Thanksgiving at BLT

[coastiewifern]

Does anyone know of dining options for Thanksgiving? Any local restaurants or grocery stores where you can buy a thanksgiving meal ie cooked turkey, stuffing and basics?
Or dining options in the park?
We will have a car so we pick up food

 

[Deb & Bill]

Several years ago we bought a precooked Thanksgiving dinner at one of the local grocery stores. I'm sure that Publix will offer the same. You can contact them via their website to make sure.

You will probably have to pick it up no later than Wednesday and the turkey will still need to be heated up for several hours. The grocery stores are usually closed on Thanksgiving Day.

The dinner we purchased included the turkey, dressing (cornbread, though), mashed potatoes, gravy. Don't remember if it had any other sides with them.

Most of the restaurants will offer some sort of Thanksgiving dinner with the details of the dinner modified by their specialty. You'll need to make that dining reservation 180 days out. Check some of the websites to see what restaurants offer for their Thanksgiving meal.

 

[DMKEDM]

We do T-giving at WDW every year--it's our family tradition. This year we'll be at BCV.

We've tried lots of WDW restaurants for our T-giving meal--I like the traditional meal, but my DS prefers good steak. So we keep looking for the best of both.

Here's what we've found so far:

California Grill is an excellent meal, but you can't get enough "traditional" stuff for it to qualify as T-giving for me...the Garden Grill at The Land in Epcot is superb...and has both steak and turkey (and catfish) as well as sides in its family-style meal. It's our favorite.

The steak houses serve really good steak (DS loves it), but not traditional T-giving offerings--one year, in fact, we booked at Shula's at the Dolphin after I'd called to see if they would have turkey...they said yes, but when we got there, they didn't. The rest of the family loved their steaks (as did I, but I was so busy being disappointed at no turkey it took the edge off for me).

That was the year I discovered that the counter service "special of the day" at SSR's Artist's Palette served the best deal in WDW...a very good traditional T-giving turkey-and-stuffing-and all the required sides meal, for $10--including pumpkin pie, rolls, green beans, cranberry sauce, et. al. Now, I indulge my DS and let him get his steak mid-day, and then we head over to SSR for "real turkey" for dinner!

We don't cook (at home, much less at WDW) so can't comment on grocery-store options. But can tell you that T-giving restaurant reservations fill up very fast, very early, regardless of the type of food. So do make yourselves an ADR, even if you wind up deciding to cancel it in favor of an in-villa meal.

Happy T-giving!

 

[coastiewifern]

We do T-giving at WDW every year--it's our family tradition. This year we'll be at BCV.

We've tried lots of WDW restaurants for our T-giving meal--I like the traditional meal, but my DS prefers good steak. So we keep looking for the best of both.

Here's what we've found so far:

California Grill is an excellent meal, but you can't get enough "traditional" stuff for it to qualify as T-giving for me...the Garden Grill at The Land in Epcot is superb...and has both steak and turkey (and catfish) as well as sides in its family-style meal. It's our favorite.

The steak houses serve really good steak (DS loves it), but not traditional T-giving offerings--one year, in fact, we booked at Shula's at the Dolphin after I'd called to see if they would have turkey...they said yes, but when we got there, they didn't. The rest of the family loved their steaks (as did I, but I was so busy being disappointed at no turkey it took the edge off for me).

That was the year I discovered that the counter service "special of the day" at SSR's Artist's Palette served the best deal in WDW...a very good traditional T-giving turkey-and-stuffing-and all the required sides meal, for $10--including pumpkin pie, rolls, green beans, cranberry sauce, et. al. Now, I indulge my DS and let him get his steak mid-day, and then we head over to SSR for "real turkey" for dinner!

We don't cook (at home, much less at WDW) so can't comment on grocery-store options. But can tell you that T-giving restaurant reservations fill up very fast, very early, regardless of the type of food. So do make yourselves an ADR, even if you wind up deciding to cancel it in favor of an in-villa meal.

Happy T-giving!

SSR artist palette sounds perfect! But if it is CS then they won't take reservations right?

 

[Deb & Bill]

SSR artist palette sounds perfect! But if it is CS then they won't take reservations right?

That's correct. We did Yacht Club Galley one year (now it is Captains Grille) and it was good. But as the day went on, they started to run out of food. We were an early ADR for that place. We also did Olivia's at OKW once and it wasn't very good. One year they had the Yacht Club Convention Center open for a buffet Thanksgiving dinner and that was very good.

Here is a link to All Ears. net. http://allears.net/menu/men_thks.htm

 

[amypetecar]

We stayed at OKW during Thanksgiving last year and had the same question.

All of my local friends that live in Orlando all recommended Publix supermarket. They said don't let the stigma of a meal prepared at a supermarket discourage you, its a good Thanksgiving feast.

I have also heard that a local bbq place called Sonnys Barbecue is also really good.

We of course ignored both of those suggestions and promptly paid $300 for a family of six to eat at Hollywood and Vine on Thanksgiving. HUGE MISTAKE!! Lackluster food and insanely expensive. When we go back over Thanksgiving in 2012, we will definitely try one of the two options our friends told us about.

 

[Candace]

We have been several times for Thanksgiving and have done it both ways. One year, when my mom was along and wanting to pay (yay!) we did a buffet at the Grand Floridian convention center. Traditional meal, with gorgeous flowers everywhere and strolling violinists. It was good food, but too expensive in my opinion, for my family. (Some are very picky eaters). We have also done meals cooked by the local grocery stores and had the meal in the villa. I much prefer this. Like a pp said, you pick it up the day before and heat it up on turkey day. It came with turkey, cornbread dressing, gravy, green beans and rolls and a dessert. I added a few other things to make it seem more like "our" family dinner. It was nice to have the leftovers the next day, just like we do at home. No hassles of getting to the restaurant, making reservations, etc. I have used both Publix and Goodings for these meals.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Yeah, we used Goodings for our meal as well, but that was a long time ago when Goodings was a good grocery store. Not so much any more. Now, Publix is our choice.

 

[coastiewifern]

We stayed at OKW during Thanksgiving last year and had the same question.

All of my local friends that live in Orlando all recommended Publix supermarket. They said don't let the stigma of a meal prepared at a supermarket discourage you, its a good Thanksgiving feast.

I have also heard that a local bbq place called Sonnys Barbecue is also really good.

We of course ignored both of those suggestions and promptly paid $300 for a family of six to eat at Hollywood and Vine on Thanksgiving. HUGE MISTAKE!! Lackluster food and insanely expensive. When we go back over Thanksgiving in 2012, we will definitely try one of the two options our friends told us about.

Oooh Sonny's BBQ that could be good. They usually are very reasonably priced. I have decided to eat in the villa. That is one of the perks and reasons we bought DVC. We've just never used our DVC before and are so used to traveling the old way. We just need to retrain ourselves on how to do disney with DVC