Food & Wine trip

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Mon, 05/21/2012 - 17:17

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Food & Wine trip

Hubby has decided that the long weekend we were going to take this October should be a full week, since he missed out on our trip last year.

For the first time, we're planning to do a timeshare exchange to an onsite DVC property. Which property will depend on what's available. Old Key West, Sarasota Springs, Bay Lake, Wilderness Lodge, and the Boardwalk are turning up with early September availability, so we're waiting to see what might come up for October/November. Boardwalk would obviously be our top choice (walking distance to Epcot), but we'll happily stay anywhere onsite. If we can't get Boardwalk (or Yacht/Beach Club, whichever one has a DVC section), what would your choice be? If there are no exchanges available, we might switch to a moderate or even value resort and pay out of pocket. What are the best choices?

Also, in addition to a couple of full days at Epcot grazing at F&W, we'll probably do lunches in the other parks and then hop to Epcot for more F&W in the evening. We haven't done a lot of table-service restaurants, but I think hubby would like to try a few - he wants this trip to be more relaxed than our usual hustle and bustle, grab a sandwich and speedwalk to the next attraction. What's your favorite in the other three parks? (Take Italian off the list right now, it's one of our least favorite cuisines. Anything else is okay.)

Finally, keeping with the relaxation theme, we're going to fly down, take the Disney bus from/to the airport, and skip a rental car in favor of Disney transportation all week. This also we have never done before. Any suggestions/helpful hints/

Mon, 05/21/2012 - 22:07

JoAnn C

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Joined: 05/20/2011

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Great news. My suggestions for restaurants in the other parks are:

MK - Liberty Tree Tavern
DHS - Hollywood Brown Derby
AK - Either Tusker House or Yak & Yeti. If you're looking for relaxed dining, I'd say Yak & Yeti.

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Tue, 05/22/2012 - 09:49

DisneyDee27

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If you got the dining plan use your snacks for big money eats around world showcase. Check out the festival center behind Ellen's energy ride. I'm a big fan of the 50's Prime Time cafe in DHS. we also do Sanaa in the AKL and Kona at the Poly.
Have a great trip
Dee

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Member of the 6 castle club and working to pay for my next Disney vacations: 1/5-10/18, September 2018 for my 50th and 2018 the year of Disney cruising.

Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:21

Kristen K.

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Joined: 09/01/2011

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How fantastic, that sounds wonderful!!

I would try for Boardwalk or Beach Club DVC first (for walking distance), after that I would go for Bay Lake Tower (easy monorail switch). After those, any of the DVC properties will give you the same access to EPCOT i.e. a bus ride.

I second Yak & Yeti in Animal Kingdom, I really enjoyed their food when we were there.

Tue, 05/22/2012 - 14:44

Melissa W

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Joined: 10/28/2011

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Woo-hoo! Awesome trip!

Tue, 05/22/2012 - 15:10

crazycatperson

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Thanks much. Liberty Tree is on the list. I'll let hubby choose between Hollywood Brown Derby and 50s Prime Time Cafe. And hubby suggested we take a break from Animal Kingdom and do lunch at Boma that day - and got no argument from me.

We'll have a couple of non-major-park days plus arrival evening and departure morning, also. I know folks here rave about Ohana, the restaurant at Wilderness Lodge, and the "nice" restaurant at the Contemporary (I'm not very good with names and forget them both). I seem to recall that Flying Fish got good reviews. We won't be doing any table-service breakfasts - we prefer to grab a granola bar and eat an early lunch - but any other ideas would be welcome. We've eaten at very few resort restaurants because we're usually theme-park commandos.

Wed, 05/23/2012 - 04:46

DisneyDee27

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Sometimes it's nice to slip away from the parks and eat a nice meal in a resort. I like going to the resorts just to get the feel of them. I'd say 70% of the deluxe resorts I have no desire to stay on site but I've been in, eaten and even shopped at 90% of them. I collect resort pins and magnets. So I go and look around...
Dee

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Member of the 6 castle club and working to pay for my next Disney vacations: 1/5-10/18, September 2018 for my 50th and 2018 the year of Disney cruising.

Wed, 05/23/2012 - 19:58

crazycatperson

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While doing advance research (doesn't EVERYONE start planning their Disney trips months and months in advance?), I discovered Boma is not open for lunch. Bummer. But it's definitely on our dinner list.

All this depends on when we go and where we stay. But this is my current plan based on a Saturday arrival in mid-October:

Arrival day: Raglan Road dinner.

Epcot day 1: all F&W Fest.

Hollywood Studios: park hop to Epcot for F&W Fest lunch, then 50s Prime Time Cafe dinner.

Animal Kingdom: Tusker House or Yak & Yeti (table service) lunch, then park hop to Epcot for F&W Fest dinner.

Non-park day: Earl of Sandwich lunch if we go to Downtown Disney, counter service elsewhere if we don't, then Boma for dinner.

Epcot day 2: F&W Fest lunch, then maybe Teppan Edo, Nine Dragons, the Biergarten, Restaurant Marrakesh, or Via Napoli dinner (if we're not sick of the F&W Fest yet, we'll cancel the reservation and keep on grazing).

Magic Kingdom: Liberty Tree Tavern lunch, leave the park for dinner at Ohana, then return for the evening stuff.

Departure day: Breakfast at Captain's Grille, Fresh Meditarranean Market, Garden Grove, or Cape May Cafe, then counter service lunch wherever it's convenient (might be at WDW, might be at the airport).

Breakfast will be a quick granola bar or bowl of cereal in our unit before we head out in the morning every day but departure day.

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