Where to eat with a VERY active/high-spirited 2.5 year old?

[olive]

We are going to be at Disney for the first week and a half of January with our son and some family (both sets of grandparents and several aunts and uncles). We will have some opportunities for toddler-free meals - really looking forward to Victoria & Albert's and maybe Citricos! - but mostly we will be eating with our son. I think we will generally stick with counter service lunches. We are staying at the Contemporary, so I think we will try to do Chef Mickey's at least once. My family also LOVES the restaurant in Mexico. We went there every summer while on vacation for years. Any suggestions for where else we can go with an active toddler? My guess is that most places should work out since we are in Disney and one of us can run around with him outside of the restaurant until his food is ready if he doesn't really feel like sitting still. Any places we definitely shouldn't take him (I already know about V&A and I heard that some kids get spooked by Sci Fi, although I think he might like that) or any places that don't have high chairs?

Thanks!

[clc053103]

I took our 3 yo high spirited DS last year and had no issues at any restaurant, including California Grill and Citrico's. But I was well prepared. Here's a few tips:
-do you dine out often at home? If not, maybe try going more often. stress the importance of staying seated in the high chair (my rule was, you sit for the entire meal, period).
-plan ahead with a backpack or small bag of entertainment- crayons, doodle pro, matchbox cars, trains- whatever DS is into.
-shop for some cheap items prior to the trip (I found Cars vehicles on sale and they were a hit) and present one each night at dinner as a "prize" to play with.
-insist on a high chair.
-if your son has a comfort item, like a blanket or stuffed toy, bring it to meals.
-ask that your family not offer out loud to walk your son around outside- doing so often plants the seed with a child who might have been content to stay put much longer.
-expose your child to characters before you go (like a mascot, or at another amusement park, chuck e cheese, whatever) in real life to gauge the reaction. My DS is totally freaked out by characters- was good to know that so we didn't book a week of character meals! However, he was fine with face characters (princesses).

I found that every single restaurant had plenty of high chairs.

[MHSweb79]

It may be more difficult to take your child out of the restaurant than you think. At least with Sci-Fi, you are seated in cars and it's a long inconvenient walk to the front door to outside. Although there, he may find himself glued to the movie screen (not literally... you know what I mean ) Same with many other places.

There really isn't a lot of room between tables and with servers carrying heavy trays of food, your best strategy is to try to keep him occupied instead of having someone take him outside.

[cranleys]

I would suggest character meals where there is a parade during the meal/ Insist that he stay seated like someone else suggested with toys to play with and hype the parade as his chance to get up.

I know that Breakfast with Stitch, Crystal palace and character breakfast as Tusker house all have parades.
Hope it helps

[DisneyMomx7]

Coral Reef - the huge aquarium should keep him interested, Sci-Fi watching the film clips should keep him interested, and Crystal Palace where he can join in the parade.

[StephanieCG]

I have a VERY active 2 year old too....as a matter of fact we were actually at dinner tonight (Mellow Mushroom in Pensacola) and she was horrible. There was no way in heck she'd stay in a high chair. I had toys, legos, crayons, all her favs, and she just wanted OUT. We had a LONG wait (about 30 minutes, the stupid pager was broke) and she didn't want to eat, all she wanted to do was go run around and play with the rocks near the parking lot! So we ate in shifts. Luckily it was pretty loud in there, and that masked the temper tantrum noise. Since this was not out of the ordinary behavior for us, I planned our adrs accordingly....
Hollywood and Vine Play N' Dine Breakfast and Ohana Breakfast - both have characters and a little parade, so she can get up and move!
1900 Park Fare dinner- apparently Cindy and the Prince do a dance, and the kids are invited to join them
Akershus lunch - as far as I know there's no parade or whatever, but I'm hoping the princesses will keep her occupied...might not work as well for a little boy though
Sci-Fi - she loves TV and cars, so I'm hoping that will hold her attention just long enough so DH and I can finish a burger and shake!
T-Rex - I initially booked Kona, but after trying restaurants a couple of times, I think the dino place would be the way to go...maybe if she misbehaves I'll tell her that she'll be fed to the dinosaurs! I'd never do that, but then again, she'd never fall for it anyway, pretty bright for a 2yo. Seems like there's lots of stuff going on there and the place is huge.
I haven't been yet, but I planned fairly early seating times to avoid (read: minimize...I don't think you avoid it completely) waits.
Good luck. Some toddlers are just more active than others. I can tell mine to stay in her seat until I'm blue in the face and it won't do a bit of good. Even if I do punish her for bad behavior she doesn't care.

[Pakey]

We were there in January with a very active 3 year old. He did very well at all of the character meals we did. Whispering Canyon Cafe is another good choice for a non-character meal. He was bored to tears and would not sit still at Coral Reef and it's too dark in there to be entertained with crayons, small toys, etc. He managed to get through his meal at Sci Fi and was not afraid there.

[Jeanieblue114]

Whispering Canyon Cafe in the Wilderness lodge would be good. It's already a little loud there and active! There are pony races with the kids sometimes and lots of hijinx. The waitstaff are good with interacting and being active. Plus, there are lincoln logs to play with there and a big lobby that is open to the restaurant so you can easily go back and forth to run around and eat.

Also, Ft. Wilderness Campground has the trails end buffet. Good food and the porch outside has some games and there is a lot of room to run around just outside the door there.

[maddiesmom0116]

How about Mickey's BBQ, they have a lot of dancing with the characters, this will be a nice outlet for all that 2 year old energy. The lilo and stitch breakfast also does a conga line like dance around the room for all the kids with the characters. I almost forgot the playhouse disney lunch or breakfast, the characters are perfect for his age range and they dance several times through out the meal and they have the characters spread out, so your son will be able to get up and be singing and dancing very close to you. This was the first character meal we did with DD and she was 2.

[olive]

Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions! I think my toddler is more like StephanieCG's in his activity level. He has a speech and language delay which makes it somewhat useless for us to try to explain to him that he has to sit in his high chair or reason with him in any way because he does not understand, so we do the best we can to either keep him occupied or, when that doesn't work, play with him outside until his food arrives or eat in shifts. Sounds like there are some great choices. Some I have not heard of before. Where is Mickey's BBQ and the playhouse disney meals? Are these at FW?

[Ldynred812]

We are traveling with 2 other families- We will have 6 kids ages 3-8 and one of the 3 year olds is a handful!! LOL We stuck with mostly buffets (Hollywood and Vine, Crystal Palace, Garden Grill which serves family style) to try and eliminate wait times. No getting a menu, then ordering, then waiting for the food. PLUS we have a wide range of food eaters with the kids...my girls are going to go nuts over the salad bars!! LOL

[maddiesmom0116]

Originally Posted by olive

Thanks for all of the wonderful suggestions! I think my toddler is more like StephanieCG's in his activity level. He has a speech and language delay which makes it somewhat useless for us to try to explain to him that he has to sit in his high chair or reason with him in any way because he does not understand, so we do the best we can to either keep him occupied or, when that doesn't work, play with him outside until his food arrives or eat in shifts. Sounds like there are some great choices. Some I have not heard of before. Where is Mickey's BBQ and the playhouse disney meals? Are these at FW?

Mickeys BBQ is at Fort wilderness and the playhouse is at hollywood and vine in hollywood studios.

[ktlm]

Biergarten. My active DD loves it. There is a show with a band and during part of it the kids can go out on the dance floor which is a great chance to burn off some energy.

[mavdav]

I have 2 boys, right now their ages are 5 and 3. We have been bringing them to WDW for several years. and they are BOYS! wild and very high spirited. The beauty is that you are at WDW, like you stated earlier. And its not your typical dining experience. Every restaurant has families with young kids and you will not be the only one. Good suggestions on the buffets. We started doing the characters on our most previous visit, and its fast and easy to get in and get out. As long as your child isn't afraid of the characters like mine were. And the wait staff are really nice and are used to rowdy children. Enjoy it! the show restaurants are good ideas, the bummer is that they are only on during certain portions of the hour. My boys did enjoy the show at Biergarten!

[MartDM]

I haven't tested my theories yet (we leave in two weeks) but here's the ones I reserved for us and our 2.5 year old ball of fire based on all my research:

-Cape May Cafe breakfast (for the characters)
-Kouzzina breakfast (assumed to be a quiet bfast like Spoodles was)
-Crystal Palace lunch (for the characters)
-Rainforest Cafe lunch (for the atmosphere)
-Biergarten dinner (for the atmosphere)
-Garden Grill dinner (for the characters)
-Wolfgang Puck Cafe dinner (a crapshoot with him but we want try to get at least one good Mom/Dad meal)

Other than that, we're just going to supplement with QS meals or meals in our BCV (I'd highly recommend getting kitchen facilities if you can swing it - it makes traveling with a little one so much easier if you can get a normal meal or two in them each day).

I'd be happy to report back on our success/lack there of when I return if you like. Just PM me to remind me!