Tell me about Tusker House dinner

[momtotaryn]

We have an ADR for Tusker House character dinner. How much time should we allow? Do you think 1-1.5 hours should be enough time to eat and meet with the characters? Do the characters come to your table and take pictures? Sign autographs? Or do you get a signed card, such as what I'm reading about for H&V Minnie dine? Please tell me about Tusker House dinner and your experience. Food reviews are welcome too.

I am concerned because I wasn't able to change our ADR for the JB show dining package. However, I was able to get a FP+ for the early show. Now that I think about it, I should have gotten a FP+ for the later show, but it's no longer available for our AK day. I will keep checking, but if I'm not able to change it, I am trying to see if a 7:00pm ADR is doable, if we have to arrive at 8:25-8:45pm for the show.

 

[brertoad]

I think one and a half hours is good. Food is ready at the buffet, no waiting, just have to wait until characters come around. The characters do come to the table and you can have your photos taken with them. Not sure about the autographs, we don't have an autograph book.

 

[chicagodisfan]

We were just there last week. We love Tusker House! I would say an hour and a half for sure. We had to wait almost a half hour to be seated so that added on our time too. But we were there when the park closed at 6:00 pm and we had an end of the day dinner reservation and we were a party of 6. When we did get seated there were many open tables do it might have been an issue with the number of servers or something since it was the end of the night. I might try to bump up your reservation by a half hour or so so you don't feel rushed, but if you can't you should still be fine. You can try and settle up your bill early and just keep eating knowing that you can leave whenever you want. We had to wait quite a while for our server at the end of our meal.

The characters do come to your table and sign autographs. We had an autograph book and they all signed. We met Safari Mickey, Goofy, Daisy and Donald. The best part is the little dance they do around the restaurant with maracas. The characters lead the dance and grab the kids up from their tables to participate. My DS 6 and DD 2 absolutely loved it. Daisy even got my DS 9 to participate. It was so fun to watch! At the end the kids piled on Goofy for a big group hug. The characters were so great and were really into it! Since the restaurant was closing we got to do the dance twice. Once for the end of the night to say goodbye to the characters. Totally worth the price just for that experience.

The food is great, with African influences but with things that everyone will enjoy. The kids buffet has typical kids food, macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, etc. It's nice to be able to eat something a little more unique at a buffet and know the kids will still find food they like. Our biggest timing issue with character buffet dining is waiting at the table before getting food for the characters that are close so we don't miss them. Sometimes that adds 10-15 minutes on before going up and getting food. But that happens at all character buffets, not just Tusker House.

 

[momtotaryn]

Thanks for your comments!

I have been trying unsuccessfully to change our ADR to an earlier time. I have also tried to see if I could change the FP+ time, but I haven't been able to do that either. I'll continue to try, but I'm not going to hold my breath. We have a party of 8 (two families), and I'm pretty sure the date we will be there is a high crowd date, because of EMH. I just have to hope that we get seated without delay. We've been looking forward to this TH character dinner for some time and would hate to cut things short, but we don't want to miss out on the JB show. There will be other opportunities to meet up with the characters. I guess we will play it by ear and see how things go.

 

[chicagodisfan]

You can try and arrive early for your reservation and see if they will seat you early too. I have heard of many people trying that with success. From what I understand, if they have the table ready early they will seat you early. You might get your table ahead of someone else with a larger party at the same time. We got stuck on a ride so we were about 15 minutes late for our reservation. It wasn't a problem for the restaurant, but it might have contributed to the delay in seating us.