A 40th celebration to end the world! THREAD 1 COMPLETED 2/16 About This Page:

[Cam22]

I love the one-bedroom. The colors are more subtle and that Mickey head sketch is so cute. The layout looks very spacious, too. The Mickey heads in the hall carpets are neat, too.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by MEM

There is only one balcony, but there are two doors onto it, one from the living room and one from the bedroom.

Glad to know I wasn't losing the plot on that!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by B.M.

I'm working on catching up.... I just can't believe that guy in the fountain!?! You mentioned how hot it was; I guess he was cooling off.... I wonder if he was drunk? How odd...

He could've been cooling off, but even so, most usual people wouldn't do that, would they?

[chezp]

Monday 10 December – part eight: an old favourite for dinner…

We wanted to try and use up the remaining snack credits (five in all), which we did eventually, using two
for a muffin and cookie for breakfast in the morning, and three drinks. I will say here that the range of items they have for snacks is absolutely pitiful, compared to the range you get at the Beach Club, which really surprised me.



We also got a couple of Christmas ornaments, although I was travelling light, so didn’t have my photo ID with me, and neither did Mark, and to get the Premium Annual Pass discount, you have to show that, so he had to go back to the room to get it.

Once that was done, and we’d taken everything back to the room, we went up to the Top of the World lounge. You have to check in at the lobby, and then they send you up in the elevator. We didn’t have much time before our dinner at the California Grill, so we literally only went up there to take photos.



While we were outside doing that, we could feel some spots of rain, so I ducked inside to get some shots of the lounge, which was very quiet with no more than a dozen or so people up there, which surprised me.


I liked these little “hideaway” booths


As it was nearing our time for dinner, we headed over to the Contemporary, and met Elaine and Keith at the check in for the California Grill on the second floor.

We were taken up by elevator to the 15th floor, and were amazed that our pager went off straightaway when we got there, as we’d been warned that there could be a 15 minute wait for our table, as apparently the monorail had gone down, and people had been stuck for half an hour or so.


A shot of the four of us from the end of the meal

Our table was close to the kitchen, round towards the Epcot side, so we had no chance of seeing Wishes from our table. However, when it started about 20 minutes or so later, I did go outside to get some shots. I didn’t stay long, as it was tipping with rain outside, something that would continue for the rest of the evening.



Before I went out to get the photos, we put our orders in, and it’s just as well I was only out there five minutes or so, as the first of our appetisers showed up just after I got back to the table. We decided to do our usual when we eat here on the Dining Plan, and share a flatbread, and some sushi.

The flatbread we went for was the hardwood smoked salmon, which had chive cream cheese, capers, black tobiko, and soft cooked egg on it as well. I know Mark wasn’t sure about the egg, but I thought it worked perfectly. We couldn’t really taste any of the chive cream cheese though, although having said that, I don’t think you needed too, as it was perfect without it.



The sushi we went for was the old favourite of ours, the spicy Kazan rolls, which consist of crab, shrimps, scallops, tuna, and the fireball sauce, which really does live up to its name. I love the sushi, but the sauce is insanely hot. I always try and avoid it, but had no option but to try and wade through some of it, as that’s where the scallops were. Elaine and Keith were very amused at my attempts to remove all the fireball sauce from them on the plate, but I wasn’t entirely successful, and had to load up on water as a result!



For entrée, I went for the seared diver scallops, with chestnut risotto, maple-squash broth, and honey chestnuts, which sounded fascinating. Oh my goodness, this really was heaven on a plate. I absolutely adored this, and the flavours were just perfect together. It was something I’d never have thought of combining, but it worked so well. I honestly cannot praise his dish enough, it was just so good.



Mark had the oak-fired fillet of beef, with buttered purple stokes puree, citrus-glazed carrots, and teriyaki barbecue. The buttered purple bit was slightly freaky looking, but Mark said it tasted fine, although he felt the carrots were a little too on the “al dente” side of cooking…



For dessert, I went for the old favourite, the warm Valrhona chocolate cake, which today was served with peppermint ice cream and Godiva chocolate sauce. I was a little shocked when it showed up, as I always assume anything mint will be green, but this wasn’t. Despite that, it tasted absolutely fine, although it was quite minty, and sometimes as I was about to take a mouthful, I’d inhale a bit, and it would almost knock me out.



Mark opted for the bananas and caramel, crispy baked phyllo squares layered with bananas, mascarpone mousse, and caramelised banana, which he seemed to enjoy.



The meal had been well paced, and I think we were done just before 10:00pm. A note about our server here, David. He wasn’t that great sadly. I think the problem was he couldn’t multi-task. If you asked him to do more than one thing, that was it, it really threw him. We all made the comment that the California Grill always delivers on the food front, but sometimes the service can let that food down. We did ask David about the upcoming refurbishment (by the way, from what we understand, a lot of that is for renovation of the kitchen, carpets etc. from a reliable source ) and he told us it’s due to close on 3 February for “at least six months”. Hopefully it’ll be open again by the time we come back in November next year.

California Grill

Appetiser 9 9½
Entrée 10 9
Dessert 9 8
Service 6½ 5
Atmosphere 8½ 9
Value for money 9 9½

Average score: 8.50

I deliberately haven’t mentioned the cost of the meal, as I wanted to cover it separately. This was our last meal on the Deluxe Dining Plan, and again we used every table and snack credit. The plan cost us $697 for the two of us for the four nights, and I kept a record of the cost of all our meals, along with details of the refillable mugs we got, and the snacks we bought. So how did it work out? Well, had we paid out for everything we got with the plan, it would’ve cost us $955.70 which was an overall saving of $258.24. Wow! I was actually really surprised by that, as given how the price of the Dining Plans have been going up, I thought it would be touch and go to get good value out of it, but once again, it proved possible. It’s still a good deal for us if we want to do a number of signature restaurants, and I suspect we will be using it again in the future.

We headed out of the California Grill, said our goodbyes to Elaine and Keith and got off at the fourth floor, having a quick browse in the shop:


Maybe the wrong Disney park…


From there, it was back to the room.



It had been a long day, and I was utterly exhausted and, for the first time this trip, I couldn’t wait to get to bed.

The weather today was humid and cloudy with temperatures in the low 80s.
The best thing today was lunch at the Crystal Palace.
The worst thing today was how mobbed the new Fantasyland was.
The funniest thing today was “we have to coax Piglet out every day”!
Today we tried visiting the new part of Fantasyland
And the result was I wasn’t that impressed.
The most magical moment today was my encounter with Eeyore.

Next: how would you ever use all of this?

[mushu22]

Amazing

[Thomhazel]

Looks like a fab evening at the California Grill. It is one of my favorites but we haven't been since 2002. The shops in the contemporary used to be the best on property for me but I was disappointed in them last July. I started my Mickey and Minnie collection there and they always seemed to have different things to anywhere else but not anymore.

My plan is to do as you did and keep my receipts and see if the plan would have saved us money. I think because we buy food from Publix, snack in the room and do light meals in the room TIW will work out for us but nice to see someone saving money on the plan.

[Disneybine]

Your food looks so good! I'm still disapointed that California Grill will be closed during our visit in May Guess we'll just have to return to Disney soon so I'll finally get to try this restaurant out!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pics from the resort and a great meal at CG! Glad you got your money's worth with the dining plan!

[MayraLR]

Wow, amazing meal at California Grill. Everything looks delicious.

[MikeL]

Love the pics of the Castle all lit up now you have me wondering about our plan not to hit Cali. Grill this trip We missed it last year when boat between resorts broke down and ended up picinicing on beach of campground. Want so bad to show my DW your pics but once she see's shopping venue I'll be doing that for 2 days
Have to agree with you as to meal plans. If you take the time to make them work for you not only will you eat at places you have considered too pricey for oop but you'll experience some of the best places WDW has to offer. I tend to be a lot more adventurous than Lucille where food is concerned so I will try things I normally wouldn't and where better than WDW to that

[num1DVCfan]

Sounds like a fun evening at California Grill, the food looked delicious! It's a shame the server kind of fell a bit flat.

[dutchdisneyfamily]

The meal at California Grill looks amazing. I'm interested to hear about the changes they are going to make. Interesting about the Dining Plan savings too! That's quite a difference!

[lauriep]

Mmmmm.... a great meal at CG! I ate there earlier that night, and also had a great meal, but I had great service as well. The service issue is what bothers me about the long closure for the renovations. I'd assume that the servers and kitchen staff will all need to find other jobs during this period and I'm afraid that some of the long-time (and very good) servers there will have moved on by the time they re-open. It's one thing to just re-open with a new decor, it's another to train a mostly-new staff all at once! I agree with Hazel that the shops at the Contemporary used to be on my list to visit as they seemed to always have different things. Sadly, though, I think you can say that about all the shops on property. Pretty much the same merchandise everywhere now. I looked at that red dress in the shops several times. Wish I could carry off something like that, as it was very cute!

(Thanks, Mary, for the clarification on the balcony in the 1-bedroom!)

[disney_duke]

Mmmm, yum! What a wonderful meal. Bummer the server wasn't the best, but what can you do. Mark's dessert of choice happens to be the one I chose as well when I dined there. It is absolutely delicious!!

[lauriep]

I forgot to mention your incredible savings on the deluxe dining plan!! You really do know how to make the best of that plan!