The Magic Continues: Disney World, Part III

Our fourth day at Disney World was spent at Epcot Center, and one of the first things we did there was the park's new Finding Nemo ride. It was a cute, slow-paced ride probably best suited for younger kids, but there was more fun after the ride was over: There was a building full of aquariums situated at the ride's drop-off point, so we toured through to look at all different kinds of sea life. We got to see some rescued manatees that were being rehabilitated before they would be reintroduced to their natural habitats - one of them had had his tail mutilated by a boat propeller. What really got me was how much those guys weighed. One of them was 900-something pounds, and the other was close to 1,100! And all they were eating was lettuce. Manatees are herbivores for the most part, so I'm just wondering how exactly their bodies work... This website says they eat 32 to 108 pounds of sea plants a day!

I appreciated that the manatees were being secluded for a good cause, but I'm not sure how I felt about the other fish and sea animals being caged up for the public to oogle at. There wasn't a lot of information displayed about where the fish came from - and the tanks were fairly large, but I couldn't help but think how boring life must be in an aquarium when the fishies could be exploring an entire ocean. I felt especially bad for the dolphins - they are my favorite animals and it looked like their swimming space was pretty limited. I'm not sure where the dolphins came from - I didn't go to the other floor to see the area where they can visit the surface of the water - but I hope they have a more rewarding life in the future.





The World Showcase portion of Epcot was where my mom, dad, sister, and I went once we had worked up an appetite. We headed to Tangierine [sic] Cafe in Morocco for a Mediterranean-themed lunch. I ordered the Vegetable Plate, but I was disappointed that the Moroccan bread and all the pita bread and other carb-y items at Tangierine were not vegan (the cafe does have an ingredient book available to assist diners with special allergies, intolerances, or special diets). I requested for the bread and honey-laden lentil salad to be left off my plate, which ended up consisting of couscous, a black & green olive salad, a parsley tabbouleh salad, and hummus. Are you seeing the same problem I did? Yep, I had nothing to dip the hummus in!!! The problem was solved, however, with my mother's help. She ordered a falafel sandwich without the yogurt-y sauce and gave me half of her falafel balls to dip into my hummus. She's such a good mommy, so kind to her wonderful daughter (me, haha!). It was her first experience with falafel, and she really liked it! I also thought the falafel was very good and the hummus was pretty decent, but not the best I've had. I had yummy Moroccan mint tea for my beverage, but sadly this restaurant didn't have any vegan-friendly desserts. Overall, this was a pretty good and satisfying lunch for me, though my poor mommy said she got hungry later.

I've also been searching Disney World and Downtown Disney for coffee shops that serve soymilk. The first was in Downtown Disney, at the cafe inside Virgin Megastore, and the second was here in Epcot, near the United Kingdom portion of World Showcase. Sadly, the decaf soy latte I ordered was completely gag-worthy - the espresso was so acidic and awful, but I drink fortified soymilk to meet my nutritional needs every day so I was glad to be able to find some outside the convenience of my resort room's fridge.

I was glad when the time came for our dinner reservation because I was getting extremely sick of walking around Epcot - we had already done everything we wanted to do. We went back to United Kingdom section of the park to Rose & Crown Pub. The nicest woman ever ended up being our waitress, and I was extremely amused that everyone working at the pub had a British accent, including their nice and cheery chef. She came out to tell me my options, and there ended up being a vegan entree already on the menu: Vegetable Curry. It sounded amazing, so I went with that rather than requesting for her to create something especially for me, which she did offer to do. (Aww!)



The Vegetable Curry came with Indian bread, a scoop of sticky & sweet quinoa, and vegetables in a coconut curry sauce. Wow! was I absolutely in love with their quinoa - I've never had it prepared this way and can say it's the best I've ever had. It didn't have the slightest hint of bitterness, either. Yum! I also thoroughly enjoyed the Indian bread, which I downed in about 2.37 bites. Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but it disappeared before I even realized it. :) The curry part was also delicious, but I liked the bread and grain elements of my meal the very most. I highly, highly recommend this restaurant if you go to Disney World. We sat outside on the patio, right along this giant lake in the middle of Epcot. We finished eating at around 6 pm, so it was still beautiful and bright outside, with just the slightest breeze.

Dessert was a fresh fruit bowl with cantaloupe, honeydew melon, and grapes.

                Day Five

Today we planned to go to the classic Disney park, Magic Kingdom - that's the one with Cinderella's giant white castle. My favorite ride at Magic Kingdom is Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster. You get in a little space car and ride along a little track speckled with aiming targets. This is actually an interactive ride, because the cars are equipped with big laser guns, which is what you use to hit said targets. Each person even has their own digital scoreboard inside the car, so you can rack up some points and show off/laugh at your family members when you get a higher score than they do! I've always been competitive with video games and even school academic contests, be it a classroom Jeopardy game or a spelling bee, which explains my love for this ride. I ended up getting an okay score and beat everyone in my family - except for my mom! This came as a total surprise, because she is technologically challenged and is awful at video games. But I'll just count this little instance as a freak accident. I am still queen of the Buzz Lightyear ride. (I'm not actually that good at it, haha, but I say I'm the queen if I want!)



I was really looking forward to lunch - I had it all planned out to go to the Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station because I knew they had not one, but two tofu entrees. Warning for any future Disney visitors: The Vegetable Noodle Bowl contains whey in it's soup/noodle consumme base... So I got the Teriyaki Tofu with Steamed White Rice and Vegetables. The rice in my entree was vegan according to the ingredients, but it tasted really chicken-y. In an awful, awful way. I've never had ramen noodles, but if I could possibly imagine what a "chicken flavored" ramen noodle package tasted like, I would imagine this rice. Hopefully, I freaked myself out for nothing. The teriyaki sauce was light and sparse - I could barely taste it and what I could taste was bland, nothing special. The "chef" at this quick service station obviously do not know what to do with tofu. It was just there. In little steamed hunky chunks. Shudder. That tofu is why tofu gets a bad rap. I had grapes for dessert and an organic iced peach green tea that tasted like cardboard. Then again, I didn't add sweetener, but I'm not much of a tea girl. I just don't know what to do with it!



Something very, very special awaited me at the Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street at Magic Kingdom. Er - I should more properly say, "somethings." I got a double scoop of Chocolate Tofutti "ice cream"! I love this brand and flavor so much! It was 88 degrees in Orlando that day, so soy ice cream was the perfect treat. Even my dad thought the Tofutti was yummy and I quote: "much creamier than regular ice cream." Goodness, Magic Kingdom really has a lot to offer for vegans. There was not-so-tasty tofu option I chose for lunch, but their other restaurants offer vegan burgers, vegetable wraps, vegan chili, and hummus sandwiches! The Main Street Bakery next door supposedly carries Divvies allergy-friendly/vegan cookies, but I wanted ice cream more so we didn't go to the bakery.



I was really excited about tonight's dinner reservations in particular, out of all the other dinner plans we had made, for Wolfgang Puck Cafe in Downtown Disney. It's pretty upscale, and we'd already had a great experience at the express version of Wolfgang just a few days earlier. I was expecting a lot after my meal there hand-crafted by the chef. Sadly, this restaurant was the first in our Disney experience that did not deliver the goods. Literally. The chef did not have many innovative ideas to begin with - this really surprised me because I think good chefs are supposed to be creative, especially if they work in a restaurant of this caliber. They should also be accomodating if they are working on Disney resort property. I was led to believe by the staff that their spring rolls were vegan after one modification (the slaw) and the chef had proposed to make me a side of sauteed zucchini, squash, and eggplant with lemon and garlic. The dish seemed simple but I thought he would be able to make it something special, like the Wolfgang Puck Express chef did with my roasted vegetable wrap.



As you can see, the sauteed vegetables were presented beautifully. I also expected them to at least taste good. This chef, however, delivered vegetables that would make people not want to eat vegetables. They were oily, slightly cold, and nothing special at all. I was really put off because I had been eating so well all week at the other sit-down restaurants. This dish's presentation reminded me of the movie Ratatouille, so then that reminded me of the food critic's motto: "If I don't love it, I don't swallow." I'm normally a complete veggie lover, but I gave the sad guys on my plate a chance and didn't like it, so I didn't eat much of it at all.

The staff also delivered me the order of spring rolls incorrectly - they had the un-vegan slaw - so our waitress returned them and then the same ones were sent back again! The waitress expertly snatched it up, rolled her eyes at the kitchen staff, and finally got me what I wanted. Almost. I took one bite of the first roll and immediately sensed something was wrong. The spring roll wrapper was very flaky, and had an almost-familiar taste that I hadn't tasted in a long, long time. I had to get the chef to ask what the roll wrappers were made of, and it turns out my vegan-radar was correct: the rolls had been sealed with a very small amount of egg wash (the chef had "forgotten," oops). EW! It made me really upset that so much food ended up being wasted, and all the mix-ups could have fed other people... And I knew animals had suffered for the food that had been put on those plates.

Basically with all the attention and waitstaff and chefs flying around to check up on me, it got really dramatic and tears were involved. I really don't like a lot of attention, and I hated feeling picky; I felt like I had ruined my family's meal with all the fuss. By this point, my parents and sister had finished eating and I hadn't eaten anything substantial so far. I figured I had to eat something, but I wanted to be safe so I asked for a completely plain and dry green salad. The manager wouldn't let up about giving me some dressing. Seriously, I don't know why. So I was like, whatever, just give me some oil and vinegar on the side. And for some reason and somehow he badgered me into agreeing to some vinaigrette that he said was "safe." (I didn't believe him, though, at this point...) I just specified for the whatever dressing to be on the side. And what did I get? A romaine salad slathered with dressing. It was a vinaigrette, and I took a few bites because I had felt wasteful enough already, but seriously! A dry salad was all I had asked for, and they couldn't even give me that! I gave up, finally. So I left hungry and disappointed, except for my dessert of strawberries and raspberries.



Thank goodness for that, but it wasn't quite enough for dinner. The experience was just really upsetting and I kept fixating on it for the next few days. Again, I don't like creating a fuss, but I feel like the chefs at Disney are obligated to know how to deal with dietary restrictions if they advertise that they can do so. Oh! Annnd the chef also told me that I could eat the appetizer bread, but I asked again before I ate it and found out there was honey in it! (Same was the case in Wolfgang Puck Express, which was what warranted my double-checking.)

Ahhh. So that sucked a lot. But it was the first horrible experience I had, and all I could think was that I was glad I had eaten most of my double scoop of Tofutti earlier that day. But I like to take very good care of myself nutritionally speaking, and I don't like to go hungry. I like to set the example, especially as a nutrition major, that the vegan diet is nutritionally adequate. I don't think it's okay to only eat fruit and vegetables. So I made sure to fill my body up with lovely calcium, vitamins D & B12, and protein with a glass of soymilk back in our room at the resort. Normally I'd eat more, but I was honestly so emotionally worked up after Wolfgang that it was all I could manage before going right to sleep...

More happy days are coming, I promise! The rest of my days at Disney are coming soon to a post near you! A Ruby Red Vegan post, that is. Sorry for the downer at the end of this one! Smile, smiley, smile. All better!