Garden Grill or Coral Reef

[yaya74]

Please help me to decide if I should dine at Garden Grill or Coral Reef BASED ON FOOD QUALITY!!

I am hesitating to go to Garden Grill because I will be going to other character meals: Ohana for dinner, H&V for breakfast, Crystal Palace for dinner and probably Tusker House for the Jungle Book dining pkg.. I am not sure if adding Garden Grill for my Epcot day to the mix would be too much!

TIA!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

People will come down on both sides for food quality. Some people have had great Garden Grill experiences. Some people have had great CR experiences. Others... yeah, they'll tell you otherwise.

I think you have to look at theme and menu. Do you want fish, with fish? Or does rotating over The Land sound kind of cool, with beef, and rolls?

 

[shortnsassy730]

I would be someone who would vote neither. Garden Grill's food quality was very cafeteriaesque to me. The character action however was superb. Coral Reef is just not a good seafood restaurant. It's on par with Red Lobster at best. Now if you don't have access to fresh seafood on the regular this may be fine, but I grew up with access to the fresh seafood from the Gulf so I find it to be extremely disappointing. My top Epcot spots are Via Napoli and Biergarten (good basic German food and highly entertaining).

 

[NuJoy]

My choice, especially considering your other character dining plans, would be Coral Reef. I find the interior to have a calming, beautiful, elegant vibe and the aquarium is a unique dining experience in and of itself. My husband and I are more inclined to choose seafood/fish at any restaurant, if available, so it suits our taste very well; but they also offer other entrees like pork, chicken, and beef. They do often have reports of long waits to be seated and we've had what appeared to be very green host/hostesses in the past; but those have yet to deter us from dining here over the last 10 years.

 

[loril13]

We've only eaten at Coral Reef. Bland, lack luster food and terrible service. While the interior is lovely and relaxing, we are not inclined to give it a second chance.
Eat almost anywhere "around the world" for some amazing food with superb service.

 

[DisMom456]

We only have Garden Grill experience, but the food was wonderful. The only thing I can say is that it is A LOT of food, so depending on when your res is, you may be able to stretch it into a lunch/dinner and sample other foods around the world instead of needing two meals.

 

[DisneyHardin]

That's a tough one. We've eaten at both and thought they were very good. If you are a bread lover, the rolls at Garden Grill are great- big fluffy ones like O'Charleys. The dinner was also good. We liked the beef and mashed potatoes best and requested more of those. We had Coral Reef last year and it was excellent. I had the seafood pasta dish and it was the best thing I ate all trip. DH had a steak and thought it was great also.

 

[yaya74]

Thank you all for the recommendations. DH loves seafood. So when GG replaced fish with sausage, I started checking out other restaurants and found CR. i also want to stay at the future world side since we only have 1/2 day at Epcot. Going to World Showcase to eat then go back to ride Soarin and TT seems taking a lot of time to walk.

 

[MommaOfTwoMice]

We had a wonderful meal at Coral Reef just a few weeks ago. Our server was great! I had the mahi mahi dish and my husband had the scampi. We will definitely be back!

 

[CynBeth]

We love CR! We have been for both lunch and dinner over the years and always have had great food and service.

 

[JAMIESMITH]

I've never been to GG, but I've been to CR twice and enjoyed it both times

 

[Dizzydisney2016]

We chose garden grill this trip. Simply because we live in Massachusetts with great seafood restaurants on the coast, and when asking opinions people say coral reef is dissapointing due to our easy access to fresh seafood. Otherwise I would have picked coral reef!

 

[Nancyg56]

Thank you all for the recommendations. DH loves seafood. So when GG replaced fish with sausage, I started checking out other restaurants and found CR. i also want to stay at the future world side since we only have 1/2 day at Epcot. Going to World Showcase to eat then go back to ride Soarin and TT seems taking a lot of time to walk.

First, you are really buffet heavy, so for that reason alone, I would choose CR. But I have to say that CR is not always horrific, it is like any other Disney restaurant, Hit or Miss. I have had both experiences, and while we do not dine there every trip, we never rule it out based on the food or service we had on one dinner service. If that was the case, we would not choose one of the restaurants on your list.

Coral Reef is fun, and the kids will like it, I think.

 

[Mazz519]

Coral Reef just for the atmosphere

 

[farrahalex76]

O'hana at dinner is not a character meal, it only has characters for breakfast. Not sure if you booked it for the characters but if you did they won't be there for dinnner. It is family style.

 

[tinkerbella16]

We've been to both, and really love Garden Grill. We keep going back there for dinner, and it gets better each time we go. We love the food, the character interactions are the best we've experienced in Disney and we love sitting in a booth rotating around and seeing LWTL scenes. It is our must do each trip on our arrival night. Coral Reef was okay, but not one that we would rush back to.

 

[Mr & Mrs DD]

The First time we ate at Coral Reef, it was not very good, HOWEVER, for some reason we decided to try Coral Reef again. The last two times we have eaten there, it was VERY good. We would go there again based on our last two visits. The Jack Daniels Chocolate Mousse for dessert was very good as well.

 

[jillt2ph]

I had a great dinner at Coral Reef in March. It was my first time dining there, and I will definitely go back. I don't do any seafood, so I had the steak. I order mine well done, and it was cooked perfectly without being charred on the outside. One thing I will say, I would skip dessert. I feel like the TS restaurants have priced the desserts so high to help make the dining plan attractive, and they are not worth it for anyone paying OOP. That being said, my friends all enjoyed their desserts - the chocolate wave and the key lime thing. I was disappointed in the Turtle cheesecake.

 

[pa. dad]

I like the Coral Reef. I like seafood and on top of food that I enjoy, the atmosphere is part of the experience.

I never understood the appeal of the Garden Grill. Is it because they grow some of the veggies in the building? Nothing about the menu , the food, the atmosphere do i find remotely interesting. There's so many good places to eat at epcot and the Garden Grill baffles me.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Easily CR in my opinion. We thought the GG food was awful, probably the only restaurant on our never again list.