Character Meal Overkill?

Last week we did: Crystal Palace (Pooh), Storybook Dining (Snow White), garden grill (chip and dale plus Mickey and goofy), ackershus (princesses), and Tusker House (Donald and Daffy Duck plus Mickey and goofy). I definitely felt charactered out but also just ADRed out (we also ate at Sana’a, Homecomin, Skipper Canteen, bog breakfast, and yak & yeti). Kids were excited to see new characters but not into seeing repeats like Mickey and goofy again.
Garden grill ppo breakfast was my favorite, followed by storybook dining.

We simply like eating. Especially breakfasts. Particularly buffets.

Having the characters is like a meal and a show. How can you go wrong?

Well, they’re expensive. Still I’ll save and factor in the time.

With littles - like 2 yrs old - we got better character interaction at character meals.

We even booked a supper at Akershus in Epcot. Had two 7 yrs old, boy and girl. Everyone was surprised to discover the boy really liked Aurora.

Our favorites are Crystal Palace breakfast, Cape May breakfast, Tusker House breakfast, and 1900 Park Fair supper. Upcoming trip we’re leaving out Tusker House and adding lunch at Garden Grill - last time here was 1998. Also returning to Akershus for supper, last here in 2012. Wanted to do 'Ohana at breakfast but couldn’t get it to fit in the schedule.

Would love to try Bon Voyage breakfast at the Boardwalk and Storybook supper at Wilderness Lodge someday.

We do Chef Mickey’s about once every ten years and have no plans to do CRT. Hollywood & Vine is another we do only occasionally. But then we don’t eat much at HS.

The nice thing about Disney is you can do what works for you. Folks we know go and snack most of the 5 days they’re there. We’d be cranky messes. We need a meal at least once a day. Lately we’ve warmed up to breakfasts at 10:30. But don’t tell anyone. We don’t want a crowded meal . . .

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I love this and can relate!

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lol we are the exact opposite of this - we are not breakfast people at all - planning on using snack credits for breakfast - then we are doing 1 table service per day then filling in with QS as needed. We are on the DDP.

We are doing - CRT, Tusker House (ROL pkg), H&V(fantamic pkg), Crystal Palace, Akershus and BOG - still hoping for Storybook to pop up.

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My thoughts exactly!

I have three boys and none of them care about princesses, so I am fortunate I don’t need to worry about that. We all enjoy meeting the other characters but have no desire to stand in line to do so when we could be riding rides. Plus, we love buffet, so character meals are a no-brainer for us. Our last trip, we did Crystal Palace, Chef Mickey’s, Tusker House and H&V (but only as a PPO to sign up for Jedi training). I felt the food was fine at all of them.

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We did several character meals in January! We have a 6yr old boy and (at the time) 10yr old boy… they were very satisfied with character buffets! the two we would definitely repeat are Garden Grill breakfast and 1900 Park Fare Dinner (gummi bears on the dessert bar were a huge hit with my boys). We thought the food was great at both. My boys really liked the character interaction at Hollywood & Vine! We had an 11a.m. ADR and it made the food fresh! They had a jasmine and something rice that I realllllly liked, but not my guys… DH and boys are very picky eaters!
Our Character Meals were: Garden Grill, Crystal Palace, 1900 Park Fare, Hollywood & Vine.
We thought they were a great use of our Table Service credits and would re-book most in the future should we choose to be on the regular dining plan (and it will likely happen for our February 2020 trip).
Crystal Palace took the longest starting with seating well after ADR time (5pm). The server took forever to come scan our bands, take down drinks, to deliver them and to bring the ddp “check”. Additionally, we did not get refills on drinks. However, character interactions were timely and food was hot and plentiful. I would not rebook this one unless specifically requested by the boys.

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