Best character dining???

[3littlecuties]

We will be staying at The Contemporary in October. Should we just try Chef Mickey's? I've heard the food is so-so. Is breakfast better? Or would you try something else? Our kids will be 6, 4, and 2 at the time if that matters.

 

[henry72]

I have never eaten at Chef Mickey's but I have read several bad reviews of the place lately. We have liked Crystal Palace (Pooh & friends) in the Magic Kingdom and the Garden Grill in Epcot. If you are looking for Mickey and the Gang, I would suggest the Garden Grill - but they only do dinner there.

 

[disneyfool_1202]

We did Chef Mickey and for us it was a disaster BUT it's mostly because my child has nut allergies. The food wasn't so great - we were there mostly for the experience to see the characters, but one of them must have had peanut butter on him from contact with another child and shortly after hugging my child we had to call 911......
He was fine but we missed dinner and were on a dining plan. We had to leave due to the emergency - and had only had a few bites of cheese. They credited my son's meal back to the dining plan- but not DH and I and neither of us had had anything to eat besides the few bites of cheese.....
I had to make many many phone calls to get us to comp our meal and eventually I found the right person. We were staying at VWL and they ended up bringing us sandwiches and fries at no cost.

So we stay far far away- not really because of the nut reaction (that can happen anywhere) but due to the poor service I felt we received. They removed us from the restaurant and had us wait for emergency services at a bar with a 5 year old...... To their credit, a CM stayed with us until EMS arrived....

Crystal Palace is our favorite character meal and I feel the food is MUCH better.

 

[hailbug]

We have never been to Chef Mickeys. If you are looking for a good character breakfast I would go to Cape May. The buffet has a big variety and is very good. The character interaction is great!

If you are looking for a character dinner I would go to the Garden Grill. The character interaction there is good and the food is too.

 

[jacksmom]

We have never been to Chef Mickeys. If you are looking for a good character breakfast I would go to Cape May. The buffet has a big variety and is very good. The character interaction is great!

If you are looking for a character dinner I would go to the Garden Grill. The character interaction there is good and the food is too.

We have eaten at chef Mickeys many times and the food is just so-so! But kids love it! So, we keep going back!

 

[summermac]

Dinner-wise I would recommend 1900 Park Fare. We had a lot of fun there and the food was good.

 

[stephgles]

We have done Chef Mickey's in the past but havent the past 3 trips. We dont care for the food and the character interaction is horrible. We actually ate our whole meal (appt to dessert) and not one character came to us. This happened to us twice there and therefore we dont go back. We love Ohana's for breakfast Lilo and Stitch, Mickey and Pluto. Also Crystal Palace with Pooh is good too.

 

[KingdomSusan]

For food quality and characters, Crystal Palace is my favorite character meal.

For just characters (dinner food was so-so)... Cinderella's Royal Table was really magical. I almost teared up a few times because the princesses were so "in character" and I felt like I was really a royal guest (I'm a geek!). We weren't sure my nephew would like the princesses, but he loved it (he was 5 at the time).

 

[Mirax]

I don't mean to be pushy and I know sometimes the characters get lost in the crowd. Simply ask your server to remind the characters to come to your table. After all that is why you are eating at chef mickey, the entertainment, and it is the servers job to make sure your meal runs smoothly.


We love Pooh Bear so Crystal Palace is our favorite. However I have not been to an afternoon Tuskerhouse character meal, but I loved the food when it was just a buffet.

 

[minnie mum]

The first thing you have to realize about any of the character meals is that the emphasis here is on the characters and not the meals. As in, don't go expecting much as far as the quality of the food is concerned. If you're lucky, then the food will be adequate. Pick the wrong place and the food can be um, uh, not adequate

First off, pick which meal is best for your family. Are they at their best in the morning and cranky and overtired by supper? Then pick breakfast. Is the reverse true? Pick dinner. I generally don't like taking 1 1/2 to 2 hrs out of the middle of the day for a lunch.

Then pick the characters that your kids like best. Mickey and friends? Pooh and friends? Princesses? Some other mix?

http://www.wdwinfo.com/Just_for_kids/character_dining.cfm

The link above lists all the places that do character meals. You can find where each gang of characters hangs out and pick accordingly.

And for what it's worth - We still do the Crystal Palace breakfasts and dinners. I'm 59 years old, and I'm still Eyore's biggest fan!

 

[TiggerDad3]

If staying the Contemp... then I wouldn't hesitate to try Chef Mickeys... We have never had an issue here.

Yes the food is so-so, but hey it is breakfast buffet food, so what can we ask, it is definitely good enough to eat, at least we think so.

With the young kids eating breakfast on location will be nice and starting the day with getting to see Mickey and Minnie will make your day easier in the long run ... ya know get the big guy out of the way and being on location means less waiting around to get somewhere else, there will be enough of the waiting all day long lol!

But hey, it is really hard to go wrong, every place can have an off day... so pick what will work the best for your family and have a magical experience for you... I also agree with the previous post... what characters do you want to see makes a big difference!

 

[CSHaydt]

We have done Chef Mickey an my DS 6 LOVED it. We did breakfast; the food was ok but we were there for the characters not the food really... we do the character meals as opposed to standing in line to meet them.

We also had lunch at crystal palace - again food was a little better then the breakfast but we were just excited to meet the pooh characters and also relax and enjoy the cool air inside on a hot day.

We are going to try O'hana for breakfast on our next trip. my DS loves pluto and mickey the most and i wanted to try somewhere different.

 

[Weluvdizney2]

I say O'hana. Sometimes a buffet is stressful with small kids, and O'hana is family style. Just a short monorail ride from the Contemporary.

 

[denvergirl]

We like to go to Chef Mickey's on our first lunch/dinner in the World. . .before going to a park. We don't expect great food, but our DD (6) gets to see all of the main characters and it lessens the need to stand in crazy long lines first thing in the park. We also, love Crystal Palace and Ohana's. If I had to pick the best for food / service / character interaction, it would be Ohana's!

 

[ateam79828592]

Our kids will be 7, 4 & 2 on our next trip which will be our 4th year in a row of going. Here are the character meals we have done:

Tusker House
Chef Mickey (Dinner)
Crystal Palace (breakfast, lunch)
CRT (lunch)
Akerhus (breakfast)
1900 Park Fare (breakfast)
1900 Park Fare (dinner)
Garden Grill

Our favorite on this list is probably Tusker House. While only 3 characters "circulate" during the meal, the food is good and the place is smaller so the characters are less rushed. Our kids really enjoy the parade with the characters during breakfast. 8 AM breakfast before 9 AM park opening is how we started our trip 3 of the 4 times.

1900 Park Fare, Chef Mickey's & Crystal Palace are fairly large, noisy and crowded. Our kids have enjoyed all of them. 1900 Park Fare dinner is fun for the adults as the characters are funny and very interactive....however, my kids didn't really like the characters joking around much.

 

[Ginny Favers]

I am going against the grain in this thread and saying that I would stay away from the Crystal Palace. We hated it-- the food for dinner was terrible, and the place was dirty and crowded. Maybe breakfast is better. My husband hated it so much that he said, "Absolutely DO NOT BOOK IT THIS TIME!" My daughter said, "That's the place that had nothing to eat" because even the chicken nuggets were nasty. And how can you screw up chicken nuggets?

So we are doing Chef Mickey's... which will probably not be the greatest, either, but, I want to say I've been there at least once. Since you are staying at the Contemporary, I would give it a try. But I DO also recommend Garden Grill... we never miss that one. It's one of the quietest and least rushed character meals around, which is a BIG plus. The food is good, too.