food IS a theme park
As Disney World takes steps to reopen more restaurants around the parks, they’ve also started reopening buffets.
Welcome back to buffets at Crystal Palace!
Although dining already returned to Magic Kingdom’s Crystal Palace in December of 2020, the buffet had yet to reopen. After several other buffets have reopened in Disney World, such as Boma in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge and Biergarten in EPCOT, it’s now Crystal Palace’s turn!
In 2015, Minnie Mouse started a brand new holiday celebration: Minnie’s Hollywood & Vine Holiday Dine in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
This buffet celebrates the season with flavors that bring the comfort and warmth of the holiday to your plate. And there are characters! In their holiday attire! With sparkly shoes!
Sorry, that was a lot of exclamation points. But the punctuation expresses our love for the overall experience at Minnie’s Holiday Dine. Though the decor is relatively subtle (just a sparkly Christmas tree and some wraps on the pillars), the opportunity to meet Santa Goofy and to mingle with Minnie, Mickey, Daisy, and Donald is fantastic.
As character meals go, this is one of the more underrated options at Walt Disney World. Perhaps because it’s tucked into a Park rather than in a generally more accessible Resort setting, Hollywood & Vine is oft forgotten by guests planning their Disney World dining. Breakfast at Hollywood & Vine features Disney Junior pals, and lunch and dinner are now Minnie’s Seasonal dining; in addition to the Holiday Dine, Minnie also celebrates spring, summer, and Halloween! (See — even Minnie knows it’s Halloween and straight into Christmas. Sorry, Thanksgiving!)
Welcome to Hollywood & Vine!
Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays — let’s go eat!
In the pantheon of Walt Disney World character meals, 1900 Park Fare at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa has not historically been one of our favorites.
It’s passable, with food that will fill you up even if it’s otherwise lackluster. And the atmosphere is in keeping with the Victorian stylings of the Resort, which many guests really embrace and enjoy.
There are characters at breakfast and dinner that cover a lot of ground. The Supercalifragilistic Breakfast brings Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Tigger together in an inexplicable mash-up of British-y and colorful characters. Cinderella’s Happily Ever After Dinner is a little more thematic, with Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, and Drizella.
Afternoons from 2PM to 3PM, 1900 Park Fare transforms for guests age 4-12 into the Wonderland Tea Party. This party is hosted by Alice in Wonderland and a couple of her friends and features apple juice masquerading as tea, the chance to decorate a cupcake, and a few fun games. Click here to read more about it!
Of all the options, the dinner line-up of characters offer the most fun for grown-ups, with Lady Tremaine and the Step-Sisters bringing the funny. But are the characters worth the price…and has the food improved since our last visit?
1900 Park Fare Decor
To get to 1900 Park Fare, you’ll need to find your way to the Grand Floridian Resort, located on the monorail loop and right next door to Magic Kingdom. [Read more…]
Jambo
from Disney’s Animal Kingdom!
Time to visit one of our favorite character dining locations: Tusker House! Tusker House is located in Animal Kingdom’s African village of Harambe and offers a character buffet for breakfast and lunch and a “family style dinner buffet” (really just a buffet — no family style service), also with characters!
One added element of dining at Tusker House is the opportunity to reserve the Rivers of Light Dining Package here, which saves a seat at Animal Kingdom’s newly-revamped Rivers of Life: We Are One nighttime spectacular. Generally, the price differential between the character meal and the dining package is pretty small here, so you may find it’s worth the slight splurge to score that reserved seating.
We weren’t after the Dining Package this time, but we sure were excited to see if the food and experience at Tusker House lived up to its past quality. And we ended up eating TWO full meals at once, which we really didn’t expect! (Read on to find out how we did it!)
Tusker House Entrance
Tusker House is a charming restaurant located on your left-hand side in Harambe as you head toward Kilimanjaro Safaris. Check in is at a stand near the Dawa Bar, and you’ll be given a pager. Here you’re welcome to glance at the menu — but keep in mind it’s pretty generic because it’s a buffet! (Don’t worry: we’ll get more specific, and we have photos of EVERYTHING below!)
If you’re planning to celebrate Easter at Walt Disney World, Ale & Compass at the Yacht Club Resort is offering a brunch!
Ale & Compass Restaurant sign by the entrance
Similar to breakfast at Ale & Compass, brunch will include the choice of an entree and access to a buffet packed with brunch items like yogurt parfaits, smoked salmon, Parker House rolls, wedge salad, flatbreads, and more! [Read more…]
Welcome Guest Reviewer Katie Drake as she transports us to a by-gone era and the world of Winnie the Pooh!
Couldn’t snag a reservation with the princesses at the Castle? Why not try the Palace down the street?!
The Magic Kingdom’s Crystal Palace may not boast any Disney movie royalty, but it does have everyone’s favorite friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, available for meet and greets all day long. Most guests take advantage of the scrumptious breakfast offerings, but the restaurant is one of the few at Walt Disney World that offers character meals three times a day, and lunch and dinner have several tasty offerings.
After walking down Main Street U.S.A., visitors are in a turn-of-the-century frame of mind, and taking a bit of refreshment in the conservatory sounds perfectly delightful. With it’s airy walls of windows and greenery throughout, the Crystal Palace feels like a Victorian greenhouse, but with plenty of AC cranking to keep the heat and humidity at bay.
Guests must wait outside on the veranda until their table is ready, the air stirred by [Read more…]
We’ve been reporting the news, and now I get to share the pics with you! The Wave…of American Flavors in Disney World’s Contemporary Resort has a brand new meal — a breakfast buffet! They’ve been testing it since December, and according to one of the managers I had a chance to speak with, it looks like it’s going to stay. I’m glad to hear it; the buffet is delicious.
Atmosphere and Background
As we know, The Wave focuses on a sustainable menu full of local products. In fact, The Wave was just approved to change their menu every few months — they’re one of the only non-signature restaurants able to do this — so that they can offer an even wider variety of seasonal, local ingredients. I’m looking forward to the updates!
Contemporary Resort's The Wave Restaurant
Regarding atmosphere, you can see a lot of great photos of the restaurant in our review of dinner at The Wave here. But here’s a quick pic from this week that shows that the [Read more…]
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