Donald's Breakfastosaurus at AK

[TwingleMum]

I had to ask DS. That's sort of sad isn't it!!
DS said that there are bones on the wall, fake dino heads and how a Dino transforms into Donald. I guess I should stop and smell the dinosaur eggs when I am here in June. DS loves this place. It's his number one place to go and he loves the chocolate chip pancakes and "the bacon is the best in Walt Disney World."

I'd keep and do the Toy Story too. Rumor is that it's suppose to be lunch anyway.

Gosh trust a kid I never even noticed any dino stuff my recollection is it looked like it belonged in the WL . When we go again I'll have to look for the Dino themeing.

 

[sunny04]

One quick question:

Our DS is currently in love w/ dinosaurs, which is 1 reason I chose this restaurant - the themeing. (I've currently got 2 princess meals scheduled for our DD, so I really wanted something just for DS as well.)
When you're eating in the restaurant, do you really notice the "theme" or is it more of a backdrop kind of thing? Are there interesting dinosaur things to look at?

I may be a 25 yr. old female, but I have ALWAYS loved dinosaurs....I can answer this question. The walls are covered with paintings of dinosaurs...mostly made from hand prints put together...really cool, rustic dinosaur pictures. The theming of the restaurant has a palentologist and his tools feel to it. The CMs and characters have brightly colored clothes with dinosaur designs on them. It doesn't take over the restaurant, but if you notice theming, it's there. For a kid who likes dinosaurs, he will probably be like me on my first time there and stare at the walls and point out all the dinosaurs like I did to DH.

 

[EEyorelover22]

Yeah, but, since I booked CRT before we had our reservations (& therefore the dining plan), our debit card has already been charged for CRT. So, we decided to go ahead & leave it as a pre-paid meal & use the TS credits elsewhere. I decided that I'd rather pay OOP for CRT than use 8 TS credits - that's 2 more meals I can have elsewhere.

So, I guess, not counting CRT, I only currently have 9 TS ADR's which is 2 more than our 7 nights, if that makes sense. We'll have 28 TS credits, and we plan on paying OOP for Chef Mickey's breakfast & Donald's Breakfastasauras. If I'm able to schedule a Toy Story meal, that would be 3 more than our 7 nights (not including CRT) - that's not terribly bad, is it?

We currently have ADR's for LTT (dinner), Mama Melrose's (FDP), CP (lunch), Garden Grill (lunch), CRT (lunch), Donald's Breakfastasauras, San Angel Inn (dinner), PSB (breakfast), WCC (dinner), & Chef Mickey's (breakfast).

You have some great ADRs...many of our favorites that's for sure.

 

[EEyorelover22]

I made the point about not doing Donald's on a EMH morning, but additionally, make sure you take Disney transporation. Some don't have trouble getting into the gate, but others report that they do. The bus gets you there in plenty of time.

Getting there with all the others on an EMH day wouldn't make me love this breakfast either. It is chaos at AK on EMH days!! icky

 

[Lizzybee]

I made the point about not doing Donald's on a EMH morning, but additionally, make sure you take Disney transporation. Some don't have trouble getting into the gate, but others report that they do. The bus gets you there in plenty of time.

Getting there with all the others on an EMH day wouldn't make me love this breakfast either. It is chaos at AK on EMH days!! icky

You're not kidding! I decided to make an ADR for an early EMH Saturday, the day before Easter when all 4 counties in Florida (and it seemed like half the country) had Spring Break!!!! Not only was it a total nightmare just trying to GET to the park, the park was crazy and the line to get back on the bus to the resort was all the way through the queing area and back from the back end of the depot all the way to the front after a gulley washer rainstorm chased tons of people from the park. We ended up hopping a bus to CBR and then MGM and then POR. Donald's was quite pleasant even despite the rest of the fiasco for the day.

 

[Wendy31]

Cranbiz said - -

We were not allowed into the parking lot until 8am therefore making us very late for our ADR. The toll booth CM could not have cared less that we had a ressie, the gates did not open until 8am (and this was an EMH morning)...If you decide to go, then make sure that you the the bus! The toll booth CM's are unbending in the entrance times.

And then Eeyorelover22 said - -

I made the point about not doing Donald's on a EMH morning, but additionally, make sure you take Disney transporation. Some don't have trouble getting into the gate, but others report that they do. The bus gets you there in plenty of time.

Okay.... Eek, now!!

Our ADR is currently for Father's Day at 9:10 am. It is not an AK EMH day.

However, I was planning on calling to change our ADR time to around 8:15 am or 8:30 am - which would be BEFORE the park officially opens.

This is our only scheduled day at AK, and I had planned for us to leave AK after lunch. So I had decided that we needed an earlier breakfast (8:15 or 8:30 am) in order to get everything done we wished to do. My plans were to have breakfast, DH get a fastpass for EE for him to do later, & then we go do the safari, Kali River Rapids, etc.

However, we will have our van, and we had planned to DRIVE ourselves to AK. (We have a MYW pckg through AAA so we'll have the Diamond Parking Pass which puts us right next to the gate.)

But, from what I'm reading, if we have an ADR time for before the park opens & we're driving (not using Disney transportation), we may or may not be able to get in early. Eek!!! What to do!! Advice please!!!

After I got to thinking about it, I decided that, if our breakfast wasn't until 9:10 am, we wouldn't have enough time left to do everything we wanted to in the parks. But I know DH will want to drive to AK...

Oh, and I'm very excited about all the dinosaur decor now! DS will love it!!

 

[MulanMom]

QUOTE=Wendy31

Our ADR is currently for Father's Day at 9:10 am. It is not an AK EMH day.

However, I was planning on calling to change our ADR time to around 8:15 am or 8:30 am - which would be BEFORE the park officially opens.

This is our only scheduled day at AK, and I had planned for us to leave AK after lunch. So I had decided that we needed an earlier breakfast (8:15 or 8:30 am) in order to get everything done we wished to do. My plans were to have breakfast, DH get a fastpass for EE for him to do later, & then we go do the safari, Kali River Rapids, etc.

However, we will have our van, and we had planned to DRIVE ourselves to AK. (We have a MYW pckg through AAA so we'll have the Diamond Parking Pass which puts us right next to the gate.)

But, from what I'm reading, if we have an ADR time for before the park opens & we're driving (not using Disney transportation), we may or may not be able to get in early. Eek!!! What to do!! Advice please!!!

After I got to thinking about it, I decided that, if our breakfast wasn't until 9:10 am, we wouldn't have enough time left to do everything we wanted to in the parks. But I know DH will want to drive to AK...

Oh, and I'm very excited about all the dinosaur decor now! DS will love it!![/QUOTE]
If the Studios Character meal doesn't become a reality, we'll be at Donald's the same day...just a bit earlier.

In the past, we've had the unyielding, unsympathetic gate CM. She didn't want to hear anything about how we had an early PS at Donald's. IIRC, the gate opened at either 7:45 or 8am. My DH is handicapped and that helped a little with parking in front, but the poor guy can't walk fast. We might have been about 10 minutes late by the time we got through security and the gate. We still had a nice breakfast and were out by rope drop.

This year, DH's in an ECV, so we'll be trying the resort character meal bus which gets into the park a lot earlier.

 

[EEyorelover22]

Wendy31, I would try to take the bus or you may run into trouble.

 

[eeyoreiscool]

We had an ADR for 8:30 and didn't have any problem driving in and getting to the restaurant in time. We had a great time there. The characters all spent quite a bit of time with us and we didn't feel rushed. We were one of the last groups out of the area and the server didn't push us out either. We thought the food was good. But the other people who acted like they didn't know how to move through a buffet was our only problem.

 

[sunny04]

Note that the people who had trouble getting in were because of the EMH. If the park opens at 8, and you're trying to get in at 8, it's going to be crazy. If the park opens at 9, and you have an ADR for 8, it's not as big of a problem.

 

[MLR]

We hare ADR at Donalds on March 8th at 8:05. The park opens at 9 and is open an extra hour at evening. My parents are droping mysel DW and DS off will we have trouble getting past the gate?

 

[MulanMom]

We hare ADR at Donalds on March 8th at 8:05. The park opens at 9 and is open an extra hour at evening. My parents are droping mysel DW and DS off will we have trouble getting past the gate?

You'll run into the same issue as the parking lot opens about an hour or so before the park. There are not many people at the park entrance at that time since the park doesn't open until 9am, so you usually get through pretty quickly once you get into the parking lot. They'll probably be dropped off right around the handicapped parking area, if I remember correctly. Don't worry about it if you end up being 5-10 minutes late.

 

[susan0326]

We've done it twice and LOVED it. It's one of our favorites! The food is really good. I love the hash brown casserole.

Susan

 

[Keyser]

We enjoyed our visit, in mid-January. The food was fine, though not spectacular - I certainly would not go here for the food.

The character interaction was good. We had 8:00 reservations (the park "opened" at 9, and they checked our names vs. a list before letting us in), but we arrived at the AK gates at about 8:10, and were seated (after walking and photos) around 8:25 or so. We finished by about 9:15. In that time, all of the characters made it by our table twice, and it never seemed rushed. The day we were there, though, it seemed as though only 1/2 the restaurant was open (though maybe I didn't get a good feel for the layout) - I'm not sure if we'd have see the characters as often if the characters had to cover more area.

The pictures someone mentioned are taken right outside in front of a sign - not with any characters. It seemed like an odd picture setting to me, and I have trouble seeing why someone would want that picture over one in front of, say, the tree. The photos here can be viewed and bought later via PhotoPass, though if you bought them there (they brought them around), you could get a whole package with a keychain and stuff, I believe.

As an aside, the 8:00 reservation time worked out nicely for the pictures as you enter AK. We were the only people visible in the picture - tough to do in most parks!

 

[Raevyn_Wolfe]

Ok, another example of how vaired service at Disney truly can be.
I love Disney and I love character meals.
But I HATED Donald's. Sorry, to be so harsh. I'm sure it was cause I got it on a bad day or cause it was off season, or something. but I will never do it again just in case.

We had ADR's for 8:00am, NOT on an EMH day, a week and a half ago, so SLOW SLOW SLOW.
We were staying offsite, so no bus for us (well, I guess we could have driven to a resort and took a bus but seemed a little complicated to me). We were the first ones at the parking gate, they would not let us through to park until 7:45, telling us it would be plenty of time. Huh????
Although we were the first ones through, the first ones to park, and RAN through what felt like half of Animal Kingdom to get to Dinoland we were still 10 minutes late. Not that it mattered cause it took them 20 minutes to seat us into a half EMPTY restaurant. ALL 4 of the characters (in staged sets of 2) rushed through our section as soon as we sat and we did not see them the WHOLE rest of the hour we were there. The hot bar was luke warm and the pancakes were CRUNCHY.

Now thje good parts - it had the best selection of fresh fruits I'd seen in awhile and our server was very nice and entertained us with "magic" tricks.

I'm not picky by any means, and hate to down anything even remotely Disney related. . . . but I was very dissapointed with this one.

 

[librarylady]

Would a solo adult feel comfortable at the AK Breakfastosaurus? I have done the Crystal Palace and enjoyed it very much. Thanks. Gail

 

[makinorlando]

I think so, I honestly didn't really even notice other folks around us, so wouldn't have known if someone was there or not. We were only a party of two, and had a small table right inside the dining room near the bread/cold cereal part of the buffet.


Go have fun, enjoy!

 

[skooniebird]

For our day at AK I figured we would do the character breakfast at Donald's Breakfastosaurus. Just wondering for those who ate there what you thought about it? How were the characters? Thanks for any info!

We did 3 character meals last trip and this was our favorite. Kids got lots of time and attention from each character and so did we adults! Being a buffet, it was great even for the pickiest eaters. It's the one we would definitely do again. The princess breakfast we had was awful and we had to wait for almost 2 hours for each princess to come see us and spend about 15 seconds with the kids.

 

[Princessbaby]

It's so nice to hear that so many people like this breakfast! I haven't heard very many nice things about it! We had an ADR here last year, but we stayed out too late for EMH at MK and sort of missed our seating the next morning Looking forward to trying it again. Thanks for all the great reviews!

 

[LisaMaz]

Can I ask what the actual times are that you can get for Donalds? I'm trying to figure out if we should do the first or the last seating or somewhere in between, I'm so confused!!!!