I’m planning a TS lunch on our way out of the park after an Animal Kingdom morning with DW, DS7, & DS9. It’s our last day and I want to head out of the park with something splashy before flying home in the afternoon. Touring plans predicts CL3 for Sunday the 18th.
Tiffins would be neat, but I don’t think the boys would be up for that level of sensory deprivation. They are quiet when the restaurant is noisy, but when the restaurant is quiet, the flow of the universe gets reversed.
We went to Sanaa once years ago and DW enjoyed the animal views a lot. I enjoyed the food. It is out of the park, but we will be leaving the park anyway, it’s not as much trouble. Should be easy to get seats for lunch without ADR, yes? We would have to Uber back to our hotel, I’m sure.
The other option that works for us is Yak & Yeti. Themeing looks cool. Menu looks exciting. Never been ,but I imagine that place is a bit of a mad house at noon. Definitely want a lunch ADR. Skipping the bus ride to the AK lodge means we could get in one last ride in on Everest.
You’re absolutely right about the convenience of Yak & Yeti, if you want to do more rides, it’s definitely the choice for you. If you happen to have a Landry’s Select membership, you can walk into Y&Y and get the next available table. So you’re talking about at least 2 extra hours of touring vs Sanaa.
My kids still talk about Sanaa as the restaurant where they got to decorate their own cookie for dessert. Don’t know if they still have that or not but with kids, sometimes it’s the little things.
I have mixed opinions about Y&Y. It’s themed very well, but the food is hit or miss. The seared ahi salad is one of my favorite lunches in WDW, but everything else I’ve had there has been mediocre. When planning for our last trip I asked DW if there were any restaurants that she did or didn’t want to go back to, she said “Anything but that nasty Chinese restaurant in AK”…
Lol. I can hear my DW saying the same thing. Sometimes it seems like she’s got a special knack for finding the stinkers on a menu.
I’m usually pretty decisive on the restaurant selection, but this one was hard for me. I’m leaning towards Y&Y at this time because I’ve never been there, so the excitement of trying something new adds onto the time savings of avoiding an extra bus ride on the last day of the trip. But I also hate crappy meals. You only get so many calories to eat in this life and I hate to waste them on carelessly assembled food service product. If we hit too many food disappointments on the trip, I’ll consider switching to Sanaa during the trip.
Any advice on what to get or avoid at Y&Y?
Does anyone have an experience using a Landry Select card at Y&Y? In theory you should get the next table, but does it really work?
The seared ahi salad is excellent (and large); I’ve had that there several times. The seafood curry was extremely heavy and didn’t really have much flavor (couldn’t possibly serve something with a lot of spice in WDW). I forget exactly what my wife had; it was one of the “Chinese” dishes - it may have been the cashew chicken.
We love Y&Y, have been 10 times at least. The Landry’s card is great, they will seat you before people with reservations. Our favorites are the duck, coconut shrimp and crispy honey chicken.
I haven’t done Sanaa but we loved Yak and Yeti. Honestly it was probably food-wise my favorite meal of our trip. Plenty for kids who aren’t too adventurous. We were there for lunch and yes, it’s busy but our kids also do well in noisier environments like that. And it’s big, which gave us places to walk around and look at while we were killing time waiting for our food. We aren’t planning to do AK this next trip, but I would definitely eat there again if we were.
Don’t know if they still have that or not but with kids, sometimes it’s the little things.