Character Dining

[jreeves628]

I will be staying at Poly so I will be doing the O'hana character breakfast. I was debating about the Donald Safari Breakfast and Chef Mickey's. Are all character breakfasts pretty much the same or will my 3 year olds love to see them all? I just dont want to book a different character breakfast everyday and end up bored with the same ol' thing.

 

[djp0630]

Well, they are a little different, but I probably would choose a breakfast with different characters. Like Crystal Palace for Pooh & Friends, 1900 Park Fare, or Akershus. Chef Mickey's & Tusker House have similar characters to 'Ohana. We are doing a lot of character breakfasts in May. They are fun. In my opinion, my 3 year old enjoyed all meals with characters, even when we did Chef Mickey's twice.

 

[Disney Commando]

1900 Park Fare has a awesome array or character's - Mary Poppin's, Alice, Mad Hatter, Pooh & Tigger. Plus the food is really good!

 

[jreeves628]

Great! I'll check those out. Thanks!

 

[Mississippianna]

Depends on the characters they like. Tusker House is the only place you can see Donald and Daisy together, 'Ohana is the only place you can see Lilo and Stitch, Crystal Palace has Pooh, etc. I would base the decision more on the characters. Breakfast is breakfast, they all serve mickey waffles.

 

[wolf29]

We don't care for Ohana, but otherwise I'd let the characters determine your choice, as the food is all basically the same. We do enjoy being able yo book our ADRs earlier than park opening and having the place basically to ourselevs for pictures on the way to our breakfast. Also, be aware that @ Tusker House, Donald does not come to your table. You get to meet Donald on the way in and have your picture taken with him. We've found the breakfasts @ Hollywood/Vine, Tusker House & Cape May to be a bit more relaxed.

 

[LisaPisa]

Don't know if your 3yo's are girls or boys... But we have all girls and did two character meals, one to cover the princess angle at 1900 Park Fare, and the breakfast at Tusker House.

1900 was a delish buffet dinner with Cindy/Prince/Stepmother/Stepsisters. The Stepmother and sisters especially were SO in character (even for the pictures) it was hilarious! We were even reprimanded by the Stepmother b/c we were at the buffet when she came to our table and we kept 'royalty waiting'. The prince was okay, didn't speak at all (didn't know English maybe? dunno).

Everybody's favorite was Tusker House breakfast though --not only for the array of classic characters but the food was FANTASTIC! Ambiance was neat too w/the open air market theme.

My recommendation is not to do too many character meals. And if you only do a select number, do them early in the week so you can forgo standing in line for autographs for those characters later in the week!

 

[bleeps]

One or two character meals are fun -- as others have said, you are guaranteed seeing the characters which saves you from having to wait in lines at the parks to see them. And as said, food is *basically* the same.

The two things to keep in mind with little ones are that:

their excitement level at character meals is SO high that most kids eat very little at the meal (and given the price AND the need to get some food in those little tummies to fuel them up for the morning, that can be difficult), and

most are buffets, which again can be hard with little ones (although there are pros and cons -- if you've got two adults in your party then one adult can stay at the table with the kids while the other adult goes and gets two plates for the kids, then goes back for his/her own meal, then sends other adult up to get his/her meal -- and at least you don't have to wait for the food to come to you. If you are the only adult, then it really is hard because you'll need keep the kids with you and you'll have to do all the juggling and going back and forth to the table.) You can avoid the buffets if necessary, but just pay attention to the set up when you book.

 

[shawnh199]

We did a different character breakfast each morning of our trip in December and never got bored with it. You may see a couple of the characters at more than one breakfast, but there are new ones at each. Mickey is the main character we saw at several breakfasts and my two girls DD2.5 and DD6 never got tired of meeting him!

It's great meeting so many different characters at the meals. If you don't want to wait in a long line at the park to see a character you will have met at a meal you don't have to unless you just want to.

Our favorites: (1) Tusker House (best food and a large buffet with tons of choices)
(2) Princess Breakfast at Epcot (Yummy family style with the Princesses if you are interested in them) ties with Ohana (delicious family style with really fresh fruit and Lilo & Stitch)
(3) Crystal Palace (nice buffet with made to order omelets with Pooh & friends)
(4) Hollywood and Dine (large buffet with pretty good food, but they really need new characters to replace Jo Jo and Goliath)
(5) Chef Mickeys (our least favorite food, but the big 5 characters)

My kids were excited at the character meals, but I disagree that they don't eat much. My two girls ate tons of food which was great fuel for running around the parks and riding rides. All kids are different and only you know your's the best. As far as buffets go, my DH had one girl and I had the other. We carried 2 plates, sat one down as we got food for one plate, and sat the other down to get food for the second. We had no issues with the buffets despite having a 2.5 year old walking through the buffet lines with us. However, the family style meals are more relaxing and you don't have to worry about missing characters. FYI - if you do miss a character, be sure to tell your waiter and they will make sure you see that character before you leave - you are paying to see all of them.

We loved doing all the character meals. If budget allows for our next trip, we will plan a character breakfast for each day. We got into the parks early, had a great meal, and met tons of characters. That's a pretty good way to start your mornings at Disney IMO!

Have a great trip.

 

[mb_uh]

Thanks for the imput on a character a day. We were planning this but a little afraid it might be total overload.

I am glad others have tried it and it worked.

 

[Mouse's Shadow]

IMO, you can never do too may character breakfast! My kids loved them and never got tired of seeing a repeat of the characters. At their first enounter with multiple character breakfasts DS was 11 and DD was 9.