Best Family Restaurants?

[TheRobbs]

What is your Favorite family restaurant in WDW? Any suggestions for a DH,DW, and DD(7 years Old)?

Thanks,
The Robbs

 

[stacilee]

Give a few guidelines if you can, so the dis members can answer your question more to your satisfaction.
Which meal ?
Sit down or stand up?
"fancy", "really fancy" or casual?
- which can also be catagorized as really expensive, unbelievably expensive and pretty expensive
Characters or no?
Buffet or ala carte?
There are just too many to suggest unless you tell what kind of feel you are aiming for.

Dinner, sit down, casual,buffet, no characters =BOMA @ AKL for our family

Party of 5

 

[TheRobbs]

Dinner, sit down, Price not an issue,with or w/out characters.
How about something Fun??

 

[dina7]

For a fun character meal we have really enjoyed Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary. At MK we also like Tony's right at the beginning of Main St.- it's based on Lady and the Tramp. Enjoy!

 

[jwfla422]

<b>O'Hana</b> is a good one. Fun, very family oriented atmosphere! There aren't any characters but there are activities for the kids (coconut races and hoola hoop contests). And, great food (with kid friendly alternatives).

<b>Gulliver's</b> is a "low key" relaxing character meal. There are only 2 characters (Timon and Rafiki on Mon & Fri and Pluto & Goofy the rest of the evenings). It's nice because it's a very relaxing character meal. And, the food & service is great here too.

<b>Garden Grille</b> is a fun character meal at the Land in EPCOT. Farmer Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale come by and visit you at your table while you enjoy fresh fixin's from The Land and Sea. This is an "all you can eat" meal, but you don't have to get up to get your food. The restaurant also revolves (very very slowly) and gives you different glimpes of the Land's ride. They serve both lunch and dinner which is basically has the same food items.

 

[mic_key_mouse]

Something fun, huh? Check out the Whispering Canyon threads on this board. Never been, but are going there in 2 weeks- sounds like a riot!

There are soooo many that are good. Marrakesh may be a good one for DD. If she's not shy she could be recruited to bellydance...

Characters in the evening...LTT would be good...Minnie heads up the cast. Chef Mickey's also- but unlike most others on this board I find the food to be mediocre at dinner

'Ohana's is a blast, too...

Guess I don't have an absolute favorite for fun, maybe the HDDR? Could go on and on...

Blessings,
mic_key_mouse

 

[ugadog99]

'Ohana, Chef Mickey's, and Boma are some of our favorites.

 

[TheRobbs]

Sorry, but what are LTT and HDDR??

 

[mic_key_mouse]

Abbreviations are on the DIS home page. LTT= Liberty Tree Tavern. HDDR= Hoop De Doo Review.

Blessings,
mic_key_mouse

 

[Forever42]

For fun, I'd say either 'Ohana or Whispering Canyon, emphasis on Whispering Canyon. We were unfortunately seated in the "quiet" section of Whispering Canyon, but everyone else was having a lot of fun.

Check out the many threads on either - especially the "large soda" one on Whispering Canyon!

 

[CamColt]

Ill throw in my .02. For fun meals, Id pick Hoop De Doo Revue(lots of laughs), Ohana(great atmosphere & fun games for the kids), Chef Mickeys(breakfast or dinner with the classic Disney characters), Cinderellas Royal Table(breakfast with the princesses in the castle), and ESPN(heaven for any sports crazed youngsters, like my DS,7). Another one my then 6yo, and his friend enjoyed was Planet Hollywood. They had a blast singing to all the songs they knew.

 

[Trena]

we had dinner at the Whispering Canyon Café at Wilderness Lodge Resort. If you'd like a nice romantic, quiet, relaxing meal after a long day in the parks....this isn't it. This was the most fun I think I’ve ever had at a restaurant. There was a small table with Lincoln logs to play with while we waited for our table. This place was loud and silly. We did the hokey pokey in the middle of our meal.

Emily participated in a stick horse race around and through the dinning room. We were told that any adult caught not cheering for the children would participate in the next race.

Harrison asked for ketchup and was told to stand in his chair and scream “I NEED KETCHUP”. He looked at our waitress and then looked at me. You could just see his thought process by the expression on his face…”you want me to do that in front of my mother? Will I get in trouble? ” I told him to go ahead and we even helped him scream out his request. Several heard his plea and 9 bottles of ketchup were delivered. A little while later a waiter announced that Jenny was too shy to ask for ketchup. So, he slid her across the dinning room in her chair. As she passed by the tables she was handed a few bottles of ketchup. She giggled and smiled all the way. Later 3 teenage boys stood in their chair to ask for ketchup. We had plenty of opportunities to share our 9 bottles.

Later a child asked for a blue crayon, the server announced the need and several children brought crayons to her. One guest gave his credit card to the server to pay for his meal. The server read out the credit card number for anyone that might like to use it for their bill!

Oh yeah, the food was really good too. We all had never ending milkshakes. The kids had grilled cheese sandwiches and fries. Rob had the “River Run” - Pan-seared snapper with roasted Yukon Gold potatoes, lobster chardonnay sauce and braised red cabbage $20.95 I had their Canyon Skillet (All You Care To Eat, $21.99 per person) Salad with mixed greens with apple vinaigrette dressing, fresh baked corn bread and biscuits. Smoked pork ribs, canyon pulled pork, oven-roasted chicken, pork sausage, Yukon Gold potatoes, baked beans, cole slaw and corn on the cob. I couldn’t finish the skillet. Rob tried a few things from my skillet but he couldn’t finish it off either. No one had room for dessert!

 

[DepCor0311]

Once again, I have to say O'hana!!!

 

[jiminy14]

For "fun", I love Prime Time Cafe in the Studios park and Whispering Canyon Cafe in WL. These are two places that children can actually see their parents acting like "children".
At Whispering Canyon, my teenage DD was made to ride around the restaurant on a wooden stick horse while being "lassoed" by our server. The entire restaurant had to sing Zip a dee do da while she ran for her life. We never laughed so hard in our lives.
At Prime Time Cafe, make sure you keep you elbows off the table and clean your plate or you might end up singing I'm a Little Teapot for the whole restaurant. If you don't clean your plate, and I mean everyone including adults, you will get the "airplane" treatment. We watched one night as a young man at a nearby table tried to scrape his green beans into a plastic cup he had brought in from the outside. The whole time he was doing this, hs "cousin" (server) was watching over his shoulder. He brought the young man out into the middle of the restaurant and proceeded to tell everyone what he had witnessed. He then made him sing I'm a Little Teapot and then place him in the corner for his "bad behavior".

 

[jbwolffiv]

I agree, the Prime Time Cafe is a great deal of fun. We also love the Garden Grill and Chef Mickeys. We did Chef Mickey's for breakfast and will try it out for dinner this summer!