Character Dining

FitzherbertFreak

FitzherbertFreak

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I must admit, that it has been ages since I have had a meal with a character. My initial thoughts tell me to book a reservation for Crystal Palace since that is the one I have always loved. However, I want to know everyone's opinions. You can base your choice off of food, atmosphere, whatever you'd like; I just want to know your opinion, so that I can make my decision!
 
reptar77

reptar77

Well-Known Member
Overall the Crystal Palace is just ok. I do think that is you are looking for a character experience it is one of the best. My 2nd choice would be CapeMay.
Last choice would be Chef Mickey's, the food is terrible
 
olinecoach61

olinecoach61

Well-Known Member
Our must do list:
Chef mickey
CRT
Crystal palace

On the next level I would put play n dine at dhs, great if u have toddlers

We hated the breakfast meal at ask, the name escapes me.
 
FitzherbertFreak

FitzherbertFreak

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thanks everyone! I'm probably going to take a trip back to O'hana since I haven't done that in years. Though I think I'll visit Cape May first because I haven't tried that one yet. ;)
 
FitzherbertFreak

FitzherbertFreak

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
DizneyPryncess said:
Garden Grill is probably my favorite character meal when I take everything into consideration (food, service, character interaction, experience, etc.)
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I totally forgot about Garden Grill! Ironically, I think that is my favorite character dinning place. The food is exquisite (especially for a vegetarian like me)! I love the Mickey Mouse cucumbers. ;)
 
LucyK

LucyK

Well-Known Member
Cape May is great, one of my favorites together with Crystal Palace and Tusker House.

Akershus has some great food and the princess are cool but I won't be revisiting it any time soon.

I'm trying 1900 Park Fare this trip and going back to CM, CP and TH.

Chef Mickey's keep getting out of the list for some reason. Maybe another time.
 
jlsHouston

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
I think the best character experience is the dinner at 1900 Park Fare..the Tremaines are beyond authentic... My favorite is Cape May for breakfast, I love the breakfast items and I love seeing Minnie...and Donald....

I like H&V at HS if I get the early breakfast because then I am positioned for the FP grab for TSMM...although having the FP+ option will eventually eliminate me needing this character breakfast...I used it for a paper FP this past Thanksgiving when we did HS in the morning and Epcot in the evening so we could use our FP+ over at Epcot.

I order I like:
Cape May breakfast
1900 Park Fare dinner
BOG dinner awesome steak awesome venue love the BEast
Ohana breakfast
1900 Park Fare breakfast
Akershus any meal but it is really expensive and the servers are ....somewhat lacking..I think it's a cultural thing, the princesses are pretty decent with interaction..


I like H&V or CP for breakfast and to use for getting into the parks early
Don't much care for Garden Grill...kind of cramped seating when we were there..party of 5...and the 3 adults we are big...
Don't care much for Chef Mickey any of the meals but the kids love it for the characters....

Have not done the Cinderella one or Tusker house...
 
luv

luv

Well-Known Member
I think I like Crystal Palace best, too. It's so pretty and the characters are so cute. I prefer breakfast to dinner, though.

I love the Animal Kingdom safari costumes they wear to the Donald thing in Tusker House. It's adorable.

Garden Grill, too, has some pretty cute costumes. It's the most relaxing of any character meal, IMO, but not the best one for kids. It always books up pretty quickly, so I almost never go there.

I still think Chef Mickey's is the best one for kids, though.
 
Sparkle81

Sparkle81

Well-Known Member
We loved Garden Grill. The food was delicious, and the characters stayed at our table for quite a long time and actually came around twice. Pluto came around the second time when my DH was changing my DS's diaper. He held his arms in the air as if he was asking where they had gone, then came and sat next to me at the table and helped me to eat my sweet potato fries. That was cute :)

We enjoyed the whole experience at Chef Mickeys for breakfast & will definitely do it again. We found lunch good at Crystal Palace, and my DS actually cried when we left and said 'I want to stay here forever' :joyfull:

We were pleasantly surprised with Akershus for dinner. Beautiful setting, and very good food.
 
FitzherbertFreak

FitzherbertFreak

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Sparkle81 said:
We loved Garden Grill. The food was delicious, and the characters stayed at our table for quite a long time and actually came around twice. Pluto came around the second time when my DH was changing my DS's diaper. He held his arms in the air as if he was asking where they had gone, then came and sat next to me at the table and helped me to eat my sweet potato fries. That was cute :)

We enjoyed the whole experience at Chef Mickeys for breakfast & will definitely do it again. We found lunch good at Crystal Palace, and my DS actually cried when we left and said 'I want to stay here forever' :joyfull:

We were pleasantly surprised with Akershus for dinner. Beautiful setting, and very good food.
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Did anyone get toys and stickers when the went to Garden Grill? Chip and Dale put aliens and Toy story stickers on my table.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
I think it depends on the meal. Crystal Palace, CRT and 1900 Park Fare have been our best character breakfasts. Garden Grill and Akershus have been our faves of the character dinners. None of the character lunches we've done have really been amazing, but CRT lunch and Akershus lunch weren't bad.

The other thing, experiences can vary so greatly. We've had wonderful experiences at Chef Mickey's (just breakfast) as well as ones that were not so great (breakfast and dinner) . 'Ohana breakfast and Tusker breakfast were very disappointing to us, but I know so many other people who rave. Cape May was decent as far as character breakfasts go, but I still feel it's a bit of a rip off with only 3 characters. We've had all 3 meals at Akershus and all 3 meals at CRT, and breakfast is still the only thing I see repeating at CRT and lunch and dinner are the only things we'd do again at Akershus. Hollywood & Vine is the oddball- we've never done lunch b/c of the bad reviews, but breakfast was on par with some of the more highly regarded character breakfasts. The only issue- it's only fun if you're into the Playhouse Disney characters. We tried 1900 PF dinner last trip and we've decided we'll only go there for breakfast. Tusker lunch is the only other character meal we haven't done, but after our bad breakfast there- nobody wants to go back.

I guess my point in posting that rambling paragraph is to prove that opinions are going to be all over the place.
 
crispy

crispy

Well-Known Member
I vote for Garden Grill because that is the best character experience we have had in recent memory. It had a nice, relatively quiet atmosphere, really good food, great service, and good character interaction.
 
Matt_Black

Matt_Black

Well-Known Member
I've only done 1900 Park Fair breakfast, but I love that, and not just because Alice once scolded my sister for bad manners. I generally enjoy face characters more than fur characters, because you can have a brief conversation and stuff, but your mileage may vary.
 
brifraz

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
I think 1900 Park Fare dinner is the best character interaction available at Disney, hands down. The Tremaines will interact with your entire party for an extended time (if you interact with them). Both step sisters have danced with my DD multiple times, once parading her (in costume) around the restaurant. The step mother has trained our family in being snooty and getting what we deserve. The prince has danced with both DD and DW. Now that DD is getting older and our trips less character experience driven, there is only one character meal we still are planning - 1900 Park Fare dinner.
 
kimrn87

kimrn87

Member
Our families personal favorite is Ohana because we love the food!! I guess it would depend on what characters you wanted to see but our reasoning is if we are going to pay more money for characters then I would like something good to eat!!
 
Mukta

Mukta

Well-Known Member
I enjoy the Cape May breakfast. The characters are great and the food was delicious. I don't think it is worth traveling for though, so I recommend it to people staying in the Epcot area.

Garden Grill was the best character interaction of my life. The food was also very fresh, high quality and plentiful.
 

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