Can 3 adults get reasonably through breakfast at Crystal Palace and meet the 4 characters in 45 minutes, or is a full hour necessary to block out for time?
NO, it will take way longer than that if you want to see characters. The last time we ate there, we didn’t see all characters in 90 minutes. We ended up leaving after that time and only had two characters come by our table. The restaurant is quite large and it takes awhile for characters to get to you. Others may have a different experience.
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geez, an hour and a half? what time of day was your meal? That seems like such a massive waste of park time… I know piglet and eeyore are only at that location but wow.
Nope. Plan double that. Characters are very slow here. We left once without even seeing all because it was taking so long.
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We have not been at breakfast but have had lunch there twice. We prefer to use TS as an afternoon break so I wasn’t rushing. Both times we had to wait on the porch for seating beyond our ADR time and it took about an hour after being seated to see the characters. For planning purposes, I’d block 90 min and then if you are faster, bonus time.
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We’ve done PPO, late morning and dinner. All three times it took 90 and once we left without seeing all (PPO). By late morning breakfast was some kind of cluster too such that restaurant manager got involved and characters were moving about the place willie nilly I think because some families were upset it was taking so long so they brought characters to them out of order so they could get in with their day.
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Well this is devastating news… Have a 10:30am ADR and a 10:45-11:45 FPP for Splash. FML. Thought this would be a nice 45min thing.
Every character meal I’ve done has been a minimum of 90 minutes. Our ADR was for 5:05. Took about 20 minutes to get seated and then the 90 minutes of eating and character waiting. You’ll never make that FP. We can’t do a QS in 45 minutes much less a character meal.
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ok, so this is all new info to me, as everything else I’ve read online said 45-60 min. here’s my TS lineup:
Crystal Palace 10:30am
Garden Grill 8:00am
Biergarten 4:00pm
Mama Melrose 12:30pm
Tusker House 4:50pm
San Angel Inn 4:30pm
Cinderella’s Royal Table 8:00am
The Plaza Restaurant 11:30am
Be Our Guest 4:30pm
Y’all really telling me these ALL should be 90 minutes on my TP? Why would anyone get a PPO breakfast and say that you can get on a ride a 8:45 if these meals are 90 minutes? I am now scared to death that I just screwed my entire trip’s worth of Fastpasses.
I would say that for Garden Grill you could be downstairs for Soarin at 9. I would plan an hour for the others that aren’t character meals. Although, In my experience Mama Melrose and BOG took a long time. Cinderella would probably also be about an hour and a half since you take a picture first and then all the princesses came around. It is too pricey to rush through as well I think or not enjoy it because you will be stressed.
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8am Garden Grill- arrive at 7:45. Ask for your check as soon as you order your drinks. The waiters there know you ate trying to get to Soarin, so they expect this. We have done the 8am ADR probably 5 times in the last 18 months- always done by 8:35 or 8:40. You will get on Soarin wel before the rope drop crowds arrive, sometimes we get 2 rides before they get there. Once we rode with maybe 12 other people total.
We do plan 90 minutes for all other character meals, and 60 for non-character meals.
Exception was CRT last year for dinner- we were in and out in 70 minutes. Surprising actually, and yes it felt very rushed. It seemed like they were in a hurry to get people moved out as quickly as possible. Not impressed for the price!
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I always budget a minimum of 90 minutes for a table service restaurant. If I’m paying that much for a meal, I’m not going to rush through it. We waited at least 30+ minutes to get seated after checking in at Tusker House. It was long enough that we had time for two drinks at the bar outside. At Be Our Guest dinner we were seated almost immediately (6:20 reservation) in October but have had to wait as well. We were in the restaurant for about two hours by choice but could have been done in 75-90. DH and I both had two glasses of wine and enjoyed the break from the heat. For character meals, the characters move from table to table, one character at a time, so you may be waiting for some to hit EVER table in the restaurant before they get to you. The 45-60 minutes you saw may have been for QS restaurants and not TS.
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I always book in 90 mins for TS. Sorry to be bearer of bad news. Sometimes we’re out of there in shorter order, but scheduling 90 minutes allows for time if they are running behind, characters are slow (where applicable) or the meal itself takes longer or we want to linger.
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Made all my fast passes yesterday… boy do i wish I had asked this question on Saturday
See what you can move. You may find ADRs easier to move in some cases, FPP in others. Remember that all you need is for your FPP to overlap so if you can’t get all at the same start time, as long as you get all within that hour you’re good.
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I forgot about that little trick… get three separate FPP, but with overlapping times and arrive together. It may take some math but I bet I could pull that one off. My problem on our first day is that I scheduled a Family Photo sesh in the castle rose garden area and it’s at 10.00am. It’s only 15 min, but then Crystal Palace at 10:30, and thinking I was cleaver, made my Splash Mtn FPP for 10:45, think we would get there toward the end of the hour, thus allowing us to hop over to BTM right after. Looks like we may have to sacrifice splash tho, unless I can find overlapping passes for later in the day. I got too greedy and overzealous…
Yeah that’s going to be tough to make if you want to see all the chars.
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My other option is to move the photo session. I chose the first morning nap there’s less chance of sweatiness and sunburns, but it may be what I need to do.
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If you made FP yesterday, modify them now. If you are at day 59, you still should have a large selection of FP times.
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Just took a leap of faith and modified my fast passes one at a time and got 12:55pm for SM for all three of us! so now I have plenty of time to make breakfast a 90 minute plan and take it easy on the afternoon attractions. Thank you all SO much for all the advice. I’m gonna go through my whole week and make the proper adjustments and hopefully I’m a little wiser going into this! 
️
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