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Disney EPCOT International Festival of the Arts...

The Tradition

HR King
Apr 23, 2002
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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! :mad:

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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tl;dr

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Oh, I forgot to mention one BIG annoyance: Disney has NO designated smoking areas inside the park. The smoking areas are outside the entry gates. But you can't walk out of the gate with a beer, so while you can drink at EPCOT and you can smoke right outside of EPCOT, you can't drink and smoke at the same time at EPCOT.

Just stupid.
 
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 resort (the eggs benedict was freaking awesome with a very smoke-flavored Canadian bacon in there). 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 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 the 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 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! :mad:

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, 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 go 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...
Worst.
Penthouse Forum.
Letter.
Ever.
 
Man, I love Walt Disney World. We went to the parks at the end of November (just EPCOT and Magic Kingdom this trip, didn't have a long weekend) and it wasn't as crowded so we got everything we wanted, except to go on Remy. How was that?
 
Man, I love Walt Disney World. We went to the parks at the end of November (just EPCOT and Magic Kingdom this trip, didn't have a long weekend) and it wasn't as crowded so we got everything we wanted, except to go on Remy. How was that?

It was pretty cool.

You're riding around in a car that looks like a rat. You're shrunken down to "rat size" and you're running around on the floor of a French restaurant while cooks and waiters try to stomp you, catch you, smash you with a mop or a broom, or otherwise try and kill you.

Fun for the whole family.
 
It was pretty cool.

You're riding around in a car that looks like a rat. You're shrunken down to "rat size" and you're running around on the floor of a French restaurant while cooks and waiters try to stomp you, catch you, smash you with a mop or a broom, or otherwise try and kill you.

Fun for the whole family.
Bahaha. Did you do the lightning lane stuff or just wait in queue?
 
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 resort (the eggs benedict was freaking awesome with a very smoke-flavored Canadian bacon in there). 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 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 the 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 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! :mad:

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, 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 go 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...
We did WDW like 10 years ago. I found EPCOT to be a bit of a letdown, but it sounds like we didn't do it right. The highlight of EPCOT was Soarin'.
 
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Bahaha. Did you do the lightning lane stuff or just wait in queue?

No, we didn't pay for any lightning lanes. Most rides had a reasonable wait and if it was too busy (i.e., Frozen) we just passed on that. $22 for both of us to get on one ride just seemed like a waste.
 
No, we didn't pay for any lightning lanes. Most rides had a reasonable wait and if it was too busy (i.e., Frozen) we just passed on that. $22 for both of us to get on one ride just seemed like a waste.
We did the Lightning Lane when we went just because we wanted to make sure we got on rides, but only at MK. It definitely felt like a waste at EPCOT.
 
@The Tradition @Big Hawk D-Port have you stayed anywhere else besides Swan/Dolphin on property? When we went in 2018 we stayed at Pop Century. Next time we go we're going to splurge on Port Orleans: Riverside, Animal Kingdom Lodge, or The Contemporary
I have stayed at The Contemporary and it is one, along with the Polynesian that I think is worth it. Port Orleans I wouldn’t consider a splurge but can offer some value. Animal Kingdom Lodge is cool but you are reliant on the buses to go anywhere and I would rather have more transportation options.

Beach Club is also awesome. Great location, great pool. But the Swan/Dolphin is like half the price so I find it hard to justify.
 
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@The Tradition @Big Hawk D-Port have you stayed anywhere else besides Swan/Dolphin on property? When we went in 2018 we stayed at Pop Century. Next time we go we're going to splurge on Port Orleans: Riverside, Animal Kingdom Lodge, or The Contemporary

I haven't been to Disney since the mid-90s, even though we only live an hour away. The last time we stayed there is was at the Wilderness Lodge, which is very well done.
 
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I have stayed at The Contemporary and it is one, along with the Polynesian that I think is worth it. Port Orleans I wouldn’t consider a splurge but can offer some value. Animal Kingdom Lodge is cool but you are reliant on the buses to go anywhere and I would rather have more transportation options.

Beach Club is also awesome. Great location, great pool. But the Swan/Dolphin is like half the price so I find it hard to justify.
Ever since I was a kid going to WDW every summer, I've wanted to stay at Contemporary. Definitely on the bucket list.
 
I have stayed at The Contemporary and it is one, along with the Polynesian that I think is worth it. Port Orleans I wouldn’t consider a splurge but can offer some value. Animal Kingdom Lodge is cool but you are reliant on the buses to go anywhere and I would rather have more transportation options.

Beach Club is also awesome. Great location, great pool. But the Swan/Dolphin is like half the price I find it hard to justify.

Swan and Dolphin aren't really Disney properties. They're like hybrids. Swan is a Westin and Dolphin is a Sheraton and they're both under the Marriott umbrella. We paid for the room with Bonvoy points. The property has a 99-year lease with Disney.

#csb
 
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Didn't do that. The concept sounds stupid.

"Design a car and drive up to 60 mph on the test track!"

Well, I drive faster than that every freaking day.
Designing the car is kind of fun. Its like drop and drag on a touch screen. It has no bearing on the ride but they make you think it does. Then you do through all kinds of test maneuvers on your new car, including at the end where you go 60 mph on the track. When you are in an open air ride vehicle it is a pretty fun thrill.
 
What's going to suck is there is not a single smoking area ANYWHERE inside the parks. You have to actually walk out the gates to find a designated smoking area. I'll be stealing one of my wife's nicotine patches.

Oh, I forgot to mention one BIG annoyance: Disney has NO designated smoking areas inside the park. The smoking areas are outside the entry gates. But you can't walk out of the gate with a beer, so while you can drink at EPCOT and you can smoke right outside of EPCOT, you can't drink and smoke at the same time at EPCOT.

Just stupid.

I get that, but they could still have a few discrete designated smoking areas inside the parks.

I dont think you have forgot to mention it.
 
We stayed at the Swan a few months back and enjoyed the pool and bar complex at the Swan/Dolphin.

Yeah, we didn't build enough time for that on this trip.

Ideally, we should have done the pool thing yesterday and the park today, because the weather was scary this morning but nice in the afternoon, so that would have scared the locals away for the day.

But you can't plan for that level of detail in advance.
 
I've never been to EPCOT.
Just the food and drink in World Showcase at Epcot is worth the trip.

Mexico- The tequila bar/cave
Germany- The carmel shop on the corner and then the restaurant with the polka band and huge beer steins.
Italy- Great wine bar and pizza place, plus the gelato cart
Morocco- Awesome shawarma and then the belly dancer at the restaurant
France- Great bakery in the back, awesome Grand Marnier ice cream float, now the crepe restaurant
England- The pub is awesome and the walk up fish and chips cart.

All of this is before you even get to the special events like is going on now.
 
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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! :mad:

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...

https://c.tenor.com/c9m_9PpIiYMAAAAC/****-who-cares.gif
 
I'm a huge Disney geek. We've gone once or twice a year for over 20 years. We haven't been since the new paid fast pass scheme and that new policy doesn't sound like a classy Disney move but the food and the atmosphere are magical.
 
Didn't do that. The concept sounds stupid.

"Design a car and drive up to 60 mph on the test track!"

Well, I drive faster than that every freaking day.
That's pretty much what I thought when I was riding it. Our family always had convertibles growing up, so it literally just felt like riding in that at less than highway speeds.

Best part really is the dining. Each family trip we had meal plans. It didn't matter if it was at the snack bar or the high end end places, you got an entree, appetizer, and desert. Its a shame my nieces and nephews were all so young and we barely used any of our dining package at the premium places.
 
Ever since I was a kid going to WDW every summer, I've wanted to stay at Contemporary. Definitely on the bucket list.

I stayed at the Contemporary last year or so for the opening day of Rise of the Resistance and a Coral Reef trade show. It was honestly pretty second rate especially compared to Portofino, Royal Pacific and even the much cheaper Cabana Bay. Part of that was because the monorails weren't even running so we took the same bus you'd get at any hotel. But, it was overall a less than impressive stay.

I will say that I DID really enjoy the food and cocktails at the California Grill inside the Contemporary and would recommend a meal there even if you stay somewhere else. That was one of the best meals I've had at the hotel I stayed at other than our small hotel/large B&B stay at Dalhousie Castle in Bonnyrigg Scotland.

Really, the best deal by far and where I'm usually at when staying at Disney is the Swan and Dolphin. You get all the amenities of a Disney resort including ultra easy boat access to the two best parks Hollywood Studios and Epcot, all for about half the price of a true Disney Resort. The restaurants there are quite good as well, although not up to the level of the California Grill IMO.
 
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Really, the best deal by far and where I'm usually at when staying at Disney is the Swan and Dolphin. You get all the amenities of a Disney resort including ultra easy boat access to the two best parks Hollywood Studios and Epcot, all for about half the price of a true Disney Resort. The restaurants there are quite good as well, although not up to the level of the California Grill IMO.
The pool complex at Swan/Dolphin is on par or better than every other Disney resort, save for Beach Club and maybe Polynesian. Plus as Trad points out you can spend Bonvoy points there.
 
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