Never been to disney need help with dining

[stephanie23]

Ok I am taking ym family to disney for the first time ever. We are going in august and I can start making resorvations starting 2-11-08. I need help as to where to eat.

A little about us, My husbands and I are going to be 24, we have a will be 5 year old daughter and a will be 1 1/2 year old son. Me and my daughter are ultra picky. We like the basics..lol. The hubby will eat anything. I def. want to do a princess dinner and a micky dinner. Please anyone help me, I dont know anything. Thanks alot

 

[smep013]

Let me start by saying I do not have kids, so I do not know for sure what places kids that age enjoy, so I'll let the parents speak to that one...

I do think you should have breakfast at Chef Mickey's, which is in the Contemporary Resort. It's a buffet. All the characters are there and when we ate there, we had great interaction with them. You can also have dinner there, so whichever you choose is up to you.

Also, you might try Ohana in the Polynesian Resort, simply for the atmosphere and the fun & games for kids. Your 5 year old will love it. They have fun activities in the dining room during dinner with a woman "host" who walks around on a microphone teaching kids how to dance the hula and do the limbo, etc. The food there is all you can eat and is literally meat and potatoes. (I bet they have a kids menu).

Those are my two best suggestions for your situation.

Of course, you will get a ton of opinions on these boards!

You might also look at the local bookstore at the tour books called Walt Disney Worlds with Kids, etc.

HAVE FUN PLANNING!

 

[simonkodousek]

Where are you staying? How long will you be there for? This information is essential to your ADR's and how you will get around from A to B, etc.

 

[Lynne M]

Here are the menus for WDW restaurants and counter service places:

http://www.allearsnet.com/menu/menus.htm

A good guidebook will help, too - Birnbaum's Official Guide to WDW is a great choice for first timers, as it gives you a good overview of WDW, and has descriptions of all the rides, activities, shops, restaurants, etc.

 

[CamColt]

Welcome to the Dis, Stephanie! We are glad you found us.


You can check out all the menus, along with other dining information, right here on our site.
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining.htm

 

[simonkodousek]

Forgot to mention...

Make sure you get yourself a good guidebook (while still in the planning stage) so you know anything and everything before you leave. I highly recommend the "Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World" and the Birnbaum books. The Birnbaum books have a good overview of everything and give you essential infomation about the parks, rides, etc., but the "Unofficial Guide" has everything you could possibly ask for including in-depth descriptions of the rides, honest dining reviews, hotel ratings on noise, light, beds, etc., crowd calculator, and more.

 

[stephanie23]

Were staying at AKL for 7 days

 

[BabyPiglet]

Chef Mickey's and Crystal Palace would suit your family very well. Family style meals would also be good (Ohana's, Liberty Tree Tavern, Garden Grill) because you all can pick and choose what you want. I personally love most of the counter service places, and there are a ton of those to choose from.

www.wdwig.com is a great place to look at the menus.

 

[stephanie23]

Anymore suggestions?? Thanks to everyone who helped!

 

[redwingfan3991]

If you go to Hollywood Studios (MGM) for breakfast and lunch,
Play and Dine at Hollywood and Vine has JOJO, Goliath, from JOJOs
circus and Leo, and June from Little Einsteins. The have sandwich fixings
and basic food and nuggets and stuff for kids. Its a buffet, and they play
music from Playhouse Disney and the kids get to get up and dance around
with the characters.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Here are my picks:

Liberty Tree Tavern for Dinner (character meal) MK
Chef Mickey's (character meal)
Princess Storybook Breakfast at EPCOT
Sci-Fi at DHS for lunch DHS
50's Prime Time Cafe at DHS
Crystal Palace (either breakfast or dinner) MK
Le Cellier at EPCOT
Coral Reef at EPCOT

Have fun deciding!

 

[Hopefully]

I agree with the others. Check out the menus here on the DIS and the the allearsnet.com link. This will help you greatly. I also strongly suggest getting a good guide book. If you choose the Unofficial Guide you will have access to its best days calendar on line.
You should decide first which park you will go to on which day, You do not want to be spending a lot of time going from place to place just for an ADR. You want to book in or near the park you will be in that day.
Once you have decided where you will be each day you can choose to make your ADR's near there. Don't forget to take a look at the menus for nearby resorts. They have great restaurants too. From the MK you have easy access to all of the Monorail restaurants, from Epcot or DHS you have boat access to the Boardwalk restaurants as well as all of the restaurants at the YC/BC and the Swan and Dolphin
Some of my favorites are 'OHana at the Poly would be a great meal for you and the kids will have a great time. If you time it right you can see Wishes from your table. We loved the 50's Prime Time Cafe at MGM. Good "down home" food. We also love many of the International restaurants at Epcot. Teppan Edo in Japan might be a good one for you. The chef cooks and performs right at your table, and it is pretty basic grilled food. We loved Jiko at the AKL too, but it is not a great restaurnant for little ones.
Good Luck with your decision.

 

[casper_jj11]

We went with DSalmost 4 and DD7mo and again with DS4 and DD1. We're going again the same time as you with DS5, DD2 and DS11mo. We've tried a lot of places and will return to our favourites this time around. We really liked:

Chef Mickeys - character breakfast - contemporary
Cape May - character breakfast - Beach Resort
Boma - AKL (kiddos didn't like it much our first trip but we're going to give it another shot...not sure if you'd like this one as the food is different)

Crystal Palace - Winnie the Pooh character buffet (we did dinner before)- MK
Coral Reef - Epcot
Biergarten - Epcot (buffet with fun entertainment)
Sci Fi dine in - MGM (fun for the kiddos and food pretty good)

Counter favs:
Morocco - Epcot (forget the name, DS is picky and he liked the lunch there)
Columbia Harbour House - MK
Pecos Bill - MK
Pizza Planet - MGM- food not that great but DS loved it... won't be back this trip I don't think but would do it again
Tusker House - AK


Different ones we plan to try this time:
Le Cellier - Epcot
Hoop De Doo review
Hollywood and Vine character breakfast

Ones we weren't a huge fan of:
Liberty Tree Tavern - character dinner - MK
Ohanas - tried dinner and gave breakfast a try-- didn't like either very much and won't go back. Dinner was fun for DS but he didn't eat much because of the activities. Food wasn't very good either time.
Cosmic Rays - Our trip there was absolutely TERRIBLE. Definitely won't ever return.
Casey's Corner - MK counter - everyone raves about the hotdogs but we weren't a fan.

We did the princess breakfast at MK and although the food wasn't worth the cost, we'll definitely do it again when DD is old enough to enjoy the princesses. I think your DD will LOVE it at 5yrs old.

HTH
Joanne

 

[dvcdisney]

I too agree that you should check out the menus.

Here are my suggestion:

Chef Mickey (best to decide if your baby is afraid of characters before doing this one. It is definitely character overload. My daughter is still afraid of them on our last vacation, so we avoided this restaurant.)

Ohana's - I'm sure your 5 year old daughter would love it.

As for the princess character dining...I find that the character interaction at Princess Storybook Dining in Norway, Epcot is far better than the CRT.

Here are our other favourites:

Le Cellier
Coral Reef
Nine Dragons
Hollywood and Vine Fantasmic Package
Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package
Spoodles
Cape May Cafe
Tony's Town Square

There are so many others, but as you can see we have been avoiding the character dining since my daughter first cried (she was 1 1/2 years old) when we took her to CRT and the Fairy Godmother made an appearance with Perla and Suzy.

I think it depends on what you're looking for. I do recommend the Princess Storybook Dining Norway, because your daughter would love it and most likely since they are "people characters", your son may be fine with them.

 

[mickey&minniealways]

This spring will be my 13th visit to Disney since 1977. One of the best meals I have had there was on our last trip in 2005. This was Boma at the AKL (animal kingdom lodge). The food was great. They were able to accomodate all of us, eaight people. Huge variety of foods. Our server was wonderful. Asked if we wanted the buffet or something specific. Her first question was if anyone had any dietary restrictions if so she would send the chef to our table right away. She had an autograph book herself and asked us to sign and us about our trip etc. She saw our camera and offered to take a picture of all of us. Just a great experience. My 2 DS's favorite reseraunt every time is Ohana at the Poly. They are now 19 and 21. DD is 12 and her favorites are the character meals. The Liberty Tree Tavern and the Crystal Palace. At the Liberty Tree the Characters were so attentive and really interacted with her. At the Crystal Palace if you get the last reservation of the evening it is a great time. It was not just a hello here from this character and a picture with one at a time. Since we were there at closing the kids got there picture taken with the entire Pooh gang at the same time. This is almost impossible to accomplish any other way. Since the Crystal palace is in the MK and the park closes at dusk, at least it does the week we were there it is not a real late dinner. But check the park hours before making your reservation.

Wish you good luck and remember to have fun.

 

[Mkrop]

I have picky eaters and this is where worked for us:

For Mickey:
Chef Mickey breakfast was wonderful, crazy, napkin swirling
Garden Grill in Epcot, this was very nice, no buffet to deal with, you can eat from the adult plate or kid plate, it is very laid back and the character interaction is great, no napkin swinging in case that might bother your little one, very quiet

Playhouse Disney at DHS breakfast with Little Einsteins and Jojo and Goliath

Sci Fi Diner at DHS, burgers and such.

Crsytal Palace in MK with Pooh and friends. buffet lot of choices, DH loved their salmon.

Sunshine Seasons in the Land in Epcot, lot of variety for counter service meal.

We did not like Cosmic Rays!

Have fun