The Coral Reef Restaurant

Welcome to this month's Blogorail Orange Loop. Today we are sharing some of the most romantic Disney restaurants.

---

I don't like seafood.

There. I've thrown it out there. Please don't expect me to go down the list to explain (spoken in the stereotypical snooty Maitre d' voice) how delectable the caviar is or how well prepared the shellfish scampi is. The closest I get to eating seafood is Gorton's brand fried fish sticks (slathered in ketchup) or seasoned grilled tilapia out of a box.

Thankfully, the topic of this post is not a restaurant review on the quality of food.

Rather, it is something I'm much more familiar with: romance.

You see, I'm the kind of person that loves romance. I buy my wife flowers. When we were dating, I made her mixtape CDs and wrote her poems. Even though we've been together going-on ten years (in January), I still put on slacks and a tie when we go on a date. I celebrate Valentines Day, Sweetest Day, our wedding anniversary, our starting-to-date anniversary, our engagement anniversary. I put the "hopeless" in hopeless romantic.

Therefore, when we visited Walt Disney World for our first trip as a couple back in 2012 to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, I knew that I needed to treat her to something special on the evening of our anniversary.

There was just one problem: we were poor.

Lucky for me, we were able to utilize a vacation deal offered by Disney to acquire the free Disney Dining Plan. I splurged a little and booked us a room at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (where, coincidentally, on the same day we visited the Coral Reef, my wife almost killed a giraffe), and was able to add the Disney Dining Plan to our vacation package, ultimately giving us one snack, counter service, and casual meal each day of our trip. In planning our trip, my wife and I decided that we would only eat at restaurants new to both of us. Because, at that point, I'd visited Walt Disney World more than ten times in my 23 years, I'd eaten at many of the sit-down restaurants that required an ADR. Our final list of the causal dining experiences we'd partake in on our trip eventually consisted of the Crystal Palace, Tony's Town Square, Wolfgang Puck's Grand Cafe (at the then-Downtown Disney), and the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant at Disney's Hollywood Studios. But none of these were really "anniversary worthy." Ultimately we came to the decision of making a reservation at the Coral Reef Restaurant for the evening of our anniversary, but that problem of my taste palette crept back up:

I don't like seafood.

However, being the romantic that I was, I decided to suck it up and make the most out of our evening for my wife's sake, who enjoys an occasional dish of Dory and Nemo...erm, I mean, seafood.

"One day when the boss gets hungry guess who gon' be on the plate?" Oops, wrong movie...

Upon arriving at Epcot for our romantic anniversary meal, we headed over to the Seas with Nemo pavilion. However, I was somewhat discouraged that, while an "expert" on Walt Disney World, I was unsure where the Coral Reef Restaurant was located. I knew that it featured Mafia-esque floor-to-ceiling windows into an aquarium, because I had seen it once in an episode of Full House or Boy Meets World sometime back in the 90s. Lucky for me, I didn't have to look stupid in front of my bride. Upon arriving at the entrance courtyard outside the Seas with Nemo and Friends Pavilion, I noticed a discreet peach-colored sign off to the right of the show building in a planter. We wandered down a path located to the northeast of the pavilion, below the monorail beam, until we came to a set of glass double doors that served as the entrance to the establishment. Large seahorses serve as the handles to the glass doors, setting the stage for the elaborate under-the-sea theming of the restaurant inside.

Upon entering the restaurant's main lobby, I noticed how dark it was. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust. In fact, it was almost too dark. I checked us in and they requested that we have a seat on a bench along a wall behind the hostess' stand to wait for our table to be ready. As my eyes finally adjusted to the dim lighting, I began to notice delightful details. The light fixtures on the ceiling resembled sea anemones, while seashell shaped lights emerged from the walls.

Anemo-none. A nemenem-menome-nememen-nenemone...You get the idea.

A large, opaque glass wall blocked our view of the restaurant, colored in various shades of teal, blue, and green to create the illusion of being underwater. Wave patterns on the floor add to the undersea theming of the restaurant. 

Within a few minutes, a cast member arrived to take us to our table. As we passed the end of the large glass wall, the big reveal happened. I paused for a moment in surprise with the scene before me. All pictures I'd seen of the restaurant did not do it justice in person. Before me was a dining room that was tiered along three levels featuring booths and tables. The tiered seating allowed for all in the restaurant, regardless of table location, to be able to see the large windows on the left side of the restaurant looking into the Seas pavilion's aquarium.I was excited to see the cast member leading us to the left, down some steps to the lowest tier, to a table seated parallel to the windows of the aquarium. 

The dining room was also very dim, lit by the anemone- and shell-shaped fixtures hanging from the ceiling and poking out from the walls. The dimness of the room allowed those partaking in their meal to see out the windows into the undersea environment at the tropical fish and sharks that occasionally passed by the glass. 

We took a few moments to glance at the menu, and, because we were dining at a seafood restaurant, I decided to order...

...a steak of course!

I ended up having the $33 Grilled New York Strip Steak that came with mashed potatoes and vegetables, while my wife ended up ordering the $24 Oven Roasted Chicken Breast with creamy polenta cake (whatever that is) and onions. Lucky for me, we didn't have to pay for this meal because we were using our free upgrade of the Disney Dining Plan (whew!). As part of the dining plan, we got a dessert with every meal. I don't remember what we ordered, but because our reservation stated it was our anniversary, the kitchen prepared a fancy plate for us with the words "Happy Anniversary" scrolled across it in raspberry chocolate sauce. I do remember that our waiter wasn't the most professional (I think he was upset we had the dining plan because his tip wasn't as big as he would like...after we paid he was very cold toward us, but maybe he was just having a bad day). 

 I don't remember much about the food itself, but rather the experience as a whole. The "show" and experience we had while dining, however, was by far the best. The performers in this "dinner show" are the fish. Numerous tropical fish swam past the glass constantly, with the occasional shark slowly creeping past. Near the end of our meal, SCUBA divers participating in the DiveQuest experience descended in a flood of bubbles in front of the windows, swimming past and, at times, waving at those eating their romantic dinner.

Fish are friends, not...oh, well! When at the Coral Reef...

Eating dinner "underwater" while watching SCUBA divers swim by makes me feel like I'm living in the Sea Castle from Horizons!

Overall, the dim lighting, higher-end meal, sharks and romantic fish, and the quiet ambient music of the restaurant creates a lovely, romantic setting. Most guests are so distracted and enamored by the scene in the aquarium that they speak in almost quiet conversations, making the dining setting even more intimate, as though you share the empty restaurant with those sharing your table.

After our meal, we left the restaurant hand-in-hand and wandered out to Epcot's Fountain of Nations, sharing a spectacular Corey-and-Topanga kiss in front of the spray of the timed-to-music water feature with the pinkish-purple sphere of Spaceship Earth in the background. 

Well, not really.

We did enjoy a nice evening stroll around World Showcase, though. But the highlight of our anniversary evening was the romantic meal we shared at the Coral Reef Restaurant.

For more romantic Disney restaurants, check out the other great posts from the Blogorail!

---

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail Orange | Romantic Disney Restaurants Loop:

• 1st Stop - The Delightful Life | Palo
• 2nd Stop - Rolling with the Magic | Morimoto Asia
• 3rd Stop - Distalgic | Coral Reef Restaurant
• 4th Stop - DISTherapy | Tiffins
• 5th Stop - My Dreams of Disney | Cinderella's Royal Table

A River Fantasy from the Jungle Navigation Company

Welcome to this month's Blogorail Green Loop. Today we are sharing some of the best queues at the Disney Parks.

---

One of the things that I love most about vacationing at Walt Disney World is their ability to immerse guests in story.

Yeah, the special effects, technology, ride mechanisms, and animatronics are cool, but it is the story that can make or break an attraction or land. These stories touch (pun intended!) all of the senses to create the illusion that guests have literally stepped into the time period, place, or plot of whatever Imagineers wanted conveyed when they developed the attraction. Take, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean. Imagineers didn't just create cardboard cutouts of buildings with some fake palm trees and call it a day: layers of dimensional and sensory detail was created to give the illusion that guests were really in a seventeenth century Caribbean town being looted by ruthless pirates. The musty smell of water fills the nostrils of guests, letting you know that you are being transported geographically. Clouds are painted on the ceiling of the ride building to place the attraction at night time. Spanish and pirate lingo is used to place guests in a specific location, while the well-known song, "Yo Ho! A Pirates's Life for Me" gives the attraction, which could otherwise be sinister, a playful undertone. Imagineers also used accurate historical layering of details to place guests in a specific era of history (I explain specifically how accurate the architecture of the attraction is in another post, which you can find here).

My absolute favorite attractions don't just immerse guests in the story while riding through show scenes, however. Instead, many of these attractions start telling their story and placing guests into a specific time and place before they've even boarded the ride vehicles, while waiting in the attraction's queue. These queues not only help to establish the story of the attraction, but also help to pass the time away through the layers of detail, oftentimes engaging more than one of the five senses in the process.

One of my all-time favorite attraction queues is that of the Jungle Cruise in the Magic Kingdom's Adventureland. The attraction (which I detail in more depth in my book, A Historical Tour of Walt Disney World Vol. 1), takes guests on an adventure down the rivers of the world through Asia, Africa, and South America. Along the way, guests pass by exotic plants and animals, coming face to face with lions, tigers, and...the backside of water (HA! You thought I was going to say bears! Oh, my...). The attraction is meant to take place during the early 1900s during the age of western imperialism, shortly after the Berlin Conference when Germany facilitated the breakup of Africa to avert war between European nations. This resulted in European nations colonizing land in Africa and Asia for access to raw materials, often at the expense of the native peoples. However, this attraction does not touch on the brutal treatment of the native peoples, but rather takes on a more humorous tone, acting as an expedition providing tours for guests to explore the flora and fauna of the world's rivers.

The story of the Jungle Cruise begins before guests even reach the queue. As guests enter Adventureland from the hub, they now pass the new Skipper Canteen restaurant, which serves as the mess hall and headquarters of the Jungle Navigation Co., which provides the exotic tours of the world's jungle rivers. As guests wander deeper into the jungles of Adventureland, a ship's mast holds a sign made from a boat rudder and paddle, encouraging guests to wander down a path and away from the land where the boat dock is located at which guests will board their boats for their jungle river expedition.

Guests travel down a ramp or stairs to the courtyard in front of the attraction's queue building, where a large sign advertises to guests the Exotic Jungle Cruise Expedition, explaining that the tours of the world's jungles would provide guests with "comfortable accommodations" provided by "expertly trained tour guides."

"Expertly trained," eh?

Other broadsides are pasted along the exterior wall of the queue building and along the walls along the switchbacks, advertising various tours and expeditions provided by the Jungle Navigation Company's affiliates. These broadside posters allude to some of the sights guests aboard the Jungle Cruise will see, such as a Nile crocodile and Asian and African elephants. 

Excursions to the land that time forgot. And so will you.

Join the Elephant Safari Company as they search for lions, tigers, and bears. Oh, my.

As guests enter the queue building and pass through the attraction's turnstiles, an excellent example of syncretism on the part of the Imagineers can be found on the right: an archeological dig site featuring implements like shovels and picks, surrounded by crates addressed to Doctor Henry Jones, making reference to the Indiana Jones films.

The walls are lined with various artifacts that would be used on a jungle expedition, such as mosquito netting, canteens, and rifles, as well as various things tour guides have picked up along their journeys, like African masks.

Not sure having life jackets handing on the wall is a good omen for a jungle river expedition company...

As guests continued to wind through the queue's switchbacks, they pass by the booking office for the Jungle Navigation Company. The office appears as though the owner of the office has recently stepped out: a ceiling fan spins while a desk lamp illuminates papers strewn across the desk. Books and artifacts from jungle expeditions decorate the office, including framed insects, pith helmets, and tea kettles, adding to the story that a western imperial bureaucrat operates the tourist organization. The level of detail in this office is incredible, really helping to contribute to the place and time of the attraction's setting. Mosquito netting hangs around the open air office's windows to prevent disease-carrying insects from reaching the office's occupant. This is a detail that Imagineers put in to simply enhance the story presented in the queue; it serves no purpose except to further the plot and create a deeper theming.

The queue also features signs and props that utilize the sense of humor that permeates throughout the script of the skipper. Let's face it: as a teacher, my sense of humor is very cheesy. I make bad puns on a regular basis. As a result, I get a pretty big kick out of the jokes in the script of the attraction and the queue. One of my favorite examples hangs from a rafter of the queue building, just prior to the dock where guests board the jungle cruise boats. A tee-shirt, mauled by claws, advertises "free kittens to a good home." Another sign hanging in the queue is attached to a large cage, encouraging those standing in line from not putting their hands inside the cages where "live cargo" is kept (if they want to keep their hands, that is).

Someone seems a little too enthusiastic to give away these "striped" kittens...

A little detail I always love about the queue of the Jungle Cruise (and one that only seems to be turned on occasionally), is located just prior to loading onto the ride vehicles. Sitting atop a barrel is a small cage holding a large tarantula. When the effect is working, this tarantula jumps, startling guests standing nearby. Upon closer examination, it is obvious that the tarantula is fake, but when that thing jumps (caused by a simple effect of a small piston from below), it can certainly startle those around into thinking a real spider is enclosed within the cage.

Another of my favorite parts of the queue sits across the river from where guests load onto the Jungle Cruise boats. As I explain in my chapter on the Jungle Cruise in Volume 1 of my book, 

"As guests approach the loading dock, a small shack is spotted across the river, situated along the bank. The shack has a wrap-around porch with a roof supported by bamboo poles. The roof is made of thatched straw and is angled at a steep grade, representative of the imperial architecture of the 1930s European jungle colonies. Mosquito netting hangs from the railings of the porch, and a gun rack holding numerous rifles is mounted to the wall of the hut. Other props lie about the porch, including a cane chair, a pith helmet, and a long red crutch, leading the observer to assume that the owner of the hut may have contracted some sort of exotic disease that has left a crippling effect. A curtain hangs in the doorway of the cabin, behind which can be seen the foot of a bed. A sign with red letters spelling “Keep Out!” hangs from the porch, which may reinforce the assumption that a person with a dangerous, contagious disease lies inside, but also warning passengers of the “dangers” that lurk ahead on their jungle voyage."

I love this detail for the same reason I love the office explained above: it would have been cheaper and easier for Imagineers to simply leave this area as part of the dense jungle waiting to be explored, and guests would not have known any better. However, in an effort to further set up the story of the attraction, as well as allude to the mysteries and dangers of the adventure lying ahead (Who lives in this cabin? Where is the occupant? Why should people keep out of it? Is it infested by dangerous bugs? Is the occupant sick with malaria?), the ride's designers took the time and effort to build this set piece, whose only purpose is to add to the story of the attraction and build anticipation.

Maybe this is Uncle Orville's vacation home and he just wants his privacy...

The Jungle Cruise queue takes on new life during the last few months of the year when the attraction receives the "Jingle Cruise" Christmas overlay. Christmas lights hang stringed throughout the queue, while reindeer antlers adorn the masks on the wall. However, my favorite part of the new Christmas-y queue is the booking office. Once again, the booking agent has stepped out of the office (he seems to never be around when I visit the attraction...so much for booking a tour!), but this time has left behind seasonal decorations. A silver tinsel Christmas tree stands on his desk, illuminated by a rotating tree light. Poinsettias, garlands, and Christmas lights hang around the office, adding a festive layer to an already detailed scene.

Talk about a fire hazard...if they're not careful, they could burn down the entire rain forest with that tree light!

However, the part of the Jungle Cruise queue that ties the whole waiting-in-line-story-telling experience together for me is the queue audio loop, which, unfortunately, many guests don't even notice. As guests enter the jungle outpost building, they are greeted by period music being played over a radio station hosted by Skipper Albert Awol, known as “the voice of the jungle, broadcasting to all points unknown.”  Awol plays various instrumental and crooner songs in the style of 1920s and 1930s swing music, performed by artists like Dick Powell and Coon Sanders, interspersed with news and jokes relating to the attraction. Those familiar with the attraction would appreciate Awol’s jokes that those who are not would not necessarily understand. For example, Awol announces to skippers that “a blue jeep that has previously been reported missing has turned up at a nearby base camp,” referencing the scene where the gorillas have destroyed a camp. Another humorous piece of advice Awol gives to skippers is that “failure to respect the animals may result in pointed confrontation,” which corresponds to a Marc Davis-inspired scene of explorers climbing up a tree while an angry rhino tries to impale them with his horn. As a history teacher (I actually use this music loop in my classroom to teach the music of the 1920s) and amateur historian, I love this music, because it truly places you as the guest in a specific time period. For a few minutes, at least, the illusion is created that you truly are in a station awaiting a jungle river safari sometime during the first decades of the twentieth century in a remote outpost.

While many feel that Main Street USA gets them into the Walt Disney World mood, preparing them for the rest of their magical stay at the resort, I believe that, for me at least, it is the Jungle Cruise and the immersion of story within it that prepare me for the adventures I will experience throughout my stay. The levels of detail that the queue holds can create something truly magical, transporting you back in time and across thousands of miles to somewhere new. However, this only works if you follow this suggestion: the next time you are waiting in line for a Disney attraction, try to recognize that you are not just "waiting in line" to experience the ride or show, but rather that the queue is meant to be the introduction to the story. By having this attitude, your experience of the attraction as a whole, queue included, will be that much richer.

For more great Disney queues, check out the other great posts from the Blogorail!

---

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail Green | Best Disney Queues Loop:

• 1st Stop - Distalgic | Jungle Cruise
• 2nd Stop - Magical Mickey Tips | Haunted Mansion
• 3rd Stop - What's the Point? | Dumbo
• 4th Stop - Adventurer Mom | Kids Favorite Queues
• 5th Stop - Superheroes and Teacups | Toy Story Mania