Character breakfast food quality

[andysomma1]

A $7 hot dog (accompanied by a $10-$12 beer) is REQUIRED at the ballpark. It has nothing to do with food -- it's all about baseball.

If you're lucky, it will be a pretty good hot dog. If not, it's just tradition.

Agreed. I'm a Yankee fan living in Miami so the only draw of the Miami Marlins games is the food.

 

[Kidanifan08]

Are there any non-buffet character meals?

The dinner at Garden Grill at the Land Pavillion is not a buffet. It is all you can eat and served family style. The food there was very good the one time we did this character experience. The photos with the characters did not come out very good, as the background was dark and it was hard to see the details of the characters on the dark background. But, the food was very good. It's too bad they don't have a breakfast character meal at this location.

To answer the original thread question, we have been fairly happy with the food quality at Tusker House and CP for the character breakfasts, although the price seems a little high for what you get. CM for breakfast is a little too chaotic, but we don't mind the dinner there. We have not done CRT or Akerhaus (we have a son and no daughters). We are thinking about trying Cape May for breakfast during our July trip, since we will be staying at BCV. I am curious what people think of that location for breakfast.

 

[glvsav37]

I think you'll find the same "hurried" type of experience at Cape May as with most CMs. The dining room is pretty large and open so it gets a little loud, ESP if you are near the buffet. There really is no theming to speak of. That said, we do enjoy the breakfast choices there and let the other things slide.

IMO, 1900 park fare at GF is prob the best all around CM (we only did breakfast there). The food is good, they have a fresh omelet station with lots of choices so you know you'll get at least 1 fresh meal. And there are face characters there--Alice and the Mad hatter who is a blast. So you can interact with them for a few minutes vs waving and posing with a costumed character.

 

[glvsav37]

Moving back to the orig topic. I'd agree that the quality has dipped. But I also favor the experience to the quality (to a point).

When we go we try and book a few of our meals as CMs. IMO, quality aside it still beats standing on line and waisting good park time to meet characters in the parks. Hey....you gotta eat right? Might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

 

[crisi]

A $7 hot dog (accompanied by a $10-$12 beer) is REQUIRED at the ballpark. It has nothing to do with food -- it's all about baseball.

If you're lucky, it will be a pretty good hot dog. If not, it's just tradition.

Yeah, I'll get my tradition of baseball and hotdogs somewhere other than a major league park. Going to a major league park is expensive enough now without the hot dog (and I don't drink beer, so that has never been an issue).

 

[sarahk0204]

Are there any non-buffet character meals?

Ohana breakfast is family style. We did that this past trip, and we still enjoy the food.

When we stopped for cocoa and cookies at CP during MVMCP, DS commented on how he wants to get back there for a meal. We have always liked the food there as well, and we will likely eat there on a future trip. At 9 almost 10, my kids will take pictures with the characters at meals, but we no longer have to stand in line or carry around autograph books. Hooray!

As for food quality, we have our places to go, and the places we avoid. I've also done more cooking in the villa on some trips, depending on our budget.

 

[rkold]

Are there any non-buffet character meals?

Cinderella's is Table Service as well, and pretty darn expensive since it includes tip and the picture. I have a 3 year old girl, so we try to hit up Cindy's most trips right now (and currently breakfast) since they no longer have a kid's vegetarian menu item. ~.~ Our first lunch there, my meal tasted of salt 10/12, but DD loved her mini pizza. Our second lunch there, the new veggie gnocchi 1/13 was quite good, and DD loved her mini pizza. We then did dinner there for DDs B-day, 10/13 and the gnocchi was not as good and the mini pizza was now MIA. DD had a fabulous time despite the lack of food. If you have a little girl who wants to meet princesses it is one of the best places to reliably meet Ariel as human princess. (Ariel's grotto she is a mermaid, and she doesn't always meet in Norway.) DD *LOVES* meeting characters and likes meeting different variations, so for her meeting both Ariels is important.

I personally don't tend to eat off property. Having schlepped a car seat through the airport on our most recent trip, it was a harrowing experience, and not one I want to repeat if I have other options.

I also have to say, maybe some of the people in this thread are fortunate enough to live places with good restaurants, but I'm not one of them. We have one good high end pizza place and a few mediocre pizza places and Italian restaurants and that is pretty much it. I enjoy going out to eat in WDW because there actually are some good albeit expensive options, like Flying Fish Cafe. If I want good food where I live, I have to drive 1.5 hours into NYC.

 

[Pumpkin meme]

best breakfast character meals....ohana's, tusker
best character dinner...garden grill
best breakfast non character..kouzinna @ bwv

 

[bobbiwoz]

I enjoy the food at the Cape May Character meal enough to go there with adults, not just children. We did not like 1900Park Fare's breakfast nearly as much. The Poly's Character Breakfast gets from my family as well.

Still, more often with adults, we go to the Captain's Grill at the Yacht club for their buffet breakfast, no characters, but good food.

Bobbi

 

[Kidanifan08]

I enjoy the food at the Cape May Character meal enough to go there with adults, not just children. . . .

Still, more often with adults, we go to the Captain's Grill at the Yacht club for their buffet breakfast, no characters, but good food.

Bobbi

Good to hear, Bobbi. I think we are going to try Cape May for breakfast on the morning when we move from BCV to Kidani. It seems like this will be an easy way to get in a character experience. As I have read, Donald, Goofy and Minnie are at this one, right? We will have two boys - 8 and 9 - so CP and the princess experiences are out. We're still considering GG for dinner, since they have the big guy. We also really like Tusker for breakfast or lunch, since they have Mickey, too.

 

[njpyro]

I really like Crystal Palace for breakfast, but wouldn't go for any other meal. The food is decent, you get to see all the Pooh characters, and most importantly, you can make reservations before the park opens, to get the elusive photo on main street in front of the castle without anyone else in the photo.

 

[CarolMN]

Moved from DVC Boards

 

[babydoll65]

Not big on character breakfasts for this reason. We did chef mickeys two years ago and felt like we were in a cafeteria. The food was horrible with almost no character interaction. The only character breakfast I loved was ohanas in the poly. We just came back from a trip in November and since my son is 16, he refuses to do character breakfasts anymore. We tried The Wave at the contemporary resort. Awsome breakfast buffet without the characters and very reasonably priced. My son still talks about this restaurant and we will do this again on our next trip