ADR suggestions for family of 4 going to WDW for their first (maybe only) time

Hey guys, I'd love some suggestions on which restaurants I can look into for our upcoming October trip. The choices are just so overwhelming.

A bit about us.

- Family of 4, myself, wifey and 2 girls, 2 and 7.
- We are staying 4 nights at Art of Animation, 7 nights at the Grand Floridian, if that makes a difference.
- I will try anything at least once (I'm definitely more adventurous than my wife), and love a good steak. I also love Mexican, Italian, Japanese and Chinese foods, and I am extremely partial to a big bowl of King Crab legs.
- My wife is fussier, but she still loves steaks and BBQ, seafood, pasta, etc etc. Probably nothing with a lot of spices.
- The kids can be fussy, but there's usually an acceptable choice on the kids menu that they can munch on. They LOVE interacting with characters, as do we.
- We will generally have a quick breakfast in the hotel, but wouldn't mind the occasional character breakfast.
- We are likely to do many lunches at QS places in the parks so suggestions there would be welcome too
- We don't really drink so alcohol is not a factor.
- Lean more towards nice family restaurants rather than fancy, but might still do 1-2 fancy places.

Some places I already have in mind:

Be Our Guest
Cinderella's Royal Table
Beaches and Cream

Basically, we're flying in from Australia so we're unlikely to come back any time soon, so I'd love to hear about people's experiences at restaurants they enjoy and can recommend.

The following 3 restaurants have different vibes for Breakfast vs. Dinner so research the following 3 before deciding which meal would most appeal to your family.
Cape May Cafe
Ohana
1900 Park Fare

Since you are staying at Grand Floridian, the Grand Floridian Cafe may work nicely into your schedule if having a relaxed day or want to turn in early.

Via Napoli is a favorite for italian around here, but I prefer Tutto Italia. Either is good, both are in Epcot. Another Epcot experience is Coral Reef, seafood, with a Floor to Ceiling Aquarium view.

At AK, both Tusker House (Character Buffet) or Yak and Yeti(Pan Asian) are good.

Good BBQ Counter service is at AK called Flame Tree BBQ (currently under rehab, not sure how long)

My favorite Counter Service at Magic Kingdom is Coulumbia Harbor House. (Mostly Fried Seafood, but some lighter fare too) Eat upstairs for a more relaxed meal.

Kona Cafe at the Polynesian gets good reviews, especially for breakfast (we're looking forward to going for the first time on our upcoming trip). You can normally walk from the Grand Floridian to the Polynesian (not sure about right now while construction is going on).

We usually go to Citricos at the GF for dinner. Narcoosee's also gets good reviews (both are signature restaurants).

The Yachtsman steak house is fantastic, Flying Fish is also worth a visit, Tusker House for lunch in AK was also a pleasant surprise last year.

Don't travel far for food (i.e., Beaches & Cream), certainly not with a 2 y.o....unless lunch or daylight dinner at Sanaa.

Plaza has ice cream and hamburgers at Magic Kingdom.

GF has some excellent restaurants and all are family-friendly:
--Citrico's - dinner only fine dining (Signature is the Disney term).
--Narcoossee's - Signature dinner.
--Grand Floridian Cafe - 3-meals served; full-service, yet casual, eatery.
--1900 Park Fare - Character breakfast (Alice in Wonderland) & dinner (Cinderella & family)

Also along Monorail Resort (or via boat):
--Artist Point - Signature dinner.
--California Grill - Signature dinner.
--Kona - 3-meals served; full-service, yet casual, eatery.
--Whispering Canyon - food and fun.
--O'hana - food and fun.

In Park favorites Qwik Serve:
--Sleepy Hollow
--Casey's
--Tamu Tamu
--France

Since you are staying at the GF, you should definitely eat at 1900 Park Fare. Breakfast is Tigger, Pooh, Mad Hatter, Mary Poppins, Alice and supper is Cinderella, Stepsisters/stepmother and Prince. It is a fun place to eat with variety (strawberry soup is delicious) and handy since you're at the GF. Your other choices look very good.
If you go to Downtown Disney, Wolfgang Puck Express (the one in Marketplace, you can use a quick service dining credit) is great value, especially for a QS credit. They serve salmon, rotisserie chicken, salads, pizzas, pastas ... and it has 'partial table service' such as drink refills.
Have a great trip.

No one has mentioned Crystal Palace yet, and it's my one of my favorites for character dining. Must do if your family likes Pooh and Friends. We also really enjoyed Tusker House breakfast when we went last November.

You asked for quick service suggestions. We like Sunshine Seasons in Epcot--easy to get something for everyone there. Lots of great QS in World Showcase too of course! In HS we like Pizza Planet, the kids would probably find it fun.

October is Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. Be sure to plan on eating around the booths set up all around the World showcase sampling small plates of food from around the world. If on the dining plan, you can use snack credits. Since you'll be there 11 days, I suggest not going to Epcot on a weekend during F&W if you can avoid it.

Since it's your one and only trip and you're staying at the GF, have you considered the My Disney's Girl Perfectly Princess Tea Party? It would be a very special experience for your wife and your girls, although, I don't know if the two year old could attend? Maybe some special bonding time in the pool for daddy and baby during that time? Just a thought...

I agree with the poster who said Crystal Palace. We never miss breakfast there. And we have been going once a year for the last 12 years. My 16 year old still requests it!

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions guys! I will make sure I look through all of the recommendations, I am sure there's quite a few here that we will enjoy.

Some of our favorites include (I highly recommend each of these):

Teppan Edo at the Japanese pavilion in Epcot Our dishes have always been stellar here. Great hibachi show for the family too.

Akershus for dinner at the Norway pavilion in Epcot (We actually prefer Akershus to Cinderella's Royal Table. CRT just didn't live up to they hype. We wanted to love it. We even tried it twice because "it seemed the thing we must do for our girls" but it just wasn't for us. The character interaction at Akershus is the same, but the food is much better. There's a stark difference in cost too. We enjoy the cold bar (peel-n-eat shrimp, smoked salmon, assorted meats & cheeses, salads, etc.) prior to the meal, and we've always enjoyed our main dishes. The mushroom filled pasta is delicious!

1900 Park Fare for dinner at the Grand Floridian I was skeptical about making this reservation my first time because it gets mixed reviews. I'm so glad we kept the reservation. We've returned two other times since as it's a family favorite. The buffet offers a variety of food you don't often find at your typical buffet. There's a huge variety of salads, fruit, carved meats, pastas, soups, etc. There's lots of interesting dishes that are better than your typical meat and veggies buffet. The character interaction here is the best on property. It makes the meal a wonderful experiecne and a lasting memory.

Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge Huge buffet with choices that appeals to the non-adventurous eater to those who have a more sophisticated palate. It's an African inspired meal.

Yak-n-Yeti at Animal Kingdom Yum! Asian meal that's great start to finish. The wonton dessert is mouthwatering. Neat atmosphere. It's fun to sit upstairs and look down outside at Animal Kingdom.

'Ohana at the Polynesian Delicious meal!!! Great family atmosphere I'd eat there for their pot stickers alone. The noodles are delicious too. My husband loves the endless rounds of grilled skewered meat (pork, steak, shrimp)

Tutto Italia at the Italian pavilion in Epcot Scrumptious Italian dishes.

If you really enjoy crab legs and seafood, you might want to look into Cape May Cafe. My daughters and I weren't big fans of it and felt it lacked a lot. My husband enjoyed it though and felt it was worth it for the crab legs alone.

Counter service:

Columbia Harbor House at Magic Kingdom They offer a variety of foods that aren't your typical burgers and fries. I recommend their lighthouse sandwich that has hummus, tomato and broccoli slaw on multigrain bread. My daughter loves the shrimp here.

Sunshine Seasons at Epcot It's our favorite counter service at WDW. There is a huge variety and the options are similar to what you'd find at a table service meal. Their bakery is wonderful too.

Flame Tree BBQ at Animal Kingdom Good BBQ. I love the turkey sandwich here too because it's light and refreshing.

We haven't found a favorite at Hollywood Studios. We usually end up at Backlot Express or Starring Rolls.

Enjoy your trip!

The places you have in mind are a great start. I personally could take or leave BOG (food wise), but the atmosphere is definitely worth the visit, especially on a once in a lifetime trip and CRT with 2 little girls is a definite. All my life I wanted to eat in the castle and finally did it for the first time last year and I'm far from being a child and still loved it!

Some of our favourites...

Cape May breakfast - this was our favourite breakfast both from the food/buffet and for the character interaction. Definitely on our list to do again.

Garden Grill - another fave character meal but mostly because my DS adores Chip & Dale. Food is pretty good here as well and I really like that it's family style and not buffet like most of the character meals are.

Ohana - love the breakfast here so much and again it's family style, which I find so much more relaxing than a buffet

Yachtsman - awesome steak and overall excellent experience, probably the best meal/service we've had so far.

Sci-Fi - love the atmosphere and one of the best places to eat if you want quiet & cool on a hot day.

Biergarten - pretty good German food and the entertainment/atmosphere is a lot of fun

Yak & Yeti - this one surprised me when I tried it last year, it was really delicious!


Staying at GF, you have so many great options right there at your resort and I don't think you could go wrong with any of them.

When we travelled with our girls (7 and 2 at the time) for 2 weeks in 2013, the table service restaurants we enjoyed the most as a family (looking for best overall experience and atmosphere, not necessarily best food) were:

Tusker House (Breakfast) - fantastic character interaction and the food was outstanding
Akershus (Breakfast) - fantastic princess interaction and the food was very good
Cinderella's Royal Table (Breakfast) - girls loved dining in the castle with the princesses and food was very good
Kona Café (Breakfast) - the press pot coffee, tonga toast, and macadamia nut pancakes!

Be Our Guest (Dinner) - we had excellent service, the theming was perfect, and we all really enjoyed our meals - our older daughter loved the Beast, we all felt like this was the best meal experience of the trip.
Raglan Road - great food, kids loved the Irish dancers - they are there most evenings after 5
'Ohana (Dinner) - fun things for the kids to do (leis, hula dancing), good food
Biergarten - be sure to check out wdwent.com to check the times for the Oktoberfest band; kids loved the band, parents loved the beer
Garden Grill - decent food, but the rotation of the restaurant, view of living with the land, and the characters made the experience unique and special
La Hacienda de San Angel - good food, we went at 7:45 and were able to view Illuminations from inside the restaurant, which worked really well for us
Yak and Yeti - food and décor both outstanding
T-Rex - oldest daughter LOVES dinosaurs, youngest was terrified of the noise at 2. food was not great, but the dinosaurs, dessert, and "build-a-dinosaur" gift shop made it a must-do for my oldest. we are going to wait until the youngest is older before we try it again.
Hollywood Brown Derby - girls felt "fancy" and we all really enjoyed the food. Wonderful, relaxing respite from a hot park day.

We liked Via Napoli - loved the pizza but service was awful and we ended up being at the table for 2 hours and didn't even get dessert. We're giving it another try. Also liked Les Chefs de France - but the girls really liked seeing Remy - not sure if they would enjoy it as much now that Remy doesn't appear.

We loved Hoop Dee Doo for a dinner show, and thought that Flying Fish was a great choice for a signature for kids - it was loud and very kid friendly. We had the best service of the trip here and loved the food. For counter service, we love Flame Tree BBQ in AK, Starring Rolls in DHS, and La Boulangerie in Epcot.

Experiences I would not repeat: Chef Mickey's, 1900 Park Faire (Breakfast) - we are (reluctantly) trying dinner next time around, Le Cellier (not with little ones - overall the food was not good enough to warrant the length of time spent in the restaurant with little ones - will give it another try when the kids are older), & Hollywood & Vine (Breakfast)

Avoid Whispering Canyon Café. Not like it used to be.

Do you have park hoppers?

We don't get park hoppers, so here's my approach, which may simplify things a bit. I first figure out which park we're going to on what day. At that point, my dining choices are limited to that park and of course, resort and Downtown Disney dining. I tend to only book dinners for ADRs. I will book a special lunch now and then, but mostly just dinners. If we're going to be in the parks at night, I pick a restaurant in that park. If you employ the same strategy, life will become a little easier, because your choices are more limited.

There are SO many good restaurants to choose from - it helps to narrow it down a bit.

On my first trip, I pretty much had no strategy. We booked CRT because our daughter was 6 years old then. We also booked California Grill at fireworks time, and had one other reservation for Jiko, which was getting a lot of buzz then. That's all we booked. If we ended up in a park at night, we called the reservation line to see what was available. It worked out fine.

Even if you do have hoppers, you will probably want to stay close to whatever park you happen to be in at a given time. Travel time can really eat into your trip.

Thanks for the further recommendations. Yeah we will have park hoppers, but I will be hoping to minimise travel by eating either at our resort or nearby resorts, or at the parks we are visiting.

I would suggest Hoop Dee Doo dinner show at Fort Wilderness, especially if it may be your only trip.

CRT was really good (I've only done dinner, meeting most of the princesses at once will save you a lot of time in lines too... Expensive though).
'Ohana breakfast (especially if the kids like Lilo & Stitch, food's good too).
Liberty Tree lunch (really just dessert, the food is really good but that toffee thing is amazazing).
Be Our Guest lunch (much cheaper than dinner and I like the lunch menu better).
Biergarten late lunch (they bring out the dinner foods at three but lunch is cheaper, so make a 2:30 reservation).

Otherwise I generally like QS better. Gaston's, Columbia Harbor House (wife likes the lobster roll), Tangierine Cafe (get the shwarma), Flame Tree for sure.

Snacks all over Epcot, plus Dole Whips at Aloha Isle and ice cream cookie sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow.

Disney portions are huge so if you are Aladdin sized (that's like the opposite of Pooh sized) then you should definitely consider splitting at the table service places (less of a problem at the QS joints).

We've been every other year for the past 6 (total of three trips).

The restaurants routinely requested by everyone when we go back are

Boma -- buffet @ Animal Kingdom

Crystal Palace -- buffet @ Magic Kingdom (I think this is as much about the theming and Pooh as the food)

Flying Fish -- we skipped it last time due to cost, but they've asked AGAIN to go back on our upcoming trip, without any prompting. I agree, very kid-friendly for a signature -- they have an open kitchen and a fair number of the seats are close enough to watch the activity. Also the Boardwalk is right outside so if you truly have an unmanageable squirmy it's easy to just pop out while you wait for food to come.

With kids your age I would not miss Tusker House character breakfast. Good food and great character interaction. One of our favorite memories from our first trip is DD and her cousin smiling like fools in the conga line behind Mickey. Another vote for the Hoop Dee Doo Review which is so corny it's funny and a great time all around.

Avoid (as far as decent food goes) - Chef Mickey's, Askerhaus, Tony's Town Sq.

For the counter service, we found the portions to be pretty big (this was 3 years ago) and the kids could easily share, especially at Cosmic Rays.