Storybook Dining with Snow White Dining Review

I thought I was lucky when I made reservations for my family of 4 at the Storybook Dining with Snow White at Artist Point in the Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World. I usually do not get excited about character meals. I book them for my kids and the luxury of not having to stand in line in the parks to meet the characters. This one was different, I had never met the Evil Queen or any of the Seven Dwarfs. I was excited to go eat there. 
Before I go into my review, some of you might not know how the food is served at the Storybook Dining. In the center of the table there is a Lazy Susan, where 3 different types of appetizers from a pre fixed menu is served. You choose your main course from a small selection. The desserts are a selection of 3 pre fixed delicious desserts. At the of end your meal and dessert, your hostess is suppose to  present your table with a Hunters Box from the Queen. It is said to have smoke billowing out, with nestled hearts on popcorn. 

Don't it sound like a cool place to eat?

I could only get an 8:55 pm reservation. I tried everyday up until our vacation to change it. I had no luck. I was concerned about the time. But the time actually worked out for us and we were able to stay in the parks longer and enjoy our day. That evening we got to go back to our hotel, we all got spiffied up. Who wants to smell like a theme park when you are meeting Snow White and the Evil Queen? We enjoyed the boat ride from the Contemporary to the Wilderness Lodge. It was so relaxing and the scenery was beautiful. The evening was set up to be an exciting night. We could not wait to do the boat ride back to see the different lights. We were actually hoping we would get lucky to see the nightly water pageant parade while on our way back to our hotel.
We arrived about 20 minutes before our reservation with hopes of being seated early. When we checked in we were met with attitude from the hostess saying they were already running 15 to 20 minutes late. I just smiled and said that is okay we wanted to check out the hotel anyway. We were seated just a few minutes before 9:00 pm. As soon as we sat down our first character came to our table. When I mean we just sat down, I had not even taken my purse off my shoulder yet. 



Did you see the Lazy Susan on the table? I thought it was a tad bit too big for our table. We had no room.
The one neat thing was the menus. I did not want to look to much like a blogger, so I only took a picture of the front and the back of the inside. 
                


                We finally got to order our drinks and our kids both ordered the non alcoholic drink called "In the Clouds". It was a mix of Powerade, mountain berry blast, blueberry and cotton candy. The kids liked it at first, but quickly asked for something else to drink. It is a good drink to try when on the dining plan. Because if you don't like it they will bring you a fountain drink for free.  I have included the video of the drink being made at our table. It was suppose to be a big creation at the table. It was kinda neat. 





After our drinks came our second character Dopey came to our table.

 


As we were meeting Dopey our appetizers arrived at our table. No one explained the different appetizers to us. We were on our own to figure out what items we were eating. My kids also got their own appetizers on regular plates. Our waitress apologized about the appetizers not being explained to us. It was not a big deal to us. We were hungry and was just enjoying sampling our appetizers. The appetizers were a mushroom bisque, wicked shrimp cocktail (soy, miso, avocado, thai chili, greens) and a hunters terrain (chicken, black truffle, stone fruit preserve, house-made pickles). My kids got a plate called "From the Garden" (fruit, cheese, vegetables and create their own honey butter). The adult appetizers were not very palatable. I liked the shrimp cocktail. It only had 4 shrimp in the container, 1 per person.  One spoon full of the mushroom bisque was enough for me. I thought the hunters terrain was okay. I was trying to figure out what I was eating.                                      

                                            


The dining went down hill after appetizers.

Our food order got lost. Just like the food pictures we took of our dinner. A little after 10:00 pm our waitress informed us that she was checking on our food and had no clue why it was taking so long. I think that was her polite way of saying your food was never turned in and they are making it right now. While we were waiting for our main course we got to see the last walking around character Grumpy. 

 


As soon as we were done taking our pictures with Grumpy, we were told that the queen was leaving and that we needed to go have our picture with her as soon as possible. We had to get up from our table, leave our drinks and food and go get our picture. I have a thing about leaving my drinks and my food unattended.



I expected rudeness from the queen. I prepped my children for her coldness. She stayed in character but she was nice. My son was terrified of her. She made polite conversation with us and even tried to talk to him. However, I was completely shocked that the photographer was rude. He made me so angry you can see it in my face as I was getting my picture taken with the queen. All I asked for was a family shot, a picture of my daughter with the queen, and that  I would like a single shot of myself with the queen. He was rude, he acted like I had inconvenienced him.  You could tell he acted like he wanted to be some where else. When we got back to our table, I overheard the table next to us complaining to the manager on how rude the photographer was.
Around 10:30 pm we finally got our main course. At this point it felt like we were the only customers in the restaurant. As soon as our main course was placed on the table the waitress immediately brought our check and told us we needed to sign it ASAP, and our desserts were brought to the table before we even had our first bite of the main course. Try getting a 5 year old and 11 yr old to eat dinner when dessert is in front of their faces. 

I ordered the Brother's Grimm Roasted Chicken with herb crusted potatoes, fire roasted petite squash, and golden raisins. It was very good. As for my husband and daughter they ordered the Royal Prime Rib Roast with horseradish- mashed potatoes, carrots, and popover, jus. They would not recommend any one order this from the menu. My daughter only took 2 bites and my husband only ate half of his. It was not the best.
All of the desserts were delicious. We were served the Miner’s Treasures  (sponge cake, chocolate gems, berry panna cotta), Poison Apple  (dark chocolate-apple mousse, sour center ), and Fairy Tale Gooseberry Pie (meringue, gooseberry)

                           




My favorite was the Fairy Tale Goose Pie. It was delicious. The Miner's Treasure was my second. The only thing left on our dessert trays was half of the Poison Apples that we tried and did not care for. 
I did not get a picture of the Hunters Box from the Queen because it was brought with everything else and after being shocked on how our waitress demanded we pay for our food before we took our first bite, I kinda forgot to take a picture of it. My daughter did love the chocolate hearts that was on the popcorn.

My experience from this meal makes me not want to come back to this character meal. From the moment we checked in to the end of our meal I felt like we were rushed and that they did not want us there. It could have been the time of the reservation. But people at other tables were also complaining. The character interaction felt rushed. You would think at the end of the night you would get more interaction. The acting manager acted like it happens all the time. She was quick on her feet to offer us a cab ride back to our hotel because we missed the last running boat, that we were looking forward to riding back on. So much for trying to see that electrical parade. She also did not hesitate to say she would add several extra fast passes to my Disney Experience account so we could sleep in the next day. 

The next morning I woke up early and imagine my surprise when I logged into my Disney Experience to see only two fast passes extra per person. If I would not have logged into my account early we would have missed all three of our fast passes that was scheduled early for that day. What does the word several mean in your book? I thought we would have received at least 3 extra fast passes. If you follow me on Twitter you would have saw my tweet to Disney about how bad this meal was. 
Here is the biggest thing I learned on this trip. If you have any issues with anything and you are staying at a Disney resort the front desk can bring pixie dust. I had to go to the front desk to check on something and I was telling the cast member about our meal and that it was not worth paying for and nothing besides fast passes was given and how I wished someone from customer service would call me back because I wanted my dining credits refunded because that meal was not worth paying for. The front desk was so nice and said the dining issue should have never happened. They refunded our dining credits from that meal and they wanted use to use the new credits to enjoy a better meal. If I had to rate this restaurant I would only give it 1 star. Spend your money at a better character meal on property, unless you really want to go see the characters. Then I would recommend getting a early reservation and not a late one. 

Have you been to the Storybook dining? I would love to hear how your experience was.

Side note: 
After the front desk sprinkled us with pixie dust with new dining credits guest services finally contacted me. They left me a message. I was busy enjoying my time with my family. I still need to contact them back but I am content on how the front desk at my resort took care of the problem.
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Real or Fake?


Having living plants inside and outside of your home takes an ordinary house to a stunning home. There are some people who have green thumbs and then there is people, myself included, who can kill a plant within a few days. Let's be honest, who has time to go around and water flowers? I am doing good to get dinner on the table. If you are one of those people, who are on the go all the time, real plants are out of the question. But you can still fool all your friends into thinking you have all the time in the world to go around and water plants. This is where faux (fake) plants come into play. Fake plants add color, depth, and texture to any room, backdrop or table design. But you will need to purchase the top of the line faux (fake) plants, to be able to fool visitors into thinking they are real. Take a look at this very nice potted silk ivy plant that I received from Commercialsilk.com.
I have placed it near the window on the end table, to liven up the corner of the room. It is sitting near the window for the visual, that it needs light to live.
You can buy fake plants almost anywhere. But you can get quality manufactured silk and artificial plants for indoor and outdoor decorative use at Commercialsilk.com. Once you get your fake plant the correct location of the fake plant is key. You want to put the faux (fake) plant in a place where a living plant would thrive. If you have something that would require sunshine to bloom, then don't put it in the dark. That is a dead give away that you have decorated with a fake plant.
Did you know you can also use fake plants outside? Commercialsilk.com sells an azalea trellis made for exterior. The picture below is from Commericialsilk.com of the Outdoor Azalea Trellis Design. Doesn't that look beautiful?

The best thing about it is that theres no gardening and no watering.
After seeing pictures of how beautifully I can decorate the outside of my home with fake boxwoods, ivy hedges, trees, and  brighten up any bare spot in my home, I am sold on the Faux (fake) plants. Do you do fake or real?

You can find Commercial Silk Int'l on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, You Tube and Google+ for all all the latest news and promotions.

Disclaimer:
I received a beautiful silk ivy potted plant for the writing of this article. All opinions and judgments are 100% my own.


Dinosaur Party


Little boys and their dinosaurs. When my little man turned 3 years old, I threw him a little get together and the theme was dinosaurs. This was one of the funniest parties I have designed. I loved every little detail about it. The children seemed to love it and the parents seemed to enjoy it also. This party was very simple. I loved how it turned out. 

I made swamp slime, which was made out of lime jello. I found these really cool wooden spoons and I tied them to the jars. 


Sprinkled Caramel Apples was a hit at the desert table. The sugar cookies was just dinosaur foot steps. You can't forget the no bakes. 
The cute dinosaur food labels was printed from supermommy.com. The labels are free to print and they are so adorable. 




                                                          
The cake was a simple vanilla and chocolate cake. I love the dinosaurs on it. You can't have a dinosaur party without prehistoric dirt. I placed Oreo Dirt Cake in the jars. The parents loved them. I even offered a healthy alternative to all the sweets. I offered apples and oranges. 



Here is what the full sweet table looked like.  I had placed the sweet table inside my kitchen, along with the food table. The main party was actually outside. 



We had dinosaur eggs.


A 'Let's Rawr" sign

Each chair had a tail tied to each. Every child received a tail with a dinosaur hat and was able to take them home. 


There was a dinosaur trail leading the children to the party table. 


There was an excavation dig. Where each child was able to search for dinosaur skeletons. 

The children had a blast at the party. Some children played in the sand, while the other children played on our swing set. My son still talks about his dinosaur party, and I think he wants another dinosaur party at his next birthday.


If you live in the Louisville, KY area I would love to design a party for your little one or for your next party.