First trip to Disney World, need help finding MUST eat restaurants

[timmyray79]

Our family is visiting for the first time on short notice (60 days) and a lot of places and good times are booked. We are driving in early/late night on 18th and will be booked From 19th to 24th at Pop Century, then from 24th to 29th at Beach Club...beaches and cream is on the list

I am 36, wife is 30, kids are 5 and 1 (wife is allergic to shellfish so seafood is not high on the list)

I am from South Carolina and accustom to southern style food but open to trying quality food of any variety.

Please let me know what your top 3 options are for breakfast, lunch and dinner based on quality of food and places that are not to uptight like Victoria & Alberts

I am opposed to paying $100 bucks to see characters if the food is terrible...

Thanks in advance...

 

[TraceyPoppins]

We tend to eat breakfast in room- instant oatmeal or granola bars-to save time and money. Lunch is usually a convenient quick serve place in the park. We are definitely dinner focused! Some of our faves are as Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre (DHS), Be Our Guest (MK), Rainforest Cafe (AK or DS). We've also enjoyed T-Rex Cafe (DS), the Plaza (MK), Garden Grove (Swan), and Chef Mickey's (Contemporary) are fun character meals. Have a fabulous time!

 

[timmyray79]

We tend to eat breakfast in room- instant oatmeal or granola bars-to save time and money. Lunch is usually a convenient quick serve place in the park. We are definitely dinner focused! Some of our faves are as Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre (DHS), Be Our Guest (MK), Rainforest Cafe (AK or DS). We've also enjoyed T-Rex Cafe (DS), the Plaza (MK), Garden Grove (Swan), and Chef Mickey's (Contemporary) are fun character meals. Have a fabulous time!

Thanks

Not looking to do breakfast outside the room every day, but would like to hit 1-3 "top" breakfast locations up while there.

I have Ohana for breakfast reserved right now...cancelled Crystal Palace and looking to insert Boma I think...

One concern I have is getting from hotel to reservation on time as travel times are an unknown to me

 

[dancemonkey]

What characters would you like to see? We enjoyed the food at 1900 park fare.

 

[brertoad]

Congrats on your trip!

Some of the fun times we've had have been eating at Quick Service spots too, the Columbia Harbor House and Pinnochio Village Haus are so cool looking, and Cosmic Ray's has Sonny Eclipse the animatronic alien who tells jokes and entertains diners. And be sure to try a Dole Whip at Aloha Isle, or the orange/vanilla version at Sunshine Tree Terrace.

Liberty Tree Tavern does an a la carte lunch if you prefer sit down service.

For Breakfast, we like Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Resort and Captain's Grille buffet. Although we've heard great things about Boma breakfast buffet, Whispering Canyon breakfast and Trail's End breakfast.

For Lunch, we like Biergarten (there are a few items that are not on the lunch menu, like the potato dumplings, or rouladen) or Chefs de France, or Teppan Edo.

For Dinner, we like Mama Melrose's, Whispering Canyon, Tokyo Dining. <-- These aren't really unique choices food wise, basically Italian, comfort food, and Japanese, but we enjoy it. Via Napoli has some delicious Neopolitan style pizza, if that's something you all like.

For themed dining, I'd have to go for Sci-Fi Dine In, Beaches and Cream which is already on your list.

 

[suse66]

Sci-Fi is a must do for a first trip, the burgers and shakes are yummy and the atmosphere is so fun! The Grand Floridian Cafe and Kona Cafe are both great breakfast spots. We prefer a later lunch with some of our faves being Whispering Canyon, Yak and Yeti, Rose and Crown and Liberty Tree Tavern. We loved Chefs de France for dinner and O'hana is always a must do for us.

Hope you have a magical trip!

 

[TraceyPoppins]

Regarding travel times, are you relying on Disney transportation or will you have a car? And where are you staying? I find that it's easier all around to eat in the park we are in that day, esp for lunch & dinner. If you are planning meals for a non-park day, you have the flexibility to eat in any of the resort restaurants or those at Disney Springs.

 

[jodywgirl]

Breakfast
Kona Cafe
Crystal Palace
Starring Rolls
Akershus if the older child is a girl

Lunch
Be Our Guest
50's Prime Time good comfort food
Sunshine seasons
Flame tree Barbecue

Dinner
Mamma Melrose
Liberty Tree Tavern
Garden Grill
Ohanas

If you can't get reservations wanted right now just keep trying. I have snagged several the weeks before trip of hard places like Be Our Guest and Ohanas

 

[timmyray79]

Regarding travel times, are you relying on Disney transportation or will you have a car? And where are you staying? I find that it's easier all around to eat in the park we are in that day, esp for lunch & dinner. If you are planning meals for a non-park day, you have the flexibility to eat in any of the resort restaurants or those at Disney Springs.

We are driving in and will try bus to get to destinations. Just wondering if car to MK From pop would not be faster? Can we get there early?

Pop century June 19-24
Beach club June 24-29

 

[timmyray79]

Breakfast
Kona Cafe
Crystal Palace
Starring Rolls
Akershus if the older child is a girl

Lunch
Be Our Guest
50's Prime Time good comfort food
Sunshine seasons
Flame tree Barbecue

Dinner
Mamma Melrose
Liberty Tree Tavern
Garden Grill
Ohanas

If you can't get reservations wanted right now just keep trying. I have snagged several the weeks before trip of hard places like Be Our Guest and Ohanas

Is food at be our guest good?

Both children are boys

 

[timmyray79]

Hollywood and Vine has handy manny

Is food good?

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

Overall consensus is that Hollywood Studios doesn't really have any good quick service options. 50s Prime Time and Sci Fi get decent reviews. (We've always gone to another park to eat.)

Chef Mickeys, Hollywood and Vine, and Tony's seem to get the worst overall reviews (CM and H&V especially for uncleanliness).

Ohana gets very mixed reviews - it seems like a love it or hate it kind of place (we love it for dinner, but haven't tried breakfast). They do fall behind on seating pretty regularly though, so expect to be seated late if you go for dinner.

Be Our Guest also seems to get mixed reviews. We tried both lunch and dinner and will return for both. Lunch was louder, but we were able to find a table fairly easily, and liked being able to choose our seats (we opted for the West Wing). The lunch options were a welcome break from more standard hamburger fare. We also enjoyed the quieter dinner. Note that we weren't impressed with the 'grey stuff' (seems like most people don't care for it).

Kona gets pretty good reviews for breakfast, but we thought it was fairly standard fare that could be found at any breakfast diner in any town in the US. It wasn't bad, but we wouldn't rush back (although I don't normally eat breakfast).

Other restaurants that get good reviews:
- BOMA. The menu may look intimidating, but there is plenty for less adventurous eaters to enjoy
- Tusker House. We did 'brunch' (late breakfast that ran into lunch) here last May and our kids loved seeing Mickey, Minnie, etc, in their safari gear.
- Sanaa. Animal Kingdom Lodge is lovely, and it's fun both watching the animals while you dine and being able to go out onto the patio. There were more typical 'kid foods' available
- Via Napoli. Neapolitan-style pizza, which can be a relatively economical choice if shared.
- Raglan Road. We've never been but plan to visit on our next trip based on the rave reviews I keep reading.
- Wolfgang Puck Express. Seems to have a reputation for serving table service quality food for quick service prices. We liked the pizza (light years better than most Disney pizza), the chicken fingers meal for kids (seemed more like an adult sized portion), and the option for a fruit salad as dessert.

Note that I didn't include any signature restaurants, but many are child friendly.

 

[MainMom]

Tusker House lunch in AK. Mickey and Friends, love the food.
BOG lunch
Crystal Palace Breakfast or lunch
Sunshine Seasons QS lunch
Sci-Fi and/or 50's Prime Time lunch or dinner
Hollywood Brown Derby Dinner
Columbia Harbor House

These are our favorites.

 

[Parker Clan]

food at BOG is good! We have done lunch there several times.
Ohana, Trails End, Hoop Dee Doo, Via Napoli, Trattoria Al Forno are some of our other favorites.
We enjoy the food at these places - especially a place like Trails End - you get a lot of options for your $.

 

[timmyray79]

Overall consensus is that Hollywood Studios doesn't really have any good quick service options. 50s Prime Time and Sci Fi get decent reviews. (We've always gone to another park to eat.)

Chef Mickeys, Hollywood and Vine, and Tony's seem to get the worst overall reviews (CM and H&V especially for uncleanliness).

Ohana gets very mixed reviews - it seems like a love it or hate it kind of place (we love it for dinner, but haven't tried breakfast). They do fall behind on seating pretty regularly though, so expect to be seated late if you go for dinner.

Be Our Guest also seems to get mixed reviews. We tried both lunch and dinner and will return for both. Lunch was louder, but we were able to find a table fairly easily, and liked being able to choose our seats (we opted for the West Wing). The lunch options were a welcome break from more standard hamburger fare. We also enjoyed the quieter dinner. Note that we weren't impressed with the 'grey stuff' (seems like most people don't care for it).

Kona gets pretty good reviews for breakfast, but we thought it was fairly standard fare that could be found at any breakfast diner in any town in the US. It wasn't bad, but we wouldn't rush back (although I don't normally eat breakfast).

Other restaurants that get good reviews:
- BOMA. The menu may look intimidating, but there is plenty for less adventurous eaters to enjoy
- Tusker House. We did 'brunch' (late breakfast that ran into lunch) here last May and our kids loved seeing Mickey, Minnie, etc, in their safari gear.
- Sanaa. Animal Kingdom Lodge is lovely, and it's fun both watching the animals while you dine and being able to go out onto the patio. There were more typical 'kid foods' available
- Via Napoli. Neapolitan-style pizza, which can be a relatively economical choice if shared.
- Raglan Road. We've never been but plan to visit on our next trip based on the rave reviews I keep reading.
- Wolfgang Puck Express. Seems to have a reputation for serving table service quality food for quick service prices. We liked the pizza (light years better than most Disney pizza), the chicken fingers meal for kids (seemed more like an adult sized portion), and the option for a fruit salad as dessert.

Note that I didn't include any signature restaurants, but many are child friendly.

Awesome info, thanks for taking the time to post

Tusker House lunch in AK. Mickey and Friends, love the food.
BOG lunch
Crystal Palace Breakfast or lunch
Sunshine Seasons QS lunch
Sci-Fi and/or 50's Prime Time lunch or dinner
Hollywood Brown Derby Dinner
Columbia Harbor House

These are our favorites.

Sci-Fi is something we will do ..Crystal palace i am not sure, had it reserved but read some mixed reviews on it so I backed out...others will have to research, thanks

food at BOG is good! We have done lunch there several times.
Ohana, Trails End, Hoop Dee Doo, Via Napoli, Trattoria Al Forno are some of our other favorites.
We enjoy the food at these places - especially a place like Trails End - you get a lot of options for your $.

Options are always great, thanks for the post

 

[hooch11bear]

Our family would agree with Boma and Kona for breakfast. A few others that we enjoy are Grand Floridian Café and The Wave. A new one on our list this year is Olivia's. We looked over the menu and their breakfast looks pretty good.

We really enjoy San Angel, Via Napoli, The Plaza, Hollywood Brown Derby, Yak & Yeti, Wolfgang Puck Express, California Grill, Sanaa. We haven't picked a restaurant at Disney Springs yet since there are so many new ones opening. Morimoto Asia was a new one for us last year and The Boathouse. They were both really good. We usually always go to Raglan Road also. That's another favorite. Might try to fit in Trattoria Al Forno this year after hearing some great reviews. The one at the top of our list is California Grill. We can't go to Disney without eating there. My family would disown me if I couldn't get a reservation there.

 

[cmph]

Sanaa is our favorite, so much so that we ate there twice in one week! Do lunch or an early dinner (when it's light out) and request a table next to the window. The trainers feed the animals very nearby. We literally had a big crane of some sort right next to the glass. We also like Boma and Jiko (prob wouldn't do the latter with a 1yo though). We took a cab from Coronado Springs to AK Lodge a few times, and if I recall correctly, it was less than 10min (maybe like 7 or 8min). Maybe 15min from either of your resorts to the AK Lodge restaurants? You could prob just googlemap directions to get a travel time. We mostly try to coordinate the AK restaurants to be on AK park day for us. If you were going to pick a park to drive to - that's the one I'd choose. A long bus ride standing with a 1yo b/c the seats are all taken: sucks.

We like BOG; prefer to get quick serv lunch there though. If you have only boys, not sure they'll care about the characters there at dinner (the only character my son really was interested in the entire trip when he was 5 was the green army guy from Toy Story who was at HS - princess meals would have been an enormous waste of money on him). Plus you can pre-order your food online for lunch, well before your trip - no standing in line.

For other lunch options - honestly, with a 1yo and 5yo - eat when they get "hangry"! At MK two years ago, with a 1yo, 4yo, 5yo, and 8yo - we ate lunch twice at Pecos Bill. Not because we liked it, but because that's where we were when 1/2 of the kids went into meltdown. Planning to eat somewhere that is nowhere near where your are is rough, and trying to plan where you will be at both lunch time and dinner time is hard with kids. Pick one res per day to work around, and eat the other meal wherever is convenient.

In Epcot, the kids liked Marrakesh b/c of the music and belly dancer. The waitstaff was great with the kids, and the kids menu is not weird (had burgers and chicken fingers). We also like Spice Road, which is on the water, so you can watch the boats go back and forth. Otherwise we generally go for quick serv in the World Showcase; the oldest's favorite memory is eating around the Showcase (Mexico, France, Germany, kiosks).

We actually liked Mamma Melrose in HS for the Fantasmic package (I know a lot of people aren't fans). It was kid-friendly and kind of fun with our big family group (10 in all) - desserts served family style, etc. And, rare to those packages, had an app, entree, and dessert included. I assume it's still the same. Can't say there is any counter service I "like" in HS; kids were fine with burgers or pizza wherever.

 

[squeezle]

Breakfast:
*Kona
*The Wave
*Captain's Grille

Lunch:
*50s Prime Time
*Spice Road Table
*Hollywood Brown Derby

Dinner:
*Sanaa
*Restaurant Marrakesh
*Ragland Road

 

[timmyray79]

Sanaa is our favorite, so much so that we ate there twice in one week! Do lunch or an early dinner (when it's light out) and request a table next to the window. The trainers feed the animals very nearby. We literally had a big crane of some sort right next to the glass. We also like Boma and Jiko (prob wouldn't do the latter with a 1yo though). We took a cab from Coronado Springs to AK Lodge a few times, and if I recall correctly, it was less than 10min (maybe like 7 or 8min). Maybe 15min from either of your resorts to the AK Lodge restaurants? You could prob just googlemap directions to get a travel time. We mostly try to coordinate the AK restaurants to be on AK park day for us. If you were going to pick a park to drive to - that's the one I'd choose. A long bus ride standing with a 1yo b/c the seats are all taken: sucks.

We like BOG; prefer to get quick serv lunch there though. If you have only boys, not sure they'll care about the characters there at dinner (the only character my son really was interested in the entire trip when he was 5 was the green army guy from Toy Story who was at HS - princess meals would have been an enormous waste of money on him). Plus you can pre-order your food online for lunch, well before your trip - no standing in line.

For other lunch options - honestly, with a 1yo and 5yo - eat when they get "hangry"! At MK two years ago, with a 1yo, 4yo, 5yo, and 8yo - we ate lunch twice at Pecos Bill. Not because we liked it, but because that's where we were when 1/2 of the kids went into meltdown. Planning to eat somewhere that is nowhere near where your are is rough, and trying to plan where you will be at both lunch time and dinner time is hard with kids. Pick one res per day to work around, and eat the other meal wherever is convenient.

In Epcot, the kids liked Marrakesh b/c of the music and belly dancer. The waitstaff was great with the kids, and the kids menu is not weird (had burgers and chicken fingers). We also like Spice Road, which is on the water, so you can watch the boats go back and forth. Otherwise we generally go for quick serv in the World Showcase; the oldest's favorite memory is eating around the Showcase (Mexico, France, Germany, kiosks).

We actually liked Mamma Melrose in HS for the Fantasmic package (I know a lot of people aren't fans). It was kid-friendly and kind of fun with our big family group (10 in all) - desserts served family style, etc. And, rare to those packages, had an app, entree, and dessert included. I assume it's still the same. Can't say there is any counter service I "like" in HS; kids were fine with burgers or pizza wherever.

Thank you so much for your reply. You do not know how much this helps us right now

My next heartache is figuring out our itinerary along with our fast pass reservations as we just got tickets in today and tomorrow is our 60 days til to disney...

 

[cmph]

Thank you so much for your reply. You do not know how much this helps us right now

My next heartache is figuring out our itinerary along with our fast pass reservations as we just got tickets in today and tomorrow is our 60 days til to disney...

I LOVE that part. My husband thinks I'm a crazy person. If your 60 day is tomorrow, personally, I would focus on FP+ first. The highest-in-demand fastpasses go shockingly fast. The hardest to get ADRs book up 6 months out, so really - I doubt that ADR avail will change much between now and a couple days from now. Many of the restaurants I mentioned were booked more like 3 months out for a party of 10; that was very, very stupid and I will never do that again, but my extended family is not into advance planning. (Be glad you don't have a party of 10!) My parents still can't believe same-day reservations were not available for Cinderella's Castle or the highest-demanded Epcot restaurants like when we went in the 80s when I was little.