If you were bringing first timers, where would you bring them?

[michelleiada]

Bringing my Aunt, Uncle (early 70s), my cousin and his wife and children to WDW in December. We are DVCers and invited them to stay a week with us. The boys are 5 and 8. First time visit for all of them. We will be doing the regular dining plan. What restaurants should we reserve? Any opinions for character meals?

 

[jmcghee2024]

Garden Grille for dinner and Tusker House for breakfast are great character meals.
Kids love Coral Reef esp. if you are near the tanks or Rainforest Cafe

 

[jmcghee2024]

Oh and definitly try to get Be Our Guest. It's new, in a castle, the beast visits for dinner, and the food is very good for a one credit.

 

[Wendybird55]

50's Prime Time might be a fun place for everyone -will certainly appeal to all generations. As you know most character meals are buffet...not sure if your Aunt and Uncle will like that - but Ohana breakfast is family style and has Lilo and Stitch and it's good.

Whispering Canyon may be fun for everyone - and it can be family style or individual entrees - Liberty Tree is also good food - family style for dinner.

As far as character meals...food wise I think CP is the best for all meals - BL&D. Not sure if the kids are into Pooh Characters.

We also like Kouzzinas very much - nothing special about atmosphere, but great food.

 

[michelleiada]

This is what I am thinking:

Hoop Dee Do Revue
O'Hana
50's Prime Time Cafe
Be Our Guest
Cape May Cafe - breakfast
Yachtsmen Steakhouse


My aunt and uncle will love the character meals...they will enjoy watching their grandchildren interact with the characters!

 

[vacation_junkie]

Bringing my Aunt, Uncle (early 70s), my cousin and his wife and children to WDW in December. We are DVCers and invited them to stay a week with us. The boys are 5 and 8. First time visit for all of them. We will be doing the regular dining plan. What restaurants should we reserve? Any opinions for character meals?

T-Rex for the boys

 

[chloelovesdisney]

We went on a family trip in February with several first timers in our group. We were not on the dining plan but used my TIW card, and since the grandparents were picking up all the meals I tried to pick choices that were more reasonable.

We went to Via Napoli (a huge hit), Sci Fi (another huge hit, they were so amused to sit in the cars and loved the shakes), the Plaza, Tusker House breakfast (the overall favorite), and Akerhaus breakfast (or however you spell it).

Couldn't get Be Our Guest for dinner so went for lunch and it was also a hit.

Since you are on the dining plan, I would consider Cape May Cafe for either breakfast or dinner, Tusker House for breakfast or lunch, 'Ohana for dinner, Tutto Italia, Chefs de France or Biergarten and Be Our Guest if you can get it.

I don't usually go to 2ts restaurants when on the dining plan just because we prefer one sit down each day.

 

[DizDaD7]

Bringing my Aunt, Uncle (early 70s), my cousin and his wife and children to WDW in December. We are DVCers and invited them to stay a week with us. The boys are 5 and 8. First time visit for all of them. We will be doing the regular dining plan. What restaurants should we reserve? Any opinions for character meals?

For breakfast:
We always enjoyed TH (our then fav.)
Now after going to 1900 PF this is now our fav.
Ohanas breakfast is actually pretty good too.

For Lunch:
Crystal Palace has some good interaction food is avg.
Same for Garden Grill ( same reasons )
Coral Reef no characters, but a lot of Character ..LoL Fun too.

For Dinner:
Chef Mickeys we enjoyed ..Very good interaction
Other than this one & Akershus we haven't done many dinner w/ characters.

But There's so many Great rest. to choose from.

And being that you're staying at BCV I definetely would try an get an ADR for the Yachtsman, & Cape May ( heard good things about it )& try some of the BW Ts rest. too All are good...

 

[Hopefully]

50's Prime Time might be a fun place for everyone -will certainly appeal to all generations. As you know most character meals are buffet...not sure if your Aunt and Uncle will like that - but Ohana breakfast is family style and has Lilo and Stitch and it's good.

Whispering Canyon may be fun for everyone - and it can be family style or individual entrees - Liberty Tree is also good food - family style for dinner.

As far as character meals...food wise I think CP is the best for all meals - BL&D. Not sure if the kids are into Pooh Characters.

We also like Kouzzinas very much - nothing special about atmosphere, but great food.

Whispering Canyon no longer has a la carte choices at dinner. It is the all you care to eat platter, not the skillet. At lunch there is no longer a skillet option at all. It is a big change and I wanted you to understand the current choices.

This is what I am thinking:

Hoop Dee Do Revue
O'Hana
50's Prime Time Cafe
Be Our Guest
Cape May Cafe - breakfast
Yachtsmen Steakhouse


My aunt and uncle will love the character meals...they will enjoy watching their grandchildren interact with the characters!

I think your plan is Excellent. My #1 suggestion was going to be HDDR. Pure Disney and great fun for your ages. 'OHana is good food and fun atmosphere. We love 50's PTC and I think your aunt and uncle will get a hoot out of it. We haven't been to BOG yet - good luck getting an ADR. Of all your choices the only one I wouldn't recommend, and I am in the minority here on the DIS, is Yachtsmen. We will never return. We tried 3 times and just didn't enjoy our entrees. The restaurant is beautiful, the service was great and the onion rolls are to die for. But everything was just not good.
Have Fun

 

[michelleiada]

Whispering Canyon no longer has a la carte choices at dinner. It is the all you care to eat platter, not the skillet. At lunch there is no longer a skillet option at all. It is a big change and I wanted you to understand the current choices.

I think your plan is Excellent. My #1 suggestion was going to be HDDR. Pure Disney and great fun for your ages. 'OHana is good food and fun atmosphere. We love 50's PTC and I think your aunt and uncle will get a hoot out of it. We haven't been to BOG yet - good luck getting an ADR. Of all your choices the only one I wouldn't recommend, and I am in the minority here on the DIS, is Yachtsmen. We will never return. We tried 3 times and just didn't enjoy our entrees. The restaurant is beautiful, the service was great and the onion rolls are to die for. But everything was just not good.
Have Fun

We have eaten at all of these before except BOG which we have a ADR for dinner in June. I had no problem getting the ADR for this somewhere between the 5-6 month mark. If we love it we will book for December too. We had a wonderful experience at Yachtsmen! Our waiter was so attentive...the best service we have experienced at WDW....perhaps anywhere! Our food was excellent! Curious, what entrees did you order? HDDR is always a favorite of ours!

 

[VillianDiva]

For the Kids:
Crystal Palace or Tusker House for breakfast
Sci-Fi in HS

Adults:
There are so many it's hard to choose!
Via Napoli
BOG
Chefs De France
Kouzzina

 

[FiggieFan]

We LOVE 50's Prime Time Cafe in HS and I would definitely try that. We really enjoyed Sci-Fi too but the seating may be a bit odd with your groups possibly being divided up into smaller groups of 2.
I agree with the above suggestion - for the boys, I would do T-Rex in Downtown Disney. You have to make reservations early but as 2 adults we really enjoyed the food too. I wouldn't do Rainforest and T-Rex because they are similar.
For a character meal, our favorite is the crystal palace with pooh and friends in the Magic Kingdom.

 

[kimber11]

Chef Mickeys is a must for 5 and 8 year old boys and I would also recommend Hollywood and Vine if they like watching Disney Junior.

 

[IllinoisMommy]

My boys would have loved T-Rex and Chef Mickeys at that age. Actually- last trip they were disappointed that we did not do Chef Mickeys. Yes, it is a bit loud but we love the classic characters and the celebratory atmosphere. If you don't eat at T-rex (at DTD) it is worth it to stop in the gift shop. My sons loved buying/smashing geodes.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Haven't had the food at Via Napoli but the decor was less than impressive. 'Ohana was our favorite this past trip with be our guest second. However, BOG has a very limited menu. I would recommend avoiding Cape May dinner at all costs. Awful food and decor isn't much better. Boys would probably like a characted meal but the food isn't that impressive at most.

 

[goofyintoronto]

I think quite the opposite..i thought the decore was very impressive at via. So bright and airy. Gorgeous. And the food is OMG outstanding. The best pizza ever.

I also think that a 5 & 8 yr old would really love scifi. The atmosphere is so fun. It really feels like a drive-in restaurant as you get to eat in cars! We always loved the food too.

I also love tusker house & crystal place breakfast. Good food at both. CP has pooh characters, Tusker has Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Mickey.

 

[twe1vestone2]

We love 1900 Park Fare breakfast. Winnie the Pooh and friends! and the food, for a buffet, is freakin amazing! And for the elders its a quiet, slower paced environment where even though its a buffet you don't feel rushed to eat and leave. Actually, I don't know of any disney buffets where they rush you, but yeah, just saying lol.

 

[disneynanacat]

Hoop Dee Doo is a good idea altho I hate using 2 TS for it. One year I took my dad, and aunt & uncle who were in their late 70s to HDD and they all loved it. If you can swing it, do it OOP.

 

[michelleiada]

Hoop Dee Doo is a good idea altho I hate using 2 TS for it. One year I took my dad, and aunt & uncle who were in their late 70s to HDD and they all loved it. If you can swing it, do it OOP.

We would pay out of pocket for it and save the table service credit. I like to get right up front in preferred seating.

 

[rgamber621]

A handful of our favs are:

-O'hana
-Chef Mickey's
-Teppan Edo
-Mama Melrose
-Narcossee's



**Have a great vacation**