Which is better for dinner...1900 or Crystal Palace?

[tamis]

To all of you who have had the chance to try both, what would your dinner choice be between Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare? We've never had anything besides quick meals inside of the parks, and it's been tricky figuring out which restaurants should be placed at the top of our wish list. So many choices, and only so many hours to fit it all in!!

Is it pretty easy to get in and out of 1900 Park Fare with the monorail, or do you still end up wasting a lot of time exiting the park and reentering?
We've never been to either of these restaurants, and want to make the most of our time and appetites

One other question for all of you. Would you choose 1900 or the O'Hana character breakfast?

Free dining is giving this girl way too many options.
Time to narrow down, and finalize the eating plans!

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[disneydreamer98]

1900 Park Fare!!! I think that the dinner buffet at 1900 Park Fare is one of the best on property and plus you get to be entertained by the Evil Stepmother and Sisters (Lady Tremaine, Drizella and Anastasia) from Cinderella! If you've never experienced their antics, it's fun to watch!

We always eat at least one meal at each of the monorail resorts on days that we are at the MK and do not find it a hassle at all to leave the park, hop on the monorail, have dinner and then back to the park! It's part of the experience and you'll get to tour some of the beautiful resorts!

We love Crystal Palace for lunch so if you get a chance to add that, go for it!

As far as the breakfast choice between 1900 and Ohana...it really depends on the characters you'd like to visit with. We've done both and I'd have to say that our favorite is the Ohana breakfast with Lilo & Stitch!

Good luck narrowing down your choices and have a great time!!!

 

[BigEeyore]

We think the food is much much better at CP than 1900 Park Fare. More variety, more interesting selection.
Character interaction is better at 1900 Park Fare.
However - it looks like you have 3 boys - do they really want to go to a Cinderella meal?

 

[Mom2SamandJames]

We are doing 1900 PF for dinner with two boys. Our oldest DS (4) wanted to do it. He wants to meet the Prince. We did CP for dinner last year, and we had to wait over an hour past our ADR time just to be seated. We still enjoyed our meal, but it was hard explaining to a 3 year old why we couldn't go in the restaurant when it was raining outside.

We haven't been to 1900 PF for breakfast, but we LOVE O'Hana breakfast. Your boys will love the silly antics of Stitch! Pluto was great for clowning around when we were there last also. The food was delicious too!

 

[jskrup]

I would say CP is for my money the best buffet on property, 1900 is great but I would go for CP anytime

 

[tamis]

We think the food is much much better at CP than 1900 Park Fare. More variety, more interesting selection.
Character interaction is better at 1900 Park Fare.
However - it looks like you have 3 boys - do they really want to go to a Cinderella meal?

Amazingly all 3 of my boys want to meet Cinderella. I'm pretty sure my middle child would like to marry her , but my youngest would love to see winnie-the-pooh, so it's a toss-up. I might need to flip a coin and see where we land. I figure we can't miss at Disney though. The atmosphere of DW can't be beat!

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

To all of you who have had the chance to try both, what would your dinner choice be between Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare?

Ugh. Food wise I wouldn't go back to either of these restaurants. So, based solely on characters, I'd say Crystal Palace. Pooh and Friends are much more personable than the face characters.

Is it pretty easy to get in and out of 1900 Park Fare with the monorail, or do you still end up wasting a lot of time exiting the park and reentering?

Yes, it's very easy. You can also take a boat if the monorail is not running for some reason. (Don't panic - that's SUPER rare, I just had occasion to find out on my last trip.)

One other question for all of you. Would you choose 1900 or the O'Hana character breakfast?

'Ohana is one of my very favorite places to eat for dinner, but breakfast was just okay. I haven't tried 1900 Park Fare's breakfast.

If it were me, I would go to 'Ohana for dinner rather than 1900 or CP, and then go to CP for breakfast.

Enjoy whatever you choose!

 

[catne]

we liked the food at both places - CP may be just slightly better on the side dishes/pasta (1900 Park Fare pasta dishes we thought were about like skillet-helper boxed food.) Park Fare's desserts were better. As for characters...well, though we love Pooh & friends have to give Park Fare an A+++ on characters. Cinderella & Prince Charming are wonderfully sweet & charming. The stepmother is very aloof & fun to watch (she'll stop and tell a baby in a high chair to make sure they are using the correct fork) The stepsisters are OUTSTANDINGLY funny, especially Anastasia(in the pink dress) Looked to me like adults & boys were really enjoying the steps...not your usually warm-fuzzy characters at all - loud, obnoxious, making hilarious faces for smiles in pictures. We laughed until we cried

One suggestion I'd make with Park Fare...go early...I think they start serving at 5:30. Try to book as close to the opening time as you can because they get backed up quickly. When we checked in at 5:20, only about 10 people waiting. An hour later when we left there were people all over the waiting area & spilling out into the main lobby...had to be over 100 people waiting at least. And seems like most of the bad reviews I've read of Park Fare are from people who had later dinner seatings...don't know if there is a quality control issue there that they don't refresh the food often enough as the evening goes on. But at 5:30 all the food was fresh & hot!

 

[MickeyNicki]

1900 PF was horrid...CP was much better but alot of the foods were way too salty....

 

[nexttripdisney]

If you've never done either CM, do Crystal Palace, hands down. Great photos, fun, colorful characters. Convenience.

If you choose to do 1900 PF, we like that, too. Just feels a bit more upscale. Getting in and out on the Monorail is absolutely easy and should not detur you in the least.

My boys would balk at a princess meal. If Disney had a Peter Pan character meal with Tink and the Captain, we could all be happy. Hint, hint Disney.....

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

We just ate at both of these places last week, with our party of 5, dd9 ds3 and ds2.

1900 park fare, nicer atmosphere, nicer dishes to choose from, wait was about 1 minutes past rsvp time, we had a terrible table, waited over 1 1/2 hours for 1st character, only saw 2 of the 5, characters mostly remained in main dining area, so our kids missed out on the whole point of the character dining, they were not able to participate in the little activities or dancing like we should of. Tables all around us were asking when the characters would come by and several tables ended up leaving due to the wait.

Crystal Palace -- what a ZZZOOOOOOO ! By no means our my kids angels, but it was crazy in there, we did wait about 30 minutes after our rsvp for table. a noticeable difference in the lesser quality food. more does not equal better

 

[maddmike]

I would have to say 1900 PF. The atmosphere is better and its just more relaxed. Since CP is in a park there always seems to be a kids running around. As I mentioned in another thread the service we experienced at CP has been poor.

 

[tamis]

Wow...thanks for the great responses. My family has never done any character meals before, and these boards have really helped me narrow down the best choices there are for us. I can't wait to try out everyone's suggestions. I think my family is in for a definite treat this next vacation with the abundance of Disney food choices!

 

[colinsdad]

I took my DS4 (will be my DS5 on Saturday!) on a "boys only" trip to WDW back in May and we did both 1900PF and CP for dinner.

My son loved 1900PF. Don't let the fact that Cinderella is there make you think its a princess meal.

He loved being able to meet a real prince and Cinderella was amazing. My son hid under the table when she came over, and she kneeled down found him under the table and told him she loves to play hide and seek and plays it with Jacques! I was floored.

And the step-sisters were hysterical as was Lady Tremaine.

For our trip next week, this ADR was the only one I couldn't get on my 90+10 day. I had to call and check online for weeks untill finally getting a 6:50PM ADR (which is a little late for my family for dinner, but I'm not complaining since we got in! )

I'll be honest and note I think the food is better at CP, and the atmosphere tips a bit toward CP since you're inside the MK. But the character interaction is way better at 1900PF.

We are again doing both CP and 1900PF for dinner this upcoming trip too. But if I had to choose only one, I'd choose 1900PF.

As to your second question, I've never done 1900PF for breakfast, but we did do Ohana back in May. My son loves Stitch so this was a good choice. We thought the food/service was great (the mickey waffles were made right in front of us because we had a table near the chef). And I can say the atmosphere and dining area of Ohana is way beter than 1900PF which has great murals, but no windows. Ohana also has a parade which kids can march around the restaurant with maracas behind Lilo, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto.

Enjoy your planning and trip. Here are a couple of pics of my DS enjoying 1900PF back in May.

 

[ROEDISNEY]

The food is good & fun is good in both places. If I had to pick one it would be CP.

 

[golden6911]

I have nothing bad to say about Crystal Palace and it is one of my favorites. This trip we are going to try 1900 PF for a change.

 

[tamis]

I took my DS4 (will be my DS5 on Saturday!) on a "boys only" trip to WDW back in May and we did both 1900PF and CP for dinner.

My son loved 1900PF. Don't let the fact that Cinderella is there make you think its a princess meal.

He loved being able to meet a real prince and Cinderella was amazing. My son hid under the table when she came over, and she kneeled down found him under the table and told him she loves to play hide and seek and plays it with Jacques! I was floored.

And the step-sisters were hysterical as was Lady Tremaine.

For our trip next week, this ADR was the only one I couldn't get on my 90+10 day. I had to call and check online for weeks untill finally getting a 6:50PM ADR (which is a little late for my family for dinner, but I'm not complaining since we got in! )

I'll be honest and note I think the food is better at CP, and the atmosphere tips a bit toward CP since you're inside the MK. But the character interaction is way better at 1900PF.

We are again doing both CP and 1900PF for dinner this upcoming trip too. But if I had to choose only one, I'd choose 1900PF.

As to your second question, I've never done 1900PF for breakfast, but we did do Ohana back in May. My son loves Stitch so this was a good choice. We thought the food/service was great (the mickey waffles were made right in front of us because we had a table near the chef). And I can say the atmosphere and dining area of Ohana is way beter than 1900PF which has great murals, but no windows. Ohana also has a parade which kids can march around the restaurant with maracas behind Lilo, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto.

Enjoy your planning and trip. Here are a couple of pics of my DS enjoying 1900PF back in May.

Those pictures are PRICELESS! All my boys thought it was funny.

 

[PrincessMomto2]

I love CP for breakfast. Not crazy about CP for dinner. 1900 Park Fare is our second favorite buffet only second to Boma for dinner. We went for the 1st time this past June. The food was excellent. Much better than CM for dinner. The deserts even better! The characters were awesome.

'Ohana breakfast is one of our traditions. So we love it and Stitch is just so much fun. My girls love him. The food is good and it is relaxing and they bring the food to you! Nice change than trying to time going to the buffets to get food and not miss a character.

Have a great time.