DAY 3
Saturday 23rd September 2017

Today was a day I had been anticipating for the longest time, we were doing the Keys to the Kingdom Tour at Magic Kingdom, I had wanted to do this for years, but felt like we had to chalk up a few more visits before it was appropriate, and finally I was time. We had to check in at the Town Square Theater at 7.45am so breakfast had to be early and on the go.

McDONALDS
The on-site McDonalds was conveniently only a few minutes’ drive from Coronado Springs and we headed through the drive thru. We both got Sausage and Egg McMuffin meals, which came to $16.17. These were delicious, very buttery, just the way I like them.



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TOMORROWLAND TERRACE RESTAURANT
Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant is only open seasonally and as we always visit off-peak we’ve never had the chance to eat there, so I was very excited to do so. When you check in for your tour you are shown the menu and asked to pick what you’d like to eat and drink, then it will be waiting for you at lunchtime. You can see the menu here, but the tour menu had a few extra items on it, from memory, there was a po-boy sandwich, and some kind of hot dog.

Our tour kicked off at 8am and I think we sat down for lunch around 11.30am, after all the walking in the heat we were definitely ready for it. I had presumed the drinks would be fountain drinks, but they actually turned out to be bottles, we both had coke but find ‘straight’ coke in the USA really syrupy so would have ordered differently if we’d known.



I had the Dipped Chicken Strips – breaded chicken strips in your choice of buffalo, barbecue or honey mustard garlic Parmesan sauce and served with your choice of apple slices of house-made chips. This was one of the nicest things I ate all trip, the chicken was juicy and tender and the sauce (I went for the honey mustard garlic Parmesan) was lovely, I would have liked even more of it on the side! We were all given the chips as standard, which was a shame, as I’d have preferred the apple slices. The chips were over baked and pretty flavourless.



The one and only thing I missed a picture of the entire trip, I left the table to get condiments and by the time I came back Nik was already tucking in to his Spicy Chicken Sandwich – spicy breaded chicken breast on a Kaiser roll topped with Pepper Jack cheese, lettuce, tomato and spicy aioli served with your choice Apple Slices or House-made chips. Many visits ago Nik had a spicy chicken sandwich at Studio Catering Co. at Hollywood Studios and he has been mourning the restaurant’s loss ever since it closed so he was thrilled to see a similar sandwich on the menu and really enjoyed it. We were both excited to be eating quick-service food, it was a nice break from the DxDP.

Another note on lunch, the seating was pre-allocated before our arrival at the restaurant and so as a party of two we were placed with another family of three, as introverts this wasn’t ideal for us, we did say hello to the family, but no-one attempted any further conversation, which was a bit awkward, but not too awful. The tour guide was sat at one of the guest tables, which I was jealous of as she was a great guide and I was keen to know more about her Disney background.

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PLAZA ICE CREAM PARLOR
Now, the moment you have all been waiting for It's a snack that wasn't a bottle of water. The tour finished where it began back at the Town Square Theater, we fancied a treat so headed back up Main Street to the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor.



I have always wanted to try their All American Sundae – old-fashioned vanilla and chocolate ice cream with hot fudge, peanut butter drizzle, whipped cream and a cherry. But, Nik also wanted this, and I don’t like to order the same, as that’s just not bloggable! So I went for something different, I had realised whilst we were in line that I was actually more thirsty than hungry. I asked if Nik would pop over to Casey’s Corner to grab me a soda whilst I got our ice creams, but he looked horrified at the prospect (it's a jungle out there kids!) so I decided on an Ice Cream Float – served with Coca-Cola or Barq’s Root Beer and your choice of hand-scooped ice cream. I chose Coke and mint chocolate-chip.



Nik’s sundae was lovely, it tasted like a Snickers ice cream bar, although I didn’t like the hot fudge. The ice cream made my coke a little flat, and there wasn’t enough soda for my thirst, but my ice cream was lovely. We paid with two snack credits.

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’OHANA
I was excited about tonight’s dinner, we ate at ‘Ohana on our first on-site trip in 2013, it was probably my most anticipated meal of the entire trip, but we had left feeling underwhelmed. Of course, ‘Ohana is hugely popular, so we thought we must have just visited on an off-day, so we were going back again, finally was I going to feel the love!?

We had quite a wait for our table, not so long that I started measuring the time though and I had expected this ('Ohana are always running behind). It always seems extremely busy in the area outside the restaurant. In fact, the check in podium is situated across a large sitting area, quite far from the restaurant, which shows they are anticipating needing a lot of seating!

When we were seated we were given some ‘Welcome Bread’ and butter straight away.



This is pineapple-coconut bread, neither of us enjoyed it, because it’s basically cake, and you don’t eat dessert first!



The bread was followed by a mixed green salad with a passion fruit vinaigrette. This was actually nice and refreshing, it had crispy wontons in place of croutons and they were nice.



I was excited by the prospect of the sauce, we love our dips! But these were served cold, which I was disappointed by. The server didn’t explain what they were but the menu describes them as peanut and sweet & sour, I thought they were interchangeable, and didn’t particularly enjoy either of them.



The salad was followed swiftly by, pork dumplings, honey-coriander chicken wings, noodles in a teriyaki sauce and stir-fried vegetables. I didn’t like the dumplings, but Nik loved them. I was really disappointed in the chicken wings, as we love wings, these were chewy and lacking in meat. The vegetables (broccoli) were cold and the noodles were lukewarm but tasty.



The main event, the meat! The steak was cooked perfectly for us, it was a nice medium-rare, very tender, but a little spicy (it’s Szechuan). The shrimp is also classed as ‘spicy’, it is peel-and-eat, and they bring you warm towels to clean your hands, which is a nice touch. I felt the shrimp was a bit tasteless, nice plump prawn though. The chicken was sweet & sour, and overcooked, it tasted like chicken from a UK kebab shop.



And the famous ‘Ohana bread pudding with caramel banana sauce. I didn’t think this was anything special, in fact I thought the ice cream was the best part of it! It had nothing on sticky toffee pudding from home.

I have to say, that the servers here work so hard, our drinks were never even as low as half-full and they are constantly coming around offering you more food.

This meal cost $91.59. Neither of us really felt there was anything much wrong with the quality of the food, it all looks lovely in the pictures, the flavours just aren’t right for us (me in particularly), so we won’t be joining the ‘Ohana fan club, and there won’t be a third visit. We were due to have return visits to quite a few other restaurants that had previously not lived up to expectations on this trip, after a disappointing evening, we were fearful of it happening other places, so decided to switch these out for new venues.

TOTAL SPEND SO FAR $649.49