What is your favorite character meal?

What is your favorite character meal?


  • Total voters
    94

Kellyh123

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 14, 2001
We will be going back to Disney in December. The last time we were there was Dec 2016.
I am wondering how the character meals have been lately.
I love planning our trip and I am starting to decide which character meals we want to do this trip.
Which ones are your favorite and if you want to share why I would love to read your comments.
We will have our 2 and 4 year old granddaughters with us.
Thanks so much!!
 


With little kids, family style can be a bit easier since the food is brought to the table and you don't have to juggle plates at the buffet and watch so you're not missing characters. The family style meals would be Garden Grill, CRT (not all you can eat but still served at your table), Ohana, Akershus (although there is a cold buffet as well as the plated meal), and the Bon Voyage Breakfast (also not all you can eat but served at your table).

I voted for GG (dinner)because we had fantastic interaction with the characters. 3 of the 4 came to the table twice in the hour we were there. Pluto played with my toddler for 10 mins the second time he came around and the interaction seriously brought tears to my eyes. My insanely shy, quiet son really hit it off with Pluto, having a full blown conversation with him through babbling while Pluto responded back in hand gestures. Pluto wrapped him up in a hug and held him for 3-4 mins at the end. We had several employees hanging around our table laughing and crying at how sweet the interaction was. Since it's a smaller restaurant, the characters tend to spend a little more time with guests than at other character meals. The food was good and plentiful, and the changing scenery from the ride below was fun to look at while dining.

CRT dinner was our second favorite character meal. It tends to get a bad rep on here, but we loved our dinner. The castle itself is such a fun experience. We had a fantastic waiter, and our toddler was given a full meal for free since "Cinderella believes even the smallest of mice should have their own meal" (told to us by our server). We all really enjoyed our meals as well, and the wishing star/sword/wand were fun little touches.

The Bon Voyage breakfast was cute. My toddler was also given a full meal here and the characters were really sweet. Rapunzel tickled my son and we got some adorable pics out of it and Flynn showed DD where the crown was hidden. There was also a fun parade with the characters around the restaurant that the kids were able to participate in.

Crystal Palace dinner was nice to meet Pooh and friends. Tigger was a riot, covering DD's face in pics and bouncing with DS. We didn't much care for the food (not much variety and pretty plain/lacking in flavor). and it was a little hectic trying to time going to the buffet so we wouldn't miss characters (I was so flustered trying to use the restroom quickly to make it back that I walked into the men's room on accident, and didn't notice until my brother grabbed my arm and pulled me out of there, while laughing his head off of course).

We didn't really care for Tusker House dinner. We are adventurous eaters, but the food all had the same odd flavor to me. The character interaction was really rushed and we couldn't see our table from the buffet so it seemed like I was constantly rushing to hurry up and get food so we could go back and wait for the characters. The characters pretty much just stopped for a quick pic and hug, then moved along. They didn't really interact with the kids. The restaurant also seemed exceptionally loud compared with the other character meals we went to.
 


Tusker House used to be, but they have removed many of the unique dishes and now there is more standard American food and less of what used to make this restaurant unique. It's still nice to see the characters in their safari outfits, but foodwise this has fallen off my must-do list.

My current favorites are 1900 Park Fare breakfast, Garden Grill breakfast, and Cape May Cafe breakfast.
 
At 2 and 4, hands down CRT breakfast. The first time we went my daughter was 5 and the look on her face when Aurora walked in was worth every penny we spent on that trip.
 
Tusker House for lunch or dinner (although, the last time we ate there was September 2017; I hope it's as good as I remember). The food is surprisingly good for a character buffet and the indoor market decor is more interesting than your average hotel lobby restaurant. The salmon was roasted whole and had some delicious sauce options. Nice samosas and a tasty tofu dish for the vegetarians too. Plus, the characters are in their safari outfits!
 
Tusker House lunch, Crystal Palace Bkfst, Garden Grill lunch

With 2 little princesses - CRT is always nice to do once, but I would suggest when the younger one is older enough to remember it. We took DD when she was 5.
 
It's not listed as an option, but I think Trattoria Al Forno over at the Boardwalk might have been one of my tops just in terms of the food quality.

I also really loved doing Tusker House for breakfast and Akershus for dinner!

We love this one so much-
The manager gives us our special table!!
 
Character interaction at Garden Grill is great!

We are fans of Crystal Palace breakfast. The setting is pretty, the characters are adorable and we all enjoy the food selection. We like a late CP breakfast so we can get in some rides first.
 
We really enjoyed a Tusker House our past two trips. We get a late breakfast so we end up having breakfast & lunch. We’ve always had good interactions with the characters and the parade is fun for the kids. Our kids loved Garden Grill PPO. I thought it was ok, but we were second on soarin which was awesome! We saw each of the characters multiple times and we weren’t there long. My other fave was 1900 Park Fare dinner. Characters were fun and the food was delicious. Beat my expectations.
 
Crystal Palace breakfast is a favorite for us and a must do every trip; that got my vote.

We've done all the other ones listed; places that were one and done for us were Hollywood & Vine, Chef Mickey's and CRT.

I would do 1900 again especially for dinner, the stepsisters were awesome. Akershus is a great alternative to CRT and worth it if you have princesses. Ohana was fun for breakfast and it's family style so you're not up and down all the time, I would do that one again.

Tusker House is good to try at AK but it didn't wow me to the point where I'd run to go back there although I'd consider it. People on these boards seem to love it. Cape May has a nice buffet but I don't know that I would go out of my way to go there unless I was staying in the Epcot Resort area. Garden Grill was just OK for us, we did dinner and didn't really care for the family style food offerings. We might give it another try for breakfast.

I'd like to try Bon Voyage breakfast and the new Storybook at Artist Point.
 
The Bon Voyage character breakfast at Trattoria al Forno is my favorite. I think it's so underrated. You can meet Ariel with Eric and Rapunzel with Flynn. I thought the food was some of the best breakfast food I've had on property and it's on the boardwalk, so I love the location.
 
We loved The Bon Voyage at Trattoria Al Forno. The food was amazing and the characters were very engaging. We had an early reservation and it was very easy to take the boat to Hollywood Studios.
 
Cape May cafe has been our one and only character meal for about 10 years now. We have tried 1900 park fair, chef mickey, and garden grill, but have found that breakfast is our thing, and cape may cafe has good food, and the characters come by every 5 min or so and are able to spend a decent amount of time at your table. The tables are spaced out enough that you dont have to worry about little jimmy from 3 tables over coming to try and get in our photos. over the course of an hour break fast, we get to see each character 3 times.
 

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