Aug 18, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

Fay is on her way!

 

Since we had come back in the small hours of the morning, we slept in a little. We decided to start our day with an early lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s Express. It had been such a nice experience the first time around, we could not wait to go back. So we drove over to Downtown Disney, parked the car as close to Wolfgang Puck’s and headed for the restaurant. Tom had decided to try one of their signature dishes, the Rosemary Rotisserie Chicken - served with house-made garlic mashed potatoes, which he loved. I tried another pizza, the Barbeque Chicken Pizza, which was wonderful. Thin crust, spicy pizza. Yum! I had another Crème Bruleé for dessert and Tom tried the Frozen Vanilla Yoghurt with a topping of fresh strawberries. A wonderful treat!

We left the restaurant stuffed and decided to do some more shopping, especially since Hurricane Fay was on her way. First we went to the Prime Outlets International, the former Beltz Mall. We spent a lot of time in the shop, they had a lot of fun things and a few nice T-shirts. We ended up buying a few more souvenirs, before we explored the rest of the Mall. We then went to a Wal-Mart to pick up some school supplies and treats for my class, before we headed over to the PetSmart to pick up a few souvenirs for our little feline friend Pixie. Needless to say we got her quite a bag full of treats. On our way back to the resort we stopped at Publix and stocked up on water and some snack food, just in case Fay would hit us hard. We experienced Hurricane Charley, while staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge and knew what to expect. After extensive shopping we went back to the resort, but not without a short stop at the Riverside Mill.

One thing I definitely wanted to try was the Magic Cookie Bar. So we picked one up for a snack credit. Very good use of a snack credit. The Magic Cookie bar was wonderful, but very rich. I saved quite a lot of it for the next morning. We spent some time in the room relaxing before we went to Pleasure Island for our Raglan Road dinner. We parked the car at the Pleasure Island lot and started out exploring Pleasure Island.

This is a part of Downtown Disney we seldom go to. But it was real fun to check it out. We had a peek inside the Adventurers Club, explored the Harley Davidson shop and found an Adventures by Disney poster that advertised travel to Austria. Our reservation was for 8.30 and we arrived at Raglan Road shortly after 8pm. We signed in and were handed a beeper. There was a small shop which we explored and then we went outside again, to wait until it was our turn to be seated.

It took quite some time for the beeper to go off, actually it was at the reservation time. Our host took us to the main dining room and sat us at a small table to the right of the stage. It was already really loud in the restaurant and the people to our right added to the noise level quite a bit. One of the ladies had a very special laugh. Think Fran Drescher in “The Nanny”, just much louder. We were handed the menus, told what we could and could not have on the Dining Plan and we explained that we would pay for any extras using our Disney Dining Experience Card. Tom than ordered a Kilkenny beer, which he liked.The server brought over a basket of their Soda bread, which was HARD and dry.

Not even dipping it into Guiness Infused oil helped. We renamed the bread cannonball bread. We then decided to share a starter, the Calamari City - Salt 'n' Pepper calamari and mixed tempora vegetables served with a spicy remoulade, which was very nice. It was served in a deep fat fryer basket, looked fun and was very tasty. I had ordered the Keen Eye for the Sheperds Pie. They give the traditional Shepherd's Pie (prime beef and lamb) a much-needed makeover with their contemporary twist to this favorite dish.

The dish was huge, very tasty and had a lovely sauce. Tom had Kevin's Heavenly Ham - Chef Kevin's signature dish. Oven-roasted loin of ham with an Irish Mist glaze. Served with braised cabbage and creamed potato. Another HUGE portion and Tom did his best, but he could not finish it.

In the meantime the entertainment had started. The band played Irish tunes and the Irish Dancer gave her performance. When our waiter cleared the table, she asked if we wanted desserts, than handed us the menus and told us that there were only a few choices left. I had set my mind on Ger's Bread & Butter Pudding long before, so I was glad that was still and option.

Tom ordered the Dunbrody Kiss. The server left with the order, just to return about a minute later with the bill. No refills, no mention of coffees, just the bill. That was when I got annoyed with her. It’s really not very nice to be forced to pay for your food, before you have actually seen it! She picked up the bill a few times, just to realize we had not settled the bill. Especially since it took ages for the desserts to come out. Tom’s came on a plate, which had the chocolate decorations all smeared.

It did not look that nice. The taste of the dessert was nice though, it was very rich in chocolate and Tom could not finish it. My breadpudding arrived lukewarm and was cold in a matter of minutes. It was slightly dry too. There were two sauces that came with it. One looked like custard, but was rather tasteless, the other looked like butterscotch and was really very tasty. I did not finish my breadpudding. We paid and left the restaurant. I am not sure we will return to Raglan Road. For the food yes, but the noise level was just too much to our liking. Tom had developed a slight headache but still wanted to drive over to Disney Hollywood Studios for Extra Magic Hours. When we arrived the Studios were packed. We tried Toy Story Mania, but the line was far too long. So we picked up a Fastpass for the Tower of Terror and got in line for the Rock’n’Rollercoaster. We then checked out the stores and checked out the line for the Great Movie Ride, but it was just too long.

By then it was finally time to use our Tower of Terror Fastpasses. We loved the ride as always, but decided that we would just call it a day and leave. Lines were long and we were not in the mood for more lines. So we hiked to our car and found two identical Mustangs convertibles parked side by side. We got into ours and drove back to our resort we the top down. Fay was lurking right off the coast and we wanted to use as much open top time as possible.

Back at the resort we looked for a secure parking spot for our car and headed to the room. When we walked up the stairs we saw Froggie waiting for us again. Since we were really tired it did not take us very long to fall asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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