It’s time to talk turkey!
A reader comment recently prompted me to put out the feelers for the best spots to celebrate Thanksgiving in Disney World. Not surprisingly, Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Tree Tavern was suggested by most folks who responded.
Liberty Tree Tavern, in the Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square, is set up to resemble a fine patriot’s home in the 18th century.
With dark woods, vintage paintings, and even a coat and tri-cornered hat hanging by the door, you’ll feel right at home!
Now that setting might be enough to spur people to suggest Liberty Tree Tavern for Thanksgiving dinner — the atmosphere is certainly ideal for celebrating that holiday.
The (false) doorway to the Liberty Tree Tavern Home
Seating and Waiting Areas
But, the better reason to recommend it is that Liberty Tree Tavern essentially serves Thanksgiving Dinner every night! With all-you-can-eat platters of turkey, brisket, pork, mashed potatoes, stuffing, veggies, and macaroni and cheese served family style, you certainly can’t go wrong here.
Rolls and Honey Butter
Salad
Roast Pork, Turkey and Beef with Cornbread Stuffing and Chutney
Close-up - Roast Pork, Turkey and Beef
Mashed Potatoes
Carrots
Beans
Mac and Cheese
Johnny Appleseed Cake with Craisins and Ice Cream
And although the Thanksgiving-specific offerings change each year at Disney World, here’s a photo of one reader’s Liberty Tree Tavern Thanksgiving meal:
Thanksgiving Meal
You can book now for Thanksgiving evening, but I haven’t yet seen any specifics of the Thanksgiving offerings at Disney World come over the airwaves. Most table-service restaurants do offer some sort of special Thanksgiving meal.
Other Suggestions
While Liberty Tree Tavern was the most-suggested restaurant, the two runners-up were Artist Point, at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort, and Germany’s Biergarten, at Epcot’s World Showcase.
Other restaurants that were mentioned include: California Grill, Crystal Palace, ‘Ohana, Le Cellier, Jiko, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Garden Grill, ESPN Zone (for the Game!), and Akershus.
Be sure to check out the other “Best Disney World Restaurants” posts in this series!
Thanks to T Holland for sharing her photo!
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Very nice foofie shots and good article AJ! Food looks delicious…
The Liberty Tree is already booked for Thanksgiving 2009. I called 84 days out from my trip (which starts November 25) to book for Thanksgiving, and it was already booked for the entire day, as was the Crystal Palace.
I suggest the Grand Floridian Cafe- a short monorail ride from MK and always overlooked. Good food!
James: Thanks!
Sarah: Bummer! I had no idea. I guess this is a blog in preparation for NEXT year’s Thanksgiving dinner… 😉 I just received some photos of the California Grill’s Thanksgiving Dinner as well, which I’ll put up soon. Maybe that will entice folks…
Thanks for the Grand Floridian Cafe suggestion!
I too tried after many suggestions to eat this year @ Liberty Tree House but I will at ‘Ohana’s for T-day dinner
We did Biergarten for Thanksgiving the other year (my parents first in FL!) Like Sarah G, we tried Liberty Tree first and it was booked. When we gave everything another thought, we discovered that many of the restaurants add Turkey and traditional foods to their menus that day. Biergarten was one. It was great for us because on top of Turkey they had a lot of OUR traditional Thanksgiving foods since our family’s heritage is German (PA Dutch actually!) So it was great to have the German Potato Salad and some of the different German desserts too! It was like having Thanksgiving at home, except we were in Disney!
Everytime someone is looking for a place for Thanksgiving at Disney, I always recommend to them to take a look at the Epcot restaurants. If their heritage is represented, try to get an ADR at that country!
In 2007, I ate at Boatwrights in Port Orleans for THanksgiving, (this was before we were DISNEY OBESSED), and it was really good
Great job AJ with your suggestions and the pics are good too. Maybe some folks will share their past experiences. Thanks!
Hi~
Has anyone had Thanksgiving dinner at Tony’s Town Square? We also tried to reserve Liberty, but were unsuccessful, so we booked Tony’s..we love the regular menu there so I’m hoping Turkey Day is just as good!
Kristine,
Haven’t had Thanksgiving at Tony’s, but I love sitting on the patio there and watching the Spectromagic parade. Hopefully you’ll get the chance to do that!
Well, here it is already time for the NEXT Thanksgiving, and I still didn’t give myself enough time to get into Liberty Tree Tavern! (165 days ahead) I really should have paid more attention to the 180 day counter. The pictures above look great, so maybe I’ll do a better job keeping track of time for 2011 or later 🙂
Instead, I made reservations at 50’s Prime Time, which was a restaurant we had wanted to hit on our trip anyway. In the past they’ve had Thanksgiving meals, hopefully that will be true again this year. (I see a lot of web pages listing special menus for Thanksgiving 2009, but couldn’t find concrete info for 2010 — maybe I’m not the only one who finds it too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving.)
Keith — I think 50’s prime time will be an awesome Thanksgiving experience! Good choice!
Keep trying to get Liberty Tree if you still want it. I just made 2 reservations today for Liberty Tree on Thanksgiving. We just decided yesterday to go to WDW for Thanksgiving. This will be our first Thanksgiving away from home. Just keep trying several times a day…you never know what will pop up. Also, can anyone tell me how busy it will be in the parks?
We had an AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner at Cape May Cafe this year. They had all of their usual clambake dinner fare, as well as Thanksgiving favorites like turkey breast, sweet potatoes, dressing/stuffing, etc. Everything was superbly executed and we all felt it was the best Thanksgiving dinner we have ever had (and I am a very good cook!) They even had some pumpkin caramel cheesecake tarts and some other special dessert treats.
We liked Cape May Cafe so much we canceled an ADR at Garden Grill later that week so we could dine at Cape May again. That meal was not as perfect as our Thanksgiving meal, but still awesome!
Brian — Thanks for the encouragement! How were the crowds at Thanksgiving time?
Laurin — What a great review! Thanks for the tip on Cape May for Thanksgiving!
AJ, we were in WDW last year for Thanksgiving. I made reservations at Liberty Tree Tavern only to find out I had made it on Wednesday NOT Thursday which left me scrambling for a Thanksgiving reservation. We wound up at The Wave, which altered their menu for Thanksgiving. We had a very plesant meal there, and it was very good. Not Liberty Tree good, but enjoyable.
We have had Thanksgiving dinner twice at Whispering Canyons in the Wilderness Lodge, and we love it! Family style…great food…fun atmosphere. Perfect, especially if you have a large group.
Rachel — Awesome! Thank you so much for the review 🙂 At least you got to go to LTT that week 🙂
Jody — Great idea! I love that place! Thanks for sharing!
Just made my ADR’s online, 180 days out. Got everything I wanted except Liberty Tree. I called and they found some pixie dust and I got Thanksgiving Day dinner! Yay!!
Susan — That’s awesome! Congrats!!
I’ve been researching this a bit lately and also saw 50’s Prime Time Cafe as a recommendation. I’d imagine Liberty Tree would be the closest to authentic, though. But yikes! Wouldn’t have thought the dining reservation would need to be made….like now!
Cathy — Yep, 50’s would be a blast, too. And most Disney restaurants have a turkey-ish dish on the menu that night, so just about anywhere will be able to offer you the Thanksgiving standards. I’m also about to put up a guest review of Thanksgiving at Mickey’s Backyard BBQ, so if that tempts you and the little one… 😉
I found this on an another disney-fan site that posted the Thanksgiving menus for 2011:
http://allears.net/menu/men_thks.htm
thought others might find it helpful if the were trying to decide where to eat on turkey day
Thanks, Nicole! We’re big All Ears fans! 🙂
I have spent several Thanksgivings at Disney and recall Captain Jacks has having a VERY incredible Thanksgiving Day meal. That’s actually been the only times I’ve eaten at Captain Jacks at Downtown Disney, but loved that choice for Thanksgiving.
I really enjoyed my dinner here. My boyfriend and I are from Italy and we do not celebrate thanksgiving, this was an amazing way to experience that. Let me talk to you about those bread rolls THEY ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD, every time they brought us the rolls they were warm and soft, the butter was good. The salad dressing was amazing (I am definitely not a salad eater at WDW) and the Mac and cheese, YUMMY. We ate there twice in our 15 days trip. I recommend it, specially to international guests that doesn’t experience thanksgiving in their hometown.
We went to Olivia’s at the Old Key West Resort last year. I was so yummy!
The food is wonderful and authentic EXCEPT FOR the cranberry sauce. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to cranberry sauce and I always make my own! Our server said it wasn’t very popular. I can tell you how to fix that: take out whatever “spice” you’re putting in it. All you need is cranberries, sugar and water. That’s it. Make it with those three ingredients and not so runny and I’ll bet it will be more popular. If you need help, call me. 🙂
We had turkey for lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern, very good, but the cranberry sauce was exceptional, we had to ask for it, they said they don’t serve it unless you ask for it….if you like cranberry sauce at all you will love it!…we make our own every year, but this was just as good if not better…more like a chutney.
We have had our Thanksgiving meal at Cape May. We’ve never been disappointed!
They even have a delicious Gluten Free Stuffing and Dairy free mashed potatoes that were so yummy!
I’m a little sad that Tables in Wonderland is not an option on most of the holidays now. Makes me want to schedule a less expensive meal on Thursday, then pick a nicer option a day later.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Victoria and Albert’s . The had a special Thanksgiving Day Menu of 10 courses, in the Queen’s room. It was yummy and worth the splurge.