Disney has a lot to offer the foodie in all of us. There are a lot of really good restaurant. But where should you look if all the top choices are taken? What restaurants are out there that provide a good experience and have tables available on short notice or for larger groups? Today’s article tries to answer those questions by focusing on the restaurants that are overlooked by a lot of travelers. The restaurants are listed in no particular order and cover a wide range of cuisine and resort choices.
Category Archives: Walt Disney World Deluxe Resorts
Storytelling
The theme for this week’s Wordless Wednesday is storytelling. Storytelling takes on many shapes and sizes. Just about every picture tells a story. To capture this week’s theme, I’ve told the story of a recent dinner that my wife and I had at Yachtsman Steakhouse. You can see everything in this meal from appetizers through main course and finally dessert. Enjoy.
Top Walt Disney World Pools by Resort Group
Disney pools come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the resort pools are better than others, in my opinion. Personally, I look for a big pool which has lots of activities for people of all ages to do from just lounging in the sun to going down a really big water slide. Most of my pool time, at Disney, is during the middle of day (sometime after lunch to until the afternoon thunderstorm rolls in). Today, we are going to look at the top pool in each resort class: value, moderate, and deluxe/deluxe villa.
Continue reading Top Walt Disney World Pools by Resort Group
Wild about Wilderness Lodge
Nestled in the corner of Bay Lake lies one of Walt Disney World best resort properties…Wilderness Lodge. With it’s Pacific Northwest theme, it is also one of the best resorts to stay at or visit especially during Christmas time. It is warm, welcoming, and feels very open.
The ceiling in the lobby is very high and there is plenty of seating for guests to just sit and relax while waiting for the rest of their party.
Why Isn’t Contempo Cafe Open 24 Hours?
I posed this question on twitter last week and got very little response so I decided, today, to write a short blog post on the topic. If you have been following the blog from the beginning, you will know that I love the Contempo Cafe. I love its location, the ability to watch the monorail go by, and the menu. It’s a great place to sit back and relax after a morning and/or afternoon in the parks.
Unlike it’s monorail loop brethren, the Gasparilla Grill and Captain Cook’s; the Contempo Cafe is NOT open 24 hours. The hours of the Contempo Cafe are from 6:00 am until midnight. This puts the Contempo Cafe’s hours more on par with moderate and value resorts than the other dining options along the monorail loop.
Are the people staying at the Contemporary just not hungry at night? Does Disney charge less for rooms at the Contemporary than at the Grand Floridian and Polynesian Village to compensate guests for not having a 24-hour quick service option?
Late night resort hopping is difficult to do in the off-peak months when the parks close earlier and as a result the monorail shuts down earlier as well. There is no boat from the Contemporary to the Grand Floridian or Polynesian Village without stopping at the Magic Kingdom and when the Magic Kingdom closes for the night, those boats stop running as well. There is a boat to Wilderness Lodge but that quick service restaurant is only open to midnight as well.
The Contempo Cafe has a wonderful breakfast especially its Bounty Platter with eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, and french toast. Disney could replace the bacon and sausage with some steak and charge a dollar or two more and have a fantastic late night steak and eggs menu item. It could have a late-night midnight to 6:00 am menu featuring a cross-section of its dinner and breakfast menu with quick easy-to-make selections from both menus.
Maybe Disney has crunched the numbers and the numbers say that Disney would lose money by keeping the Contempo Cafe open 24 hours a day. However, I think that Disney is missing out on an opportunity to have a unique late-night dining opportunity at one of it’s best quick service restaurants.
Thanks for reading!
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