Tusker House: Never Again!

[AimeeMichele]

Based off of reviews I read about Tusker House, I made an early morning ADR there before the Animal Kingdom opened. Well, suffice to say that the reviews I read were nothing close to what I encountered. It was SO loud here that my youngest nephew actually had to plug his ears and I had to talk super loud in order to have anyone in my party of 4 hear me. The food was so so, thank goodness they had Mickey waffles that were edible. I tried their banana bread pudding and I hated it...I actually wanted to spit it out, however can't do that in front of my young nephews. Note: I love bread pudding. This was the first bread pudding I've ever encountered that I didn't like. The eggs were dry and crusty. The bacon was greasy and limp. The cheese danish was stale. After we were there for 20 minutes I had to ask where the characters were as none had been out yet. Eventually a gentlemen came around and said that the characters were about to come out. If you wanted an autograph, you must have your autograph book out and open to a blank page, hand it to the character first so that they can sign, take a quick picture and move on to the next table. Character interaction here was the worst of the three breakfasts we went to. The only plus to this place was the little parade with Daisy the kids can participate in. Everything else was rushed and unsatisfactory. I would not recommend this place and will not be making an ADR here for when I return in October.

 

[palavra]

It always amazes me how people can have two completely different opinions on the same place!

Tusker House breakfast was one of our favorite meals of our trip. We really enjoyed the food, and, I loved the bread pudding. I also enjoyed the mealie pap and the breakfast potatoes. We must have been lucky with teh characters because they began coming toour table in about 10 minutes. My daughter loved the little parade. We would definitely do this breakfast again.

 

[shawnh199]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience there, but I have to agree with palavra - it was one of our favorite character breakfasts. We all thought the food was good, and that there was plenty of variety. I will agree that the characters were a bit rushed, but the have your books open and ready to sign was something we were asked at most, if not at all 7 of our character meals. We were also told this in most lines we waited in to meet characters at the parks. The characters have a hard time opening the books and turning the pages. They can barely hold the pens, much less turn the page to the next open page.

Tusker will be a must do for our future trips (we ate lunch there also, and really enjoyed it as well).

 

[eventamy]

We also liked it. We're not going back to AK this trip, but next time we do I am definitely going to do an early ADR for Donald's breakfast. I loved being right in Africa for rope drop and hopping right onto the Safari after a lovely breakfast. One of the things that I found interesting there was that people don't seem to understand the concept of the pods. There were people lining up in only one section of the buffet, not understanding that you can go anywhere you want! The characters were a little rushed with us but less so then at Chef Mickey's!
The best Character breakfast I've had so far has been at H&V for Play and Dine, the characters were fantastic and spent tons of time with my DD (the other one was sleeping!) and the food was awesome!

 

[aprilp]

You should try it next time for lunch maybe? There are no characters then and probably because of that the restaurant is not noisy. We went on December 4 for lunch and the food was really good. Maybe half the tables were full and thus the atmosphere was rather relaxed. I liked the pods and thankfully everyone there seemed to "get" the concept so there were no "you butted!" looks given. lol!

 

[chicagoshannon]

I agree with the other's it's our favorite buffet that we've tried so far. But not everyone always has the same opinion. Heck I hate Chef Mickey's and everyone raves about that one. lol

 

[fairestoneofall]

i'm sorry you had a bad experience.

we loved tusker house. we were seated in one of the side rooms, so things were a bit quieter. and we had a wonderful server. the food was excellent. i pretty much feel like the characters are rushed at most character meals because they have so many tables to visit. our one exception seems to be that we have always gotten tables right near the center at 1900 park fare, and thus tend to get lots of character interaction as they come by multiple times.

 

[AimeeMichele]

Maybe we'll give it another try in 5 years or so. I'm seem to hold onto bad experiences and am extremely leery to return to a place I had such a bad time at. On the other hand, it's good to know that others had a great (completely different) time than mine. I do have to agree that the benefit of already being in Africa and the close proximity to KS was very nice!

 

[antsss]

Never been for breakfast but we LOVED our lunch there a few weeks ago. We were 8 people ranging in age from 6 to 66 with very diverse tastes and everyone was very happy!!!

 

[sanapp]

I was there for breakfast on 12/11 and we were one of the first table of the morning to be seated. I don't believe that I will return to this breakfast. I was very disappointed that Donald was only at the beginning and the cost of the picture was so outragous. Donald is my daughter's favorite character, but.... At least she got to see Daisy too. You are right that this was one of the absoulte most noisy dining choices that we made. We were rushed off to the buffet as soon as we got there and my daughter and I went up and the food wasn't even put out yet. We had to stand in front of the signs for things that we wanted and wait for them to come out. The food was okay, but... The one good thing that I can say is that my DH was not feeling well that morning and only wanted coffee and juice and he was not charge at all as the ticket said "noneater". Since this was one of our out of pocket meals it was really appreicated as I anticipated still having to pay a full price for him. This is extremely convenient though to the Safari. We were in the first expedition out that morning, but that seemed to be quite rushed!! We enjoyed our Princess Storybook breakfast the most and I always love Crystal Palace. It is great to try new places though!

 

[Smiling Cheshire Cat]

We ate there the Sunday after Thanksgiving also with an early ADR and it was packed with people. I agree the noise and the close tables was a hinderance to us really enjoying our meal, but the food and the characters were great.

 

[Harlemgirl720]

I love Tusker House. We were seated in the back room by the exit door which was fine for us. It can be loud but it was quiet back there. Sorry your experience was bad.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

We went to the character breakfast during the week before Thanksgiving and had a completely different experience from the OP. We were in the first seating group of the day, and were seated in a small room to the left of the entrance. The characters spent all the time you wanted at each table and posed for many photos. I'm not a fan of buffets, but I thought the food was pretty good and there was a lot of variety. My grandson loved meeting all the characters. We would definitely go back.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience there, it's one of my favorite breakfasts on property.