"I Deserve Charcuterie!"-A Disney/Universal Holiday DTR-Completed 1/23

[ThreeBoyMama]

Those hot chocolate bombs are so cute!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Amorette's

I realized as I was finishing my last post that I didn't talk about the snacks we got at Amorette's! We grabbed an eclair and one of the Holiday Mickey Mousse Cakes.

The eclair was pretty standard. I think it was chocolate, but I forgot to take any notes since it was so late, and I don't see it on the menu so I'm not 100%. It did end up being our favorite of the two pastries though.

The Holiday Mickey Mousse Cake seemed to be the same as the regular one they sell based on the description. It was a chocolate chiffon cake, with white and dark chocolate mousse, and white chocolate crisp pearls. However it was a little different than the one I'd had before and the outer layer was quite thick and gelatinous. I know the outside of these cakes usually have fondant or a shell or something around them, but sometimes I think having to go through those layers takes away from the taste of the cake, and we ended up not really liking this one.

Grand Floridian Cafe

The next morning we went over to the Grand Floridan for brunch. We were a little late, and they said they were running behind so we went to look around the lobby and wait. About 20 minutes later we still hadn't gotten a text so we went back over to the booth, and by the look on the hostess' face I'd guess they completely forgot about us. It was no problem though, and we were seated shortly after that.

View attachment 731152

I'd never made it to the Grand Floridian Cafe before despite planning to go there on other trips, so I was excited to finally eat there! I love the decor, and that they serve breakfast throughout the day.

To drink we each got the:
​

Grand Mimosa​

Champagne, Orange Juice and a Splash of Grand Marnier

The mimosa's were pretty good here, they tasted light and fruity and didn't seem overly alcoholic. The presentation was also really nice.

For my entree I got the:

Brioche French Toast
Madagascar Vanilla Bean-scented Brioche French Toast served with Bacon or Sausage + I ordered a side of the cheesy hash brown casserole

The french toast was good, but I had expected the vanilla flavor to be a little more prominent. The cheesy hash brown casserole was delicious and I was glad I got a side of it.

Kayleigh got the: ​

​

The Grand Breakfast​

Two Eggs served with Bacon, Sausage, and Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole + she added a side of vanilla french toast

She got this because she said she needed to get the cheesy hash brown casserole. We could see/smell it at other tables before we ordered and it did look/smell really good. She liked her meal too.

I think the Grand Floridian Cafe is a nice place to do a brunch type meal. They don't have a huge selection of drinks, but the mimosa they did have was pretty good. They also have some lighter breakfast items which was good for us because we were eating at Crystal Palace for dinner and didn't want to be too full. Everything we had here was pretty good, but the cheesy hash brown casserole is what I'd recommend the most.

Holiday Resort Snacks

The line at the Grand Floridian gingerbread house was really long so we decided to go over to the Contemporary to grab some snacks.

We stopped at Outer Rim to get one of the holiday drinks:

Gingerbread Martini
Absolut Elyx Vodka, Rumchata Cream Liqueur, and gingerbread spice featuring a rim of gingerbread

This might've been a mistake as they were clearly really understaffed and there were quite a few people there already. We sat at a table, but when no one came over for about 10 minutes. I went to the bar and ordered. I don't think what he made was the same drink as Disney was advertising. (The bartender said "I made it different, but this is better.")

Our drink:

The picture of the drink in the ad:

View attachment 731149

It was very creamy, but really overly sweet and just all around not very good. It was also about $19.

Once we finished and wanted to pay it was hard to get anyone's attention (the bar had a line at this point), and when I did the bartender said anyone sitting at a table had to pay the other employee who in the 20+ minutes we'd been there hadn't made it more than two tables down the row next to him (we were about 2-3 rows away). After 10 more minutes I ended up walking over to him and just paying over at his stand.

I know it wasn't their fault for being understaffed there, and I'm sure they didn't expect as many people as they had but it was a little bit of a frustrating experience. Not only was my drink completely different than expected, but it was almost impossible to even just pay the check. If you're going to one of those smaller bars like Outer Rim that only have a few employees I'd maybe suggest going at a time of day when more people are in the parks (we did think less people would be there in the afternoon but it was a weekend day and I think people were starting to come back from the parks) or checking to see if they seem like they're having trouble getting to everyone before you order.

However the gingerbread/cookie stand at The Contemporary had 0 line which was great. We grabbed a dark chocolate peppermint bar, hot chocolate bombs, a chocolate peppermint cookie, and a Linzer cookie.

Kayleigh took the Linzer cookie home, and I'm not sure what she thought of it. I tried the chocolate peppermint cookie when I got home, and it was really dry and flavorless in my opinon. I also had the dark chocolate peppermint bar and I liked it, but the dark chocolate had a little more of a bitter aftertaste than dark chocolate usually does.

At Contempo Cafe we were able to get some milk to warm up for our hot chocolate bombs. (We didn't want to take them home and risk them breaking open in our bags).

I'm not sure if we made the milk hot enough, but they were pretty cool when they opened up because of the holiday sprinkles.

Probably not the best hot chocolate I've ever had, but definitely the most fun!

Even if every snack we had was not a winner, we definitely had a fun day snacking at the resorts. I think of everything we had, I'd recommend the hot chocolate bomb the most. They're a little overpriced at Disney, but I liked the little Disney touch to them; and you can get everything you need to make them in the food court. ​

I really want to try GFC!

What a mess with the bartender!

 

[Raeven]

Those hot chocolate bombs are so cute!​

They really were! ​

I really want to try GFC!

What a mess with the bartender!​

It was pretty good, I'd like to try some of the other options there sometime.

It was insane! Especially considering they didn't seem that busy. (There were maybe like 4-5 people at the bar and like 4 tables with people at them when we walked in). ​

 

[Raeven]

Crystal Palace

It was time for Kayleigh's first character meal at Crystal Palace!
When I was picking a place in Magic Kingdom I thought this would be the one we'd enjoy the most, and I thought it would be fun way to have Kayleigh meet some of the characters without waiting in line. In the past I've really enjoyed the breakfast there, but I've never tried dinner.

The topiaries had the cutest Christmas scarves and hats.



Before we went up to the buffet we got to meet Eeyore. I'm not sure if they do this every night, but he was standing by the topiaries and not walking around. I think he's there so it's easier for everyone to meet him on the way out, but we got the picture on the way in.
Here's my first trip to the buffet:



I got the fried chicken, Walt's mashed potatoes, broccoli & cheese, pretzel bread, grits, and Walt's chili with chicken nuggets and a beef quesadilla from the kid's table.

My favorites from this plate were the mashed potatoes (they were amazing and my favorite thing at the buffet!), broccoli and cheese and chicken nuggets (simple but I enjoyed them), and the chili. My least favorite was the pretzel bread which was cold and tasteless.

My second plate was salad, cheese, ravioli, and mac and cheese from the kid's table. I really enjoyed the ravioli, but wish they'd refilled the salad more often as there wasn't a lot of lettuce left on either side when I went up to the buffet. My least favorite on this plate was the mac and cheese which was pretty typical of Disney buffets and not very good.
This is Kayleigh's plates which are much neater looking than mine.



She also loved the ravioli and mashed potatoes.
We both liked the mashed potatoes so much I'm pretty sure we got a plate of them afterwards.

Here's our character pictures with Pooh and Tigger:





And here's our dessert plates:



I don't remember what everything was but I know there was strawberry shortcake, a chocolate cupcake, a blueberry dome, chocolate chip and sugar cookies, butterscotch pudding, and it looks like some kind of s'mores tart, and bread pudding type thing. I remember most these desserts being disappointing (which is pretty typical of Disney buffets I've been to that have desserts), but we did enjoy the cookies.

All in all I think Crystal Palace is a pretty solid buffet, and it's still one of my top picks in Magic Kingdom; but I do prefer the breakfast buffet to the dinner buffet. I love the location, and I think it's really well decorated. I also really like being able to meet the characters from the Hundred Acre Woods, and that there's a character meal with some different characters. I did kind of forget how stressful character meals can be when there's a buffet involved, and you have to be back at your table at the right times to meet them. (Although I'd take that "stress" any day to real life stress). It just made us feel like we had to be choosy about when we went to the buffet, and had to eat faster to avoid having food in our mouths when the characters came.



While I did find some solid options on the buffet, there weren't a ton of things that really stood out (however none of it was terrible either). I think the options are better for children or picky eaters though (and both Kayleigh and I can be a little picky). The one thing I really wish is that Disney would step up the quality of the desserts on their buffets.

It's an expensive option ($65 a person for dinner), and I'm never sure I get my money's worth with these buffets; but it was still cheaper than the prix fixe meal at Be Our Guest and has more options and characters. We both enjoyed it, and because it was Kayleigh's first trip and we got to meet characters without waiting in line (character meals were our only character meets) I do think it was worth it.

MVMCP Snacks

After our dinner we were not as hungry as I'd hoped for snacks at MVMCP so we mostly stuck to the free snacks.

First up was eggnog and a frosted sugar cookie.
I determined that I just don't like eggnog. (I was pretty sure I didn't, but I seem to forget every year and think I'll like it this time. )

We ended up taking most of our cookies to go, but I only ended up eating one of them at home since most of them got a little smushed.

Stop 2 was frosted chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate.
We saved the cookie, but drank the hot chocolate. Although we decided to skip the hot drinks after that because it was really warm out, and we were wearing sweaters.

Our final cookie stop was for Snickerdoodles at Cosmic Ray's.



This was the cookie I did end up trying, and it was pretty good.

Before the late parade we grabbed some popcorn.



Delicious as always!

And finally on the way out we stopped at the Confectionary where we each grabbed marshmallow pops.
Kayleigh got the M&M and I got the Twix. It was pretty good, but not something I feel like I'd need to have every time.

At the end of the night here was our snack haul from the day:



We ended up taking a lot of these home.

This was a great day for snacking, but with such a short trip it was inevitable that we'd have to take some of the snacks home since there just wasn't enough time to eat them all. While I wish we had skipped some of these, I'm glad we got to try so many of the Christmas snacks. I also love that they offer free cookies and drinks at MVMCP, but I do wish we'd had the room for some of the paid snacks too. This year I do plan to try more of them, and we probably won't do a buffet again before the party for that reason. ​

 

[Counting Stars]

Love the Pooh and Friends T-shirts @ Crystal Palace. Also like the Mickey sweaters. You two seemed to find some really cute outfits- Do these come from the Parks or stores/online closer to home? Continues to be a great report. Thanks for sharing

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

We always end up taking a lot of the snacks home!


Thank you for your crystal palace review. We cancelled ours in 2021 but really want to try it!


Also got to love the topiaries!

 

[Raeven]

Love the Pooh and Friends T-shirts @ Crystal Palace. Also like the Mickey sweaters. You two seemed to find some really cute outfits- Do these come from the Parks or stores/online closer to home? Continues to be a great report. Thanks for sharing ​

Thank you! We planned our outfits out for like 2 months ahead of time so we could match for everything. It was a combo of places. The Christmas sweaters were from the parks, but a lot of the other stuff we got from Boxlunch/Hot Topic or Etsy (the Pooh shirts were from Etsy) just because the parks merch can be so expensive. The Etsy stuff we mostly did good on but 1-2 of the shirts were a little off in color from what they looked like in pictures. We did all the ordering online because we both live in different states.
​

Thank you for your crystal palace review. We cancelled ours in 2021 but really want to try it!​

I really like it there! I'd recommend trying it, but I always preferred the breakfast for Pooh's breakfast lasagna (not sure if they have it anymore though). ​

 

[Raeven]

Cape May Cafe
(Breakfast Buffet)

Our final meal was the character breakfast at Cape May Cafe. Originally we were planning to go to Boma, but since we had been able to check out AKL earlier on our trip, and I wanted to stay closer to the region of our hotel since we had to get to the airport at a certain time; we had decided to move our breakfast to one of the Epcot resorts.

I'd done this breakfast in 2019 on the summer trip I took with @xlsm, and had found it a bit disappointing food-wise. I was surprised to find they seem to have more options now since the buffet returned, and almost everything we had was really good.

When we sat down they started us out with the:
​

Salted Caramel "Beach Buns"​

served with Vanilla Cream



This was like a cinnamon roll, and we enjoyed it. We also both got POG juice, which I was very excited for Kayleigh to try.

I went up to the buffet first, and decided to grab us both omelets while I was up. Of course this was the moment most of the characters decided to come by our table so I had to run over from the omelet station a few times while waiting.



(Although my hair is a mess in all of those pictures so you get the ones of Kayleigh instead ).





Since this was before Kayleigh went to the buffet it looks like I took all the food, and only gave her an omelet.



So starting with the back plate: I was not blown away by the breakfast potatoes (and preferred the tater tots from the other plate), but the bacon was crispy, the eggs fresh and fluffy, and one of my favorite things was the hollandaise egg cup there in the back. I believe it was a poached egg with hollandaise in a potato cup and it was so good!

I also got a Mickey waffle, french toast, and pancake which were all good too. And this year they actually had crepes. Sadly, it was not the return of the crepe station they used to have, and these weren't too good.

For the omelets however they did have a whole station. These were your normal thick omelets with whatever you want in them vs the thin, sad ones with just a tiny layer of cheese in them that could not be made to order that we had at Boma in May.





Kayleigh's plate:



Laughing with a Mickey waffle.



At the end of the meal we got another cute card that was signed from all the characters (and this time I think they gave us two, we only got one at Crystal Palace for the table). Our server also gave us some POG juice to go which was very nice of him.



I think for me Cape May Cafe has redeemed itself food-wise. We both liked what we had, and almost everything was good here. It was pretty standard breakfast stuff for the most part but they had a little bit of everything. Character meals aren't my favorite because sometimes the eating can be a little rushed with the characters coming by, but like I said about Crystal Palace I felt it was worth it because this was the only time/place we had set aside from Kayleigh to meet with the characters. Out of all the options around the Boardwalk this menu had appealed to us the most, and I think it was a good choice. Our server was also great, and I do love the beach-y theming. ​

 

[ToxicRoyalty]

I barely got past the rolls and POG juice part of the review before I was calling my dad telling him we should add this as our resort day breakfast, lol. In my defense,we're at Yacht! It makes complete sense!

 

[Raeven]

Wrap Up aka The Best & Worst Food of Our Trip

We'll start with...


The Best Meal of the Trip Overall


Antojitos & Homecomin'

We didn't have a ton of sit down meals (we did a lot more snacking), but these are my two favorites that we did have. We really liked our selections at Antojitos on the first night, and Homecomin' was delicious as always.





Worst Overall Meal: I don't think we had any that were an absolute disaster, and from a food standpoint everything we had was okay to great. If I had to pick one it wouldn't be a meal, but our stop at Outer Rim because the drink was made incorrectly, and the service wasn't great.

Best Fries: The Daily Poutine



Best Appetizer: Deviled eggs (Homecomin'), Potato Truffle Croquettes (Toothsome)



Best Dessert: Tres Leches Cake (Strongwater Tavern)



Best OI Informer Snack: Bread pudding (Finnegan's), Butterbeer



Best Disney Christmas Snack: Hot cocoa bombs (Contemporary), Snickerdoodle cookie (MVMCP)



Worst Disney Christmas Snack: Gingerbread Martini (Outer Rim), Chocolate Peppermint Cookie (Contemporary)



Best Festival of the Holidays Snack: Salted Caramel Spaceship Earth cookie
Best Service: Homecomin, Cape May Cafe, Strongwater Tavern

Best Atmosphere/Decor: Jock Lindsey's Holiday Bar (inside), Toothsome, Grand Floridian Cafe
Best Buffet: Cape May Cafe

I think Cape May Cafe had the best food of the buffets we went to, but I do prefer the characters at Crystal Palace.

Best Breakfast/Brunch: Grand Floridian Cafe, Cape May Cafe



Most surprising (in a good way): Antojitos, Cape May Cafe

Both restaurants I've previously eaten at and had okay experiences at, but this time both places seemed like they stepped it up in regards to the food.

Best Drink (Alcoholic): Drinks at Strongwater Tavern



So that wraps up this DTR!

I haven't stared another PTR yet for this year's trips', but plan to start it soon. This year Josh and I are planning to HHN for 10 days in September (with the possibility Samantha may join me for half of that trip if we can get our dates to work), and Kayleigh and I will be back for 6 days in December for another Christmas trip.​

 

[Raeven]

I barely got past the rolls and POG juice part of the review before I was calling my dad telling him we should add this as our resort day breakfast, lol. In my defense,we're at Yacht! It makes complete sense!​

I think it's a great idea especially if you're right there, I hope you enjoy it! ​

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Enjoyed your report as always! Glad you ladies had such a great holiday trip

 

[Counting Stars]

Thanks for another great report!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Excellent wrap up (and thankfully i ate before reading this lol!)


Looking forward to the next one!

 

[Raeven]

Enjoyed your report as always! Glad you ladies had such a great holiday trip ​

Thank you! It was a really great trip! ​

Thanks for another great report!​

Thanks for following along! ​

Excellent wrap up (and thankfully i ate before reading this lol!)


Looking forward to the next one!​

Thank you

I'm so excited for our next trip!​

 

[KathyM2]

Hey Raeven! I lost you for a while lol but glad I found you! will come back and read this in detail later!

 

[erinch]

Loved the report!
If it had been me, the Outer Rim drink would have been on the house! I wonder what they would have done if you just walked out?

 

[Raeven]

Hey Raeven! I lost you for a while lol but glad I found you! will come back and read this in detail later!​

Lol welcome back! ​

Loved the report!
If it had been me, the Outer Rim drink would have been on the house! I wonder what they would have done if you just walked out?​

Thank you! Honestly, it should’ve been. There were only 2 people working but between the bar and seats there were less than 20 people in the whole place and most were already sitting with drinks so I wasn’t sure why they weren’t able to get to any of the tables/it’s not like they were constantly making drinks. I even tried to pay at the bar, but I guess if you sit in a seat you can no longer pay at the bar. I’m not sure what they’d do if people walked out without paying I wonder if they’d even notice. ​