Downtown Disney Questions

[Sarahleigh]

We love DTD! It's our place to go and relax with some margaritas or beer after a long day in the parks seeing as it is open much later at night than the parks during the off season. Of course, if it's peak season it'll be crowded but we usually have fun. There is usually some good entertainment downtown such a dance parties and such. There are unique shops down there, they're not all Disney so it's possible to find unique gifts that you won't find in the parks.
And also we usually do the Quick Service Dining Plan so when we go downtown we can enjoy unique restaurants that are outside of the typical quick service you find in the parks. Our favorite is Wolfgang Puck Express! Yum!

 

[sue Z]

my all time favorite place to eat is at Earl of Sandwich and least favorite is Planet Hollywood. took my bf to PH only because he had never been and by the time we left he was not a fan either!! I guess I had him addicted to EOS !!!

when ordering in Earl all i ever get is the Original the salad made in the chinese food container and Earl Grey Lemonade!!!

Earl is also at Logan Airport in Boston at Terminal E unfortuantely have to go through security to eat there but there is no EG lemonade or salads but can get my original!!!
Ice tea was good thou but missed my lemonade!!

 

[budmonster]

I just love DTD! Sometimes I go there without even going to the parks. Just went there on Wed. the 29th since my Mom was in town and she didn't want to go to the parks.

I would have to say my favorite place to eat is Wolfgang Puck's. You must try the pumpkin ravoli...it's to die for! DD12 thinks that Ghiradellis is the best place for ice cream I on the other hand love their hot chocolate.

Rainforest Cafe is ok but not one of my favorites. And I'm not a big fan of Planet Hollywood.

 

[Robin K]

I haven't read all the posts yet so I'm not sure what everyone has said.
We like DTD. The shopping, people watching, eating and just being there. We like eating at Wolfgang Puck Express, Earl of Sandwich and Raglan Road.
I will warn you do NOT go a Saturday night. It seemed more crowded than theme parks.
If you have young children the World of Disney store has anything and everything you could ask for and the Lego store is a nice distraction. The Christmas store is very nice for getting special ornament for yourself or someone else.
I think if you have the time and any interest in shopping, DTD is a place to go at least once to check it out on your own.
Have a great time!

 

[resol37]

I love Earl of Sandwich for CS and House of Blues for TS.

To be honest, I haven't had a ton of experience eating at different places at DTD. I tend to find a place that I like and stick with it and since I found Earl of Sandwich and House of Blues, I haven't tried many other places.

Tried to eat at Rainforest Cafe with a few friends once during my CP. It was super busy and the host was uber creepy leering at us so we left.

Have also eaten at Planet Hollywood. The food wasn't bad but not amazing, same kind of stuff that you might get at Applebee's or Chili's. But so loud talking was completely pointless.

 

[cydswipe]

Sept 09... Wolfgang Puck Express.... I liked it, DH thought it was over rated... my young 2 girls loved it

Sept '10 adult only trip... Fulton's... we liked it, just not our fave...
We enjoyed Raglan Road (thanks to the DIS, we knew to try it!!)
We also had Porobello's for lunch... it was our last day of the trip... very good as well!

We enjoy DTD. We buy an ornament every trip for the Christmas tree. I like walking around, but we don't spend a whole day doing it.. maybe 2-3 hrs which included eating...

 

[Peanut Giggleface]

We fell in love with DTD on our first trip and it's a must stop every time we visit Orlando. Our timing must be good when we head there because we've never experienced large crowds there. The one exception was back in November during the Festival of the Masters. The parking lot was FULL. I mean FULL. I've never seen that before, so after driving around a few minutes we just headed home. As for eating places, we've tried: Bongos (enjoyed it), Ragland Road (liked it but it was pretty expensive), Fulton's Crabshack (loved it but was very expensive), RainForest Cafe (love all the animatronics and food's not bad), T-Rex (amazing ambiance and light show, food is better than Rainforest), Portobello (expensive, crammed in like sardines and mediocre food). As for dessert, you can't beat the Ghirardelli soda fountain!! Enjoy your trip!!

edit: I just remember we tried the new Pollo Campero on our last visit. It was good food, quick service and nice salsa bar.

 

[JennyLynn21]

We loved it. We went on our Arrival day. We didn't get to our hotel until 4 after our flight. We were a little tired for parks, So we went to DD. We loved it. It was not overly crowded (October).

We ate at Planet Hollywood because our package came with a $15 voucher and a free souviner ( keychain). I loved my food, I had some type of pasta, and my boyfriend loved his burger.. We also really enjoyed seeing all the memoriblia.

I always love to take my time looking at all the gifts and such to buy and we spent alot time doing that here. I found it easier for us to get our souviners this day, then to do so doing park time. Since I poke around and have to look at EVERYTHING lol. The stores I really liked were World Of Disney and Making Memories or something like that. It had some disney scrapbook stuff.

We liked it and for us it was a great way to start our vacation and kind of ease us into it.

 

[managerdreamer]

I think DTD has a lot to offer there is entertainment and nice places to shop we like the LEGO store and Once upon a toy and the Christmas shop is nice too.

For eating hit Fulton's for lunch it is better priced and same great food. Sandwich of Earl is AWESOME when I went in the line was long but it moved fast. Wolfgang puck was good but very loud in the restaurant. PH was ok nothing too special the memorabilia was the most interesting Parsaido was good would go again.

I was with people who liked the Harley store. And you can buy an alcoholic beverage and walk around all of the DTD area. We even went into shops no one said a thing. CM told us Disney pays a good license to allow guests to do that.

The kids like the fountains and will get wet so think of that if you have kids. Nice place to go and relax I think at the end of a long day or on a day off from the parks. GO to dtd and then back to your pool!

Have fun!

 

[MIGrandma]

I've only been to DTD twice. The first time was way back in January 2001, when the night clubs were there. We went to the comedy club and really enjoyed that, then hit a couple of the clubs for drinks.

The last time was March 2009, with my Mom. We were staying at POR so rode the boat over to DTD for some shopping. We didn't eat in any of the restaurants though.

DH and I will be at Disney January 18 - 21, staying at POR, so one of those nights we will definitely be going to DTD and I'd love to try one of the restaurants this time. So reading everyone's favorites here is helpful.

 

[Turk February]

My wife and I love DTD. I think it's a real fun place to just walk around, window shop, actually shop, eat, etc. I can easily spend an hour or 2 just looking at stuff in World of Disney. We like the pin store even though we aren't pin traders. We always check out the Christmas store, the toy store...most of the clothing shops. I'm excited for our next trip to visit D Street because we just started liking Vinylmation.

We tend to prefer Marketplace over West Side and Pleasure Island, but we'll usually walk from one end to the other at least once a trip.

Earl of Sandwich is everything everyone says it is - really, really, really good. I cannot wait to eat there again.

Planet Hollywood is what I expected - a chain theme restaurant like TGI Friday's, Applebees or Chili's. Living in NYC it's nothing new and we ate there once because they had a table open. Wasn't great, wasn't terrible. Average and I'd eat there again.

Raglan Road - I had a good meal; my wife got sick.

Wolfgang Puck's - Ate there twice, and really enjoyed it twice. Both times we were on the dining plan and I'm not sure I'd pay full price to eat there.

We have reservations for Paradiso 37 for next month, so I'm looking forward to that.

And to answer your questions about Hyperion Wharf...I think any change down there is a good thing. I personally think the whole Pleasure Island area is lacking in just about everything.

 

[jmkjr72]

we have a tradtion on our arival day we do dtd
we have rain forest cafe for dinner and stop by the pin station get a new lanyard and some new pins
we also go and get at least the kids new hats for the trip
we also make time to get to earl of sandwich a least 2 times if not more during the trip
and we try to get to ragland roads ever trip too