emilik
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2013
Hi all, I just wanted to pop in and share my experiences eating vegetarian at the World for 8 days. 
I'm actually not a vegetarian, but I choose not to eat meat when dining out for a variety of reasons (and I choose the same for my children, though my husband eats anything 
). I do eat fish, as you will see. I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the options in Disney! I'll apologize in advance for the lack of pictures - I kept forgetting to take any until I was halfway through my meal and then decided they wouldn't be very appetizing photos at that point anyway, so I didn't bother. Hopefully it's helpful to someone anyway!
Cinderella's Royal Table (breakfast):
The pastries they bring were pretty good, everyone's favorite being the blueberry muffins. We asked for more pastries and had no problem getting a refill. We also had zero issue getting seconds on our breakfast portions! I had the goat cheese quiche and LOVED it! My husband got the stuffed French toast and thought it was WAY too sweet (I agreed, it was sickeningly sweet like it was stuffed with cake icing or something, blegh - bummer because we both love stuffed French toast) so he asked for the Traditional breakfast instead and no one batted an eye. My 4 y/o got the eggs and French toast sticks and they brought my 2 y/o French toast sticks - my 4 y/o ended up wanting them all and my 2 y/o just wanted the eggs so that worked out well haha! I tried the French toast sticks and they tasted pretty standard. We had decent princess interaction - I do wish they had given my older daughter a little more time to warm up, because she would have if they hadn't expected her to want to hug and take pictures the second they came to the table, but I know they're on a time schedule too... She still talked to them and was excited, she just seemed a little caught off guard during the chatting and pictures. Sleeping Beauty really took time to get down on her level and wait for her to come up with answers to her questions and that was definitely the best interaction, my little one was beaming by the time she walked away. We weren't rushed out either, which was nice - overall it was a great experience! Not sure if we'll do it again next trip, but I'm glad we did this time.
Crystal Palace (dinner):
I was a little worried about this one because I had heard that the food wasn't very good at dinner time. I'm not really sure what to make of those reviews now because I LOVED the food! It was actually my 2nd favorite meal of out trip! My favorites from the buffet were: the cold cous cous salad from the salads section, both types of fish (salmon and white fish - both were *excellent*), the potatoes, the sauteed green beans (my 4 y/o loved these too), the bread pudding dessert, and of course my guilty pleasure, the children's mac and cheese LOL. I also remember really liking a pasta they had, but I can't for the life of me remember what was in it! I went up to the buffet about 4 times though, there was so much that I liked and I couldn't even eat 1/3 of the offerings because they were meat.. So really, if you're on the fence I would highly recommend it. The DOWNSIDE of this meal however, was that it took FOREVER. We were there for almost 2 hours waiting to see all the characters. It was my girls' first non-face character meal and they were SO into Pooh and his friends, but it took so, so long for them all to come around that they were melting down by the end of it and my 2 y/o especially didn't understand why she couldn't run and see Eyeore or Tigger at someone else's table. There were periods where there were no characters on the floor at all... It just seemed like a poor night for scheduling or something. We plan to give it another try on our next trip, because overall it was so much fun.
San Angel Inn: We had lunch here on our Epcot day. I had the vegetarian option that the waiter told me about since it wasn't on the menu and I thought it was fantastic. I'm glad he told me too, because nothing meatless on the menu appealed to me and I was going to get a salad and the kids menu quesadilla! My meal was tostadas topped with refried black beans, loaded up with these incredible sauteed julienned vegetables, covered with Monterey jack cheese. It was also *incredibly* filling and I couldn't finish it all (which is saying something!) My husband got the enchiladas (I don't remember the full Spanish name!) and he liked them, but it certainly didn't smell as good as mine. One daughter got the kids quesadilla and one got the kids fish - both were quite good, but they didn't eat an awful lot. The atmosphere wasn't particularly child friendly (which we knew going in, but decided to give it a try anyway since we had never been), it was very dark and the table layout wasn't designed for little ones. It didn't ruin our experience, but it probably contributed to them not feeling as comfortable and not eating as much. DH and I would go back in a heartbeat if it was just us, but we probably won't bring the children back because it wasn't as enjoyable for them. I'm glad we tried it though!
Sanaa:
Oh, Sanaa. You get us every time. With your amazing window tables, awesome savannah views, subpar food, and awful service. This was our worst meal of the trip (just like it was last time) and we finally said that we won't be coming back. Having the animals right next to you is a truly awesome dining experience, but at some point it's just not worth it. We got the bread service and samosas for apps. Bread service was good but not incredible, samosa was dry but the sauce does somewhat make up for it. For my entree I had the paneer tikka, and the seasonal vegetable wat. It was pretty good, not stellar. I enjoyed it but I wasn't gobbling it down or anything. The flavor on the vegetable wat was a little lacking, it was very tomato-y with little to balance it out. I forget exactly what my DH got, but it was served in the same style, a bowl of two choices on either side of a bowl of rice. There was NOT enough rice to finish the 2 entree selections properly, so both of us requested more. It took a long time to come and I found on the receipt at the end that they had charged us $5 for extra rice! I was livid, but I didn't want to waste anymore time debating it, you'll see why. My girls had the children's menu fish which was NOT good (and we love fish). I'm blanking on the name of the specific fish that was served (menu just says 'seasonal catch' I believe) but it was tough and had all these stringy membranes in it... Neither of them wanted it, but luckily they were content to fill up on bread and watch the animals. At the end of our meal I requested the dessert trio to go. It was taking a long time to come back so I told my DH to just head to the car with the girls and I would take care of paying the check. While I was sitting there waiting I realized that they had never brought the apple slices that were listed as the dessert included with the kids meals. Considering they hadn't eaten their meals I decided to ask after them so they would have something to eat in the car. When the server finally came back with my dessert I mentioned it and he went back to get them, though he seemed kind of confused. While he was getting the apples (which also took forever) I looked in the dessert bag and saw there were no utensils. I wanted to eat the dessert in the car on the way back so when the apples finally came back I asked for a spoon and then I waited about 10 minutes for one measly plastic spoon to be unearthed from who knows where. I was really irritated at that point, but the final straw came when I got to the car and found that a) my dessert trio had been put in way too large a container and hadn't been packaged at ALL - everything was falling into each other and smeared around, just generally destroyed and the desserts weren't that great on top of it
and b) the apple slices for my girls were literally just an apple that someone had rammed a slicer through, they still had seeds in them and the edges were all mangled. So they still didn't eat anything. So, anyway, do Sanaa once for the ambience if you like, but don't bother to get sucked back in by the novelty like we did.
Tamu Tamu Refreshments:
I got my lunch here on Animal Kingdom day. I was really hoping to get a quinoa salad they used to have, but the menu had changed from when it was updated so I went with the vegetable/tofu curry. I'm not a tofu eater normally, but this dish was actually very good! Just enough heat and nice flavors, served on a generous bed of rice. I also got the "chocolate milkshake" which turned out to be just chocolate soft serve in a cup... Which was weird and not really what I was hoping for, but eh, chocolate soft serve is still tasty so I let it go.
Tusker House:
THIS was the best meal of our trip! It was our first time and we'll definitely be returning. The food was great, especially the salmon with the green topping (very technical, I know haha), the smoked salmon bar, the saffron vegetables, and the samosas. The samosas!! These are about 10x better than what they serve at Sanaa, I could not stop eating them!! I'm not remembering the desserts very well, but I remember getting seconds of something very chocolate-y. Mmmmm.
Be Our Guest:
I have such mixed feelings about this one. We switched our last park day at the last minute and so we didn't have any ADR's. I called the night before to ask abouy BoG lunch (we didn't plan to eat there previously so I hadn't looked into it) and was told about the "special invite" system. I asked if they could check whether I have one linked to my account (like they do with PINs) but she said they could not. I've since learned that that's true, they don't have a way to check and I'm not sure why... Anyway, we ended up waiting in line. For almost an hour. My girls' were melting down and crying by the time we got to the front which was unpleasant and probably the most stressed I was at any point during our trip. When I got home from our trip I checked my email and what do I find... A special invitation to make an ADR at BoG, sent on the DAY we checked in. I was FURIOUS. I very rarely complain officially about things, I'm more the type to just put it behind me and move on, but I wrote an angry email about this one, considering the worst moment of our trip could have been circumvented by better planning on Disney's part. Who sits around checking their email on vacation?? I had no way of knowing that it was on option for me to utilize that. Anyway, commencing the official putting it behind me right now.... The actual meal at BoG was very good. We ate in the room to the far right, with Belle and Beast dancing in the center and the atmosphere was very nice. I had the French onion soup (which has a vegetarian base instead of the typical beef!) and the vegtable quiche, both were excellent! I won't comment on the service, because we were so starving at that point that our meals probably SEEMED like they took way longer to arrive than they actually did. I was so frazzled and ravenous that I honestly can't remember what the rest of my family ate either!
I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting an Epcot meal, so I'll probably come back and add that when I remember (I'm blaming pregnancy brain - I found out we're expecting our third child while we were in Disney!). Moral of the story is that you can definitely eat great as a vegetarian/pescatarian in Disney! And I didn't even include every yummy snack on here... Mmmmm crepes in France...
I'm actually not a vegetarian, but I choose not to eat meat when dining out for a variety of reasons (and I choose the same for my children, though my husband eats anything ). I do eat fish, as you will see. I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the options in Disney! I'll apologize in advance for the lack of pictures - I kept forgetting to take any until I was halfway through my meal and then decided they wouldn't be very appetizing photos at that point anyway, so I didn't bother. Hopefully it's helpful to someone anyway!Cinderella's Royal Table (breakfast):
The pastries they bring were pretty good, everyone's favorite being the blueberry muffins. We asked for more pastries and had no problem getting a refill. We also had zero issue getting seconds on our breakfast portions! I had the goat cheese quiche and LOVED it! My husband got the stuffed French toast and thought it was WAY too sweet (I agreed, it was sickeningly sweet like it was stuffed with cake icing or something, blegh - bummer because we both love stuffed French toast) so he asked for the Traditional breakfast instead and no one batted an eye. My 4 y/o got the eggs and French toast sticks and they brought my 2 y/o French toast sticks - my 4 y/o ended up wanting them all and my 2 y/o just wanted the eggs so that worked out well haha! I tried the French toast sticks and they tasted pretty standard. We had decent princess interaction - I do wish they had given my older daughter a little more time to warm up, because she would have if they hadn't expected her to want to hug and take pictures the second they came to the table, but I know they're on a time schedule too... She still talked to them and was excited, she just seemed a little caught off guard during the chatting and pictures. Sleeping Beauty really took time to get down on her level and wait for her to come up with answers to her questions and that was definitely the best interaction, my little one was beaming by the time she walked away.
We weren't rushed out either, which was nice - overall it was a great experience! Not sure if we'll do it again next trip, but I'm glad we did this time.Crystal Palace (dinner):
I was a little worried about this one because I had heard that the food wasn't very good at dinner time. I'm not really sure what to make of those reviews now because I LOVED the food! It was actually my 2nd favorite meal of out trip! My favorites from the buffet were: the cold cous cous salad from the salads section, both types of fish (salmon and white fish - both were *excellent*), the potatoes, the sauteed green beans (my 4 y/o loved these too), the bread pudding dessert, and of course my guilty pleasure, the children's mac and cheese LOL. I also remember really liking a pasta they had, but I can't for the life of me remember what was in it! I went up to the buffet about 4 times though, there was so much that I liked and I couldn't even eat 1/3 of the offerings because they were meat.
. So really, if you're on the fence I would highly recommend it. The DOWNSIDE of this meal however, was that it took FOREVER. We were there for almost 2 hours waiting to see all the characters. It was my girls' first non-face character meal and they were SO into Pooh and his friends, but it took so, so long for them all to come around that they were melting down by the end of it and my 2 y/o especially didn't understand why she couldn't run and see Eyeore or Tigger at someone else's table. There were periods where there were no characters on the floor at all... It just seemed like a poor night for scheduling or something. We plan to give it another try on our next trip, because overall it was so much fun.San Angel Inn: We had lunch here on our Epcot day. I had the vegetarian option that the waiter told me about since it wasn't on the menu and I thought it was fantastic. I'm glad he told me too, because nothing meatless on the menu appealed to me and I was going to get a salad and the kids menu quesadilla! My meal was tostadas topped with refried black beans, loaded up with these incredible sauteed julienned vegetables, covered with Monterey jack cheese. It was also *incredibly* filling and I couldn't finish it all (which is saying something!) My husband got the enchiladas (I don't remember the full Spanish name!) and he liked them, but it certainly didn't smell as good as mine.
One daughter got the kids quesadilla and one got the kids fish - both were quite good, but they didn't eat an awful lot. The atmosphere wasn't particularly child friendly (which we knew going in, but decided to give it a try anyway since we had never been), it was very dark and the table layout wasn't designed for little ones. It didn't ruin our experience, but it probably contributed to them not feeling as comfortable and not eating as much. DH and I would go back in a heartbeat if it was just us, but we probably won't bring the children back because it wasn't as enjoyable for them. I'm glad we tried it though!Sanaa:
Oh, Sanaa. You get us every time. With your amazing window tables, awesome savannah views, subpar food, and awful service. This was our worst meal of the trip (just like it was last time) and we finally said that we won't be coming back. Having the animals right next to you is a truly awesome dining experience, but at some point it's just not worth it. We got the bread service and samosas for apps. Bread service was good but not incredible, samosa was dry but the sauce does somewhat make up for it. For my entree I had the paneer tikka, and the seasonal vegetable wat. It was pretty good, not stellar. I enjoyed it but I wasn't gobbling it down or anything. The flavor on the vegetable wat was a little lacking, it was very tomato-y with little to balance it out. I forget exactly what my DH got, but it was served in the same style, a bowl of two choices on either side of a bowl of rice. There was NOT enough rice to finish the 2 entree selections properly, so both of us requested more. It took a long time to come and I found on the receipt at the end that they had charged us $5 for extra rice! I was livid, but I didn't want to waste anymore time debating it, you'll see why. My girls had the children's menu fish which was NOT good (and we love fish). I'm blanking on the name of the specific fish that was served (menu just says 'seasonal catch' I believe) but it was tough and had all these stringy membranes in it... Neither of them wanted it, but luckily they were content to fill up on bread and watch the animals. At the end of our meal I requested the dessert trio to go. It was taking a long time to come back so I told my DH to just head to the car with the girls and I would take care of paying the check. While I was sitting there waiting I realized that they had never brought the apple slices that were listed as the dessert included with the kids meals. Considering they hadn't eaten their meals I decided to ask after them so they would have something to eat in the car. When the server finally came back with my dessert I mentioned it and he went back to get them, though he seemed kind of confused. While he was getting the apples (which also took forever) I looked in the dessert bag and saw there were no utensils. I wanted to eat the dessert in the car on the way back so when the apples finally came back I asked for a spoon and then I waited about 10 minutes for one measly plastic spoon to be unearthed from who knows where. I was really irritated at that point, but the final straw came when I got to the car and found that a) my dessert trio had been put in way too large a container and hadn't been packaged at ALL - everything was falling into each other and smeared around, just generally destroyed and the desserts weren't that great on top of it
and b) the apple slices for my girls were literally just an apple that someone had rammed a slicer through, they still had seeds in them and the edges were all mangled. So they still didn't eat anything. So, anyway, do Sanaa once for the ambience if you like, but don't bother to get sucked back in by the novelty like we did. Tamu Tamu Refreshments:
I got my lunch here on Animal Kingdom day. I was really hoping to get a quinoa salad they used to have, but the menu had changed from when it was updated so I went with the vegetable/tofu curry. I'm not a tofu eater normally, but this dish was actually very good! Just enough heat and nice flavors, served on a generous bed of rice. I also got the "chocolate milkshake" which turned out to be just chocolate soft serve in a cup... Which was weird and not really what I was hoping for, but eh, chocolate soft serve is still tasty so I let it go.
Tusker House:
THIS was the best meal of our trip! It was our first time and we'll definitely be returning. The food was great, especially the salmon with the green topping (very technical, I know haha), the smoked salmon bar, the saffron vegetables, and the samosas. The samosas!! These are about 10x better than what they serve at Sanaa, I could not stop eating them!! I'm not remembering the desserts very well, but I remember getting seconds of something very chocolate-y. Mmmmm.
Be Our Guest:
I have such mixed feelings about this one. We switched our last park day at the last minute and so we didn't have any ADR's. I called the night before to ask abouy BoG lunch (we didn't plan to eat there previously so I hadn't looked into it) and was told about the "special invite" system. I asked if they could check whether I have one linked to my account (like they do with PINs) but she said they could not. I've since learned that that's true, they don't have a way to check and I'm not sure why... Anyway, we ended up waiting in line. For almost an hour. My girls' were melting down and crying by the time we got to the front which was unpleasant and probably the most stressed I was at any point during our trip. When I got home from our trip I checked my email and what do I find... A special invitation to make an ADR at BoG, sent on the DAY we checked in. I was FURIOUS. I very rarely complain officially about things, I'm more the type to just put it behind me and move on, but I wrote an angry email about this one, considering the worst moment of our trip could have been circumvented by better planning on Disney's part. Who sits around checking their email on vacation?? I had no way of knowing that it was on option for me to utilize that. Anyway, commencing the official putting it behind me right now...
. The actual meal at BoG was very good. We ate in the room to the far right, with Belle and Beast dancing in the center and the atmosphere was very nice. I had the French onion soup (which has a vegetarian base instead of the typical beef!) and the vegtable quiche, both were excellent! I won't comment on the service, because we were so starving at that point that our meals probably SEEMED like they took way longer to arrive than they actually did. I was so frazzled and ravenous that I honestly can't remember what the rest of my family ate either!I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting an Epcot meal, so I'll probably come back and add that when I remember (I'm blaming pregnancy brain - I found out we're expecting our third child while we were in Disney!)
. Moral of the story is that you can definitely eat great as a vegetarian/pescatarian in Disney! And I didn't even include every yummy snack on here... Mmmmm crepes in France...
