Our spur of the moment trip without the kids. Dining reviews. With pictures. Completed 9/4

[Haygar2]

Welcome to my first ever dining report. Please bear with me. And I forgot to take pictures of our food, so I went on Google images and tried to find the most recent pictures of what we ate.

A little background. My name is Denise (44) and a Disney lover. We, as a family (husband Sean 47, daughter Hayley 18, and son Garrett 14) went to Disney for the first time in 2012. My husband didn't know what to do for my 40th birthday so he suggested Disney. We knew we always wanted to take the kids but he liked the beach so it kept getting pushed back. Like I said, my birthday was coming up and our son was in a very very very serious accident and we realized that life was short so we were going. After that first visit, I have turned my husband into a true Disney fan. We've been in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017 (just us) and are booked for next year. Woohoo! I know the only reason he agrees to go is for the food. And that's okay with me.

We were there July 15th-19th. We had some GREAT food and some food that was good but we wouldn't go back. I hope you enjoy my reviews.


Here is where we ate:

The Mara - Animal Kingdom Lodge
Satu 'li Canteen (breakfast) - Pandora Animal Kingdom
Yak & Yeti (lunch) - Animal Kingdom
Chefs de France (dinner)- Epcot
Be Our Guest (pre-park opening breakfast) - Magic Kingdom
Capt. Cooks (lunch) - Polynesian
Flying Fish (dinner) - Boardwalk
Star Wars dessert party - Hollywood Studios
Kona (breakfast) - Polynesian
Typhoon Tilly's (lunch) - Typhoon Lagoon
Homecoming (dinner) - Disney Springs.

If I remember the snacks I will throw those in as well.

 

[Haygar2]

We were staying at AKL (without the kids is so much cheaper) so our first meal was at the Mara. We drove from Ohio and drove straight through. By the time we got there we were exhausted and didn't want anything heavy or really filling. The line was really long when we walked in. It was about 7:30 at night, so we were kind of surprised, but it moved relatively quick. We both knew what we wanted. We went for the Oak-fired Rotisserie Chicken with mashed potatoes and collard greens. Oh my goodness! This was delicious and exactly what we were looking for. The chicken was so good. My husband loved the mashed potatoes. I loved loved loved the collard greens. It all went together well. We grabbed cupcakes for dessert because stupid me forgot about Zebra Domes. I will NEVER make that mistake again. Of course I didn't take pictures and I couldn't find one of the pina colada cupcake that we had for dessert. Needless to say, it was amazing also.

 

[Haygar2]

The next morning we were up early. Again..so much easier without the kids. We made it to Animal Kingdom before the park opened. We've never done that. I don't think my husband was too excited for it, but he got over it. I planned our days so we would go early, leave before it got too hot (or hotter than Hell) and go back to the parks in the evenings for dinner. We chose to do the Na'vi River ride instead of Flight of Passage. We wanted to wait until we went with the kids to try FOP. So we could all experience it together for the first time. It was a nice ride, but looking forward to FOP. Anyway, after Na'vi we headed to Satu'li Canteen for breakfast. Amazing! Delicious! One of the best breakfasts that I have had at Disney. In fact, just about anywhere. It was so good. I ordered the Steak and Eggs which is a Vegetable-Goat Cheese Frittata and Wood Fired Herb Crusted Beef, with Chimichuri sauce. The steak was some of the most tender steak I've had. The goat cheese on the frittata was perfect. Added a little bit of sour to it. So amazing. I'm counting the days until I can have it again.


My husband ordered the Breakfast Steamed Pod. Steamed Pods filled with Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Spinach, Cheddar Cheese served with Pickled Slaw. He really enjoyed it. He let me have a bite. They are really good. The pod itself is a bit sweet but very tasty. I kept stealing bites of his slaw. It was delicious. Next up Yak & Yeti for lunch.

 

[margareton27]

Great reviews so far!

 

[TigerKat]

Great start! Your breakfast looks and sounds delicious!!!!!

 

[Haygar2]

Great reviews so far!

Thank you.

Great start! Your breakfast looks and sounds delicious!!!!!

It was fabulous! We saw oatmeal that someone ordered. It looked amazing, too. I can't wait to go back.

 

[suse66]

Great reviews so far! I am so excited to try Satu'li, the food looks fantastic. I imagine I'll be popping in to the Mara quite a bit as AKL is my resort of choice for my upcoming trip. How are you enjoying the resort? Looking forward to hearing more of your reviews!

 

[Haygar2]

Oops...before going to Yak & Yeti I had to see what all the fuss was about concerning the Night Blossom at Pongu Pongu. Let me just say that (and I might get thrown out for this one) it beats out a Dole Whip in a frozen drink competition. It is AMAZING! I loved it. It comes with the passion fruit Boba balls. I had seen on here that someone asked for the strawberry ones, too. They put both on ours. My husband wanted to go back several times to get one. Unfortunately we didn't. We ran out of time. Boo for short trips. View attachment 261586
Night Blossom Mixture of Limeade with Apple and Desert Pear flavors topped with Passion Fruit Boba Balls (and the added strawberry balls). The only picture I took myself and that's because I had to send my brother a picture of the drink just to rub it in.

 

[Haygar2]

Great reviews so far! I am so excited to try Satu'li, the food looks fantastic. I imagine I'll be popping in to the Mara quite a bit as AKL is my resort of choice for my upcoming trip. How are you enjoying the resort? Looking forward to hearing more of your reviews!

I can't say enough good things about Satu'li. I am trying to figure out how to work it in for lunch without spending every day at Animal Kingdom. But that is a possibility. LOL.
I loved the resort. It was the first time we had stayed at a Deluxe. To be able to sit on my balcony and see giraffes, zebra, etc. It was incredible. There are drawbacks. And some people might not agree. When we have stayed at the Moderate resorts, we were able to park right outside our room. We drive to all of the parks. By the time we would get back to the resort, at night, the lot was really full so we had to park in the back. It was a long walk into the resort (which is beautiful) and then a very very long walk to our room. The view made it worth it. This was right outside m.y balcony

 

[Haygar2]

On to lunch. Another one I had been dreaming about since our last visit. Ahi Tuna Nachos from Yak & Yeti (Sushi grade ahi, Asian slaw, crispy fried wontons, wasabi aioli, sweet soy glaze) and I didn't have to share with my son . I was only able to get in a few bites on our last trip because he was shoveling it in as fast as he could. Seriously...if you haven't tried these. Go! Quickly! They are no words to describe how good they are. Our waiter, sorry I don't remember his name bad me, was great. For the two of us, it was the perfect size lunch. We did have to save room for dessert. Fried wontons. What a great lunch.

Just the other day, my husband says "I am dreaming about going back to Yak & Yeti. I can't wait to get the nachos and try more on the menu". I am training him well.

 

[Haygar2]

After lunch we left Animal Kingdom and headed back to the resort for a swim. And rest before dinner. We were headed to Epcot for dinner at Chefs de France and to ride Soarin. And whatever else we could find to do.

 

[Tortellini5]

Looking forward to your review on be our guest!

 

[Alice Sr.]

Loving your reviews! I didn't even know they served breakfast at Santu'li. Everything you have reviewed so far is on my to do list in Dec.

 

[Haygar2]

We went back to the resort to swim. Yes I know it was July, but geesh that pool water was WARM! Almost hot when you first stepped into it. We stayed a bit at the pool and then went to go get ready for dinner. My husband was really excited for Chefs de France. He told me that he has always wanted to eat there. Huh. Never told me. I scored a fast pass, at Epcot, before dinner. So we decided to head on out to Epcot a little early. As we were walking to the car I felt a couple of sprinkles of rain. Well, I brought everything under the sun on this trip. EXCEPT for ponchos. So I said to my husband that we should run back into the gift shop and buy ponchos. He didn't listen and said we would be fine. Well let me tell you...the skies opened up and it torrential down poured. We couldn't see anything in front of us while we were trying to drive down the road. Not only was visibility horrible, our wonderful GPS couldn't seem to find World Drive. We drove around until it finally caught up and we made it to the parking lot. The rain was not stopping. And it was going on 2 hours of heavy down pour. No ponchos. No umbrellas. Damn! So I said "looking at my phone there is a Walmart close by. Let's go over there and buy cheap ponchos". We had reservations and I didn't want to miss them. I, actually, adjusted them for about an hour later. Which, later on, I found that most people had done. So many were coming up to the check in saying that they had changed their reservation times, too. Anyway...back to the ponchos. So we were all set to drive to Walmart to buy ponchos when I realized that we had NO cash on us. We were living in that Disney bubble where I can scan a band and pay for whatever. I didn't think that Walmart would accept the band for some reason. So back to AKL we went to buy ponchos. I tried telling him we could go to any resort and buy ponchos but again he didn't listen to me. UGH!! Made it back to Epcot with about 20 minutes until our reservation and we still had to walk back there. We made it. But barely. And I was exhausted. We practically ran the whole way. We waited outside for about 10 minutes before we were seated. I can't even tell you how many people that were turned away when they walked up hoping to be seated for dinner. Nobody without a reservation was getting in.

On to the food. We ordered the French Onion Soup. I wasn't going to. I was going to order the Lobster Bisque but at the time the French Onion Soup sounded good. It was delicious. A great way to start our dinner. We both ordered the filet with green beans and au gratin potatoes. The filet comes with a sauce on it that I could have literally licked from the plate. That sauce was fabulous. The filet was great. Would have been one of the best steaks I've ever had if it just would have been charred a bit more. We like our steaks medium rare. I like them seared or charred on the outside, where they even have a crispiness to them, and pink on the inside. These seemed more like they were baked. No real char on the outside. And slightly overcooked. Leaned more towards medium. They were still good. Very tender. If it wouldn't have been for the sauce we would have been more disappointed. The au gratin potatoes were awesome. Add some of the sauce to them as well and YUM! The green beans were good. They were cooked with a crunch. Not my favorite way to eat green beans. I like mine cooked for days. For dessert hubby ordered the creme brulee which was really good. I ordered the meringue filled basket (meringue basket with fresh berries, vanilla cream, raspberry sauce and strawberry sorbet). Mine was better than his. It was so good. The meringue was perfect. It was light but still a little chewy on the inside. It didn't even need the sorbet. The fruit and the meringue were enough for me.

Our dinner lasted much longer than we anticipated. We were seated right by the windows and were able to watch the fireworks from Illuminations. Which was fun.

 

[Haygar2]

We were really full when we left Chefs, but I had to try a strawberry Macaron ice cream sandwich from L'Artisan des Glaces. It was delicious and well worth stuffing ourselves even more.

By this time, Illuminations was over and the park was clearing out. It was an Extra Magic Hours night so we planned on staying until 11:00 anyway. Epcot was dead. There were not many people there at all. We headed straight for Soarin. That was all I cared about doing. We walked right on. It was great. The ride was awesome! We missed the new ride by a couple of weeks when we were there in 2016 so I was really excited we were able to ride it. Because of the rain and dinner took longer that we thought, we were content to walk around after we rode Soarin. It was fun to be there with so few people. It was time to head back to the resort and go to bed. We had a pre-park opening breakfast scheduled for Be Our Guest.

 

[SoShiny]

Welcome to my first ever dining report.

I am loving your reviews! Thank you for all of the great tips. I had no idea about the Yak and Yeti nachos. We may need to add an ADR.

 

[Finkerfell]

Love your reviews and your pictures are AMAZING!!!

 

[Texans_loyal]

I'm in! everything sounds delicious!

 

[suse66]

Your dinner at Chefs de France looks so good. We dined there back in March of 2016 and really enjoyed our meal as well. My DH still talks about the duck he had that night! We couldn't believe how big the portions were too. I have that macaron ice cream sandwich on my must try list for my upcoming trip....it looks amazing!

 

[Haygar2]

Looking forward to your review on be our guest!

I have to say I was really excited when I scored a breakfast reservation and a pre park opening one to boot.

Loving your reviews! I didn't even know they served breakfast at Santu'li. Everything you have reviewed so far is on my to do list in Dec.

Seriously, one of the best breakfasts I have ever had. I can't wait to go back. Just trying to figure out how to work a lunch in as well.

I am loving your reviews! Thank you for all of the great tips. I had no idea about the Yak and Yeti nachos. We may need to add an ADR.

I dream about these nachos. They are incredible. So many things going on with them that I couldn't even begin to figure out how to make them at home.

Love your reviews and your pictures are AMAZING!!!

Thanks. I'm happy to hear people are liking my reviews. And I wish I could take credit for the pictures. But I can't. The only one I can take credit for is the Night Blossom. And that was only to rub it in to my brother that I was at Disney and he wasn't. Because that is what bratty little sisters do.

I'm in! everything sounds delicious!

Welcome! We had some outstanding food. It's my favorite part of Disney.

Your dinner at Chefs de France looks so good. We dined there back in March of 2016 and really enjoyed our meal as well. My DH still talks about the duck he had that night! We couldn't believe how big the portions were too. I have that macaron ice cream sandwich on my must try list for my upcoming trip....it looks amazing!

We really liked Chefs. I wish our steak would have been prepared a little differently, but it wouldn't stop us from going back. I've never been brave enough to try duck. I might have to next time. And the macaron is delicious. They have a chocolate one as well. At least they did when we were there.