Lilo and Stitch vs. Goofy.

[Teki]

So I am thinking of switching my PS for PCH Lilo and stich breakfast, for one at Goofy's Kitchen. Is this a good idea? I sorta have begun to feel like Im paying 30$ to see stitch. He is my favorite, but I have heard that Goofy's Kitchen has more food and more charactors. Would I be getting more for my money at Goofy's Kitchen? Whats is your guys opinions?

 

[pixiewings71]

We liked Lilo & Stitch much much much better. We had barely any character interaction at GK but a lot at L&S. We won't do GK again (unless it's someone else's choice) but we would do L&S again.

 

[Sherry E]

Kerri, did you have all 3 of those tags before or did the Tag Fairy give you a new one (the green one)? For some reason, I only remember seeing the first two!

Anyway, Teki - I think you have been over to DizNee Luver's Trip Report thread, if I recall. She was just at Lilo and Stitch very recently and saw, I think, about 5 characters. Maybe 6. She has pictures. So it is not all Lilo and Stitch. Goofy's has about 5 regular characters and then guest stars who seem to alternate weeks or days.

 

[pixiewings71]

Kerri, did you have all 3 of those tags before or did the Tag Fairy give you a new one (the green one)? For some reason, I only remember seeing the first two!

Anyway, Teki - I think you have been over to DizNee Luver's Trip Report thread, if I recall. She was just at Lilo and Stitch very recently and saw, I think, about 5 characters. Maybe 6. She has pictures. So it is not all Lilo and Stitch. Goofy's has about 5 regular characters and then guest stars who seem to alternate weeks or days.

Sherry I just got the green one from the TG over the weekend! I saw it yesterday!

 

[dvschem]

We had a Goofy's kitchen breakfast on our first full day in the US. There seemed to be plenty of time with the characters. Goofy even sat witht the kids for a while playing games. All up there was about 6 or 7 characters doing the rounds.

 

[Sherry E]

I totally forgot to make my original comment that came to mind, which is.....in terms of number of characters at a character meal, from everything I have read and seen in photos, it definitely seems as though Minnie and Friends takes the cake. I guess because it is smack dab inside of DL, they really pack it with characters galore, whereas all the other character meals seem to have maybe 5-6 'on duty' at once, and then some swap out for others. So, Teki, if you are by any chance used to the number of characters at Minnie and Friends, then Goofy's or Lilo and Stitch may seem disappointing. I personally like to be able to eat and just mingle with a handful with characters here and there, but I know many folks like to have the characters come to the table fast and furious, one after another! So I guess it just depends on what you prefer.

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

We all know Sherry loves the Goofy one best (love ya) ....., but I disagree with her here.... I actually prefer Lilo and Stitch to Goofy.

1) Food quality is much higher. Also, it has the best mid range variety, which allows them to have higher quality.
Storyteller's - highest quality - lowest variety
Lilio & Stitch - high quality - mid variety
Goofy - mid quality - high variety

2) Character interaction - less characters, but more personalized attention. The restaurant is smaller, the cast is smaller, but they make the rounds much more frequently than Goofy's. You get Lilo. Stitch, Minnie, Pluto, and occasionally Daisy or Donald. They hula with the kids, conga, take photos in a set area - where you can take your own and they don't foist them on you.

3) Restaurant Atmosphere - this is where Lilo and Stitch takes a hit. No theming to the room, no visual excitement. The lack to extra walls and draping makes the place a bit noisy, but not in as bad a way as Goofy's. When they do the pots and pan activity at Goofy's, you can't hear yourself think. It's chaos. Storyteller's, wins the serenity award.

Finally...
My biggest pet peeve about Goofy's is how they handle the whole photo thing. you have to tell them to take a photo with your camera and then when you just get your food, they hover to try to get you to buy their photo. They also won't seat you without your entire party there to be taking the photo. Storyteller's doesn't even have a photopass set-up, adding to it's charm, and the Lilo and Stitch one is off tothe side and voluntary.

Hope that helps with some othr perspectives.

 

[Sherry E]

Actually, if you notice, I hadn't stated my preference in this thread earlier (other than to say I like to eat and mingle with a few characters - which applies to any of them, really) because it wasn't necessary or required of me. I was looking solely at the number of characters present at the meals, and I think Lilo and Stitch has more than just L&S, but none of them compare to Minnie and Friends as far as number of characters!

But since you mentioned it, Nancy - yes, Goofy's is my favorite character meal and favorite place to eat in DLR - for 16 years and counting! I haven't had any problems with the characters, with the photo set-up or with the food. I think the quality and variety at Goofy's far exceeds Storytellers, and is way more fun. I have not eaten at L&S, so I cannot speak to that yet.

But it all boils down to personal tastes and opinions!

 

[bluegrizzlies1]

We are going to try goofys breakfast this time around never done it.

We have done lilo and stitch it was great
minnie and friends was good the first time second time we had to hunt the characters down
princesses they were good the food was bad this was before the new menu havent tried it since then.

we have not done storytellers but we always see chip and dale at the disney rewards card meet and greet.

Is goofys a mistake or will it be good?

 

[Sherry E]

We are going to try goofys breakfast this time around never done it.

We have done lilo and stitch it was great
minnie and friends was good the first time second time we had to hunt the characters down
princesses they were good the food was bad this was before the new menu havent tried it since then.

we have not done storytellers but we always see chip and dale at the disney rewards card meet and greet.

Is goofys a mistake or will it be good?

I think all the character meals are worth trying at least once, but we all usually do our favorites over and over again.

As for whether or not Goofy's is a mistake - obviously, there are 'pro' and 'con' camps for every character meal. I am in the 'pro' camp for Goofy's, so I would say it is not a mistake and you will like it a lot. Clairabell29 just ate there for the first time with her family and they loved it! DizNee Luver is also a big fan. Others feel differently about it based on the experiences they had. So only you can judge for yourself if it is worth your $$ or not. There is no absolute, final answer because we are all just sharing opinions and experiences. I think you should try it. Chip and Dale are at Goofy's too (they are busy little chipmunks and seem to get around to a lot of character meals). Just make sure to report back to us here with whatever the verdict is - whether you liked it or not!

 

[swimrsal]

I don't think anyone mentioned that at Lilo & Stitch you have the option of forgoing the buffet and ordering off the menu... so that would make it cost less, yes?

We did Goofy's Kitchen in May of 2005 and thought it was wonderful. The characters were plentiful and the food was great. We also did Storytellers and loved it as well... we ordered off the menu there and while the characters were not ones we were as familiar with they were still a lot of fun.

We are totally crazy people and are doing Goofy's, Storytellers, Lilo & Stitch & BBQ Celebration this time. The first three are breakfasts... we have little kids who wake up at 6am... with a 9am park opening time, quite frankly... we just need something to do!!!

 

[Sherry E]

I don't think anyone mentioned that at Lilo & Stitch you have the option of forgoing the buffet and ordering off the menu... so that would make it cost less, yes?

We did Goofy's Kitchen in May of 2005 and thought it was wonderful. The characters were plentiful and the food was great. We also did Storytellers and loved it as well... we ordered off the menu there and while the characters were not ones we were as familiar with they were still a lot of fun.

We are totally crazy people and are doing Goofy's, Storytellers, Lilo & Stitch & BBQ Celebration this time. The first three are breakfasts... we have little kids who wake up at 6am... with a 9am park opening time, quite frankly... we just need something to do!!!

Well, if you guys are crazy people, you are the kind of crazy I like! That is a good kind of crazy! One of our other DIS'ers, Ballarinamom, did all of the character meals during their trip last year (this was before Celebration Round-Up BBQ opened up so that was not an option) and it sounded like a lot of fun. I don't even have any interest in the Princesses at all (no kids), but if I had the $$$ I would do one DLR trip with ALL the character meals included, just to get the full array of characters in photos and try all the food. I think that sounds great, but I am lucky if I can afford one character meal per trip - or even if I can afford more than one, it is tough to convince my Goofy's-loving friend that we should venture to a second character meal as well! She does not care so much about characters (other than Baloo), so she really could not care less about getting in photos with them, whereas I am a big goofball and will pose with any character I find. My friend just likes the food at Goofy's.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Late to the party as always.........

Ok here we goooooooooo:

Love Goofy's Kitchen for the excitement & food choices. My kids range from 3-22 & they all ask to go there. We've found more characters at the breakfast vs the dinner. A PP mentioned the photo op & everyone has to be there...... we've really never had a problem with them hovering & pushing their photo package & if I have my camera out, they'll take a picture or two with it. But, yes everyone needs to be there. I kinda like that they take the pic of the entire group......usually we put the kids in for those photos & sometimes these end up being the only group shots we got.

Tried Lilo-n-Stitch in March. We had a blast at this meal. It's a small restaurant with a smaller buffet. You can order off the menu, it may save you a little money (just keep in mind that that character meal price includes tax & gratuity). We only saw Lilo & Stitch on the floor when we went & saw Daisy & Minnie switch places at the photo area......but the interaction with Lilo & Stitch was fabulous & they made many, many stops so we really didn't notice the lack of other characters.

We did the Minnie & Friends in April & were blown away by the amount of characters that morning. We've never been a huge fan of their buffet, but we do this meal for the character interaction anyways. We had 11 characters come by our table & 3 we missed......14 in all!!!!!!! This is a great one for introducing your kids to the characters. Very familiar characters....classic plus you get a few new ones at times. We ended up seeing the White Rabbit from Alice & Honest John from Pinocchio.....we were pretty excited about that.

Ariel's Grotto is a must for princess lovers!!!! We did this for breakfast in March & lunch last year. We really enjoyed the breakfast. It was served family style & there was plenty of food leftover when we were done. The nice thing about this meal is you feel like you've stepped into a royal event. They have a page that announces each princess & they also taught the kids how to bow & curtsy.....very cute. You see Ariel prior to seating & then 4 princesses come to your table. (from what I read recently, the PFF only has 3.....so to me, the lack of wait time here was worth the money to make sure my daughter saw the princesses)

We've yet to try the Storytellers, but as I understand it's a smaller buffet or ordering off the menu. The characters are the "animal" kind....so if you have a kid that's really into Brother Bear....this is a place they'd probably see a character from it.

Hope that helps!!! I have tons of photos in my TR on all 4 of the meals we've done........
I think the thing that will help you have a "successful" character meal is to not expect certain things.....like certain characters or a certain amt of characters as this varies from day to day as well as from hour to hour..... go & enjoy yourself & every character you see is a bonus on top of the experience!!!!

 

[ArielAdventurer]

I loved BOTH character meals..in fact..I try to do both when I am at Disney..I love Lilo and Stitch..they are my personal favorites..so..I don't want to miss them..as far as the food..there is more food at Goofy's but..for the most part..they both have delicious food...
I liked the games we played with Stitch..and..my daughter learning to hula with Lilo was priceless...
THe last time we were at Goofy's..they just danced..they didn't even have the pots and pans out...

 

[pixiewings71]

I agree with Sherry, it's worth it try each character meal once, then decide what you like and do that again. While GK was not worth it for us for others it's great and they have great experiences. Will we do it again? No, not unless someone else wants to do it, we weren't really impressed by the food, we had hardly any character interaction (and we had kids with us) and it was just badly done IMO. But I'm glad we did it all the same, wish we hadn't spent so much on it but still glad we did it.

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

Sherry = LOL!

Once we get our weekend technologist hired, I'll have to take you along when we do our review of Lilo and Stitch. I'll even make a trip over the hill to get you! that way you will be able to say you tried 3 out of the 4!
We've already reviewed Storyteller's and Goofy's for the show. 2 more breakfasts to go.

I think adults are really the only ones with set mindsets entering into a meal. Kids - they love all of the experiences, unless of couse some large fur-suited fiasco comes barrelling at them with guns a-blazing!

Bottom line - Folks are right when they say do what you feel you need to - and don't listen to any of us. It's all our opinions.

 

[Sherry E]

I think I would like Lilo and Stitch's meal. I always like Polynesian-themed things. I pretty much will get in photos with any character, no matter who it is, and I am sure the food is more than decent. I didn't even DIS-like Storytellers. I just wasn't impressed enough with it to NEED to go back there more than a couple of times, but it was okay. It wasn't bad in any way - it was very calm and mellow! The one place that seems to get consistently mixed reviews on food quality is Minnie and Friends - BUT I want to try that at least once too, because there are so many characters there. In fact, a friend of mine is supposed to be coming to town with her family this fall, and she has been away from DLR for at least 10 years, and I know at least one character meal is on the agenda. Now, she loved Goofy's in the past, and we always went there twice per trip (back in the early '90s, when the cost was a whopping $13!!), BUT that was before any of the other character meals existed. I honestly think that now, she would prefer Minnie and Friends, because they have a lot of characters she likes there, and her son likes the Pooh crew. So I have a feeling we will end up at Minnie and Friends in October. I'm game!

 

[pixiewings71]

Hey Nancy, when you get to do that meal let me know....maybe I'll make a trip down just so I can eat there with Sherry too! LOL