Tag Archives: Contempo Cafe

Who Would Love Disney’s Contemporary Resort?

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Let’s pretend for a minute that you’ve decided that for your next (or first) Walt Disney World vacation, you want to stay in the Magic Kingdom resort area.  Let’s go a step further and say you want to stay at a monorail resort.  First of all, go YOU!  These are our family’s favorite resorts!  Tough choice though.  All are expensive, all have their pros and cons.  Today, I’m going to try to explain the draw of Disney’s Contemporary Resort.  In future posts, I’ll do the same for the Polynesian Village Resort and the Grand Floridian too, so I’ll be sharing everything I know and have personally experienced.  All three have a lot to offer!

Who Would Love Disney’s Contemporary Resort?

You want to be smack dab in the middle of the Disney action – When you can see Magic Kingdom from your resort, all day and all evening, it feels especially Disney-ish.  You also have (my favorite!) the Electrical Water Pageant cruising by your resort in the evening.  Between the boats, busses and monorail, it feels like every park is just a short ride away.  Resort hopping by boat to Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness is super easy (and relaxing) as is access via monorail to the other Magic Kingdom resorts.

Your family adores Magic Kingdom – From the Contemporary, it’s just a short walk away!  Slightly more than 1/2 mile from door to Park entrance, the Contemporary is the ONLY resort from which you can walk to and from Magic Kingdom.  As an added convenience, the security bag-check/metal detector is right on the walkway, giving your family a straight shot to the entrance!  If you’ve got an early morning ADR (advance dining reservation) in Magic Kingdom, this perk is a plus!

Resort Loop Pub Crawl – Sure, this is a benefit of staying at any of the monorail resorts, but if you’re out for date night or have a party of adults only, this is a fun way to spend an evening.  We love to start at the Contemporary’s Outer Rim and move on to the Poly’s Tambu Lounge (or Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto) and Mizner’s Lounge in the Grand Floridian.  Grab a cocktail and snacks at each stop and make an evening of it.

Amazing Dining Options – Character dining? Check!  Meet the Fab Five at Chef Mickey’s for breakfast or dinner.  Need a quick meal?  Try the Contempo Café (Buffalo Chicken Flatbread is great!).  Fresh, sustainable, and delicious fare is available at The Wave, and if you want one of the best dinners at Walt Disney World, you can’t go wrong with the food, service, and view at the California Grill.

Nostalgia – It’s modern and retro at the same time!  As one of the original Walt Disney World resorts, the Contemporary has maintained that opening-day vibe while boasting updated rooms with a current, modern feel.  The Mary Blair mural (look for the five-legged goat!) and the open atrium where the monorail pulls right on in to the heart of the resort are all classic Walt Disney for geeks like us!  If you love Disney like we do, standing on that monorail platform, watching our ride pull into the station…there’s no feeling in the World exactly like it and fans have been experience that particular thrill since 1971.

 

 

 

 

Breakfast – Disney World Monorail Loop

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On that rare (for us anyway) occasion that we aren’t planning to be at a Disney World park when it opens, we make time to enjoy a good breakfast.  Some of our favorite spots are near Magic Kingdom.

Breakfast – Disney World Monorail Loop

At the Contemporary – There are two places we favor:  Chef Mickey’s and the Contempo Café.  The breakfast buffet at Chef Mickey’s offers basic breakfast fare of all kinds.  Mickey Waffles, cereal, eggs, potatoes, pastries and more.  For a character dining experience, it’s a solid choice.  Meet the Fab Five and fuel up for the day.  We’ve booked Chef Mickey for our departure morning on more than one occasion – it was a great way to say farewell and end our vacation on a happy note.Meeting Minnie at Chef Mickey's

The Contempo Café is a quick service restaurant right next to Chef Mickey.  The menu‘s not huge, but for a decent price we can share the “Bounty Platter” and an order of cheesy grits (we love our grits in the South!) and be on our way.

At the Grand Floridian – Again, we’ve been pleased by two places.  One’s a sit-down restaurant and the other’s a quick service spot.  The Grand Floridian Café boasts a big, broad menu in a fancy, Victorian setting that’s still considered casual dining.  If our meal will be falling into the brunch-ish time frame, this is where we’ll eat.  We’ve found it easy to make a last-minute breakfast reservation no matter what time of the year we go.

At the Gasparilla Island Grill, the menu is very similar to the Contempo Café, but we’ll pass up the Bounty Platter here for a freshly prepared Croissant Sandwich…yum!  Note to other lovers of grits – don’t order them here.

At the Polynesian – There’s only one place for us and that’s Kona Café.  There are a couple of perfectly respectable quick service options at the Poly, but if we’re having breakfast at this resort, it’s going to be at Kona.  There’s lots to choose from – sweet, savory, lite, heavy – there’s something for everyone on this unique and delicious menu.  The Tonga Toast is legendary.    Added bonus for us – the grits here are the absolute best!

How about you?  Do you make time for resort breakfasts at Disney World?  Which ones are your favorite?

Disney World Breakfasts for Champions

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Wheaties may be the “Breakfast OF Champions”, but when you need to fuel up mid-morning on a Walt Disney World vacation, there are a few great places we favor.  You may be asking yourself, “Champions”, Lisa?  Yes!  When we’ve rope-dropped and managed 4 or 5 rides before the first meal of the day we ARE champions…hungry ones.

Five Great Disney World Breakfasts FOR Champions

1. Starring Rolls.  Centrally located in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, this is one of our all-time favorite must-visit breakfast spots.  It’s the convenient location, the ample outdoor seating, and the variety of Danishes, bagels, huge sandwiches, and the latest in magical Disney cupcake-ery.RM-Disney-Olaf-CupcakeStarring Rolls / Red Velvet Cupcake

2. Main Street Bakery.  We like Starbucks and while there are some things we miss (about the pre-Starbucks version) at this Main Street USA location in Magic Kingdom, we can very happily pop in for a great morning meal.  RM-Main-Street-StarbucksWe love the coffee and the wide assortment of baked goods and hot sandwiches.  Seriously, I can even make myself feel like I’m being healthy on vacation with a tasty spinach and feta breakfast wrap.  We’re all about the grab and go here so we can get back out there and ride on.

3.  Sunshine Seasons.  This is a great place to relax in Epcot after Soarin’ and Living With the Land while waiting for World Showcase to open.  Sunshine Seasons BreakfastThe Chocolate Croissant is a perennial favorite, but Raymond and I also love to share the focaccia breakfast sandwich – it comes with fried potatoes and is very delicious…and filling.  Which is why we share it – saving room for lunch!

4. Gasparilla Island Grill.  We ducked in this tidy little eatery at the Grand Floridian after a massage at the Senses Spa there.  We were famished and couldn’t think about continuing on with our day without sustenance.  Our experience (Croissant Sandwich – YUM) made us fans of this underappreciated quick-service location.  While I recommend you do not order the grits here, the rest of our breakfast was delish!

5. Contempo Café (Contemporary Resort).  HERE is where to order grits (best we’ve found at Disney World), if you’re so inclined.  The Contempo offers an impressively wide array of choices for breakfast in a convenient location near Chef Mickey’s.  RM-Contempo-Cafe-Breakfast-SandwichBreakfast sandwiches, platters, Mickey Waffles, even steel cut oatmeal and assorted baked goods – huge menu, certain to please every member of your dining party.

Bonus:  We can and have enjoyed breakfast at the Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney – but I recommend waiting for lunch.  Lunch is better there.

Where’s your favorite Walt Disney World breakfast location?

Earl of Sandwich Breakfast

WDW Resortloop Quick Service – Contempo Café

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RM-Mary-Blair-MuralAs I’ve mentioned before, we love the Contemporary Resort!  We love the expansive, soaring Grand Canyon Concourse with the monorail station inside, the shops, the Mary Blair mural (Hello, Five Legged Goat!), and the restaurants.  Chef Mickey’s has always been our favorite character dining experience.  Right next to Chef Mickey is a counter-service restaurant we’d seen and heard of, but had never tried until our most recent visit to Walt Disney World.  We ate there twice – Lunch on our arrival day and breakfast on our last day of vacation.  We were quite pleased with our meals, so I’m sharing this review with you today…

WDW Resortloop Quick Service – Contempo Café

The first impression of this eatery is that it’s both wide open and, in keeping with the theme of the Contemporary, quite modern.  Orders are placed at automated, self-service kiosks that print out a ticket for you to carry to the checkout counter, along with any extras you select from the self-serve sections for bakery items and bottled beverages (I chose beer at lunch).  After you pay for your meal, you then wait for your ticket number to be called so you can pick up your tray(s) and find a seat.RM-Contempo-Cafe-Interior RM-Contempo-Menu RM-Contempo-Cafe-Self-Serve

The bakery items looked good and the menu offered a broad selection.  The beer selection was a bit sparse, but didn’t keep us from enjoying lunch.  We ate right after we arrived and checked in, so I took care of ordering and getting our table, while Raymond took some things to our room.

For Raymond I ordered the Caprese Flatbread ($8.49) and I chose the expensive Lobster Roll  ($16.29).  Normally, I wouldn’t spend that much on lunch, but I was thinking of you.  So in the interest of culinary research, I sprung for it.  Both orders looked tasty and weren’t heavy, which was important since we had a dinner reservation later at the Kona Café (Polynesian Village Resort).  The food was good!  We were both pleased with our lunches (if not the price) and decided the Contempo was convenient with good choices and needed to be added to our list of quick-service favorites.RM-Contempo-Cafe-Flatbread RM-Contempo-Cafe-Lobster-Roll

On the last day of vacation, we had some time to spare before our Fort Wilderness Back Trail Adventure tour, so we decided to see what the Contempo Café had to offer for breakfast.  We already knew about the bakery counter, but ended up ordering off the menu.  I ordered the Breakfast Burrito ($6.49) and Raymond had the Breakfast Sandwich ($6.49), we also decided to share an order of grits ($3.19).  RM-Contempo-Cafe-Breakfast-Sandwich RM-Contempo-Cafe-Breakfast-Burrito-and-GritsIt’s a thing we do, like a test.  See, living in Louisiana, we eat grits just about every weekend.  I make some pretty amazing garlic cheese grits and they’ve become a staple on our weekend breakfast lineup.  We often try grits in restaurants to see if we can find anyplace that does them well.  I’m happy to report that so far, the Contempo Cafe’s grits are the best we’ve had at Walt Disney World!!!  They’re served with white cheddar cheese, which makes them taste great!  We will most definitely be visiting the Contempo Café again.

See the complete Contempo Café Menu here.

Which Resortloop Quick-Service restaurants do you like best?