Wednesday 25 April 2012

Vegetarian food at Disney

Vegetarians find it relatively hard to eat out in most places and Disney World is no exception. Meat seems to dominate the menus at Disney World and at first, it may seem impossible for vegetarians to eat anything but junk food. However, if you look around, you will find a variety of high quality foods offered all over the resort. After a little digging, I found an E How page which provided me with lots of information on vegetarian dining at WDW.

Below is a list of the many foods on offer to vegetarians around the resort (From E How)

Magic Kingdom
Cinderella's castle (Breakfast). The morning buffet offers potato casserole, eggs, French toast and danishes for vegetarians.

Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café in Tomorrow Land (lunch). The veggie burger is out of this world and the toppings bar features standard condiments like pickles and onions and gourmet additions such as sautéed mushrooms.

Tom Sawyer's Island for ice cream at Aunt Polly's. The apple pie sundae and ice cream floats are especially tasty.
Tony's Town Square on Main Street (Dinner). This is one of the most popular restaurants in Disney World, as it is where Lady and the Tramp shared their romantic meal. Start with the tomato and mozzarella salad and try the eggplant rotini as an entrée.

Animal Kingdom

Rainforest café (Breakfast). Most breakfast items on the menu can be made vegetarian, just ask your waiter for details. The Mexican breakfast pizza with cheese, tomatoes and cilantro, and the cinnamon French toast topped with fruit and nuts are yummy vegetarian treats.

Pizzafari (lunch) for  cheese pizza and breadsticks with marinara. Pizza is typical theme park food, but Pizzafari is quite good. You will find that Animal Kingdom offers fewer vegetarian options than other parks at Disney World.

Royal Anandapur Tea Company. To cool off, order a chai freeze or lemonade. To warm up, have espresso or pick an exotic hot tea. The stand also offers a small assortment of pastries.
Epcot

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway (Breakfast). This is another princess breakfast, but the buffet is quite good and features eggs, hash browns, pastries and an assortment of cheese and fruit. Epcot offers few breakfast choices, so if you opt to skip the princess breakfast, eat before arriving at the park.

Morocco at the Tangierene Café (Lunch). The vegetarian platter, with couscous, tabouleh, lentil and olive salads, hummus and pita bread, is delicious. The world showcase at Epcot is where guests find some of the best vegetarian food in Disney World.

Boulangerie Patisserie in France. This bakery offers fresh French pastries ranging from Mickey Mouse cookies to giant Napoleons and cream puffs.
Tempura Kiku in Japan (Dinner). Try edamame as an appetizer and vegetable tempura as a main course. Skip the sumashi soup that comes with the tempura and ask for a double order of rice.

Disney's Hollywood Studios 

ABC Commissary (Breakfast). The buttermilk pancakes without bacon or sausage and the yogurt-and-berry parfait are vegetarian.
Brown Derby on Hollywood Boulevard (Lunch) Vegetarian options include a noodle bowl with coconut-crusted tofu and vegetables. Delicious desserts abound, like the double-vanilla-bean crème brulee.

Mama Melrose's (Dinner). You'll find vegetarian options ranging from bruschetta and vegetarian minestrone appetizers to an eggplant Napoleon entrée. If you're not maxed out on desserts, have the honey-hazelnut-and-ricotta cheesecake.

Saturday 7 January 2012

Dive into Fastpass

DIVE INTO FASTPASS

As the title suggests, this is all about Fastpass. Fastpass is a FREE virtual queuing system that saves time in the parks by limiting queuing time. It is a very simple system, which means that you can go off and experience other attractions and then come back to the attraction with a very short wait. Here is how it works;
  1. Go to an attraction that has Fastpass machines for that attraction
  2. Insert all of the park tickets of members of the group that wish to go on the attraction.
  3. Your tickets will be returned along with passes which have a time slot in which to return.
  4. Return within your time slot and get in the Fastpass queue, which will get you onto the ride usually in under ten minutes!
What you do have to look out for is the time in which you can return. There are only a certain amount of Fastpasses available for each attraction, and this may mean that your allocated time slot is a few hours away! An easy way to prevent this is to look at the clocks above the Fastpass machines. These clocks will tell you the time when you will be able to return to the attraction. Also bear in mind that you can only hold one Fastpass at a time.



Not all attractions have the Fastpass system; only the major rides. These are the attractions which presently allow Fastpass tickets.

Magic Kingdom:

  • Space Mountain
  • Splash Mountain
  • Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
  • Jungle Cruise
  • Peter Pan's Flight
  • Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
  • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Epcot

  • Test Track
  • Soarin'
  • Mission: SPACE
  • Captain EO
  • Living with the Land
  • Maelstrom
Hollywood Studios

  • Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
  • Toy Story Mania
  • Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
  • Star Tours
Animal Kingdom

  • Kali River Rapids
  • Expedition Everest
  • Kilimanjaro Safaris
  • DINOSAUR
  • Primeval Whirl
Why not give it a go? It is free and it reduces time wasted waiting in lines!

Friday 6 January 2012

Welcome to the launch of my new WDW blog!

Hello and welcome to the WDW Trip Planner Blog, my way of sharing my Disney knowledge with the world. Whether you are a newbie to visiting Disney parks or even a frequent flyer, I am sure that this blog will be of great use to you. In my blog I will explore the parks, the resort hotels, the FastPass system, ADRs, rides and more.

But what if you would like to get to know more about a specific subject, or ask me a question? Then don't worry, just drop me a line at katherinewdw@yahoo.co.uk, and I will do my very best to post a detailed reply on here. Equally, if you have any tips, hints or hidden gems that you would like to share, then email me and I will post your tip (with full credit to you of course), so everybody can get even more out of their trip to Walt Disney World!

That's it for the introductions, have fun exploring the magical world of Disney!