By Guest Blogger Jamie

OK, so coming up with something to review that hasn’t been done a billion times is a bit tricky, so I have decided to kick off with a bit of off-site dining, which may have been done to death, but it’s a wide open place to start.

Just to give you a bit of background, I’m Jamie and my wife is Sarah, we are becoming what you might call veterans, having had our wedding at the wedding pavilion back in 2005 we have somehow managed to return to Florida every year since, now finally taking the attitude that we will be coming back anyway, we finally joined the DVC in 2010. We always stay on Disney, we generally do the parks, hire a car and eat in the World (the last four years have included the dining plan, which helps). We are English, from Nottinghamshire, and,well, hopefully you will get to know us by reading on.

So, lets get to it…

The year was 2011, and we were on the dining plan again. Standard level, one counter service (CS), one table service (TS) and one quick service snack (QS) per person per day. The hotel was Saratoga Springs and it was September. Now one of the problems when staying on the dining plan is that you feel a need to eat off-site, but because there is so much choice on-site, you feel you need to make the most of any off-site dining so as to not waste any of those all too precious dining credits. This can be a challenge, because you don’t want to go too far out of your way, and you want to make sure you get a decent meal for your money (remember you will be paying for this, when you could easily be having something on-site for free. Well, not technically free because you paid for the DDP, so you don’t want to waste the money you spent on the DDP).

Before we get to the off-site dining, I will explain that we scheduled in a couple of double credit meals to give us a couple of gaps in the schedule, for shopping days. Shopping days are ideal for eating off-site, as you are shopping, well, off-site.

We begin with the Village Inn, a nice little diner on Westward Blvd, up near SeaWorld, and just opposite the Doubletree (formally Sheraton World) hotel. The place is generally quiet, nice for when you have just finished a day walking round the shops of the Mall and outlets. Get seated on the bench seating and check out the menu. It’s a chain, so the menu is fairly generic, but quite extensive, and not very expensive. I went for the chicken fried chicken, and Sarah opted for chicken tenderloin. Before your meal, you are asked ‘Soup or Salad?’ and the choice is for either a free salad which comes in a little pot and is quite nice and fresh, or a soup which changes from day to day. The soup on this day happened to be beef and barley. It’s not a massive bowl, but for free, it’s very good. To be honest the entrée is a bit of a blur, and I will get to the reason later, but for now I recall it comes with a tasty mashed potato (skins on) and some side salad or veggies. Mine may have come with a biscuit (which for the English is a savoury scone) and I recall there being plenty of sweetcorn around. The main thing is that it was filling and very nice. Just what you need following a hard day carrying bags. Then the main event. Pie. The Village Inn is famous for its pie, they got on Unwrapped for it! I took Boston creme pie which was very sweet, very sickly and exactly the kind of thing I like. Plenty of cream and a nice biscuit base to hold it together. I’m drooling just thinking about it! Sarah had the Apple pie. A nice light crust, flaky pastry and sweet, sweet apple inside. It was with ice cream too, which melted into the pie in a somewhat spectacular fashion.

All in all, the Village Inn scores highly on our meter, and it’s a certainty that we will try and get there again at least once next year. They even do pie to take away. No, really. Stop by on your way out and place an order for pie, pick it up on your way back, it’s all good.

The second and final item for today is Taco Bell. There is one on the Crossroads, and we nipped by on our way to the outlets nearby. For anyone who has never been, imagine McDonalds, but with Mexican food. You seem to get a bag full of food for a small amount of cash, its greasy, there is beef and cheese mainly, and you get a little minty sweet with your meal. They even have a drive through for those who don’t have time to stop for a minute on the way to buy stuff, and let’s face it, those bargains aren’t going to buy themselves, now, are they?

So that’s it for today, hopefully in the future I shall be supplying reviews of shopping areas, parks and maybe even a grand tour of hotel lobbies. Yes, you read it right.