He Just Came For The Food: A March 2018 Dining Report *update 9/22 S. Hollow/GF Cafe

Well I'm a NO seafood eater and I love it! And Ricky is an only mussels-eater and he does too, so I think your fiance (almost DH???) just may find a decent amount to eat :thumbsup2 I mean it may not be the meal he gets the fullest at, but I think he'd find some good stuff!
That's good to know, I think we'll need a dinner trip here in the future. We are staying at Beach Club in October, but we already have our dining plans set so we'll have to do it on another trip. And yes he's soon to be DH in a little over two months!

The Fantasmic Dessert Party looks really nice, I might have to book this for a future trip. The food you get looks good and it gets you good seats. The last time I went we did the meal that includes the good seats. I love this show.
 
I have only done the MK dessert party and really loved it . I kinda prefer picking out my own desserts. Do love Fantasmic though.Is FEA dessert party in Norway ??? in Norway ???
 
I heard this in Stacey's voice from the must do video... "So, what about all the shopping, dining, and nightlife here at Walt Disney World Resort? Well, you’re in luck—because there’s a ton of it!"
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YESSS!!
 
I don't think I have seen pictures of the Frozen Dessert Party, yet. The pictures of the desserts for ROL look really good.Too bad i have no desire to see ROL again.
I hadn't seen pictures until Whitney showed me hers, not sure why there aren't more circulating. I also saw pics of the ROL one and it does look good! I don't really care to see the show again though either........however our boys haven't seen it yet. Neither has expressed the desire to see it lol, but I may ask them if they want to in Nov. Just as something "new" for them.

Thanks for the review of the Fantastic Dessert Party! Haven't seen too many of those around. It does seem like a decent option if you want decent seats but don't want to do a dinner package!
Yeah I've only read one other review, it was right after they began it! I did send a couple clients to it and they all enjoyed it but I don't think it's as popular as the other dessert parties. Definitely good for seats if you don't want to do the dinner package.

The fried shrimp is served on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday
That explains it, our trips have been on Saturdays and Thursdays :)

I have seen many parties set up along the shoreline in the World Showcase, in those areas down by the water. I know that some of them are private parties, but if one of these set ups was for the dessert party then I would be tempted to book this one. It looks really nice.
That's where they do FEA I think! Also the Illuminations Sparkling Dessert Party but I don't hear lots of positive reviews of that one.

Similar reasons to us! Our group had 2 that had never seen the show, 2 that had recently seen WDWs, 2 that had recently seen DLRs but not WDW, and 1 that had seen DLRs 10 years before. And it worked better so we could do 50s as our main meal this day instead of a F! dinner package. We kicked around doing it again in a few weeks, but decided to go with MM.
I'm glad it worked for you! We all enjoy F! but it's not something we need to see each trip, so I doubt we'll see it as a family in Nov. especially since JBJB will be going on; we'll see that instead since it's been 2 years.

The allergy box Andi got was not very good but I thought the regular one was fine
That's too bad, I know the allergy options aren't always great. I will say back when they were doing Club Villain (RIP), one of our table mates needed GF desserts and in addition to being able to eat a few of the regular desserts they brought her the absolute cutest allergy box! And she said everything was really good.

I’m glad you enjoyed this. The souvenir cups and lanyards were nice!
Still have them all :goodvibes
 


All I can say is...BAWHAAAA!!!!!:rotfl2:(It's just me having a dirty mind).
LMAO you and me both!

So good to read a more in depth review over the Fantasmic Dessert "party" because, like you said, reviews are pretty scarce. We are doing it next week and I'm looking forward to it!
You might be there already; whether you are or you're about to leave, I hope you enjoy the party and have or are having a wonderful trip pixiedust:

C is in agreement with the fact that "dessert party" really isn't a fitting name since you get a snack box and you don't even get to pick what you want. I actually would like to try it once. But I'm all about trying everything at least once.
Yes, maybe "VIP dessert experience" is a better name for it? But at least you can see a description of what you get ahead of time. I'm like you as far as trying everything once! That's why we've done certain meals I kind of knew we wouldn't love as well as a couple dessert parties I was on the fence about. Wanted to say I did it :thumbsup2

I think we are leaning towards trying Pirates and Pals one day. If it still exist by the time we try to do it :confused3. We are hoping G will outgrow his fear of fireworks.
Oooh you should! We all enjoyed it and my boys were older; I had clients do it this past July and they thought it was the best thing. It was the parents, boys 6 and 8 and their grandparents. I highly suggest it! As far as the fireworks they really aren't that loud from out there. You do hear them but it's nothing like being in the park :)

The Fantasmic Dessert Party looks really nice, I might have to book this for a future trip. The food you get looks good and it gets you good seats. The last time I went we did the meal that includes the good seats. I love this show.
The F! Dinner package is a good deal too, but if for some reason you don't feel like eating dinner in the park or just want QS this is another good option to guarantee good seats without waiting in line.

s FEA dessert party in Norway ??? in Norway ???
I'm going to say yes because I'm pretty sure it is lol! I may have read some reports of the dessert part being inside but maybe that's just when it rains. It gives you VIP seating (standing?) for Illuminations and then after the show, a ride on FEA. The desserts look super good compared to other parties and my friend gave them 2 thumbs up :thumbsup2:thumbsup2
 
That's the Hudson River and the "Gunks.

Beautiful!

Well Chris pretty much only heard the "doing it for less walking or Ricky" and felt that he was owed a schedule change in his honor.

Ha! Everything has to be EXACTLY EQUAL! Mine would do the same thing :crazy2:

First plate belonging to the man of the hour: his hearty helping of the crab legs he wanted:sad2: some salmon and beef tenderloin.
He got super pissed because it took so long to open the crab legs. And decided he wanted nothing to do with them. And Steve yelled lol so Chris worked harder to open them. He did love them, didn't like the salmon, and loved the meat.

:laughing: What a fun dinner!

One of the things Chris loves about CMC comes after dinner:

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#aboyandhishottowel

And there it is :love:

We haven't been to F! in years, I'm kind of surprised it still draws the huge crowds. I think the desserts in a box is a nice idea though, it definitely seems less wasteful than some of the other dessert parties.
 
Beautiful!
I take it for granted since it's always right in front of me, but when we got up there and looked around I remembered how lucky I am to live here :goodvibes

Ha! Everything has to be EXACTLY EQUAL! Mine would do the same thing :crazy2:
:rolleyes: I remember when I was younger, my sister liked wearing gold and I wore silver, so at Xmas I always had a few more presents than her. OMG did she throw a fit lol! Ricky is really good about that stuff now but Chris? Nope

We haven't been to F! in years, I'm kind of surprised it still draws the huge crowds.
I think the reason I like it so much is because you don't have to STAND first of all. Then also we've never gotten on line super early; something I hate about evening shows is having wait so early. I like Illuminations but I've never loved it and now I'm not a fan of HEA or ROL so......................
 


Thank goodness I only missed one update! It looks like you guys had a great time at the party but I would really expect better of the drink options. I considered the dessert party for about half a second for November also as Illuminations is already my favorite and seeing the holiday tag just puts it over the edge for me. I don't think the holiday tag starts until partway through our trip and we're doing Wednesday and Thursday at Universal, so I think we will try to see Illuminations on Friday. We've had good luck just grabbing spots right at showtime so I'm not invested on the party thing at this point. Oh, and I'll also be wrangling a pair of our friends, us, my mom, and R's mom and stepdad.... we will bring our own party anywhere we go :rotfl:
 
I don't think the holiday tag starts until partway through our trip and we're doing Wednesday and Thursday at Universal, so I think we will try to see Illuminations on Friday.
Hey, WE'RE going to be seeing Illuminations on Friday - if you're talking about the day after Thanksgiving!!! But of course I hope to to meet you more than once :goodvibes I need to see Illuminations with the holiday tag since this will be our last chance :sad1:
 
Hi, remember me :wave:? I'm the one that started this dining report ages ago and then kind of left it to die? Well, I'm attempting to finish it up now as I have an exciting new report to move on to :D So without further ado, here is our last day of our March 2018 Spring Break trip!

Sleepy Hollow/GF Cafe (part 1)
As I said, this was our last park day, the Friday before Easter. We had an extremely early morning planned - well, 3 of us did - Chris slept in after being up most of the night with his allergies due to the F! smoke. So first on our schedule was 7am EMH at MK, minus Chris!
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We did a few rides and before long, Chris was on a boat from the WL to meet us just in time for some sugar!
I mean, just in time for some breakfast!
Surprisingly nobody was in the mood for a Gaston's cinnamon roll nor Starbucks, so we settled on Sleepy Hollow.
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OK not everyone overloaded on sugar here and there's even some fruit thrown in, but I think we can all agree the 2 overwhelming foods in this picture are #carbs and #sugar.
The fruit & nutella waffle which I think we're all familiar with was Steve's, minus the nutella. I had this once also minus the nutella and enjoyed it as did Steve. Fruit was fresh and the waffle was soft where it should be, crispy where it should be.
That huge funnel cake I'm proud to say was mine :snooty: I love funnel cake but rarely if ever get it at Disney because there are so many other goodies to get; today I thought, "hey, when better to partake of some Disney funnel cake than breakfast?" Worked perfectly.

Here's an up-close of Ricky's choice:
Breakfast Egg and Cheese Waffle Sandwich
served with Ham and Tomatoes (served until 12:00pm)

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Ricky thought this was a great choice, egg and ham were really good. The ham wasn't "jelly" or chewy and since he's not a big sweets in the morning kid this worked great.
Now we get to the close-up (all my pictures are close-ups since even when I shrink them they're huge!) of Chris's choice:

Mickey Waffle served with Strawberries and Whipped Cream


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Love how the whipped cream follows the Mickey shape of the waffle :goodvibes I was surprised he got the strawberries, he likes them but not so much the sauce, but this went over well.

After our hearty healthy breakfast it was time to take that energy over to AK for some FP's! We rode FOP for our 3rd and final time this trip:

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But the FP line to f o r e v e r. This led to a series of events that then led to Chris and I getting on a bus for our lunch ADR while Steve and Ricky were still riding EE. Which then led to them speed walking as fast as Ricky could to get to us before our bus left, which resulted in me standing on the bus, looking longingly toward the park exit, and that luckily caught our drivers attention and he DID, indeed, wait until they boarded.
::yes::
Where were we headed for lunch?
The new to us
Grand Floridian Cafe!

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We were 20 minutes late for our reservation but still were handed a pager, that went off about 30 seconds later. I have to say this restaurant is so pretty! We all started with drinks; pomegranate lemonade and water for the boys, this for me:

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Bubbly! I'm sure many of you can figure out what type of wine this was. Steve tried a new to him beer:

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that he ended up enjoying. I'm not a big beer drinker at all but when I do drink it, I definitely go for light beer so this wasn't something I even tried.

Three of us went for apps; starting with Ricky who got the seasonal soup:

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This was a broccoli and cheddar, and even though it was 110 degrees outside he loved and ate every drop of it. Huge bowl, too!
I ordered the

House-breaded Fried Mozzarella
with Tomato Jam and Grilled Artichoke Relish

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I'm at my picture limit for this post, but how many of you notice the weirdness?
#theressomethingwrongwiththispicture
#whatsonmycheese

Coming up next!
 
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The dessert gig looked pretty nice- a like that it has a different twist on how they are distributed which seems to really work for this one. There is a nice variety there for different tastes too. I too would have been pretty disappointed with the drink options. I don't care for sweeter over over more sour. Blech. So yeah, not worth it there. But, your seats were fantasmic. Love it!!
 
That looks like shrimp and not cheese. I love shrimp and I love fried cheese but if I ordered one, why am I getting the other?
 
Wait....shrimp?? And is it just me, or do you not really eat seafood? I'm confused!!

Those sinful sleepy hollow breakfasts looked soo carby and delicious though...Mmmmmm
 
Grand Floridian Cafe, con't
OR
#whatsonmycheese
So as you saw, there was something else on my fried mozzarella plate. Something I don't eat.
Why was there shrimp on there?

Welp, Steve ordered this for his app:

Chilled Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail
Citrus-Avocado Salad and Red Rooster Cocktail Sauce

but, he didn't order it when Ricky and I ordered ours. The next time the waitress walked by Steve called her over and ordered his shrimp; our waitress, who was nice but not the sharpest tool in the shed, asked, "do you want it with the mozzarella appetizer?" and instead of saying "yes, please bring out my shrimp when you bring out the other appetizers", he said, "yeah just throw it on with the other appetizer orders".

And that's what she did!
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Very weird and not exactly what Steve (or I) wanted; the shrimp were basically plain but he used some of my tomato jam which was deeeelish so that made it ok. And no fishy smell got on my perfectly scrumptious fried mozzarella so I was happy. As I said the tomato jam was OMG good and the fry on the mozzarella was light, not greasy. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Chris wasn't interested in any apps but was about to die of starvation right about the time our server brought out his burger from the kids menu. This was approx. 2 hours after we arrived, no lie. The restaurant is gorgeous, food delicious, server nice and friendly but holy slowness! We weren't even angry at Chris for whining because it was crazy! Sat down at 1:30, got our entrees at just about 3 :sad2:

Chris's burger from the kids menu which is no longer there:

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He'd had his share of burgers this trip. At the top were Beaches and Cream and Geyser Point. This didn't beat them but it was definitely #3.
Steve ordered the
Reuben Sandwich, which is also no longer on the current menu but is obvously on the one I posted in the last update.
Corned Beef, swiss, sauerkraut, and thousand island dressing on rye bread:

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Again, delicious. We were batting 1000 on the food; if you can get it there, it's worth it :laughing:

Here's where I failed but give me a break; it was the end of the trip and I was tired! I don't have pictures of mine or Ricky's entree but here's what we had:

Cobb Salad: Diced fresh-roasted turkey, avocado, bacon, bleu cheese, chives, egg and tomato on a bed of fresh greens
I know it was huge, much bigger than the Cobb Salad at Hollywood Brown Derby. All the ingredients were fresh and good, but I do have to say it was LOTS of greens. Like, the other ingredients were piled way high on half a pound of greens. So after I ate the good stuff I was left with lots of greens.
Ricky got the
The Café Sandwich
Open-faced Hot Sandwich with Ham, Roasted Turkey Breast, Bacon, Tomato, Boursin Cheese Sauce, and Onion Rings
This is still on the menu but I'm too lazy to find a picture on google, sorry friends! He was a bit unsure about the Boursin but I told him hey, it's CHEESE, and then he was ok. He ate a good portion of it but I do remember it too was huge like my salad.

If you didn't catch it we enjoyed our meal immensely, long, long wait aside. And that was my only cause for 2nd thought when ordering dessert - how much longer would we be there? The answer was an additional 30 minutes but man was it worth it.
First I got this adorable cappuccino:

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Still haven't gotten this anywhere else!
For dessert we ordered one to share since most of us were overly full. I just couldn't pass up the description which, of course, is different now:
Dessert Sampler (Serves Two)
Lemon-Blackberry Tart, Praline Pot de Crème, Cookies and Cream Dome, Strawberry Cheesecake

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None of those in the description are on my plate except the cheesecake!
There's still a tart of sorts which was much better than I thought it would be and we ended up eating all of it; honey was glazed over the fruit. If you've read my previous dining reports you know I do not normally eat fruit desserts. Next was a cheesecake and it was delicious, I love cheesecake but I actually preferred the fruit tart over this.
The dark chocolate mousse cake thing? Holy CRAP, that was my favorite. Steve took one bite and almost broke out in hives, Chris only ate most of the cheesecake and Ricky tried the tart and the last thing so I had this all to myself.
As for the equivalent of the pot de creme, ours was a mocha or coffee flavor which I didn't care for but Steve liked. I have to say this whole tray was perfection and I was sad that we didn't clean it off!

I would love to return to GFC and maybe try breakfast someday. I recommend it and I'd hoped our slow as molasses service was a one time thing but others have mentioned it happening to them, too.
Next up, our final meal of the trip and I can put this baby to bed!
 

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There is a nice variety there for different tastes too
There were! Enough sweets but then also savory for people like Steve who don't like to overload on sweets.

But, your seats were fantasmic.
:love: I see what you did there lol!

That looks like shrimp and not cheese. I love shrimp and I love fried cheese but if I ordered one, why am I getting the other?
Yup, it's shrimp ON my cheese :confused3 I explained in my next update what happened lol but mine and Steve's faces were just a tad confused when our server brought it out!

So many delicious foods! Not ever been to GF Cafe. But it sure looks good! :goodvibes
It was a very good meal, I'd go back. One negative was the probably slowest service we've EVER had at a Disney restaurant............

Wait....shrimp?? And is it just me, or do you not really eat seafood? I'm confused!!
I do NOT eat any seafood, you are correct Miss Emily!! So why was it on my plate?? Only our server knows for sure :laughing:
 
The next time the waitress walked by Steve called her over and ordered his shrimp; our waitress, who was nice but not the sharpest tool in the shed, asked, "do you want it with the mozzarella appetizer?" and instead of saying "yes, please bring out my shrimp when you bring out the other appetizers", he said, "yeah just throw it on with the other appetizer orders".

And that's what she did!
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:rotfl: Oh my gosh! She's like a real-life Amelia Bedelia!

And ew…I'm glad that shrimp didn't taint your yummy cheese!

2 hours after we arrived, no lie. The restaurant is gorgeous, food delicious, server nice and friendly but holy slowness! We weren't even angry at Chris for whining because it was crazy! Sat down at 1:30, got our entrees at just about 3 :sad2:

That's kind of crazy! Good thing the food was so good!

Also, I recently learned how to add more than 10 photos to my TR posts and it's so stupid easy I cannot believe I haven't been doing it that way all along. All of my pictures are in Shutterfly, going back to 2010. When I'm writing my TR, I have Shutterfly open in the next tab of my mac and I right click and "copy image," tab back to my TR and right click to "paste." It's ridiculously easy and you can add up to 35 photos that way. I think you and I are the only two people who didn't know about this ::yes::

If you don't have Shutterfly, it's all free, unlimited storage and they will add your pictures to a nice timeline. I highly recommend it. Also, You can upload your phone pics right from the app. Super easy :thumbsup2
 
Shrimp and mozzarella how funny! She was a very literal waitress:rotfl:

We walked by the GFC so many times in August and never did eat there! Andi didn’t like the menu choices, of course!

Enjoyed your DR and I am waiting to sign on to the new TR:bounce:
 
Surprisingly nobody was in the mood for a Gaston's cinnamon roll nor Starbucks, so we settled on Sleepy Hollow.
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This looks like you said, we will have one of each please! Our girls had funnel cake for the first time here, I have deprived them of such goodness. Ha!

Ricky thought this was a great choice, egg and ham were really good. The ham wasn't "jelly" or chewy and since he's not a big sweets in the morning kid this worked great.
Looks more like deli ham but that is probably better.

But the FP line to f o r e v e r.
So, when we were in Bush Gardens Williamsburg, they had a new VR ride and the line took FOREVER! I think it is the nature of the rides? That ride, also, really highlighted how AMAZING FOP actually is!

Which then led to them speed walking as fast as Ricky could to get to us before our bus left, which resulted in me standing on the bus, looking longingly toward the park exit, and that luckily caught our drivers attention and he DID, indeed, wait until they boarded.
::yes::
Still amazingly lucky!

I love the faces of the boys just past the menu...

I ordered the
House-breaded Fried Mozzarella
with Tomato Jam and Grilled Artichoke Relish

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I'm at my picture limit for this post, but how many of you notice the weirdness?
#theressomethingwrongwiththispicture
#whatsonmycheese
What the what?!?!

but, he didn't order it when Ricky and I ordered ours. The next time the waitress walked by Steve called her over and ordered his shrimp; our waitress, who was nice but not the sharpest tool in the shed, asked, "do you want it with the mozzarella appetizer?" and instead of saying "yes, please bring out my shrimp when you bring out the other appetizers", he said, "yeah just throw it on with the other appetizer orders".

And that's what she did!
That is very odd. I mean who requests that? What did they charge you for, do you know?

We weren't even angry at Chris for whining because it was crazy! Sat down at 1:30, got our entrees at just about 3 :sad2:
That is crazy. Our girls would have gone crazy.

Chris's burger from the kids menu which is no longer there:
I am surprised Chris is still ordering from the kids menu. Morgan sometimes finds the kids burger too small and over cooked.

These look fun!
 

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