Character Meals

[pixleyyy]

My kids sat down with me and tried to help plan the dining for our next trip, however they picked several character meals. I do not want to go to 5 character meals this trip, so I need a little help deciding. Which restaurants are good and which should we pass on???

They're all dinner, except where marked. The list includes:
Garden Grill
Chef Mickeys
1900 Park Fare
Akershus (breakfast)
Crystal Palace (breakfast or dinner)

ETA: I've got it narrowed down to these choices. One from each list. What's your thoughts on these?
Dinner: 1900 Park Fare or Chef Mickey's
Breakfast: Akershus or Tusker House

 

[mrsannb]

My kids sat down with me and tried to help plan the dining for our next trip, however they picked several character meals. I do not want to go to 5 character meals this trip, so I need a little help deciding. Which restaurants are good and which should we pass on???

They're all dinner, except where marked. The list includes:
Garden Grill
Chef Mickeys
1900 Park Fare
Akershus (breakfast)
Crystal Palace (breakfast or dinner)

The reviews on Garden grill aren't that good.
Chef Mickeys and 1900 park fare and Crystal Palace have similar buffet selections I believe.
Akershus is good but I won't go there again because we've gotten sick after eating there and a friend of mine has as well.
I'm planning to do Chef Mickey breakfast and 1900 Park Fare dinner for our upcoming trip...90+10 only 5 hours to go...

 

[eaj1228]

We got an 8:05am seating at Crystal Palace on a non EMH day. It was awesome to be in the park early and get pictures in front of the castle. The food at Crystal Palace was great and the service was awesome. I loved Pooh and all his pals.

 

[pixleyyy]

ETA: I've got it narrowed down to these choices. One from each list. What's your thoughts on these?
Dinner: 1900 Park Fare or Chef Mickey's
Breakfast: Akershus or Tusker House

 

[Mom2SamandJames]

When we go in September, we are eating at 1900 Park Fare for dinner because we couldn't get a Chef Mickey's reservation on the night we wanted and we have heard the stepsisters are hilarious. We will be eating breakfast at Tusker House this time too. Both will be a first for us, but we have 2 prince charmings in our house and no princesses. Lots of people with little girls enjoy the Askershus.

Have a great trip!

Dawn

 

[MickeyNicki]

This is just me being honest....we have gone to just about every single character dinner out there and the food is always terrible....great character fun but horrible food

We have done all the character breakfasts too (except TH) and the food is fantastic

 

[BigMama]

This is just me being honest....we have gone to just about every single character dinner out there and the food is always terrible....great character fun but horrible food

We have done all the character breakfasts too (except TH) and the food is fantastic

I agree with you

 

[PoohsFan1]

ETA: I've got it narrowed down to these choices. One from each list. What's your thoughts on these?
Dinner: 1900 Park Fare or Chef Mickey's
Breakfast: Akershus or Tusker House

Well we have never done 1900 Park Fare so I can't comment on that. As for Chef Mickey's we have been their for dinner and enjoyed it. We loved the buffet and the character interaction was top notch. Infact we loved it so much that we plan on going their for breakfast for our next trip. As for Akershus we love this place (my girls are still into princesses), however I am not sure if your DSs would be into it, but I see you have a young DD so if you are doing that for her, it should be fine. We also did Tusker House and thought it was just o.k. The characters were great and my girls loved the parade that they did with the kids, it was just something we did once and that was fine. Now our favorite character breakfast has to be Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club with Donald, Goofy, and Minnie Mouse....we went there last time and now it is a must do. Good luck with your decisions.....we are still trying to figure out our character meals.

 

[flipflopmom]

Breakfast is always your better bet, that's true. To us Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace dinners were OK, not horrible, CP was better. I would definitely do Akershus breakfast for your DD. As for 1900 PF, we haven't eaten there, but we did meet the stepsisters and LOVED them, they were absolutely hilarious. We are considering adding this one next year just to get more of them! To be fair to your DS's, I would do Akershus breakfast and either CP or CM dinner, just for a better mix of characters!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I like Chef Mickey's a LOT better than 1900 Park Fare. I've never been to Tusker House, but to make sure you get a princess experience in, I would do Chef Mickey's and Akershus.

 

[pixleyyy]

Thanks for all the input. The breakfast depends on which park we decide to go to the last day we are there - either AK or Epcot. But since we could go either way I was letting the breakfast choices decide.

 

[Bouncin-Tigger]

I say you go to them all, you asked for the kids help and they helped...lol

 

[jcemom]

We have eaten at pretty much ever character meal they have. Most of them do not have what I would call really good food. To some extent I think you need to be willing to accept mediocre food and choose the characters you want to meet. If you really don't care which characters you see, then I think the ones with GOOD food are:

Crystal Palace breakfast
Akershus lunch or dinner (not everyone likes it, it's different)
Tusker House breakfast
'Ohana breakfast (choices are limited)

OKAY:

Hollywood and Vine breakfast
Chef Mickey's breakfast
Crystal Palace dinner
Garden Grill dinner

I have not tried 1900 Park Fare breakfast (didn't like dinner), Cape May Cafe breakfast (my mom said it was okay), or Akershus breakfast.

I don't care for the food at:

Chef Mickey's dinner
1900 Park Fare dinner
Hollywood and Vine lunch
CRT
Crystal Palace lunch... hmm, maybe this one should be in the OKAY column

 

[chocolateMinnie]

the problem is there are so many of us on these boards that we all have different good and bad experiences and different tastes in foods and would all review the same place differently.

We prefer Akershus breakfast to dinner, same at Crystal Palace.

Would never go to 1900 PF again not if my life depended on it and I've been twice for breakfast and twice for dinner, one bad meal three dreadful meals and sickness twice.

Others may feel differently, would love to hear your views when you return.

 

[ktlm]

I've eaten at all of the ones on your list except for Garden Grill within the last year. I would pick Crystal Palace (any meal), Akershus (any meal), and Tusker House breakfast. I think I would do 3 instead of 2, just because they are completely different characters and we wouldn't want to give up Princesses or Mickey, but CP is great. We found those 3 to have really good food and good character interaction (Tusker house we had problems with the characters because of our table location- they couldn't really get to DD, but others in the restaurant had no problems ). I would never again go to Chef Mickey's for dinner, although I would be willing to try breakfast. The restaurant was horribly dirty at dinner and the food (other than the salads and desserts) was terrible. The characters and our waiter were good though. 1900 Park Fare was just okay, but I would go there again. The food was okay, not good not bad. We got there 30 minutes before our ADR and did not get seated until between 45 minutes and an hour after our ADR time. The characters were really cute. Prince Charming was a big plus- my 3 year old DD loved meeting him. Cinderella and the stepsisters and stepmother were all good, but it was very loud around us and kind of hard to hear them. My DD liked them, but she preferred seeing the stepmother and stepsisters at MK where they were all standing together and playing off each other and teasing her and making her laugh instead of seeing them one by one. Actually, I think at 1900 Park Fare they were trying to be nice and tone it down a little with her because she was so little and I think they didn't want to scare her. Because she ran right up to the ones at MK and tackled Anastasia with a big hug (loves her from Cinderella 2 and 3- and I'm pretty sure the CM told them she was a fan when they came out as we were 1st in line waiting for them and talked to the CM quite a bit about it), they knew they could put on a big show for her and they did! They also spotted her during the parade later that day and came over and made a big fuss over her too, which was one of our completely magical moments at WDW. Love those girls!!!

 

[ROEDISNEY]

From the 4 you picked.
Chef Mickey's & Tusker House.

 

[tara32]

Sorry to hijack,. but it looks as though bfast is the best bet for quality? If we go for the latest seating at breakfast , then in a few minutes the lunch crowd starts, will we still be able to get b'fast food? I was totally steering away from b'fsts for a couple reasons, its not fun to be stogged full that early.. and breakfast is a traditionally cheap meal I just thought lunch would be a better "value". But if the food sucks at lunch it defeats the purpose I guess.. so breakfast is the way to go?

 

[jcemom]

Sorry to hijack,. but it looks as though bfast is the best bet for quality? If we go for the latest seating at breakfast , then in a few minutes the lunch crowd starts, will we still be able to get b'fast food? I was totally steering away from b'fsts for a couple reasons, its not fun to be stogged full that early.. and breakfast is a traditionally cheap meal I just thought lunch would be a better "value". But if the food sucks at lunch it defeats the purpose I guess.. so breakfast is the way to go?

Most breakfasts have plenty of time before lunch starts. When they do overlap they will leave one side of the buffet with breakfast food and put the lunch food on the other side. In those instances we have been able to eat from both sides, but that's only happened once or twice for us.

For example, at Tusker House and Crystal Palace the last breakfast seating is 10:30 but lunch doesn't start until 11:30. 'Ohana and Chef Mickey's don't serve lunch (well, Chef Mickey's does sometimes during free dining). Hollywood and Vine is the one we've been to that overlapped. There was only something like 30-40 minutes between the last breakfast and the first lunch.