Most Recent Reviews
Review of Triton's - Disney Wonder
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/20/2018
Rating: (9) Recommended
We dined here for our final night on our 3-Night Cruise on the Wonder in February 2018. It's pretty, but aside from the mural of King Triton, there's nothing particularly "under the sea" themed about it.
The Breaded and Deep Fried Brie was the appetizer each person at our table ordered, and it was great! For the soup course, three people got the French Onion and one person had the Potato & Leek. No complaints.
Initially, there was no entree on the menu that was screaming, "EAT ME!" - the Chateaubriand-Roasted Filet Steak sounded like there was an awful lot of sauce, and my steak at Tiana's the previous night had been dry, so I was a little wary. But this turned out to be HANDS DOWN, the BEST entree of the cruise. It was perfect! The meat was perfectly tender and flavorful and I loved the mashed potatoes and green beans. This was seconded by my mom, who ordered the same thing. The other two in our party ordered the vegetarian Wild Mushroom-Stuffed Pasta and they seemed to like it.
For dessert, I ordered the Creme Brulee and it was pretty "meh". It wasn't hot or cold, just right in the middle. My mom had the Grand Marnier Souffle and she liked it. One of our friends had the Apple Tart Tartin because "it was the only one with a description I understood" and the other friend had both the Strawberry Shortcake Sundae and the Classic Opera Gateau. The Gateau got a very good review!
Pros:
Appetizers, soups and entrees were deliciousCons:
Desserts just so-soReview of Tiana's Place - Disney Wonder
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/20/2018
Rating: (8) Recommended
Now known as Tiana's Place on the Wonder since the 2016 dry dock, we dined here for our second night of our recent cruise (Pirate Night).
Tiana came to visit us early in the meal and she was spot on and beautiful! Our friend couldn't stop raving about how pretty she was! We liked the live music but it did make it a bit difficult to converse. The parade at the end was fun to watch and I loved how the female servers' costumes are identical to Tiana's from the movie.
This restaurant is a little more adventurous than the others with it's dishes, since it's New Orleans themed. Even the water glasses are Mardi Gras colored, and everyone gets beads to take home! Only two of us ordered appetizers, I think. I had the Sauteed Gulf Shrimp and Grits with Andouille Sausage - a pretty big jump for me, but it was surprisingly good! Our friend had the Boudin Sausage Fritters.
I had Mama Odie's Tomato Soup, which was pretty standard. My entree was the Roasted Prime Rib and it was really disappointing. They forgot to add the red wine veal sauce, somehow, and the cut was just very dry. I did like the twice baked potato. My friend's dish did have the sauce and she thought the entree was fine. My friend's husband tried the Cajun Spiced Sea Bass. My mom had the Warm Water Lobster Salad.
For dessert, my mom and I couldn't decide what we wanted...so we ordered one of everything to share! My FAVORITE dessert of the whole trip was the Bananas Foster Sundae, and normally I don't even like the flavor of that dish! A very close second was Tiana's Beignets with the Chocolate-Espresso dipping sauce.
I usually love Pecan pies/tarts but I thought the one here was dry and not very good. My mom said she liked it though. She also enjoyed Mama Odie's White Chocolate Bread Pudding. We received the Sugar Free dessert instead of the Chocolate Cake; it was a Lemon Raspberry Mousse Bomb. I didn't try it, but my mom said it was good.
This restaurant does pretty good overall, and I'm looking forward to trying the newcomer Rapunzel's Royal Table on the Magic next year!
Pros:
Different flavors, live music, GREAT dessertsCons:
So-so steakReviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/20/2018
Rating: (9) Recommended
We dined here for the first night of our cruise, and it was kind of wasted on us due to our big lunch at Cabanas less than four hours earlier.
One member of our group only ate the Chicken & Walnut Salad for her entire meal. I think it was a much smaller portion than she was expecting! Similarly, my mom only had the Jumbo Shrimp Salad, which was a little more filling.
I had the Butternut Squash Soup, which was pretty standard, and for my entree, the Lemon-Thyme Marinated Chicken Breast, which was good but nothing too exciting. The mashed potatoes were excellent!
The other person in our group had the Ginger-Teriyaki dusted Angus Beef Tenderloin and he ate every last bite so it must have been good!
For dessert, I had the Lemon Ice Box Pie, which was great, kind of like a key-lime pie. Two people had the Warm Sticky Date Pudding, to satisfy their curiosity about it. It was deemed "very good". One of our members was also celebrating a birthday, so he was brought the Crunchy Walnut Cake with a Happy Birthday chocolate decoration. This got mixed reviews from the table, as we all sampled it. My mom ate most of it and she said the middle was the best part. The birthday boy said he would have preferred they just brought him his regular dessert (the ice box pie) with the decoration, rather than a different piece of this.
The show at the end was good. I liked watching the different characters get sketched out during the meal. And as a big fan of the Fantasmic! music, I was thrilled that it's part of the grand finale!
I'll take this opportunity to give a shoutout to our serving team: Juan, our server; Orly, our asst server; and Faiul (sp?), our head waiter. Juan went above and beyond for us, and at the end of each night, always had a surprise. Two nights it was different magic tricks. The first night he incorporated our friend into the trick and she never did figure out how he managed it, even three days later. The second night he brought his "pet" ferret to say hello and scared the heck out of my when I turned and found myself face to face with the stuffed animal! He said I must not like pets. I love pets (I have three), it just startled me! Juan even talked to us about his experiences on the ship; he's been with DCL for 10 years, and told us his favorite cities to serve, and the ones that have guests that tend to be a little more challenging. We loved our team here and added to the pre-set gratuities accordingly - very easy to do, but don't wait until the last night, or the lines at Guest Services will be outrageous!
Pros:
The show! The food was very good tooCons:
—Review of Castaway Cay Dining
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/20/2018
Rating: (10) Recommended
We ate lunch at Cookie's on 2/10/18. It was still early in the serving time, around noon, so seating wasn't hard to find. We grabbed a table in a nearby covered pavilion and could hear the dance party going on across the way without it being overwhelming!
I had heard the food wasn't much to write home about, and it wasn't anything groundbreaking, but we were pleasantly surprised. Burgers, chips, ribs, chicken, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit salad, corn on the cob, corn bread, etc. They did have little slivers of garlic cheese flatbread, which were not as good as I was hoping. I hadn't been to the ice cream machines on board, so I was very excited to discover they had banana and strawberry soft serve, in addition to the basic vanilla and chocolate! I may have gotten more than one cone...
We will definitely eat on the island next time we visit!
Pros:
All the food was surprisingly good, loved the soft serve ice creamCons:
—Review of Nassau - Bahamas
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/20/2018
Rating: (6) Recommended
I elected not to get off the boat here, at the advice of my fellow travel agents. I can tell you it looked pretty from my verandah!
My mom and our friends did venture into Festival Place just to say they went to Nassau. Our friends went alone earlier in the day and found some shirts for reasonable prices ($10-$25). They convinced my mom to go out with them again in the afternoon so she could also buy some shirts. The place they went had an outdoor area with one employee, and an indoor area with another employee. From what they told me, the pricing was inconsistent between the two areas, they did some haggling, and the staff began to argue when the inside one found out how low the outside one had sold the shirts for, so they quickly left.
I may consider a port adventure on our next visit, but I wouldn't complain about staying on the boat again either.
Pros:
Pretty port from the shipCons:
Questionable pricing and staffReviewed by jatbj Review Date: 02/24/2018
Rating: (9) Recommended
Just got back from another Disney vacation from 1/31 to 2/7/2018. My family and I love POR. This was our 12th visit over the years. We enjoyed ourselves at the parks, and our room which was a standard room, was nice. My only complaint is housekeeping. When we first went to our room the floor was covered with the previous occupants debris(plastic tabs from their purchases). I don't expect them to vacuum everyday, but at least they could vacuum with every new guest that arrives at the hotel. Also, they didn't replace the coffee cups, that we used most days. This was the first time I have been disappointed while staying on Disney property. Hopefully, Disney will improve the situation. I will still keep going to POR when I visit Disney in Orlando.
Pros:
beautiful grounds, great food court,friendly peopleCons:
housekeepingReview of Be Our Guest Dinner
Reviewed by jatbj Review Date: 02/24/2018
Rating: (10) Recommended
We had dinner at Be Our Guest on Friday, February 2nd, 2018. My sister, son , nephew and I thoroughly enjoyed our meal. I had the roast pork tenderloin. It was so tender you could cut it with a fork. My sister and nephew had the dish with scallops and loved it. My son had the grilled strip steak and was very impressed. I would recommend this restaurant. The atmosphere was wonderful and the food great. And the Beast showed up a few times to visit! So Cool!!!
Pros:
delicious foodCons:
noneReview of Pirates in the Caribbean Party
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/25/2018
Rating: (8) Recommended
We had our Pirates IN the Caribbean night on night 2 of our 3 night cruise, between Nassau and Castaway Cay. I had matching pirate shirts made for our party (same design but each person could choose their own color) and bought pirate accessories around Halloween to bring along. This made for some cute photo ops, especially with pirate Minnie & Mickey.
We were told several times that the fireworks were at 10, but what actually happens is the "show" starts at 10; the fireworks go off at 10:30. Our group watched from deck 10 portside - if you want to watch from starboard you must get there early because they block off entry around 9:50 so they can set up the fireworks. The show is cute and features kids from the kids clubs and characters, with a weak storyline about Minnie, Goofy, etc as good pirates doing their favorite dances. Then the bad pirates take over and "rock out" before Mickey comes in on a zipline to save the day. Finally, the fireworks happen - it's a VERY short display, only about 3-4 minutes. If you are expecting Disney Parks worthy pyrotechnics, this isn't it. It's nice for what it is though.
The three late middle-aged adults I was traveling with had trouble standing on the deck due to various disabilities and left shortly after the deck show began to return to one of our staterooms. They ended up watching from their verandah (deck 7 starboard aft) and couldn't hear the accompanying music but had a great view of the fireworks.
I had some cute photos taken by a photographer roaming deck 10 that turned out to be some of my favorites from the trip. Following the fireworks, there's dessert/Mexican food buffet in Cabanas. I chose a couple of items to take back to the room. Now that I know there's a delay before the fireworks, I'll wait until closer to the half hour mark before watching next time.
Pros:
Fireworks at sea! Cute photosCons:
Show is kind of boringReview of Golden Mickeys
Reviewed by bellebookworm9 Review Date: 02/25/2018
Rating: (9) Recommended
I had read a review on another site that said this show "isn't worth your time" and I almost skipped it, but I'm really glad I didn't! We were very, very impressed by the singers and dancers. It also features songs from "forgotten" movies like Tarzan, Hunchback, and Mulan, plus a stellar Cruella deVil number! One of the members of our party was very disappointed Tarzan wasn't one of the members who comes out into the audience at the end 😉
The plot line is on the corny side, especially the part with the video of Bob Iger, but if you forget about that and just focus on the songs, it's very enjoyable!
Pros:
The songs are amazingCons:
Story line is very cornyReview of Tokyo Dining
Reviewed by The Papi Review Date: 02/25/2018
Rating: (10) Recommended
We ate here in late January 2018. We were seated within minutes of our arrival. The seats along the windows were already filled and it was just 6:00 p.m. Our server was very friendly and welcoming. We ordered salads for apps, then I had the eel and DH had the panko fish & veggie combo. Everything was well presented and arrived in very little time. We didn't feel rushed, and were surprised to be back outside in just over a hour - so no park time wasted! This was also one of the best value meals we've had in a long time at WDW. Highly recommended.
