Top 5 snacks and quick-service restaurants at Walt Disney World

I've been back from holiday for four weeks and I haven't blogged about the food yet. Can you believe it? I certainly can't, so I thought it was about time I rectified this situation.

I'm going to start by blogging about my top 5 snacks and quick-service restaurants on this trip, then I'll blog separately next week about our favourite table service restaurants.

We made good use of our Disney Dining Plan as always (read my quick summary of how it works here), although we did struggle to use all our snack credits this year. It turns out that a table service meal, quick-service meal and two snacks per day is sometimes too much food even for us. However, we spent our remaining snack credits on Ghirardelli chocolate so we felt quite smug about having so many left over.

Brace yourselves for photos of my top 5 snacks...

Mickey-shaped cinnamon bun at Animal Kingdom 

My all-time favourite Disney snack. Churro! 

Giant pink doughnut... I ate this at 9am. 

One of many trips to Beaches & Cream for our ice cream fix

Warm Wild Berry Buckle with pepper-berry gelato from Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival. One of the new things I was determined to try on this trip!  

After seeing the size of the snacks, I'm sure you can understand why we struggled to use up all our snack credits! 

We did well with our quick-service credits and managed to space them out evenly throughout our trip. Quick-service restaurants are ideal when you want a more casual meal which you can eat as quickly or as slowly as you want to, and there really is something to suit everyone. Don't be fooled into thinking you'll get a small portion though... see below! 

These were my five favourites this year: 

We tried Blaze Pizza in Disney Springs for the first time and it was goooood. 

Orange chicken at Lotus Blossom Cafe in Epcot's China pavilion.
I look forward to this every year! 

Another holiday staple for me - Mickey waffles for breakfast at The Artist's Palette 

One of many trips to D-Luxe Burger. BEST BURGERS EVER. 

Colossal breakfast at Be our Guest in the Magic Kingdom 

Are you really hungry now? I definitely am... no change there then. Keep a look out for more mouth-watering photos of food next week!  

Snacking, Disney style!

It's been two weeks since we got back from Walt Disney World and I'm still suffering from an extreme case of holiday blues. For all the reasons I detailed in my last blog post, it's so difficult to leave such a spectacular place behind at the end of an amazing fortnight. It really does get a little bit harder to leaveevery time.

I thought blogging about our holiday might make me feel better and, after posting a quick poll on Twitter because people haven't had enough voting opportunities recently (!), I've decided to start with some blog posts on the food we ate at Walt Disney World.

The Disney Dining Plan was included with our booking which meant we had 14 table service credits each, 14 quick service credits each, and 28 snacks each. Today, I'm going to focus on the snacking element of the plan.

Snacks generally cost up to $6 and are widely available across all parks and resorts - just keep a look out for the purple Disney Dining Plan icon to find out what's eligible. We quickly realised that 2 snacks each per day is a huge amount of food on top of the other meal credits, so we used a few of our credits on bottled drinks in the parks rather than on food items or more fancy drinks. However, we still managed to fit in a substantial number of fun snacks as you'll see below, as well as some boring fruit snacks which I didn't photograph!

It's amazing to think that all the food and drink below was completely free and didn't chip away at our spending money. Although I don't think we'd ever pay outright for the Disney Dining Plan, it's a definite perk when it's tagged on to your booking.

Scroll down to find out what we decided to spend our snacking credits on this year...

A Disney snacking classic. Mickey pretzel!

One of my favourite snacks of the lot - churro!

Ice cream from the legendary Plaza Ice Cream Parlor at the Magic Kingdom. 

A giant cookie with little sugared Mickeys from our resort's selection of snacks.

Another Disney classic. Mickey ice cream lolly!

Dole Whip on our first morning.
This is like a meal in itself and requires both a spoon and a straw!

One of my favourite pastries - a hefty cinnamon roll from Epcot. 

A new snack choice for this holiday - giant pink doughnut!

Frozen strawberry lemonade on one of the hottest days of the holiday.

Definitely NOT the only apple danish pastry I ate over the two weeks. 

Giant Oreo chocolate cupcake from Candy Cauldron in Disney Springs.

Cookies 'n' cream and strawberry ice cream from Beaches & Cream at the Beach Club.

This frozen Violet Lemonade from Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival was

another first-time snack for this trip. 

LeFou's Brew from Gaston's Tavern - terrible photo but amazing concoction. 

Yes, it's just a diet Coke, but look at the label!

Unfortunately, I was too parched to walk to the castle for a more suitable backdrop. 

Are you hungry yet? Keep a look out for my next food-filled blog post! 

New thing every week in 2015 #1

I decided to unashamedly copy Liz at the beginning of last year by doing one new thing every week during 2015 (read Liz's first post here). There were admittedly times when I forgot to record something new for weeks on end which meant I had to rely on my Instagram updates to figure out what new things I did... this is why there are so many food entries!

I've split last year's 'new thing every week' posts into five instalments as I seem to be a big fan of splitting up my posts at the moment.

Here are the new things I did between 1 January and 11 March 2015... enjoy!

Week 1 (1-7 January) - Changed my name on my passport due to getting married in 2014.

Week 2 (8-14 January) - Fake Christmas with university friends in Milton Keynes for the first time.

Week 3 (15-21 January) - Started this challenge!

Week 4 (22-28 January) - Had a wisdom tooth out, hopefully for the first and last time. 

Week 5 (29 January - 4 February) - Bought a red bag (and a yellow purse). 

Week 6 (5-11 February) - Ate churros in this country during a visit to Chimichanga - I've only had them in Florida previously. 

Week 7 (12-18 February) - A bird did its business on my head... I didn't have much choice in this one, and I definitely haven't got a photo!

Week 8 (19-25 February) - Went to Wahaca.

Week 9 (26 February - 4 March) - Went to Llanerch Vineyard as a surprise for Neil's birthday. 

Week 10 (5-11 March) - Went to an engagement party.

So, as you can see, I ate a lot during the first quarter of 2015. The next ten weeks will follow in a few days! 

Florida and food...

One of my favourite things about going on holiday is knowing that I can eat as much as I want without feeling guilty. I always make a big effort to eat healthily during the week when I'm at home, so it's nice to relax the rules when I'm on holiday. Calories don't count when you're abroad, right?

The food in Florida is absolutely immense and I couldn't even begin to describe all the meals I ate there... you'd probably think I was disgusting if I detailed everything I ate. Or you'd be very very jealous.

I thought I'd compile a list of my top five restaurants, then I realised that I couldn't really narrow it down to a top five because there are so many fantastic places to eat in Orlando. So... I've attempted to rank my favourite five restaurants, but I added a load of notable mentions too to make sure I didn't leave anything out. I didn't take many photos of my food unfortunately, but I can assure you that it was all amazing.

1. Portobello, Downtown Disney

We ate in Portobello on our last night, and we definitely saved the best until last. I had beef and veal meatballs in a tomato sauce to start, and spinach and ricotta ravioli for my main course. We were also given some bread rolls with olive oil and roasted garlic... I'm still drooling at the thoughts of this amazing meal. Words can't actually describe it. We didn't have room for dessert unfortunately, but we did splash out on a bottle of Pinot Grigio as it was our last night. This was also Neil's favourite meal of the holiday, and we'll definitely be returning at least once next time we go to Florida. 20 out of 10!

2. The Cheesecake Factory, Mall at Millenia

The Cheesecake Factory isn't actually in Disney World but it's an absolute must if you're ever visiting Orlando. It's located in Mall at Millenia, and it's definitely not just about the cheesecake... although that's pretty good too. Their menu is about 20 pages long, and you really do have to spend about fifteen minutes deciding what you want. I went for a grilled chicken and avocado sandwich for my main course and the Oreo cheesecake for my dessert. You might be thinking that a sandwich is just a sandwich, but this is definitely the best sandwich I've ever had in my life. Don't even get me started on the cheesecake... it was absolutely spectacular. I took it back to the resort with me and took three days to finish it!

3. The Rainforest Cafe, Downtown Disney

Again, this is a restaurant you absolutely have to visit if you're in the area. It's a very unique restaurant as the interior actually makes you feel as if you're in a rainforest... there are even fake earthquakes and volcano eruptions from time to time! I had an amazing Italian sausage and mozzarella pasta in a tomato sauce, and I definitely didn't need a starter or a dessert to go with this massive main course. They do lovely cocktails too!

4. Perkins, Crossroads

Perkins is situated just outside the gates to Walt Disney World and is hugely popular with tourists and locals alike. We went for breakfast at Perkins twice... I had a bacon, egg and cheese melt with hash browns the first time and strawberry pancakes the second time. I ate every bite of the bacon, egg and cheese melt as it was probably the best breakfast I've ever had. However, I only managed one and a half pancakes as my stomach doesn't seem to let me eat any more than that before getting full. This is very gutting for me as their pancakes are delicious!

5. Via Napoli, Epcot

Need I say any more after sharing this picture? This pepperoni pizza was big enough for both of us to share and is one of the best pizzas I've ever had. I know I keep saying that about all the food I eat in Florida, but it's so true! I also had lovely mozzarella and risotto balls to start in Via Napoli, but the starters are always slightly overshadowed (literally) by this immense pizza. The pizza dough was absolutely perfect, and the pepperoni was really tasty and wasn't dripping with grease. No other pizza will ever satisfy me!

Notable mentions:

Nine Dragons Restaurant, Epcot's World Showcase

We ate here three times!

Earl of Sandwich, Downtown Disney

Pictures will never do it justice.

Ghirardelli's, Downtown Disney

Might have eaten four of these during the holiday...

Be our Guest, Magic Kingdom

An amazing and authentic dining experience... and I met the Beast!

Karamell-Kuche, Epcot's World Showcase

I wanted EVERYTHING... I settled for some chocolate covered grapes. 

Good's Food to Go, Old Key West

Good old American food!

The Plaza, Magic Kingdom

Lovely burger and New York cheesecake... first meal after we got engaged :)

Churros and pretzels, everywhere!

Are you hungry yet? The big question is... how did I only put on 2lbs?!

Happiness is... #2

It's time for the second instalment of my 'Happiness is...' posts. If you want to know more about the background of these posts, you can read the first instalment here. Again, I've linked to previous blog posts where relevant so that you can read about what makes me happy in a bit more detail.

So here are another 25 little things which make me happy!

26. Hot chocolate with marshmallows
27. Christmas
28. Receiving a random card or letter
29. Having a Pinterest binge
30. Making chocolate brownies
31. Surprising someone I care about
32. Writing my packing list before I go on holiday
33. My extensive collection of teddies
34. Eating at The Harvester
35. Finding something amazing in the sales
36. Poached eggs on toast
37. Novelty socks
38. Not having to pay council tax in February and March
39. Receiving my new Tesco Clubcard vouchers
40. Getting good grades
41. Going to the cinema
42. Playing with Tara and Homer
43. High School Musical
44. Having a lie in
45. An overwhelming sense of relief after weeks of stress
46. Eating a churro
47. Reading the Harry Potter books
48. A clean and tidy flat
49. Watching Friends... it never gets old!
50. Meeting up with a friend I haven't seen or spoken to for months and just picking up where we left off


That was very therapeutic... what makes you happy?

Frantic about Florida #3

This is the third post in my Frantic about Florida series - you can read the first two posts here and here. I get a little bit more excited every time I write one and look through all my photos from last year. Eep!

Here are another 5 things I'm looking forward to:

1. The Magic Kingdom night show

This show was well worth queuing for and gave me goosebumps! 

Brilliant parades, atmosphere, lighting and fireworks. 

2. Eating a churro 

Cinnamon and sugary goodness!

3. The tigers in Busch Gardens 

Up close and personal!

4. Hogwarts at Universal's Islands of Adventure

There's also a brilliant ride inside the castle, as if the visual element wasn't enough!

5. Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom

Amazing ride which sends you hurtling backwards down the mountain!

Hope you enjoyed the third instalment... look out for the fourth one in a few weeks!