Back from my first trip, so I have nothing to compare it with, other than that I eat out quite a lot at home.
We're a family of four. All veggie, no meat, no fish; but we do eat eggs and dairy.
Two adults, two children aged 5 and 2. 5 year old will eat anything, 2 year old is very picky (but he's not really allowed to be).
We took the half board plus option. I can't even remember why now, but we did.
We stayed in the Newport Bay Club and had breakfast there twice.
Usual buffet kind of breakfast. Very nice really. Good choice of cereals, croissants, pain au chocolat, rolls, cheese, meats, oilves (urgh!) yogurt, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, orange juice. Crazy busy though, especially on Friday.
Cafe Mickey - Character BreakfastSame breakfast as above, but with added hot things. Not great for veggies, just scrambled eggs and potatoes.
But then, I don't think you go there primarily for the food. Even I have to admit to jumping up and down and screaming "Goofy's here!! GOOFY'S HERE!" The kids just carried on eating coco pops.
Plaza Gardens - buffetWe ate here late on the first night.It was late, the kids were tired, and we just needed somewhere that was open, and we found this place. A lucky find I think. We didn't have reservations though, so we did have to wait about 30 mins for a table,and that was at about 9pm.
Just about OK for veggies. We had dauphinoise potatoes, cheese tortelloni, green beans, and I think another kind of potato. So yes - all carbs, very few vegetables. I think there may have been some more vegetable dishes, but often they were mixed with bits of meat or fish or something.
They were very kind and gave my 2year old a free drink as well.
Reasonable selection of desserts, including crepes,and lighter choices like yogurts as well as chocolate tart.
Deli on Main Street - Counter service lunchFairly big queue, but that's probably because we eat at 'normal' meal times because of the kids. If you ate outside of these times, I don't think it would be too bad.
Cheese tomato and rocket pizza bread thing - the kids shared this. Very nice.
Roasted vegetable sandwich - very, very nice. Would definitely have this again.
A coupleof cakes and a small fruit salad
But again, these were the only veggie choices,so not really much of a choice, more of a situation of ,grab whatever's there. We went back later on another day, and they didn't have anything at all left that was vegetarian.
Agrabah Cafe - buffetCan't thank the people on here enough for recommending this place. Definitely our best meal. We went at about 7:45 after watching the parade. Just before they stopped letting people in I think.
great choice of salads for starters - chick peas, lentils, tabbouleh and lots of other veggie stuff, all delicious, and not as heavy as the other buffets.
Mains were couscous, pasta dishes, etc. For meaty people,it looked like they had some tasty fish and chicken stuff in sauces.
The kids liked the desserts here the best. Henry (2) liked the fact that there was a HUGE bowl of natural yogurt, and he added the squeezy pancake sauces to this. It was still really sharp, but he loved it so much he ate three bowls of it, and probably would have eaten more. His big sister found the enormous bowl of chocolate pudding more appealing, and managed two bowls of that. I preferred the baklava.
Auberge de Cendrillon - Princess LunchJust me and Evie(5) went to this. Beautiful surroundings. Amazing staff. Great service, lovely to meet all the characters,and yes, lovely food.
However, I am going to have a bit of a moan, that as a teetotal vegetarian, I don't think we managed to get our full £75 worth of meal!!
Initially there was NO veggie option on the children's menu at all. So they offered Evie pasta with tomato sauce. Fine. but she's eaten a mountain of that in the last few days.
For the children's meal, she got a little amuse bouche (same as the adults, a little cheesey pastry thing - very nice).
Starter - melon balls. She decided she didn't like melon today (great) so I ate these, and gave her some of my starter, the bits she'd like (rocket, sundried tomato, pepper and artichoke hearts).
Main - pasta and tomato sauce
Dessert - they really pushed the boat out here. A selection of four different puddings, all lovely, really well presented.
I ate:
A cocktail - fruit juice and crushed ice. Very nice.
Amuse bouche
Starter - only one veggie option. Roasted veg with rocket and poached egg. Beautiful poached egg (that I diligently gave to my daughter who didn't want it so I pinched it back again!!). Vegetables were artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and courgettes. It was lovely, but I can't stand aubergines, but that's my fault, not theirs.
Main - only one veggie option. Chanterelle mushroom tart with more rocket. I don't really like rocket all that much, but I'm getting very used to it now! if you're veggie, expect to eat a lot of it at DLP! Very nice though.
I'm clumsy, and I was helping Evie sort out her autographs and colouring and spilled my drink over my half eaten meal. A CM whipped it away and brought another one within about 2 minutes.
My dessert was delicious too.
I have photos of this meal, and I'll post them soon.
It wa salso well worth it to see the princesses without any of the usual queueing or pushing and scrummaging that can go on.
The crockery is lovely too, all a bit different with the little mice and sewing motives on it.
New York Hotel - buffetWe had the evening buffet here. Very similar to the plaza gardens, but with added extras. Extra salads for starters. I particularly liked the mozzarella and pesto. The kids predictably liked the nachos with salsa and mozzarella.
Pasta and tomato sauce and mickey mouse potato shapes for the kids for mains with green beans and mixed veg.
I had the cheese tortelloni, dauphanoise potatoes, rice, veg etc for my main. Hubby had the same - but with mickey mouse potatoes as well!!
Again some nice desserts including chocolate pudding and apple crumble.
Rainforest Cafe - Table ServiceWe went here for lunch one day after getting absolutely drenched.
Fantastic setting. Great service. Good menu, and a few different veggie choices. Big portions.
Children had a pizza to share (cheaper than two kids meals), but it wasn't a normal pizza, it was on rectangular ciabatta, and therefore a bit crustier than normal, and therefore not as suitable as it could have been.
I had the Natural Pasta which was delicious, and hubby had a burger, which he said was good.
I splashed out and bought the kids a 'rainforest ricky' drink at 7EUR each. They drink like fish, love fruit juice. Did they drink it? No, of course they didn't. Grrrrr.
Bar in Disneyland HotelWe just popped in here to see what it was like and have a drink. Expensive is what it's like, but oh my word is it gorgeous!!!!! Absolutely beautiful. If you can, you should totally stay here. definitely. It's a million miles above and beyond the other hotels. Just so gorgeous. The waiter who served us was as usual so polite and lovely, but other CMs who passed us chatted to my little boy, picked his toy cat up, smiled at us. IDK, it just had such a relaxing feel to it. I could have stayed in that chair forever and never ever left.
Overall opinion was that the Agrabah was by far the best for veggies.
Service everywhere was good, although the restaurants were better than the counter service places.
CMs very helpful about what is vegetarian, although if it's a buffet, ask the chefs behind the counter, they seem to know better. Here a bit of French helps, because I don't think they need to speak to customers a lot, so I don't imagine they have to speak English. Certainly the chefs I spoke to at the Agrabah and the New York, we spoke in French. But they may just have been humouring me, because my French is VERY bad, but just about good enough to understand vague food descriptions and tell them that we're all vegetarian and explain what we do and don't eat.
Menu's are VERY carb heavy, and you might have to hunt high and low to find a vegetable or a piece of fruit.
Children's menus by and large do not have a vegetarian option. We have two young children, so we got around this by ordering one meal for them to share and that worked out OK. If you have slightly older children...IDK, you might struggle.
Several restaurants do not have any veggie options listed at all. Mainly the fast food places.
Another thing I found very difficult to deal with was the strange opening times. Some restaurants were just closed. Full stop. Some closed some of the time. But there was no information anywhere about opening times. What would have been really useful to me would have been a little restaurant leaflet (like the park programme) that tells you what restaurants are going to be open that week and what times. Would have saved a lot of pointless wandering around.
I also want to add, that I just re-read this post, and I don't want to come across as some health freak, tree hugging, veggie hippy!!
I'm absolutely not!
I'm a very overweight, pizza loving, cheese loving, tree hugging veggie hippy.
I adore my pizza and pasta, but even I found that I was longing for a bit of broccoli after a while.
