Is food better at disneyworld or disneyland?

[kyl]

Hi Guys,
Would love some advice. We went to disneyland last year and I am now totally hooked. Love love disney.....so this year we are going to disneyworld. We found the food especially the coffee well not to our Aussie taste buds. I hate that plastic cheese they put on everything, anyway when we went to New York we found the food to be more like ours. So just wandering those of you who have done both parks if you found the food any different. We did love goofeys kitchen at disneyland though, it had a good selection of food. Would appreciate any feed back

 

[PrincessInOz]

I personally find the food better at Epcot. The rest of WDW - food can be similar to that at DL - unless you book in to the Signature Restaurants.

There are also a heap more character dining experiences at WDW than at DL.

If you haven't already done so, check out the WDW dining plan/food thread in the Aussie forum - it's one of the next threads along. You could always wander over to the DisBoard WDW Dining section; just be aware that you'll predominantly get the US viewpoint there.

 

[queenie82]

I would say better if only in that there is far more choice.

I have the same complaints to make about American "cheese" and coffee but we managed to find food we liked at all of the Parks. Epcot yes has the best - Sunshine Seasons. But I did find places everywhere.

I have found stuff I like at Disneyland though if you go hunting!
In DCA try the food at the Boudin Bakery Pacific Wharf Cafe
The Clam chowder bread bowl is beautiful
And the Stagedoor Cafe in Disneyland was pretty good too.

A US friend of mine has a blog which talks about all sorts of things at Disneyland
http://disneylanddiva.blogspot.com/2009/05/boudin-bakery-dca-pacific-wharf.html

 

[Kalice]

Hi, We didn't eat much in Disneyland we tended to leave the park and eat elsewhere. This was not really an option in WDW as we'd have didn't have a car. Also, we were one dining plan. I did read the restaurant forum on DIS, there are many threads about favourite counter service and table service restaurants for each park, and each hotel. We found the dining plan perfect for us, we ordered cereal and fruit online and ate breakfast in our room. This allowed us to get going early in the morning. For counter service (lunch), we liked Sunshine Seasons in Epcot, Columbia Harbour House in MK, the BBQ place in AK, in Hollywood studios, we tried Pizza Planet (was okay) and another place. If you do opt to do the dining plan it is worthwhile to book in advance (up to 180 days) for table service. Many of the restaurants are very popular, particularly a few in Epcot. We enjoyed our meals, the kids meals were not as great, but they enjoyed them anyway. We often got desserts to go, such as fruit salad, as we are not usually big meal eaters. We'd eat this later in our room, or for breakfast.

 

[Jade+3]

Kids CS meals are much better at WDW. They are cheaper ($4.95 I think), and come with a choice of 2 sides and a drink. We all ate kids meals for lunch.

Buffets I found to be similar at WDW and DL.

Epcot was the best by far, but we were there during the Food & Wine festival. Hollywood Studios was the worst.

 

[aussietravellers]

They both have good and bad. I think with WDW being so much larger than DL, there are a lot more better restaurants at WDW, but DL still has some good food but with DL being much smaller there is a smaller range of better food but there are still great places to eat at DL, just not as many of them.

My all time favourite out of both is at DL, Carnation Cafe and the loaded potato soup. It is SO good.

I would say six of one, half a dozen of the other. That plastic bright yellow cheese is grosse . We eat at more TS restaurants at WDW as the food quality is a little better than the CS restaurants and many signatures.

We had really great food at Jiko (they actually use Aussie Beef there ) The breakfast at Boma was one of the best we had, we felt that seemed a little healthier than some of the others. The restaurants at most of the Deluxe resorts have decent restaurants. There are better quality restaurants at WDW, many of them are the signatures though but not all of them are. Signatures are still casual though, we would still go in our shorts and a shirt, they are not suit and tie type restaurants, so to us they didn't feel formal, just normal restaurants and more upscale and better quality food.

 

[ehsmum]

Kids CS meals are much better at WDW. They are cheaper ($4.95 I think), and come with a choice of 2 sides and a drink. We all ate kids meals for lunch.
Buffets I found to be similar at WDW and DL.

Epcot was the best by far, but we were there during the Food & Wine festival. Hollywood Studios was the worst.

That's a good tip, thanks!!

 

[aussietravellers]

There are some really good CS restaurants at Downtown Disney too. Earl of Sandwich is great and so is Wolfgang Puck Express, which is open for breakfast too they both have good food.

I agree with the comment about Hollywood Studios! The food there really is the worst around. Even the Brown Derby which is supposed to be a really good restaurant is not great (unless you have the cobb salad), Hollywood and Vine is the worst, probably the worst at WDW, LOL.

Yak and Yeti at Animal Kingdom is also good, they have a CS as well as the TS and we didn't eat at the CS so don't know what it's like but the TS is really pretty good. We only booked once as we didn't really know anything about it, then ended up going again as it was so good.

 

[ehsmum]

I agree with the comment about Hollywood Studios! The food there really is the worst around. Even the Brown Derby which is supposed to be a really good restaurant is not great (unless you have the cobb salad), Hollywood and Vine is the worst, probably the worst at WDW, LOL.

.

Which meal did you have at Hollywood n Vine? We're going for the Playhouse Disney Breakfast. Breakfast can't be too bad, can it?

 

[aussietravellers]

That's a good tip, thanks!!

The kids menus at many of the TS restaurants are from $7.50 (not buffets, thats the ones with a la carte menus) and many adults have reported ordering off the kids menu if paying OOP too

 

[aussietravellers]

Which meal did you have at Hollywood n Vine? We're going for the Playhouse Disney Breakfast. Breakfast can't be too bad, can it?

Yes it was the breakfast, sorry

We were at WDW for 21 nights, ate at at least 2TS meals a day, so went to a lot of restaurants and that one was by far the worst food wise. The characters were ok. I have friends who have been too and it was also their worst meal from what I remember. It gets really really bad reviews, I'm surprised they haven't done something about it (maybe they have).

But hey, if my kids were younger I would go again, I feel that the character meals are about the characters not so much about the food. The food was still edible, just not that great. If you have kids who are into those characters then you will go and have will have a fun time, if you have older kids then I would say skip it and do one of the others that are really good (Crystal Palace, Ohana's, Donald's, Cape May's, Chef Mickey's, Princess breakfast etc).

Go over to the restaurant board and see if there are any new reviews of it , they may have improved it in recent months .

 

[kyl]

Thanks guys You have been really helpful. We are going in sept so hoping for the free dining or some sort of discount of our accomodation Waiting to see like everyone else on DISboards about that one. Do you think I should make reservations at some of the TS places now do you know if they can then transfer is over if we get free dining? All these questions, just if you don't ask you can really miss out coming from so far away. As you fellow Aussies know. Well only 147 more days to go and we will be in magic land

 

[ehsmum]

The kids menus at many of the TS restaurants are from $7.50 (not buffets, thats the ones with a la carte menus) and many adults have reported ordering off the kids menu if paying OOP too

You just can't do that in an Australian restaurant, so it wouldn't even occur to me! Although my 10 year old refuses to order off the kids menu these days so she'll probably be eating adult meals while I eat the kids .

Yes it was the breakfast, sorry

We were at WDW for 21 nights, ate at at least 2TS meals a day, so went to a lot of restaurants and that one was by far the worst food wise. The characters were ok. I have friends who have been too and it was also their worst meal from what I remember. It gets really really bad reviews, I'm surprised they haven't done something about it (maybe they have).

But hey, if my kids were younger I would go again, I feel that the character meals are about the characters not so much about the food. The food was still edible, just not that great. If you have kids who are into those characters then you will go and have will have a fun time, if you have older kids then I would say skip it and do one of the others that are really good (Crystal Palace, Ohana's, Donald's, Cape May's, Chef Mickey's, Princess breakfast etc).

Go over to the restaurant board and see if there are any new reviews of it , they may have improved it in recent months .

It's the characters we're going for. My youngest is a Playhouse Disney addict and he's going to adore it. I'm not too worried about the food.

 

[aussietravellers]

Thanks guys You have been really helpful. We are going in sept so hoping for the free dining or some sort of discount of our accomodation Waiting to see like everyone else on DISboards about that one. Do you think I should make reservations at some of the TS places now do you know if they can then transfer is over if we get free dining? All these questions, just if you don't ask you can really miss out coming from so far away. As you fellow Aussies know. Well only 147 more days to go and we will be in magic land

Yes definately make your dining reservations now, do it ASAP, you can do it online, its very easy. The dining reservations are done separate from your resort reservation. You can enter your resort reservation when making your ADR's online and that will just let you make your reservations for an extra 10 days if you are booking at your 180 day window but you don't have to, you can make them without having a resort reservation and if you then make a resort reservation it won't affect your ADR's at all. As you are making ADR's 147 days out, you don't even need to add your hotel reservation number. You select your restaurants and times, add them to your cart (you can do up to 10 in one go before checking out) and then it will ask for your name and your phone number. You will then get a confirmation number for each individual ADR for each individual restaurnat and they will also be emailed to you to keep. So if you want to cancel the ADR at a particular restaurant then you can do so with that confirmation number.

So if free dining comes in, you have your ADR's if it doesn't then you can just cancel the dining ressies

 

[PrincessInOz]

Which meal did you have at Hollywood n Vine? We're going for the Playhouse Disney Breakfast. Breakfast can't be too bad, can it?

According to the reviews, Cape May, Tusker House, Crystal Palace and Ohana's are supposed to have the best breakfasts. We did Chef Mickey last time, when it was supposed to be the best in 2005, and are doing Tusker House (and Cape May) this time round because that's what the kids want to see. If I had girls, I would go for Cinderella's Royal Table or the breakfast at Norway.

For a character breakfast, pick a place with the characters that your family wants to see and interact with. If your kids want to see the Playhouse Disney characters, then just book the meal irrespective of what the reviews are like. Character breakfasts saves a lot of time in that you then don't have to queue up in the park to take your photo with them or get their autograph.

We walked up (rather than booked ADRs) and ate at a few restaurants and counter service places in 2005. Aside from the ones at Epcot, Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang Puck, most of them were average. We preferred some of the counter service places over some restaurants; and some restaurants were better than most. But we have much better food in Oz..so if you're comparing against what we get here, it won't compare well.

With dining, it's pretty personal. What someone likes may not be someone else's cup of tea. I would check out the menus and then work out if there is anything there that you would care to eat for the price. There are heaps of reviews in the Dining Section and you'll find the complete gammut of opinions.

 

[aussietravellers]

It's the characters we're going for. My youngest is a Playhouse Disney addict and he's going to adore it. I'm not too worried about the food.

Oh, you'll enjoy it then . I'm never worried about the food when it comes to character meals, I just love eating with the characters. My son is not into those characters anymore but if he was, we would go back to H&V, knowing that the food won't be flash, but to enjoy the character experience.

 

[ehsmum]

I booked all my ADRs based on the characters. I didn't even look at the menus. And I'm not going to bother checking the menus before we get there either. It's the characters we are going for. I haven't booked any fancy restaurants because that's not our thing. We will be happy with CS meals on a whole, I've only booked a few specific character meals for the experience.

 

[kyl]

Hi Aussie travellers,
Thanks for the tip I will do as you say, I haven't booked our accomodation either yet. I am hanging out for these discounts that disney will release hopefully soon. Do you reakon I should do that as well (book our room or villa)? I am so lost, I loved planing our trip last year to disneyland. We stayed in the GCH, which was lovely. Given that disney only has 3 hotels there it was easy to chose which one! Now with 20....well makes it a bit harder to sort through what will suit. Given we will have our mother in law with us .....um. Well she offered to babysit so we could go out of a night if we wanted. Yay. We thought boardwalk villas would be our best option for this. Does anyone reccomend any accomodation there. If we get rooms we will need 2 as there is 6 of us. So thinking a 2 bed villa is the way to go. Any advice is greatly appreciated. And yes we have the best food here in Australia! And plastic chesse well yuck.....it is the biggest turn off. I have learnt this time I will take some of our coffee with us for our morning pick me ups! Thanks again guys you have all been so helpful.

 

[Sugarglider]

WDW best food hands down - esp. Epcot and Resorts

 

[queenie82]

I know DHS gets a bad rap...but for counter service there is one place I can suggest!!!
For Lunch at least

We twice went to Fairfax fare and LOVED It.
You can get ribs, chicken and beef brisket and we played mix and match dividing up the plates of food according to who wanted what.
I think the ribs were almost as good as at Animal Kingdom and it came with the same baked beans and coleslaw.