Dining plans...

[kguenther8]

We will be at Disneyland March 20-22. We are spending two days in Disney, and one day in CA. We are driving from Vegas on March 19th.

Here's my plan so far:
March 19: Eat dinner at Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney and walk around.

March 20: Lunch: counter service
Dinner: Cafe Orleans 6pm

March 21: Lunch: counter service
Dinner: Blue Bayou 6pm

March 22: Eat breakfast at Plaza Inn Minnie and Friends (8:30am) then head on over for 10am opening of CA. Lunch will be counter service.

Now, are those two Disneyland restaurants too much alike? We ate dinner at Cafe orleans last time, and loved it. Of course, the best part was my son slept through it in his stroller!

My plan on that second day is to take a break around 3pm and go to the hotel, then come back out for dinner and fireworks. We have two kids...one is 5 and one is 20 months. Will the Blue Bayou just be too much for them? We saw it last time on like our fourth ride on Pirates, and thought it looked cool....and I have read reviews on here, and they are up and down. I don't want people throwing rolls at my kids either...our son is good, but our youngest can be uh...interesting. But, it's DISNEY and I find it unreal that kids would be unwelcome anywhere, at least on the park.

None of the other restuarants really excite me...I guess we could eat off park too in order to save money. What do you guys think?

 

[sonnyjane]

I am one of those people that was a "down" to Blue Bayou, so I'm not sure how your kids will handle it, since I only went once and didn't go back. It wasn't horrible or anything, just not worth the money, in my opinion, and we had a terrible server. Having said that, I think that there is a wide variety in menu selections between Blue Bayou and Care Orleans, so I would feel confident in your choice to eat at both of those places one day after the other. Maybe I wouldn't go ordering gumbo at both places if you think that would be too similar, but other than that, the menus are very different. Also, you can go to allears.net and find the menus for all the park restaurants. Here is the link: http://allears.net/dlr/tp/dl/dl_rest.htm

 

[TheColtonsMom]

I loved Blue Bayou and there were lots of kids there (not as many as other restaurants in DL though). Our 6 year old was with us. You pay for the atmosphere however so if your "interesting" child is likely to cause a lot of noise you may get some looks from the kidless folks. The environment is peaceful with the sound of the water,the fireflies and low light if you time it right 20 month old may go to sleep, maybe they both will, our 6 year old fell asleep watching the boats right after eating his appetizer. Do note you will not be able to take the stroller to the table so if he/they fall asleep you may end up eating with a sleeping child on your lap, luckily ours just fell asleep with his head on the table.

We did the wait for a waterfront table and decided this was key for us as DS6 got to watch the boats drift by and this kept him entertained. However this does require an additional wait time even with PS and the waiting area in Blue Bayou leaves alot to be desired like seating perhaps? Also if your kids tend to get cranky if they don't eat on time make your PS for 30-45 minutes before you really want to eat then the "extra" wait until you get that waterfront table is already built into their schedule.
Our service was wonderful our waitress was attentive and when our son fell asleep after his appetizer she removed his entire meal from the bill after asking if we would like this option or it packed "to go".( I couldn't imagine packing leftovers in DL)
If this is a restaurant you want to experience then like everything else involving kids just go in prepared.

 

[Pinkandproud]

We just returned from Disneyland and found a couple of things about eating on property:
1. Blue Bayou is expensive. We found it was the same or very similar menu for lunch as dinner, at a much reduced rate. The trick? Book the latest possible lunch, like 3 p.m. I think. Food good, but pretty expensive.
2. We looked at Cafe Orleans and food was a bit more upscale and nothing for our 6 year old to really enjoy.
3. we ate counter service in CA Adventure at the wharf and both times the food was really good. Highly recommend the Boudin Bakery (?), they served soups & salads in bread bowls. Really, really good.
4. We ate dinner at the Taste Pilot Grill just before the Wonder of Color show and felt this was a great place. Ribs were really good, coleslaw really good. Prices really reasonable.
5. Wine place in CA Adventure. Had a good looking menu, but we couldn't get in. It was reservation only. Wish we'd have known that, we would have made a reservation. Half of the table were empty, so I'm not sure their reservation only deal is really working out so well. It was nice to have a drink and put our feet up in the upstairs lounge though.
6. We've eaten in the Rainforest before, good, but pricey. Here's the trick though that I wish we would have known...ride the monorail over. When you get up, the Rainforest is just to your right when you get out of the monorail station. We walked what felt like miles to get there with a 4 year old in tow, trying to make it to our reservation. In hind sight, we would have eaten in the park instead.
7. we watched the fireworks while having dinner in Downtown Disney at the New Orleans place. Food was really good and the fireworks were a nice bonus.

Hope this helps. I wish I had of had some of this information before we went this weekend. Happy to share with you!