Hollywood & Vine worth it?

[RNicole1]

We are going on our first family trip the last week of August. DD1 will be 3 and DD2 will be 17 months old. Right now DD1 really loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates, so I booked Hollywood & Vine for the second day we are there for lunch. Now I am second guessing this choice as I read horrible reviews about the food. I think Jake is the only character there that she will care about, so is it worth it? Can we see him anywhere else?

If I do change, what are some other recommendations for something to replace it? (It can be any time of day?) Here is our current reservations:
Wed, Aug 29: Epcot (dinner at Akershus)
Thurs, Aug 30: Hollywood Studios (lunch at Hollywood & Vine) *this is the possible change...we will be at HS that day, but we could do something else in the PM
Fri, Aug 31: Magic Kingdom (lunch at Crystal Palace)
Sat, Sept 1: Animal Kingdom (breakfast at Tusker House & dinner at
Ohana)

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Have you considered breakfast at H&V? The reviews are usually much better for breakfast since it's breakfast food...i.e. much more difficult to mess up. We had a really great breakfast there...wonderful food, service, amazing character interaction, and they even had us out with about 5 minutes to spare before the park opened. i.e. I was able to make the TSMM fast pass run with the mob right as the park opened. The rest of your plans look great.

 

[TSM]

I am sorry to say this was definately our least favorite meal at Disney!We really liked mama melrose at HS (even my 4 year old) or maybe look for openings at chef mickeys.my daughter liked all the other character meals to but for some reason was scared of the characters there.it was little Einstein's and oso at the time.

 

[kgleine]

we went there for lunch and i dont know why everyone hates it! it was granted the first reservation for lunch, but the food was good!

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Duplicate Post

 

[Olinecoach61]

We are trying it for the first time in July. I'm crossing my fingers, I think my 3 year old is going to love jake.

 

[Mom2Elliot]

I have eaten there for both breakfast and lunch. Well, I am not sure I really ate much at lunch it was that bad! Definitely the worst meal I have had at Disney ever. The breakfast was not that good either, but lunch was really bad.

 

[Mikeheidi2]

I'm in the minority, but it was one of our favorites.

They had an asiago chicken that my husband ate at least 4 plates of, no joke. They have the regular salads and fruit and kids stuff. And their dessert area was the best of any buffet.

What sold us was the character interaction. It was so good that after a while we were like "jeez June and Leo, let us eat our lunch!!" It may have been a slow day so I wouldn't want to get your hopes up that the characters would visit that often, but we honestly loved it.

And it all goes back to, food has to be blatantly uneatable for me not to enjoy it. If someone else cooked it for me, I'll more than likely be quite happy with it.

 

[stitch34]

We enjoy the breakfast there - actually my girls now 12 and 9 still say this is a must do for the breakfast food.... not sure why, it's typical breakfast variety! I love the potato casserole for breakfast they have. Really, you can't mess up breakfast food! And we find the characters to always come around in a timely fashion, they get us seated pretty quickly too each time.

Lunch - well, we did dinner and we had no problems with the quality of the food - it was more the selections seemed odd to us - we are rather picky I guess you could say! -whether it's H&V, CP, CM - still are picky about the selections. What we DID have - none of us had any issues with the food.

 

[MAPOrocks]

I thought the food was fine. We had a party of 9 and everyone from the 3 year old to the 60 year old found something they could eat. There was TONS of food. My favorite was the steamed asparagus and the teriaki salmon. My kids were the chicken fingers and potatoes. Is the food worth the money - probably not, BUT at least you have a much larger variety than the typical burgers and fries.

I will say, though, we are going to try to catch Jake at the EMH in the evening at Hollywood Studios. They have a dance party near the Disney Junior area, and i have read on the DIS boards that Jake comes out and the kids get balloon swords. Sounds like a great photo op!