Dining Review: Le Cellier

Le Cellier has such a reputation among Disney fans that it’s hard to go their without preconceptions.   You go expecting everything to be perfect.  After all, to get in requires booking and ADR as soon as your window opens up.  Even then you might not get in.  Can Le Cellier live up to that kind of hype?

The Food:

The food at Le Cellier is very good and consistent.   If you like red meat this is the place for you.  It seems like everything on this menu was mad to clog your arteries.  Even the options that don’t involve meat like the cheddar cheese soup has enough fat to make you swoon but it sure is good to be bad every now and then.

As far as the entrees go I will warn any vegans that there is not one option available on the standard menu.  You will need to let them know (in advance would be best) that you would like a vegan option. The apps are not much better either.  None of them are vegan  but at least they can leave the cheese off on a number of them.

For desert you can nab a lovely indulgence called maple syrup crème brulee.  If you don’t like custard then go with the tri of chocolate.  There are some other options including a no sugar added mousse.

The Drinks:

Why did I put drinks in a different category?  Le Cellier has some of the best alcoholic beverages in Disney World.  It’s a hidden secret.  For example they offer a flight of Unibroue beers.  These are the best beers available in Disney World but be warned!  They will knock you on your butt.  They have almost as much alcohol as a wine.

You can also get a great flight of martinis.  My wife did that and loved them.  They really mix it up and offer a number of different choices.  It’s really too bad Le Cellier doesn’t have a bar you can just go to and order a drink.

The Atmosphere:

I’ve covered this before and the atmosphere in Le Cellier is decent.  There are a lot of exposed wood accents that give the place a feel like you are in a cellar or dark tavern.  My only problem with the atmosphere is it feels claustrophobic.  I’m not a claustrophobic person but I feel like I’m in bomb shelter when I’m in Le Cellier.  I think this is because of the comparatively low ceiling, dark tones, and somewhat small dining room.

The Service:

It’s hard to beat the service at Le Cellier.  The servers are not stuffy they are the polar opposite of Chefs de France (see my review of Chefs de France for more info).  They are warm and friendly and will interact with you.  They also always seem to be smiling.

The Cost:

Here is where Le Cellier falls short.  The prices here are insane.  It’s hard to justify the prices here.  They just keep creeping up and up.   Add that to the fact that now Disney charges two dining plan credits to eat here for dinner and you start to lose value fast.

In the end Le Cellier is a great restaurant but if you cannot get a lunch reservation you’re better off going to a different dining option for dinner.   The dinner is just too expensive to justify if you are on the dining plan and it will hurt your wallet if you are not on the dining plan.   It’s not like one of the signature dining locations at the resorts.  This is still a theme park dining location.

CMDTA on Vacation: St. Kitts

Continuing on my overview of islands when you are broke – St. Kitts!  St. Kitts has one of the most generic port areas in all the islands.  It’s crammed full of shops, bars, and touring companies.  80% of the shops are jewelry stores, 10% are liquor stores, and the rest sell crap.

If you can’t tell already I wasn’t impressed by the shopping in St. Kitts.  The bars weren’t much better.  Unlike in St. Maarten the prices for beer are insanely low.  You can find some good deals but you’ll have to hunt for them.  If you want a mixed drink you are going to pay a fair amount for it. 

On the subjects of drinks I should mention my experience with non-alcoholic drinks in St. Kitts.  I was being good so I ordered a Diet Coke.  What they gave me was a Coke Lite.  Coke Lite looks like a Diet Coke but tastes very different.  I can understand why the name is different but I’m not sure why you would change the formula.  It wasn’t awful it was just different.

On really strange thing you’ll run into in a lot of the shops in St. Kitts are the skeletons.  It seems like every shop has some creepy motorized skeleton that shakes. I might be able to understand this if it was Halloween but not a week after Thanksgiving.  I really don’t know why all the shop keepers thought these were a good idea.

A final note about St. Kitts – Look out for the monkey people.  There are a lot of people walking around the port are with monkeys.  Most of the monkeys are wearing diapers. Their goal is to put a monkey on your shoulder so you’ll pay them money to have your picture taken with the monkey.  I don’t know about you but I don’t want anything wearing a diaper on my shoulder. 

Overall St. Kitts isn’t the best stop if you are broke.  You might be better off just staying on the boat unless you want to grab a couple of beers.

CMDTA on Vacation – St. Maarten – St. Martin

No, I didn’t misspell the title and no I am not talking about two countries.  St. Martin is an island in the Caribbean.  It has two names because it’s technically two different countries.  It’s up to some debate but the Island itself is called St. Martin but the island is divided into two sections.  The French side is called St. Martin and the Dutch side is called St. Maarten.  Just to clarify my wife and I visited St. Maarten.

Sadly on this trip my wife and I couldn’t afford to do any excursions so my reviews of all islands will be based on what you get in the port.  I actually hope this ends up being a helpful way of reviewing islands considering how expensive excursions have become.

St. Maarten has a pier.  Right off the bat this puts it above other islands.  I hate getting tendered on and off a cruise ship.  From the pier you could walk to the shopping area but that would be a long walk.  Instead you go to the right hand side of the port and take a water taxi to the shopping area.  It’s only a five minute boat ride and it’s totally worth it.

Where the water taxi drops you off is a long sandy beach which is lined with bars and cheap shops.  Beyond the bars and cheap shops is a street that is lined with numerous shops.  This is a great island shopping area.  I use the term “island” because it’s a typical example of what you find on almost every island in the Caribbean.  These shopping areas consist of lots of jewelry, liquor, clothing, and what I call tourist junk stores.

Tourist junk stores is where you find all the crap you laugh at when you are home, but are compelled to buy when you are on vacation.  I don’t think I need to say anything else.  You know what I am talking about.

The best part of this destination is the beach.  You can rent a beach site for next to nothing, the water is clean and warm, and the bars will serve you if you want.

Included in the beach are the bars. I say this because if you are looking for a beer you will be in heaven here.  To explain what I mean I first have to inform you about beer on cruise ships.  Carnival (Royal Caribbean and NCL) sell “beer buckets” on the ship.  These are insanely expensive four packs of beer.  Bud Light or Bud (which are both like pee in a bottle) will run you around $15 when you count the gratuity.  In St. Maarten you can buy a “beer bucket” for $10.  Oh and by the way these beer buckets have six beers, you can pick what beers are in there, and it’s not “pee in a bottle” beer.  Normally you can pick between six or so Caribbean and Mexican beers. WOOOOOOO!

So that is the St. Maarten port area.  If you are broke it’s the place to be.

Review: Big River Grille and Brewing Works

Big River is a restaurant at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort. We did not have an ADR for this restaurant but decided to give it a shot. They make their own beer and try to give a contemporary beer pub atmosphere to compliment it.

Are the beer, food, and atmosphere worth the trip over to the Boardwalk?

Food: My wife and I wanted a light dinner so we avoided entrées and opted to both get an appetizer instead. I ordered the chicken nachos and my wife ordered the beef nachos. They were decent but the cheese was a cheese sauce. It reminded me of cheese wiz. Or the liquid sauce they serve at sporting events. At least the portions were big.

Beer: Between my wife and I, we tried four beers. That was four too many because none of them were all that good. The best one was the Belgian style ale but I wouldn’t rave about it. I also ordered an IPA. I Like IPAs. What I got served was an awful excuse for an IPA. It was so bad I question the fact that it was an IPA or an opps by the bar tender. It was red. IPA’s should never be red.

Service: Well we got seated and served. I say that because there was reason to question that for a while. When we checked in we were given a pager and told it would be about ten minutes. They paged us forty minutes later. I understand if you off a little but a half hour off is unacceptable. We would have gone somewhere else if we had known it was going to be that long of a wait. The service itself was decent but I question how accurate the waitress was with our drinks. I think someone goofed up. When you work at a brewery you should be able to spot the difference between beers.

Atmosphere: Two things really hurt Big River. First it’s too crowded. Second it’s a resort restaurant. The second really hurts it because that means parents are dragging kids, who are half dead, in there way about two hours after they should have been put to bed. My wife and I ate around 9pm and we were surrounded by kids. Big River is an awful place to bring kids. For the most part it’s a loud bar which is bad for kids. Combine that with kids who are falling asleep at the tables and you have a terrible mix. The only cool thing about the inside of Big River, are the big beer vats. It’s not that it’s bad inside it is just crazy and over crowded.

Cost: The cost isn’t bad but it is still on the expensive side. It’s a little too expensive for not being located inside a theme park. My wife and I only ordered appetizers and four beers and paid more than full meals at other WDW restaurants.

I have no desire to ever go back to Big River. Not when Epcot is so close. Even if I stayed at the Boardwalk again I really doubt I’d go to Big River again. I’d go to the ESPN Zone it’s much cheaper.