Friday afternoon we arrived at the Disney Dolphin and Swan resort. After a 15 minute hike from the parking lot to our room, we enjoyed the view from our balcony and got ready for dinner at Shula's Steak House on the Dolphin (get it?) side of the resort.
Dinner was absolutely fabulous and the service was impeccable. However, they are very skilled at up-selling you so be careful if you're worried about that. The only downer was a really long wait for dessert, even though you have to order that when placing your entrée order because they are "cooked to order."
We started with the Orleans Shrimp appetizer. I read so many wonderful things about this dish that actually eating it was a bit of a letdown. It was good, but not a life-changing experience by any means. The toast served with the shrimp was waaaaaaaay too hard and crunchy. The regular bread they served was better for sopping up the sauce, which the waiter readily suggested.
We got a $64 bottle of pinot (which is on the cheap side.... they had bottles going for $600 - $700 on the wine list, which wasn't really a list... it looked more like the Q book in a set of encyclopedias. They had hundreds of different wines to choose from.
For dinner, my bride ordered the swordfish which was an off-the-menu special that night. I ordered the 22 ounce NY strip. Her fish was perfectly seasoned and melted in your mouth. My steak was cooked spot on and very tender. The end got a little gristly but 95 percent of the cut was awesome.
For a side, we split the mac and cheese which was heavenly. Couldn't see paying $11 for a baked potato which would be no different than one cooked at home.
Dessert was the chocolate lava cake finished table-side by the waiters. Ridiculously rich, but there was so much chocolate sauce that most of it stayed stuck to the plate.
We got out of there for $300 including tip, and enjoyed every dollar of it.
The next day, it was off to EPCOT after breakfast at the Swan (the eggs benedict was freaking awesome with a very smoke-flavored Canadian bacon in there and oddly, baby asparagus spears on the side along with some very pedestrian breakfast potatoes that I couldn't choke down).
After walking over from the resort (about a 15 minute walk) we entered on the International Gateway park entrance and made a beeline for Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, the newest ride in the park. That was about a 45 minute wait, which is the longest we waited for any attraction. The little rat cars you ride in have no tracks. They must operate like a Roomba and are programmed to go where they're supposed to go with great precision.
After that, we just sort of wandered around and hit a few rides. We SHOULD have started hitting the food booths as soon as they opened (more on that later), but with a full breakfast in our bellies we really weren't hungry at lunchtime.
Around 1:30 p.m. it started getting really crowded and quite warm (the weather was beautiful) so we headed back to the hotel room for some chill time.
Rested and now with a bad case of the munchies, we took the boat back to EPCOT and went strait to France to try and get the brie breadbowl. The line was freaking stupid-long for that, so we ran over to England and got the fish and chips with some Bass lager. That was wonderful. We walked around some more and rode a few more rides, but every time we wanted to check out a food booth the lines were freaking insane. The smart people were getting drinks and plates and jumping right in another line for something else while eating and drinking what they got at the last food booth. We're not super big eaters and had picked out a few things we wanted to try instead of being a big fat-ass pig and trying to eat everything.
Back to France and the line wasn't so bad this time. Quickly found out why... they were out of the brie breadbowls!
Kept seeing the same thing over and over again... booths running out of stuff. I did score the Pop Eats Tomato Soup with Brie, Bacon and Apple Grilled Cheese so it wasn't a total disaster, but it appeared the park was much busier than they planned (probably because of the great weather).
As for rides, we hit Remy, the boat ride inside the Mexico pyramid, Finding Nemo, the future ride inside of the giant golf ball, Soarin' and Mission Space. We spent a lot of time at the aquarium near the Nemo ride. It was really cool. Frozen was ridiculously busy and since I'm not a 10-year-old girl, I wasn't waiting around for that.
I will say, we would have spent a lot more money if they could find a way to keep those food lines moving faster, but oh, well. We got enough to eat in the end.
The new fireworks show is pretty impressive. There is animation, lasers, water cannons and an impressive soundtrack accompanying the show. Nicely done.
All in all, we had a nice time but it was really just too freaking crowded to have a great time...
Dinner was absolutely fabulous and the service was impeccable. However, they are very skilled at up-selling you so be careful if you're worried about that. The only downer was a really long wait for dessert, even though you have to order that when placing your entrée order because they are "cooked to order."
We started with the Orleans Shrimp appetizer. I read so many wonderful things about this dish that actually eating it was a bit of a letdown. It was good, but not a life-changing experience by any means. The toast served with the shrimp was waaaaaaaay too hard and crunchy. The regular bread they served was better for sopping up the sauce, which the waiter readily suggested.
We got a $64 bottle of pinot (which is on the cheap side.... they had bottles going for $600 - $700 on the wine list, which wasn't really a list... it looked more like the Q book in a set of encyclopedias. They had hundreds of different wines to choose from.
For dinner, my bride ordered the swordfish which was an off-the-menu special that night. I ordered the 22 ounce NY strip. Her fish was perfectly seasoned and melted in your mouth. My steak was cooked spot on and very tender. The end got a little gristly but 95 percent of the cut was awesome.
For a side, we split the mac and cheese which was heavenly. Couldn't see paying $11 for a baked potato which would be no different than one cooked at home.
Dessert was the chocolate lava cake finished table-side by the waiters. Ridiculously rich, but there was so much chocolate sauce that most of it stayed stuck to the plate.
We got out of there for $300 including tip, and enjoyed every dollar of it.
The next day, it was off to EPCOT after breakfast at the Swan (the eggs benedict was freaking awesome with a very smoke-flavored Canadian bacon in there and oddly, baby asparagus spears on the side along with some very pedestrian breakfast potatoes that I couldn't choke down).
After walking over from the resort (about a 15 minute walk) we entered on the International Gateway park entrance and made a beeline for Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, the newest ride in the park. That was about a 45 minute wait, which is the longest we waited for any attraction. The little rat cars you ride in have no tracks. They must operate like a Roomba and are programmed to go where they're supposed to go with great precision.
After that, we just sort of wandered around and hit a few rides. We SHOULD have started hitting the food booths as soon as they opened (more on that later), but with a full breakfast in our bellies we really weren't hungry at lunchtime.
Around 1:30 p.m. it started getting really crowded and quite warm (the weather was beautiful) so we headed back to the hotel room for some chill time.
Rested and now with a bad case of the munchies, we took the boat back to EPCOT and went strait to France to try and get the brie breadbowl. The line was freaking stupid-long for that, so we ran over to England and got the fish and chips with some Bass lager. That was wonderful. We walked around some more and rode a few more rides, but every time we wanted to check out a food booth the lines were freaking insane. The smart people were getting drinks and plates and jumping right in another line for something else while eating and drinking what they got at the last food booth. We're not super big eaters and had picked out a few things we wanted to try instead of being a big fat-ass pig and trying to eat everything.
Back to France and the line wasn't so bad this time. Quickly found out why... they were out of the brie breadbowls!
Kept seeing the same thing over and over again... booths running out of stuff. I did score the Pop Eats Tomato Soup with Brie, Bacon and Apple Grilled Cheese so it wasn't a total disaster, but it appeared the park was much busier than they planned (probably because of the great weather).
As for rides, we hit Remy, the boat ride inside the Mexico pyramid, Finding Nemo, the future ride inside of the giant golf ball, Soarin' and Mission Space. We spent a lot of time at the aquarium near the Nemo ride. It was really cool. Frozen was ridiculously busy and since I'm not a 10-year-old girl, I wasn't waiting around for that.
I will say, we would have spent a lot more money if they could find a way to keep those food lines moving faster, but oh, well. We got enough to eat in the end.
The new fireworks show is pretty impressive. There is animation, lasers, water cannons and an impressive soundtrack accompanying the show. Nicely done.
All in all, we had a nice time but it was really just too freaking crowded to have a great time...
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