Having Annual Passes means infinite Disney trips, right? *COMPLETED* 6/5 California Grill Brunch

[FSU Girl]

Trip 7 - 1/13-1/15​

Ohana Dinner

Sorry for the delay in update. I just go back from a trip to Vegas and Disneyland for my Fiance's birthday. I surprised him with the trip and it was really fun. I didn't take any food pictures at Disneyland, but we did have some good meals. We ate at the Blue Bayou where Pirates of the Caribbean goes through which was very nice and different from Disney World. Also ate at the Grand Califorian one night and had this amazing shrimp pizza that I didn't think would taste good and ended up amazing. It was really nice trying different rides (the Gaurdians of the Galaxy ride was amazing), but Disney World is still my favorite.

After going back to the hotel to rest for a bit we got on the monorail and headed over to the Polynesian for dinner. I love this restaurant and was wondering how the kids would like it since they are picky eaters. I had done some research ahead of time and knew they had chicken fingers and french fries if need be.

We had a little bit of a wait before our reservation time, so I had this deliciousness.



Lapu Lapu: Myers's Original Dark Rum and Tropical Fruit Juices served in a fresh Pineapple topped with Goslings 151 Rum

When we did get seated, our table was right next to the entrance and had no view.


First up was ‘Ohana Pineapple-Coconut Bread. I love this bread and this was nice and hot. The kids did not like it, I guess because it's a slightly exotic taste.



Mixed Greens Salad with a Lilikoi dressing. I love putting the peanut dressing on this salad and ate almost all this myself. I wasn't really surprised the kids didn't want any.



Pork Dumplings tossed in Garlic-Ginger Sauce was a big hit with the youngest girl. I love the noodles like always. Honey-Coriander Chicken Wings fell a little flat with everyone.



The peel and eat shrimp were really good. I had a few helpings of this.



The steak the first time was really good. The second time was as hard as a rock.



And the really expensive chicken nuggets and french fries. The kids loved this and not much else. We probably will not be coming back with the kids, but I still love this restaurant.



The kids had rice crispy treats for dessert.



And my favorite part of the meal. This amazing dessert makes this place worth a visit every time. ‘Ohana Bread Pudding à la mode topped with Caramel Sauce and Bananas. I love this and could come for just this. It's served warm with the cold ice cream.

So the adults loved the restaurant as usual and the kids loved their chicken fingers and fries as usual. Since it's a set price we won't be bringing the kids again, but if you have more adventurous eaters they'll love it. ​

 

[Derb]

I originally had a reservation for this dinner and cancelled it. Glad I did. We went to the Tambu Lounge and had backscratchers and shared a Ohana bread pudding at the bar! Delicious, enough for two, and only $6!

 

[DLo]

Been there done that with the chicken fingers and fried at O’hana. My picky eater is now 20 and just now trying a bigger variety of food. Not saying that to depress you but to give you hope . I didn’t think it would ever happen. Hoping yours try earlier !

 

[FSU Girl]

I originally had a reservation for this dinner and cancelled it. Glad I did. We went to the Tambu Lounge and had backscratchers and shared a Ohana bread pudding at the bar! Delicious, enough for two, and only $6!

That's good to know there is somewhere else to get this dessert! It's one of my favorites on property.

Been there done that with the chicken fingers and fried at O’hana. My picky eater is now 20 and just now trying a bigger variety of food. Not saying that to depress you but to give you hope . I didn’t think it would ever happen. Hoping yours try earlier !

That is good news that there is hope I hope when they are adults they try and enjoy different foods, especially ones that haven't gone into a deep fryer.

 

[FSU Girl]

Trip 7 - 1/13-1/15​

PPO Garden Grill

This Pre Park Opening (PPO) breakfast was the first I've ever done. When I made it, I didn't even realize the park hours. Our reservation was for 8:20am, the park opened at 9am and we were seated at 8am. It was super fun getting the kids up for the early breakfast Just kidding, they did not want to wake up early and it was our last day there. It took some effort to get everyone up and out. (These are the same kids who wake me up at the crack of dawn on a weekend when I want to sleep in)

We decided to drive to Epcot. I was a little unclear on when the monorail started running and we were planning on driving home after the park, so it made the most sense. When we arrived at the parking gates no one was there because it was so early. It's the first time I got to park basically in the front of parking lot and easily walked to the front of the park.



The short line for PPO ADRs. They checked our magic bands to see our ADR and for how many people and counted the people in our party. The line moved quickly and off we went into an empty park.



Today was the MLK holiday and later on it was going to get packed.

We leisurely strolled through the park, heading off towards the Garden Grill. I wasn't sure if they were going to make us wait, because we were going to get there before 8am.



The Garden Grill is located in the Land Pavilion where Soarin' and Living with the Land are located. When we got to the doors a man was standing there to check if we had an ADR for the Garden Grill before letting us go inside.



Nobody's here! How cool!

We checked in and were seated immediately, even though our reservation wasn't for a while. We were seated on the first level in a booth that faced out towards the Living with the Land ride.

For those of you that don't know, this restaurant moves. It's on a circular path that moves very, very slowly and you can see down into the Living with the Land ride. We made it through about half a circle before we finished.



This restaurant serves food family style in platters.



This was our view when we sat down. It's the beginning of the ride, and every so often we'd see a ride float by that they were testing before the park officially opened.



We got to see all the Characters, some multiple times. Chip was the first to stop by. He took some pictures and signed the autograph book.



Drinks were served in Mason Jars, which the kids found interesting.



We got a bowl of fresh fruit, which was really good.



Sticky cinnamon buns were a big hit at the table as well.

Continued in the next post ​

 

[FSU Girl]

Trip 7 - 1/13-1/15​

PPO Garden Grill continued



Dale came by next and was pretty playful and entertaining.



I love how Pluto signs the autograph book.



Our breakfast platter arrived. Everyone except my Fiance's oldest daughter liked the food. She ended up eating a single tator tot. The waitress was really nice and ended up taking her off the bill at the end, which I was really surprised by. It can be tricky with her since she's Autistic and is incredibly picky with food choices. She didn't really want to interact with the characters either and mostly played on her iPad the whole meal.



We reached the point where the scenery was changing. We asked for more tator tots, which took a really long time and when the waitress came by she admitted she forgot we had asked for them.



I love this scene on the ride.

When we finished up and paid it was still pretty early and the park hadn't offically opened yet. We had a fast pass for Soarin' at 9:10am, but decided to go do a few other things before heading back to take advantage of the lack of crowds.



We walked out the longer way so we could see the other scenes we hadn't made it to.



Here's a view of the house you can't see from the ride, which I thought was pretty neat.



We walked over to the Nemo ride and they told us we were the first people to ride this for the day, which I've never done before and was really cool. The kids each rode in their own sea shell, which they loved.



We stopped by to meet the Inside Out characters and Baymax before going to ride our Soarin fast pass. By 10am the wait times on some rides were well over an hour and I was really glad we were able to do so much before the crowds arrived.

For my first PPO breakfast it was a complete success and I would definitely book one again.

​

 

[Texans_loyal]

Garden Grill looks delicious! Glad they seated you before reservation time, that would've been a long wait with kids.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Love this breakfast! We did it for the first time in July!

 

[disneyAndi14]

You reviewed two of my favorites! We really enjoy Ohana and we have done the Garden Grill breakfast twice! I love the scenes from LwtL.

Aren’t the tater tots cooked to perfection, and the characters here are so interactive.

 

[Raeven]

Love the review of the Garden Grill! We're thinking of going there in May!

 

[kastoney]

Looks like you all had 2 great meals! I haven't done Ohana in like 20 years and every time I see it I say we have to go back, but then those dang signature restaurants always seem to call my name.

Glad to see you all enjoyed Garden Grill and double coup to get so much done in the park. We've only done it once, but had a late breakfast, and most of the food felt like it had been sitting around for a while. First thing in the morning definitely seems to be the way to go !

 

[Eastern]

omg the mason jars at GG: I cannot stand drinking out of a jar. Why, Disney, Why

 

[FSU Girl]

Garden Grill looks delicious! Glad they seated you before reservation time, that would've been a long wait with kids.

I was hoping since we were one of the few people there they would seat us quickly, I didn't really think about having to wait for the table, you're right it would have been really long with kids getting bored. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Love this breakfast! We did it for the first time in July!

I'm glad you enjoyed it too, it is really good

You reviewed two of my favorites! We really enjoy Ohana and we have done the Garden Grill breakfast twice! I love the scenes from LwtL.

Aren’t the tater tots cooked to perfection, and the characters here are so interactive.

Ohana is definitely at the top of my list of places I enjoy. And the Garden Grill was really good, I'd definitely go back. It is fun when the restaurant incorporates a ride like they do. It's a pretty neat idea of having a restaurant move in a circle. Those tater tots were really good, we ate so many!

Love the review of the Garden Grill! We're thinking of going there in May!

I highly recommend it. Try getting a PPO, it's totally worth getting up early for. When are you going in May? I'll be there the 10th-13th.

Looks like you all had 2 great meals! I haven't done Ohana in like 20 years and every time I see it I say we have to go back, but then those dang signature restaurants always seem to call my name.

Glad to see you all enjoyed Garden Grill and double coup to get so much done in the park. We've only done it once, but had a late breakfast, and most of the food felt like it had been sitting around for a while. First thing in the morning definitely seems to be the way to go !

I'd definitely recommend Ohana, 20 years is way too long between visits. They also have fun games for kids there like coconut races. I try to avoid sit down breakfasts in the parks if they aren't early, since it can eat into the time when the parks are least crowded. If you have one of the first reservations your food will definitely come out fresh.

omg the mason jars at GG: I cannot stand drinking out of a jar. Why, Disney, Why

It is a little odd to get a drink that way. I think they think it goes with the theme of farms maybe?

 

[Raeven]

I highly recommend it. Try getting a PPO, it's totally worth getting up early for. When are you going in May? I'll be there the 10th-13th.

We’re probably going to go a little later. We tend to start our days more towards late morning/early afternoon. But yes! As of now we plan to be in Epcot on Thurs, AK on Fri, and DS on Sat.

 

[FSU Girl]

Trip 7 - 1/13-1/15
Via Napoli

We had a fast pass for Spaceship Earth before our lunch at Via Napoli. The time for the fast pass should have allowed a lot of time to make our lunch reservation, but the ride was super backed up and the fast pass line took almost a half hour to get through. I was a little nervous, especially since this ride is long. We got off the ride with 15 minutes until our reservation. We basically ran over to the opposite side of the park to make it on time. The kids were great with this, though and kept up.



So when I was picking places to eat I thought a pizza place would be a safe bet with picky eaters. Turns out I was wrong. We made it to our reservation on time, but they were running behind and we ended up waiting a half hour to be seated. The kids were getting a little hangry at this point.



A view of our table location.

They brought out some bread for our table.



The adults liked this with the olive oil for dipping, but the kids were missing their usual butter and didn't touch this. Our waitress was pretty nonexistent for this meal too. It took her forever to take our order. The kids both got kids pizza, one cheese one pepperoni. The adults shared a large cheese pizza topped with arugula.

While we waited we watched a table next to use be seated, order, get their pizzas and then finish their pizzas before we even got ours. We couldn't find our waitress and flagged down someone else to find her. She stopped by to say they were backed up. Okay...but everyone around us was getting served pizza but us. It took them over an hour after order to bring out our food.



I loved the pizza we got, it was delicious and definitely hit the spot when we were starving.



The kids pizzas didn't go over well. The kid who ordered the cheese liked hers fine. The one who ordered pepperoni hated it. She didn't like that it was burnt, she didn't like the unique pepperoni pieces she wasn't used to. She ate the cheese and that was it.

We ended up having to flag down a different server to ask for a check because ours wasn't around again. She dropped it off without asking how the food was and took forever to bring it back so we could leave. So this meal was a bit of a bust. We did take the kids to get face painted after to try and cheer them up. Then we drove home.

Besides the last meal this trip was great. The kids want to go back again soon. They were great sports about letting me take pictures of their food before eating. It was definitely a different type of trip than going with just adults, but I really enjoyed our first family vacation

This weekend I'll be heading back to Disney. We are going for our engagement pictures and taking the keys to the kingdom tour for the first time so I'm really excited. ​

 

[pepperandchips]

Yours is one of the reports I've been lurking on in silence while life was crazy but now I'm all caught up! I'm sorry Via Napoli was such a bust with the kids. We once had a similar experience in that side room - it's almost like the servers forget you're there. The pizza is great but now that we have a few Neopolitan style pizzerias closer to home it's easier to pass it up at WDW.

This weekend I'll be heading back to Disney. We are going for our engagement pictures and taking the keys to the kingdom tour for the first time so I'm really excite

Oh my gosh that is so exciting! Where are you doing engagement photos? We booked a "honeymoon shoot" with a local photographer at the Poly since we needed to do our real engagement photos with our actual wedding photographers to get comfortable with them. I am really excited about the Disney shoot though!

 

[FSU Girl]

Yours is one of the reports I've been lurking on in silence while life was crazy but now I'm all caught up! I'm sorry Via Napoli was such a bust with the kids. We once had a similar experience in that side room - it's almost like the servers forget you're there. The pizza is great but now that we have a few Neopolitan style pizzerias closer to home it's easier to pass it up at WDW.

This is a long dining report so I'm glad you're all caught up There were a few servers walking around, but ours just always seemed to be missing. I'm not sure if we'll go back any time soon, definitely not with the kids, but I love pizza so the food there hasn't really ever disappointed me.

Oh my gosh that is so exciting! Where are you doing engagement photos? We booked a "honeymoon shoot" with a local photographer at the Poly since we needed to do our real engagement photos with our actual wedding photographers to get comfortable with them. I am really excited about the Disney shoot though!

I have a hair and makeup trial appointment set up for Saturday morning, so I figured since I'll be all dolled up I might as well get some pictures out of it. We're doing the pictures at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was debating where to take them, but thought this hotel has a pretty unique feel to it and we are staying there so it's convenient. I'm hoping to get some animals in the background, although they couldn't promise that.

This is the dress I'll be wearing:

 

[pepperandchips]

Oh my gosh! That's going to be amazing at AKL and I LOVE the dress! My dress for engagement photos was a bit simpler - we just had them done so I can't wait to see how they came out.



I hate how they styled this with those dumb black boots... woof.

Animal kingdom lodge seems like such a great place for photos because there's so much there you can get lots of different background images. And there's that super cool bridge on the 5th (I think?) floor... I'm jealous! Are you using Disney Fine Art Photo or someone local?

 

[FSU Girl]

Oh my gosh! That's going to be amazing at AKL and I LOVE the dress! My dress for engagement photos was a bit simpler - we just had them done so I can't wait to see how they came out.

View attachment 308846

I hate how they styled this with those dumb black boots... woof.

Animal kingdom lodge seems like such a great place for photos because there's so much there you can get lots of different background images. And there's that super cool bridge on the 5th (I think?) floor... I'm jealous! Are you using Disney Fine Art Photo or someone local?

I love that dress it's super cute, pairing it with boots is definitely an odd choice lol. I'm sure your pictures turned out great.

I love the lobby there so I definitely want a few different photos around it and on that bridge. We are using Disney Fine Art Photography, I didn't request a person though, probably should have tried for who's shooting our wedding, oh well.

 

[kastoney]

Sorry to hear Via Napoli was a bit of a bust. Service there is always spotty, but it sounds like you had an even worse time than normal. Every time we go I curse the service and then I eat the pizza and all is forgiven.