We took our daughter to celebrate her first birthday last month and the character meals that really stood out for us are..
'Ohana (breakfast with Lilo, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto) - Super fun! The food was seriously some of the best breakfast I have had in years. If you don't already know about the meal, it is served all you care to eat family style. It's so nice not having to wander around a buffet with kid in tow. The character interaction was really good! They have a little parade if you and your family would like to participate, you just go around the room with the characters. This is always on our must-do list.
Garden Grill (dinner with Farmer Mickey, Pluto, Chip and Dale) - The best character interaction of the week! We saw the characters about four times each and they stayed for a while each time. Chip and Dale were really into play with our daughter. She was offering Cheerios which one pretended to eat. Too cute.
The food is also offered family style. This is another one we have done before and it just never fails us. The restaurant rotates which is really cool! We had a great meal and a fantastic server. Planning on going back next year.
1900 Park Fare (breakfast with Pooh, Tigger, Alice, Mad Hatter and Mary Poppins) - The buffet was very good, all the food was nice and fresh. Loved that they offer a bagel toppings area. It was also very nice that they offered my favorite strawberry soup for breakfast!
Pooh and Tigger were wonderful and came around multiple times. As for the other characters we saw them once. The only character the whole trip my 1 year old didn't care for too much was Mad Hatter. She just wasn't sure of him. She didn't cry or anything, she just mostly stared him down.
But we enjoyed the meal and are thinking about doing it again next year.
We did try Akershus for dinner, but we were not impressed at all. This was our second time trying it for dinner and honestly, we don't think we will be back for dinner for a few years. The characters were really rushed, barely stopping for a photo and a "hello".. The food was..okay. We might try it for breakfast especially if the new baby turns out to be another girl, but again we can wait for that meal.
Generally, we try to book about four to five character meals. We loved them! Next year we will be doing a few more since our daughter did so well. We have gone to Crystal Palace many times and while we like it, this past year we were focusing more on going to see characters our daughter was familiar with. Crystal Palace will be on our to-do list for next year.
As will Chef Mickey's. Lately Chef Mickey's has been taking a hit with the reviews, but every time we have gone we have left happy. We'll try it next year and hopefully it will be what we remembered.
We also had Tusker House on our list for this year, but we had to cancel it last minute due to our daughter needing to go to urgent care. We'll try it next year as well.
Whatever you decide on, I'm sure you and your family will have a great time. Good luck to you!
