Recent Character Meal Experiences

[specialks]

Hello! I am debating a character meal at Minnie's or at Goofy's. I like the fact that Minnie's is in DL and it is less money. However, I have heard that the food there is not very good. Has anyone had any recent good experiences at Minnie's. Or has anyone been to Goofy's lately and just loved it or hated it?? I would love some recent experience input. I have seen old info/threads/experiences but I wanted to ask about recent stuff. Thanks!

 

[SplashMo]

we loved Minnies this Sunday, DS7 said best food ever.

Lots of characters. We had a 10:30 reservation and so it did not impact our ride schedule too bad except we ate too much.... Might have slowed us down a bit

 

[Dobby]

I loved the food at all of the character meals; I was worried that maybe my standards would be lower, as we have very little here in the way of options. But honestly, my whole family loved the food and raved about certain things at each place. The only thing I found was that at Surf's Up, we only met half the characters out, but that was alright.

 

[Sherry E]

Hello! I am debating a character meal at Minnie's or at Goofy's. I like the fact that Minnie's is in DL and it is less money. However, I have heard that the food there is not very good. Has anyone had any recent good experiences at Minnie's. Or has anyone been to Goofy's lately and just loved it or hated it?? I would love some recent experience input. I have seen old info/threads/experiences but I wanted to ask about recent stuff. Thanks!

I know you're trying to get very recent reviews, but the problem is that so much of what you will hear is based on personal tastes/preferences as well as, very much so, the individual days, as I am discovering. One person might tell you that they saw 4 characters or 14 characters at a certain place two days ago, but that is, in no way, an indicator of what you will see when you go. It literally can change from day to day at all the restaurants. You might get to Minnie & Friends on an 'off' day, when the food is not good - some folks will say that it's inedible, but some folks will say that it's great!! You could hit Goofy's on a day when some of characters haven't trickled in yet and the buffet hasn't been refreshed in a while, but someone else will say they had a great experience.

It's just really hard to pin down any kind of concrete review or opinion on any place to eat at DLR - character meal or otherwise - because so many factors go into how we form our opinions, and things could change from day to day at the actual restaurants. Quite literally, what some people love, others will hate!

But I will say that I'm going to be at DLR around the time you are there - a couple of my days will be overlapping your trip, I think (my scheduled dates are 12/12 - 12/15, unless I change them slightly) - and I'm planning to eat at Goofy's, either solo or with friends (not sure yet). Depending on money, I may hit Minnie & Friends or Surf's Up with Mickey, too. But Goofy's is a definite. So if you end up at Goofy's, you may see me there!

 

[WeluvDisneyland]

We had lunch at Goofy's Kitchen last weekend (our 1st time going there) and we loved it. The kids had a great time and we thought the food was great. I know the characters change daily, but when we were there we saw Goofy, Pluto, Genie, Aladdin, Snow White, and Chip & Dale.

 

[Kayla's Mom]

We ate at Minnie's in September. DH and I didn't think the food was all that great, although I really enjoyed the Mickey waffles. My girls didn't complain about the food at all. That being said, we still had a great time and would go back there in a heartbeat. The character interaction was great, the cost was lower than other character meals and we had a great time.

 

[SplashMo]

Minnies is also in the park which is great for getting in maximum rides and still having a great experience with the character meal...

 

[bekkiz]

We ate at Minnie's on 11/12, so pretty recent. We had a 10:30 reservation and had a party of 8 (4 adults, 4 kids, age 7, 4, 2 and 2).

Pros: In the park (we got there at rope drop, did a few rides and then checked in), french toast and waffles were excellent (as were the toppings), liked the serve yourself beverages. Most of the rest of the food was standard and good (sausage and bacon).

Cons: We did not like the character interaction, especially when compared to Chef Mickey's at WDW. Other than the Fairy Godmother, the character were not interactive at all. They would walk right behind the kids chairs, let us take a picture and then they were off. No patting of heads, hugs etc. It was pretty disappointing. Also, we had to put our own tables together (two round tables) and while we didn't mind eating outside, the tables were kind of dusty/dirty. The only food we didn't like were the scrambled eggs.

For us, it just was not worth the price. I would have rather had subpar food and more fun with the characters since our purpose of the breakfast was to not wait in lines later to meet the characters. Then again, this main complaint is so dependent on who is working, so someone else could have had a totally different experiance.

 

[specialks]

Thanks everyone for the input. After talking about it and pricing it out (with the holiday price increases) we decided not to do it. Minnies would have been good because it is less expensive and in the parks. However, they only do breakfast and we have breakfast already at our hotel. So when we looked into Goofy's for brunch or dinner the prices just didn't warrant leaving the parks to go eat. We have 5 days in the parks so we are just going to schedule time to stop with the characters and enjoy our days around the parks. We did book Rainforest Cafe for Saturday evening because my girls are still raving over going there last year.
Thanks again!

 

[noga]

we were at Minnie's on the 14th and it was awesome. The food was good and the interaction with characters was incredible.