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The resort boasts 2 very nice restaurants, Shutters (pictured) and Sonya's. Shutters is casual and Sonya's is more up-scale, though far from formal. There is also a pool-side bar/snack bar called Bleacher's and a lounge in the main building with a stunning ocean view called the Green Cabin Room. As we were staying in a studio and didn't have a kitchen, we ate nearly all of our meals at one of these establishments. This increased the cost of our stay substantially, as they are not cheap places to eat. The prices for kid's meals (all that we ever ordered) at Bleacher's aren't too bad, but Shutters has your standard (read too high) hotel restaurant prices and Sonya's is a little more expensive.

Here are our thoughts on the various eating establishments:

The frozen drinks from Bleacher's are quite good, and of course the atmosphere didn't hurt. Each day they have a "drink of the day", but the only one we tried was a Citron Absolut Lemonade Slushy. The lemonade slushys - a regular on the menu - are quite good and, as you can imagine, adding vodka didn't hurt much. The kid's meals, served in a plastic beach pail, are also pretty good and actually quite filling for an adult (especially when, like us, you're having huge breakfast and dinners). All we ordered were chicken strips and grilled cheese sandwiches. They were served with fresh fruit (grapes when we were there) and quite yummy cookies.

Shutters is a wonderful place for breakfast and a decent place for lunch. The dinner menu is fairly daring - but not too - and, as is often the case with resort restaurants in general and Disney restaurants in particular, the execution was not as good as the conception. Breakfast at Shutters, on the other hand, I can't recommend highly enough. Here is a breakdown of various things we ordered from Shutters:

Breakfast

Mushroom omelet - Andie was impressed that they used fresh herbs
Eggs Benedict - A "special" (not on the regular menu). Made with artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes added to the hollandaise sauce. Absolutely wonderful
Mickey Waffles - Need I say more?
French Toast - Thick slices of cinnamon swirled bread dipped in egg batter and deep-fried. My arteries are hardening just thinking about it. Absolutely awesome. The best French toast I've ever had.

Dinner:

Conch fritters - unusual and tasty.
Black bean chorizo soup - really good. One of the best things on their (non-breakfast) menu.
Caesar salad - too mayonnaise-y & heavy
Pasta dish - I forget exactly what it was but Andie called it "pretty good".
Jerk steak sandwich - Pretty good, but steak was a bit tough.

One note on the kid's meals. Charlie had a PB&J sandwich the one time we had lunch at Shutter's. The sandwich was trimmed by a cookie-cutter into three round sections strategically arranged to resemble a certain mouse. The bread was your standard white bread - except it was anything but white. Instead it was a psychedelic swirl of bright blue red and yellow. Very weird - but pretty cool. Being the thrill seeking kind of cat I am, I took a bite. It tasted like bread. Our server Chuck told us that Disney was using the bread as a new standard for all the Walt Disney World restaurants.

Sonya's:

We had reservations for Sonya's on Wednesday Night. This turned out to be fortuitous because DVC members get a 10% discount on Wednesdays. This was Andie's and my one grownup night out - we hired a baby-sitter through the hotel's guest services for the evening. Sonya's is, in reality, simply an extra dining room off Shutter's. In fact its only entrance is through Shutter's. The dining room has a more elegant feel, with dark wood and stained glass. It's still quite casual, though. You would feel equally out of place here in an evening gown as shorts and a T-shirt. The service was good and the food quite pleasing. Fresh bread was delivered to our table with an assortment of flavored butter - a nice touch. Andie had steak and I had roast duck. Normally I wouldn't dare order duck at a place like this - it's too easy to get wrong - but, after seeing them roasting on a spit on the way in I couldn't resist. I wasn't disappointed. For dessert Andie had Coconut Creme Brulee and I had an Apple Tart. Both were delicious.

Before our dinner at Sonya's we had drinks and appetizers in the Green Cabin Room, a bar and lounge on the second floor of the lobby with a magnificent view of the ocean. Mother Nature was cooperative and provided us with an absolutely stunning sunset as we enjoyed our drinks. I highly recommend a sunset drink here. Kids are allowed so if you don't have a baby-sitter you can still enjoy the view.

We also had one dinner at a restaurant in Vero Beach called Mr. Manatee's. This is a bright, fun family oriented seafood restaurant with good prices and great food. Andie has deep fried shrimp with coconut (I tried it and loved it, and I'm not a big fan of shrimp), while I had fried oysters.

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