T-Rex or Rainforest Cafe?

[Fizban]

They are 2 sides of the same coin. Whichever theme fits your fancy is my suggestion. The food is comparable.

 

[Alicatt]

My family of 6 (2 small kids, 2 adults and 2 seniors) really liked T-Rex. I was concerned because some of the reviews here said the food wasn't good. Maybe we were really hungry but we really enjoyed it. The dinosaur theme is really fun, but it can be quite loud. There is also a "dig" site for kids to play while you wait. We booked it again this trip.

 

[Disfan1968]

As it is clear you are excited to go to one of these places, ignore the people that have responded with "neither, they both suck." These places are fine and I am sure you realize that you are not booking a Disney Signature restaurant with either of these. They can both be fun, both have pretty standard fare as their food. My vote is probably T Rex as kids seem to love the Dinosaur theme. Make sure you are paying attention to the warnings against the ice cave at T Rex. Me and my son loved it, but it really did give my wife a headache. Maybe play it safe and sit in one of the other rooms they have.

 

[saskdw]

I'd say neither because they are loud, overpriced and have mediocre food.

But if you must.... join Landry's Select Club.

ummm...Disneyworld is loud and the food at most places is mediocre.

 

[saskdw]

Have never eaten at RC at DTD, but we eat at Trex every trip and last two years we've eaten at RC at AK after a day at that park.

Food at both places is what I would expect from a mid-level TS restaurant. We have enjoyed our meals at both places.

We prefer the dinosaur theme over the rain forest, but both places are cool.

I found that the RC at AK was a little less chaotic. I atrributed that to it not being in DTD and most people wanting to leave after park closing at AK rather than eat there.

 

[Alliecat33]

My kids LOVED T-Rex, and there's Rainforest Cafe's around here. We're eating there again on our upcoming trip.

 

[saskdw]

As it is clear you are excited to go to one of these places, ignore the people that have responded with "neither, they both suck." These places are fine and I am sure you realize that you are not booking a Disney Signature restaurant with either of these. They can both be fun, both have pretty standard fare as their food. My vote is probably T Rex as kids seem to love the Dinosaur theme. Make sure you are paying attention to the warnings against the ice cave at T Rex. Me and my son loved it, but it really did give my wife a headache. Maybe play it safe and sit in one of the other rooms they have.

Agreed!

I would ignore the negative Nelly's!!

 

[sarahrdh]

RC was extremely loud- more than I thought it would be. But i will say, our service at the AK location was amazing! We had a wonderful server, I wish I could remember her name, but she was fantastic!!

 

[Art 1]

As it is clear you are excited to go to one of these places, ignore the people that have responded with "neither, they both suck." These places are fine and I am sure you realize that you are not booking a Disney Signature restaurant with either of these. They can both be fun, both have pretty standard fare as their food. My vote is probably T Rex as kids seem to love the Dinosaur theme. Make sure you are paying attention to the warnings against the ice cave at T Rex. Me and my son loved it, but it really did give my wife a headache. Maybe play it safe and sit in one of the other rooms they have.

I haven't seen anyone reply as you have in quotes. But anyway why do you think your opinion is more important than others. They asked, I gave my opinion and it is as valid as yours. They both are hectic, loud, poor service, cramped, below average food and over priced. IMO not worth it.

 

[SouthJersey]

T-Rex.
However, we have two RFC's back home so we're a bit bias to T-Rex since it's 'different' for us. I also feel like the atmosphere and menu choices is superior at T-Rex.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I don't know where you live or where else you travel, but there are RFCs all over the place. We have 3 locally and several in other destinations we hit fairly frequently, so we don't waste our time with it at WDW. T-Rex on the other hand only has 1 other location, I believe, so it's the no brainer for a trip to WDW. They're both also owned by Landry's, so if you are a rewards member, you can also earn points, use discounts while dining, and usually qualify for preferred seating.

 

[MudBud]

T-REX! We thought the food was tremendously better and the atmosphere is just awesome with life-like T-Rexes, fish tanks, meteor storms, "ice" cave that lights up in changing colors, and the giant moving octopus over the bar. It is a LOUD place though, if that's a concern.

One hint about making reservations at T-Rex (and maybe Rainforest too, I'm not sure) - they don't put all their open reservation slots on the Disney website. It almost always shows no reservation times available at peak lunch and dinner times, but if you call them, they have availability. I read somewhere it is an independent restaurant operating on Disney property, and that's just how they choose to do it.

Do you know if you call directly to make a reservation if you call still use the dining plan?

 

[GoofyinBuffalo]

We've eaten at both and if we had to chose we would probably pick T-Rex because of the setting. It is pretty cool. Rainforest Cafes are more common and not exclusive to WDW. We're not doing either on our upcoming trip though because they're just too loud. I found that we hardly conversed during our meal because it was so hard to hear each other not only over the loud dinosaur noises but the crowd trying to be louder than the dinosaurs. I would rather eat somewhere where we can talk about what we did at the park during the day.

 

[Jaime4004]

The food is similar to us and the themes are cute. My 3 kids prefer the rainforest theme a bit more so that's the one we'll do next time. We have a Rainforest cafe about 45 mins away, but never go so it's still a treat...

 

[archdandy]

If you have a rainforest cafe near you I would say T-Rex just to try something different. But I don't have one near me so I always prefer Rainforest Cafe over T-Rex. I love their Pastalaya and the chocolate cake for dessert is sooo good!

 

[bom_noite]

Neither - to be quite honest. Use your money on a Character Breakfast.

 

[Disfan1968]

I haven't seen anyone reply as you have in quotes. But anyway why do you think your opinion is more important than others. They asked, I gave my opinion and it is as valid as yours. They both are hectic, loud, poor service, cramped, below average food and over priced. IMO not worth it.

Well, I certainly did see people reply as I described in the course of my paraphrasing. In my opinion, when you say "they asked" you are partially incorrect. But I could be wrong. In my view they asked which one of the two you would pick if you were going to choose one. But, you could of course say I misinterpreted the heading myself, that it really was a question asking if either was worth going to. However, instead I saw it as "which one of the two."

In general, people on the boards do love to pipe in and throw negativisms at the establishments they dislike, and often with great zeal. Few would argue that the negative energy here can often overwhelm any attempt at positive Disney talk. DISBOARD posters often see themselves as the voice of Disney truth, and IMO not often enough in a positive way. Not that Disney can do no wrong, they sure can, but IMO not enough folks seem to focus on what's RIGHT with Disney.

As for these restaurants, just try to be objective for a moment... the truth is the majority of people like these places. For instance, they get 3 and 3.5 stars out of 5 on Yelp and both get 4 of 5 on Trip Adviser. Additionally, if you know about the nature of written reviews, you know that negative reviews are MORE LIKELY than positive reviews to end up posted online. People in marketing will tell you unhappy customers are heard from FAR more often than happy ones. So hard to argue against the assertion that the majority of people like these places.

Sigh. So, anyway, you are free to tell the OP to ignore mine, and I am free to tell the OP to ignore yours. I am pretty sure most people have been ignoring mine for several paragraphs at least. And the OP can feel free to ignore us both.

Sure, it's fact that atmosphere at both places is noisy when compared to other casual dining in and around Disney. So sure, I think it's fair to warn people these are probably not first choice date night restaurants.

But, atmosphere aside, I am sure there are dishes at both places the OP will like, and others the OP will not like. Based on the hundreds of reviews I have referenced, the odds, happily, are in the OP's favor. That's really going to be what it comes down to. So who knows, really.

 

[Disfan1968]

Neither - to be quite honest. Use your money on a Character Breakfast.

I would argue the food at most character breakfasts is "just ok." That's just my opinion though. But I am pretty sure that the COST of a character breakfast far exceeds the cost of dinner at one of these places. In my mind the two experiences are almost impossible to compare. I have done character meals at Crystal Palace, Hollywood and Vine and Chef Mickey's. I was underwhelmed by food quality, but enjoyed the "character experiences" they offered my kids. But again, for me anyway, the food value at these are very low. Others love 'em. To each his own I guess.

 

[Disfan1968]

Do you know if you call directly to make a reservation if you call still use the dining plan?

Call direct. I recently got a 4:45 time on the Disney Web site, then picked up the phone and called direct and got my pick of any time I wanted.

 

[Kevin355]

The last 2 times we have eaten at RFC were terrible. TERRIBLE!!!! Service was bad and we complained. My wife has food allergies and they botched her meal. We complained to a manager and they stated that they could not do anything because we had free dining. Tried it one more time thinking it was a fluke. Wasn't a fluke. I would avoid RFC like the plague. Just saying.