Akershus vs. Garden Grill for Dinner

[GMU MOM]

Hi, I'm trying to decide between these 2 for dinner. I have to boys (10 and 31/2). Will they like Akershus? I know they liked the characters at Garden Grill last time ( a couple years ago) but will they also enjoy Akershus? I need your opinions?
Thanks

 

[chitown_disneylovers]

Depends. Akershus is a princess meal. The atmosphere is very nice and the food is very good but you might want to take a look at the menu to see if it interests you.

If your boys like princesses they will love this meal.

 

[GMU MOM]

They're not really into princesses but I have seen so many people recommend Akershus that I thought if there's other characters as well maybe we'll try something new. Also, DH didn't like the food at Garden Grill but the characters were great for the kids.

 

[pixarmom]

We have three boys (ages pre-school to pre-teen) and Garden Grill is our arrival night tradition at WDW! I hadn't been to Akershus for quite some time because it "turned princess," but we tried it in January for our pre-schooler's birthday (he went through a princess phase and wanted to eat dinner with Belle.) We had a great time and he absolutely loved the princesses, but now that the princess phase has ended, it won't be in our rotation.

When we were at Akershus in January, it was photos with Belle and then Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Ariel came around to our table. They also did a parade with children who wanted to participate. The food wasn't great. In our opinion, the food at Garden Grill is much, much better.

Another note about the food at Garden Grill - we've been there three times in the past year or so. Every time, the food quality varies. We liked it last spring, loved it last summer and thought it was very good in February of this year. They change a few menu items occasionally, so that makes a bit of difference - I liked the type of salad they served last summer better than the new cobb salad and I like the new dessert (apple something) better this year than last year (some kind of berry buckle.) At times, the meat is OK and at other times, it's great. I prefer the mahi mahi over the old catfish. I love the new sweet potato fries they serve for the kids. In any event, it's entirely worth it to us for the character interaction and generally good, fresh food.

Happy Planning!

 

[HunnyJar]

We have three boys (ages pre-school to pre-teen) and Garden Grill is our arrival night tradition at WDW! I hadn't been to Akershus for quite some time because it "turned princess," but we tried it in January for our pre-schooler's birthday (he went through a princess phase and wanted to eat dinner with Belle.) We had a great time and he absolutely loved the princesses, but now that the princess phase has ended, it won't be in our rotation.

When we were at Akershus in January, it was photos with Belle and then Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Ariel came around to our table. They also did a parade with children who wanted to participate. The food wasn't great. In our opinion, the food at Garden Grill is much, much better.
Another note about the food at Garden Grill - we've been there three times in the past year or so. Every time, the food quality varies. We liked it last spring, loved it last summer and thought it was very good in February of this year. They change a few menu items occasionally, so that makes a bit of difference - I liked the type of salad they served last summer better than the new cobb salad and I like the new dessert (apple something) better this year than last year (some kind of berry buckle.) At times, the meat is OK and at other times, it's great. I prefer the mahi mahi over the old catfish. I love the new sweet potato fries they serve for the kids. In any event, it's entirely worth it to us for the character interaction and generally good, fresh food.

Happy Planning!

I agree with this! We've done Akershus twice both times for dinner. The first time it was just my husband and myself we planned several other character meals during our trip and unfortunately this was the only one we were disappointed in. The princesses were not very interactive with us, but we chalked it up to us going without kids. We were also pretty disappointed with our meals. Even though we were disappointed with this meal we decided to give it another go the next trip with our kids. Again we also had other character meals planned out and again this was the only one we were disappointed with. The food was once again not our favorite by any means (we only liked the cold bar and desserts) and the characters were just not very interactive with us. We did enjoy meeting and talking with Snow White, though. She was the only princess that really took an interest in our table and with our daughter. Now we've said that we're giving Akershus some time off our list and we've decided not to go back for dinner. We'll probably try it again in a few years for breakfast, but we'll skip dinner. We probably can't avoid it completely since our 2 year old daughter loves princesses and we're expecting our other daughter will probably be the same.

I won't go into much detail about Garden Grill but I will mention that besides 'Ohana for breakfast Garden Grill is our favorite character meal. We love how fresh the food is and we love the service but seriously I cannot gush enough about the character interaction here. Truly top notch. We just love it there.