Not happy with breakfast at Goofy's kitchen

[CashKeenanHenleysMom]

I saw that someone mentioned that Captain Hook was at Goofy's Kitchen. My DS4 is OBSESSED with him. We booked Minnie's Breakfast hoping to see him. Is he also a regular at Goofy's? We are going there our first night, It would be amazing to get to see him twice!!

 

[Dukland]

I saw that someone mentioned that Captain Hook was at Goofy's Kitchen. My DS4 is OBSESSED with him. We booked Minnie's Breakfast hoping to see him. Is he also a regular at Goofy's? We are going there our first night, It would be amazing to get to see him twice!!

We did Minnie and Friends, too, and Captain Hook was there. He was one of the few that somehow didn't make it to our table, but it was okay. Character interaction at Minnie's was wonderful. In fact, my daughter's favorite character, Eeyore, was the first character. He came while I was getting breakfast. As we left, I asked if we could get pics with him and the Cast Members were more than happy to hook us up. We had a steady stream of characters at Minnie's.

We have done Goofy's before with great success. Although the best, most numerous character interactions were when we were in the sun room. We sat in the upper side section last time, six years ago, and still had good interaction.

This time, we found that they are undergoing some sort of remodel out front. So after check in, when they called us back, we actually were led outside and wntered through the lower side section. This is actually the section they seated us in.

The most disappointing thing of all is that we'd already seen Chip and Dale at Minnie's. I was hoping to fill up our autograph/picture book, but to no avail. So we saw Chip, Dale, Pluto and Snow White in 1 1/2 hours.

This was what I chose to use our free Premium Character meal from Costco Travel. I think I will definitely be writing them when I get home. For our family of five, it was $178 for breakfast at Goofy's. While we all enjoyed the food, we only came for the characters.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I saw that someone mentioned that Captain Hook was at Goofy's Kitchen. My DS4 is OBSESSED with him. We booked Minnie's Breakfast hoping to see him. Is he also a regular at Goofy's? We are going there our first night, It would be amazing to get to see him twice!!

I don't believe he's a regular. In all of our times at GK, we have never seen him. We have always seen him at Minnie's though.

 

[DharmaLou]

kind of bummed to hear this. We had dinner there 2 years ago and had great character experiences, and I was planning on booking dinner there tomorrow for our trip in 2 months.

 

[Sherry E]

I've seen Captain Hook at Goofy's Kitchen, but he is not a regular. I would say that Chip and Dale have been regulars at GK since I first started eating there in 1992. Pluto also seems to be quite regular.

Something to remember is that Goofy's has never had as many characters as Minnie & Friends has. M&F has always had more characters than any of the other character meals, and Goofy's Kitchen's character line-up has always ranged from 3 characters (on a bad day) to 7 or 8 (on a great day). Because the food selection is wider at GK than at the other meals, that's where the higher cost comes in for premium dining -- not as much for the vast character selection.

 

[AZMermaid]

We had a similar experience at Minnie's. We were sat outside, basically alone by the wall. No server ever came by after the initial time and after 45 minutes, we had seen no one. They were all over the patio, but then would go backstage. We complained and then saw about 4 characters in the next 20 minutes. But.... People from the patio kept sending their kids down to the characters and cutting in. The only saving grace was my kids were both under 2.5, so they didn't know they were missing anything. It was awful. I want to give Minnie's another shot because others seem to love it, but I just can't. I have heard early reservation are key at Minnie's. We were trying to make an early lunch of it. IF we try it again (and that's a big if) it will be early.

 

[YukonMommy]

We did Goofy's once and never again. The character interactions were okay at best. We had characters stop by but it was not fun, as they just took quick pics and continued on. The service was terrible, my son spilled his juice (as 4 year olds do) and when we finally flagged down a server for a cloth and more napkins as we had used all at the table to mop up the juice and his pants, he literally threw a cloth on the table and told us to clean it up!! We complained on the way out and the lady at the front was kind but distracted.

On the other hand we love Minnies! We have went twice and it has always been amazing. We have the best pics of our 3 oldest kids dancing with Brier Fox and Tigger. Capt Hook tried to "stalk" my daughter from the food to our table and tried to steal her waffle. On another visit Capt Hook walked away shaking his fist at my boys when they sang him the Jake and the Neverland pirates theme song!

 

[mikana876]

We ate at Goofy's on Sunday and we had a wonderful time! We got Capt Hook, Mad Hatter, Alice, Chip, Dale, Pluto, and of course Goofy in about in hour and a half.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

We had a similar experience at Minnie's. We were sat outside, basically alone by the wall. No server ever came by after the initial time and after 45 minutes, we had seen no one. They were all over the patio, but then would go backstage. We complained and then saw about 4 characters in the next 20 minutes. But.... People from the patio kept sending their kids down to the characters and cutting in. The only saving grace was my kids were both under 2.5, so they didn't know they were missing anything. It was awful. I want to give Minnie's another shot because others seem to love it, but I just can't. I have heard early reservation are key at Minnie's. We were trying to make an early lunch of it. IF we try it again (and that's a big if) it will be early.

I hate that you had this same experience at Minnie's, but I do feel some what validated since it seemed like I was the only one who ever had a bad experience there. We will be trying it again in Nov, but will do an earlier reservation. I too, think making it too late was part of the problem.

 

[hakepb]

First, I'm glad I read this thread because I thought Goofy's Kitchen only had characters for brunch. But here I'm reading that it's a character dinner as well! I hate spending money on breakfast, so maybe we'll do this for a dinner.

We did Mickey's Surf's Up breakfast last year on a Tuesday morning. The place was barely half full. We got good food and incredible interaction. After reading this tough reviews, maybe Goofy's isn't the best for breakfast. Maybe we'll return to PP for breakfast there.

And I'm with a previous poster. WDW has the whole character meal thing down. If anything, we find it hard to eat as frequently as the characters come around at place like Chef Mickey's, 1900 Park Faire, and Crystal Palace.

I thought the opposite during my August trip. We did Goofy's, Minnie and Storytellers character breakfasts and loved the character variety and interactions much more at DL than what we are used to at WDW.

On the eating / service side, DL was weird. You pay in advance so you don't get a good tipping option, so servers aren't as service oriented. At Minnie's, we never saw a server. (It's self serve drinks, and no one removed any plates)

I'm not sure why the OP expected Captain Hook at Goofy's. We saw him at Minnie's (best character interaction ever ) We saw at least 6 characters at Goofys but no Hook.

 

[Girimama33]

After all, this is touted as the best "Premium Meal".

Where was this touted previously? I always thought GK was my least favorite out of the DLR options. For as long as I have been on this board, I haven't seen folks singing the praises of GK over any other character meal.

 

[AZMermaid]

I hate that you had this same experience at Minnie's, but I do feel some what validated since it seemed like I was the only one who ever had a bad experience there. We will be trying it again in Nov, but will do an earlier reservation. I too, think making it too late was part of the problem.

Ha ha! Good to know we weren't alone either! If you remember, let me know if it improved for you! We are trying Ariel's next trip. We really like the one at Paradise Pier, but unless we are staying there, it's a bit out of the way.

 

[SnowBelleAlice]

During our most recent visit my DD's birthday brunch was at GK, we had 5 characters visit us.
An early breakfast on our last day with Minnie & Friends was fantastic! Nine characters visited us!

 

[mom2rtk]

I think it's probably just hit or miss at any given character meal on any given day. You just have to be ready to say something to someone if the characters aren't getting to your area. I will say that WDW does seem to have the character rotation in the various venues down a little better. They seem to be on more of a set route there.

We did a late breakfast at Minnies last year (hate to give up any early time) and saw something like 9 characters before we were done. But we weren't seated out on the porch. I could really see that being the kiss of death.

 

[SnowBelleAlice]

I think it's probably just hit or miss at any given character meal on any given day. You just have to be ready to say something to someone if the characters aren't getting to your area. I will say that WDW does seem to have the character rotation in the various venues down a little better. They seem to be on more of a set route there.

We did a late breakfast at Minnies last year (hate to give up any early time) and saw something like 9 characters before we were done. But we weren't seated out on the porch. I could really see that being the kiss of death.

We usually enjoy Minnie's for brunch, our early breakfast this past July was during a MM hour which we did not have access to. We were one of just a few restaurant patrons and were done with our meal/visits before the MM hour was over

 

[mom2rtk]

We usually enjoy Minnie's for brunch, our early breakfast this past July was during a MM hour which we did not have access to. We were one of just a few restaurant patrons and were done with our meal/visits before the MM hour was over

If we weren't staying onsite with access to early entry every day I would be doing the same thing.

 

[ToodlesRN]

Our last two visits at Goofy's kitchen wasn't the best either, same thing our meal was done before any characters came around and were a slow eating family with 2 kids! Had to mention among other families in area several times to staff that no characters have came by as we have been seeing them walk around. Even management was told. we don't plan to go back anytime soon even though our kids love the buffet at Goofy's.

 

[Speechphi]

We saw 6 characters plus Goofy at our photo during our last two trips to GK (June 2013 & June 2014). I'm sure if I looked it up, we saw that many in Nov 2011 too.

We saw 9 at Minnie's in 2013, and 10 in 2014. I personally like Minnie's better, but it in DL, so we have to use park time, and my family (especially dh & ds) prefer GK.

So I don't know if GK is "getting worse," but dh commented that we didn't get as many characters this year at brunch compared to the last two times. I think it just felt that way, since we'd eaten at Minnie's the day before, and we saw Chip & Dale at both meals.

 

[SweetAlex]

We had a similar experience at Minnie's. We were sat outside, basically alone by the wall. No server ever came by after the initial time and after 45 minutes, we had seen no one. They were all over the patio, but then would go backstage. We complained and then saw about 4 characters in the next 20 minutes. But.... People from the patio kept sending their kids down to the characters and cutting in. The only saving grace was my kids were both under 2.5, so they didn't know they were missing anything. It was awful. I want to give Minnie's another shot because others seem to love it, but I just can't. I have heard early reservation are key at Minnie's. We were trying to make an early lunch of it. IF we try it again (and that's a big if) it will be early.

When kids go running off to meet the characters, it seems to throw everything off. The characters will come to every table, from what I've seen, but when they get interrupted by kids coming from across the restaurant it gets really confusing. I almost wish that the seating hostesses would tell parents to keep their kids in their seats and the characters will come to them. When it happens that way, the characters seem to have an easier time "making the rounds".

 

[Sherry E]

I think it's probably just hit or miss at any given character meal on any given day. You just have to be ready to say something to someone if the characters aren't getting to your area. I will say that WDW does seem to have the character rotation in the various venues down a little better. They seem to be on more of a set route there.

We did a late breakfast at Minnies last year (hate to give up any early time) and saw something like 9 characters before we were done. But we weren't seated out on the porch. I could really see that being the kiss of death.

Janet --

Exactly! It is definitely hit or miss with all character meals, and all meals in general. All of the character meals have gotten both glowing reviews and dismal reviews in the past. There have been lots of positive reviews of Goofy's over the years (including mine), but when there is one thread that presents a bad review then it attracts more bad reviews. I've seen good reviews attract other good reviews as well.

I've experienced some 'off' days at Goofy's Kitchen over the years -- but not many, comparatively speaking. I have never had terrible service. (Maybe my definition of "terrible" or "horrible" is different than others'.) I have never experienced anything even close to horrible there, except for that on certain days the scrambled eggs might taste bad (on other days they have tasted great). And the price is pretty frightening! Otherwise, I am fine with the number of characters and the character interaction, and I love the selection of food. Maybe I have lower expectations, or a higher tolerance for restaurant shenanigans -- who knows?

What I do know is that people have different opinions, tastes, expectations, preferences and perceptions -- which also happens with hotel reviews and reviews of other restaurants, or movies, or TV shows, or anything else in life! One person's experience is not necessarily going to be another person's experience at any restaurant of any kind.