hungry or dissatisfied if your expectations are properly set (and ours were). I liked almost everything I ate and sometimes it is a relief in the middle of the fancy food to just have some basic fried stuff and mashed potatoes. I'm just not super eager to return.
