Possible changes to Garden Grill and Liberty tree tavern.

[mickeysgirl17]

Ghostlady, I agree that your kids probably won't even notice that you never ate at GG. If you post your itinerary, I'd be happy to help and suggest to you a way to fit in a character meal. I agree with the previous poster who says GG isn't that big of a deal.

I have been to dinner before and Mickey and Chip were out of character and the food was horrible. The only good things was the service and that the restaurant rotated which I thought was an original idea. We even had to wait over 20 min. for our table when half the place was empty. We had a 3:45pm ADR.

In my opinion, there are much better places to dine, and if you think about it, breakfast is cheaper than lunch so you would actually save money. You can meet the same characters in many other locations. No, I don't think there is a lunch available unless I'm forgetting, but if you have a buffet breakfast at Tusker house or chef Mickeys, you won't be hungry again until dinner.

By the way, I do have a DD5 and I wouldn't like to see her dissappointed, but if you changed your ADR to somewhere else, I'm sure your children would understand and you could get them all excited about that new place. I don't really go into details with my DD about the upcoming trip because I like her to be surprised. If you don't mention it, your kids probably won't be upset about it since they are in the happiest place on earth with so many other things to do and keep them happy and busy.

And who knows? Maybe they are removing GG and LTT character meals so that they could start a new character meal somewhere else.

 

[chris7]

I got the same news today (June 30) that Garden Grill will not longer be serving lunch after October. Apparently the info is available to the CM's but only if they dig. I made an ADR for lunch for Dec. 20 w/ no problem. I decided to switch to Dec. 27. When I called this morning I was just told there was no availiability on that day. Being persistent I called back and this time when the CM found no availability she asked me to hang on a second while she found out what was going on. When she came back she gave me the news. I asked why I was able to make a ressie for the 20th and she said that she didn't know but that I would be contacted.

The bad news is that by the time they get around to contacting people I bet there aren't going to be a lot of options left.

 

[PatriciaH]

It is true-I just noticed it in dining (I have access to Disney Dining since I work in a role that needs to make reservations.) No lunch at GG starting in Ortober and no characters at LTT starting 1/2009.

 

[sunny04]

Does anyone have a date for October? I have an ADR for lunch at the beginning of October and don't know if I need to replace it or not! If it's still available unchanged, I want to keep it. Any dates for it?

 

[chris7]

I believe I was told Oct 6. Call Disney dining and ask the CM to look. They have access to the info, they just have to make an effort.

 

[lucigo]

I just called because we had a lunch reservation for Dec 19 and was told yes we did need to change to an evening time. Thank goodness for DISboards!

 

[mickeysgirl17]

I believe it is October 5th or 6th. Liberty tree tavern is also going to stop characters for sure as of 1/2009. Disney dining is now confirming this over the phone.

 

[kadesha]

Does anyone have a date for October? I have an ADR for lunch at the beginning of October and don't know if I need to replace it or not! If it's still available unchanged, I want to keep it. Any dates for it?

October 5 is the last day of character dining for lunch at Garden Grill.

 

[boardom]

October 5 is the last day of character dining for lunch at Garden Grill.

I called this evening and was told 10/5 is the last day of *any* dining for lunch at GG - not just character dining. So I moved my lunch elsewhere. Annoying! And even more annoying that they do this before contacting everyone who had an existing reservation...

 

[GhostLady]

DancingBear,
I'm sure you're right. My younger boys don't even know about the trip yet so it's only the older ones who will be disappointed but they were pretty excited about it. I think the main reason they wanted to go is because they knew the little ones would love it so much. The rotating floor was a big plus for them too but I know it doesn't always work right anyway.

My schedule isn't really set in stone or anything. It's just that I have tried so hard to find a way to work everything in and everytime I finally get a plan, something comes along and changes it for me. It just gets aggravating. At
1st I had planned Epcot on the 14th but the GG was booked that day so I changed all my plans around so we could be at Epcot on the 15th for the lunch ressie. It took me a long time to get the new plan to work and now I find out it was all for nothing.

Tricia1972,
I had thought about that but when we called there were no late breakfasts available. All early ones. Seems strange since I thought that most ppl tried to get the early ones.

chris7,
We had a similar thing happen. DH called today. I told him to ask if there were any openings for dinner at the GG just to see. He misunderstood and asked about lunch instead. The 1st CM just told him that there were no openings. He called back later to ask about something else and this time he specifically asked if the GG was serving lunch in Oct. and was told that Oct. 5the would be the last day. I don't know why they are waiting so long to contact ppl. You are right, by the time they do, there will be nothing left. Today there were only a few character meals open in the 8 day time period that we asked about. I hope everyone can at least find something.

 

[mitros]

I just wish the Garden Grill would go back to it's original format........

 

[CanadianGuy]

I just wish the Garden Grill would go back to it's original format........

Out of sincere curiosity... What was that??

 

[mitros]

Out of sincere curiosity... What was that??

It was when it was run by Kraft foods. They had all 3 meals there as I recall. breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it was not "family style" or whatever it is they call the way it's done now. You actually ordered off of a regular menu. Yea, those were the days...

 

[GhostLady]

mickeysgirl17,
I know you are right too. I really just needed to vent. I'm sure I am WAY more upset about this than the kids will be. They will be thrilled just to be there. It's just so hard to try to plan a trip around crowd levels, EMH's, ADRs, etc..and I have changed things so many times already. I just want to get at least a tentative plan going so I can take a break and get back to "real life" for a while. Seems like my whole life is about planning the trip right now. I know things are still going to change along the way but I just want to get the basics such as hotels, park days, and ADRs planned.

We have decided to go ahead and switch to a breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very upset about this and plan to let Disney know but I still want to let my kids have a meal with Mickey.

Thanks for your offer of help.
I won't post my whole itinerary b/c it's such a mess that I doubt anyone but me would understand it but I could use a little help deciding which character breakfast to switch to. Here are my choices:

Right now we have an ADR at Ohanas and Tusker House. I'm going to cancel one of these in the morning if anyone else needs it.

I am leaning towards Tusker House. I think the kids would like to see more of the classic characters. The best thing about Ohanas is the date. It would be on the day we arrive. We don't have a lot planned for that day since we are driving down the night before and DH and I will be very tired. We will be arriving early Sat. morning and we can't check into FW until 1pm so this would give us something to do. I also think it would be great to start our vacation with a character breakfast since we are not going to the parks until Sunday. I'm just not sure about Ohanas. My kids aren't really into Lilo and Stitch so we would mainly be going for Mickey and Pluto. I also think we'd enjoy the food at Tusker House more.

The Tusker House ADR is on Thursday at 8:25. DH and the kids all love Donald so they might like this even better than the GG. I just wish we could have gotten a different day and time. We are only doing 2 character meals. The other one is on Friday at CP so if we do Tusker House, we would be doing both of them two days in a row. I'd really like to space them out more. Also, we are staying in an off-site villa on Wed and Thurs. so we would save money by eating breakfast there. I would prefer to eat onsite at the beginning of the week b/c we are tent camping and will need to eat out then anyway. I'm also worried about the time. We will still be eating when AK opens and I wanted to be there and ready when they open to get fast passes and get in line. We are only going to AK one day so I don't want to waste any of our time there.

We tried to get Chef Mickeys for our arrival day but they were booked. I'm going to keep trying in case they have a cancellation. That would be perfect but for now I need to decide between TH and Ohanas. They did have a few openings at Chef Mickeys on other days so that might be an option too.

I would love to have everyone's opinions about Tusker House, Ohana's and Chef Mickeys. Which do you prefer and why? I would really appreciate any and all opinions.

To everyone:
TIA for your advice and for allowing me to vent.

 

[Jabber_Jaws]

I just talked to my mom. She works at the LLT. They were told as of Jan 5th there will be no more characters at the dinner.

 

[GhostLady]

Annoying! And even more annoying that they do this before contacting everyone who had an existing reservation...

ITA!!! That's why I am so upset. It's not that they are making the change, it's the WAY that they did it. I still think they should have given 180 notice so we didn't have to cancel or change our ADR's but at the very least, they should have notified those of us who have the lunch ADR's right away. I still haven't heard anything from them. A CM did confirm this over the phone but they haven't tried to contact me at all.

 

[Charleyann]

ITA!!! That's why I am so upset. It's not that they are making the change, it's the WAY that they did it. I still think they should have given 180 notice so we didn't have to cancel or change our ADR's but at the very least, they should have notified those of us who have the lunch ADR's right away. I still haven't heard anything from them. A CM did confirm this over the phone but they haven't tried to contact me at all.

I have reservation for a late lunch for Dec 12th. When are they going to notify me? When I arrive for lunch on DEc 12th?

Where to eat now? It is going to be difficult finding something we like this far out!

Charleyann

 

[kadesha]

I have reservation for a late lunch for Dec 12th. When are they going to notify me? When I arrive for lunch on DEc 12th?

Where to eat now? It is going to be difficult finding something we like this far out!

Charleyann

I don't know when they will notify you, but it'd be smart to go ahead and call for a new ADR ASAP. Once they start notifying everyone, I think all of the other character meal lunch ADR's will be snatched up! Get a head start, go ahead and call...

 

[mickeysgirl17]

Ghostlady, If you are interested in the classic characters, I would go for Chef Mickeys. If you can't get anything there at any of the times you want, go for Tusker house as it will have Donald, Daisy, Mickey and I think, Goofy.
If you family loves Donald, then yes, it would be a great choice.

I've never eaten at Ohana bfst, only dinner, so not sure about this one but you may want to skip since your kids are not into lilo and stitch.

Even if you must make your Character ADR's 2 days in a row, I would go ahead and then keep calling to see if someone cancelled during the day you actually wanted. This way, even if no one cancels, you still will be able to go.

Good luck!

 

[lovemickeyshouse]

I just talked to my mom. She works at the LLT. They were told as of Jan 5th there will be no more characters at the dinner.

Are they at least keeping the same menu for dinner with the family style Thanskgiving dinner?