Garden Grill and Chef Mickey's?

[centurythree]

I'm thinking of replacing Chef Mickey's breakfast with the Garden Grill lunch as a chance to meet the characters.

My reasons are:

The Garden Grill seems a bit quieter. With an older child in tow, I'm thinking that it might be a little better than the organized chaos of Chef Mickey's.

We'd be doing the 7:15am breakfast at Chef Mickey's. That means we should probably leave our hotel by at least 6:30am to make it on time.

We'll be at Epcot on our first day.

Any thoughts on which on which would be better? I've never been to either, although I've seen the Garden Grill from the outside.

Also, how much time should I budget for either restaurant?

 

[jcemom]

An hour should be more than enough for Garden Grill, you might want to allow just a little longer for Chef Mickey's. An hour and fifteen minutes should be enough.

CM's is much more chaotic than GG. Also, it's buffet vs family style service at GG. Buffet will give you a lot more variety, but you have to get up and down to fix your plates. Family style is still all you care to eat, and adults can eat the kids food, kids can eat from the adult offerings, whatever you like, they bring it all to the table providing you have a kid in your party. Garden Grill feels so much more private, IMO. When the characters come around it feels as if they are visiting with only you, well they are, but what I mean is with the high-backed booths you can't really see the next family over so well and they can't see you. Your character time feels more private that way. At CM's you can see the entire room and they can see you. The kids at the next table are standing around waiting with their autograph books in hand while the characters are visiting with you, LOL, just watching and waiting.

Garden Grill will give you Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale in their farmer's attire. Chef M's usually has Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto and Donald. We've seen Chip and Dale there too, but I'm not sure if they're regulars or not now, that was a while ago.

We like both, but they're very different.

 

[septbaby]

I wouldn't trade CM's for another character meal; we thought it was that good. I'd try for another time if the breakfast is inconvenient. With older kids, is the GG menu suitable? At CM's they'll have choice and plenty. I'm of the opinion that GG's menu doesn't suit us. I'd actually choose Coral Reef for a lunch meal at Epcot.

 

[squirrel]

I did Dinner at Chef Mickey's and a Lunch at Garden Grill in 1999.

I liked both, but in 2000 I went back to Chef Mickey's.

GG is quiter. We had the restaurant almost to ourselves as EPCOT was closing early because of the huricane. It was nice rotating around. I didn't really care for the food that much but we did get lots of visits from the characters.

I'm doing both again this year with the free dining! Couldn't get dinner for Chef Mickey's so we are trying breakfast.

 

[JoePa4Ever]

We love Chef Mickey's for breakfast. We had an early breakfast ADR there this past Sept & it was not chaotic at all. The character interaction was fabulous: we saw some characters twice and they each spent plenty of time with us. The food was very good & there is a great selection + the atmosphere is alot of fun.

We ate at Garden Grill for dinner last year & thought it was average at best. The food was not that good and the service was sub-par. The character interaction was very good, but overall it was a bland, non-appetizing meal.