More Disney World

The Grub

So, when you spend five and a half days in a theme park, you wind up eating a lot of straight up rubbish. I don't think I'll go into the details of every meal we had, but there were a couple of significant dining events along the way.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
Akershus is a full-service restaurant in the Norway pavilion along the World Showcase in Epcot. When my wife and I picked it, we did so because we were interested in Norwegian food, Akershus had gotten some decent reviews, and because the restaurant featured a cold buffet instead of appetizers. It was only after we'd made the reservation that we realized that eating at Akershus actually meant participating in the Princess Storybook Character Meal. Uh oh.

1. The food at Disney World is theme park food. That is to say, it mostly sucks. If you want a greasy burger with fries, what you'll get is right on par with fast food, maybe a hair better than cafeteria food. My wife and I knew this going in. We knew not to expect especially authentic Norwegian food, we also knew not to expect very delicious Norwegian food. When you plan these meals in Epcot, mostly you're doing it because a) it's very hard to get a table at a sit-down, full-service restaurant in Disney World without a reservation, b) the restaurant itself is sure to be pretty cool looking and interesting, and c) the food in Epcot is at least a little bit better than the full-on crap you get at the other parks. It's still not very good, though.
2. Character Meals are a hot-ticket item at Disney World, especially among the 12 and under set. How popular are they among adult couples with no children and virtually no interest in meeting Disney characters? Not very. But on the whole, they're actually pretty painless. See, most Disney World "characters" are like mascots: they wear big fluffy costumes, they don't speak, they have one facial expression, and they're pretty easy to ignore. Anything with the word "Princess" in it, however, has what are known as "face characters". These are basically real people with makeup and dresses on, they speak, they interact, they have a full range of facial expressions, etc. This is exactly the kind of situation my wife and I would typically avoid.

Now, what we didn't know was that this Akershus Princess Storybook what-have-you is actually a MAJOR item at Disney World, probably the second or third most popular meal in all parks and restaurants, and that the overwhelming majority of everyone . . . in fact, virtually everyone is there for the Princesses. Most people won't even notice the food. Experience has led Disney to presume that if you're attending the Akershus Princess Storybook Character meal, you are there to meet Princesses, such that you literally cannot get to your table before you've waited in line for a picture with Belle of Beauty and the Beast. Again, my wife and I were putting this knowledge together on the fly, so when we found ourselves waiting in line after we'd checked in for our table, we assumed that, like everything else in Disney World, there was just a line to get in, that was just a fact of life, even with a reservation, even after having checked in. It was only once we'd rounded a corner and were getting deeper into the restaurant that we observed that our line led into a small room with a photographer and a pretty woman in a yellow dress. I should mention that this line was not optional. It was roped off, and it was the only way into the dining room.

I'm not sure if we'd resigned ourselves to getting the damn picture, but as we got closer to the head of the line, I at least started to get a bit nervous about things. I really, really didn't want the picture, and I felt that it was appropriate to establish right off that I was there for the food, I didn't give two shits about meeting the Disney Princesses. Finally at the head of the line, my wife worked up the courage to tell the goofy guy running the show that we, in fact, preferred to skip the Princess photo. Now think about this, for a minute. We're in a restaurant with probably 200-300 other patrons, all of them families with small kids, and literally every single one of them only made the reservation so they could meet the Princesses. Most, if not all of them got up early several months in advance of their trip to Disney World so they could secure this reservation. We're literally the only adult, childless couple in the place. When my wife told the guy we wanted to skip basically the only reason to attend this event and just eat the food, which was a complete afterthought for every single other person in the whole building, I think he had some sort of brief outage in his brain. After stammering for a few seconds, he could only think to remind us that the Princess photograph was included in the dinner, as if the only possible reason for wanting to skip the photo session was the presumed cost of such a thing. He said this with such confidence that he actually kinda turned to walk away. What could we do? My wife just smiled, and told him very plainly that his reassurance actually made no difference in our decision to skip the photo.

I'm not sure he had a backup plan here. We might have been the first people ever to ask to skip the Princess photo at the outset of the PRINCESS STORYBOOK CHARACTER MEAL. He stared at us for a few moments, stammered some more, and eventually offered to open up the rope line and let us out, and we could sort of wander over in that direction and maybe tell the waiter. We did find a guy standing over near the dining room, and he looked every bit as puzzled when we explained why we were approaching him from a direction that probably no other person in the history of this restaurant had every approached him from, but eventually he did find us our table.

The rest is all pretty much the same. The food was ok enough but not special at all. The service was pretty friendly. The cold buffet had mostly recognizable, sort of American food on it. There was some smoked and pickled fish, there was a beet and apple salad, but everything else was like anything I could get at a grocery store: potato salad, macaroni salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad, cold cuts, cubes of cheese, salad, steamed shrimp. The entrees were pretty plain, I had lamb stew, my wife had something with a tough to pronounce name that tasted like Salisbury steak, with mashed potatoes and asparagus. The dessert was actually a trio: a mousse cake, a piece of coffee cheesecake, and a scoop of what they called "rice cream", which confused the hell out of every kid in the place who expected ice cream. It had no flavor, but was somewhat refreshing.

As far as the Princesses go, it turns out they're pretty well-trained as far as picking up the vibe of a table goes. Ariel stopped by first, and my wife and I sort of crammed as much food in our mouths as possible and tried to avoid looking at her. In retrospect, that probably wasn't the most mature way to handle the situation. She said hello and asked us where we'd swam from (very clever). It seems to me Alice from Alice in Wonderland came by next. First, I can't figure how Alice ended up as a Disney Princess, except that she's a girl. Second, she was very school-marmy, which did not sit well with me at all. She was friendly, but I didn't look at her even once. Next came Cinderella herself. Cinderella, you see, is a big friggin' deal in Disney World. Every goddamn kid in America wants to meet and have their picture taken with Cinderella. When Cinderella came to our table, we kinda gave her the same treatment we gave the others, which is to say we stuffed our faces and gave her the side-of-the-eye treatment. She asked my wife if I was her Prince Charming (those clever Disney Princesses), and seemed a little put off that we didn't really engage her or want a picture. The final princess was Jasmine. Jasmine was the most like a real person, she engaged us a little better, and we engaged her a little on the rebound. She asked if we flew here on our magic carpet, and when my wife answered in the affirmative, she looked a little incredulous. That was funny to me, to be honest. She asked what color it was, my wife said blue. She looked even more skeptical. She asked me what color the tassels were, and when I said gold, that clever, quick-witted Jasmine pointed out that it sounded more like we rode in on a genie than a carpet. Jasmine, of all the Princesses, came right out and asked if we wanted a picture. When we declined, she moved on. We finished our meal, threw back a second round of Carlsburgs, and got the hell out of there. $140 later, we'd had a substandard meal and avoided and offended nearly everyone in the place.

I doubt we'll do that particular dining experience a second time.

Giordano's
Giordano's, as you may know, is a Chicago-style pizza joint that delivers in and around Disney World. There are other Giordano's in other cities, but the one in Orlando (or more specifically, Lake Buena Vista) is the only one I've ever done business with. We ordered a delivery pizza from them on Wednesday for lunch, intending to make several meals out of it. Actually, my wife and I each had lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following morning from one pizza from Giordano's, so I guess we got our money's worth. As far as bang for our buck, we got a total of 6 meals out of 1 deep-dish pizza, and the tab was right around $30 with tip, so that's about $5 a meal. Not too shabby.

Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace is a really pretty restaurant inside the Magic Kingdom. I don't quite know how to describe it, actually. It looks Southern to me, it's huge, it's very, very bright and sunlit on the inside, it has super-high, almost greenhouse-like ceilings, and there are fans. I don't know, I feel like everyone has been in a place just like this, sort of regal and whimsical . . . forget it. Anyway, it's another Character Meal, but this one is Pooh and Friends. They all have costumes and so forth, so it isn't nearly as uncomfortable. Also, it's a giant breakfast buffet, so the focus is pretty heavily on the grub. Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyor circle the giant space saying hello, and then every 20-30 minutes or so there's a little game they play with the kids. My wife and I were most definitely there for the all-you-can-eat eggs and such, but we took a few pictures with the characters. After we'd eaten an insane amount of food, we found a bench in the shade near Cinderella's castle and did some people-watching. Frankly, we were both too full and too tired to do any rides, so we went back to the hotel. Later, she went to Typhoon Lagoon (a Disney water-park) with her sister and friend while I lounged around watching Sportscenter reruns and The Players Championship. You can't miss with breakfast at the Crystal Palace. First of all, there's a ton of hot food to be had. Second, it's pretty cheap by Disney standards. Third, the characters aren't very assertive, and they don't have voices. It's a winner. If I return to Disney World 25 times in my life (a real possibility), I'll probably eat breakfast at the Crystal Palace 20 times or more.

In addition to the pizza and these two full-service meals, we ate a handful of crummy burgers with fries:

1. In Hollywood Studios, at Backlot Express, my wife had a draft lite beer and I had a double bacon burger. We ended up eating here because the ABC Commissary had an impossible line. I'm not sure there's much of a difference, food-wise, between the two, but the Commissary is nearer the entrance, whereas one can hardly tell whether Backlot Express is open much of the time, due to its internal layout.
2. In The Magic Kingdom, at Pecos Bill Cafe, we each had a double bacon burger with fries, while her sister and sister's friend split a burger with fries and an order of chili-cheese fries. Pecos Bill has a pretty nice fixins bar, with sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, pickles, nacho cheese, etc. It seems we eat at the Pecos Bill every year, possibly because it also acts as a convenient short-cut between Adventureland and Frontierland.
3. In our hotel, the Caribbean Beach Resort, at the food-court, which is located in the Port Royale building. I had a double bacon burger with fries (original, huh?), while my wife went for a meatball sub. I ended up waiting for maybe 10 minutes for my burger, which is funny, because there weren't more than a dozen guests in the whole building and not only was I the only person in line, I was the only person at the burger counter the whole time I waited.

Here's the thing about the bacon double burger: it's pretty hard to screw it up. You take a patty of meat and fry it up, you top it with a few slabs of bacon, and you're done. I've eaten all kinds of garbage burgers, so no matter how bad your particular rendition is, I probably won't be too horrified. When you're in a theme park, stick to the burgers and hot-dogs. Even pizza is a risk, in my opinion. Was it redundant? Sure, but in my mind, it's smart ordering.

There were also a couple of more interesting counter-service dining experiences worth noting:

1. The Rose and Crown Fish and Chips . . . place, in the United Kingdom pavilion in Epcot, where my wife and I ordered (what else) fish and chips. It really wasn't bad, actually. The fish was hot and crispy, and the fries were decent. I'd go back. I'm a sucker for fish and chips.
2. The Tangerine Cafe in the Morocco pavilion in Epcot, where we've eaten before. I ordered a falafel wrap, which came with some decent tabouleh and what was quite possibly the worst thing I've ever tasted; some pickled vegetables that tasted like they'd been pickled in ammonium. Seriously, I probably could have sued Disney World just for the awful taste. the wrap wasn't bad, though.

Now, in one man's opinion (mine), you can't go to Disney World without eating a lot of sweet stuff. Without question, Disney World does a much, MUCH better job with dessert items than with regular food. In fact, I'd say they do a pretty swell job, to be honest. There are a couple of can't-miss dessert places my wife and I will always hit on a trip to Disney World:

1. Next to the Main Street Bakery, there's an Edy's Ice Cream shop where you can get a pretty bitchin' sundae in a waffle bowl. They also used to serve a cookie sandwich, but it wasn't around this time through. I also don't remember it being Edy's in the past, but whatever. On our second to last night, we hit 'em up for a couple of hot fudge sundaes and ate those puppies in front of the castle.
2. In Fantasyland, Mrs. Pott's Cupboard serves up equally smokin' sundaes; specifically, an over-the-top brownie sundae and a nice strawberry shortcake sundae. The really excellent thing about Mrs. Pott's Cupboard is they use soft-serve ice-cream. I think they also have floats and cones, but all we've ever gotten are the sundaes. She got the strawberry shortcake, I got the brownie, it was money.
3. There's a candy shop on Main Street that I think is just called the Main Street Confectionery. At any rate, they've got a huge assortment of sweet stuff and a bakery counter. If memory serves, we've purchased fudge from the Confectionery every time we've ever been to Disney World. It's almost always a disappointment, but they have some really interesting flavors that are hard to turn down: lemon meringue, orange cream, butterfinger, cookies and cream, strawberry cheesecake, mint chocolate, peanut-butter chocolate, and so forth. I think we also got a couple of other sweet things in there this time. Next time, maybe we'll skip the fudge and just get some candy or something.

We also stopped in a Haagen-Dazs ice-cream shop in Downtown Disney and had a couple of ice-cream deals there, as well. I had two scoops of something in sundae form, and my wife had some sort of float deal. The service was really atrocious, so I doubt we'll go back.

The Pirate and Princess Party
This was, in my opinion, the highlight of the entire trip. In fact, the Pirate and Princess Party in Magic Kingdom was so great, I think every trip I ever plan to Disney World after this will be planned around some similar ticketed event. We had an absolute blast.

First, a bit of background: for the last however many years, Disney has been offering what are called "Extra Magic Hours" to Disney resort guests. Basically, if you stay at a Disney owned resort, which are all inside Disney World, you have the option of entering a designated park an hour or two before regular park opening and staying at another designated park several hours after regular park closing. For folks with kids, or for those who insist on hitting their favorite rides with as little a line as possible, no matter the hour, the early Extra Magic Hours can be a real benefit. Granted, you have to get to the park of the day before 8 am, but for some people, it's great. For those of us who really like the way the parks look after dark and really REALLY like to ride the spooky rides or the dark rides after dark, the evening Extra Magic Hours are really cool. The two big problems with both the early hours and the late hours, in my opinion, are: a) not everything is open during Extra Magic Hours, and b) pretty much every Disney resort guest takes advantage of the Extra Magic Hours, so the extremely high percentage of all Disney Resort guests in one park at a time more than offsets the fact that everybody staying "off world" has to go home. To put it plainly, Extra Magic Hours come with huge, huge crowds and long, long lines.

Now, a ticketed event works sort of the same, except a) only people willing to pay for tickets get to stay in the park, b) pretty much everything in the park stays open, and c) instead of just leaving the park open later for resort guests (or in this case ticket-holders), they actually just close it early for everyone else. Oh, and one more thing: the park is decorated in a completely different way, and there are all kinds of totally different activities and events that take place. It's those last two points that, essentially, make it a party; the place is decorated, and there are things going on.

The Pirate and Princess Party was born from the improvements to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. When Disney World finished adding Captain Jack, Captain Barbosa, Davey Jones, and the new effects to Pirates of the Caribbean ride, they rolled out the Pirate and Princess Party, undoubtedly as a way of ensuring that the new Pirates ride was accepted immediately and as smoothly as possible. In general, I'd written the whole deal off as sort of a crummy afterthought, an excuse for little girls to dress up in hideous princess costumes, and little boys to run around pretending to shoot each other. However, on the Disney World website, the Pirate and Princess has its own page with some links, and it looked like a pretty good time. We all got tickets, and in the end, we were pretty damn excited about it.

We got there maybe an hour or two before the start of the party, which was at 7 pm. My sister-in-law had purchased eye-patches and earrings for each of us and a tiara for herself. Her buddy also had a pirate-style bandana with Mickey ears. We thought we'd be the funny nerds in costumes; not so. Nearly every guest in the park had some sort of costume on, and many of them were so elaborate they were easily confused with Disney performers. Every Disney cast member we saw who wasn't specifically tied to one ride or another had a pirate or princess costume. The entrance to the park had a red carpet rolled out and fog was being pumped around the whole entry area. Giant pirate symbols (skull-and-crossbones, treasure chests, etc) were projected all over the place, and man-sized pylons had been scattered throughout the park with big black "X" marks on them, where guests could stop in for "treasure". Most of the treasure turned out to be bead necklaces, but at one of the Xs we were given little black pouches and some fake jewels. You get the idea.

So, we went around collecting treasure and riding all our favorite rides with exceptionally short lines. This took a few hours. At a certain point, after the sun had gone down, we split up and got dessert, which we brought back to the area immediately in front of Cinderella's castle, where we sat to eat. It was here that we witnessed the greatest fireworks display any of us have ever seen.

I have pictures of this as proof. The Castle is always lit up at night, and the colors rotate. The fireworks started with a sort of romantic, Princess-vibe: lots of bright, pretty colors; lots of twinkling lights; soft, pretty music; and projections of things like roses (from Beauty and the Beast) and bubbles (from The Little Mermaid) on the castle, while the voices of Disney characters echoed around from the PA system. At some point (shortly after a battle between Flora and Merryweather(?) from The Sleeping Beauty over the color of the castle) there was a Pirate attack, which was illuminated (literally) by seemingly blowing the castle to smithereens using pyrotechnics. It was pretty incredible. I can't fully describe it, except to say that there were many explosions, it was super loud and super bright, and one could easily have been under the impression that Disney had decided they'd had enough of Cinderella's castle. Then, oddly, Tinkerbell flew from the castle (this is carried out by dressing a cast member up in a lit-up Tinkerbell costume and riding them down a zip-line into Tomorrowland), and the forces of good won in the end. If I can figure out how to post my pictures of this, I will. It was amazing.

Apparently we missed a couple of very impressive parades before the fireworks. I think we were waiting for Mickey's PhilharMagic when they went off. At this point, I'd be willing to guarantee we'll attend the Pirate and Princess Party again someday, and we'll be sure not to miss the parades. The fireworks alone were worth the price of admission. Seeing the park lit up in a completely new, very dark and spooky way was really special, and the overall experience was a lot of fun.

So that about sums up our trip to Disney World. I'd go into more detail about our hotel, except the accommodations represent such an infinitesimally small part of our experience down there, I don't even think I'd be able to describe the hotel all that well. I don't think I missed anything else.