As there was a Ponderosa Steakhouse restaurant just over the road from our hotel on International Drive, Orlando, we usually found overselves heading in that direction in the morning for our usual breakfast fix, before the usually mad day ahead of us. There are about five of these restaurants in the Disney vicinity, two on International Drive and three in nearby Kissimmee.
You can come out of there full to the brim for as little as $3.99 and with the high exchange rate (when we went it was about $1.90 to the pound) that works out at approximately just over £2.00.
They do a breakfast buffet, and a lunch and dinner buffet for $8.99 for a steak buffet. If you choose a different item, either chicken, fish, pork or a larger steak, the price may vary up to approx $15.00. The food is plentiful and you can go back again and again to refill - you even get a clean plate but keep your cutlery otherwise you'll find yourself eating with your fingers, not very easy if its porridge you are eating!
We only ate breakfast there as we wanted to try different places for dinner so I can't comment on the dinner buffet
The breakfast buffet included anything you can think of (and some more). The choice was vast and everything looked appetising, well stocked up and clean. You could choose from scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, bacon (if you can call it that when, if you dropped it on the floor it shattered!), sausages, corned beef hash, quiche, pork and beans, biscuits (small scones and gravy) stewed tomatoes, home fries, grits (similar to semolina), french toast, pancakes, muffins, brownies, cakes, biscuits, ice cream, jelly, porridge, several cereals, a variety of fresh fruits, salad bar and the list goes on. So you can be as healthy or unhealthy as you like. Its quite a eye opener to watch the mixture of different foods that some people put on their plates. Its easy to tell the Americans too before they speak as they always seem to have bacon, pancakes and maple syrup together.
The waiting staff were all very friendly, and nothing was generally too much trouble, except for a couple of time when they were really busy and forgot to bring our refills.
With the lunch or dinner buffet in addition to whatever steak or other meat you choose you can help yourself to chicken wings and nuggets, taco bar, tortillas, nacho chips, meat balls, garlic red potatoes, mashed potatoes, rice, macaroni & cheese, spaghetti, hot pasta, variety of hot and cold vegetables, soups, bread, cookies, jelly, ice cream, puddings, cakes, fruit and salad.
You pay extra for your first drink, but all refills are then free.
Whether or not you are on a budget, this is a great place to eat, fill up hubby and make him happy until tea time! We found that if we were having a lazy day round the pool or shopping we would have something substantial, but if we were going to head off for the parks, it was better if we ate lighter, so maybe on those days we had cereals and fruit, something not so heavy, especially anticipating the theme park rides. You dont want to see breakfast twice in one day!
Before you eat in any of the restaurants in Orlando, make sure you pick up a few free coupons books or tourist magazines (you can generally find these in your hotel or several other places) and make use of the coupons. Quite often you can save 10% of your total bill or get money off. Its well worth looking through them when you have a quiet moment. We kept forgetting to take them with us, but then we are very disorganised. (Must try harder).
Hope this is useful to anyone travelling to Orlando or thinking of it.
we have been to orlando 8 times before we used to love it but then we found a even nicer cheap buffet breakfast place with omlettes to order and breakfast pizzas yum yum. Great review tashaoxo
gingelou 08.09.2005 10:45
I loved going here when I was on holiday, we used to go every morning for breakfast! I wanna go again now! Lou.x
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Aug 27th, 2005
very helpful by (100%):
