1st family trip to WDW- Did we pick good restaurants?

[caseyjmu99]

Hi all-

We will be making our first family trip to disney in March with our 4 year old and 3 year old children. We booked our room with the free dining plan, and have made some dining reservations already. Just wondering if we picked good places for our full service meals! Thanks for any input!

Dinners:
Tony's Town Square (for our first night there)
Chef Mickey's (couldn't get a breakfast time, but have heard dinner is good)
Kouzzina (for our last night)

Breakfast:
Tusker House (have read that this is a good Character breakfast)

I made these reservations a month ago, and was amazed at how booked everything was! If you have any different suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks so much!

 

[mkymouse4ever]

Since eveyone's taste are different. I will just give you are opionions.

I find Tony's service and food: spotty. with that said > I also am trying it 1 more time this march too. It is toooooooooooooo cute not to. I love the idea, and miss the "old" tony's. hoping they find it again and soon.

Chef mickey's you have to do at least once with kids. But: very pricey [good thing for dining plan trip]. Food is so / so / ok. It is chaotic at best. Kids are all nuts in there. Just go in there expecting it, and let your kids have a great time. You will be exhausted leaving. And your kids will have mickey dreams all night.

Kouzzina, we have not tried.

Tusker house, has always been a verison of "ak" chef mickey's. Just don't let them miss any character's here. Seem we get skipped by someone every trip. Good breakfast, but again pricey.

If you like character meals > see if you can score a "garden grille" in epcot. It is sit down and farmer mickey comes to you with his friends. Nice private character interactions. Less crazy. And it won't wear you out.

Not character meals: but you might enjoy unique experiences like: sci fi drive in [mgm]. Or Yak n yeti [ak], kids love the fish tank [corral reef] in epcot.

People book meals 180 days out for wdw, so yes, booking quickly. I do recommend having them during free dining thou, cause it is harder to do walk ins, if your counting on them.

Have a great trip and plan, plan, plan.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We've heard mixed reviews on Tony's, but I can't speak from first hand experience. I've heard great things about Kouzzina and really want to try it.

We've done breakfast and dinner at Chef Mickey's. The character interaction was good at both meals, but we felt the food quality was pretty poor at dinner.

We've done the Tusker House breakfast once and were very disappointed. We had heard so many good things, but we had poor service, the characters weren't into it, and the food at 8:10a looked and tasted like it had been sitting around for hours.

Sorry to sound so negative...just trying to be honest. Plus this is only one opinion and due to personal preferences and consistency issues- you're going to get a mixed bag of opinions. Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare are our fave breakfasts. I also wouldn't give up on Chef Mickey's for breakfast if that's what you want. Persistance really pays off- i.e. stalk the web site daily for openings. We had a great breakfast at Chef Mickey's back in August for DD5's bday, so I think it's worth trying. While our food was only so/so- we had a really fun time at 'Ohana for breakfast as well.

 

[MollyTNarwhal]

Mama Melrose at DHS is our favorite park restaurant. Generous portions and very delicious.

T-Rex restaurant is amazing, and I imagine it would be even more so for kids.

I would recommend mostly park dining if you're interested in making a full day of your park tickets, you may say you will go back to the parks, but it can be more daunting than it seems.

 

[MissChris]

I don't know about the other two but I have been to Kouzzina- we went shortly after it opened and were disappointed. The food was very expensive (which we expected) but it was also salty, oversauced, dull. For the price we expected something more interesting and more flavorful. We've had other really good meals at Disney and this one didn't live up to our expectations. My Dad also tried one of the "signature cocktails", he started laughing after his first sip and insisted everyone try it, it tasted like extra sweetened cough syrup. He tried another one later (second chance) and it was equally awful. I don't know what to recommend in its place but we didn't find it to be worth it.

 

[elder]

I would suggest Ohanas for breakfast ---great character interaction and food! Or we had breakfast at the Beach Club --can't remember the name of it , but the characters were great!! We ate at Crystal Palace for dinner, and again enjoyed the characters....We are eating at Chef Mickey's this trip for breakfast....

We did eat at Tony's and the food was descent......We ate a Tusker House for lunch --hated it.....but I heard the bkfast was much better....

 

[kelleigh1]

My opinion is that while it's fun to read the reviews and I appreciate everyone's opinions, I also know that what someone else may like, I may not.

If I had listened to all the naysayers the first time we planned dining, we might not have eaten anywhere.

I have heard good things about all the places you've listed, but the only one I've been to is Chef Mickey's and that was for breakfast. We enjoyed it, but I know others who do not.

My suggestion, go with what you have and try it for yourself. Don't stress too much over it because you'll never find any plan at WDW that everyone loves. A place that many of us love, may be hated by someone else because they went on an off day and it was the worst dining experience they had.

Enjoy your first trip!!!

 

[recmouse]

We enjoyed Kouzzina but I'm not too sure how 'kid-friendly' it is. Not that they wouldn't be welcome - I just know that when my kids were that young I wouldn't have gone there with them.

Chef Mickey's is an excellent choice for all ages!

 

[auprincess]

We had lunch at Tony's a couple of years ago, and it was great. The food was not the best we have ever had, but it was good ~ we all enjoyed our meal. And our service was wonderful ~ the best one of our entire trip (and we stayed a week and had a sit down meal everyday).

Chef Mickey's is fun ~ your kids will really enjoy it. But honestly, I would keep trying for a breakfast reservation. The dinner we had there wasn't very good ~ but I would still go again if it was the only time I could get.

 

[juliebug1997]

Dinners:
Tony's Town Square (for our first night there)--my DH loves the food here. Good cheesy garlic bread, great key lime cheesecake (if it's the one in season), other food is decent. Service can be a little spotty but it is a nice little restaurant and you can watch "Lady and the Tramp" while you're waiting to be seated.
Chef Mickey's (couldn't get a breakfast time, but have heard dinner is good)--we've only been at breakfast and this past time we had a very hard time getting our picture from the Photopass people. They actually printed our pictures twice. We may try it again. I would like to see what dinner looks like here.
Kouzzina (for our last night)--we haven't gone here because the menu just doesn't excite either one of us.

Breakfast:
Tusker House (have read that this is a good Character breakfast)--I know lots of people here (including my HS BFF) but I have had two bad experiences here and I don't think we'll be coming back any time soon. The first time, I tried to check in at 9:05 AM for my 9:40 AM reservation. They asked me to come back because they couldn't take me that early. Fine. I come back at 9:35 AM and I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, I get up to talk to someone at 10 AM and they send me back to the second waiting area and got seated pretty quickly after that. The service was good and the food was about the same as the other buffets. The second time DH was with me and our server told us to go on to the buffet because the characters would be another ten minutes. We get back just as Daisy walks by our table to the next set. Okay. Surely, she'll come back to us. We watch her wave to Donald through the window and open the door to kiss him (really, very cute) but she kept on going to other tables. Our server left the ticket almost immediately and we worked hard our entire time to get him to come back so that we could get Daisy. She stomps back to our table (really, I watched her coming). She barely stayed long enough to get a picture with me and rushed over to my husband. He had to ask her to go back to me to get a better, non-blurred picture. You could tell that she would rather eat Peking Duck than be caught dead next to us. I know we don't have any children but we're paying customers too and we both wanted pictures with Donald's girlfriend since we both love him so much. It really was disappointing and I have said that I will be giving them a break for a while.

Really, I would pick CM's and cancel TH and see if you can get into Crystal Palace. Pooh and friends!!!

 

[juliebug1997]

I almost forgot: Garden Grill! It's a dinner and it's delicious. Character interaction and the food is very good too.

We also like 'Ohana breakfast, 1900 PF breakfast (dinner is just okay although I go for the step sisters), and Crystal Palace breakfast and lunch (they have an awesome salmon with dill).

 

[Pakey]

I wouldn't worry about it; keep what you have. You can already see in your thread how varied opinions are.

I've eaten at all of your picks. Tusker House is our favorite breakfast anywhere at the world, even if it didn't have characters.

Kouzzina is very child friendly and it's a short walk from Epcot's World Showcase; just as easy to get to/from as many park restaurants plus it's a nice stroll on the Boardwalk.

Enjoy your first visit.

 

[caseyjmu99]

Thank you all for the input! I know from browsing the boards that there are lots of different opinions out there on dining! We are just trying to use our free dining plan the best way, and make sure that we are using our table service meals wisely!

61 days to go, and we are all getting excited!

 

[orcasandowls]

Thank you all for the input! I know from browsing the boards that there are lots of different opinions out there on dining! We are just trying to use our free dining plan the best way, and make sure that we are using our table service meals wisely!

61 days to go, and we are all getting excited!

Hey, you're getting down to the World the same day as my family! I hope you have a great trip.

I think you made some really good dining choices. Chef Mickey's is always fun, we did dinner there a couple of years back and had a great time. The food was pretty decent, and the character interaction was some of the best we've ever had, which was especially nice considering the fact that we're all adults (at least we are in the real world, at WDW everyone gets to be a kid!).

Tony's is a perennial favorite in my family, we always get great service, and the food is very yummy. Haven't done Tusker House in years, but it was a memorable meal for the character interaction. We haven't tried Kouzzina yet, but I've heard good things.

Enjoy your first trip!