I have one TS meal left and was trying to decide between Chef Mickey’s for brunch or Garden Grill for lunch? The character interaction won’t matter much for my kids. (So no factoring in character experience needed)
I can’t decide which will be a better experience. If we do Chef Mickey’s we will have to go via monorail. How difficult is that?
If we go with Garden Grill we will end have having two TS meals in one day. One at 11:30 and the other would be a 5:30 at Epcot. We’ve never done two TS meals one the same day. I’m a little concerned that could interfere with our time to enjoy EPCOT.
Where are you staying? If you did Chef Mickey’s is it on an “off” day? What if you did GG on your Epcot day but did breakfast instead to give more time between meals? And if you did PPO then it wouldn’t interfere with your touring time…
How old are your kids? Do you have other character meals planned? There are so many factors when making a decision, lol!
The kids range from 6-9. If we did Chef Mickey’s it would be one our MK days. (Half our group is already doing Be our Guest and Skippers Canteen this trip. We also have a crystal Palace breakfast scheduled for another MK day.) The only available reservations at this point for our day are the Plaza, Tony’s, Liberty, and Crystal Palace for lunch. (Going in June) I thought of doing the Plaza, but it doesn’t seem like the best use of a dining credit. We don’t like Liberty. Never have tried Tony’s, but hear bad things about that one. Didn’t want to do Crystal Palace twice.
I think it would be less stressful to do a TS meal on our MK day than to do two TS meals on our Epcot day (which is why I’m leaning away from Garden Grill, plus I can’t get garden grill for breakfast at this point.) We are also doing Ohana’ character breakfast another day of our trip. So for me at this point, the characters won’t factor into our decision.
We are staying at Coronado and I considered doing Maya Grill, however, we are doing a mexican restaurant the following day at Epcot. HAHA. So like you said…SO MANY FACTORS!
Wow, yes, so many factors. Well, I’ll start by saying that I haven’t been to WDW in almost 20 years, so I’m here planning my first trip as a real adult and in the same boat as you…trying to make all the decisions!
That being said, Chef Mickey’s get horrible reviews for food. But I’m with you…doing a meal on the monorail loop on an MK day sounds like a good plan. If you go with two meals on your Epcot day I’d try for breakfast. Have you looked into 1900 Park Fare? The food there gets better reviews than CM. That’s the one I’ve decided to do for one of our MK days. You could do dinner (it starts at 4) or breakfast.
There’s also the Bon Voyage breakfast which isn’t in Epcot but is nearby…if you did want to do a breakfast on your Epcot day that might be a good one to try for. It seems to have more availability than the character meals inside Epcot. I think if you’re set on GG or CM I’d go for CM for brunch, even though the food isn’t supposed to be spectacular. I’d prefer a breakfast on the Epcot day for convenience sake (not having to leave the park just for a meal) but I wouldn’t want to eat two TS meals that close to each other.
I love Garden Grill. It was surprisingly my favorite restaurant. The food was great, the moving restaurant was fun, the characters were great.
Epcot is the only place I have two TS restaurants too. I will say that the park is HUGE. It was really nice to have a place to sit down and rest twice a day (we are going in August.)
Well that’s nice to know I’m not the only one considering two TS meals at Epcot. It’s known for such good food. It’s hard to not book two TS meals there. I’m just concerned we will be too stuffed to enjoy two meals. Maybe I’ll keep hoping I can get Garden Grill for breakfast.