3) Garden Grove Café
You have probably heard the phrase, “damning with faint praise.” I would like to offer a corollary here. I will now praise Garden Grove Café through faint damnation. If this is one of the bottom three character meals at Walt Disney World, the company is doing a lot right in their decision making. Actually, that isn’t quite true as Garden Grove Café is located at Starwood’s Swan hotel, which is situated beside Beach Club Inn and Resort at the back door of EPCOT.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings, the hotel offers a character meal featuring Goofy and Pluto only. If breakfast is not your thing, wait for dinner and you can meet the same Disney puppies. Better yet, if you have dinner on Friday, Chip and Dale also make an appearance, doubling the selfie options. This character meal is a lot of fun. Plus, it is rarely crowded since it is a bit off the beaten path for most Disney tourists.
The only problems are obvious. Since it is not an official Disney location, the Disney Dining Plan cannot be used. Also, getting to the hotel requires a bit of a hike compared to Boardwalk Inn and Beach Club Resort. Also, you may be a cat person, so Goofy and Pluto are not your thing.
2) Donald's Safari Breakfast at Tusker House
Here come the torches and pitchforks. Yes, I realize that insulting any restaurant at Animal Kingdom is effectively a call to arms for many Disney purists. Remember, folks. I come in peace. Let me say before hitting the negatives that the outfits worn by Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Mickey at Tusker House are among the cutest of the dozen current character meal offerings. And if I were following the maxim that if you don’t have anything nice to say then say nothing at all, I should stop right there. Alas, that’s not how this process works.
Tusker House has myriad issues. Even with reservations, the wait to enter the restaurant is oftentimes preternaturally long. Since Animal Kingdom is more humid than the other parks, the staff always seems edgier and less friendly than I expect from Disney. Worst of all, the food is terrible. Your mileage may (and hopefully does) vary, but the worst eating experience I have ever had at Disney occurred at Tusker House. Since I don’t want to stand in a hot area for an extended period of time, especially when I have reservations for an hour earlier, and since I don’t like hostile employees delivering lousy food, Tusker House is on my NEVER AGAIN list of Disney restaurants. The current length of that list is one. If you love Tusker House, let me remind you of what I said in the introductory paragraph about us agreeing to disagree.
1) Disney Junior Play 'N Dine at Hollywood & Vine
Image: Disney
If you like to walk around and say, “Who is that?” a lot, this is the meal for you. Disney Junior is a character meal designed to celebrate Disney Junior characters. The problem is simple. I watch a lot of Disney Channel (don’t judge me). I know characters like Phineas, Ferb, Doofenshmirtz (I even know how to spell Doofenshmirtz), Dipper, Mabel and Grunkle Stan. I don’t watch the shows, but I know that there are people named Austin & Ally, and some dog has a blog. These are popular Disney characters. I have no idea who Doc McStuffins, Handy Manny, or Jake of the Neverland Pirates are. I do know Sofia the First, but that means that 75% of the characters at this character meal require an introduction.
Disney seems to realize that this one is a clunker, because they don’t even operate the character meal for dinner, instead substituting in a much more desirable Fantasmic package. If you want to eat at Hollywood & Vine, that option is exponentially better. Of course, I wouldn’t even recommend that, either. Hollywood & Vine shares a bathroom with 50's Prime Time Café, which makes me disinclined to visit either one. Also, the food at Hollywood & Vine is lackluster save for a solid Sundae bar. Simply stated, I don’t see many positives to this character meal, which is why it is clearly the worst of an otherwise solid group of options.
Comments
I have to respectfully disagree with you on the Disney junior play and dine...it's only the worst if you don't know disney junior. ..if you have young children who watch disney junior this characterr meal is awesome..complete with singing and dancing with the characters...by far the best for the young ones! :) and I'm thinking there is no dinner option because the age they target are probably done for the day ;)
During SW weekends this year they did a special Character dinner with Mickey and the gang dressed up like SW characters: Jedi Mickey, Princess Leia Minnie, Stormtrooper Donald, Darth Vadar Goofy and Chip and Dale as Ewoks. It was some much fun! We actually had a late Play and Dine breakfast their that morning and then dinner. We loves it! Food at both was very good. I wouldn't plan to pay that much outside of the world but you are also paying for the characters which we love. This was my daughter's first trip and my first trip in 17 years. It several years before we can afford to go back and since my daughter was almost 10 when we went so it's quite possible she will not be into the character meals next time (at least not the Junior) so hitting the character meals was a priority for us.
I was surprised to see a couple of the places on here.... ive never been to akershus but cinderella royal table was absolutely horrible... The food was horrible the atmosphere for old run down and dirty and the princesses were rude and rushed... my duaghter no longer like snow white because of our experience there.. i understand they're refurbing the place but we will NEVER go again.... complete waste of 2 TS credits.... and Tusker house and Hollywood and vine were hands down the best of the places we went. Food was great ppl were great and characters were fantastic and of you didn't know who there characters were at Hollywood and vine you obviously dont have young children. I knew who everyone of them was.... they were the whole reason we went my 2 year was super excited .... definitely will do them again.... ohana was also horrible. Food was cold. Waitress was unexcuseably slow and the characters seemed to skip over the boys.. anyhow a everyone has their own opinions and tastes in food my advice to anyone that reads this article is pay no mind to it.... try where ever you wish and form your own opinion :)
Look at the name of #1....Disney Junior....turn your tv to dinsey jr channel or dinsey channel in the morning and you will definitely know those characters. This was one of my kids favorite character meals because they got to meet and dance with their favorite characters while daddy and I watched. Definitely not the worse!
Apparently the "writer" of this article has lost touch with his inner child. And has been living under a rock. These character meals are geared towards kids who are not so jaded as to wonder if Pooh and friends are timeless. And the phenomen of Doc McStuffins has been covered in the NYT. Maybe he needs to get out more. But I need to go now, Doc MuFfins is on.