"Surf's Up! Breakfast with Mickey and Friends" at Paradise Pier

[mellowme]

Hi All,

Just wondering whether the breakfast with Mickey and Friends is worth doing (money and timewise)?

Thanks!

 

[sonnyjane]

This is a great breakfast for character interaction, and it's the only one with Mickey. They are really great about coming to all the tables shortly after you sit down, plus everyone gets a picture with Mickey as you walk in. They also have dance sessions every 15 minutes or so where they invite all the kids to join a character in a dance. The food was so/so (as are a lot of buffets), but the character interaction seemed really good. I did it in August.

 

[cloudconnected1039]

DBF and I did it a few DL trips back and I have to say it's my least favorite of the character meals I've been to (Surf's Up, GK, and Minnie's). While it's awesome that you get to see and take pictures with Mickey, I found the food to be pretty so-so. Granted, I really am not a huge fan of breakfast foods. At GK I stick with pizza, mac and cheese, soup (depending on what type's available) and one of the made to order omelets if I'm really feeling risky So I might not be the best judge of the food category. DBF seemed to like it though, but he agreed that it wasn't as good as Minnie's or GK. For character interaction, it's pretty difficult I've found for DBF and I to get the attention of characters. Since we're older and child-less, many characters are more willing to pass us up and move on to other children filled groups. Although this is the case for all of the character meals, it was more noticeable at Surf's Up for us.

But don't let my opinions sway you too much!!! I know A LOT of people love it

 

[larina]

Now see, when we went in May, not only did we really enjoy all the character interaction but we also found the food better quality at Mickey's Surf's Up than at Goofy's Kitchen, although GK did seem to have more options. There were a lot of characters and they each spent a fair amount of time at our table. Mickey was GREAT.

In December, we will go back, to Surf's Up, and we are going to check out Storytellers (tell me we're not making a huge mistake with that instead of Minnie's).

 

[626Mom]

We went last year during the week between Christmas and New Year's. We like it because it has Mickey and Stitch our favorite characters. The food is typical buffet the family likes the Mickey waffles, fruit, and yogurt. Of course so long as there is bacon my family thinks its a good breakfast!

 

[BMICKEY]

Weve been a couple of times. We went in April only because we had a few things go wrong at the Paradise Pier so they comped a breakfast. If you have little ones, the characters are great. The food was just mediocre. It is a good one time only thing if you want to go all out. I've heard the breakfast in the park at the Plaza Inn is much better.

Have fun!

 

[hootey]

We were stupid enough to go there several years ago! The only characters were stitch & one other. No mickey, No minnie, the food was horrible. I wanted a refund & the wife really got upset with me cause it is not PC to ask for a refund, I kept my mouth shut to keep the wife happy. We have not been back to it. If you do go, make sure they put it in writing which characters will be there at that time on that day! Otherwise they might try to tell you that you "MISUNDERSTOOD" what was said and you will be out a chunk of money, as well as have hungry kids to feed a second time because the food was so bad the kids would not eat it. That was a very expensive breakfast, no I do not recommend it.

 

[sonnyjane]

We were stupid enough to go there several years ago! The only characters were stitch & one other. No mickey, No minnie, the food was horrible.

If you went several years ago, then you went to the Lilo & Stitch Aloha breakfast. They changed the character meal in Dec. 2009 to the Surf's Up breakfast. Now it is the only one in the parks to feature Mickey, and he is always there. He occasionally takes a 15 minute break, but other than that he is always standing by the front greeting guests. They also added many new items to the menu. I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but I just wanted to clarify for the OP that they are two different experiences.

OP here are the yelp.com reviews - pretty positive http://www.yelp.com/biz/surfs-up-breakfast-with-mickey-and-friends-anaheim

 

[hootey]

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear it was updated, it needed it. We have not been back to the paradise. Have no intentions of going back, it was an expensive lesson. We have been going to Minnie's, StoryTellers, and Goofy's every visit. This year, the only one worth visiting was Minnie's. Storytellers and Goofy's were both letdowns on a major scale. Goofy's was so bad my wife did complain this time. We have another week booked in several months, I hope it is better. The DL of today is not the same as it was just five years ago. Our trips to DL used to be the highlights of our year, not any more. If it is not any better this time, I probally won't go back for quite a while.

 

[jenpace]

We went about 18 months ago and really, really disliked it. While the character interaction was decent, we found the food to be pretty bad and the service was sketchy at best.

 

[hootey]

Glad it isn't only me. One other local couple told us it wasn't the Fun Disney they had grown to love. They were not going to be going nearly as much. If you haven't been going regularly over the last several years, you won't miss it. The regular visitors like our friends & us, do see the difference in DL in the couple years. Just a couple years ago the DL castmembers would almost get on your nerves asking if your day was going well. They were almost polite to a fault "please sir, watch your step". The week we spent this summer was not like that. It was "Next, Keep Moving" , with very few smiles. Some of the staffmembers were close to being outright RUDE. The valet was nice and polite when we arrived and insisted on doing everything. A week later when we were leaving, it was a diffrent valet, he was rude. The staff herding everyone down to see WOC did let us know how cattle feel going through the chutes at a livestock salesbarn. We were in the reserved area for that. The o'le father-n-law was with us for that. He is a retired executive, used to the finer things. He was a little upset about the fact we had paid extra to be treated the way we were. In short, I get treated a lot better at Wal-Mart buying trash bags and milk than I do there, I spend a LOT less money buying trash bags. Wish Walt was still alive.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

We loved this breakfast... were given kindof a lousy table, and I think the server knew it... he kept a close eye on us, asked if we missed any characters (we missed Pluto), brought Pluto to us specially, and had my dd go up on stage for a second round of Mickey one-on-one. We will go back again.

Plus, I know it sounds weird, but I really liked the chocolate chip, banana, peanut butter french toast! YUM!

 

[mellowme]

Thanks so much for the helpful replies.

So... if my only reason for wanting to do the breakfast is to make sure we get pictures with the characters, especially Mickey, are we better off just meeting Mickey at his house to take pictures (and to look out for the other characters around the Parks)?

Though I must say, I think it might be fun to be able to interact and dance with Mickey for a bit, as apposed to taking a picture and leaving (as we'd probably have to do at his house).

What sort of prices are we looking at for this breakfast experience?

 

[FlameGirl]

For 3 of us, we paid $75 give or take.