Pizza Planet Review

Today I am taking you to Pizza Planet for lunch! Try to go outside of the peak dining times if possible as it can get crowded. As expected, they serve pizza here. In all reality, the food is not the reason you go to Pizza Planet. The kids are going to love the pizza. For those of you that are pizza snobs-you are not going to think it's anything special. It is on par with any pizza delivery place out there.

Here's a snapshot of the menu:

You go for the theme. If your kids(or even you grownups) are die hard Toy Story fans, you have to dine here. It is like stepping into Pizza Planet from the movie. You will see your favorite Toy Story characters decorating the walls in bright colors. First things first, after you order, head upstairs to eat. That's the only way your kids are actually going to eat anything. You can also grab a table outside but for most days, inside upstairs will be a nice cool spot. (photo courtesy of our friends over at Disney Food Blog)

Then turn them loose in the arcade. There are plenty of games to choose from for everyone in the family. When you go here, allow time in your schedule to play or you are going to have some disappointed kiddos and daddies. There are change machines and even an ATM so no chance you can claim you don't have money to do the games. 

It is loud in here and your ears will probably be buzzing with all of the arcade noises for a bit after you leave. But there's just something special about seeing your kiddo light up because they had lunch at PIZZA PLANET!! And that is the reason I recommend Pizza Planet to my clients.

Mama Monday : Art of Animation Resort

Hi Mamas! Today I am taking you for a visit to my favorite value resort-The Art of Animation! This is Disney's newest value resort.

First up let's talk about the rooms. It offers family suites, themed as the Lion King, Cars, and Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo tends to be the most popular because of the location. They are closest to the main building and the feature pool.

Resort Map

Master Bedroom in the Finding Nemo Suites

I do think this murphy bed design in the Lion King rooms is pretty cool.

Even the bathrooms are themed for the rooms!

I personally think that the Cars section is themed the best overall. Of course I have two boys who are obsessed with Cars so I might be a bit biased. Our boys stopped to say good night to every Cars character every night of our stay there.

 The family suites have a master bedroom with a queen bed, a living room with a pull out sofa, and a dining room with a murphy bed. The best part of this besides the door that allows the parents to sleep in peace, is there are two bathrooms! Very nice for families. Overall I loved the space that these offered. We never once ate at the dining room table though so for our family the murphy bed stayed down the entire time. The kids prefer to eat in front of the tv on vacation and I let them because it's vacation.

In addition to the the family suites there are standard rooms that are themed for the Little Mermaid. These are not too girly at all. One thing to note about this resort is the Little Mermaid rooms have been excluded from every discount since they opened. I personally would opt for another value during a time when a discount is released compared to paying more to stay in these rooms without a discount. The family suites have almost always been included! The Little Mermaid rooms have two full sized beds in them like the other values.

Now moving on to the pools. The Finding Nemo pool is by far the nicest feature pool of all the value resorts. There is plenty of play areas for the littlest of Disney fans and there is music piped in under the water. Just what you imagine Nemo hears when he's at home in the ocean. They also have a nice pool bar as well and show movies here like the other pools do. Each themed section has a pool too.

Now there are a few negatives. I've mentioned the biggest negative in regards to the Little Mermaid rooms and the lack of discounts offered for those. The other negative I encountered was the cell phone coverage was awful. It was the worst I have experienced at Disney. There is definitely a design flaw here. I had to go outside of the building to make phone calls and then you get the outside noise of families running around on vacation. I couldn't get emails very successfully on my phone either while in the room which in our business is critical. At the time of our stay the resort did make up by allowing free phone calls from the room if you spoke to them about the situation. I am not sure if they still will do that or not.

There are plenty of other positive features that make this our family's top choice of the value resorts. One of which is the Landscape of Flavors quick service restaurant.(photo courtesy of Disney Food Blog) It's huge and accommodates plenty of people. The menus offer a wide variety of options so even the pickiest of eaters is satiated. It is conveniently located to any of the buildings you are in. I also like that this resort doesn't share a bus with any other resort. It is really nice to have a one stop shop so to speak when it comes to the transportation. I love the theming throughout the resort. I really feel like it brings some of the Disney movies to life.

Sci-Fi Dine In Review

Today I am taking you to Hollywood Studios for one of my favorite table service restaurants. It is one table service credit on the dining plans. Sci-Fi Dine In is located at Hollywood Studios. It is always night time there and you are dining under the stars. You might not notice that part as your eyes will be glued to a huge movie screen playing all kinds of clips.

This is the theatre lit up. You will walk in and it will be dark though.

You are seated in a table that looks like a convertible. I’m sure if my husband was writing this he would tell you the exact make and model of your convertible but I will just show you a picture. They are limited to how many you can seat in one so your party will be split up if you are a large group. They are fairly close to each other and honestly you aren’t doing a lot of talking at this meal. The best aspect of this location (other than the food of course) is it is a place you can go and literally just zone out for a moment. It’s cool inside. For some reason Hollywood Studios always feels hot to me so this is ideal to step inside and cool off. The kids are entertained and you will be too by the different clips playing.  And as you can see from the pictures the convertibles do accommodate highchairs too! They have trays on them for the little ones to eat on. This was the quietest meal in terms of my children asking for things or having to get up, etc. It was quite perfect after a day of hitting every ride and character we could find and this was just lunch time. I thought the wait staff moving about would be distracting but you hardly notice them.

Look at those happy kids! The littlest one is still glued to the movie screen.

They are known for their All American Picnic Burger. It is enormous!  Hamburger patty plus a hot dog plus sauerkraut! I was not brave enough to try it but my husband did. Somehow he managed to finish it.  It tasted exactly like it sounds-heart attack waiting to happen but he loved it. It is not recommended to eat this and then go get on the thrill rides though!

I went for a slightly lighter fare or at least as light as the menu gets here with the Salmon BLT. The portion size on this was huge as well. I am not a big Aioli fan but it was really good on the sandwich. I ordered it in hopes of choosing something slightly healthy. While it did have salmon on it, I wouldn't say this was healthy at all given the size of the bun but it tasted good! It was the best sandwich I tried at Walt Disney World.

Instead of the fries pictured, I opted for the cucumber salad. I could have just ordered a large bowl of this salad and been content! The kids loved it too but I do have slightly unusual kids in that regard and they love all things vinegar. It had a little bit of sweetness to it and just the right amount of onions. It also makes you feel better about yourself after having indulged in the huge entrees!

Kids will be pleased as there is all of their favorites on the menu, mac and cheese, hot dog, etc..  And the adults can enjoy some fun drinks and a decent beer menu. We were way too full to even consider dessert but I have been told the House Made Candy Bar is the Way to go. If I had seen this picture beforehand we would have made room for this and certainly will next time!

My recommendation is if you go for lunch time, you could easily share an entrée as they were so huge. They are also so good you will eat the whole thing whether you intend to or not. I still prefer it for lunch though because it is the perfect place for some AC and some zone out time. Here is a link to the complete menu if you want to check it out. It is not a large menu but everything they do, they do well.

Overall, this is on my list of top picks for clients to dine at. Great menu, unique atmosphere, and relaxing!

Mama Monday : Magic Bands and Your Photopass

Hi Mamas,  Today I am showing you how the Magic Band makes one of my favorite things even more awesome-The Disney Photopass Plus and the Disney Photopass experience!

First you will notice a new Disney Photopass website here.  It is a lot more user friendly. You choose your destination and it takes you to the appropriate screens. We are going to assume you have preordered your Photopass Plus. The retrieval process works the same as before. You will get a voucher in your travel documents.

Then once you are at the parks you will still visit a Photo Pass Store and redeem the voucher for your Photopass Plus card.

The Photopass Plus card is still currently needed to retrieve your digital images at the character meals and your digital images for your ride experience. I would expect the technology to evolve over the next year and the card to become obsolete. But for now these locations are looking at the expiration date of your Photopass Plus card.

Now to the fun Magic Band part. Remember the stack of Photopass cards you would accumulate in a trip?

If you were on a trip with our family, you would typically end up with at least five of these cards to try not to lose. Enter the Magic Band! The Photopass Photographers will now just simply scan your Magic Band. Your pictures will be automatically loaded into your account and you will have the Photopass Plus featured linked to your Magic Band. No more cards to keep up with except your main photopass plus card!

I don't know about you but I am pretty excited about this. It will save time looking for the card while wrangling the kids. It is so much easier to just scan the Magic Band!

Mama Monday : New Year's Eve at Walt Disney World!

Hi Mamas! Do you like going out for a nice dinner for New Year's Eve? If so, there's no better place than Walt Disney World to experience that! Most of the time you will need to blindly book a restaurant before they have released the exact menu offerings for the special dinner.

So far only Monsieur Paul has released their menu options for New Year's Eve 2013. And they have reservations available. They will have a three course lunch from 12-6:30 PM. Lunch is $75 per person. Then there will be two seatings for New Year's Eve dinner, 9 and 9:30 PM. Dinner is $195 per person. The three course lunch includes the following: Choice of Appetizer ( escargot ravioli, blue cheese salad, mussel soup) Choice of Entree (chicken stuffed with mushroom duxelle, main lobster, and beef short ribs) Dessert is just listed as a New Year's Eve Dessert. The dinner menu includes the following: champagne of course, Appetizers (beef broth oxtail and lobster salad) Fish Course (scallops and halibut) Meat Course (roasted chicken breast and grilled beef tenderloin) and of course the dessert as well.

Jiko's

Other restaurants that are available that I would expect something special for New Year's Eve are : Jiko's at Animal Kingdom Lodge, Hollywood Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios, Mama Melrose at Hollywood Studios, The Grand Dining Room Wolfgang Puck at Downtown Disney, and the Crossroads at the House of Blues at Downtown Disney.

1900 Park Fare

Another twist on New Year's Eve dinner that is fun for the whole family is opting for a character meal to celebrate instead of a nicer dinner. 1900 Park Fare-Cinderella's Happily Ever After dinner and Mickey's Backyard BBQ are both available. Both are fun experiences even without the holiday environment.  There's also the dinner show at Hoop Dee Doo. The food will likely be the same but I would expect a few surprises for the holiday.

No matter where you choose to dine, it will be special at Walt Disney World. And don't forget to catch the extra special fireworks shows!

Mama Monday : Candlelight Processional

Hello Mamas! Today we are going to discuss the Candlelight Processional. It is one of my very favorite holiday events at Walt Disney World. It runs from November 29th through December 30th for 2013. Each night a celebrity narrator reads the Bible story of the birth of Christ. Each night has amazing choirs that perform as well with traditional Christmas songs. It is one of the most beautiful performances you will ever see.

This year's narrators are (courtesy of the Disney site)

• Gary Sinise
  November 29 to December 1, 2013
• Neil Patrick Harris
  December 2 to December 3, 2013
• Ashley Judd - NEW! 
  December 4 to December 5
• Whoopi Goldberg 
  December 6 to December 7, 2013
• Sigourney Weaver - NEW!
  December 8 to December 10, 2013
• Dennis Haysbert - NEW!
  December 11 to December 13, 2013
• James Denton 
  December 14 to December 16, 2013
• Edward James Olmos
  December 17 to December 19, 2013
• Trace Adkins
  December 20 to December 22, 2013
• Steven Curtis Chapman
  December 23 to December 25, 2013
• Blair Underwood 
  December 26 to December 28, 2013
• Amy Grant 
  December 29 to December 30, 2013

Each night there are three performances. People will line up for hours to get into the show which is held in Epcot at the America Gardens Theatre. There is another way to guarantee seating to the performance-the Candlelight Processional Dinner Package. I highly recommend doing this. If you are on the dining plan, it takes two table service credits and is so worth it! The show times are 5, 6:45, and 8:15 PM. If you are doing the earlier show you actually have lunch as part of the package instead of dinner. The participating restaurants this year are: Biergarten, Chefs de France, Coral Reef, The Garden Grill, La Hacienda de San Angel, Nine Dragons, Restaurant Marrakesh, Rose & Crown Pub Dining Room, San Angel Inn, Teppan Edo, Tokyo Dining, Tutto Italia, and Via Napoli. Some of these will already be sold out for select dates but there are still seats available for a lot of these.

Your Candlelight Dinner Package will include lunch or dinner at one of these restaurants, either a three course meal or a buffet depending upon the restaurant, VIP seating for the Candlelight Processional, and special viewing locations for Illuminations. Keep in mind while the seating is VIP seating, it is not a reserved seat. You are guaranteed a seat and the location is good but you will choose a seat when you arrive. I consider the Candlelight Dinner package the way to go! It takes the stress out of the evening. You have to eat anyhow and I definitely think it is worth two table service credits to be guaranteed a seat at the show as well as special viewing locations for Illuminations.

This is a must do for all ages, though if you have little ones you might want to consider doing lunch and then earlier show instead of the dinner options. It is also a little less expensive to go that route too.

Mama Monday : Thanksgiving Day travel

Hi Mamas,  I know it is still a while before we get to Thanksgiving at Disney but I am going to tell you about the benefits of traveling ON the actual day of Thanksgiving.

1) The obvious-no stress of the holiday at your house! I love hosting events and holidays at our house but they are stressful no matter how organized or how simple you make it. Toss that stress away and tell your family you are going to Disney instead!

2) The airports are EMPTY. Totally empty. We've flown on Thanksgiving day and I was truly shocked with how empty everything was. We allowed extra time thinking there would be last minute travelers. We twiddled our thumbs waiting on our departure. The security lines were the shortest I have ever experienced. There was plenty of room to spread out on the plane too.

3) It is cheaper to fly on Thanksgiving than the day before or after-a lot cheaper. For this Thanksgiving, direct flights are coming in 43% cheaper out of our city to Orlando than the day before or after. That should make the Scrooge in your family very happy!

4) While the parks are busy, the resorts are a lot of fun to explore on Thanksgiving day. The restaurants usually offer special Thanksgiving meals too. We had a really nice meal at Citrico's when we traveled on Thanksgiving Day. It was perfect to leave the cooking and cleaning to someone else.

There are a few things to consider though heading to Disney on Thanksgiving. If Disney releases a discount, Thanksgiving is always excluded. I recommend you do a room only reservation for the nights that are excluded. This year, the discount resumes on November 30th, so Thursday and Friday would be room only. As mentioned the crowds are higher on Thanksgiving Day. We have found that by Saturday night it lightens and by Sunday it is perfect!  The only other tidbit I have for flying on Thanksgiving to make sure you have a reservation for wherever you park your car at the airport. Often times those places will get booked for drop ins on holiday weekends.

 Leave the turkey cooking to Mickey and enjoy a break.