Which Character meal was the best?

[Amy&Dan]

I've been to every single one of them at Disneyland and most of the ones at WDW and here is my .02: Go for the characters you want to see! Meaning, don't necessarily base your decision on the best food and interraction based upon others' experiences, which are subjective and different with each poster. I have never had an awful meal or characters that were all collectively snotty and rushed at the same time at the same place. I have had some meals that were better than others and some characters who spent more time than others and got into their role more. So if you love Brother Bear than go to Stortellers and if Goofy is your must do, go to his place. But like most places at Disneyland if you ask 100 people you'll get 100 different answers. I do have to say that Goofy's always has the widest variety of characters and can be a good choice if you have a boy and girl you are trying to please. There is always at least one princess and usually Minnie as well for the girls and then numerous characters that appeal to boys such as Goofy, Pluto and others that have included Captain Hook, Genie and Aladdin to name a few. One thing that does sort of drive me nuts at Disneyland is that at present time to the best of my knowledge, there is not one single meal that has Mickey. There is the Plaza Inn birthday party where he makes a brief appearance but thats it. DL needs a Mickey Meal!

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

Best food-character breakfast in DL at the Plaza Inn
Best character experience-character dinner at Goofy's Kitchen (We thought the food was just ok)

Dinner is more expensive. A lot of hotels offer at least a continental breakfast so if you do the character breakfast you are throwing away a free meal.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We just returned from a four night stay at DL. We did:

Minnie & Friends Breakfast - This was wonderful. We did this just before the park opened and our friends' daughter (4 yr old) had a great time, lots of character interaction. Chip and Dale were so funny, poured syrup on her hand and tried to wipe it off with sugar packets after they got yelled at by their keeper. She was scared of Capt Hook, but he was very gentlemanly and she warmed up to him. The food was very good. Lots of good choices, but you had to get your own drinks (unusual). Lots of characters - Chip, Dale, Fairy Godmother, Minnie, Capt Hook, Snow White. This was the best.

Ariel's Princess Lunch - So so character interaction. Princesses came and went rather quickly. Belle wore her yellow gown instead of the blue/white outfit. Order from a menu, soup/salad, main course, dessert. Food was good, but not great. I had the pot pie which looked a lot better than it tasted. The onion soup had the cheese on the bottom of the soup instead on top of the crouton. Room was a bit noisy. Seemed to be a lot of people celebrating birthdays in the few minutes we were there.

Goofy's Kitchen Breakfast - Poor character interaction. Food was pretty good, but not hot. We had to wait a while to get the characters to come around and they all didn't make it. Dale came and went in a few seconds. Goofy was there for a minute or two.

Lilo and Stitch Breakfast - Food was good, but not great. Some rather odd choices for breakfast - chicken nuggets, salmon, Mexican food. Service was rather poor, took forever for the server to bring us our drinks and then getting refills were next to impossible. It took forever for the characters to come around, but once they did, they all came rather quickly - Lilo, Stitch, Pluto, Minnie, Daisy Duck.

 

[MadfordaMouse]

I've been to Goofy's Kitchen a number of times for breakfast and it has always been a huge hit with my girls who now age 8 and 12 but we started going with them when they were babies. The characters were always very funny and we all had a great time with them and the kids loved all the breakfast stuff on the buffet like the Mickey waffles and pancakes and the dessert bar. The last time we went was about 2 years ago and it was a bit different. We made the mistake of having a later breakfast, around the 10am range, and we were seated in the octagon shaped room with all the windows. The characters seemed rushed and would play with the other tables next to us and then move on to the next room and somehow accidentally skip our table, but we were able to see Goofy and Baloo who were awesome! We have taught our girls to sit patiently for the characters to arrive, especially since I have seen some unruly children literally jumping on Goofy and grabbing at his ears while chasing him through the restaurant . By 11 am, most of them were at the end of their shift and had dissappeared, but our server was wonderful and was able to get Aladdin's autograph for my oldest daughter from behind the breakroom door. We will be in Disneyland in 2 weeks and we are going to try there for dinner, I heard its really good! Note to self though: make sure to make reservations for earlier meal times to give your family plenty of character time!

 

[tlovesdis]

Our favorite for both food and character interaction is definately Lilo and Stitch!

Second would be Goofy's Kitchen.

The worst, and one we will never do again, is Ariel's. The food is horrible and the service is even worse!!!

 

[TinkerbellTris]

WHen we ate at Ariels Grotto last July 2005 it was still a character meal with Mickey, DOnald, Pluto, Goofy, and Minnie and the interaction was the best in all the character meals but the food was the absolute worst. It sounds like the interaction and food have now been rated the worst by most of you. It's so sad. and they have the nerve to charge so much. ANd I do agree the character interaction in most restraunts is so rushed. I do admit goofy's kitchen is my favorite of all but i must say it's a 50/50 chance of whether or not you will have great character interaction or very rushed. There has been a time or two our table was overlooked by several characters and my son was very sad. And there were times the characters spent so much time you wished they'd move on so your child would finish the meal. It really is 50/50. But for the food itself hands down goofy's.

 

[grumpymakesmehappy]

Is there a website that list the menu of each character meal?

 

[Deb & Bill]

I've been to Goofy's Kitchen a number of times for breakfast and it has always been a huge hit with my girls who now age 8 and 12 but we started going with them when they were babies. The characters were always very funny and we all had a great time with them and the kids loved all the breakfast stuff on the buffet like the Mickey waffles and pancakes and the dessert bar. The last time we went was about 2 years ago and it was a bit different. We made the mistake of having a later breakfast, around the 10am range, and we were seated in the octagon shaped room with all the windows. ...

That's where we were seated on Sunday morning. And we were seated about 10:30AM. We saw almost no characters except for Goofy and Dale rushed through at the very beginning.

 

[MadfordaMouse]

That's where we were seated on Sunday morning. And we were seated about 10:30AM. We saw almost no characters except for Goofy and Dale rushed through at the very beginning.

Exactly! If I had not eaten there many times before and that was my first experience with the restaurant, I'm not sure I would try it again. Its not that they weren't nice, they just weren't there. I made my reservation for Oct. 9th at 6:30 pm, 2 1/2 hours before closing time, so hopefully we'll get to see everyone. By the way, when I made the reservations for the prior breakfast, I was never told that the characters leave the floor so early and I didn't even think to ask. Oh well, live and learn

 

[mystic_path]

I have to say, I havent been to disneyland or wdw ever, so I cant give an honest opinion yet as to what one should expect, but I have done quite a bit of searching and have read a lot of reviews on disboards over the past few months.

I have to say that Goofy's kitchen does seem to be the best and most widely expressed by people.

But other then that any other character interaction meal has only really been 50/50. Some people like a particular meal where someone else might not have liked that exact one. It all depends on which characters appeal to you, no matter if you like the food or not. Its really for entertainment value. You really have to go and voice your own opinion and not take anyone elses, although other opinions are helpful on what you may expect.

I am going in October and I have booked Goofy's Kitchen and Ariels Grotto lunch, because the characters there are the ones who me and my fellow travellers will find fascinating. Im not expecting much out of the food portion, but at least we will have had a fantastic time seeing and meeting characters, and experienceing something that is not normally done on a daily basis.

 

[Rena75]

We've done Ariel's, Minnie's and Goofy's.

Ariel's was wonderful as well, but the food seemed limited to me. What we had was good, just with no "buffet" you don't get a lot of options. The character interaction was the best of all 3. We saw every princess, got plenty of pictures. They all had "set" routes so you knew exactly when they were going to be at your table. LOVED IT.

We ran down to Disneyland today and did the lunch at Ariel's Grotto and it was a lot of fun (it was just like the Princess Breakfast in Epcot). The food was pretty good and I love seeing the faces of all the kids getting to meet the Princesses!

 

[spacemouseneer]

I think it really depends on who is performing your characters. I have only been to Goofy's Kitchen, this last September, and it was worth it. But what really made the experience special was the Alice. She came to each table and interacted with each child. She must have spent a good 8-10 minutes at each table. And when Goofy came over she included him as well and made the experience just amazing. Our kids were in heaven. Also the Cinderella outside the castle was the same. She took the time to interact and make each child feel special. I have no problem waiting in a line when I know that my children are going to get that type of experience.