We only live 8 hours away now, that means we can go once a month, right?! -- 7/19 Homecomin'

Vernie822

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
RIGHT!

Well.. kind of. Not really, but a girl can dream, right? You see, my husband and I recently moved from PA (where we were 18-19 hours away from WDW) to North Carolina, where we are only a mere EIGHT... yes, EIGHT HOURS from Walt Disney World.

We moved for our careers, among other reasons, but being 8 hours from WDW sure is nice.

My name is Ashley and my husband is Justin. I've been to WDW about a dozen times, half of which were in the last three years. Justin, my now husband, and I went for the first (his first) time in 2014 and we've loved going together ever since.

This is us at Aulani in September:

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One of our favorite things about WDW is THE FOOD. I'm not going to lie, most of our trip planning centers around where we'll be eating. No shame.

We went to Disneyland & Hawaii this past fall for our honeymoon, and moved shortly thereafter. We have a trip coming up with some friends in February for the princess races, and I was randomly browsing the WDW site one day after finding out I had MLK off from my new employer. My previous employer stuck to minimal bigger holidays, so it was a nice bonus!

Behold a 3 day weekend and a decent AP rate at Caribbean Beach, and a quick 3 day-er was born!

I'll likely keep this one, big thread as a 2017 dining report, if that's okay. We have a few trips coming up that I'm pretty excited about!

February: Saratoga Springs for Princess race weekend with my college girlfriends (we love to do a girls trip every year so this will be perfect!)
March/April: Bay Lake Tower (booked this on a whim when we realized there was DVC availability)
July: Long 4th of July weekend.. I fully intend on only a wee bit of park time.
November: Mother/Daughter trip. My mom and I LOVE to do WDW together.

There you have it. It's possible we'll get there in September with my cousin & her husband (they live in our city too.. yay!) but I think I'll be Disney-ed out if I get there any more than that, haha!

Thanks for joining us! :)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

January Trip (Caribbean Beach)
Epcot Eats
Ample Hills Creamery
California Grill
Pecos Billi
'Ohana
D-Luxe Burger & Sprinkles

February (Saratoga Springs)
Columbia Harbor House
Be Our Guest (Dinner)
The Wave (Breakfast)
Drinks Around World Showcase + Via Napoli

Amorette's & Morimoto Asia

March (BLT)
Flower & Garden Eats & HS Snacks
Boathouse Drinks & Splitsville
Monorail Crawl
Contempo Cafe / Flower and Garden
Beaches and Cream
 
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We just did an MLK 3-dayer too :) I was hoping to run into you guys over the weekend! Hope you had a great time. Can't wait to see what you ate and enjoyed!!!
 
Hi Ashley! I meant to comment when you commented on my dining report that you're going like, every month but the months we're going, which are May and Aug :( However just a couple hours ago we booked a last minute-ish March trip, just Steve and I :goodvibes I don't suppose your March/April trip includes March 25-28th at all??
 
JANUARY: Lunching around Epcot

We intended to leave after work on Friday and drive straight through to Orlando. Justin suggested a few days prior that maybe instead of that we should stop in Jacksonville overnight. It's about 5.5 hours to Jax and then 2.5 hours to Orlando, so we'd get there about midnight and we could leave at a decent time the next morning to get there by 10-ish. Justin was the driver so I left that up to him. Sounded good to me! We booked a Marriott just outside of Jacksonville and stayed the night there. We were well rested and it was a much better decision. Saved us some money, too!

Upon entering Disney property we headed straight for Caribbean Beach. I had never stayed there before, and it was the cheapest moderate with the AP discount for that weekend. It's a very pretty resort, especially the beach area. We have magic bands, but I didn't know what was old and what wasn't so we decided to just get the gray ones they'd give us at the front desk. I had completely forgotten to customize Magic Bands, so when I went online a week before, they were already being shipped to the front desk. Yeah, I planned minimally on this trip.

We drove over to Epcot that morning. No real reason why, other than our stuff was in the car and we didn't feel like moving it before our room was ready.

Epcot wasn't insanely busy, at least it didn't seem like it. But it did take us a WHOPPING 75 MINUTES TO GET INTO THE PARK.

15 minutes to get through security (everyone was being screened at metal detectors, which I don't mind, I'll wait if it means we're all safer), plus 45 minutes to wait in line to activate our AP's (yikes) and another 15 to get through the turnstiles. We got to security around 10:30 AM and got in the gates around 11:30.

After that we headed over to the brand new, swanky Annual Passholder entrance. A nice touch, albeit not really necessary to us. It was to the far left when coming towards the turnstiles at Epcot. Unfortunately, people were getting confused that they couldn't enter there. They had it roped off with a CM at the entrance asking everyone if they were AP holders. You had 4 people: One, the AP holder who said yes and kept walking to get in line. One who said "No" and followed instructions to go to another line. One who said "What's an AP?!" and then was directed to another line, and one who said "I don't care" and went in line anyways. Unfortunately, the last group made up at least 50% of the people in the line. I felt bad for the CM who was just doing his job but was completely overwhelmed. Now I don't mind waiting to get in, but I felt so bad because people weren't listening and the whole process was just confusing!

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This was the cluster of people (there were more) to get in through the AP line!

Anyhow.. rant over ;)

Once we were inside, we wandered around Future World for a bit and ended up at the DVC Member Lounge. The entrance is located inside the Journey into Imagination gift shop. I wanted to check it out and Justin wanted a Diet Coke so, everyone wins!

It's super nice up there. Lots of places to sit. Coke Freestyle machines and coffee machines. I think there were snacks too, but we didn't see any. They had charging stations and computers for kids to play on. It's definitely a nice spot for relaxing for a bit when the parks are busy or it's super hot. We'll be back there for sure.

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After that, we set off in search of some food! We had a dinner reservation that night so I didn't want to fill up much, but I was also starving from not having a big breakfast.

Epcot also had the Festival of the Arts this weekend! We looked at the menus and nothing jumped out at us (also, the dishes seemed a little pricy). I feel as if we're frequently down there during Food and Wine / Flower and Garden and never get to try the many restaurants Epcot has to offer, so I decided to go with a QS.

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Glorious, delicious, fish and chips from the UK!! :cool1: I just love these and I haven't had them in a while!

The batter on these is crispy, hardly greasy, and delicious. The fish is nice and flaky white fish. I believe they use cod inside at Rose and Crown, and these are white fish. I haven't had the Rose & Crown ones yet (we want to try it there soon), but I have had the Raglan Road ones and I think these are even better! Justin doesn't eat fish but he tried them and actually liked it, especially the batter. He ate most of my fries. You definitely get plenty of food and I don't think it leaves you feeling all greasy like some fish and chips do.

It was rainy so fortunately we grabbed a table.

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We headed towards France when the skies opened up a bit and the people were nowhere to be found!

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Justin was ready for a drink, specifically his favorite, a Tokyo Sunset. They sell these in Japan right near Kabuki Cafe.

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They had a few other drinks, too. I thought they both sounded pretty good!

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I asked and Shochu is Japanese Vodka. Sounds refreshing!

This drink is so photogenic!

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Mine, not so much! I ended up with a beer in the UK... We made another lap around before I had decided what I wanted. I waited in line before finding out they had no Magners Pear Cider (which is delicious BTW!) so I settled on a Sam Smith Lager. It was similar in taste to a Miller Lite or Bud Light, so not the best beer I've ever had but not the worst.

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Justin decided that his lunch would be from Les Halles in France.

They had a special cake-y dessert for the festival:
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Yum!!


He decided on a croissant jambon au fromage (ham and cheese croissant, it has bechamel cheese on it and I think maybe Swiss?) and a roulade au fromage (bacon/cheese roll).

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This was our first time trying the croissant, which he really liked. We've had the bacon and cheese roll before and it never disappoints. I think the bakery is a great stop for quick service, breakfast/lunch or dessert! We've done the 3 snacks for a QS credit option before and I think it's a good one. Both of these are a snack credit.

Next we'll head over to the Boardwalk and find a new favorite place!



 
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We just did an MLK 3-dayer too :) I was hoping to run into you guys over the weekend! Hope you had a great time. Can't wait to see what you ate and enjoyed!!!

Aww yay!! I hope you had a great time! Sorry we missed you!

Hi Ashley! I meant to comment when you commented on my dining report that you're going like, every month but the months we're going, which are May and Aug :( However just a couple hours ago we booked a last minute-ish March trip, just Steve and I :goodvibes I don't suppose your March/April trip includes March 25-28th at all??

Hey Ariane!! :lovestruc March, May and August YAY! That sounds awesome! Unfortunately we'll be there 3/31-4/3 so we'll just miss you guys :sad:Where are you staying in March? Sounds like a blast!!
 
I have to go back a read your posts more thoroughly but I wanted to pop in real quick to say we too are about to move to NC from MD and are so excited to have a 9 hour drive to our favorite place. We were born and raised in MD but lived in NC back when our kids were young. We moved back to MD 10 years ago. Our youngest, twin DDs, graduate HS in May. Our twins are going to college in PA so that will be tough but DH and I can shoot down to WDW for some four day weekends. Anyway... looking forward to reading your reports.
 


Justin was ready for a drink, specifically his favorite, a Tokyo Sunset. They sell these in Japan right near Kabuki Cafe.
Good to know! I tried the Tokyo Sunset at Tokyo Dining and loved it but had no idea I could get one right in Japan.

He decided on a croissant jambon au fromage (ham and cheese croissant, it has bechamel cheese on it and I think maybe Swiss?) and a roulade au fromage (bacon/cheese roll).
Mmm, the croissant looks good! I love Les Halles and I agree, the roulade au fromage is great :thumbsup2

Unfortunately we'll be there 3/31-4/3 so we'll just miss you guys :sad:Where are you staying in March? Sounds like a blast!!
Well that stinks :( But now that you're so close and will apparently be going down 20 times a year lol, one of trips is bound to overlap at some point!
I don't know yet where we'll stay in March. May is WL again, I fell in love with it after we stayed there for the first time last August. I need to book us someplace either tonight or tomorrow! I think since we got ridiculously cheap airfare and now have 2 trips so close together we may try a moderate as we've been doing deluxe for many trips now - what did you guys think of CBR?
 
As a fellow Northeasterner, allow me to congratulate you on getting out of this miserable cold weather! I think I would miss the seasons, but nobody needs 6 months of winter lol.

I'm excited to read about all the food and drinks (obvs) that you tried!
 
I have to go back a read your posts more thoroughly but I wanted to pop in real quick to say we too are about to move to NC from MD and are so excited to have a 9 hour drive to our favorite place. We were born and raised in MD but lived in NC back when our kids were young. We moved back to MD 10 years ago. Our youngest, twin DDs, graduate HS in May. Our twins are going to college in PA so that will be tough but DH and I can shoot down to WDW for some four day weekends. Anyway... looking forward to reading your reports.
How exciting! Congratulations to them. We moved to the Charlotte area. I grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Erie for a few years for work before moving down here. We love it so far! Where will your girls be going to school? It's really nice being "so close" .. I say "so close" because we're still a decent distance away. Someday we'll probably leave work by 3-ish and get there by midnight, but for now my husband says he likes to stop overnight!
 
As a fellow Northeasterner, allow me to congratulate you on getting out of this miserable cold weather! I think I would miss the seasons, but nobody needs 6 months of winter lol.

I'm excited to read about all the food and drinks (obvs) that you tried!

HAHA! I cannot even explain how excited I am to not be in the tundra this winter. I know in Erie we'd get a foot of snow at a time some days. Down here we had a "snow storm" of a ginormous half an inch a few weeks ago. I kid you not, bread was gone from the shelves.. there was no bacon or eggs.. People had cases of wine in their carts. And the kids had 2.5 snow days :O Unreal! I think eventually I'll miss the snow. Six months of winter was a lot and it was crazy how it went from sunny in September/early October to tundra in November through the beginning of April.. I don't miss it just yet! :)
 
Well that stinks :( But now that you're so close and will apparently be going down 20 times a year lol, one of trips is bound to overlap at some point!
I don't know yet where we'll stay in March. May is WL again, I fell in love with it after we stayed there for the first time last August. I need to book us someplace either tonight or tomorrow! I think since we got ridiculously cheap airfare and now have 2 trips so close together we may try a moderate as we've been doing deluxe for many trips now - what did you guys think of CBR?

Bahahaha.. if only I had that much vacation! I'm trying to milk the 3-4 day weekends as much as I can! I think WL sounds amazing, such a beautiful resort. We didn't mind CBR! I think the insides of the rooms were very nice. Reminded me a lot of Coronado Springs with the 2 doors leading to the bathroom area. The outside of the buildings we stayed in (Aruba) were like a blinding early 90's Miami Vice pepto bismol pink. It was very south Florida hotel-y from the outside. I did like the rooms though. We didn't spend any time at the pool but that area looked nice. And the food court/gift shop was pretty standard but nothing to complain about. I'd stay there again for sure. We did the buses once so I can't comment much on that other than there are LOTS of bus stops!
 
How exciting! Congratulations to them. We moved to the Charlotte area. I grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Erie for a few years for work before moving down here. We love it so far! Where will your girls be going to school? It's really nice being "so close" .. I say "so close" because we're still a decent distance away. Someday we'll probably leave work by 3-ish and get there by midnight, but for now my husband says he likes to stop overnight!
My girls are going to Misericordia in Dallas, PA and they're playing ball there. My in laws are from Scranton and Wilkes Barre and we, ourselves, lived in Harrisburg for a bit. We are moving to the Durham area. Actually DH has been working there for going on three years now and we have a condo there. It has been nice to drive to the condo and then down to WDW or Port Canaveral, for cruising, or Hilton Head. Will be much nicer once we eliminate that MD to NC leg where we have to get through the DC- Northern VA mess. Will NOT miss that.

From NC, we like to get within 2 hours to WDW and stop for the night so that arrival day at WDW is a full day. Then when we come home we just drive straight through... which I would prefer to stop for the night again but DH likes to push through.

Food and drinks are also a big part of our Disney trips... and our cruising. We love Food and Wine for that reason. I also love the Magners pear cider.... they have it at Raglan Road too. Are you DVC? If not, you guys should look into it since you will be going a lot (never mind...I see you are DVC). We also like the DVC Hilton Head resort. It's just a five hour drive from Durham. We'd like to get to Aulani at some point. Maybe when the girls are off to college and DH and I can go and only pay for two airfares.
 
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I love the fish and chips from the UK! Looking forward to reading about your yummy adventures!
 

JANUARY TRIP: Ample Hills Creamery!


After we’d walked around a little bit and let our lunch settle, Justin wanted to try an item on his list.. Ample Hills Creamery! So we headed over to the Boardwalk to give it a try.


We have both seen some reviews floating around on various blogs, and once he saw that they had an ICE CREAM FLIGHT.. he was all over it.


Ample Hills is somewhat new, I believe it opened earlier this summer. We decided to split an ice cream flight. I think their prices are a little expensive (cones are like $7.50 apiece and go up to $9.50 for a large specialty one) but the flight was priced right around $10.

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Uh, how awesome do those adult concoctions sound!?

You get to choose six flavors, so we each decided to choose 3 that appealed to us and share them. We have similar ice cream tastes but also like completely different things. I love old lady ice cream, aka anything with nuts such as butter pecan, turtle, etc.. and he likes kiddie ice creams such as cookies n cream and his all-time favorite, cotton candy. We’ll both eat just about any ice cream but he hates my “old lady” ice creams and I hate his Cotton Candy!

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He chose his three: Cotton Candy, Chocolate Milk and Cookies, and Baked/Unbaked. I chose my three, Nonna D’s Oatmeal Lace, Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, and Peanut Butter Takes the Cup. Here are some descriptions from the Disney menu:


Cotton Candy: 100% All-Natural Blue Cotton Candy Ice Cream made with no Artificial Colors of Flavors

Chocolate Milk and Cookies Ice Cream: Creamy Milk Chocolate Ice Cream with Pieces of Back-To-Nature Sandwich Creme Cookies

Baked/Unbaked Ice Cream: Vanilla Ice Cream with pieces of Housemade Chocolate Chip Cookies and Brown Butter Cookie Dough

Nonna D's Oatmeal Lace Ice Cream: Dark Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream with Housemade Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Ooey Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream: The creamiest Vanilla Ice Cream made with Cream Cheese and gobs of House-made St. Louis-Style Ooey Gooey Butter Cake. A staff favorite!

PB Wins the Cup Ice Cream: Vanilla Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Chocolate flakes and House-made Peanut Butter Cups


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(Clearly I just walk around snapping pictures without focusing or lining up my camera.. half of my pics are cooked, whoops!)

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Overall I’d say this is more than enough for one person, definitely enough for two people to share. Maybe even a small family. I’d say that you received about ¼ cup of each ice cream flavor. It’s not overly generous or gluttonous, so it was the perfect after-meal snack. We took our ice cream out to the Boardwalk and found a seat overlooking the water. Perfection. I just love the Boardwalk area!


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It was warm enough that our ice cream started melting pretty quickly!

Multiple people came up to us and asked “Hey, where’d you get that?” and then proceeded to go inside and order ice cream.. Sooo, perhaps Ample Hills should give us a kick back, because I think we generated a few customers for them ;)


So let’s start with the flavors..

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Starting with the blue cotton candy around 2 oclock and going clock wise, we have the Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, Baked/Unbaked, Nonna D's, Chocolate Milk and Cookies, and PB Takes the Cup.

You can really see here how big those cookie chunks were. The Nonna D's has a great brown sugar color, and the Ooey Gooey, you can see the cream cheese and Ooey Gooey cake.. yum. I am drooling just thinking about it.

I didn’t taste Cotton Candy because it’s Justin’s absolute favorite and I don’t like it. He really did like it though he’s not hard to please when it comes to ice cream.

The Chocolate Milk & Cookies was his favorite of the three he chose. I thought it was a unique flavor, and you could really taste the richness of the milk chocolate. The whole scoop was creamy and rich. The chocolate cookie pieces were large and plentiful, which we found to be consistent throughout all the flavors we tried.

The cookie/brownie dough one was delicious as well. Reminds me of the Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked flavor, which is always good.

The Nonna D’s Oatmeal Lace Cookie was just… in a few words.. outstanding and scrumptious. It was very unique and unlike any flavors I’ve had before. The ice cream had a brown sugar flavor and HUGE chunks of delicious oatmeal cookie. I love anything oatmeal or oatmeal raisin and this was just to die for. I really thought about going back later on in our trip for more.

The Ooey Gooey Butter Cake was, just like the Nonna D’s, amazing. CREAM CHEESE in the ice cream? Yes, please! This was again super creamy and not too rich. With huge chunks of cake.. Oh my gosh, it was so good.

Lastly, I also chose the PB Wins the Cup. This was good too, but nothing compared to the other two I got. Justin also liked this one. I love peanut butter/chocolate ice cream, so I feel like I have had similar ice creams before. It wasn’t bad at all, just not as great as the other two I had.


Overall, we really enjoyed this experience. I think a lot of their flavors were unique and not something you’d find just anywhere. And of course they had the old favorites such as cookie dough and Oreo (but theirs are made with Back to Nature sandwich cookies so that means they’re healthy, right?) They also have a specific Disney flavor, the Sally’s Sea Shells with orange and chocolate. I’m not big on orange so I didn’t try that one.


There is something so calming and fun about the boardwalk area. I just love it, and walking over during a busy, crowded Epcot day is one of our favorite things to do. I think they have so many good restaurants to try, too. We got lucky and there was a Studio available for 4th of July weekend, so we’ll be staying at the Boardwalk/Beach Club area for the first time and I CANNOT WAIT! My employer gives us off the 3rd and 4th, so why not give it a try! We fully intend to NOT spend much time in the parks because I’m sure they’ll be crazy, so it will be a fun spot to be in. I’ve already got Beaches and Cream and Il Mulino booked (@ariane37 you have inspired me to try it and I can't wait!) Justin also really wants to do Flying Fish again, we have not tried it yet since the renovation (torn between that and Yachtsman).


Anyways, Ample Hills gets two thumbs up from us. I know Disney has a LOT of ice cream offerings, but I feel like for actual ice cream flavors (no crazy sundaes or anything like that), it doesn’t get much better than this. The No Way Jose still is the best sundae in my book, but I think as far as ice cream, you cannot beat Ample Hills.


After that, we walked back into Epcot and spent some more time there before heading back to the resort. We stayed at Caribbean Beach for the first time.

We were in the Aruba section, building 54. We ended up booking a King room, even with a great AP discount, they didn't have any queens left and the King was still cheaper than any other moderate resort.

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The buildings were a real loud Pepto Bismol, Golden Girls pink!

The resort was really pretty and spread out, as moderates seem to be.

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The room itself reminded me a lot of Coronado Springs, with the layout and the big doors into the bathroom.

It was a nice resort and we liked it!

We spent a little time in the room relaxing and showering/getting ready for our date at California Grill that night.
 
My girls are going to Misericordia in Dallas, PA and they're playing ball there. My in laws are from Scranton and Wilkes Barre and we, ourselves, lived in Harrisburg for a bit. We are moving to the Durham area. Actually DH has been working there for going on three years now and we have a condo there. It has been nice to drive to the condo and then down to WDW or Port Canaveral, for cruising, or Hilton Head. Will be much nicer once we eliminate that MD to NC leg where we have to get through the DC- Northern VA mess. Will NOT miss that.

From NC, we like to get within 2 hours to WDW and stop for the night so that arrival day at WDW is a full day. Then when we come home we just drive straight through... which I would prefer to stop for the night again but DH likes to push through.

Food and drinks are also a big part of our Disney trips... and our cruising. We love Food and Wine for that reason. I also love the Magners pear cider.... they have it at Raglan Road too. Are you DVC? If not, you guys should look into it since you will be going a lot (never mind...I see you are DVC). We also like the DVC Hilton Head resort. It's just a five hour drive from Durham. We'd like to get to Aulani at some point. Maybe when the girls are off to college and DH and I can go and only pay for two airfares.

Aw, good for them!! I'm excited for short(er) road trips to some new cities. I don't think we ever did much DC driving (maybe occasionally?) but since we're from the western side, our drives were more through WV. I think the 2 hours was perfect. My husband prefers to be the driver, so I left that up to him. He seemed to like the 2 hour drive the next morning.

We did Aulani and we loved it! We got lucky with airfare and flew to LA on Southwest points (so it was free). But from the east coast the flights are definitely pricy, especially for 4! We just bought into DVC last year. We started going 2-ish times a year and figured why not, since we would love to be able to take our future children too. I actually had the Magners at Raglan Road last year, it seems to be a good go-to for Irish pubs!

I love the fish and chips from the UK! Looking forward to reading about your yummy adventures!

Thanks for reading! Those fish and chips are the best!
 
JANUARY TRIP: California Grill

Justin's Christmas gift to me was dinner at a signature restaurant. I swear we have planned/thought about eating at California Grill no less than 5 times. I've had so many reservations that I've cancelled in lieu of others, so FINALLYYYY we were going to try it!

I know their menu changes pretty often, but other signatures' menus have just appealed to me more. I also wasn't sure if Justin would love it, but eventually we decided to give it a try. And spoiler alert, I'm glad we did.

We played with reservation times a bit before our trip, somehow we ended up with a 5:50 PM reservation and one for 7:30 PM the following day, which would've been perfect. We ended up cancelling the 7:30 in lieu of Ohana, but I found an 8:50 that seemed to be better than 5:50. We wanted to be there in time to see the fireworks without eating too late. If you eat there earlier in the night, you can come back with your receipt to watch fireworks from their observation deck.

Since our reservation was so late, we had some time to walk around MK. We took a photopass picture by the castle. After having approximately 5,000 photos taken of him in 2016, Justin was resistant to photos on this trip and this is the only one I have of us. Whoops!

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We love trying new bars around WDW, so we decided to try one along the monorail. We almost headed to Mizner's at the GF, but decided to check out the bars at the Contemporary. First we thought about just going up to California Grill, but we decided to see what The Wave had to offer.

We've never been there before, but I have really been wanting to try their breakfast.

We headed into The Wave's lounge, where there was a TON of space, and only a few families eating/drinking. We were greeted by a really friendly bartender, I can't recall his name but he was sweet and fun. He made us feel right at home and Justin watched the second half of some playoff football.

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They have a lounge menu that sounded delicious. The shrimp/crab cakes and the shrimp tacos both were right up my alley!

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Justin went with a Kentucky Mule. Mules have been our favorite lately!

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Kentucky Mule: Kentucky Bourbon, Fresh Lime Juice, Agave Nectar, topped with Ginger Beer.

A Kentucky Mule has bourbon instead of Vodka. He really liked this. He usually goes for a bourbon or whiskey cocktail, and since he also likes mules, it was the best of both worlds.

I went for a Pimm's Punch, which I frequently see on Disney menus but had not yet tried:

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This has Pimm's No 1 Liqueur, Hendrick's Gin, Lemonade and Wild Strawberry. I loved this! It was sweet and refreshing. I can't lie, I sucked it down rather quickly!

I turned behind me to take a picture of the lounge area. This is only half of one of the rooms. So there are two rooms, I think both of equal size, each room double the size of the space in this picture!

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A nice couple came and sat down next to us and ordered dinner. The bartender offered the lounge menu and also the dinner menu from The Wave! Our positive experience here, coupled with the cozy atmosphere and ability to order off of the regular menu, made us want to come back. We're staying at BLT in March/April, so hopefully we make it back. I think we're going to start trying lounges more often for dinner!

I ordered one more drink, a new-to-me cider, Strawberry Lime Rekorderlig.

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This was delicious! Definitely does NOT have a beer taste, but a fruity one for sure. The bottle was so big, I didn't realize that when I ordered.

Shortly before 8:50, we headed up towards California Grill. We checked in and took the elevator up. We were seated and told we could go watch the fireworks outside, which we did!

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There is nothing better than watching some Wishes! This is by far one of the best vantage points.

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Back inside, we met our lovely server Wendy. She was great. She brought us some bread and butter. We each got our own butter with the fancy black sea salt. The bread consisted of a lavender focaccia (perhaps I was too drunk to taste the lavender, but I didn't), and what might have been just a regular roll. I can't remember the second one too much, although I think I did eat one.

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Lavender focaccia:
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I'd definitely consider the lavender focaccia to be one of the better bread services we've had! Both were delicious and I was trying not to fill up.

I let Justin choose the appetizer, because I knew I'd want dessert. As much as I wanted to try their fabulous sushi, I knew I couldn't eat a whole roll myself. Honestly everything on their apps menu sounded delicious.

Justin chose the artisan tacos.
Artisan Tacos - Adobo fish or braised pork, house-made cilantro-corn tortillas, chipotle crema, pico de gallo, $17. Justin chose the pork. I'm not sure that this description is totally accurate since I don't see any pico de gallo, and there were chunks of avocado as opposed to a crema.

These came while I was in the restroom, and as you can see, there is one missing! ;)

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These were great, but not the best taco I've ever had. For $17, I wasn't over the top impressed, but I have no complaints. I love fancy tacos and order them often, and I've had some pretty delicious $2-3 tacos. I'd certainly eat them again, but I'd also probably choose something different next time.

For drinks, Justin had a Diet Coke and I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. I didn't know what to order, so I was telling our server that I liked Riesling and Pinot Grigio and that she could surprise me. Once she walked away I thought "Oh crap, I hope she's not bringing me a $20 glass of wine.." Because let's be honest, my favorite wine lately is a $2.98 bottle (YES, you read that right, $2.98) of Pinot Grigio from Aldi.

Thankfully she brought me a nice Pinot Grigio that I enjoyed. The name absolutely slips my mind, but it was around $13 a glass and was worth it.

For our entrees, I again had trouble deciding. The seafood ramen, pork, and steak all sounded great. Justin knew he wanted the filet. Eventually I narrowed it down to the filet or pork, and our server said "If he'll share with you, I'd get the pork." So I did! Grilled pork tenderloin is a favorite of mine, and I rarely order pork when we're out - it's usually seafood or steak - so this was kind of out of my comfort zone.

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Pork - Grilled Tenderloin, Goat Cheese Polenta, Wild Mushrooms, Lacquered Belly, Apple-raisin Mostarda $42

And a leeeeetle closer.
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WOW... was I glad I chose the pork! My dish was to die for. A HUGE serving of pork, cooked perfectly with some pink inside and really well seasoned. I had to give Justin at least half of one of the pieces because it was so much meat. You can see the pork belly in the middle between the two pieces. This was amazing (Justin particularly liked this). The goat cheese polenta was nearly the star, the pork was just that good by itself. The wild mushrooms are the thin strips in the sauce. I love mushrooms so all of those got eaten as well. Under the meat was the apple-raisin stuff, which didn't really get eaten because everything else was just so good!

Justin went with their signature filet:
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Oak Fired Filet of Beef: Duck Fat Marble Potatoes, Gruyére-Harp Lager Mornay, Roasted Tomato Peperonata, Whole-roasted Garlic, Cabernet Wine Sauce, $49

He says he doesn't remember the peperonata very much, but enjoyed his dish overall. The duck fat potatoes were fantastic! His steak was delicious as well, although we both agreed that the pork was better. I don't think he ate much of the vegetables, but he did eat everything else.

They served us this water, as opposed to just tap water (which is totally fine by us):
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I knew I wasn't leaving California Grill without dessert. I have seen the Smores Creme Brulee and that looks amazing! I was hoping we'd both want dessert, but we were so full that there was no point in ordering two. Ultimately I had to go with the famous fritters. I was happy to see they were apple-stuffed. I usually see the banana-stuffed on trip reports. I don't really like banana (unless it's banana bread) so I was stoked!

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Warm Homemade Fritters - apple-stuffed, Cinnamon-dusted Fritters complemented with a Trio of Dipping Sauces $13

This came with three sauces, a vanilla chai (white), cranberry (red), and apple caramel bourbon (orange).

These. Were. So. Good.

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Like @Lisa F mentioned in her TR, these were very reminiscent of an apple cider donut. I had an apple cider donut earlier this fall and it tasted almost exactly the same. I am a sucker for donuts, donut holes, anything donut-related, and these absolutely did not disappoint. I am so glad I still had the stomach space for these.

I don't remember too much apple in the fritters themselves, but they were piping hot, dusted perfectly in cinnamon sugar, and fluffy as could be. Donut perfection, basically.

My favorite of the dipping sauces was the apple bourbon caramel, because how can you go wrong with any of those things!? I didn't love the cranberry, it was too chunky and sour. I also liked the vanilla chai, but the apple bourbon caramel was even better.

Overall, looking back, this was a fantastic meal. I would definitely rank it up there as one of the best meals I've ever had. I think Napa Rose still wins as my best Disney signature meal ever, actually best meal ever, but that was at the Chefs table, so I feel like you can't really compare the two. I think my favorite WDW signature meal was Narcoossee's, but honestly this might tie with Narcoossee's for my favorite.

Start to finish, our service and experience was top notch. I have no complaints about anything we ate. Justin always gets steak at signatures and he said that he thought the Flying Fish char crusted NY strip (in its previous life, may it RIP) was better, as well as the ribeye he had at Yachtsman.

Creatively though, I think their menu has so many great options! I am so looking forward to coming back here sometime, maybe even for brunch.

We ended up getting 10% off with our APs, which was a welcome surprise! We kept trying to remember to ask each time we bought something.

After this, we rolled ourselves out of the building and to the bus stop to wait for a bus. Back to CBR it was, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't fall into a pork and polenta-induced slumber on the bus.. oops!

Next, I finally try an infamous Disney Danish and we try another new-to-us quick service!




 
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So much good stuff to reply to here! I'm not going to quote it, just go with my random comments

on the lavender focaccia... I didn't have it myself but the kid did but if you didn't detect any floral notes that explains why I had to wrestle a second piece out of his hand, lol. I was surprised he liked it but now less so.

on the sushi roll... umm I had no trouble finishing it. oink oink? lol. That said I did NOT finish my entree so there is that!

on the tacos, I am a taco fiend too and agree that the best tacos I've ever had were the cheap ones. We went to San Diego and had the best tacos of my life for about $2 a piece, some less. We make tacos at home too (fresh ingredient toppings as well as the traditional taco kit type). I have some great filling recipes. After having such great tacos elsewhere it would be hard to convince me that any taco could be worth $17, lol. They do look good though, chunks of avocado are WAY better than "crema."

on the pork.... you just made me cry a little. This is my favorite dish at CA Grill (and it has changed so much over the years) but I went with the filet because we were on the DxDDP and I figured it would be a good time to have it, next time I will get my beloved pork again when paying cash. Gosh I miss my pork. I am going to have to fit CA Grill in on the next trip come heck or high water!

on the steak ... it looks like they neatened up their presentation quite a bit. I am not really a steak gal, to me it is more about the entire plate as a whole than the purity of the steak and even though mine looked revolting it was delicious with the sides and roasted garlic.

on the fritters... agree with EVERYTHING you said. Mind if I steal the sauce names for mine? it was not on the menu photo I took and I completely forgot. I don't even really like donuts except for cider ones. Yum!
 
Recently went to Cali Grill for first time finally. I went with SIL and BIL after DH had to leave early to go back to work. I will be taking DH there soon because it was awesome. I got the scallops and they were huge and delicious. We shared the BLT flatbread app and I totally recommend it and the scallops if you ever go back. We were seated right at the window too. It's my new five.
 
What a fun year you have ahead of you! I'm excited to follow along with your dining report.

I'm super envious of the oatmeal ice cream you had at Ample Hills. It looks amazing.
 

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