Woody's Round Up Rodeo BBQ at Hollywood Studios

This week, Jared shares his experience at Disney World's newest restaurant, Woody's Round Up Rodeo BBQ at Hollywood Studios. 

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On this week's episode of A Dryer Dose of Disney, Jared discusses his experience at Disney World's newest restaurant, Woody's Round Up Rodeo. Welcome to this week's episode of a Dryer dose of Disney. I'm your host, Jared dryer. And today we are going to be talking about the newest restaurant at Disney world here in Orlando, specifically at Hollywood studios. And that is Woody's Roundup rodeo barbecue. And this is a new restaurant that just opened a little bit more than a month ago from when we're recording this. Now we are ahead and recording our episodes versus when they're going to air. So by the time it airs, it will have been open for a few months. But it just opened up recently. We're obviously out here at the dryer dose of Disney condo here in Orlando, and we have the chance of going to Woody's Roundup. This last weekend. So I wanted to share my experience with you guys. I wanted to talk about how cool this restaurant is, all the great foods you guys are going to eat. And I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about it since it's brand new. So that's why we wanted to do an episode specific to just this restaurant and tell you all about it. But before we dive into that, I do want to ask wherever you're listening to us. Please click that subscribe button. Or if you're on YouTube, please click it there as well to get this content delivered to you weekly. Now we are wrapping up our third season here and we do about 20 or so episodes per season. And so we've got this one and one more to wrap up our third. And we will roll right into our fourth season, but when we kick off our fourth season, we're doing it with a bang. We have probably got the biggest and the most important episode you're ever going to want to listen to. That is going to be coming out in the beginning of this fourth season, as well as our butterbeer episode and our how to go to Disney for almost free episode that we're moving over from our Patreon subscribers. So for those of you that support the show through Patreon, you've had early access to those two episodes and we're going to be moving those onto the general podcast. So that way everyone has access to them, but we're going to be replacing those episodes with probably the deepest, darkest secret episode. Out there, and this is our number one tip or trick for the parks. And it's actually something that, as we talked about it as a family, and we talked about it with our friends. We didn't want to share this episode. We decided that this was too good of a secret. We didn't want to let the secret get out into the main world. Because if it did, it has a tendency to run and then people share it with each other and all of a sudden, then it's no longer a secret and it's no longer an advantage for us. And as we talked about it, we said, okay, well, the podcast is doing really well. We've got lots of really good listeners out there that are listening to every episode, but we would like to increase our subscriber base over on Patreon. So this is going to be our absolute best tip or trick that we could ever give any of our listeners. And it's the best way to skip all the lines at Disney and, and for free. So we're going to be putting that out there for our Patreon subscribers only, and it will only ever be available to them. So. You will have to become a subscriber at Patreon to get that secret. But that will be coming in the next few weeks here. As you listened to this episode, or as this one goes live, it will be coming then shortly after thereafter. We will continue to update you guys on the next few episodes about this and about this change, but we will be, like I said, bringing our butterbeer episode to the main podcast, as well as our, how to go to Disney for almost free episode. And we will replace it with our biggest secret. So. Now's the right time. You're going to want to definitely subscribe out there to Patreon and to our podcast and to help support the show in order to get access to that episode. And in fact, we have not decided what tier we're going to put that out there for our supporters, because we do have three different supporting tiers. I at $5 a month, $10 a month or $20 a month. And we're debating, it may go to the$20 one because it's such a good tip. This is, is the best thing that you could ever do at Disney. So you're definitely gonna wanna stay tuned for that. Like I said, we'll keep updating you on the next couple episodes. But that then takes me to Patreon, which we were just talking about. So we do ask if there's any tips or tricks that have saved you time or money. And in fact that really cool one that's going to be going out there soon. You want to become a subscriber over at Patreon and help support this show. That way, you're going to get access to those other tips and tricks and some other cool stuff as well. So check us out at Patreon on the link is down in the description below. And then as you can see, we are today filming in the Dryer dose of Disney condo still. We are in our second guest room here. This is a queen bed behind me. This is our black and white Disney room. We've got some really cool things in here. You probably saw it on another episode. But we love this room. It is very modern. It is very cool. It's it's got some great Disney stuff. You can see the picture by Greg McCullough in the background over there. That's an actual, a charcoal sketch. That he then produced and then we purchased it and put it into our condo here because it matches our motif in this room, which has a lot of black whites and greys. So very cool place to be. You can stay at our condo, the links for both VRBO and Airbnb are in the description below as well. But this is where I'm working from for the few weeks that we're here during the summer and recording, not only recording the podcast, but I also do work for a credit union. And so I'm working from this same bedroom as well. And so this has been a great time. It's been a great setup for us here, and I figured, Hey, let's just start recording some podcasts from here as well. So you'll see me sitting in this spot for the next couple of podcasts until we head back to Denver. And then from there, I'll start recording back in my normal office. And then the last thing, before we dive into this week's episode, and we talk about what he's Roundup rodeo barbecue is. I am wearing this really cool new shirt from Tommy Bahama. Again they are not a sponsor of the show. I'm no in no way affiliated with Tommy Bahama. But I did pick up the shirt over at Disney Springs. A couple of weeks ago. And we had some family in town and this is my new haunted mansion shirt which this is right coinciding with the release of the haunted mansion movie. I, like I said, we do record these in advance. So when you're watching this. That movie's coming out summer of 20, 23. It will be released in about the next week or two from when I'm recording this. But this is a really cool new Disney parks and attractions shirt that Tommy Bahama put out for the haunted mansion. And, you know, it's pretty subtle. You can see up here on my shoulder, like Madam Liotta and then you've got the hitchhiking ghost across the middle. It's just a great shirt. I absolutely love the haunted mansion. It's one of my top favorite rides. And that is actually going to be an episode that we're going to be bringing you guys here shortly, or what are the best rides at each of the parks? So you're definitely going to want to subscribe again and tune in, but let's talk today about Woody's Roundup rodeo, barbecue. And if you've listened to any of my other episodes about food, because we do talk about food a lot. My wife and I are foodies. That's our highlight of going to the parts is trying all the different foods and cuisines. I absolutely love barbecue. You guys know that I talk about that all the time. So I was really excited to go to Woody's Roundup and to go try the food over there. Now I will say that this restaurant is very difficult to get reservations for. In fact, the only way I could get reservations for it is since we're here for so long, I just went through every single day and clicked through every day until I found a reservation and I made it. Luckily it was on a weekend. And so I made it, and then obviously we planned our park day to go to Hollywood studios that day. So that way we could take advantage of going to Woody's Roundup at the same time. So it's a great restaurant. It's very popular. It's very busy. There is no way that I'm aware of, of joining the walkup list. Some of the restaurants do have that digitally. Where you can join the wait list digitally or walk up. And you can do it through the walkup portion at the front counter. This one is reservation only at this point. That'll change here pretty quick. Once it starts to calm down just a little bit, but it's been just completely booked impact since they've opened it. And it was the day that we went. In fact, we went right when it opened at 10 45 in the morning. And had our lunch there. We did an early lunch. And within about 20 minutes of us getting there, the entire restaurant was completely full. So it filled up very quickly. And of course, then it was busy throughout the rest of the day. So it is a tough reservation to get. I am going to highlight and tell you, in our links below, we also have mouse dining. They are a great way to get reservations that are hard to get like Woody's Roundup. The way to do that is you're going to go on their site. You're going to tell them what days you're going and you can set alerts for email or text. To have that sent to your phone or to your email when those reservations come available. I will tell you from using them myself, you're going to want to do texts. Don't do email. You'll be too late. So the second you get the texts, you're going to want to drop everything you're doing. Go right into the, my Disney experience app and find that reservation and claim it. I can tell you, we use that to get space 220 last year and it took me five or six attempts to get it. So it is a challenge to get some of these in demand reservations, but Mouse Dining is going to alert you when those ones come available for you. So you're definitely going to want to check them out and go over there through our link in our description below. But that aside, once you get the reservation, Obviously, it's a really cool thing. It's back in the toy story land, the Pixar area back of Hollywood studios. And if you're familiar with that park, you know, that the Pixar land is back behind the Chinese theater, which is where Mickey and Minnie's runaway railway is. So you have to go around that to get back in there, or you can go through star wars, land, the Galaxy's edge, black Spire outpost. If you go through the Muppets land first and wrap your way all the way around. I will say that if you're just going straight into a toy story, land do it from the Chinese theater side. It's much quicker and much easier than wrapping all the way through star wars. But a lot of people do like to rope drop rise of the resistance. And that's a good way to get back into toy story land. Once you're done with rise of the resistance and millennium, Falcon smugglers run. So it's back in toy story land. It is. Near over by slinky dog dash and the toy story, midway mania, a side of toy story land, and it's kind of tucked away in the bushes back there. So not hard to find, but it is a right when you get in there on the Chinese theater side of the toy story land. Now when you go in there, the theme is you are going into a box that is an Andy's backyard. And every person that's in there as a toy, they will introduce you as toys. They will say we've got some new toys that have. Joined our collection today and it is all scaled down to make you feel and think like you're a toy in this box with all the other toy story toys that are there. So that's a really cool atmosphere effect. There it is, of course, very decorated toy story. Like. With all of the like the ground is covered in the streets. Like you would see on a playmat that little kids would use to drive their cars around. And then obviously all the tables and chairs are primary colors that all very solid colors and it looks kind of like a little Tikes set up in there. So really cool. If you're into the kid's toy stuff in the toy story era. But that's the premise of this restaurant. Now, once you're in there and you're sitting down and you're going through your food and. And the whole nine yards there. You're going to hear, Sarge is going to come on the walkie-talkie radio about every 10 minutes. And he's going to give you an update. He's going to be telling you where Andy is. So maybe Andy's coming to check the toys and if he does, then all of a sudden, everyone in the restaurant is going to stop moving and that's a lot of fun. Or like when we were there, they were talking about a yard sale happening or Sid the terrible neighbor doing something really terrible to other toys. And so that's a really fun interaction piece where a sergeant's coming over that loudspeaker and just having fun with all the people that are in there. But like I said, about every 10 minutes or so that you're in there. So you're going to hear that a lot when you're in there. And my understanding is it's about every hour or so. Andy's always coming over. So chances are as you're going to get it. A chance to see what happens when Andy comes by and everyone gets quiet. And sit still. So that's really cool. Now the food side of it is when you get in there, the menu is prefixed. It's $45 for an adult. It's $25 for a child, and you're going to basically get what's on the menu for everyone now. You do have some selection and obviously you don't have to eat everything that comes to you. And I'm going to take you through the food and, and what we liked about the food. The only real choice that you're going to get is you do have the option of selecting four sides for your table. I believe there's a total of like seven or eight of them. And then you get a choice of what dessert you want. Other than that, the bread and the salads are coming for everyone. And that's going to be the same at every single table. And then the meats are going to be the same for everyone at every table. Now. If you are not a meat eater. So if you're plant-based, they do have a plant-based. Meal that they will give. And I don't know how that works because we didn't order that. So do know that that is available to you. When you go in there, but when you're looking at the price, you know, $45 per adult, it's not terrible when you're comparing it to a Cinderella's Royal table. Again, this isn't a character dining, so you don't have the characters walking around. You do hear a lot from Sarge and the toys through the speakers. But there's no characters walking through there, like Cinderella's Royal table or be our guest or Tusker house, or some of those other ones that you may see at the other parks. So 45 is not terrible, but I will say that there were some downsides and that's going to be in our, I can do this all day tip of the day at the end of the episode. So we'll talk about those here in just a little bit. But once you get there, they're going to bring out the bread. And the bread is by far the best part of this meal. It, at least I thought it was, and the barbecue is great, but the bread just was out of this world. They are like cheddar biscuits and they have pepper jelly, and this is very similar to a pepper gel. You may get it like a Harry and David store. That's what it reminded us of. But it is very, very good. And the pepper jellies not spicy. So the kids aren't going to freak out. It, it, it does give some really good flavor to the bread. Of course our daughter just put a little bit on hers. Your kids don't have to put any on there, but I will tell you that pepper jelly on that cheddar biscuit is amazing. As a matter of fact, I wanted to just keep getting more and more. And the good thing is that this restaurant you can. It's all you can eat, so they will bring you another basket of biscuits. If you guys go through them all. And I do encourage you guys the biscuits are the best part. So you're definitely going to want to enjoy those. With the biscuits, they do bring out three different salads. They bring out a, what they call their watermelon salad, which has just cut watermelon and a bowl. It's not a salad. And then they have a cucumber salad, which is cucumbers with some tomatoes and onions. And then they have a Caesar like salad. I say Caesar, like is it's pretty close to a Caesar salad. It does have Caesar dressing on it. It does have apple slices in it. Sometimes Caesar comes with obviously shaved Parmesan, but usually it comes with sometimes walnuts or other things. This one has sliced apples on it. They're all really good. We enjoyed obviously the Caesar salad more than the other two. My daughter liked the watermelon. She thought that was great. Most kids would, so you know, those, those are your first course starting out. Once you get through those and try not to fill up because you still have two more courses to go. You're going to now get your huge platter of barbecue. And this one is amazing. It's got so many great foods on it. So it's got beef brisket. That was my favorite. I thought that was amazing. It's got ribs, which were my wife's favorite. Those were really good as well. Those are pre sauced. So do know that they're a little bit messy to eat. But the sauce on them is great. And it's something that everyone's going to, like it's not too strong in one flavor or another. But the ribs are great. It comes with a lot of rotisserie chicken in there, which was my daughter's favorite. So between the three of us, we each liked a different meat. More than the others, which actually made sharing really easy because once we tried them all. We just kind of stuck to the ones that we liked the most. And then it also has a sausage and by sausage. I mean this is not like a big kielbasa or a brautwurst. This is a little bit smaller, but it's wound on a toothpick and spirit on there. And that was also really good. So I encourage you try all for the different meats and enjoy those. They do say that they're smoked. I can tell you because I love barbecue. I have a smoker, a Trager at home, and I use it all the time. These are not your typical smoked meats. These are definitely 100% cooked in an oven with the exception of the chicken, which I can guarantee you is on a rotisserie. But the rest of the meats are cooked in an oven that does have maybe some wood-burning element in there. But obviously to control the temperature and to make mass quantities of food, like they need to, they are doing it in a traditional oven. So when you look at the meat typically from a smoker, you're going to get a smoke ring. It's going to be a little bit Pinker in the center. Especially your poultry turns really pink. In this case. The chicken's white, it's done on a rotisserie, like I said, The brisket and the ribs are cooked all the way through and there is no smoke ring and they have very little smoke flavor. So this isn't your traditional smoked meat that you may see at a competition, or if you cook on a trigger or similar type of smoker at home. So, but the meats were all fantastic. You do have three sauces to choose from. They do have a classic, they have a sweet and they have a spicy. I will say the spicy. It's not that spicy. The classic is really tangy. And then the sweet obviously has a load of brown sugar in it, and it's really good. So that was the one that I preferred as well as my daughter was the sweet one. My wife said the sweet and the classic we're both good. So she went back and forth between those the meat. Again, they'll keep bringing you as much as you like. So keep enjoying it and keep sharing it and try all the different meats. You do get to pick four sides. The four that we picked where the baked beans, the Mac and cheese with goldfish crumbles, the loaded tots. And the fried pickles. And I can tell you that these, these were all good. And I'll say the baked beans were, they were okay. They weren't your traditional molasses and brown sugar based baked beans. These are more basic than that. So they were just, okay. The Mac and cheese with the goldfish crumbs was amazing. That was probably the best side that we had that day. The loaded tots. Those were okay. They definitely needed a lot more sauce on them. It's like they put a bowl full of tater tots and then they just drizzled some sauce across the top. Almost as if it was in a squeeze bottle, like a ketchup bottle and they just, you know, put it on the top. It definitely needed to be ladled on and you could put a lot more on there. But they were okay. And then the fried pickles my wife loves fried pickles, so we've made sure to get those. And she said they were really crispy. She said they were really cool in the center. So that was kind of a pleasant surprise for her to have something crispy, but yeah. Cool. And she said they were really good. Now for me, I try to watch. My fried food intake the reason is it gives me a stomachache. So I didn't eat any fried pickles myself, but my wife did, and my daughter did. And they said that they were really good and very comparable to other fried pickles. They are the full Spears. They are not the coin sized ones where they fry them that way. So it is a full spear. We've talked the barbecue, we've talked the sauces. Finally, that'll bring you to the desserts. And again, they have a handful of desserts out there. They have a blueberry lemon cheesecake, which is one of the ones. We got a chocolate silk, which we got and the apple pie, which we got a, they also have like a strawberry lemon, one that's plant-based. We did not try that. We've not had the best luck with plant based foods at the Disney parks especially over at Cinderella's Royal table. So I'd tell you to avoid that one. It's an espresso thing. And my wife loves coffee, so she thought she would try it. And it was terrible. But then they also have Forky's cupcake, which is for the little kids. And since our daughter's 12, we, she got the chocolate silk. And so we didn't get the cupcake either. So we didn't get to try that. But between the three I will say the blueberry lemon cheesecake was phenomenal. know, that these desserts are small. They do come in a very small jar, like a small baby food size jar. And the waiter did tell us that when we were getting to that last course, because we were getting pretty full and he said, don't worry. The desserts are really small. So like I said, they're about the size of baby food. In their own little jar, but the blueberry lemon cheesecake was phenomenal. My wife and I agreed. That was the best one. My daughter did get chocolate silk. She said that one was her favorite. It is very, very strong chocolate. It's very sweet. To the point where it's almost overbearing. So I had a bite of that one. I liked it. I'm not, chocolate's not my go-to. Usually a cheesecake or a fruit based one, like the apple pie, something I would go to first but the chocolate silk was good. She loved it. And then the apple pie we got and it was really good as well. I just think the blueberry lemon cheesecake takes the edge and did better. But that apple pie. Is finely diced apples in there. And of course I like a cinnamon syrup type thing, and that one was awesome as well. So all three are really good. So at the end of the day, we left definitely fat and happy. We were full. In fact for the rest of the day, we didn't eat much of anything else just because it's all you can eat. And, and we ate all that we could before leaving there. So for today's I can do this all day tip of the day. I do want to take you through the two little downsides that we saw when we went to this restaurant. And these aren't major, but these were worth calling out and just pointing out to all of the listeners that are out there, especially if you're like us. Being a family of three were a little bit smaller of a family. And I'm trying to, at the same time of being at Disney and walking all these days, I'm trying to lose a little bit of weight. So I'm trying to watch what I'm eating a little bit. And, you know, with my wife and daughter, they don't eat a ton. So the first thing was obviously this was a ton of food. It was more than we could eat. We had a couple of biscuits leftover. Obviously we had salad leftover. We had some meats leftover. We did eat all the desserts, but we had plenty of sides leftover, including the Mac and cheese, which was awesome just because we couldn't eat at all. Three people couldn't finish it. Now, if we had a fourth person at our table, maybe most of it would be gone. But at this point we couldn't finish it. So I did ask because this is our first serving. We never asked for anything additional. If we could have a box to take home the items we did not eat because I don't like to see food go to waste and I'll eat those during the week while I'm working from the condo. And they told us no. And they said no, because this is an all you can eat restaurant. We do not provide boxes for you to take. And I said, not even if we didn't even finish the first. Serving the first portion. And they said, no, we don't, we don't do that. So I was a little disappointed in that. I get it. And that's their policy and that's probably the same at a Tusker house or crystal palace or some of these other ones that are all you can eat. Liberty, tree Tavern. But when, when you're looking at it from our perspective of, okay, this was $45 a person you know, we're up to about almost 140 bucks for this meal. At this point, just walking in the door. I would like to take home the meats that we didn't get a chance to eat. You know, they wouldn't do it. So that was the one downside. So do know that going into it. So stuff yourself eat as much as you can request more, keep going, but no, you're not going to be able to get a box to take anything home. The second disadvantage is you guys know we're annual pass holders, and we also have the chase Disney card. And there's a link for that down below where the chase Disney card is going to save you some money. When you go to the parks. That's in all of our money saving episodes as well. But being an annual pass holder, we normally get a discount using that. And I asked about both and he said no, we're not accepting any of those discounts at this point in time. And that really threw me for a loop. I was really shocked that they didn't take either of those discounts. And I asked why not? And he said, we're not equipped to do so. I don't know what that means. I don't know. You know, maybe they need some more technology there and they need to update their software or maybe, you know, it's so early in this restaurant being open and the demand is so high. They're not offering any discounts. I don't know what it is, but we weren't able to use any of our discounts that we normally have. So do be warned if you're an annual pass holder or you have the Disney chase credit card. You are going to be paying full price there. Now full price does include that whole meal as well as all your soft drinks or water. Those types of things. Now, if you do get the specialty drinks, those are extra, but outside of the specialty drinks everything's included within the meal. So a little bit of give and take. And then when I looked back and said, okay, let's $45 a person. Like I said, it's not as bad as Cinderella's Royal table or be our guest. That are up at $59 per person. So it's about 14 less and that's offsetting the discount there just a little bit. So I at least walked away feeling good about the food was fantastic. Especially those biscuits. With the pepper jelly, and then the meats and then the desserts. Everything was really good. We had a great time. We really enjoyed it. We probably will go back. But I was a little disappointed. I couldn't use my annual pass discount there. So with that we wish you guys a magical week, as you are planning your next vacation. We hope that this information helps you secure a reservation at Woody's Roundup rodeo, barbecue, and that you have a great time on your next vacation to Disney world. Next week, we are going to talk about icon park in Orlando. And if you don't know what that is, you'll definitely want to tune in because this is something you can do. That is not theme park related. That's a lot of fun and it has a lot of cool stuff over there. And we just did it a couple of weekends ago. And so I wanted to share our experience and the things that we saw there and what we liked and what we didn't like. As well, so that you guys have a chance. If you have a down day and you don't want to do the parks you can go check out icon park and it's like those called icon park. It's not a theme park. It's a. Actual like shopping center. So a lot of cool things to do over there. And we'll talk about that on our next episode, as we wrap up season number three. So we'll talk to you next time. Bye. Bye.