{"id":7091,"date":"2014-10-15T13:19:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T17:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_ms_news\/?p=7091"},"modified":"2022-07-08T11:34:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:34:05","slug":"experiencing-ohana-disneys-polynesian-village-resort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/experiencing-ohana-disneys-polynesian-village-resort\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiencing Ohana at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Our Magically Speaking Newsletter Archive \u2013 subscribe today<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n

By Jennifer Retzlaff<\/p>\n

\"Dinner<\/p>\n

When my husband and I visited Disney for our ten-year anniversary, we wanted to take advantage of meal time without kids. \u00a0We booked the Disney Dining Plan allowing us a table service meal, quick service meal and a snack each day. \u00a0As I started to look at our table service meals, I had two goals in mind. \u00a0First of all I wanted to make sure that we were trying different cuisine at each meal; I didn\u2019t want to book six meals that all served burgers and fries. \u00a0\u00a0Secondly, I wanted us to try places that we didn\u2019t try with our kids two years earlier. \u00a0When we went with our kids we ate at Cinderella\u2019s Royal Table, Chef Mickey\u2019s, Crystal Palace, Tusker House, Coral Reef, and Mama Melrose\u2019s. \u00a0Even though there were a few favorites during that trip, with the numerous options Disney has to offer it seemed silly to repeat. <\/p>\n

\"Retzlaff<\/p>\n

With those goals in mind, on our 180 day mark, I was up early to start booking. \u00a0I was able to book Be Our Guest (dinner), Liberty Square Tavern (lunch), Boma (dinner), Le Cellier (dinner), \u2018Ohana (dinner), and Biergarten (lunch). \u00a0I had accomplished my goal of getting a variety of different cuisines and we hadn\u2019t been to any of these restaurants on previous trips. \u00a0Following our trip, my husband and I chatted about which of these restaurants we\u2019d book again and both of us said without any hesitation that \u2018Ohana will be a must-do when we return to Disney. \u00a0The atmosphere, quality of food and service was better than any of the other table service restaurants during our trip.<\/p>\n

\"Retzlaff<\/p>\n

My husband and I are low key people. \u00a0We don\u2019t eat out a lot and when we do it, we don’t go to fancy restaurants. \u00a0We enjoy our Applebees, Texas Roadhouse and even McDonalds once in a while. \u00a0This is probably one of the reasons \u2018Ohana appealed to us. \u00a0Right when you walk into the Polynesian there is a welcoming and family feel that overcomes you. \u00a0Even though it was under construction, you could still hear the waterfalls and feel the warmth that it radiated. \u00a0When we arrived at the hostess\u2019 stand, we were greeted with smiles by the cast members. \u00a0We were around 45 minutes early due to rain changing our plans, but they were still more than accommodating. \u00a0Heading down towards \u2018Ohana\u2019s entrance, I couldn\u2019t help but feel happy as the surroundings of tropical plants seemed to encourage relaxation. \u00a0We were sat quickly despite being there early and our server promptly provided us with a rundown of how \u2018Ohana worked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Retzlaff<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t familiar with of \u2018Ohana, it is a family style restaurant where items such as salad, bread, chicken wings, dumplings, and noodlesare placed on the table allowing guests to choose and serve themselves. \u00a0The meat (pork and steak) are cooked over an oak fire and brought to the table on skewers. \u00a0After taking our drink orders and delivering our ‘Ohana pineapple-coconut bread (which had a nice fresh flavor to it), our food was all brought to us extremely quickly which was good, but overwhelming at the same time. \u00a0It was hard to determine what to choose when there is so much offered at once. \u00a0\u00a0Sticking with our \u201ctrying new things\u201d attitude, my husband and I tried everything that was offered. \u00a0After trying a little of everything, it was unanimous between us that it was all exceptional.<\/p>\n

I personally really enjoyed the salad which was very light and fresh with fruit as well as greens mixed together using a lilikoi dressing on it. \u00a0\u00a0For meat, my favorite was the sweet-n-sour pork loin. \u00a0I am not a pork fan at all and often try to avoid it a home at all costs; however, this pork had such amazing flavor and when dipped in the peanut sauce they provided I couldn\u2019t get enough. \u00a0My husband really liked the noodles that were tossed in teriyaki sauce with fresh vegetables. \u00a0For meat, he enjoyed the szechuan sirloin steak that was offered. \u00a0Again it all had such amazing flavor all around. \u00a0Like I said we did try the pork dumplings and honey-coriander chicken wings and they also had great flavor but we both stuck to our favorites overall during the meal. \u00a0Along with amazing food, was the specialty pineapple rum drink that I had. \u00a0Not only was it fun, but it was delicious down to the last scrap of pineapple.<\/p>\n

\"Retzlaff<\/p>\n

The meal ended with a banana pudding dessert which neither of us were big fans of, but we did sneak the ice cream off of it. \u00a0Since our food came extremely fast at the beginning, in turn we didn\u2019t get a lot of meat throughout the meal. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure if that was because of timing or because we weren\u2019t overly vocal about what we wanted. \u00a0As being new to the restaurant, we weren\u2019t sure what the policy was for getting more.<\/p>\n

As I stated earlier, out of our six table service meals, \u2018Ohana was our favorite. \u00a0We appreciated the willingness of the cast members to seat us early and be patient enough to explain the process of the restaurant. \u00a0The food was delicious all fresh and well flavored with a variety of choices and an abundance of food. \u00a0Finally, the Polynesian provides a friendly, welcoming and relaxed environment which we loved following a day at the park. \u00a0If you are looking for a table serve meal I would highly recommend \u2018Ohana.<\/p>\n

Magically Speaking Featured Article
\nLibrary of Congress ISSN:1556-3863<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Our Magically Speaking Newsletter Archive \u2013 subscribe today! By Jennifer Retzlaff When my husband and I visited Disney for our ten-year anniversary, we wanted to take advantage of meal time without kids. \u00a0We booked the Disney Dining Plan allowing us a table service meal, quick service meal and a snack each day. \u00a0As I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":7092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wdw-dining"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7091"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87195,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions\/87195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}