UPDATE
: When Tusker House switched to a character meal for lunch in 2011, the Finding Nemo Package seating was discontinued. As always, things change often in Disney, so be sure to ask your reservations agent for details.
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I am so pleased to bring you this post by guest author Michele (also known as @MyMuse18 on the twitter) all about Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House Finding Nemo package (i.e. — book lunch at Tusker House and get reserved seating at the Finding Nemo Musical. Take it away, Michele!
After my fun-filled Backstage Safari tour, a Hidden Mickey hunt through Camp Minnie-Mickey, and strolling through Asia, it was time for my dining reservation at Tusker House! By making a reservation between 1:00-1:45pm specifically, I also received a reserved seating voucher for the 3:15 showing of “Finding Nemo: The Musical.”
I checked in at the outdoor podium and had just enough time to watch a dance lesson. One of the dancers even posed for me!
Dance Lesson at Tusker House
A Dancer Poses for Michele
After watching all this dancing excitement, I went into the waiting area behind Tusker House and took some photos.
Tusker House Outdoor Themeing
Tusker House Outdoor Themeing
Soon, I was called into Tusker House and took my seat. It wasn’t overly busy, so it was very relaxing. Here are a few photos from the seating area:
Tusker House Main Seating Areas
Themeing of the Ceiling at Tusker House
Tusker House Decor
I quickly headed over to the buffet area, which is well-themed to an African market:
Tusker House Buffet Area
Ceiling of the Tusker House Buffet Area
The food was very good. I know most of the reviews are positive about Tusker House, and it is most definitely true.
I tried to have a little taste of almost everything — there was pork tenderloin marinated in coffee (heaven!), several kinds of rice, salmon, curry chicken, breads, corn nuggets, mashed & roasted wedge potatoes. My favorites were the chicken curry, salmon, roasted wedge potatoes, and rice. Here’s a photo of my choices along with my Backstage Safari cup!
Lunch Choices
I never did finish this fantastic food as I wanted to leave room for dessert. I chose to try a brownie, spicy carrot cake, bread pudding with glaze, and fruit cobbler. I didn’t finish this either, but all the desserts were very well made. Delicious!
Dessert Choices
I couldn’t help taking a few more photos of the decor before I headed out to Finding Nemo:
Dining Area Ceiling
Departing Safari List
No Smoking Sign
After the meal I was so stuffed I practically rolled out of the place! I headed to the Theater in the Wild in DinoLand to watch the Finding Nemo Musical. My reserved seating was to the right of the theater, and the reserved seating section took up the entire lower half of the rows. I sat on the ramp side about 3 rows from the stage.
As a solo person, the Tusker House lunch cost $26.42 including tip & tax (March 4, 2010 prices). The meal took slightly over an hour. As a side note for how filling the food was, I never did eat anything more that day — including dinner.
I can happily recommend Tusker House for lunch!
Thanks to Michele for this great review! I can’t ever stop taking pictures of the Tusker House decor, either!
What do you think? Have you been to Tusker House for lunch? Would you recommend it? Let us know in the comments section below!
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We did this last june when it first started. It was fantastic, we really enjoyed it sooo much that we have booked to do it again on this coming trip. Ive been recommending it no end.
I went to dinner and was pleasantly surprised. Although if I was going for that type of meal, I would probably choose Boma.
I haven’t eaten lunch there, but we did do breakfast there a couple years back. The whole experience wasn’t really conducive to us doing it a second time. The food wasn’t bad, but it paled in comparison to the breakfast offerings at Boma, which this place clearly aspires to be like (and, again, falls short). Plus, the service and character interaction were extremely rushed.
To be sure, the wife and I (with no kids) are far from being authorities on character dining, but we feel fairly justified in comparing the Tusker House character dining experience to the only other character meal we’ve ever eaten: breakfast at the Crystal Palace. There, the service and character interaction was not at all perfunctory. In fact, our interactions with the Pooh characters at Crystal Palace were – dare I say it? – inspired. At Tusker House? Eh, not so much. (“Perfunctory” is the word that leaps to mind.)
Again, we’ve only eaten there once, and only for breakfast, but in our opinion, there are better character dining choices out there (Crystal Palace), and if you’re interested in trying out a good (read: excellent) buffet featuring the foods of Africa, you’d be better served actually taking a bus over to the AKL and eating at Boma, instead of staying in the park and settling for Boma Lite.
Oh, that’s meeeee!
Thank you for posting the review AJ. I can’t say enough good things about the experience.
I should have also noted that my server was very attentive. I don’t know if it was because he was concerned that I was solo or the fact he thought i was a little touched since I kept on taking photos of my food. 😉
I hope I get to experience the breakfast here someday.
-Michele
That pork looks very yummy. Sadly, my other half hates buffets. *sigh*
On our first couple of visits we did breakfast at Tusker house with our grandchildren. Had a great time. On our third visit decided to go there for dinner as we enjoyed our breakfasts. Definitely a different experience. The food was good but our service was terrible. We were led to our table by a gentleman who had no personality (unusual for Disney) There was no interaction and acted like he was totally bored. Our waitress was not much better. Saw her only when she took our order and our food was served. Never came back to see if we would like another drink or how we were doing. Had to flag her down to get our bill and acted like we were bothering her. If the place was full and she was extremely busy might have had an excuse but is wasn’t. The only time I felt the 18 percent tip was not deserved. Have not been back since.