We're back.....and I'm still full! 
We used the dining plan - very easy to use, went off without a hitch, even though we had 5 people this time instead of just me and DH. Cast for this trip was: myself, DH (John), Mom, Mom's BF (Kevin), and my little sis (Rae).
Oct. 1 - character dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
We had a pretty good time here. We checked in right on the nose of our ADR, and were seated in (literally) less than 2 minutes. I enjoyed the food as much as always, except for the salad (which I have never liked). Everyone else loved it though - Kevin ate almost a whole bowl by himself. And I think I ate more rolls than anyone else in the place, I love those things! The meat was all well-cooked, and the potatoes were yummy. Character interaction was great as usual. The only problem was when a large party was seated near us towards the end of the meal. I had been very impatiently waiting for Goofy to come around, and just when he got there and started to hug me, two kids from this large party ran and ATTACKED him!! I mean, screaming and trying to climb him type stuff. The parents just looked on and laughed. I was nice though, just pulled on my best Scarlett O'Hara, and slopped some sugar to get them to go away till we were finished visiting with Goofy.
Our server, I believe his name was Marc, was very friendly, helpful, and prompt. We tipped him on top of the DP tip (par the course with us).
Oct. 2 - character lunch at Garden Grill
Another good one. Grabbed our FP's for Soarin', checked in about 20 minutes early, and were seated within 15. Our server, Art, was so very sweet, and did his best to help us have a good time. He was tipped well. The catfish was great, steak was ok, potatoes needed salt, and the bread and honey orange butter was FANTASTIC. The bread pudding at dessert was just ok. Character interaction was the best of the three character meals we went to. Mickey was so cute in his farmer duds! Chip was the best though - he had a little crush on Rae, he would not leave her alone! He kept playing with her hair, and wanted kisses on his nose - it was so cute!
Oct. 3 - dinner at Rose and Crown Dining Room
Checked in about 15 minutes early, and were seated within 5, by a not necessarily handsome, but ultimately swoon-worthy guy named Christopher, who had a lovely Glaswegian accent. He just wanted to chat and chat, and I definitely was not complaining, since I was the one he was chatting to. (Which I think irritated John a little! J/K ) This was our worst meal of the week, which surprised me, since John and I have always enjoyed it there. But, then again, there was a party of about 12 or so seated near us, so it might have had something to do with them being really busy. That said, it still wasn't a bad meal. For appetizers, we had 4 potato and leek soups (great), and a fruit and cheese plate (great). The cheese plate was mine, and I found that I still just cannot handle stilton cheese, so Kevin practically inhaled it for me. Entrees were: Fish and steak with potatoes, 2 steaks with potatoes, fish and chips, and chicken pasty. Steaks were all overdone, but still pretty good. Rae raved about the au jus on the steak, said it was the best part of her meal. Fish and chips got high marks, and the chicken pasty got a 3.5 out of 5. Mashed potatoes were very yummy though. Desserts got very high marks all the way around - 2 sticky toffee puddings (my fav, yum), chocolate torte, apple crisp??(dont remember the name), and bread pudding. Our server (can't remember her name), was a very sweet girl from Yorkshire, who told us how her parents make their real Yorkshire pudding, which is very unlike what they serve at R & C. Again, tipped well. We had an awesome table on the waterfront - so nice with the breeze blowing that day.
Oct. 4 - Very early dinner at Hollywood and Vine (with Fantasmic Package)
I really was not interested in eating at MGM at all, but John prefers to have the Fantasmic Package, after an irritating incident a few years ago when we got stuck in the standing room only section.
So we picked H&V. We checked in about 20 minutes early, and were seated in less than 10 minutes. Food wise.....just run of the mill buffet really, same as always. To tell the truth, I was most impressed with the apple butter on the bread station - not quite like home, too thin, but still tasted good. 
Otherwise, there wasn't really anything memorable - nothing really bad or good. Our server, although she was friendly, was MIA throughout most of the meal. Never cleared our used plates, and with 5 people, there is only so much room to spare on the table! John was the only one who ever got a drink refill, which was bad cause I wanted more blackberry soda......that is some good stuff, yum!! I think he left her an extra dollar or two, but I don't think he really should have.
Oct. 5 - character breakfast at The Crystal Palace
Checked in about 15 minutes early, and were seated in about 15. We usually love this place, but they were having a very hard time that morning. They had a mother and grandmother throwing an absolute hissy-fit, cause their little girl had been waiting to see the characters for (gasp!!) 25 minutes!! No joke, I am not making this up. While I can understand it is hard for a child to wait, a family who expects to have characters dragged from other tables to see one child, while making others wait even longer, does not deserve to be accomodated. And that is exactly what they did, brought them from the other side of the restaurant just to see one kid. Sheesh!! Anyway, the food was great - potato casserole (awesome), puffed french toast (incredible) ......I could go on, but you get the idea.
Our server (cant remember the name) was great, very personable. Big tip for her. We ended up waiting almost an hour and a half, and only saw Pooh and Piglet before we decided we needed to leave - our server was very nice though, kept checking back to see if we had seen any characters yet, and I heard her several times asking the character wranglers to please make sure we got to see them, since we hadn't seen any since we had been there. (It didn't help, but at least she was nice enough to try.) So, good food, but the crappiest character experience I have ever had, during this or any other trip to Disney.
Oct. 5 - dinner at Ohana
By this time, we were so stuffed that we could hardly eat anything here. Which was too bad, cause this probably would have been the best meal of the whole trip. Our server, Cousin Lambert, was just great - so helpful and thoughtful. The hostess asked if we were celebrating a birthday, and since we were celebrating Mom's Bday a day early, we were seated right in the corner by the window, with an uninterrupted view of the Castle - very nice touch, we appreciated it. I don't like the salad (I find that almost all salads at Disney have dressings that are too sweet for me), but everyone else loved it. The wings are sooooo yummy though, as are the scalloped potatoes. Oh, and the shrimp.....yuuuuuuummmmmyyyy. The meats were xtra good that night as well - I prefer the pork, Kevin, John, and Rae prefer the beef, and Mom liked the turkey (although she wished that she had taken Lambert up on his offer of a vegetarian selection)- none of us tried the sausage. We were able to finish very little of what was put on the table. I saved some room for a little bread pudding though....heavenly.
The one bad thing about the meal was the entertainment - none of us were in the mood to listen to the lady with the ukelele (what's her name??). I wish they would not put her over the speaker system, it gets annoying after a while. This was still a great meal though. Another good thing - John for some reason found a new love for the Poly, and is determined to stay there next trip! Not exactly my cup of tea, but I have to admit it's very relaxing.
As far as counter service meals, we ended up using only about half of them. The ones we used, we used at:
Flame Tree Barbeque in AK: John loves their pork sandwich, and I love their half-chicken meal - total yum. Mom and Rae both loved the chicken as well, and Kevin pronounced the ribs as "pretty good".
Cosmic Ray's at MK: One of John's must-do's every trip.
We ate there with Rae, late night during EMH, so only the chicken station was open. Rae and John both got chicken strips and fries, and I just got a side of fries and a drink. All very fresh and tasty.
We all went our separate ways at World Showcase, and ended up eating at:
Liberty Inn - John had a yummy, but run of the mill, hot dog and fires before we hit the American Adventure.
Sommerfest - Mom and Kevin said this was ok. I think the opinion is rather tainted though, since Kevin's mother is German, and is a great cook, so he knows how those things are really supposed to taste. One thing though, was that he liked being able to find many German-made candies and such in the Germany pavilion that she can't usually get here - he bought quite a lot to take home to her.
Tangierine Cafe - Rae and I had a decent meal here. I had never been here before, so we just went to try something new. The lamb and chicken shawarma platter was pretty good, the bread was great, but the rest of it we didn't care for. The baklava was not very good at all. This was the only place where we found discrepancies on how we could use the DP - any other place in WDW, we could get large drinks as a snack. When John tried to get one while we ate, he was told he could only get a medium. Not a big deal at all, was just a strange difference.
Casey's Corner: another of John's must do's. I didn't get anything here - was still too full - but the hot dogs looked sooooooo good. Everyone loved it, and John got his fix. This will probably be our first stop next trip since I missed it.
For snacks: We mostly used our snack credits for drinks or coffee. A couple times we used them for french fries. We didn't have to pay OOP for a lot, just a few things here and there. The DDP is still a great savings, and is very easy to use, at least as long as you don't try to squeeze every last drop of value out of it. It works best when you are relaxed about it.
We used the dining plan - very easy to use, went off without a hitch, even though we had 5 people this time instead of just me and DH. Cast for this trip was: myself, DH (John), Mom, Mom's BF (Kevin), and my little sis (Rae). Oct. 1 - character dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern
We had a pretty good time here. We checked in right on the nose of our ADR, and were seated in (literally) less than 2 minutes. I enjoyed the food as much as always, except for the salad (which I have never liked). Everyone else loved it though - Kevin ate almost a whole bowl by himself. And I think I ate more rolls than anyone else in the place, I love those things! The meat was all well-cooked, and the potatoes were yummy. Character interaction was great as usual. The only problem was when a large party was seated near us towards the end of the meal. I had been very impatiently waiting for Goofy to come around, and just when he got there and started to hug me, two kids from this large party ran and ATTACKED him!! I mean, screaming and trying to climb him type stuff. The parents just looked on and laughed. I was nice though, just pulled on my best Scarlett O'Hara, and slopped some sugar to get them to go away till we were finished visiting with Goofy.
Our server, I believe his name was Marc, was very friendly, helpful, and prompt. We tipped him on top of the DP tip (par the course with us). Oct. 2 - character lunch at Garden Grill
Another good one. Grabbed our FP's for Soarin', checked in about 20 minutes early, and were seated within 15. Our server, Art, was so very sweet, and did his best to help us have a good time. He was tipped well. The catfish was great, steak was ok, potatoes needed salt, and the bread and honey orange butter was FANTASTIC. The bread pudding at dessert was just ok. Character interaction was the best of the three character meals we went to. Mickey was so cute in his farmer duds! Chip was the best though - he had a little crush on Rae, he would not leave her alone! He kept playing with her hair, and wanted kisses on his nose - it was so cute!
Oct. 3 - dinner at Rose and Crown Dining Room
Checked in about 15 minutes early, and were seated within 5, by a not necessarily handsome, but ultimately swoon-worthy guy named Christopher, who had a lovely Glaswegian accent. He just wanted to chat and chat, and I definitely was not complaining, since I was the one he was chatting to. (Which I think irritated John a little!
J/K ) This was our worst meal of the week, which surprised me, since John and I have always enjoyed it there. But, then again, there was a party of about 12 or so seated near us, so it might have had something to do with them being really busy. That said, it still wasn't a bad meal. For appetizers, we had 4 potato and leek soups (great), and a fruit and cheese plate (great). The cheese plate was mine, and I found that I still just cannot handle stilton cheese, so Kevin practically inhaled it for me. Entrees were: Fish and steak with potatoes, 2 steaks with potatoes, fish and chips, and chicken pasty. Steaks were all overdone, but still pretty good. Rae raved about the au jus on the steak, said it was the best part of her meal. Fish and chips got high marks, and the chicken pasty got a 3.5 out of 5. Mashed potatoes were very yummy though. Desserts got very high marks all the way around - 2 sticky toffee puddings (my fav, yum), chocolate torte, apple crisp??(dont remember the name), and bread pudding. Our server (can't remember her name), was a very sweet girl from Yorkshire, who told us how her parents make their real Yorkshire pudding, which is very unlike what they serve at R & C. Again, tipped well. We had an awesome table on the waterfront - so nice with the breeze blowing that day. Oct. 4 - Very early dinner at Hollywood and Vine (with Fantasmic Package)
I really was not interested in eating at MGM at all, but John prefers to have the Fantasmic Package, after an irritating incident a few years ago when we got stuck in the standing room only section.
So we picked H&V. We checked in about 20 minutes early, and were seated in less than 10 minutes. Food wise.....just run of the mill buffet really, same as always. To tell the truth, I was most impressed with the apple butter on the bread station - not quite like home, too thin, but still tasted good. Otherwise, there wasn't really anything memorable - nothing really bad or good. Our server, although she was friendly, was MIA throughout most of the meal. Never cleared our used plates, and with 5 people, there is only so much room to spare on the table! John was the only one who ever got a drink refill, which was bad cause I wanted more blackberry soda......that is some good stuff, yum!! I think he left her an extra dollar or two, but I don't think he really should have. Oct. 5 - character breakfast at The Crystal Palace
Checked in about 15 minutes early, and were seated in about 15. We usually love this place, but they were having a very hard time that morning. They had a mother and grandmother throwing an absolute hissy-fit, cause their little girl had been waiting to see the characters for (gasp!!) 25 minutes!! No joke, I am not making this up. While I can understand it is hard for a child to wait, a family who expects to have characters dragged from other tables to see one child, while making others wait even longer, does not deserve to be accomodated. And that is exactly what they did, brought them from the other side of the restaurant just to see one kid. Sheesh!! Anyway, the food was great - potato casserole (awesome), puffed french toast (incredible) ......I could go on, but you get the idea.
Our server (cant remember the name) was great, very personable. Big tip for her. We ended up waiting almost an hour and a half, and only saw Pooh and Piglet before we decided we needed to leave - our server was very nice though, kept checking back to see if we had seen any characters yet, and I heard her several times asking the character wranglers to please make sure we got to see them, since we hadn't seen any since we had been there. (It didn't help, but at least she was nice enough to try.) So, good food, but the crappiest character experience I have ever had, during this or any other trip to Disney.Oct. 5 - dinner at Ohana
By this time, we were so stuffed that we could hardly eat anything here. Which was too bad, cause this probably would have been the best meal of the whole trip. Our server, Cousin Lambert, was just great - so helpful and thoughtful. The hostess asked if we were celebrating a birthday, and since we were celebrating Mom's Bday a day early, we were seated right in the corner by the window, with an uninterrupted view of the Castle - very nice touch, we appreciated it. I don't like the salad (I find that almost all salads at Disney have dressings that are too sweet for me), but everyone else loved it. The wings are sooooo yummy though, as are the scalloped potatoes. Oh, and the shrimp.....yuuuuuuummmmmyyyy. The meats were xtra good that night as well - I prefer the pork, Kevin, John, and Rae prefer the beef, and Mom liked the turkey (although she wished that she had taken Lambert up on his offer of a vegetarian selection)- none of us tried the sausage. We were able to finish very little of what was put on the table. I saved some room for a little bread pudding though....heavenly.
The one bad thing about the meal was the entertainment - none of us were in the mood to listen to the lady with the ukelele (what's her name??). I wish they would not put her over the speaker system, it gets annoying after a while. This was still a great meal though. Another good thing - John for some reason found a new love for the Poly, and is determined to stay there next trip! Not exactly my cup of tea, but I have to admit it's very relaxing. As far as counter service meals, we ended up using only about half of them. The ones we used, we used at:
Flame Tree Barbeque in AK: John loves their pork sandwich, and I love their half-chicken meal - total yum. Mom and Rae both loved the chicken as well, and Kevin pronounced the ribs as "pretty good".
Cosmic Ray's at MK: One of John's must-do's every trip.
We ate there with Rae, late night during EMH, so only the chicken station was open. Rae and John both got chicken strips and fries, and I just got a side of fries and a drink. All very fresh and tasty. We all went our separate ways at World Showcase, and ended up eating at:
Liberty Inn - John had a yummy, but run of the mill, hot dog and fires before we hit the American Adventure.
Sommerfest - Mom and Kevin said this was ok. I think the opinion is rather tainted though, since Kevin's mother is German, and is a great cook, so he knows how those things are really supposed to taste. One thing though, was that he liked being able to find many German-made candies and such in the Germany pavilion that she can't usually get here - he bought quite a lot to take home to her.
Tangierine Cafe - Rae and I had a decent meal here. I had never been here before, so we just went to try something new. The lamb and chicken shawarma platter was pretty good, the bread was great, but the rest of it we didn't care for. The baklava was not very good at all. This was the only place where we found discrepancies on how we could use the DP - any other place in WDW, we could get large drinks as a snack. When John tried to get one while we ate, he was told he could only get a medium. Not a big deal at all, was just a strange difference.
Casey's Corner: another of John's must do's. I didn't get anything here - was still too full - but the hot dogs looked sooooooo good. Everyone loved it, and John got his fix. This will probably be our first stop next trip since I missed it.
For snacks: We mostly used our snack credits for drinks or coffee. A couple times we used them for french fries. We didn't have to pay OOP for a lot, just a few things here and there. The DDP is still a great savings, and is very easy to use, at least as long as you don't try to squeeze every last drop of value out of it. It works best when you are relaxed about it.
