Best Character meal?

[friedela]

I told myself we wouldn't splurge on Character meals because we did it last trip at DW and the food was just SO BAD. lol. But I keep hearing DL food is better and because we do have a bit of extra wiggle room in our budget I am considering doing a Character meal again. So which are your favs? Last time we did Cinderella's Royal Table so we met a ton of princesses.. this time I wouldn't mind doing something more geared towards my son, or the both of them (I have 1 girl and 1 boy).

Which ones do you love and why?

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

There are 4 right now.

Plaza Inn in Disneyland
Goofy's at DLH
Surf's Up at Paradise Pier
Storyteller's at DCA

If you are after good food, I think your best option is Storyteller's. The food is excellent and a few steps above the food of the others.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Plaza Inn has been a must do for my fam each trip, because it is a pretty good breakfast buffet and so many great characters to meet. We are trying Surf's Up for the first time this trip, in part because it is the only place that has Stitch and my kids are in a major Stitch groove lately, and partly because I wanted one more disney meal on our day to leave town. For the 3 meals in the hotels, you don't need park admission. So it can be a fun way to 'extend' your disney vacation. I've toyed with the idea of doing a dinner our first night in town too, but I think I'm going to go with a dining package for F! instead this time.

 

[DisneyJac]

We do a plaza Inn every time. I think it has the best breadth of characters. We had awesome interaction with Peter Pan and Hook when we were last there. It’s nice that it’s central and in the park too... we usually make a reservation on days when we have an early start. Do a couple of hours of rides and then do breakfast around 10:30 crowds start to pick up.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Yes - the Hook and Peter Pan interactions can be the best! First trip our girls all had Tinker Bell pens and Hook would not touch them. Took my oldest (5 at the time) a few minutes to figure it out but when she did it MADE her day. She rushed around and found a mickey pen to borrow. We also love Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore appearances - seems like the kids get more interaction at the breakfast than at the meet & greets in critter country. We enjoy the food too, but it is pretty standard breakfast buffet food. We've done plaza inn 3 times, and the fewest characters we saw was 8. The most was 11.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

We’ve done Plaza Inn and Surf’s Up. The food at both is pretty blah, although I give Surf’s Up a slight edge for its chiquiliques. Way more characters at Plaza Inn but character interaction at Surf’s Up is a lot of fun.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Brand new character experience just popped on the site: https://disneyland.disney.go.com/di...n-hotel/disney-princess-breakfast-adventures/

 

[yetiowine]

Brand new character experience just popped on the site: https://disneyland.disney.go.com/di...n-hotel/disney-princess-breakfast-adventures/

$125 a pop!!

 

[monorailrabbit]

I may be in the minority, but I personally think food is better at WDW, with the exception of Chef Mickey's. That being said, we haven't ever been disappointed with the food at DLR, except our first trip to Goofy's. Our favorite used to be Storyteller's, simply because of the delicious breakfast and rare characters. Now that it's been watered down to common characters again, I would have to go with Plaza. Never been disappointed with the food or characters - Dale is always our favorite there and last time he and Tigger got into a fight on who would get to take a picture with us first! Sometimes the characters are a little hectic and have missed our table, but CMs always make sure they circle back - we make sure to visit it every trip!

 

[Malcon10t]

I told myself we wouldn't splurge on Character meals because we did it last trip at DW and the food was just SO BAD. lol. But I keep hearing DL food is better and because we do have a bit of extra wiggle room in our budget I am considering doing a Character meal again. So which are your favs? Last time we did Cinderella's Royal Table so we met a ton of princesses.. this time I wouldn't mind doing something more geared towards my son, or the both of them (I have 1 girl and 1 boy).

Which ones do you love and why?

Below is the order of my preferences.

Storytellers - Has Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Best food of the bunch.

Surf's Up - Donald, Daisy, STitch, Pluto, Goofy. Second best food.

Goofy's - Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and 2 others (depends on the day.) Kids food is great, adult food is OK.

Plaza - This place is really hit or miss. We've done it 5 times in the past 3 years. Of those 5 times, twice we only got 2 characters, despite asking handlers for help. One we got 3 characters, and the other 2 we had a good experience. Also, this is a buffeteria style, so you get your own drinks and coffee, whereas the other 3 have servers getting you what you might need.

I avoid Plaza Inn as much as possible. I know a lot of people like it, but it is my least favorite. And my granddaughter (8) has finally stopped asking for it, and she prefers the other 3 now too.

 

[monorailrabbit]

Below is the order of my preferences.

Storytellers - Has Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Best food of the bunch.

Surf's Up - Donald, Daisy, STitch, Pluto, Goofy. Second best food.

Goofy's - Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and 2 others (depends on the day.) Kids food is great, adult food is OK.

Plaza - This place is really hit or miss. We've done it 5 times in the past 3 years. Of those 5 times, twice we only got 2 characters, despite asking handlers for help. One we got 3 characters, and the other 2 we had a good experience. Also, this is a buffeteria style, so you get your own drinks and coffee, whereas the other 3 have servers getting you what you might need.

I avoid Plaza Inn as much as possible. I know a lot of people like it, but it is my least favorite. And my granddaughter (8) has finally stopped asking for it, and she prefers the other 3 now too.

That's super sad to hear about Plaza Inn - this is the first time my BFF will get to experience it and it was a hard sell on my part. We will be so sad if we miss the characters! DH and I experienced that once, but the CMs quickly steered them over to us. So sorry to hear they weren't helpful for you!

 

[j9isawesome]

Storytellers has good food, check out the theme of the meet & greet to see if it appeals to you. The Plaza Inn has amazing character interaction. We have been about a dozen times, see new to us/rare characters almost every time and always meet at least 5, sometimes many more, characters. The food isn’t great though, just your typical breakfast buffet. Disneyland is known for better food because we have some amazing table service & even counter service restaurants. But the character dining here is NOT well known for being great food, as much as an easy way to check off a bunch of characters without a line as your kid doesn’t touch their eggs and stale mickey waffles. The food at the Bon Voyage Breakfast character meal or Tusker House character buffet at DW both have way better food and than any character meals we have here at DL.

 

[DisneyJac]

Below is the order of my preferences.

Storytellers - Has Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Best food of the bunch.

Surf's Up - Donald, Daisy, STitch, Pluto, Goofy. Second best food.

Goofy's - Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and 2 others (depends on the day.) Kids food is great, adult food is OK.

Plaza - This place is really hit or miss. We've done it 5 times in the past 3 years. Of those 5 times, twice we only got 2 characters, despite asking handlers for help. One we got 3 characters, and the other 2 we had a good experience. Also, this is a buffeteria style, so you get your own drinks and coffee, whereas the other 3 have servers getting you what you might need.

I avoid Plaza Inn as much as possible. I know a lot of people like it, but it is my least favorite. And my granddaughter (8) has finally stopped asking for it, and she prefers the other 3 now too.

Oh, wow! I’m so sorry! We’ve never had less than 7 characters at the Plaza. That would be disappointing.

 

[Disney Lvr of Old]

We've done Surfs Up! the last two times we have been there. I love the interaction with the characters; they really spend a lot of time with the kids. Every half hour or so they have a surf party and bring up all the kids to dance. I like the one on one with Mickey at the beginning of the meal as well. we usually do this on our way out the door- one last dose of magic before we head home.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

... But I keep hearing DL food is better and because we do have a bit of extra wiggle room in our budget I am considering doing a Character meal again...

What you keep hearing is regarding CS and certain TS food, not character dining. Character dining at DLR is about the character interaction, not so much the food. Agree that Storytellers probably has the best food of the bunch for character meals right now. Donald's (with Stitch!) has the best character interaction for us because the meal is smaller. Minnie's has the most characters, but the food is so so and the number of characters can be hit or miss. There used to be a character dinner with Mickey at PPH for a short time a few years ago with pretty good food (better than Goofy's) -- but that ended, sad to say. If you have any special needs concerning food, make sure to note that on any reservations that you make, repeat it at check in, and repeat it with your server. DLR is really good about trying to work with you on dining needs if you communicate clearly with them.

 

[friedela]

$125 a pop!!

When I first saw this I figured it was pretty similar to what we paid at WDW but I just looked again and we paid $83 an adult, $48 per kid for a lunch with 5 princesses (we saw Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Cinderella). In Canadian money at the time though it was way more in exchange, but still... not sure how Disney is coming up with their pricing for this new Character meal at DL, only to say that because it's new they are charging an astronomical amount for it, lol.

 

[friedela]

What you keep hearing is regarding CS and certain TS food, not character dining. Character dining at DLR is about the character interaction, not so much the food. Agree that Storytellers probably has the best food of the bunch for character meals right now. Donald's (with Stitch!) has the best character interaction for us because the meal is smaller. Minnie's has the most characters, but the food is so so and the number of characters can be hit or miss. There used to be a character dinner with Mickey at PPH for a short time a few years ago with pretty good food (better than Goofy's) -- but that ended, sad to say. If you have any special needs concerning food, make sure to note that on any reservations that you make, repeat it at check in, and repeat it with your server. DLR is really good about trying to work with you on dining needs if you communicate clearly with them.

Ok thanks. I had a look into each Character Dining experience and none of them are really wowing me. Thanks for the help as always though!

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

We've done Surfs Up! the last two times we have been there. I love the interaction with the characters; they really spend a lot of time with the kids. Every half hour or so they have a surf party and bring up all the kids to dance. I like the one on one with Mickey at the beginning of the meal as well. we usually do this on our way out the door- one last dose of magic before we head home.

We are trying it for the first time this trip - as our last hurrah after checking out of our rental house. I'm hoping it'll be a magical finish for the kiddos

 

[Diszona]

When I first saw this I figured it was pretty similar to what we paid at WDW but I just looked again and we paid $83 an adult, $48 per kid for a lunch with 5 princesses (we saw Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Cinderella). In Canadian money at the time though it was way more in exchange, but still... not sure how Disney is coming up with their pricing for this new Character meal at DL, only to say that because it's new they are charging an astronomical amount for it, lol.

Well the restaurant for this meal is at Napa Rose so it is at a high end restaurant which is already pricey, I would expect it to have the highest quality of food. Now I find the decision to have a character meal at Napa Rose a little odd.