Suggestions needed, have 4 & 1 yr old.

[christibelle]

I need suggestions on where to take my family for meals during our first stay at Disney World. There will be 4 of us, my husband, my 4 yr old daughter and my 1 1/2 year old son. We will be staying on site at ASMo and napping there in the afternoon.

Question #1: How many PS's a day is too many?
Question#2: Which restaurants are my kids most likely to enjoy?
Question #3: How long do character meals take?
Question #4: Better to do ch. meals in am or pm?

My plans:
Day 1 - Epcot; Princess breakfast (PS booked)
Coral Reef??, Garden Grill?? dinner??lunch?? both??
Day 2 - AK; not a clue - maybe eat at the Resort??
Day 3 - MGM - not a clue
Day 4 - MK: Hoping for CRT PS's - if not maybe lunch PS there - if
not, Crystal Palace for brkfst. no clue for lunch or dinner
Day 5 - MK: Crystal Palace if I get into CRT day 4
Chef Mickey's?? brkfst? lunch? dinner?
Day6 - Flex day:1900 Park place? brkfst?lunch?dinner? - Was
originally planning luau for dinner but heard it will be
closed when we are there.

In need of suggestions and opinions.

Thanks!!

 

[Carrieberry]

We usually only do one PS meal a day when we go with the kids. We also try to only do the character meals with them since it is so hard for them to sit for a long time. I think all of your choices look great. I would do Donald'd Breakfastasaurus on your AK day. The characters are great and we really enjoyed the food.

Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace, CRT, PSB, 1900 Park Faire are all great choices which your daughter (my son did most of these when he was 4 just not the princess breakfast) will absolutely love)! Character meals take about an hour, depending on how many times you go back to get more food. They can be longer if very crowded and you want to wait to see every character. It takes them awhile to get all the way around the restaurant.
Dinners are our favorite, but we try to at least do one or two breakfasts just for variety. Breakfast is a great way to start off your first full day at WDW and it is a great way to spend your last morning there. That is what we usually do.

Hope this helped a little!

 

[stacy6552]

make a ps for coral reef at epcot for an early dinner, arrive early and ask to wait for a tank side table. its all about the view! Kids will have their noses against the fish tank the entire time!

at AK have a late breakfast at donalds breakfastasaurus. then have an early dinner over at AKL.

have lunch at the sci-fi drive in and dinner at the 50's orime time diner.

On MK day have breakfast at whisperingcanyon at the WL hop the boat to MK, eat a yummie burger at pecos bills (counter service) then have dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern. This is a sure fire yummie food plan here.


Flex day you gotta have dinner at the hoop dee doo revue! Its great fun!

I say you cant have too many PS, just be prepaired to miss one for one reason or another.

 

[SamanthaL]

You didn't mention O'Hanas in your post,but it is great place for the kids. It is in the Poly Resort and it is all you can eat, but the food is brought to your table so you don't have to get up and down. This is a pleasure with small kids. They also have games for the kids. They will also get kids meal if your children don't eat the items on the menu.

 

[ahutton]

I found with our DD that more than one sit down meal in a day was just too much. There are great counter service options in each park, and I suggest planning one sit down meal and then getting the next meal "when you are ready" at a counter service place. At MK, Columbia Harbor House, El Pirate (Across from Pirates) and Pinocchio's Village House are good, as is Cosmic Rays (DD loved the ongoing show). At EPCOT it is hard to beat The Land food court, lots of great choices no matter what you are hungry for. In MGM we like the Backlot Express over by Star Tours, or the Farmers Market area over by Rock N Roller Coaaster. They all have good variety, good food, and are usually open. Pinocchio's upstairs seating area also has views of It's a Small World!

 

[LKS]

We did only one PS per day and that was plenty for us. And, only one of those in 10 days was breakfast. We usually only eat cereal and it kills me to pay that fortune for food we don't really want, when everyone is really just anxious to get to the parks. The kids barely touched the food. We brought cereal, bowls and spoons and milk & OJ in a cooler and that worked great for us. We did one breakfast at Boma and wished we had just had cereal. I think the princess breakfast might be different though, but we didn't get that. If you do all those breakfasts, and everyone really eats, you will not need a sit-down lunch and dinner. Perhaps a mid-day snack and then a PS for dinner.

Our favorite restaurants are Liberty Tree Tavern dinner at the MK (family style so you are not hauling your own food back from the buffet!), and Teppanyaki and Coral Reef at Epcot. We ate at Mama Melrose and the 50s Primetime at MGM and I can't say they're favorites, but they were OK and both perfectly suitable for young kids. We have also eaten at Marrakesh and the San Angel Inn which were both fine, especially to try once, but just not our favorite. We didn't eat anywhere at AK since my husband and kids discovered the Toll House Ice Cream cookie sandwiches (at 500+ calories each and ate enough of those that no more food was needed.

 

[AspiringCindy]

Try Chef Mickey's In CR!

 

[beattyfamily]

Well, we love Character meals and usually schedule quite a few. We have 2 DD's ages 6 and 3.

We try to do a variety; one with Mickey; Pooh, Princesses etc...

We try to do one a day or every other day. Other than character meal (usually breakfast), we don't schedule others; we eat at counters...

Our family like (and we're eating at):

Chef Mickey's (CR)
CRT
STorybook Princess
LTT (MK)

We also like:
Crystal Palace (MK)
H&V - (at MGM)
Breakfastausaurus (AK)

Have a GREAT time!

 

[travelitis]

My kids are 10, 8, and 4, and I took the oldest 2 when they were exactly 1 1/2 and 4. We did one character breakfast each day which was perfect for us. We didn't want another big meal. Our favorite is a character lunch followed by breakfast. It's too much food to do for supper unless you're going to eat early and tour late. I prefer more time to let it settle. Character meals take as long as you sit there. If your group wants to eat and run you can, but plan an hour. We like late lunch when crowds are lighter, and if we want to sit longer there isn't anyone waiting for our table. If we had 2 sit-downs in one day, we'd skip the other meal.

Here's my list of why I don't want more than 1 sit-down meal a day at WDW:
1. Too much food! We're stuffed after 1 character meal!
2. Takes too much time away from touring
3. Too much money for food we don't want.
4. I don't go on vacation to gain weight.
5. I don't want to plan my touring around meals.

I would suggest taking the kids to GG for lunch, as that made an excellent break for our family. We love GG and absolutely have to go there. At AK there's Donald's Breakfastasaurus. At MGM there's character dining at Hollywood and Vine. We're going to Sci-Fi, but I don't know if kids your age would find that appealing. You really can't go wrong with any of the character dining, but I think it'd be fun to have variety. I'd think your group would enjoy eating with Pooh.

 

[christibelle]

Wow! Thank you everyone for all the information and suggestions. You were all very helpful. I now have a much better handle on that aspect of our trip.

 

[dcedwards]

Our DS is 4 this trip. Have been taking him since he was 12 months - once a year.

We try to do one meal a day that is sit-down/buffet style. Here are our list of favorites:

1) Park Fare 1900 - GF - Dinner - Pooh and Friends
2) Hollywood and Vine - MGM - Lunch - Minnie, Goofy, Chip/Dale, Pluto
3) Liberty Tree Tavern - MK - Dinner - Minnie, Goofy, Chi/Dale, Pluto
4) Cape May - Beach Club - Dinner - no characters...nice selection of food...kids can draw on tablecloth.

We have heard good things about the following:
1) Garden Grille - Land - Restaurant rotates - Mickey and Friends

We did not care for Chef Mickeys and Donald's Breakfastaurus at AK but many like both of them.