Your recommendations for Character meals

[Mom2J&J]

There are so many and with varying reviews. I'd love to hear your individual thoughts. Favorite atmosphere? Favorite food? Best characters?

Thanks!

 

[mrsp1030]

Favorites for our family of boys: Tusker House...love the characters and the food; 1900 Park Fare: the Mad Hatter is awesome and one of the better breakfast buffets; Cape May because of the relaxes atmosphere and great characters as well!

 

[Lavitz]

Mainly this will depend on who's going. Personally favourite atmosphere CRT or Crystal Palace, favourite food Akershus lunch/dinner or Tusker breakfast, best characters Akershus or CRT.

 

[Momof2Singers]

CRT - MK Atmosphere, characters, great service and we enjoyed the food
Crystal Palace - MK Food, characters, beautiful for photos, service always great
Tusker House - AK Very casual atmosphere, large variety of food, characters are great
Garden Grill - EP Characters the best on property, so attentive, good service, food is very tasty

For characters
Chef Mickeys - CONT but no longer go there since food quality went down and prices went way up

 

[plutosgirl]

Hands down for us it has always been the Garden Grill! It's more quiet, the characters have always been a ton of fun and we seem to get our best pictures there and we all LOVE the food (dinner). Also Ohana's breakfast has good food and character interaction but not a huge selection like Tusker House (that one has a ton of awesome food and the characters are good but it's loud and they don't seem to be able to spend a lot of time at each table there).

 

[holden]

My only piece of advice: Avoid Chef Mickey's.

 

[baler31]

Biased: We really don't care for buffets in general, we sometimes go for characters. Favorites: Tusker House, good food at the proper temperature, refreshed frequently and CLEAN. Garden Grill, great characters, good food that is generally better as it is family style. Crystal Palace or BOG for access to MK before opening.

Now, two places we will not return to: Chef Mickey's and Hollywood and Vine. Dirty on all of our visits and hot food that was cold and food that should be cold was hot.

 

[Misha72683]

We did Hollywood & Vine (lunch), Akershus (dinner), Crystal Palace (breakfast) and Be Our Guest (dinner) and would return to all of them, though H&V would be grudgingly and only for breakfast (which gets better reviews) and only because the characters were fantastic. BOG is just Beast, but we thought he was fun and we enjoyed the atmosphere and it had the best food of the four, though we really liked Crystal Palace and Akershus (especially the cold buffet).

Next trip I hope to try Tusker House because it gets so many good reviews here and 1900 Park Faire, which mh SIL loved (not sure if I'd do dinner or breakfast).

 

[beck00]

1900 Park Fare dinner...the stepsisters are hilarious!
Tusker House breakfast
Hollywood & Vine dinner with the new seasonal themes are great!
Crystal Palace breakfast
Akershus lunch

 

[Mom2J&J]

This is great - thank you!

We have a reservation at Chef Mickey at 11:00 on our arrival day. None of us have ever been (DS14, DS10, DD7) and I thought the atmosphere would be a great way to start the trip. HOWEVER, the reviews have been pretty horrible. I have an 8:35 ADR at Tusker House that I could keep, but we wouldn't get Minnie.

Decisions, decisions....

 

[Kricketnp]

Crystal Palace breakfast is my fave of all the ones I've been to!

 

[SuzaBanana]

We did Chef Mickey's when I was a kid and it was bad then...great to see it still lives up to the reputation!
We found Tusker House to have the best food; Garden Grill to have the best character interaction and 1900 Park Fare to be noisy, but had different characters which were enjoyable. All meals were breakfast.

 

[TheRustyScupper]

OUR WDW CHARACTER MEAL & BUFFET RANKINGS (*rev: March 2016*):
Results are listed from best to worst
Best Food (quality first, then variety):
. . . 1900 Park Fare
. . . Ohana
. . . Garden Grill
. . . Tusker House, breakfast-Lunch (moved from #1 Spot due to menu changes)
. . . Garden Grove Swan-dinner
. . . Akershus Royal Banquet
. . . Tusker House, Dinner
. . . Cape May Café
. . . Hollywood & Vine
. . . Crystal Palace
. . . Cinderella Royal Table (since new menu)
. . . Chef Mickey's
Best Character Interaction (time with guest first, then friendliness):
. . . Tusker House, Breakfast-Lunch
. . . Akershus Royal Banquet
. . . 1900 Park Fare
. . . Garden Grill
. . . Tusker House, Dinner
. . . Ohana
. . . Garden Grove (Swan, dinner)
. . . 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 (Swan, dinner)
. . . Chef Mickey's
.
NOTE1: 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).

 

[GillianP1301]

I travel with my 8 yo son and our favourites are:

Garden Grill - best character interaction of all character meals, IMO and the food is really good. I also like that it's Family style and not buffet - so much more relaxing.
Ohana - great breakfast and my son loves Stitch. Ditto to above on it being Family style.
Crystal Palace (breakfast) - I like the food and some of our favourite characters
Cape May (breakfast) - probably my favourite breakfast buffet of all the character meals and the character interaction has always been good for us. It's also a bit more quiet/calm compared to some of the other breakfast buffets.

Honourable mentions:
1900 Park Fare (dinner) - for the step sisters alone, it's worth it.
Tusker House - both food and characters are pretty good here.

 

[Delphinus317]

Biased: We really don't care for buffets in general, we sometimes go for characters. Favorites: Tusker House, good food at the proper temperature, refreshed frequently and CLEAN. Garden Grill, great characters, good food that is generally better as it is family style. Crystal Palace or BOG for access to MK before opening.

Now, two places we will not return to: Chef Mickey's and Hollywood and Vine. Dirty on all of our visits and hot food that was cold and food that should be cold was hot.

Ditto this exactly.

 

[cgh]

I'd say our favorite is the Garden Grill. Trying out a few more this trip in August. I think part of it depends on what characters you are aiming to see.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

I think the atmosphere is always fun at any character meal, but for food we like 1900 Park Fare and Crystal Palace for breakfast, or Tusker House, Akershus, and CRT for any meal of the day.

 

[WDWNY]

We have done Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace, Hollywood and Vine, Akershus, Garden Grill, Ohana, Cape May, Cinderella's Royal Table, Tusker House

Atmosphere wise I think they are all the same in my books, except for Cinderella's Royal Table, I think it tops them all.

Food Wise-
Would NOT recommend Garden Grill. Party of 5 and we all thought the food was terrible.

We've done Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace and Hollywood and Vine several times. We go for the experience since we don't think the food is that great.

For Breakfast we love Ohana and Tusker House.
Our Favorite is Akershus for dinner. Love the food, go back every trip.

 

[melana]

I really enjoy OHana breakfast, 1900 Park Fare and Crystal Palace. I liked Tusker House lunch the first time we went but the second time it must have been an off day because the food was not really good. But the Characters made up for it.

 

[married2mm]

Just for 3 extremely mature eaters-nearly 50,50+ and late 80's

Where would you recommend?
Would be for breakfast/brunch or lunch...
Dmil doesn't like dinner out (unless it's around 3pm)