Resturant suggestions anyone??

[sl_underwood]

We are planning a trip at the beginning of April for 6 days/5 nights. We will have 4 days one for each park. What would be your dining suggestions? We are on the dining plan and traveling with our 2 daughters ages 13 and 9. At Epcot, I would like to try many different types of cuisine. MY kids have not been able to experience different tastes much and I would like to allow that, if possible with counter service meals. Any suggestions? Also what would be a good table service restaurant there? At MGM we are planning on going to Sci Fi and my younger dd wants to go to Pizza Planet. What do you think about these? I dont know where to plan to eat at Animal Kindom, any suggestions for cs lunch and ts dinner? Magic Kingdom is another one I am not sure about. I have no clue where to go here. We dont want to do CRT, my daughter would hate it, she truly doesnt like anything princess, but I would like a character dining meal. Because of our schedule my hubby wants to spend the entire day in each park, not sure if he is being realistic or not, lol but its what he wants. He has agreed to Planet Hollywood the first night we are there because our teenager wanted to go there. If possible I want to do Chef Mickeys or Ohanna our last day there for breakfast. What do you think?
Thanks!
Lora

 

[tink85]

I don't have a lot of experience with the counter service at Epcot except for the fish and chips booth in the UK which is excellent and usually gives me more chips than I could eat in about a decade. There's also counter service in Japan which I haven't eaten at in a long time but it used to be very good, simple though. There's also a counter service in Mexico as well. For ts in Epcot, I loved Moracco if you're willing to be adventurous though the chicken dishes are fairly doable no matter how willing you are to try new things. My family loves The Rose and Crown in the UK as well and Alfredo's in Italy.
MGM I would stick with the Sci Fi and Pizza Planet - the Sci Fi is my fave restaurant of them all and Pizza Planet is fun for the atmosphere and the pizza is decent.
Animal Kingdom only has one ts restaurant, The Rainforest Cafe which is a cool atmosphere to be in but if you want to try something different maybe look into a resturant at one of the resorts that day? For cs at AK, I've never come across a bad one - I like Pizzafari best though, the chicken caesar salad is the best!
MK has a great character meal which is buffet at Crystal Palace with the Winnie the Pooh characters or at Liberty Tree Tavern for Minnie, Goofy, Chip and Dale which has amazing thanksgiving-type food. Also there's Plaza Resturant at the end of Main Street which is usually overlooked but has great burgers and sandwiches as well as Tony's for Italian at the other end of Main Street. For cs, I like Cosmic Ray's in Tomorrowland and the BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich can be found at Sleepy Hollow's just over the bridge heading to Liberty Square....so good!!! Ohana's is soooo tasty for breakfast - I'd recommend it over Chef Mickey's which tends to be a bit more noisy I think. Hope this helps!

 

[lovinpoohbear]

Go to www.allearsnet.com and click on dining-it lists all the restaurants and their menus. Our best ts restaurant by far was lecellier in epcot. Everything was so delicious! we can't wait for our april trip!!!

 

[Joan S.]

Hi,You may want to head over to the AKL for dinner. They have Boma and Jiko. Boma is a GREAT Buffet with loads of different foods. I took my Dh and 2 DS there last April and even though they are not the most adventurous eaters they all LOVED it! I have not been to Jiko, but it always gets RAVE reviews! This should fit in with your plan to spend a full day in the park because AK is usually the earliest closing park. Joan

 

[Wendy31]

For your Epcot day, you could share 4 different counter service meals from the 4 different World Showcase countries for lunch and then have dinner at a nice TS location - Le Cellier, maybe, or one of the other countries for your a sit-down TS meal. Or, if you didn't want to use TS credits, you could try more of the World Showcase counter services - or try Sunshine Seasons in Future World which I thought was really good for counter-service. So many of the WS counter-services look really good!

For your MGM Day, we haven't been to Sci-Fi, but the atmosphere looks cool, and kids of your children's ages would probably really enjoy it. However, if you're planning to see Fantasmic, you might consider one of the Fantasmic Dinner Package restaurants - Hollywood & Vine, Mama Melrose, or Brown Derby (2 TS credits) - and go to Sci-Fi for dessert only. My kids enjoyed Pizza Planet. The food is only so-so, but, for counter-service, it's really not that bad.

For your AK Day, I would suggest Flame Tree BBq for a wonderful counter service. The open-air seating by the water is lovely, and the food is yummy too. For your dinner that night, I would definitely recommend Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge - a perfect "wrap-up" to your AK day. The food is served buffet-style, and there are plenty of choices. Plus, the AKL lodge is gorgeous, and it's so nice walking around the resort looking at the animals.

For your MK day, I would suggest Columbia Harbour House for a great counter-service lunch & Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. Liberty Tree Tavern is a character meal (w/ Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip, & Dale normally). The food is served family-style & is really good. This was my DH's favorite character meal last year.

We're going back to Chef Mickey's this year for breakfast on our last morning. I like Chef Mickey's because it's a fun atmosphere & it's such a "traditional" Disney meal. But 'Ohana's for breakfast looks really good too (it's served family-style whereas Chef Mickey's is a buffet); plus, at 'Ohana, you could get a table close to a window w/ a view of the castle which would be a nice "ending" to your vacation.

 

[cuzinvin]

My expierence at Sc-Fi was horrible. The atmosphere is awesome, and they have good shakes, but the food was sooooo bad, I will never eat there again. The service was good, but only go there for a snack so you can sit in the "car" and enjoy the place, but only have desser there..... Good luck.

 

[Eeyore2003]

If you are planning on staying all day at Magic Kingdom and would like a break in the middle, it would not be much to take the monorail to one of the resorts. For two girls, good service and delicious food, I would suggest the Grand Floridian Cafe. Otherwise, we've tried all the table service except Tony's at Magic Kingdom and think the Plaza Restaurant has the best food.

 

[PixieDust742]

I like the Backlot Express and ABC Comissary at MGM, and I want to try the sandwiches at Starring Rolls...they look tasty! As for Sci-Fi, the atmosphere is great but the food is just okay. I prefer 50's Prime-Time (great atmosphere), Brown Derby (try the Cobb salad!), and Mama Melroses.

All of the restaurants at AK are good, it just depends on the kind of food you are looking for. I have to second Boma, that is one of my all-time favorite restaurants. But that being said, Boma is not for everyone. My father is a simple meat and potatoes kind of guy, and I know he would NOT like Boma...or at least he wouldn't try anything!

For counter service at MK, I reccommend Pecos Bill's, Columbia Harbor House (<--my favorite!), and Cosmic Rays. For sit down, Liberty Tree Tavern is good (and the only sit down I have eaten at in the MK).

Finally, for a counter service meal at Epcot, depending on your family's tastes, I would suggest Morocco, UK, Sunshine Season in the Land pavilion, and Mexico. Le Cellier would be my top choice for sit down (the cream cheese mashed potatoes, cheddar cheese soup and pretzel bread are AWESOME!) Nine Dragons is good, but you can get chinese food anywhere. I also recommend Marakesh in Morocco and Biergarten in Germany for the atmosphere, but the food does not appeal to everyone.

I'm sure you will be happy with whatever choices you make, and if not, you can at least say you tried something new. Good luck and enjoy your vacation!!

 

[amarberry]

Here are my favorites...

Animal Kingdom: We like Tusker House for CS. I think that the food is a little nicer than your average CS (rotisseire chicken, salmon, really good vegetables on the side). If it's not too hot, the patio in the back is a nice place to sit down.

I second (or third) the idea of going over to AKL to Boma for dinner. Boma is my favorite restaurant at WDW! If you are looking for a restaurant to experience different food, this would be an excellent choice. If you're relying on Disney transportation, we did not find it to be too much of a pain to get back to our hotel. We jumped on a bus to Epcot and transferred to a bus to our hotel (we've done this twice now and it probably took us 30-45 minutes for the total trip including waiting time).

Magic Kingdom: Columbia Harbour House is our favorite CS restaurant and I think we have now been to ever CS at Magic Kingdom. We always take our food upstairs to eat.

I'm not sure how interested you are in character meals, but we thought that the food at Crystal Palace was good. The character interaction was below average. If you want to get away from characters, I would eat at one of the monorail resorts. We had dinner at Kona one night and thought that it was very, very good. Ohana's would be another great choice (we skipped since DD and I are vegetarians ). There is always Chef Mickey's if you are looking for a character meal out of Magic Kingdom.

MGM: DH and I love MGM, but we can't find any restaurants to get excited about. Pizza Planet is probably my favorite CS, but Backlot Express was a close second. We haven't tried the Flatbread CS yet.

We ate at Sci-Fi last Sept. It's a fun restaurant, but the food was mediocre to bad. We didn't even care for the milkshakes that people seem to be crazy about. My DH thought that his vanilla shake just tasted like DQ ice cream and I thought that the chocolate tasted like a Wendy's frosty. It's also not the best "value" on the dining plan. I think that our 2 TS meal was around $60.

Epcot ]: We love Tangerine Cafe in Morroco for CS. Our meal for two was $34! It's a lot of hummus, tabbouleh, and gyros-type meat. Again, if you are looking for something different, you might want to consider this.

For TS, we really enjoyed Coral Reef (despite really bad service) and LeCellier (and remember, DD and I don't even eat meat!). Both meals are an excellent value on the dining plan (both used to be 2 TS credits, but have been dropped down to 1 credit over time). We also had dinner one night at Garden Grill. The food was good (not great), but we had a great character experience there. Each character probably came around 5 or 6 times.

Have a great trip!