What are YOUR Top Three Character Meals?

[sbbobe]

1. 1900 Park Fare breakfast
2. Crystal Palace breakfast
3. Garden Grill breakfast

(we only ever do character dining for breakfast)

1. Tusker House Breakfast or Lunch
2. 1900 Park Faire Breakfast
3. Chef Mickey Dinner

 

[DisneyHardin]

We don't have kids, so we haven't checked out all the Character meals, but have done several over the years.

1. Hollywood and Vine - Minnie's Christmas Dinner - the food was really good on the buffet and the outfits that the characters had on were stunning - we got really fantastic pictures.
2. Garden Grill - we went for dinner. The food was excellent and the restaurant is so small that the characters are able to really spend time at your table and even made it around twice while we were there.
3. Chef Mickeys - for food, we prefer breakfast to dinner. I know it's loud in there and the food isn't as good as other buffets, but you just can't beat the Fab 5.

 

[LSUfan4444]

We made our first trip to WDW in October 2015 and we did BOGx2 (breakfast and dinner), CRT dinner, H&V F! lunch, Sci-Fi dinner, TH breakfast, Raglan Road, and Via Napoli dinner. With our family of six (four children ages infant to 8 years), it felt like too many TS meals for our seven-night stay. Our next trip we will be staying between 10-12 nights and we will be a family of seven (ages infant to 11).

I want to do fewer TS meals and focus mostly on character meals. I know for sure we want to HDDDR, but not certain what else to try to book. Thoughts had been for Chef Mickey's, 1900 Park Fare, Akershus and T-Rex. Our favorites were TH and BOG, so we may repeat those. What would you recommend for a young family?

1- Tusker House
2 - Cinderella's Royal Table (Lunch or Dinner, not breakfast)
3 - tie...Akershus and Cape May

 

[disneyvoice]

Chef Mickey's, Crystal Palace, and Garden Grill.

 

[skittles67]

1900 Park Fare - dinner
Akershus - dinner
Crystal Palace - breakfast

 

[TheRustyScupper]

OUR OWN WDW CHARACTER MEAL & BUFFET RANKINGS (*rev: August 2016*):
Results are listed from best to worst
Best Food (quality first, then variety):
. . . 1900 Park Fare (B-D)
. . . Tusker House, moved from #1 Spot due to menu changes (B-L-D)
. . . Ohana (B)
. . . Garden Grill (B-D)
. . . Garden Grove Swan (D)
. . . Akershus Royal Banquet (B-L-D)
. . . Tusker House, (D)
. . . Cape May Café (B)
. . . Hollywood & Vine (B-L-D)
. . . Crystal Palace (B-L-D)
. . . Cinderella Royal Table, since new menu (B-L-D)
. . . Chef Mickey's (B-L-D)
Best Character Interaction (time with guest first, then friendliness):
. . . Tusker House
. . . Akershus Royal Banquet
. . . 1900 Park Fare (D)
. . . Garden Grill
. . . Tusker House
. . . Ohana
. . . 1900 Park Fare (B)
. . . Garden Grove
. . . 1900 Park Fare
. . . Chef Mickey's
. . . Cape May Café
. . . Hollywood & Vine
. . . Cinderella Royal Table
. . . Crystal Palace (barely enough time for a photo)
Best Atmosphere (surroundings and ambiance):
. . . Cinderella Royal Table
. . . Tusker House, Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner
. . . Akershus Royal Banquet
. . . Ohana
. . . 1900 Park Fare
. . . Garden Grill
. . . Crystal Palace
. . . Hollywood & Vine
. . . Cape May Café
. . . Garden Grove
. . . Chef Mickey's
.
NOTE: Results are listed from best to worst. Overall, Tusker House wins due to best food and the length of time the characters stay at each table. A close second is 1900 Park Fare. By far, Chef Mickey's is the loser, due to mediocre character interaction and almost terrible food
quality. The very distant second worst is Cinderella Royal Table, for brief time at tables by characters and the new menu. For non-character breakfast buffets, we prefer The Wave (CR) or Trail's End (FW).

 

[Ava]

Our favorite is Crystal Palace. We did lunch two trips in a row and are planning to book breakfast this year. The food is good, it's a nice break right inside MK, and Pooh & friends are adorable.

Second favorite is Ohana. Food is all tasty and served family style, not buffet, which is nice when you have young kids. Character interaction is also good and I believe its the only place to see Lilo & Stitch. (You also get Mickey & Pluto.)

We've also done CRT breakfast, Akershus breakfast (twice), H&V lunch, & Tusker House lunch. Really enjoyed H&V but only because our kids love Disney Jr; I wouldn't go otherwise. Akershus was great the first time but disappointing the second because they'd gotten rid of the cold buffet. Unless they bring that back I doubt we'll be back there. CRT is fun to do once just for the novelty of eating in the castle but we don't feel the need to go back. And I'm probably in the minority in not loving Tusker, but I didn't love it. The food & characters were both very good but the whole thing just felt overly hectic (even more so than other character meals we've done). Maybe we just caught it at a particularly busy time, & I would try it again, but it's not at the top of my list.

 

[allsaintsatx]

1900 Park Fare Breakfast - although sometimes the Mad Hatter can be a bit loud, may or may not be great for toddlers? Crystal Palace would be a good back up with some similar characters and the same sort-of Victorian era atmosphere.

O'Hana Breakfast - Stitch, Lilo, Pluto and Mickey Mouse decked out in a Hawaiian shirt! And the restaurant is beautiful.

Cinderella's Royal Table Dinner - unforgettable. We only have one DS and he loved it! Tons of attention from all the princesses! Eating in the castle is a pretty amazing experience and all the characters were great.

Have fun! We kinda loved all our character meals so I'm sure you'll have a great time!

 

[DisneyDad2015]

Tusker House lunch
1900 Park Fare breakfast
Crystal Palace lunch

 

[mickeymom22]

All time favorites: Garden Grill dinner, Tusker House breakfast, Akershus breakfast, and Crystal Palace (the latest seating for breakfast...you can enjoy the breakfast and lunch items!)

Garden Grill is really nice for little ones. They bring the food to you! Makes it easier on the parents too! If you sit on the level that has the booths, it feels like you have the characters all to yourself. It was fun for our kids to guess who they were going to see next, since they can't really see them until they approach your table.

Tusker House was fun. My kids loved the jungle juice and the parade around the restaurant.

Akershus...can't go wrong with the princesses! I have a son and two daughters. They all enjoyed it...even my son who tried to be "cool daddy!"

Crystal Palace...Pooh and friends what fun! We got to MK at rope drop ate a snack in line before we went in, and then had our ressies around 11:00. It was perfect...got us ready to head into the afternoon!

Fun times!

 

[goofyintoronto]

Breakfast for all 3...

Cape May (quietest character breakfast ever! so lovely!)
Crystal Palace (love breakfast but I also do like the lunch & dinner too)
Garden Grill (Tusker House is a runner up).

 

[KTR]

We did CP breakfast, Akershus breakfast, Tusker House dinner, and Garden Grill lunch. I enjoyed the food at the CP breakfast the best. The breakfast from Akershus was next. I wanted to love the food at TH because I tend to love Asian/African food, but I just found it uninspired. Garden Grill food was fine, but nothing special.

For interaction Garden Grill won by a landslide. That restaurant is small. The characters make their initial rounds and then came back so many times. Plus our table felt nice and private like we were having private audiences with them. We probably saw each character 4-5 separate times during our lunch.

Tusker House was also fun interaction, initially I was not impressed as we had just a quick visit from each character and were crammed in a corner too small for our party, but the dinner ended with a fun dance party and Daisy led my 3 year old out on the floor by hand and danced with him the entire time. All of my kids ended up loving this.

CP was fine, the characters only came by once but they did give each kid individual attention and didn't feel hurried.

Akershus had the most rushed visits, but it was still fine. It was probably my least favorite overall though.

 

[Dakota731]

Disney Junior characters for the kids.

Who are the Disney junior characters?

 

[ChasingLeslie]

Who are the Disney junior characters?

Sofia, Doc, Jake, and Handy Manny

 

[magicalcouple]

1. Tusker House Breakfast 2. Garden Grill (any ole time) 3. Crystal Palace Breakfast

 

[rg35]

Garden Grill - Have had the best character interactions here by far.
1900 Park Fare primarily because of the Mad Hatter, but also because you get lesser-seen characters, and it's always great to visit the Grand Floridian.
Crystal Palace - the setting is great, the food is pretty good and who doesn't love Pooh characters?

 

[Matoskah Poodle]

Garden Grill / Crystal Palace / Hollywood and Vine

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Garden Grill and Tusker House breakfasts are our favorites! Chef Mickey's is a distant 3rd

 

[ArielSRL]

We have done quite a few, mostly breakfasts though.

On our trip last year, we liked Cape May BF and Tusker House BF best, though, go figure, we are not doing them on our upcoming trip.

We almost always do Crystal Palace BF. Food is good, we like the location, and the characters are limited to this restaurant (as opposed to many different restaurants).

In the past I have done 1900 Park Fare BF and truly enjoyed it but we haven't been back in awhile.

New ones for this trip: Garden Grill BF, O'hana BF.

I didn't really like Chef Mickey's dinner, but BF is ok.

 

[beck00]

Breakfast-Tusker House and Crystal Palace (my kids don't even really "know" Pooh & Friends, and love this one!)
Lunch-Akershus (not really the food, but the Princesses are great!!)
Dinner-1900 Park Fare, Hollywood & Vine (Minnie's Dine)

On this upcoming trip, we're trying breakfast at 'Ohana with Lilo & Stitch, Crystal Palace for lunch and some old tried and trues....TH, 1900 Park Fare, BOG, & Raglan.