Crystal Palace or BOG breakfast

[baseballgal]

I'm getting ready to plan ADRs for our January visit. I wanted to do a breakfast at Crystal Palace as it is something we haven't done and save BOG for lunch and/or dinner later in our trip. BUT I am trying to figure out best touring strategy. We will do MK 2 days. I have a 5 and 7 year old and my DH, and none of us are big breakfast eaters so I'd rather not do 2 breakfasts on the dining plan as it seems a poor value for us. I love including characters in meals because neither kid really likes to stand in line just to see characters. I want to be able to get in park early to 1) get a pic of castle with out 1000s of our closest friends and 2) hopefully get an early jump on the 7DMT line. Would Crystal Palace work as well as BOG or would we be stuck in wrong area of park for 7D?? And does it take longer to eat there with character interaction? Thanks in advance for the help!!

 

[JenB1104]

We did BOG at 8 AM and the line for it was just around the corner. We were within the first 40 people in line I would say. Unfortunately the ride broke down and was down til noon that day so we missed the rope drop advantage and our FP. It would be a longer walk from CP since that is closer to entrance of park. If you want the advantage for 7D I would do BOG - you get out faster too because of not meeting characters. But, if you want characters I would do CP - we loved that breakfast too.

 

[SmallWorld71]

A few thoughts:
Based on reports I've seen, a BOG breakfast would give you a much better jump on the 7DMT than a CP one. (barring any break downs like the PP)
BOG dinner is fine, but not great and unless you want to see the Beast, another meal would probably work just as well for you.
I hate rushing through character meals and never schedule them for a time when we'd be in a hurry. I always allow at least 90 min. just to be on the safe side. I've had lunch/ dinner there 5x and never had a bad experience. If your family is OK with buffets, then they have a decent selection. Lots of people love their breakfast; we're just not big breakfast eaters.

 

[baseballgal]

Thank you both. That helps!!

 

[dwight16]

We just changed from cp to bog for a breakfast 1 reason was my kid is now 10 so we have to pay adults prices and the second was to try a new thing. We also scheduled a park fair breakfast and the characters were almost the same. So we kept one character breakfast but outside the park. We got an 8:10 breakfast on a 9am open so I am hoping we are out before 9am