A Guide to eating Out in Orlando!
We started out planning to eat at our villa before we left for the days adventure. Shopping is incredibly easy in Florida, lots of supermarkets with of course my favourite being Wallmart. We bought some cereals and croissants and ate before leaving the villa. We also planned our day as much as we could and made sure we had a rucksack packed with snacks but most importantly sun tan lotion and bottles of water. However, we found that after a few days we just wanted to get up and out so either left a bit later and grabbed some snacks at the park (pretzels, corn dogs, ice creams etc) or if we were very early then a quick McDonalds breakfast . It can soon get very expensive eating out at Disney so we tried to keep it as cheap as possible throughout the day and save ourselves for the evening.
We did treat ourselves on our last day though to an iHop (International House of Pancakes) which was a great experience. The staff were so friendly without being overbearing and the food was wonderful.
We ate at a few places for lunch with mixed reviews. As I said, it can soon add up so we got to skipping lunch in favour of the usual ice creams and corn dogs to keep us going then enjoying a decent evening meal. There are a lot of lunch options which soon add up to quite a few $’s before you know it. However, the best value for money was at Harry Potter in Islands of Adventure where we had a good old English feast! The Three Broomsticks has a really great menu that will fill you up and not break the bank. We only ordered two great feasts and it went round all five of us with plenty to spare.
The other good value lunch was at Animal Kingdom by Pandora world called ‘Satu'li Canteen’. Not a huge menu choice but the food was delicious and a change from burger and chips with really good sized portions. Main meals were under $15 and it kept us going for the day. As I have said, there are plenty of snacks available at all the parks and not too badly priced so worth saving your money and just snacking during the day. There’s always a need for an ice cream in the hot weather so we generally went for that option!
There are so many choices available for dinner and not only in the parks but outside as well. We ate a couple of times inside the parks. We ate at the Biergarten in Epcot which we thought would be a good fun evening . It was an all you could eat German Buffett and we had the enjoyment of listening to an Oompah band whilst we ate. This was quite expensive however a great experience. We also ate at a restaurant called Liberty Tree Tavern at Magic Kingdom, this was an American Restaurant with a huge menu choice and again, costly but very enjoyable. Of course, there are plenty of very good places to eat in the parks with themed restaurants and some where you can meet Disney characters as you eat. However, we had made the choice to eat outside the parks and found some really good places. Our daughter had been going on for ages about eating at Chili’s, a tex mex place and although we had to wait for a table, it actually became available quicker than we expected. We couldn’t fault the food or service and it made our daughter very happy that we had eaten there. I would definitely recommend it, there are plenty around and the price is very reasonable.
Another very good restaurant that we all ate at was ‘The Cheesecake Factory’. It is situated very close to Disney at Millenia Mall just off the I4 freeway. It was very busy but we managed to get two tables split between the 9 of us. The menu was fantastic with a great variety of dishes available and when it arrived it was delicious, another top recommendation.
Another shopping area we visited was Disney Springs. We went there a couple of times and although not a typical mall, it had a great selection of shops and places to eat. We ate one evening in the T-Rex restaurant and again, had to wait for a table but when we sat and ate it was one of our favourite places. The decoration is amazing with dinosaurs everywhere and lots of fantastic fish tanks. The highlight is the meteorite storm which happens at regular intervals and is a brilliant feature which the kids absolutely loved. The food was fantastic too and of course so were the cocktails! I even got to take my glass home as did my youngest son who had an awesome dinosaur cup.
Our favourite place to eat though was at Universal CityWalk. CityWalk comes alive in the evening with restaurants and a large cinema. You walk through it on the way to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure and the choice is fantastic. We stayed really late one evening and asked to book a table at the Hard Rock Café. We were told it would be about a 45 minute wait but we could go and sit at the bar ready to be called. So the five of us sat at the typical American bar with TVs all around showing sport. The kids thought it was fantastic, especially as they kept filling up their cokes whenever they were empty. In fact, when I came to pay the bill before moving onto our table, they only charged for my cocktail as we were eating so the kids and my husband had got through plenty of free coke! The food was of course superb and we had a thoroughly pleasant evening.
There are plenty of other restaurants that we didn’t try out (including the Chocolate Emporium which is on the list for next time!) and it is really lovely to walk around the lake amongst the hustle and bustle of everyone enjoying their evenings. However, the restaurant I wanted to eat in most was Bubba Gumps. I love the film Forrest Gump and was excited to eat in the restaurant based in the film. The food was fantastic and my eldest son was very excited to have a bucket of prawns (which he eventually got through, I think there were over 40 prawns in there) We all had a variety of dishes and drinks which were all lovely and the service was excellent. Our waiter even came round halfway through the evening to give us a spot quiz on the film which we did very well on and got most of the answers correct. A nice touch which added to a fantastic night.
So that’s just a few highlights and a bit of a guide to eating whilst on a Disney holiday. Get in touch if you want any more information or advice if you’re booking your dream Disney trip.