Favorite Disney restaurants

[jaylea]

Please help! Hotel is booked, we know what parks we are going to, but I am completely overwhelmed with the restaurants and need to make reservations.

Kids will be 9 and 5. Staying at Grand Floridian.

[jaylea]

Well, we have a couple of days staying at the hotel. Two days at MK. Thinking a day at Hollywood and maybe one other park.

[vicky]

Jan 8, 2016 15:22:02 GMT -5 @themommymonster said:

We enjoy the Crystal Palace breakfast with the Winnoe The Pooh characters at magic Kingdom. The puffed French toast is so good.

My favorite!!!
I make the breakfast casserole every year for Christmas.

[pagas]

What characters are your kids into? Are you using the dining plan?

[Amy]

Jan 8, 2016 15:21:33 GMT -5 jaylea said:

Well, we have a couple of days staying at the hotel. Two days at MK. Thinking a day at Hollywood and maybe one other park.

I would do EPCOT as your other park if you are wanting to focus on food at all

are you wanting to do 1 table credit places or some 1 and some 2? What kind of characters do you want to meet?


I'd eat at the monorail resorts a lot if I was at GF

[firedancer10288]

We really enjoyed the food at Coral Reef. Also loved Be Our Guest-it's like being in the movie.

[luckyval]

Yeah, you need to pick which park you'll be at that day and then plan accordingly.

Favs off the top of my head:

Magic Kingdom: Crystal Palace, if only for the easy character meet and greet ops

Epcot: Lotus Blossom Cafe or San Angel

Animal Kingdom: Rain Forest Cafe or the Yak and Yeti (omg - soooo much food for a quick service place)

Hollywood Studios: Sci-Fi Drive-In Diner (go at dinner - the dim lights and movie clips gave the kid a chance to wind down)

[jaylea]

No meal plan. Some of my meals are already covered for work. Kids aren't too into characters, but they want to go to the place in the GF (1900). I'll check the crystal palace

[revolution]

Be our guest (mk)
Crystal palace (mk)
Akershus. (Epcot)

[Amy]

For Bfasts -
1900 PF
Kona
Crystal Palace

In MK-
Be Our Guest
Liberty Tree tavern
Columbia Harbor House for quick service

Dinners on your monorail loop -
'Ohana
Nacroosees (signature)
Kona
1900 PF

EPCOT -
Via Napoli
Chefs de France
San Angel

[keyslover]

I am not a fan of the MK restaurants, but I haven't been to Be Our Guest yet.

For eating, I try to be at Epcot I know not totally helpful.

At Hollywood Studios- 50's Prime Time is fun. Setting is like an old 50's Kitchen. Mama Melrose was good too.

The Kona Cafe at the Polynesian is good. I enjoy Tea at the Grand Florida also. I think your kids may enjoy it too- they have a kids menu.

[Bad Dingo]

Our two favorite meals:

Pre-park opening breakfast at Sci-Fi Dine-In. The food and atmosphere were fabulous and it put us in a great location to sign up for Jedi training before the hoards got there.

Dinner at Sanaa - it was great hanging out watching the animals while waiting for dinner and then the view from the tables was fabulous too. The food was pricey and portions were smallish, but it was all delicious. We went there on our Animal Kingdom day.

[otowngirl]

It's not in the park, but our favorite place is actually at the Animal Kingdom Lodge -- Boma. It's buffet style, but so great!

[fluffycookie]

San Angel at Epcot and Raglan Road at Disney Springs.

[cville]

I liked the Crystal Palace breakfast and the best part was getting in early. We have castle pictures of the whole family and no strangers are in them!

I liked Be Our Guest for lunch, it was cute.

Chef Mickey's was a surprising hit. Tasty and the kids went nuts for the characters.

And I took L on a date to Cinderella's castle for dinner, which she liked even though she doesn't usually go nuts for princesses. Mainly because I wanted to eat there. Ha.

[dojo]

Ohana was really fun and on the monorail for you at the Polynesian. I don't otherwise recommend going to any restaurant that will require travel to another resort. It can take an hour and with little kids that is often a waste of time and energy. All of the world pavilion restaurants in Epcot are truly outstanding and good value. Chef De France is one of my favourites.

Eta: re character dining - if money isn't a concern I hear the character dinners are great (Cinderellas table etc) but at $65 per adult for a buffet, it's not where I have wanted to spend my dollar. Instead we have done character breakfasts which I believe are closer to $25 and a little less crowded.

[cleo29]

Raglans in Disney Springs
Tepan Edo- Japan (Epcot, World Showcase, which has some amazing restaurants)
The quick service meal in "Morocco"

Liberty Tavern Inn, MK
San Angel Inn- Epcot, Mexico -world showcase
The Norwegian restaurant in Epcot has a good breakfast and you meet a lot of the princesses. My girls are still iffy about the furry characters. Lol

California Grill at The Contemporary is amazing.

And, some that say buffet is actually served to your table rather than you heading to the buffet. They will bring you as much of anything as you want. I like this in that the food comes out at a nice pace, is delicious and we don't have to constantly get up from the table.

[cleo29]

Oh and for reservations for dinner, try to get around the 6 o'clock hour. When H and I went together we set times for what we would do here, but would be starving by 6 due to all the walking. SO, we have learned that anywhere from 5:30-6:30 is ideal.

[gringachef]

I'm not a fan of the food options at MK :/ We usually try to eat breakfast at the hotel, do a few hours there and then head to Epcot for lunch but if we've got to do lunch there we go to Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn in Frontierland for a taco salad.
We did a dinner at Cinderella's Table and it was ok, but not great. I believe it was a 5 option menu. We did luck out with a table right at the window at fireworks time which was completely magical.

Epcot- SO many good places to eat but my favs are:
Via Napoli for amazing pizza
Wine bar in Italy
Biergarten is awesome & fun
Chef's de France is always good & easy for picky eaters

Animal Kingdom- Yak & Yeti

Resorts. etc.-
California Grill (I worked there so I'm partial to it;))
Il Mulino (swan)
Flying Fish (boardwalk)

[cleo29]

This was the 50s Prime Time Cafe. Still one of my all time favorites LOL

[Mrs. ChanandlerBong]

Counter service:

Magic Kingdom: Pecos Bill's Tavern, Columbia Harbor House
Epcot: Sunshine Seasons cafe, Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie (France)
Hollywood Studios: Pizza Planet, Writer's Stop ( more of a coffee, muffin place, but perfect for a picky eater)
Animal Kingdom: Flame Tree BBQ


Table Service

Magic Kingdom: Crystal Palace, Be Our Guest, Liberty Tree Tavern
Epcot: Le Celier, Via Napoli, Garden Grill
Hollywood Studios: Hollywood Brown Derby
(we didn't do table service at Animal Kingdom)

non park restaurants:
Whispering Canyon Cafe- Wilderness Lodge
Trails End- Fort Wilderness
Hoop-de-do review Fort Wilderness
Fulton's Crab House-Downtown Disney

[Deleted]

Fave date night California Grille
Fave Fab five characters meal Tusker House
Fave pre RD breakfast Crystal Palace
Fave Epcot TS Meal WS Morocco or LE Cellier
Fave Epcot TS FW Garden Grille
Fave MK TS lunch
Fave MK TS dinner BOG
Fave HS TS 50s PT
Fave AK TS Tusker House
Fave Resort Dining Saana Grand Flo Cafe & Olivia's
Fave CS options
MK Columbia Harbor House
Epcot just snack around the WS
HS Starring Rolls
AK Flame Tree

[cville]

Y'all, this thread is giving me PTSD flashbacks to Disney planning. Ha.

We had one reservation per day and otherwise ate at our resort food court or winged it. We're WILD.

[jeaniebueller]

Check the crowd calendars to figure out which park on which day too.

[Deleted]

Jan 8, 2016 17:07:53 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

Tusker house doesn't actually have THE fab five. They don't have Minnie Mouse. So if you have a Minnie lover, she will be disappointed. My girls love Minnie and only tolerate daisy.

That's riiiiigghhhhttt, I always forget who is where.

[stephm0188]

Yeah, Chef Mickey's is the only place at WDW where you can find the fab five in one spot. That's about the only thing it has going for it.

IMO, the places without characters have better food than the places with. Character meals are a nice experience, but we tend to enjoy the food more at places without characters.

[abs]

We just went last month.

By far our best meal was at Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club. My 5 year old agrees.

By far the worst meal was Cinderella's Table.

We enjoyed breakfast at Ohana and Crystal Palace. 1900 Parkfare was ok. Tusker House was a huge disappointment.

For lunch we just did counter service. There was a French bakery in Epcot that was good.

Dinner was all kind of bad except for Yachstman. We mostly did character stuff though and won't make that mistake again.

[cbwm1]

We went to:

Kona Cafe in the Polynesian (pretty tasty!)
Le Cellier at Epcot (so, SO good)
Whispering Canyon (super fun atmosphere, the mashed potatoes were phenomenal and my ribs were awesome)
50s Prime Time Diner at Hollywood Studios (we loved this - theming was awesome, food really tasted home cooked)
Tusker House at Animal Kingdom (this was just okay for me for the cost, but was a fun character meal with Mickey, Daisy, Goofy and Donald)
Boatwright's at Port Orleans Riverside (super yummy - we were surprised by this one)

[bronxgirl]

Jan 8, 2016 15:28:22 GMT -5 otowngirl said:

It's not in the park, but our favorite place is actually at the Animal Kingdom Lodge -- Boma. It's buffet style, but so great!

I LOVE that place. I only ate there once, but it was amazing. We also used the opportunity to look around AKL, see the animals, roast marshmallows and play on the playground. I've also had dinner at 1900 Park Faire in GF and it was a fun character meet and greet. the food was decent, at least for a character meal.  At MK I really like BOG, although I've only had lunch.

[firedancer10288]

Oh another that never gets mentioned but we really enjoyed, Mickeys Backyard BBQ at Fort Wilderness. We had Thanksgiving dinner there and it was great. Food was good (buffet) and the kids had a blast.