More to do (and eat) so we went a third time! Dec. 6-14 (complete)

[mickey916]

Welcome to my latest food focused trip report! After having such a great time in April and May 2022, my DH and I decided to take a third trip to experience the holidays. I was lucky enough to buy an AP when they (briefly) went on sale in 2021 so I figured we should make use of it to cross off some holiday bucket-list items.

Our original plan was to drive down and spend “just a couple days” to see the holiday decorations and experience the Epcot Festival of the Holidays. I originally booked five nights at the Swan. But, then, I snagged a great AP discount for the Swan for 6 nights; Southwest removed the expiration date for our leftover flight credits from 2020; our flights were cheaper to arrive on a Tuesday and leave on a Wednesday and “voila!” our brief trip became a nine day vacation!

Please follow along as I share our resort-hopping, decoration viewing, glorious food-eating holiday adventure!

If you want to start at the beginning, see my prior report: So Much to do (and eat) we needed to go twice

 

[mickey916]

Our Itinerary (updated with links)

12/6 Scat Cat Cafe, 'Ohana
12/7 Breakfast at Towneplace Suites, Donut Box, Nochebuena Cocina, Refreshment Outpost, Bavaria kitchen, American Holiday Table, L'Chaim, Via Napoli
12/8 Gaston's Tavern, Casey's Corner, Main St. Confectionery, Liberty Tree Tavern, Holiday Sleigh Ride
12/9 Kringla Bakeri, cookie stroll, The Fountain, Sommerfest, Behind the Seeds, Garden Grill, Candlelight Processional
12/10 Everglazed Donuts, Chicken Guy, Gideons, Columbia Restaurant
12/11 Steakhouse 71, Three Bridges, The Fountain
12/12 Primo Piatto, Everything Pop!, All Star Music Food Court, Chef Art Smith's Homecomin', Gideons
12/13 Ale & Compass, Artist's Palette, Boatwright's, Beaches & Cream
12/14 Scat Cat Café, Sanaa, Contempo Café, Gideons, the Ganachery, Pizza Ponte

 

[mickey916]

Background: This trip was just DH (55) and myself (55). Recently retired, this was our first retirement vacation. Since we already went twice in 2022 (on a work trip in April and with our adult sons in May), our focus this trip was mainly holiday experiences and food.

Our goals were:
1) Complete the cookie stroll
2) Sample the Festival of the Holidays
3) See the Candlelight processional
4) See the holiday decorations at every resort
5) Enjoy Disney Springs
6) Eat our favorite foods
7) Try a few new foods/restaurants

Spoiler alert: We achieved all our goals...some were worth it, some were not.

12/6/22 Arrival Day: We landed at MCO in the early afternoon, picked up a rental car, and headed straight to Port Orlean's French Quarter.



We checked out the Christmas tree in the lobby



and then headed to Scat Cat Café, for the real purpose of this visit...a beignet sundae with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce.


This was very good! The beignets were warm, light and fluffy. The ice cream was a good quality chocolate ice cream. Truth be told though, we prefer just the plain beignets as this was a little tricky to eat.

We also tried the holiday peppermint beignet.

This was pretty good. Definitely had a strong peppermint flavor. I just noticed now that the sprinkles were mini-candy canes, very cute. Guess I didn't have my glasses on when we ate it!

We then decided to burn some calories and walked down to Port Orleans Riverside resort to check out the decorations there.


So far we're off to a great start and the day just gets better from here.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Can’t wait for the rest! Looks like you guys were off to a great start.

 

[mickey916]

Can’t wait for the rest! Looks like you guys were off to a great start.

Thanks for following along! It was a perfect start!

 

[mickey916]

Dinner - arrival day 12/6/22​

After exploring the Port Orleans French Quarter and Riverside, we decided to head over to the Poly to be ready for our dinner reservation. First we checked out the tree in the lobby, which was very pretty but not seemed a little small and underwhelming for a deluxe resort.

We walked around for a bit and then sat on the beach listening to the piped in Hawaiian Christmas music. (How many of you are humming Mele Kalikimaka right now?)

We then were alerted our table was ready at 'Ohana. I was going to ask for a "fireworks view" but it was only 6:00 and fireworks weren't until 10:00 so I decided it just to sit wherever assigned. To our surprise we were given a table right against the windows with a perfect view of the castle. My pictures don't do it justice but it was so magical eating our first dinner with a view of Magic Kingdom.


Our server promptly brought out the salad and yummy pineapple bread.



The salad was fresh and I enjoy the vinaigrette but tried not to have too much as we knew great things were coming.



The bread was soft and warm with a nice hint of pineapple and the honey butter is delicious.

Next up our favorite part of the meal, the starters...


Every part of this was just phenomenal. The wings were cooked well with a nice sticky glaze, the potstickers were flavorful, the noodles are just so delicious with their sweet teriyaki glaze and the broccolini is well, broccolini, what can we say?

Next we were brought the chicken thighs (I apologize for the blurry picture, I remembered too late and quickly took a pic on my plate).



This too was very tasty. The thighs had a nice char on them and the chimichurri sauce was garlicky and added nice flavor.

The peel & eat shrimp then arrived.


These were all mine, as DH isn't a big fan of seafood. The shrimp tasted very fresh and were nicely seasoned.

Lastly, we were brought the steak tips which I forgot to take a picture of until we already ate some.


These were a mixed bag. Some pieces were so tender you could easily cut them with a butter knife, absolutely perfectly cooked with a tasty teriyaki glaze. Others were tough and chewy. I heard recently sometimes restaurants stretch their steak tips by mixing in lesser quality cuts of meat, seems like that may have been the case here. But, the good pieces were excellent!

And last, but certainly not least, the reason we come (besides the bread, noodles, and potstickers)...'Ohana bread pudding.


This was very good but we do miss the previous version with the bananas.

Overall this meal definitely didn't disappoint. It was our favorite last May and was just as delicious this time around. I can't imagine a trip to Disney without going to this restaurant. Our only complaint is that we wish they would bring some of the food closer together. There was a bit of wait for each new item so it was a little disjointed of a meal.

Off to a great start and the night still wasn't over....

 

[Counting Stars]

Your trip report is also off to a great start! Love the detail you provide and the pics! Congrats on your retirement

 

[mickey916]

Your trip report is also off to a great start! Love the detail you provide and the pics! Congrats on your retirement

Thank you! Since I'm retired I can take my time to add the fun details!

 

[mickey916]

12/6/22 First Night Ending with a Show​

After our phenomenal meal, I realized we only had a half hour wait for the Electrical Water Pageant. We had planned on watching it on our May trip from our Contemporary balcony but rain cancelled it both nights, so this was a first for us. We grabbed a seat at the beach and enjoyed the show.
The weather was great and it was a nice end to our evening.

We then drove to check in for one night at Towneplace Suites in Flamingo Crossing. We had booked a King room through Undercover Tourist. However upon check in we were told there were no king beds available so we were upgraded to a fireworks view queen room. It was cool seeing the fireworks in the distance and for one night we didn’t really care about the king bed. The room was spacious, quiet and clean. The beds were a little too firm for our liking but it was a fine place for a night.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[mickey916]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for following!

 

[Paulaparm]

Sounds great so far! Looking forward to more

 

[mickey916]

Sounds great so far! Looking forward to more

Thank you! Next up…our first Epcot day.

 

[mickey916]

12/7/22 Breakfast at Towneplace Suites & Early Entry at Epcot​

Eager to make rope drop at Epcot, we got up early and grabbed a quick complementary breakfast to hold us over until the holiday food booths open. My DH grabbed two muffins. He thought the blueberry one was okay and the apple one tasted spoiled. It doesn't even look good in this picture!

I got the mickey waffles since I can't possibly skip a mickey waffle when I see one. These had a nice sweetness to them but they were cold so it was disappointing. We knew we were in for a tasty day at Epcot anyhow so we brushed it off.

After a quick, less than stellar breakfast we checked out of Towneplace and drove to the Swan. We parked the car and walked over to Epcot, arriving at the International Gateway by 7:45 for 8:30 early entry. We were let through security at 8:00 and made our first bad decision of the day as we headed to Remy and got in line at 8:10. The line didn't move until park open at 8:30 and by the time it was our turn to ride it was just after 9:00.

My DH suffers motion sickness and wasn't planning on riding but after waiting 50 minutes in line, he decided he could just ride and close his eyes for the screens. As the ride started our rat spun in circles (more so than on previous trips) and my poor DH was queasy before we even got to the screens...so far day two was off to a bumpy start.

 

[mickey916]

12/7/22 Morning at Epcot​

After Remy we decided to head to former Future World to see what we could ride as we awaited the opening of the food booths and the ILL$ that I purchased for myself for Guardians. We opted not to purchase Genie+ so we hoped to get a few rides in early with low waits. We stopped to admire the Epcot Christmas tree on our way.

We walked right on to Journey into Imagination so that we could see Figment in his holiday sweater.

We then walked on to Living with the Land to see the holiday overlay. We soon discovered that it wasn't really visible in daylight but we enjoyed the ride anyhow.



After getting off Living with the Land, the waittime for Soarin' was at 55 minutes. Unfortunately it was at 20 when we first got into line for Living with the Land. We should've ridden that first, second bad decision of the morning. We decided to skip Soarin' since my DH wasn't going to ride it anyhow. I never did find the wait time any lower than 55 minutes.

We headed to Guardian's for my ILL$ and I got to enjoy the holiday song mix. It's funny, when I rode it during the AP preview I felt no motion at all and was surprised at reports from others mentioning motion sickness. This time I felt pretty dizzy when I got off. Not sure what was different. This is still an incredible ride but I opted to skip my virtual queue that I had also snagged in the morning. Turned out it ended up being called during our dinner ADR anyhow but at least I had already decided to skip it.

It wasn't quite 11:00 yet but we decided to get in line at the Donut Box for our first treats of the Festival. We were surprised to see it was already open. We ordered the Croissant Donut, The Eggnog and Cream-filled Donut, and a Gingerbread Milk Shake to share.



The Croissant donut was absolutely delicious! It was light and crispy with a plentiful coating of cinnamon and sugar.



The Eggnog cream filled donut was also very good. The crushed gingersnaps on the top gave it a nice texture and flavor. The cream inside was just a regular pastry cream. We really didn't notice any eggnog flavor but it was still tasty.

The gingerbread milkshake was excellent. It ended up being one of our favorite things from the festival. The only negative is that it was an extremely tiny serving for the price ($4.50). We had brought an extra cup so we could share it but it was so small we just shared got an extra straw and took turns. We both wished we had ordered one for each of us.

So far we were impressed with the festival offerings...did it stay that way? Up next, we start the cookie stroll...

 

[mickey916]

12/7/22 The Cookie Stroll Begins...
​

One of the things we most looked forward to was doing the cookie stroll. We watched a lot of YouTube videos and were really excited about the offerings. The only cookie that seemed to be getting poor reviews was the new Alfajores cookie at Nochebuena Cocina. So, we decided to start there to see what we thought. We purchased one cookie to share since we wanted room for other goodies.
Sadly, the reports were true. This cookie was extremely dry. There was not enough filling to even taste the dulce de leche or coconut. It was basically a dry tasteless shortbread cookie. Such a missed opportunity!

We picked up a map to do the Olaf scavenger hunt and started working our way through the countries to find Olaf. For some reason I forgot to take pictures of them except for the one in China.

We decided it was time for something savory and picked up the peanut stew made with sweet potatoes, mustard greens, rice, and roasted peanuts at Refreshment Outpost.


This was another miss for us. It wasn't served hot so a room temperature stew was a little off-putting. It did have a lot of flavor but wasn't really spices that our palates care for. It didn't have enough peanut flavor for my tastes.

So far our food quest was still a bumpy road...up next the Germany booth, can it turn things around?

 

[footballmouse]

 

[nikithepill]

following!

 

[mickey916]

12/7/22 Lunch at Bavaria Kitchen and Continuing the Stroll
​

We paused our search for Olaf and decided to grab lunch at the Bavaria Kitchen. I was so excited for this one! We ordered the Cheese Fondue in a Bread Bowl, the Pork Schnitzel, and the Linzer cookie.
This was incredible! The bread was crusty and soft, the cheese was warm with a nice sharpness, the veggies were cooked fine and great when smothered in cheese. Best of the fest for us!

Then there was the pork schnitzel.


This was such a disappointment! It was cold, chewy, and had an odd spice. DH and I are charter members of the "clean your plate club" but unfortunately this one went in the trash. It just wasn't worth the stomach space.

Next up, the linzer cookie.

Again, we were disappointed. The cookies were dry and while the filling was very tasty, it was barely a smear. We had seen so many vloggers rave about this cookie but it was just average for us.

We admired the Christmas tree in America as we continue our cookie quest.



At the American Holiday table, we picked up the Chocolate Crinkle cookie.


This was pretty good, so far the best one we tried. It chocolatey and chewy. My DH thought it was a little underbaked but I thought it was good.

We headed over to L'Chaim to pick up the black and white cookie.



We've never had a black and white cookie before so we didn't know what to expect. This was odd. It had a cake like texture which was fine but there was a weird aftertaste...anise perhaps? Another miss. So far the cookie stroll is one for four.

We decided to pause our eating for a bit to have room for our dinner so we continued our Olaf search and admired the holiday decorations.
We went back to the front of the park to ride Spaceship Earth as we awaited our dinner ADR.

Up next...did we finish our day on a high note at dinner?​

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Man WDW is striking out with the cookies! Hopefully your food luck improves. The bread and cheese bowl did look yummy