Meal Planning....your thoughts....

[2wildchildzmom]

Ok we are not going until Sept. but I am having fun just planning.

Here are my thoughts after researching on the internet and looking at menus. We will have a rental car on Sun, Mon and Tues.

Our first trip to DL and we have never eaten at the following places.

These are mostly dinner plans. Breakfast is at the hotel and lunch will be just snack that we bring into the park or share something simple from a CS place.

What are your thoughts and recommendations for our family of four, DH, Me, DS's 12 and 8. We are not big meat eaters, fish is great and some chicken.

We arrive at Long Beach airport at 9:20am on a Sat. and I am wondering if I could make the brunch at Goofy's Kitchen around 11 or 11:30? I would love to kick off the week with a bang, but not sure if we could make it, maybe we'll have to settle for dinner?

Sun - Sandbox Bar and Grille (we got a restaurants.com cert for $2)

Mon - Legoland - Sammy's Woodfired Pizza in Carlsbad (never been but looks good)

Tues - going to Huntington beach for midday so Dukes for their fish tacos for lunch, not sure about dinner today....

Weds - Rainforest Cafe
Thurs - Carnation Cafe or someplace in DCA for lunch before our 4:30pm flight.

Thanks so much for any and all input!

 

[DizNee Luver]

I can't comment on all the restaurants but will tell you that we love the Rainforest Cafe!! This is a must every trip for our family. The whole restaurant is themed with aquariums, animitronic animals (elephants, monkeys, gorillas, butterflies, etc) and they even have thunderstorms every 20 minutes. They have a large menu & kids menu, so everyone should be able to find something to eat.

Carnation Cafe we've only had for breakfast, but we loved the food, service & quaint-ness of this restaurant. We've heard great things about their baked potato soup!!!

Have a great trip!!

Rainforest Cafe reservations: 714-772-0413
Disney Dining PS: 714-781-3463

 

[sdfamily]

Other thoughts near Legoland....

There's a Karl Strauss Brewery closer to Legoland (http://www.karlstrauss.com/)

Also an In-n-Out burger over by Sammy's, yummy!

 

[Golfing Goofy]

We always love Carnation Cafe, especially the desserts. We find something yummy at each meal offering. They have a vegie sandwich at lunch with loads of cheese. I have enjoyed it as a meatless alternative. Salads are available too. My kids eat off the adult menu now, and they like the chicken pot pie or the chicken club sandwich (without the bacon).

We get a PS, so that we don't have to worry about waiting long for a table.

hth

 

[Sherry E]

The good thng about Goofy's is that - unless the system has changed - you are not required to have a PS for it. The last time I asked someone at Disneyland Dining, I was told that the only restaurant in DLR where a PS was required was Blue Bayou. Any other place can take walk-ups, though you may have to wait a while to be seated. So you could make your PS for Goofy's at 11:00 or 11:30 on that Saturday, but if you end up running late, you can still walk up. Apparently - and I didn't realize this until just this year form reading other DIS-ers' posts - Goofy's closes the breakfast/brunch shift on weekends at something like 2:00 p.m. (and maybe holidays too). Weekdays, it closes much earlier. Then of course, it opens again for dinner later on. So even if you can't make an 11:00 a.m. breakfast/brunch, you may still be able to make breakfast and brunch there anyway. If not, try the dinner. (I prefer breakfast.) Either way, the buffet has a ton of choices from which to choose!

Carnation Cafe is good for any meal of the day - including dessert only - so you should enjoy that. And I also love Rainforest Cafe - both for the tropical ambience and all the things DizNee Luver mentioned above, and also for the wide variety of items on the menu. Both Carnation Cafe and Rainforest Cafe really need PS's because the waits can be agonizingly long at times. The seating is very limited at Carnation Cafe, which is why a line of folks waiting for tables builds very fast. We waited for about an hour one time to eat at Rainforest Cafe and when we finally got a table, we were seated up on the very top level, under an extremely hot heat lamp. Climbing all those stairs aggravated my friend's bad knee and it was not fun.

Even though I like the RFC lunch/dinner menu better than its breakfast menu, we realized the only way to really enjoy the atmosphere of the restaurant without tons of people around and sit at the table we wanted (right next to one of the aquariums), was to eat there for breakfast - when hardly anyone else is there!