Garden Grove and Characters

[Mickey2013]

When does the Garden Grove @ the Swan have characters? Is it only Sat/Sun for breakfast OR do they include characters at the nightly buffet? I've seen it written both ways. Anyone been there recently and know for a fact? Looking for a different character meal and thought it might be fun. Thoughts appreciated...

 

[2Tiggies]

I would love to know as well. We cancelled last year's ressie there for a couple of reasons; lack of and conflicting information was one of them. I have still been toying with the idea of booking it again for this year.

 

[jchrapcyn]

We were there in Oct 2010 for dinner- then it was buffet Mon & Fri- Fish, Wed & Sun- BBQ, Tues, Thurs, Sat- pasta. We went on a Monday night and the characters were Timon and Rafiki from Lion King.

It was pretty nice because it was not crowded at all.

 

[webprinter]

We were there in Feb and they had Pluto and Goofy on Southern BBQ night. I don't remember which night we were there but it was in the middle of the week whichever night is BBQ night.

 

[RichmondTiggerFan]

The Garden Grove has characters nightly & on Sat/Sun mornings. On Monday & Friday nights, the scheduled characters are Timon & Rafiki from Lion King; on the remaining nights, the characters are Goofy & Pluto.

I would definitely recommend this meal if you're looking for a different character meal (or if you're a Lion King fan, like me). I have found the Garden Grove to be less hectic & more relaxing than other character meals. I can only speak for the seafood nights (when Timon & Rafiki are there), but I have found the buffet selection to be as good as (if not better than) most other WDW character buffets. The Caesar salad is excellent and they have crab legs & seafood risotto made to order.

 

[Tiger926]

I think this has just recently changed, as the menus posted now specifically mention only characters on Sat. & Sun. mornings. All Ears just changed the menu this week, with a March 2011 listing.

It is posted on all Disney.com menus, and All Ears just re-did their menus, and there are currently no character meals listed for dinner any longer: http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm#res

I was going to call this week and double check, but based on what I read, I think characters are now only on weekends mornings.

Tiger

 

[emmababy]

If they cancelled the characters after everyone bought these restaurant.com certs, I will be irked!

 

[emmababy]

Just spoke to them and they said they called to update because it looked like there were 4 characters nightly and there are only 2. The characters are still there.

 

[wdwfan1]

We ate there last night. Goofy and Pluto were there.

However, we thought the food was terrible. It was BBQ night. The chicken had no taste, the ribs were very dry. The prime rib was tasty, but cut very, very thin. However, you could go back for more as many times as you wished.

On a positive note, we had no trouble using our Restaurant.com gift certificate.

 

[Tiger926]

Just spoke to them and they said they called to update because it looked like there were 4 characters nightly and there are only 2. The characters are still there.

There are always only 2 characters, and they appear on rotating schedules, depending upon what night of the week it is, but you are correct in that the website implies all 4 characters. Disney's tech department is not very good at all...

So, are you saying that they still have characters? Their menu on Disney.com and All Ears says otherwise.

Thanks for checking into this, Tiger

 

[RichmondTiggerFan]

According to Disney's website where you make ADR's for Garden Grove, they still have characters nightly. Also, it is still listed in the character dining section of Allears.net

http://allears.net/din/cb.htm (Scroll down to the section for Garden Grove Dinner)

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/garden-grove/

 

[jchrapcyn]

you can get a Restaurant.com $25 cert for $2 right now with the code TASTY - our bill was still $80 for 2 adults/1 child because of the 18% gratuiuty- the seafood night was very good- except my kid only ate 2 mini corn dogs!

 

[jchrapcyn]

p.s. it was also fun to ride the boat from DHS to the Swan & Dolphin- they are beautiful

 

[Swan4Me]

We were there a few weeks ago and saw Goofy for Sunday brunch. there were only 3 tables occupied at 7:30 am -so thsoe kids have him to themselves!

 

[Tiger926]

According to Disney's website where you make ADR's for Garden Grove, they still have characters nightly. Also, it is still listed in the character dining section of Allears.net

http://allears.net/din/cb.htm (Scroll down to the section for Garden Grove Dinner)

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/garden-grove/

According to Disney's menu, it mentions characters on weekends only, and All Ears just posted a new menu this week, with no mention of nightly characters. They have menus listed for character meal on weekend buffets only. It doesn't matter if All Ears has it listed as a character meal, as All Ears is frequently wrong, but since they posted this new menu, it alerted me that perhaps there was a change.

I am currently making ADRs for July, and noticed these changes this week, as opposed to a few days ago, when I was on both websites, as things were listed differently.

If there hasn't been a change, then both websites are confusing at this point, Tiger