Our Dining Choices - Please comment

[battymum]

I have tentatively made the following choices for our dining - as our kids will be 16 and 14(almost) I havent included any character meals - would have been nice to be inside the parks before opening but I am not willing to give up a dinner for it.

So here it is, please feel free to comment

Saturday - arrival 8:00pm ish, will just snack or cs here -
will use our TS for this night later in the week

Sunday - Animal Kingdom, then dinner at Boma

Monday - Magic Kingdom day, dinner Ohana's

Tuesday - DHS - Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package

Wednesday - Water Park Day, Dinner Whispering Canyon

Thursday - Epcot - Lunch Teppan Edo, Dinner Coral Reef

Friday - Free Day - probably Epcot again - Dinner Saana

Saturday -Free day - Dinner Narcoosees - romantic night for DH and I - kids can have pizza in room.

 

[DVCAustralia]

Originally posted by battymum

Our Dining Choices - Please comment

I have tentatively made the following choices for our dining - as our kids will be 16 and 14(almost) I havent included any character meals - would have been nice to be inside the parks before opening but I am not willing to give up a dinner for it.
Each to there own but WDW without a character meal is missing something special, even for teenagers, and it can be a dinner.

So here it is, please feel free to comment

Saturday - arrival 8:00pm ish, will just snack or cs here -
will use our TS for this night later in the week

Sunday - Animal Kingdom, then dinner at Boma (fantastic choice)

Monday - Magic Kingdom day, dinner Ohana's (the worst meal and overall experience we had)
Aternative monorail options are The Wave at Contemporary or my favourite 1900 Park Fare at Grand Floridian

Tuesday - DHS - Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package
(I think the Fantasmic package is a con, the seating is on the edge and you have to eat at an unusual time.
I do not dine at HS reataurants, I prefer to get the boat to an WS Epcot restaurant and combine it with Illuminations)

Wednesday - Water Park Day, Dinner Whispering Canyon

Thursday - Epcot - Lunch Teppan Edo, Dinner Coral Reef (great choice especially if you get a good view)

Friday - Free Day - probably Epcot again - Dinner Saana

Saturday -Free day - Dinner Narcoosees - romantic night for DH and I - kids can have pizza in room.

Enjoy Disney Dining.

 

[Travel Mum]

Wow, Battymum, you are getting organised! How have you worked out your park days? Are you basing on it TGM or another similar type of planner from this year?

We will also be doing the Mama Melrose Fantasmic dinner package as there is no way on earth the rest of my family would queue for hours to see it. I'll have to drag them to it anyway because, after a day at a park, they will be exhausted and of course don't have the inside scoop like we do to know what a must see it is (hopefully they will understand once we've seen it though!) We will park hop that day though and go to a quieter park during the day.

 

[battymum]

Well it is only tentative at this stage - still no flights booked (we may not even go, all this research will be wasted, ((actually I am planning to tell the kiddos at Christmas so I will have to commit - is $1500 a reasonable budget to have for flights SYD - MCO)-

Anyway our 180 window is not until march sometime but I have made those plans according to the park schedule that Dreams Unlimited have sent, it will probably change. I am trying to avoid park hoppers (stingy, I know...)

At this stage they have evening EMH on the Wednesday at MK, so I thought we would make that a water park day, then dinner at Whispering Canyon - catch a boat after dinner for emh at MK.

 

[battymum]

Well Mr DVC you have now given me a conundrem!

Thinking about switching Ohana's for 1900 Park Fare, although have read extremely mixed reviews on that one.

 

[PrincessInOz]

BattyMum - You are going to read mixed reviews for most, if not all, restaurants at the World on the Boards. I would pick the restaurant you want to eat at based on what you want to eat and what suits your schedule and your family.

I personally would book in a character meal at one, if not two parks - especially on days without a.m. EMH.

My only comment would be around your Epcot day with lunch at Teppen Edo and Dinner at Coral Reef. That's two major meals on the same day...and at the park with arguably the best CS food.
If you are planning on heading back to Epcot on the Friday, I would spread out the meals over the two visits....and that leaves you re-thinking about the Saana dinner .

 

[Toy Story]

O here comes your first mixed review, we really liked Ohana, we went on the last day of our trip after a day at Animal Kingdom. We enjoyed it, and is on our list to do again.

We took DD17 and DD12 to character meals, and they both enjoyed the 1900 breakfast and dinner the most. The waiters did comment that our children were really quiet when the characters came around though. The night we ate at 1900, there was another family with two older (16-19) year old males, no small children at all. I think when your children are older there is a different level of interaction. Some of the characters were quiet cheeky with my 17yo, who had bright red hair (think dyed fire engine red), Alice and the Mad Hatter tied in jokes around the Queen of Hearts wanting be 'off with her head'.

 

[aussietravellers]

I have tentatively made the following choices for our dining - as our kids will be 16 and 14(almost) I havent included any character meals - would have been nice to be inside the parks before opening but I am not willing to give up a dinner for it.
I could not go to Disney and not do a character meal. The adults enjoy as much as the kids so every a 14 and 16 yr old would enjoy them. Like Ohana with Lilo and Stitch. Anyway that's just my thing, doesn't have to be everybodies

So here it is, please feel free to comment

Saturday - arrival 8:00pm ish, will just snack or cs here -
will use our TS for this night later in the week

Sunday - Animal Kingdom, then dinner at Boma

Monday - Magic Kingdom day, dinner Ohana's

Tuesday - DHS - Mama Melrose Fantasmic Package

Wednesday - Water Park Day, Dinner Whispering Canyon

Thursday - Epcot - Lunch Teppan Edo, Dinner Coral Reef

Friday - Free Day - probably Epcot again - Dinner Saana

Saturday -Free day - Dinner Narcoosees - romantic night for DH and I - kids can have pizza in room.

I have eaten at all of the restaurants that you are going to except Saana and they are all good, some better than others. Whilst we have eaten at Boma for breakfast about 20 times we have only had dinner there once as we were not fans of dinner (the food), but that's personal preference and it get's great reviews.
Teppan Edo and Coral Reef are both great. PrincessInOz wrote about having two big TS meals in a row. We did this all trip, actually sometimes we had three big meals in a row (including a big breakfast) and didnt' have a problem, I even lost weight on this trip I can highly recommend the Chocolate Wave at Coral Reef, it was SOOOO good, we went twice in Sept/Oct and I couldn't leave without the wave, YUM. There's a photo of it in my TR. I will be updating my TR soon as we did Teppan Edo too on our last night and it was just fabulous, so will post lots of photos for you

But you have some really great choices. You will get mixed reviews of all restaurants at WDW as they can be up and down. We ate at many restaurants more than once this last trip and often had different experiences each time we went. So just if you like the menus for where you have chosen, I wouldn't worry too much about mixed reviews. Maybe if they get mainly negative I would give it a wide berth. But Chef Mickeys always used to get the best reviews, it is very hard to get into and we have eaten there now a total of 4 times and every single time the food has been terrible and the service not great either, characters missed us and every trip to WDW this has been our least favourite meal, yet it gets great reviews (although not so much lately). So even places with great reviews can be not so great and places with not many or mixed reviews can be great.