Tusker House
We ate at Tusker House last year and had a good meal. My girls were a little nervous with the characters but we still had some great interactions, and I remembered liking the food. So of course we wanted to go back this year. Unfortunately, our experience this year wasn’t as good. I’ll post the good and the bad.
We had a 5:40pm reservation. We were sat at 6:00pm. DD2 fell asleep while we were waiting, so Grandma enjoyed snuggles with her while the rest of us got situated with our food. I asked our server about vegetarian options at the buffet. Last time we ate here, a chef came out and walked me through to show me what I could and couldn’t eat. This server just handed me an allergy menu, which wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped. I'm pretty sure the items they marked as vegetarian were actually vegan as a number of them looked like they might have dairy but there were a few items I couldn't imagine had meat in them. So after looking over the allergy guide, I still had some questions.
I took the menu and DD4 to the buffet to get our plates filled. I was standing in the first line and reading the allergy guide when a chef approached me and asked which poison I was trying to avoid. He was the best part of our experience here! I wish I remembered his name. He not only walked me through the line to show me what we could eat, but he also handed a paper rose to my DD4 and then inserted us back in the line where we had been vs. making us wait at the back of a long line again. He was wonderful!
This was DD4’s plate. I let her pick what she wanted from the buffet. With DD2 sleeping, we paid $31 for this and a little dessert (and yes, the character experience… which was my main complaint about this meal).
This was my plate. I like this restaurant because there are plenty of vegetarian options. I’d say the food was good but not AS good as I had remembered from the year before.
My husband filled up plates for him and his mom. I guess I forgot to get a picture!
You can see the paper rose on the table in front of me here. DD4 loved it!
We had dessert in front of us before the first character made it to our table. We ended up getting a plate to all share. I might have gotten one more plate after this to try a couple of other things. The caramel bars were my favorite!
It was 6:40pm when the first character came to our table, which means we waited 40 minutes for the first character after we were sat, and an hour after our reservation time. The wait wasn’t a big deal to us though, because it gave us time to eat first and DD2 had woken up from her nap by then.
Donald was up first. DD4 happily handed him her autograph book and pen, but then got nervous. I've included a video clip below - it was hilarious!
Donald saw that she was nervous, so he signed our book, took a quick group picture, and then moved on. I was a little disappointed because I know by now that if a character spends thirty seconds making an effort (like asking for a high-five), DD4 will warm up. I know characters are rushed at most meals, but they were especially rushed here. According to the time stamp on my pictures, Donald was with us for less than 1 minute.
Daisy Duck was up next. She was the only character of the four who made any effort with my girls. DD4 got her high five!
DD2 looks nervous here, but I think she was mostly just tired. The quality of pictures I have from this restaurant aren’t as good as others, I think maybe it’s the darker lighting here?
Mickey was up next, and this is where things really fell apart for us. Mickey was the one character DD4 wasn’t nervous about, because she had met him before and was excited to see him. When Mickey got to our table, a child and parent pair from two other tables rushed to our table (so 4 extra people crowding around us). I don’t know if they had missed him at their tables because they were at the buffet or bathroom or what, but it was chaotic and I was upset that both families felt like it was okay to take our time with him. I wished they had found a handler and asked to have him come by their tables again.
Mickey signed our book, but then the two other girls were trying to hand him their books. Mickey, who obviously couldn’t talk, tried to point and wave them back to their tables. They didn’t take the hint.
I was frustrated but decided to try to ignore them. I should have said something directly to the other guests, but I didn’t, probably because I was trying to take video of DD4 with Mickey. DD4 was trying to show Mickey that she was wearing Minnie on her dress. His head seemed to be pointed in our direction, but he showed no sign that he had heard her. So I repeated her comments and said, “Mickey, she wants to show you her dress.” Mickey didn’t even turn his head to me. I realized that whoever was inside there was paying no attention to us. DD4 asked me why Mickey was ignoring her, and that made me sad.
I actually have video of some of this interaction, but since it shows one of the girls and her mom who were trying to interrupt us, I won’t post it. As soon as he left our table, I saw Mickey walk across the restaurant to a handler on the other side. He seemed to have a quick conversation with her before coming back to our dining room.
Goofy was a quick meet too. He also seemed to sense that the girls were nervous, and did not try to interact with them. The character experiences left us in a bit of a bad mood. I was mostly upset that DD4 was disappointed with Mickey and feeling a bit frustrated that we had paid so much for the experience.
I don’t blame Mickey at all. I was upset that there was no handler in our dining room to help handle the other guests. Mickey was at our table for 1 minute and most of that time was spent in chaos in trying to manage us vs. the other guests. As we were leaving, I found a handler in another room and told her about what had happened. She just asked me to point out the other guests who had come to our table. I pointed them out but told her my concern was not about having the guests reprimanded, that I wanted a handler to be paying attention and help step in with those situations. She said, “Well there’s only 2 handlers and 4 characters.” So really, it was a staffing issue. She eventually asked if I was asking to have him come back to our table. At that point, I knew we were all tired and had been there way too long, and we had already left our table, so I said no. I just wanted to make them aware so they could help in future situations.
We paid $179 before tip. When you’re paying over $200 for a character meal, I personally feel there should be a focus on making sure each table has a quality experience (even if it is just 1-2 minutes) with each character. We decided that character meals with fur characters probably just aren't for us right now.
Thanks for letting me rant. This was a low point for our trip, but things got much better the next day!
It was 7:15pm when we finished our meal. We had talked about sticking around the park for a bit longer, but we were all exhausted, so we decided to head home.
On a happier note, I put together a short video with fun clips from our day! Including the funny moment when DD4 goes from being excited to see Donald to suddenly deciding he is scary :-D
Steps: 14,266
Miles: 5.76
We did go around the same time and both have a 4-year-old so I was immediately drawn into yours! 
