Garden Grill - great food and fun

Samantha returns to finish taking our drink order as soon as Mickey moves on, explaining that sometimes the characters will skip a table if they’re busy with a server, and she didn’t want us to have to wait for Mickey to come around again. Awesome.

The Garden Grill is a family style, fixed price meal, where lots of food comes on large platters. There’s no need to mess with deciding what to order, Samantha explains, since she’ll just bring us everything they serve! She’s adding on chicken tenders and fries, too, in case the kids want any, even though they’re “adults” (10 and up) in the eyes of corporate Disney. She’s wonderful.

The platters of food arrive promptly. There’s flank steak, catfish and turkey with a cranberry relish, some green beans, and a very tasty potato casserole. All yummy.

It’s a very relaxed atmosphere and we have plenty of time to spare, so it’s a lot of fun to eat and chat for a few minutes and then stop to visit with the characters.

Pluto stops by for a visit. Brandon especially wanted to meet Pluto on this trip, since his middle school theater teacher used to work for Disney Cruise Line and was a, um, close friend of Pluto!

I take pics with both my camera and my cell phone, and take a moment to send the cell phone picture in a message to both my parents and Becky’s sister.

Chipmunks! Dale arrives at our table and goes through the picture and autograph routine with the boys. For some reason he doesn’t want to put the shirt on the table to sign it, but wants to hold it in the air on the cardboard, and the boys aren’t sure how he wants them to hold it. Picky chipmunk, that Dale. Fortunately we’ve rotated almost to the front of the restaurant and there’s a character attendant nearby, Arlene, who holds the t-shirt for Dale as he signs.

As we’re almost done visiting with Dale, Chip walks by – and keeps going, waving at us as he goes! I’m sure the thought is that we’ve got a character already, so he’s moving on to the next table. But we need his autograph too! We implore Chip to return and release Dale, which seems to satisfy Chip enough to get him back.

Pictures, signatures. The shirts are starting to look cool even with just four character autographs on them.

Before Chip leaves, he takes the time to blow a kiss to Linda and then to Becky, and then turns to go.

“What, no kiss for me?” I joke.

Chip turns, considers me for a moment, then shakes his head – and holds out his paw.

I go to shake his paw, and Chip pulls it back. Ah, so that’s the way it’s going to be, huh? I drop my hand, and Chip sticks his out again. I go to shake it and it’s pulled back once more. Ornery little chipmunk.

Finally Chip allows our hands to connect and shakes, and then waves goodbye. We’re all laughing as he goes.