Ok, so I'll admit. I think I left the writing of this too long. Things are starting to get blurry. But, I do know we went to Hollywood Studios today. As we arrived, we saw the confetti falling from Rope Drop. Darn, we missed it.
After getting into the park, we went straight for Toy Story Mania, just like everyone else. The FastPass line took about 10 minutes to get to the front, where there were actually CMs manning the FP machines. It was the first time I'd ever seen that. So, we got our FPs, for around 2:00ish. Not too shabby.
After this, we wandered. A lot. I think we did Tower of Terror a couple of times, as well as Rock'n'Roller Coaster. ToT was awesome, as always (although one of the Bellhops we had was a bit lacking), and RnR was better than we remembered. We stopped and watched one of the street shows, and we did a lot of checking out shops (Villains in Vogue being one of my favourite shops at Disney), including the right hand side of shops (facing ToT) that we'd never wandered through. We saw Muppet Vision 3D, still one of my favourite shows at Disney, and checked out the Honey I Shrunk the Kids play area that Rin had never seen.
Once it was time for our FastPass for TSM, we went over, and still waited for about 15 minutes. We enjoyed TSM, more than we enjoyed Buzz Lightyear the next day, but it wouldn't have been worth the huge wait in Standby, in our opinions. I destroyed Rin during the first couple of rounds, but she started to come back in the middle and near the end. I still won, although we were nowhere close to the high scores of the day. I'm glad we finally got to TSM, but I don't think I'd do the 'running of the bulls' just to get a FastPass for it, nor would I ever wait in Standby, if the lines remain as long as they are.
Eventually we had lunch at Mama Melrose's. The wait was surprisingly long, but once we were in, we had seats in an area we'd never been in before, which was nice. I think this is the only restaurant we've now eaten at every time we've been to Disney. Oh, except Tusker House.
Rin and I split the Crispy Calamari for Two as an appetizer. This calamari was delicious, and it came with marinara for dipping. I love marinara with calamari. It was nicely crisped, not too fishy tasting, and it was all rings, which is a huge plus in my book. Sorry Narcoossee's, but you just had your ass handed to you by a 1 Credit theme park restaurant. One thing I should mention is that last time we were here, they let us have 2 "For Two" appetizers on the Deluxe Plan, and this time we were limited to one. Which was fine, since last time it was too much food.
For our mains, I had the Carne D'Italia Flatbread. It was good, not Via Napoli good, but still wood fired with a thin crust. I'm not a fan of Italian Sausage, so I should have asked for it without it, but I didn't think of that. It threw things off a bit, but I just wound up taking most of it off.
Rin had the Oven-Baked Chicken alla Parmigiana. She feels that it wasn't as good as the first time she had it, but still good. It was served over spaghetti, which was decent, but nothing spectacular. She had been looking forward to the mushroom ravioli she had last trip, but they no longer serve it. I think that may have marred her visit a bit.
For dessert, I had the Chocolate Cannoli Cake and Rin had the Spumoni Gelato. The Cannoli Cake was ridiculously good. I went in not knowing what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised. I can't remember it well enough to say any more than that though. The Spumoni Gelato was actually a scoop of Pistachio, a scoop of Chocolate and a scoop of Vanilla. Rin said it was good, but really, just ice cream.
Final Thoughts
Am I Glad I Ate Here? -Yes. It's nothing great, but we know what we're getting, and we've yet to be disappointed.
Would I Go Back? - Yes. Unless they open something new at Hollywood Studios, then we might try it instead.
Rating: Me - 7/10
Rin - 7.5/10
Cost - $64.36
Once we finished at Mama Melrose, we wandered some more, did Star Tours (which we still enjoyed, but I think the first 'tour' we had was better), and we hit up Great Movie Ride. As we were in line, I started telling Rin about the two different sides of the ride, the Gangster side and the Cowboy side. Up until this point, neither of us had seen the Cowboy scene, and we figured since it was fairly dead that day, we still wouldn't. Well, we were wrong. I have to say, I probably enjoyed the Cowboy side more than the Gangster side. I feel that there were more explosions and pyrotechnics, which was nice. I feel like they've updated the little film at the end too, it seemed like there were more recent movies than past trips.
And then, more wandering. I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but as we were going to different stands to get a glass of water, we started counting our steps between garbage cans. For about 10 minutes, the only way we went anywhere was by walking from garbage can to garbage can. Why, you may ask? We had heard some trivia that, while Walt was a greeter at Disneyland, he observed that people would only walk a certain number of steps before dropping garbage (something like 25 paces). I don't think we ever got above 18 paces. It was kind of neat to see that it was really true.
Following the garbage cans eventually brought us to Starring Rolls, and I had seen one of their Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes earlier in the day. Or trip, one of the two. So we went in, I grabbed a cupcake, and the CM behind the counter gave Rin a chocolate dipped Mickey sugar cookie for her birthday. Score. The cupcake was really good, and counted as a snack on our plan. The cupcake itself was chocolate, and it was the icing that had the peanut butter mixed in. Since it wasn't pure peanut butter (it was mixed with chocolate), it wasn't too thick. My only qualm was the chocolate 'shavings' on top. They were a bit large, and made the cupcake hard to eat. Oh, and a glass of milk would have been nice.
Then, on to get Rin a snack. Since I'd shown her the Cake Pops on the Disney Food Blog, she wanted one (Cake, Marshmallows for Mickey Ears, all dipped in White or Milk Chocolate). We headed to the candy store connected to Villains in Vogue (I'm not actually sure of the name) and took a look at what they had. Unfortunately, Rin wanted a Red Velvet Pop dipped in Chocolate with White Chocolate Drizzle, which they had earlier in the day. When we went back, they didn't have any. Since she had her heart set on Red Velvet, we went with one dipped in White Chocolate, coated with Orange 'Sugar Sprinkles.' It was good, but I'm not a Red Velvet fan, and the White Chocolate was a bit overpowering. Rin said it was very rich as well, and that the cake was very dense. I think Red Velvet cake is just naturally dense. Personally, I think we should have gone with Marble Cake, without White Chocolate.
At this point, we decided to head back to ToT. We rode once, and there was no line, so we went back on. We were now at 4 rides for the day. We decided to beat our max, which was 6. So we did. Then we had done 4 in a row, and our max in a row was 5, so we beat that too. So, when we had ridden 6 times in a row, we were at 8 total for the day. So we did two more rides to make it an even 10. The CMs were quite amused, and the guy in front seemed sad when we finally passed without hopping back in line. Oh! I almost forgot. Around the 3rd or 4th ride, we decided to do a picture of some kind. So, we figured we'd grab a map, and go down looking at the map, planning the rest of our day. The picture turned out quite nicely, and if I ever get around to adding pictures, I'll try to remember to scan it and put it up too.
Now, it was time to head to our ADR at Artist Point. As we were leaving, we were stopped for our first ever park survey (we'd done a transportation survey, but never an actual park survey). He thought it was hilarious that we did Tower of Terror 10 times. I think I know how they choose their participants now. They zoom in on the people smiling as they leave, to keep their numbers up. Because we were grinning like fools after our 8 rides on ToT. I think we also did three in a row on RnR, but it might have been once and then twice in a row later.
So we got to Artist Point, and I had really been looking forward to this meal, really only due to the Char-grilled Buffalo Striploin Steak. I honestly wasn't overly thrilled with the rest of the menu, but the buffalo was enough to convince me to try the restaurant.
To start, I had the Smokey Portabello Soup. I was pleasantly surprised with this. It was really good, not too mushroom-y, with enough smoke to add almost a bacon flavour. I almost want to say I would go back just for this soup.
Rin had Crab Cakes. She felt that they were "a little spicy, but good." Seriously, that's all she gave me.
We both decided to have the Buffalo for our mains. I was... well... underwhelmed to say the least. Honestly, it tasted like beef. Like any old cut of steak I could have had anywhere else. It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't that good. Definitely not $43.00 good. Rin felt exactly the same.
When dessert came, I felt like the Chocolate Indulgence would be a good choice. For those of you that haven't noticed, I'm a big chocolate fan. And the most I can say about this, is that I don't remember it. I looked at the description on AllEars, and nothing sprang to mind. I'll have to find the pictures, but right now, I've got nothing (Kind of sad, considering it cost $11.00). Rin, on the other hand, loved her dessert. She had the Cobbler with Seasonal Berries, and the waiter brought her a cupcake too. She never ate the cupcake, only had some icing off of it, but said the icing was good. The Cobbler came out nice and hot, and came out with ice cream (she thinks it was berry flavoured as well), and the cold of the ice cream and heat of the cobbler offset each other nicely.
Final Thoughts
Am I Glad I Ate Here? - Yes and no. Rin enjoyed it, and so did I to some extent, but there was just something lacking. It seemed almost as if we were being overlooked for the table next to us, who were all ordering expensive Ports and Wines.
Would I Go Back? - No, probably not. Looking at the menu, there's nothing else that really appeals to me, and the Buffalo just wasn't good enough to warrant a second visit.
Rating: Me - 6/10
Rin - 8/10
Cost - $146.95
Well, that's it for this report. We finished at Artist Point around 9:00, according to my receipt, but I can't remember anything else we did that night. We may have gone to Downtown Disney, or just back to the Resort, I can't remember. Either way, tomorrow is the day many of you have been waiting for. Rin's birthday. I hope it doesn't disappoint.
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