Dining Recommendations Please - First Visit to WDW with the kids(7 and 4)

[BargainDiva]

We'll be staying at the Coronado Springs Resort Jan 2-8. Right now we have the regular dining plan, but we may upgrade to the Deluxe. I currently have reservations for dinner at the Crystal Palace and lunch at Cinderella's castle, but what are other places we must eat. I'd love suggestions for character dining because I want to make as many reservations as possible. We didn't purchase the park hopper option, because I really can't see myself trying to go to more than one park in a day with my 2 kids. Last time I was there was 2003, and even though we had a park hopper then, we didn't really use it. Also, we're not planning on visiting Epcot - since we won't have a park hopper, my husband and I don't feel there's enough there to keep my kids' interest for an entire day.

We are Disneyland passholders and make it to Disneyland several times a year, but there seem to be sooooo many options at WDW I don't even know where to begin. Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[eliza61]

My sons like Sci fi Diner and Mama Melrose in HS. We pretty much like them for their themes more than the food. Sci fi is cool, you sit in cars like an old fashion drive in movie theater and watch corny sci fi movies and cartoons. We generally go for lunch and stick with the burgers, fries and milkshakes.

 

[TivoQueen]

For character meals I would recommend Donald's breakfast at the Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom. This is by far the best character meal out there. They have a huge buffet with a great seletion. The characters are Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Mickey.

All kids like Chef Mickey's in the Contempory Resort. The character breakfast at Ohana at the Poly is really good too. It is served all you can eat family style and the characters are Lilo, Sticth, and Mickey Mouse.

For non character meals my kids like The Wispering Canyon at the Wilderness Lodge resort and Ohana. They are both very entertaining for kids.

 

[bellefromboston]

The first trip is always so magical!

The ADRs you have are two of my favorite dining experiences.

I would also recommend:

Cape May Cafe - Such a GREAT character meal! The food alone is reason enough to go, but the characters are a real treat too. It is more "peaceful" than the other character meals.

I would suggest doing a few non character meals as well. Though the characters are fun, the food and atmosphere in some other restaurants are equally as magical. 'Ohana is a good choice. The food is fantastic, and the atmosphere is very fun. Perfect for a family meal. Sci Fi is another fun choice with children.

Have a wonderful vacation!

 

[kriscar]

Chef Mickeys at Contemporary (character meal)
Cosmic Ray's at Magic Kingdom (entertainment by animatronic Sonny Eclipse)
Sci Fi Diner or 50s Prime Time Cafe at Hollywood Studios (nice theming)
Coral Reef or San Angel Inn at Epcot (for the surroundings)
Donald's Breakfast, Tusker House at Animal Kingdom (character meal)

I would give Epcot a try...you might be surprised!
Just walking around World Showcase and getting pics in each country with their hats, etc is super fun. Combine that with a boat ride to Boardwalk for some entertainment and ice cream at Beaches N Cream. Fun day!

 

[quandrea]

I love this question. I don't know if you have boys or girls. If girls, the tea at Garden View lounge at the GF may be fun. My daughter loves it. Not the character tea, just the regular one. Tusker House is our favourite restaurant for lunch or dinner. We will try the breakfast in Sept, so the PP who said it was good makes me happy. We love Prime Time Cafe at HS. Earl of Sandwich at DTD makes a great Cs lunch. It is also a much do every trip. We also do Mickey's Backyard BBQ every trip. We love the food, the music and the characters. I find that with kids the buffets are good; they always find something they like and I don't feel too bad if they try a bite of something and don't like it.

 

[princessmom29]

I would encourage you to give Epcot a try. We easily filled 2 full days with out 6 year old the past 2 years when she was barely 5 and barely 6. There is a LOT for kid. DD loved Sorin, Tst trakc, and mission space, and loved looking at all the countries. Illuminations is not to be missed, and ther are so many great restaurants to eat in. Barring that I would try to get in Chef Mickey, Ohana, the Plaza, Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare if you have girls.

 

[2kids2luv]

The restaurants my kids (6 &9) are asking to return to are:
Chef Mickey's
Coral Reef
Ohana
Sci-Fi
1900 Park Fair (dinner)

 

[skipperkim]

With kids, Ohanas, WCC, 50's for sure. As far as character meals my favorite is Garden Grill. It has the best character interaction and is very low key. Chef Mickey's is very loud.

 

[Tinkerbell3014]

I agree with the others who say to give Epcot a chance. My kids love it there. Their first trip there was when they were 4 and 2. This trip, they still enjoyed it, especially doing The Great Piggy Bank Adventure in Innoventions. They loved dinner at the Coral Reef. Donald's Safari Breakfast at the Tusker House is also one of our favorites. Have a great trip!

 

[cmusschoot]

So many good reccomendations out there.

I agree with Tusker House (my favorite) and Chef Mickey (my son's favorite)
We also love the Sci-Fi, such fun atmosphere!!!


T-Rex at DTD is a favorite of my kids...but I don't think it is on the dining plan.


Another vote to visit Epcot...it is my son's favorite (he is 5) and a close second behind MK for my daughter (she is 3). Test Track...Soarin'...Mission Space are favorites, suprisingly my kids also love Living With The Land (boat ride through the green house) and Spaceship Earth...they think that IS Epcot. We love walking around the World Showcase (rarely stop to see movies...etc.) the Mini train layout in Germany is fun to see...That being said, I am not a fan of Animal Kingdom, feels crowded to me and ther are few rides for the kids...plus we live in Chicago and have a great zoo...

Have a great trip!
Carrie

 

[bellefromboston]

I would give Epcot a try...you might be surprised!
Just walking around World Showcase and getting pics in each country with their hats, etc is super fun. Combine that with a boat ride to Boardwalk for some entertainment and ice cream at Beaches N Cream. Fun day!

Totally agree! Give EPCOT a try!

 

[hkfiler]

I have to try to nudge you to Epcot, too! We all love it and some of my daughter's favorite things are there (she's almost 6 and has been going for three years now). There are great headliner rides there like Test Track and Soarin' and DD also loves Nemo with Turtle Talk and Journey in Imagination with Figment. There are also some really neat indoor activities in Innoventions for kids and adults. And as another poster said, we spend the least amount of time in AK park, too. The layout of the park makes it tougher to navigate with the kids and other than the safari and Rapids, there's not much there that keeps my kids going for a full day.
But back to your original question about dining...
We love Chef Mickey's, Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare and Akershus for character dining. DD also always wants to go to Coral Reef. Have fun!

 

[MommyJack]

If you have girls, I would recommend Akershus princess breakfast in Epcot. Also, if you don't mind using two dining credits the Hoop-de-doo review is a really great experience. Both the food and the show are great.

 

[smileycrissy]

I suggest Whispering Canyon Cafe in the Wilderness Lodge. We had a group of 8 (6 adults, two kids under 6) and it was such a blast!! The waiters/waitresses are hysterical and its very entertaining. Mom in the group was stuck wearing straws in her hair for 'complaining too much'. The food is pretty good too.

 

[DisneyEJT]

We went last January/February with DD7 (turned 7 on the trip) and DSs 4 and 1 at the time. They all loved Chef Mickey's. We did a late breakfast and counted it as lunch. We also all loved Tutto Italia in Epcot. Our waitress was wonderful, and all the kids had fun with her.

 

[Taja]

No suggestions for dining venues, but I do recommend avoiding the DxDDP if this is your first visit to WDW.

WDW is huge compared to Disneyland. Don't get me wrong--Disneyland is my first Disney love! I grew up at and with Disneyland.

The DxDDP will eat into a lot of your park touring time. You need to allow about 1.5 to 2.0 hours per TS meal, depending on if you are eating in the same park/resort or if you need to change locations. Even if you are driving.

Disneyland/CA is a relatively compact resort. It's measured in acres. WDW sprawls all over the place--something like 47 square miles, although not all of it is developed. Even "conveniently located" resorts that are on the monorail loop (MK) or can be reached by Friendship boat (EPCOT/DHS) require transportation time in addition to actual dining time.

If your family loves TS meals, by all means consider the DxDDP. Dining can be an important component to the enjoyment of many WDW guests. Just be aware that it is time consuming and January typically has shorter park hours than many other months of the year.

What ever choice you make, have a magical WDW holiday!

 

[ElizabethB]

We always enjoyed the Lilo and Stitch breakfast at the Polynesian. Mickey and Pluto show up and often Minnie is there as well. Mickey leads the kids in a parade every hour or so.

 

[shawnh199]

We love the Dlx Dining Plan - we did this on our last trip and are booked for it on our trip in May/June. We did the regular plan our first trip but our girls were 4 and 8 months old at the time. They were 2 and 6 last trip and it worked great for us. We do 3 TS meals a day starting with a pre-rope drop character breakfast at the park (or nearby resort) we were attending. Our favorite - Tusker House (love it for lunch also!) Ohana and Epcot's Princess Breakfast are next on our list, with Crystal Palace, Hollywood & Vine following. Chef Mickey's was our least favorite because of the food and the characters were so rushed we barely got pictures with them. A large breakfast gives us great fuel for riding rides and all that walking until a 1-2pm lunch.

All our meals were inside the park we were at for the day unless it was after park closing. Since AK closes early we eat at Whispering Canyon Cafe in the evening. We enjoyed the food and atmosphere here. My DH asked for a fork and they brought out a 3-4 foot fork - got great pics with DH and the girls. On nights when MK closes earlier (or a night after we have already seen fireworks/parades) we do Monorail resort restaurants like Ohana.

Some of our favorite in park restaurants are Tusker House (lunch or dinner), 50's Prime Time Cafe (great fried chicken), and Le Cellier (awesome NY strip).

As far as the length of meals, we never spent more than an hour/hour and 15 minutes in a restaurant with the exception of Ohana (2 hours) and Grand Floridian Cafe (almost 2 hours despite telling the server we were in a hurry and ordered/paid up front.) I don't think we ever spent over an hour in a character meal unless we wanted to. My best advice is to pay your bill early on, especially when you are on a dining plan because they come back several times with different receipts. It can take 15 minutes or longer to take care of a bill and when you are trying to make rope drop, taking care of it early makes that one less thing to worry about. If you plan well, you can have your "cake and eat it too". We ate what we wanted and rode basically everything on our list and then some. Besides, TS meals are a nice break after 4-5 hours of rides/walking/heat to sit down in a nice AC cooled restaurant. The girls often take short naps until the food arrives.

Have a great trip.