How To Eat Cheap in Orlando… and some of the best places :)

UPDATED 12TH MARCH 2017

I discovered a couple of new places to eat on my last trip (apart from the character dining). I love a steak and in my opinion – and most people who love a good steak – the ones in Orlando are just something else. Quite honestly the best steaks I’ve ever had have been over there.

Outback was my favourite because of the amazing Bloomin Onion they do ( a deep fried whole onion with batter that has some sort of cinnamon flavouring to it) we spent a good few days trying to find one and after not being successful and driving past Longhorns constantly we decided to try there instead. I think it was someone telling us we should go in making us drive past it again and again!!

Longhorns is INCREDIBLE. It has a bit of a cowboy theme and we went to the one in Kissimee opposite Old Town. The service was fab and we all had steaks. The choice of side orders was a little different and I had asparagus with mine which I love. It was lemon drizzled and really tasty. The steaks were cooked perfectly – don’t have them cooked well done in America. Their cuts of meat are so different to ours and so flavoursome that you just kill that if you over cook it.

Longhorns also had the best accompaniment to a steak we’ve ever had and have tried but failed to replicate as well at home – they do a sweet potato with cinnamon sugar butter and it’s delish!!

You’re also given fresh baked bread when you sit down which was amazing.

Price wise you’re honestly not paying much more than what you would here for a harvester!!

Check out the menu and you can also sign up to the mailing list for a free appetizer and other money off offers. Remember that these offers are usually only valid for 30 days so don’t sign up until a few weeks before your holiday. It will ask for a zipcode – stick your hotel one in!!

Longhorns Menu

I love eating in America as regular readers will know, it’s a whole different experience to eating over here, most servers are brilliant and you can have a laugh with them which makes for a much more pleasant night out. They love Brits (probably cos we mostly tip well) and they’ll usually entertain your kids too!!

UPDATED 8TH JANUARY 2017

I still love to eat in Orlando and this trip I managed 2 character dining experiences and found some incredible on and off site places I’d not visited before. I was incredibly excited about the character dining having never done it before and finally going on a trip with children so actually having a good excuse to go 🙂

Chef Mickeys was our first one, we had breakfast there on our second day and booked it early so we could get into MK for rope drop (however I still haven’t seen that as I didn’t realise they do it early when it’s extra magic hours)

Chef Mickeys is in a fab location for MK being that it’s inside the Contemporary Resort which is one of the coolest looking buildings at Disney and of course you can ride the monorail right into it which is exciting for kids (and me!)

I LOVED Chef Mickeys. The character interaction was fab they had everyone waving their napkins in the air and the kids loved it. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and everyones number one Donald.

 

Food and price wise Chef Mickeys was really good. The breakfast was a buffet with all sorts of classic american breakfast foods including my favourite – biscuits! And Amelias, the Mickey Waffles which she had been going on and on about since she knew they existed!

Price wise it was around $60 for an adult and $35 for a child. It’s all you can eat, the staff were brilliant and all in all a really great start to the holiday.

For those who haven’t been to anything like this before and are not sure what to expect. The characters come to you at your table, they don’t sit with you or eat with you. The characters rotate so you will see all of them and the cast members will let you know who you’re likely to see and make sure that you see them all.

The other one that we did was at Universal Studios, I’d wanted to eat with the Minions as soon as I knew they did it but my other half said ‘No, you’re a grown up’ so I booked it anyway saying it definitely wasn’t for me 🙂

One of the perks of this meal is it allows you entry into Universal Studios a little early. Its held in Cafe La Bamba which is just near the ET Ride.

This one is a lot less than Chef Mickeys $35 for an adult and $20 for a child. It’s not a buffet but you can eat as much as you like. You order whichever breakfast you want and then you can reorder if you’re still hungry.  Foodwise it wasn’t as nice as Mickeys BUT the characters were amazing.

We had so much fun at this one, it was a lot quieter so we got loads of time with all the characters. We had a Minion, Bob I believe, Gru, Dora and Diego, Spongebob, Squidward and the bunnies from Hop. We spent a lot longer here as well. It was really relaxing and we laughed loads. This breakfast has some of my most fondest memories from the trip. Amelia had so much fun with Diego (who she had no idea of until we went) I’ll never forget the look on her face when he sat in her chair and tried to eat her breakfast. I mean look at that huge grin! Priceless!

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One of my favourite things in Orlando – apart from all the Disney obvs – is the food. To the extent that when I think about some of the places I’ve eaten I can actually taste it… what some of you may not know is that you can get discounts on some of the best restaurants over there just by signing up to their mailing lists 🙂 If you’re not a US resident putting the zip code of your hotel/villa is fine.  Always a good thing although to be honest eating in Orlando is pretty cheap anyway, if you know where to go…

Some of my favourites…

One of things I always encourage people to do at least once (or every morning if you want) is to go for a breakfast buffet. The quality of these changes quite a lot but on my last visit Golden Corral was the best one. Loads of choice, brilliant staff and odd things like Candy Floss available… (and no of course I didn’t have any) Buffets are generally pretty cheap and you can have as much as you like – if you’re feeling particularly peckish and you’re clever about it you can get in and get breakfast and lunch and only pay once… 🙂 MUST MUNCH EVERYTHING! That’s the beauty of a buffet! There is always coupon books in places like this that are worth picking up which will give you discounts on various eateries and activities in Orlando. Find out a bit more www.goldencorral.com

This trip I am trying out a breakfast buffet at Chef Mickeys on Disney Resort, I’ve never had a character meal before so it will be a new experience for me so I shall let you all know if it’s actually any good.

The Waffle House is somewhere that a lot of people by pass because quite honestly they don’t look like much. They usually have cop cars in the car park and I was told on my first trip ‘if the cops eat there it must be good’ and they were right. The Waffle House doesn’t just do Waffles it does everything and is home to the best Hash Browns I have ever tasted and their world famous chilli is incredible. It’s cheap, it’s fun and it’s generally not full of tourists. MUST MUNCH Hash Brown with chilli www.wafflehouse.com

Perkins!! I discovered Perkins on my last trip and I think we had about 4 trips there in the end and although they had run out of Chocolate Cream Pie every time I was in (another must try if you see it anywhere!) the food was amazing. It’s homecooked American Classics like Chicken and Biscuits and MeatLoaf as well as home made pies and pastries from their bakery.MUST MUNCH Southern Fried Chicken Biscuit Platter and any burger with their onion tanglers in www.perkinsresturants.com

The Cheesecake Factory!! Well of course I couldn’t do a list without mentioning the Cheesecake Factory. And as well as the obvious incredible and HUGE cheesecake that they do they’re food is amazing. I had one of my best meals of my last trip here. The portions however are huge! MUST MUNCH – Banana Cheesecake!! www.thecheesecakefactory.com

MORE TO BE ADDED SOON

Quick Service Takeaway places to try:

Checkers (at Old Town) – fab cheap burgers very fast!!

Wendys – more great burgers!! and apparently they’re rebranding

Dunkin Donuts – more choice than here and 1/4 of the price

Taco Bell – cheap, easy and tasty and they even do ice cream burritos