Half the Calories, All the Fun - A "Healthier" Food-Focused Trip Report (12/2-12/13) Complete 2/18

[mickey916]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more .

Welcome!

Awesome start!

Thank you so much!

Off to a great start! Looking forward to building my list of heathier but tasty options in WDW.

Thank you very much! There's lots of great options!

 

[bbak30]

Great start so far! I’ve lost 75 pounds over the last five years and also have been working on eating better when I’m traveling. I do still allow myself some treats, but I find that my stomach just can’t handle eating heavy like I used to. I actually enjoy salads and fruits and vegetables more than I thought I ever would. I am headed back to Disney in early February with my best friend for a girls trip, so I’m anxious to see what other meals you suggest!

 

[mickey916]

Great start so far! I’ve lost 75 pounds over the last five years and also have been working on eating better when I’m traveling. I do still allow myself some treats, but I find that my stomach just can’t handle eating heavy like I used to. I actually enjoy salads and fruits and vegetables more than I thought I ever would. I am headed back to Disney in early February with my best friend for a girls trip, so I’m anxious to see what other meals you suggest!

75 pounds, that's excellent. Losing it slowly I think is key too to keeping it off. DH and I both lost around 20 lbs before our trip. DH is at his goal already, as he didn't have much to lose. I have a bit of a ways to go still but am very happy that what we're doing seems to be working. We have both noticed how much our tastes have changed and are surpised at how much we enjoy salads, fruits and veggies too. Part of what helps us "stick to the plan" is the fact that our stomachs can't handle what we used to be able to handle. There are some great suggestions coming up!

 

[mickey916]

12/3 Continued…Disney Springs and Sassagoula Floatworks​

We drove from the East End Market to the Orange Garage and walked around Disney Springs for a bit. We planned on doing the Christmas Tree Stroll but decided to wait and do it another day. We just wanted to relax and walk around seeing the decorations.

We saw an elf riding around in a sleigh. This was our first time seeing this added entertainment. It was cute and she did a great job interacting with guests.

Eventually we took the boat to Port Orleans French Quarter to the Sassagoula Floatworks for dinner. This was one of a couple meals that stayed on our must-do list.

We shared two entrees. First, we shared the gumbo.

This is so great! It has a nice kick of spice and is so full of flavor. I was a little worried the gravy might be a bit much for our tummies but we did fine.

We also shared the jambalaya.

This too was excellent. Every time I took a bite of this I thought, “yeah this is better than the gumbo.” Then I’d take a bite of the gumbo and think “Nope this is better than the jambalaya.” I still can’t decide! DH loved them both but this time declared the jambalaya the winner. We both felt the portion sizes were a little smaller than last year which was fine for us as it didn’t leave us feeling overly full, which meant…

We had room for beignets! This was something we didn’t want to sacrifice completely either. However we typically order the 6-piece beignets to share. Our plan this time was to get the 3-piece and buy one cinnamon one. We were shocked to see that other than the alcohol-infused ones, there’s no more specialty beignets, not even a peppermint or hot cocoa one for the holidays! So, no cinnamon one for us. We opted then to just split the 3 (progress, not perfection).

Also DH was very cold so he ordered a hot chocolate to warm up. He was pleased to find it was refillable! He said it tasted fine but definitely did the trick in warming him up. I didn’t try it. The beignets were warm, soft and just as delicious as we remembered, worth every calorie for sure!

We took a few pictures of the POFQ decorations.

We then took a very chilly ride back to Disney Springs. The boats seemed to be traveling very fast that night so it was a quick trip back.

We walked around Disney Springs for a bit. Some of the trees looked really gorgeous at night. Here’s two of our favorites.

Once Upon a Toy Tree

Encanto Tree (my favorite night time one)

Up next…more sights from our first night at Disney Springs.

 

[footballmouse]

Another great option from Chic-fil-a is a kale salad and add the 6 or 9 piece grilled chicken nuggets. Very good!

 

[mickey916]

Another great option from Chic-fil-a is a kale salad and add the 6 or 9 piece grilled chicken nuggets. Very good!

Oh I will have to try that next time!

 

[Simba's Mom]

Background:

Even though we visited WDW a few times over the years, DH wasn’t converted to a Disney fan until he had a work conference in April of 2022 in Orlando (which we turned into an extended WDW trip). We returned a month later with our adult sons as a make-up for our 2020 Covid-canceled trip. Since then, we retired, became passholders, and visited again in Dec. ‘22, May ‘23, Dec. ‘23, and Apr. ‘24. One of our favorite parts is trying all kinds of foods and treats. We always tend to eat healthy at home but eat whatever we want when we’re in “vacation mode”. After retiring however, we had a lot more “vacation days”. This past September after being in vacation mode for most of the spring and summer, our bloodwork indicated that it was time to focus on some healthier eating, as we were both diagnosed with high cholesterol. It was definitely a wake-up call. I’m happy to say we made some lifestyle changes and both received encouraging results at our 3 month check up in November.

But, our biggest challenge was yet to come, as we planned our third annual Christmas trip to Disney. We both wanted to be able to enjoy our trip, including treats, but we didn’t want to lose all the progress we had made. So, I scoured over menus, finding healthier options that still sounded tasty and we decided to put ourselves to the test. Could we still enjoy Disney without pizza, burgers, fries, and mac n cheese? We agreed we would still allow ourselves sweet treats from time to time, figuring all our steps had to count for something. Our goal was improvement, not perfection.

I’m hoping you’ll read along and see how we did on our “healthier” Disney adventure.

I'll definitely follow along for this. My wake-up call came when I was diagnosed as prediabetic and was sent to a class on diabetes prevention. I'm desperate for some tips on my trip in 2 1/2 trips.
As a Massachusetts person, you may understand-my weakness when we lived there was Reese's Pieces Sundaes from Friendly's.

 

[mickey916]

I'll definitely follow along for this. My wake-up call came when I was diagnosed as prediabetic and was sent to a class on diabetes prevention. I'm desperate for some tips on my trip in 2 1/2 trips.
As a Massachusetts person, you may understand-my weakness when we lived there was Reese's Pieces Sundaes from Friendly's.

I definitely know where you're coming from! I actually worked at Friendly's at the ice cream window in my teenage years! Funny once you scoop ice cream all day you stop craving it! (didn't last long though). Hopefully you will find some healthy alternatives in my report.

 

[mickey916]

12/3 continued...finishing our stroll around Disney Springs​

We walked around Disney Springs for a while enjoying all the lighted decorations.

We saw these cool performers and waited to have our picture taken with them but there wasn’t really an organized line. Excited kids kept running up ahead of us to have their photo taken. Finally we decided to give up waiting and just take a picture of the performers with a couple of the kids. For their privacy, I erased them from this photo before posting, using just a free editing software. It didn’t come out great, but you get the idea….

After strolling around for a while, we eventually headed to check in at the Residence Inn, Flamingo Crossing. We were assigned to our favorite room on the seventh floor. One of the reasons we like this room is that it has a perfect view whenever there is a rocket launch. We read that one was scheduled for the early morning hours, so we set our alarm and headed to bed.

Up next…waking up with a cool view and then heading to Epcot.

 

[mickey916]

12/4 Enjoying a Rocket Launch & A Day at Epcot
​

Originally the rocket launch was scheduled for 3 am. We set our alarm to discover it had been pushed to 5 am so back to bed we went. Then, at 5 am, we got up again to see this cool view right from our hotel room.

After this beautiful sight, we went back to bed for a bit. 5 am is definitely too early to be awake on vacation.

For breakfast we added some bananas and nuts from the breakfast buffet to our strawberries and blueberries. It was yummy!

After breakfast in our room, we headed to Epcot. We were rusty in our rope-drop preparation so we didn’t leave our hotel until 8:45 and ended up a smidge late for rope drop. Once in the park we headed straight for the Land, where I rode Soarin’ while DH rode Living with Land. The line for Soarin’ was estimated at 20 minutes but, being a single rider, I skipped past lots of people and made it on the ride within 10 minutes. As a single rider, unfortunately that means I always get C-3. I was very happy to see the upgrades they made to the projection so that the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower are no longer quite so warped. I also liked the updated ending showing current day Epcot. I was off and on Soarin’ so quickly that I actually had to wait for DH to get off Living with the Land.

We headed next to Journey into Imagination so we could see Figment decked out in his holiday best. This year they were selling these sweaters and we saw lots of people wearing them. Deep down inside I wondered if DH wanted one since this is one of his favorite rides….

We made our way to World Showcase to go on the Gran Fiesta Tour and begin the search for Olaf, passing this beautiful display of poinsettias.

We also admired the Epcot tree. As you can see from people’s clothing it was pretty chilly this morning, probably helped in the sale of Figment sweaters.

We love doing the Olaf Scavenger hunt each year. It’s a great way to slow down and observe all the countries in the World Showcase. I like how every year they find different spots to hide him. This year DH spotted him before me almost every time. I’m going to blame it on him being much taller than me so he's closer to them!

We found Olaf above La Cantina in Mexico. This one took me a while!!!

We found Olaf in Norway on the grass roof. I feel like he may have been here before though.

Next we spotted him in China over one of the storefronts.

Before searching any further in Germany we took advantage of the short line at the Bavarian Kitchen booth and picked up one of our favorite cookie stroll cookies, the Raspberry Linzer Cookie. This year however it was advertised as a “Hazelnut Linzer Cookie”. I interpreted that to mean it had hazelnut filling instead of raspberry and we were both a bit disappointed with the change.

Upon trying it, it was the same Raspberry Linzer cookie from prior years. We didn’t taste or see anything resembling hazelnut. This cookie was excellent as always, whew!

Energized by our cookie stop, we then found Olaf in Germany, hanging out in a window box.

Up next, continuing our search for Olaf and enjoying the entertainment before a healthy lunch.

 

[Griffin11]

How did you find the rocket launch schedule? I have seen a few websites but not sure what the best source is.

 

[mickey916]

How did you find the rocket launch schedule? I have seen a few websites but not sure what the best source is.

I find Spaceflightnow to be the most accurate website.

 

[Mary Pops In]

12/3 Continued…Disney Springs and Sassagoula Floatworks​

We drove from the East End Market to the Orange Garage and walked around Disney Springs for a bit. We planned on doing the Christmas Tree Stroll but decided to wait and do it another day. We just wanted to relax and walk around seeing the decorations.

We saw an elf riding around in a sleigh. This was our first time seeing this added entertainment. It was cute and she did a great job interacting with guests.

Eventually we took the boat to Port Orleans French Quarter to the Sassagoula Floatworks for dinner. This was one of a couple meals that stayed on our must-do list.

We shared two entrees. First, we shared the gumbo.

This is so great! It has a nice kick of spice and is so full of flavor. I was a little worried the gravy might be a bit much for our tummies but we did fine.

We also shared the jambalaya.

This too was excellent. Every time I took a bite of this I thought, “yeah this is better than the gumbo.” Then I’d take a bite of the gumbo and think “Nope this is better than the jambalaya.” I still can’t decide! DH loved them both but this time declared the jambalaya the winner. We both felt the portion sizes were a little smaller than last year which was fine for us as it didn’t leave us feeling overly full, which meant…

We had room for beignets! This was something we didn’t want to sacrifice completely either. However we typically order the 6-piece beignets to share. Our plan this time was to get the 3-piece and buy one cinnamon one. We were shocked to see that other than the alcohol-infused ones, there’s no more specialty beignets, not even a peppermint or hot cocoa one for the holidays! So, no cinnamon one for us. We opted then to just split the 3 (progress, not perfection).

Also DH was very cold so he ordered a hot chocolate to warm up. He was pleased to find it was refillable! He said it tasted fine but definitely did the trick in warming him up. I didn’t try it. The beignets were warm, soft and just as delicious as we remembered, worth every calorie for sure!

We took a few pictures of the POFQ decorations.

We then took a very chilly ride back to Disney Springs. The boats seemed to be traveling very fast that night so it was a quick trip back.

We walked around Disney Springs for a bit. Some of the trees looked really gorgeous at night. Here’s two of our favorites.

Once Upon a Toy Tree

Encanto Tree (my favorite night time one)

Up next…more sights from our first night at Disney Springs.

 

[mickey916]

12/4 Continued...Entertainment & A Delicious Lunch​

Even though this was our third time experiencing the Festival of the Holidays, we never really made the time to check out the special festival entertainment on our prior trips. This time we were lucky enough to catch La Befana in Italy. What a great storyteller she was!

Despite my small bit of Italian heritage, I was not familiar with her story so it was very interesting.

I really struggled but eventually found Olaf in Italy on a rooftop.

Despite the cooler temps, it was a beautiful day. We stopped to take this photo of the tree and Spaceship Earth on our way to lunch at Sunshine Seasons.

We haven’t eaten a meal at Sunshine Seasons since our trips in the early 2000s but this time I had my eye on some healthy options (as well as a cookie).

We shared two items from the grab and go section. First, the Powergreens Salad with Chicken: Mixed Greens, Quinoa, Blueberries, Blackberries, Almonds, Feta, and Balsamic Vinegar.

This was another great salad. The chicken was cooked well, the mixed greens were crispy, the fruit was fresh, the quinoa added some texture, and the cheese and dressing were tasty. So far, we were knocking it out of the park with our salad choices. Overall we ranked this an A-, just because it would have benefited from just a little more “stuff.” But it was very good.

We also shared the Mediterranean Veggie Wrap. I don't remember all the ingredients but it had spinach, roasted red peppers, and hummus.

I was a little nervous that it might be soggy or stale since it was grab and go but it was very flavorful and fresh-tasting. We really enjoyed this as well.

For dessert, we shared a new cookie stroll cookie, the peanut butter cookie.

This was very similar to the peanut butter cookie pie you can get at the Main St. Bakery in Magic Kingdom but I think I liked it a little bit more. The peanut butter cookie was thick and moist with lots of peanut butter flavor. The peanut butter buttercream on top was creamy with lots of peanut butter flavor as well. This ended up in our top five rankings of all sweet treats.

After our satisfying lunch, we rode Spaceship Earth and then headed to Communicore Hall to check out the gingerbread Spaceship Earth.

This was really cool to see. It’s quite amazing workmanship to see how they assembled it out of gingerbread but included all the lights. We opted not to buy one of the $10 gingerbread tiles, especially when we saw how tiny they were! Definitely not worth the cost or the calories.

According to the map, there was supposed to be an Olaf hidden in Communicore Hall and we searched aimlessly for quite a while, unable to find him. Eventually we decided to try again later. From there we walked through the Scentsy displays of holiday scents.

It appears the bees like gingerbread too!

It was funny how they were only swarming the sweet scented displays and not the other ones!

Since we already had done a world showcase loop beginning in Mexico, we decided to start in Canada and resume our Olaf search. Much of Canada was behind construction walls but we found Olaf on the roof near the giftshop.

Up next…continuing our quest to find Olaf and sharing a disappointing sweet treat.

 

[disneyAndi14]

I’m enjoying your report and the healthy food options out there! Much better than my choices lol
I love a good salad and mostly eat salads at home so tend to eat less healthy on my trips!
I loved the SE gingerbread display!

 

[mickey916]

I’m enjoying your report and the healthy food options out there! Much better than my choices lol
I love a good salad and mostly eat salads at home so tend to eat less healthy on my trips!
I loved the SE gingerbread display!

Thank you! It was definitely a different way of eating for us for sure but we were actually very happy with our choices. The SE gingerbread display was a great update to the festival!

 

[mickey916]

12/4 Completing the Scavenger Hunt and Trying a Disappointing Treat​

We continued our journey around the world searching for Olaf. We found him in the United Kingdom with his “crackers”.

Then we found him in France with a yule log.

At the L’Chaim booth he was sitting on the roof with some dreidels.

In Morocco, he was on this little roof with some olives.

In Japan, he had some Kagami Mochi. This one took us a while to find. He was in a garden towards the back.

We stopped to admire the tree in the America pavilion. So beautiful!

After admiring the tree for a bit, we finally noticed Olaf sitting amongst the flora around the base of the tree. DH found him first, yet again.

At this point we had located Olaf everywhere except for the one at Communicore Hall. We headed that way but stopped by the Holiday Hearth Desserts in the Odyssey pavilion for one more sweet treat, the chocolate covered toffee brittle.

Last year this came as one large circular treat, almost looking like a cookie, and even though it was pictured that way again on the menu outside the building, it actually came as a bag of broken pieces.

Here is one of the pieces.

This version was not nearly as good as last year. It was thinner and chewier. It was challenging to eat as it really stuck to our teeth. It was not a pleasant experience. This treat definitely experienced a downgrade. DH was really disappointed as this was one of his choices that made our list of things to try and it was a waste of our calories.

After our snack break, we headed once again to Communicore Hall to find the elusive Olaf with a Kwanzaa Kinara. We went into the hall and slowly walked back and forth. We looked all around the gingerbread Spaceship Earth. We looked in the “enchanted forest” of Christmas trees at the entrance. We went outside and looked all along the facade of the building. We went back in and did it all again to no avail. Finally we just gave up and then as we were walking around I looked up and spotted him on the back corner of the Communicore Hall building, near Communicore plaza. All day long DH found Olaf first but I found the trickiest one!

We then went to gather our prize for completing the Scavenger Hunt. Last year we got cute Olaf cookie cutters and the year before we got a little zipper purse with Sven on it. This year we received a chintzy plastic stencil, I guess for putting powdered sugar on cookies. This “prize” was not nearly as nice as the previous years. I think Disney cheaped out. For $10 ($8.51 with AP discount), we think they could’ve come up with a better trinket. That said, we do it for the adventure, not the prize.

Up next..dinner at a “new to us” restaurant and enjoying the Candlelight Processional.

 

[Griffin11]

These are really great, detailed updates! Love all the pictures.

 

[mickey916]

These are really great, detailed updates! Love all the pictures.

Thank you so much! It really helps me enjoy the trip a little longer when I write about it! Lots more to come!

 

[BellaBaby]

Following along! I read your last road trip report and enjoyed it. Interested in hearing about the healthier choices for sure!
We were there 12/5-12/13. We did 3 days at the parks and the Christmas party one night. Our first party and we loved it!