"Hee hee hee, haw haw haw!" A vegetarian and a carnivore EAT again! COMPLETE!!!

[Whatsername]

I'm absolutely loving your reviews!

 

[Guatemommy]

Love your report - it's interesting to see your perspectuve on American eateries! Congrats on the engagement!

 

[jrmint427]

I just caught up on your last dining review and this one! I am also part of a split household - I am a vegetarian and DH is no. I love your reviews and seeing how the restaurants handle the vegetarian requests. I can't wait to read more!

 

[jerseytinkerbell]

So excited you are doing another review! Your last dining report was fabulous! I actually saw you guys at Food & Wine Fest last year. I should have popped over to say hi, but it seemed a bit stalkerish for some reason. Can't wait to read more!

 

[stacy~**]

So glad I found your report yesterday (and had time to read through it all)!

You two are absolutely adorable and I love your excitement over all of our American things.

Oh and your Ariel dress rating system is great. Looking forward to more reviews.

 

[Disneymother3]

Love your reviews.. nice to see a pacer fan, I am from Indiana so we go to many games..

 

[happy2012]

So enjoy your reviews! It looks like we might have to add city walk to our list of fun stuff to do.

 

[Disneymother3]

Love your reviews, cant wait to read more...

 

[Libby_Darling]

Loved the update! I am also a fan of Olive Garden.

Thank you so much! OG is the bestest!!

Really enjoying your report.


Thanks for posting your reviews.

Thank YOU for reading!

I'm absolutely loving your reviews!

Thank you!! xxx

Love your report - it's interesting to see your perspectuve on American eateries! Congrats on the engagement!

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it! And thank you for the congrats xxx

 

[Libby_Darling]

I just caught up on your last dining review and this one! I am also part of a split household - I am a vegetarian and DH is no. I love your reviews and seeing how the restaurants handle the vegetarian requests. I can't wait to read more!

Aww thank you Glad you're enjoying them both! Ahh another split household, it's fun isn't it haha!! More coming up xxx

So excited you are doing another review! Your last dining report was fabulous! I actually saw you guys at Food & Wine Fest last year. I should have popped over to say hi, but it seemed a bit stalkerish for some reason. Can't wait to read more!

OMG you totally should have! I love your reviews so probably would have freaked out if you'd come up to say hi!! Aww it would have been lovely though, maybe next time we're there at the same time! Thank you for reading along xxx

So glad I found your report yesterday (and had time to read through it all)!

You two are absolutely adorable and I love your excitement over all of our American things.

Oh and your Ariel dress rating system is great. Looking forward to more reviews.

Aww that's so sweet, thank you Yes I do get slightly overexcited with the American stuff! It isn't changing anytime soon!! Glad you're enjoying, more coming up! xxxx

 

[Libby_Darling]

Love your reviews.. nice to see a pacer fan, I am from Indiana so we go to many games..

Ooooh I just told Benj this and he got so excited/jealous! We got talking to someone from Indiana on a Disney bus and I thought he was gonna explode with excitement!! Glad you're enjoying! xxx

So enjoy your reviews! It looks like we might have to add city walk to our list of fun stuff to do.

Thank you! Ooooh yes you should, we love it! xxxx

Love your reviews, cant wait to read more...

Thank you! More coming up! xxx

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 6! As you may have seen coming, we awoke this morning sliiiiiightly hungover Too much rum at Bob Marley's gaff I guess I had to man up and get ready though as the plan for the day was WWOHP!!!! Now, I love HP almost as much as I love Disney and that really is saying something. I'd say I'm 50% Disney, 45% HP and 5% everything else (mainly cats.) We had early entry due to our HRH stay so we could get into WWOHP from 8am. Unfortunately, we got there at around 8.25 but this in itself was an achievement given the way we were feeling.

We went straight onto FJ and I felt slightly sick afterwards because it's such a nausea-inducing ride and didn't help my current state. I needed food after that experience so we wandered around Hogsmeade trying to find something savoury. What is it with the lack of savoury breakfast items in parks? It really is a nightmare, both Disney and Universal! We noticed it more in Disney but still, they need to sort it out! I can’t be doing with sweet breakfasts at the best of times and especially when I’m hungover! I need grease, damnit!

We eventually went for two croissants and a water from a little stand in Hogsmeade, run by a really lovely girl. I was most impressed to see that you could take a little tub of grape jelly along with your napkins and knifes, so cute! I love America! You'd never get that in the UK, they'd charge you a quid and would probably have run out!! We took our little haul over to our fave eating spot in Hosmeade, through the Hogs Head pub and outside on the terrace bit. It was lovely out here, just starting to get sunny and warm. The croissants were nice and I felt a lot better after eating something.

The rest of the morning involved wandering around Hogsmeade pretending I was a student, shopping, and taking photos with the Hogwarts Express conductor

We then moved into other lands and did a ton more rides. I also bought some amazing popcorn in a shop in Toon Lagoon which I had spotted the previous day, chocolate peanut caramel flavoured mmmm. However, I didn’t check the price and guess how much it was? 9 DOLLARS. 9 DOLLARS. Fo reals. I nearly had a heart attack! I’m still angry about it now! I kept seeing choc peanut popcorn in Disney for like 4 dollars. Grrrrr. It was delish though and helped my hangover a lot during the critical ‘I need something sweet’ phase which always seems to hit me mid-morning on a hangover.

We did Spiderman, Dr Doom and the Hulk in quick succession and I'm happy to report I felt fine after these Strong stomach!

Lunch was very important now even though it was quite early so we had a quick think about what we fancied. We’d looked at Mythos earlier on as I’d really wanted to eat here, but it is a bit expensive not in the grand scheme of life, but in terms of just a lunch. I wasn’t that enamoured with the menu so we decided to give it a miss on this occasion.

We decided we both wanted pizza or burgers, I knew Circus McGurkus was nearby and did pizza so we headed in that general direction. I have to say I really liked it in here, the theming is so cute! It’s massive too, loads of nice booth tables if you have a big family. I think it was like 12 when we went so pretty early and there were lots of free spaces. We got into the queue - its a good system of choosing your food as you move along the line, a la UK service station food courts. We were in the mood for a LOT of food so we both got a pizza, chips and a drink. Excessive but much-needed and not a bad price I didn’t think, $13 ish? We grabbed a really cute booth with a view out into Suess Landing and proceeded to demolish our noms.

The pizza was AMAZING, cheesy, pepperony amazingness I was stuffed though and tragically had to leave some chips I do remember this being a really amazing CS meal though, one of the best! In fact I mention it quite often and Ben ridicules me because it's just cheap basic pizza and tells me I don't know anything about pizza But I beg to DIFFER, I know a good pizza when I eat one (I've eaten a LOT) and this was good pizza.

We were rammed after lunch and so needed some fairly low key rides, 1 Fish, 2 Fish and Cat in the Hat fit the bill perfectly We loooove CitH, so spinny and awesome! We then decided our last ride would be the Trolley and a jolly good plan this was Lovely to see Suess Landing below you and wave at everyone!

The Verdict

Ben TOTALLY disagrees with me but I have to give this pizza a:

Hahahah!!

Next up, Hard Rock Cafe!

 

[Libby_Darling]

So sorry for the delay guys! Had a busy Christmas but cracking back on with the reviews now!

 

[Avery&Todd]

YEAH! You're back and writing!!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Hard Rock Cafe

After a lovely day at IOA we headed back to HRH...and booked another night there!! We were due to go back to Rosen Inn the following evening before moving to Saratoga Springs but neither of us particuarly wanted to pack up all our stuff, pay for a taxi, and leave the beautiful HRH. We'd been thinking/talking about it for the past two days (we don't make financial decisions like this lightly!) and we just decided to go for it. There was a tense moment when the lady said they were fully booked for the following night (!!!!) but she got her manager to override it and we were able to book in. YAY! 3 nights at Hard Rock Hotel woooooo!

After this excitement, we went back up to our lovely room for a bit of relaxation time. I was a bit peckish so nibbled on some chips and dip while Benj had a little nap. I spent some time browsing menus for our dinner that evening on Ben’s phone, before succumbing to sleepiness myself and having a little nap.

I woke up at 5pm, got dressed, wrote Benj a note saying where I’d gone and headed down to the lobby. I was getting frustrated using Ben’s retro phone to look at restaurant menus so it was time for WiFi and the iPad! I sat in one of the lovely big chairs in the lobby and painted my nails whilst I searched, it was very relaxing! The plan for tonight had been Bubba Gumps but for some reason I wasn’t really feeling it and quite fancied going somewhere different. The problem was, I hadn’t researched any other restaurants and I’m very indecisive so I needed to choose somewhere before we left for the evening, otherwise we may never get to eat! It got to about 5.30 and I still hadn’t decided haha but I had to go back up to the room to start getting ready, as per the note I left Ben!

Back up in the room, I talked Benj through our options for dinner. He was easy and really didn’t mind where we went, it was only me being annoying! I was leaning towards Hard Rock Café, not somewhere we’d considered before but I thought it might be fun SO we got ready and headed down to ‘our local,’ the Velvet Lounge, with iPad in tow so I could continue looking!

Once again we were just in time for Happy Hour, yay! Ben got an awesome, very unusual cocktail…I can’t remember all the ingredients but it had maple syrup in! It smelt like a Yankee Candle! I wasn’t a fan but Benj loved it, luckily! I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio from our lovely waitress but when it came out, it was a Rose! I wasn’t overly fussed as I like white and rose but she was mortified when I asked for a Pinot for my next drink and she was like…’did you order white the first time? I’m so sorry! ’ and bless her, when she bought out our next two drinks she didn’t charge me for mine. Awesome service!

We chatted to her for a while about our dinner plans and she was very helpful in recommending places to us! She then did something very cute, went out back and not only bought us the *** restaurant menu, but she also printed us off the Emeril’s menu from her office! Seriously, how cute Both sounded very yummy and nearly helped sway me, but I was set on Hard Rock Café, finally!

I had to go to the amazing leopard print loo while we were in the Lounge and I took a selfie in there Mainly to show off my matching outfit!!

We paid the bargainous $11 bill and left a $3 tip for our lovely waitress. We nipped back up to the room to dump the iPad and then headed down to walk to Citywalk. But, there was a boat there! Yay! So we hopped on the boat instead It was a very raucous, noisy boat with lots of men on some kind of convention but we rolled with it and it was fun

Citywalk was busy with HHN goers and we walked straight to Hard Rock Café.

Yay!

We didn’t have a reservation so were just hoping we’d be able to get a table. We had to wait a few minutes but it was fine because as with all these kinds of restaurants, theres sooooooo much to see on the walls!

We were then led to a really cute table for 2, overlooking the balcony with all the cool stuff hanging everywhere, including the PINK CADILLAC pretty much my dream car! I was loving it!

The atmosphere was loud and fun and I was hoping we were in for a fun night.

First up, drinks! We had another really great waitress (pretty much everywhere we went this holiday we had awesome service ) who helped us out by recommending some cocktails. I got some kind of fruity number and Benj got his new fave, Angry Orchard.

Handsome dinner date

Meeeee

We were absolutely starving this evening so starters were a must. I chose loaded potato skins and Benj got bruschetta.

OMG these skins. They were so amazing! Loads and loads of cheese, crispy bacon, spring onion and a bucketload of sour cream. You got sooooooo many though and they were MASSIVE, enough for like 4 people! I ate two and asked to take the rest back in a doggy bag, score! No potato skin has ever compared to these...I get them over here and they just don't even compare Ben really enjoyed his bruschetta too and like me, couldn’t BELIEVE the size of it! I got to try a bit and it was really delicious, fresh tomatoes and a beautiful balsamic drizzle.

Next up, main courses! Our waitress had been really lovely here and let me adapt my meal into exactly what I wanted haha! I fancied a steak but I had really wanted do try the Twisted Mac n Cheese as I’d read how amazing it was. She left me swap the fries for the mac n cheese, yay! As ever though, I was already pretty full from my starter so couldn’t manage all of it. It was delicious though, a very well cooked steak and looooooovely cheesy mac n cheese with a Cajun kick.

Benj had the veggie burger with fries and he was going to get an extra side of onion rings but our lovely waitress said we probably wouldn’t need one as I’d get so many with my steak and we could share. And, she was absolutely right! I got so many! You can see in the photos that we’d already halved the portion haha. He loved his burger and ate it aaallll up!

Obviously neither of us had room for dessert so it was just a case of paying the bill. I think we both had a couple of drinks and the bill was $85, plus a $15 tip because we thought our waitress deserved it. We’d had a really fun night at HRC and I was pleased we’d gone. The food was really good and I was very glad I had my leftover skins for another time…yum!

We walked back to HRH about 9.30, there were still loads of people going into HHN! Crazy! We were sooooo full and sleepy we felt very old compared to all the crazy kids going to HHN!

The Verdict

Mainly due to the life-changing potato skins and because I was pleasantly surprised by the experience and the food, HRC gets a pink dress!

 

[mom2my3kids]

We loved Islands of Adventure and Harry Potter World.. Cant wait to go back..

 

[Libby_Darling]

Day 7 dawned bright and early and although I didn’t know it at the time, it would be my last day as a spinster hehehehhee! We spent the morning in IOA, where highlights included Ollivanders (during which Ben tried to surreptitiously turn his retro phone off and it went BA-BINGGG right in the middle of Ollivander explaining how the wand shop had been there since like the 1300's hahahah oh the embarrassment) and then Dragon Challenge!

We were then hungry for some breakfast. I had read online that Croissant Moon Bakery did nice savoury bits (Googling as we walked around haha) but it was such a mission to find! We nearly gave up and went in Cinnabon which would have totally defeated the point of trying to find some savoury food! But, eventually we found it. It’s a cute little place with lots of options Ben immediately chose a veggie special which was advertised on the counter and he was lucky enough to get the last one! It was an egg, pepper, mushroom omelette thingy inside a biscuit. With cheese, natch. He loved it! I chose a ham, egg and swiss croissant which was amazing. We shared an OJ (budget!) and sat down at a little table for 2 to enjoy our breakfast.

Innards shot of Ben’s

Innards shot of mine!

It was all super yummers and set us up nicely for the day.

The Verdict

Hmm..can't say this has stuck in my mind at all but there wasn't anything wrong with it...it's a

 

[Libby_Darling]

Okay this isn't really a review, but I feel like I need to include it because it was just such an awesome moment in the holiday So after our breakfast at Croissant Moon, we did final attractions in Universal Studios and I got this taken

We then decided to head back to HRH to make the most of the amazing pool for one last time. Whilst at the pool we ordered nachos which were AMAZING (sorry no photo) if you're ever peckish at the HRH pool.

We chilled there for a good couple of hours, me reading my beloved Food Network magazine, Benj dipping in and out of the pool, and sipping our cocktails.

We headed back to the room about 5pm and half heartedly started packing our stuff up, ready to leave the next morning…to go to DISNEY! We then got changed and ready. We weren’t sure where we wanted to eat tonight but we were leaning towards The Kitchen in HRH. But, seeing as that was in our hotel, we wanted to at least go somewhere else for a drink first! I’d seen photos of Portofino Bay online and thought it looked beautiful so we decided to go there for a drink or two, before heading back to HRH. Good plan! Obviously a quick drink during the Velvet Bar’s Happy Hour goes without saying so we stopped for one en route out of the hotel, about 6.30.

We left the Velvet Bar about 7pm and enjoyed a lovely romantic stroll along the water to Portofino Bay. As we got closer, we saw lots of beautiful twinkling lights and heard voices, music and laughter.

There seemed to be some kind of event happening just by the water! And then, it hit me. ‘OH MY GOD! THAT EVENT WITH TRAVEL WITH RICK IS ON RIGHT NOW! ’ I freaked out. I had totally forgotten that this event was on as although I’d seen it online, we weren’t planning to be here this evening (we were meant to be back at Rosen, remember?) so it had gone out of my mind! To explain this better, we’re going to have to go back in time.

Liiiiike, 2 months in time. We had become borderline infatuated with Rick Howard, star of Travel with Rick blog and YouTube videos. We watched his videos every Sunday afternoon to get us in the Florida mood and they were an integral part of our planning! He’s so cute and just seems like such a nice guy, we love him. If you’ve never watched his videos, do it right now! Every year for F&W, he does a vlog of each countrys food. As we were going to be there the same time, we were positive we’d run into him in Epcot one day doing his thing and it would just be the best thing ever. However, when Ben tweeted him with our dates, he said he would have finished all the filming by then and the only time he’d been in the area was one night at Universal, for an event called Harbor Nights! And so here we were, and I think it was fate. Newly excited by the prospect of being within feet of our hero, we walked quickly over to the hotel. I had seen online that it was mega bucks (obviously we’d priced it up haha) and I doubted we’d be able to get in but we could see!

Well, we just walked right in! No questions asked hah! I was glad we’d dressed up a bit because people were in full on cocktail dresses and smart suits, it was lovely! We could see that people had wristbands on so we guessed if you wanted to have drinks or food, you’d have to pay. But we could wander round freely, taking in the atmosphere. Yay! We started by walking slowly round towards the band. As we did, Ben froze mid-step. ‘HE’S HERE’ he whispered. OMG! Extreme excitement. And he really was here, sat on a table with about 6 other people, wearing a lovely orange shirt haha. Whenever we looked over he was on his phone, catching up with his social media correspondence we guessed…or not enjoying the night!

We were too scared to go over so we walked by, trying not to stare and went to watch the band for a bit. It really was a lovely atmosphere; lots of couples out for a romantic night and I was absolutely loving being at an authentic American night out SO exciting!

After about half an hour I decided we couldn’t have come all this way and not go and say hi. Although we are both super shy, I knew we’d regret it if we didn’t! So, after skirting round the issue a bit longer I got a sudden burst of confidence and I was like ‘right, I’m going to do it! ’ and strode purposefully towards his table I tapped him on the shoulder and I think I said something like ‘Hi Rick, we just wanted to say we love your videos!’ and that was that, I’d done it! Luckily, he was just as lovely as he is in his videos and he seemed genuinely thrilled that we’d gone to say hi, so I was really glad we did. We chatted for a while about our holiday and then I asked if we could have a photo He was like ‘suuuureee!’ and motioned to his wife Lesley to get the camera out, whilst doing a stage whisper which we could totally hear, ‘Lesley, fans! ’ which cracked me up haha. So he took a photo of the 2 of us on his camera and Lesley took this lovely one of the 3 of us on mine.

What a treat!

We thanked him, shook his hand and walked away. It had been a truly magical moment! We then decided we should leave quite quickly in case he asked us if we wanted to join him or something and we’d have to admit we hadn’t paid…awks. We started walking back to HRH with Ben congratulating me for being so brave and the two of us squealing over how cool it had been

When we got back to HRH it was like 8.45, a bit later than we’d planned. We did debate going to The Kitchen but we were both super tired and very aware of our big day tomorrow. We remembered that they did fresh, takeaway pizza in Emack & Bolios so our decision was made. Yummy! I think money also played a part in this decision; we were still early on in the holiday and I didn’t want to be chucking money away when we weren’t really in the mood. Pizza would be a lotttt cheaper, less faff and it would mean we could have an early night Rock on!

We went to order the pizza and were told to come back in 30 mins to collect it. I saw they did mozzarella sticks on the menu and as these are our faves, we got a side of them too. We went back up to the room and finished packing/getting all our stuff together and before we knew it, it was time to collect the pizza.

AWFUL photo I'm so sorry! Not sure you can even tell what it is!?

Mmmmmm

We enjoyed it in bed, eating Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives. It was super relaxing and to be honest, just what we needed.

We fell asleep at about 10.30, all ready for our early start in the morning WE’RE COMING MICKKEEYYYYY!

The Verdict

Again not an overly memorable meal and it wasn't as good as Giordano's, so it's a:

 

[Libby_Darling]

Saturday 19th October 2013 was finally here, the day we’d been waiting for since the last time we left Magic Kingdom waaayy back in 2011. It had been a super duper long time coming and I couldn’t believe we were about to go back. It was emosh!! I hope no-one minds but I thought I'd share a bit more detail from this day, as it was such a special one

We packed up our stuff at HRH and got a taxi to SSR with our old friend Henry. As we drove to Saratoga Springs, excitement levels were pretty much uncontrollable. We were like giggly school children, pointing out Disney signs as we drove past and generally getting ourselves into a state of frenzy As we drove past the Walt Disney World sign, Henry whispered ‘where dreams come true!’ Well I was nearly in tears. What a babe.

It was so incredible being back at our beloved SSR. As we walked inside, I was taking it all in. I breathed in the beautiful, sweet smell of the lobby that I sometimes think I can smell now we’re back home. I listened to the excited chatter of guests arriving and checking in and the classical music playing and I tried to commit to memory the feeling of the rush of warm air you get whenever someone went in or out of the doors. We were back. WOOOOO!

We checked in and left our luggage with bellhop...we had a park to get to!!

Excited at the bus stop

We got to MK about 9.05, not too shabby after our busy morning! We felt like we’d been up for houuurs haha! We joined the crowds walking towards those beautiful, magical arches and slightly embarrassingly, I started to cry! We weren’t even in the park lol! It was just the music and the anticipation, it was all too much. And I didn’t even know what was in store for the rest of the day!

We queued up, scanned our new KTTW cards and we were through I managed to compose myself as we walked into the square and we just walked around, taking it all in We passed the badge cart and I was desperate to get one but we weren’t celebrating anything this trip so felt I couldn’t They guy manning the cart was like, ‘what are you celebrating?’ and I said ‘Noooothinggggg “ haha, tragic!

As we walked through the parks we ran into our friends, Ian and Victoria. They were honeymooning in WDW (I was bridesmaid at their wedding, Benj was usher) and today was Victoria's 30th birthday! They were doing KTTK, wooo! We had a quick chat and caught up about the last week then arranged to meet Vic and Ian after their tour at about 2pm. I was feeling pretty tired already and it was super hot, plus I knew it would be busy as it was a Saturday so I wasn’t 100% sure we should commit to staying til the afternoon, in case we wanted to head back to SSR and check in properly and everything. So I kind of said this to the gang haha and, well, lets just say it didn’t go down well! Ian kept saying it would be so fun for us all to the do the rides together and I was like yeah yeah I know, whilst privately thinking we had like 3 more days together to do everything lol! I left it though and we planned to meet at 2pm, they were going to text us after their tour had finished and we’d meet up We waved bye to them and set off into the park, woooooo!

We were both absolutely ravenous by this point, so decided breakfast HAD to be the first order of the day. As we stepped out onto beautiful, glorious Main Street, I could feel the tears threatening to start again, oh lordy! Seeing the castle for the first time was just amazing and I was so unbelievably excited to see what the next two weeks would bring for us

So, breakfast! As we were on Main Street, we decided to check out Main Street Bakery with its’ new Starbucks makeover. We were a bit annoyed when we heard it was changing to Starbucks as we really aren’t Starbucks people but we didn’t go to the bakery before, so we had nothing to compare it to! We walked in and it was pretty busy so we got straight in the queue. A lovely lady handed us a sheet with the menu and all the DDP options on which we thought was a good idea. For some reason, we decided to pay OOP here hahaha, first day of holiday excitement I guess where you’re worried about using up all your credits too early on! We were totally spoilt for choice as there were sooooooo many options, we vowed to come back again to try them! The baked items looked crazy good but we both decided on savoury this time. I chose a sausage, egg and cheese muffin, and Benj went for the veggie option (obvi) of feta, egg white and tomato wrap. Why is the veggie option also always the ‘healthier’ option!? It annoys me! Sometimes he might just want a big old slab of deep fried tofu, or something! Anyway. We also got a water to share. The queue moved really quickly and we just had to wait a couple of minutes at the end for our sandwiches to be made – fresh!

We carried our goodies back out onto Main Street, looking for somewhere to nibble. We were going to just eat and walk but I noticed all the seating outside Casey’s, which was really quiet. We grabbed a little table and sat down with this beautiful view How perfect!?

Breakfast goodies!

Yum!

Our sandwiches were both really good! Although, I asked for ketchup and they didn’t have any it would have been even better with ketchup. Ben’s was actually amazing though and I decided I’d get that one next time. We perused the map as we ate, talking excitedly about our plan of action for the day. Oh, what I would give to go back to that moment right now, right at the very beginning of our amazing Disney stay. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so happy and contented in my whole life, being in my favourite place in the world, with my favourite person in the world.

And that was breakfast!! Next up...lunch at Pecos Bills!

The Verdict

We both loved our breakfast here and the feeling of being in MK for the first time with 2 weeks stretching ahead of us...it can't be beaten! It's a

 

[Libby_Darling]

We loved Islands of Adventure and Harry Potter World.. Cant wait to go back..

Me too! And me neither!!! xxx