56 Days to Disney (missed 57--been busy), and Tortuga Tavern?!

Time kind of got away from me last night so, I skipped the "56 Days to Disney!" post. So, here we are. It's Friday night and, tonight, Caleb was able to get the Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker; Joy and Molly watched some old Fred Astaire movie (which, surprisingly, had a lot of inappropriate scenes); and I was able to finish working on my schoolwork. Sophie and Lily hung out and played in various places.

Instead of just saying, "X-number of days to Disney", I decided to write about something Disney-related: The Tortuga Tavern (formerly El Pirata y El Perico) at the Magic Kingdom.

A couple trips back, Joy and I discovered this quick service restaurant located in the Magic Kingdom, near the Pirates of the Caribbean. We were super excited to find out that this restaurant served our favorite sort of dish: Mexican food! Well, maybe not super authentic Mexican food but, Taco Bell style burritos--which is completely awesome! And they didn't just serve some mega-burritos; you would order your food--which was a tortilla shell with meat and/or beans--and then go to the fixin's bar (for lack of a better term) where you could load up on lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, etc. We truly enjoyed eating there.

Our only problem with the restaurant was the hours. This place keeps really weird hours. And I do mean weird: how about 11am -2:30pm (going off my memory here)? Try checking for the restaurant's hours on the Disney site and the hours are "varies". Definitely strange.

But, knowing they weren't open all day long, we arrived at The Magic Kingdom one day and, even though I was already full from breakfast, we ate at El Pirata y El Perico. I really shouldn't have done that because, as I stated, I was already full but, I couldn't bear the thought of passing up the opportunity to eat there since, by the time I would be hungry again, they'd be closed. I felt a little sick after that and that's probably as close as I've ever come to gluttony.

But, anyway, El Pirata y El Perico went from this:

To this:

When we saw this in 2012, we were really okay with the change. Tortuga is an island in the Caribbean so, it fits with the Adventureland/Pirates of the Caribbean vibe of that area but, I was shocked, and slightly dismayed, this year when I looked at the Tortuga Tavern menu and I saw that, instead of burritos and other Mexican fare, they now only serve barbecue. Barbecue?! Yes, barbecue. Reading the menu on the Walt Disney World website spells it all out.

I know that I can't really complain and say, "Hey, they didn't eat barbecue sandwiches in The Pirates of the Caribbean movies!" because, did they even eat bean and beef burritos in a tavern, with a fixin's bar? Not that I recall.

Anyway, suffice to say that the pressure to force feed myself the next time we're walking by the Tortuga Tavern won't really be an issue. I mean, I like barbecue but, it just doesn't have the same pull (get the pun there? Pulled pork? Not funny, I know.) that the burrito bar did.

Oh well. We'll still go to the Magic Kingdom and we'll still have a great time, even without a Taco Bell-style lunch.

I'm hungry now.