Best Disney Dining Plan Character Meals
This list of the best-value Character Meals at Walt Disney World will help you maximize your value on the Disney Dining Plan as it ranks the character meals that would be the most expensive if you were paying out of pocket. Eating at these Disney character meals gets you the most bang for your buck and saves you the most money on the Disney Dining Plan. Taking a trip while on the Disney Dining Plan can be a great way to efficiently hit the more expensive restaurants at Walt Disney World when on a budget.
As Cinderella’s Royal Table is a two-credit experience, it’s not as good of a per-credt value character meal. If you are on the Deluxe Dining Plan or have credits that might otherwise go to waste, you should definitely consider booking Cinderella’s Royal Table. Note that it is the most sought-after restaurant at Walt Disney World, so you will need to make advance dining reservations far (as close to 180 days as possible) in advance. You will most likely not have success with walk-ups to Cinderella’s Royal Table.
For those confused as to why you’d want to eat at the most expensive restaurants possible when on the Disney Dining Plan to “save” more money, it’s really quite simple: since you pre-pay a set daily amount for the Disney Dining Plan, regardless of where you eat, you get the most value out of the Disney Dining Plan if you eat at restaurants that would be more expensive if you were paying out of pocket.
For example, if you pay $52 per person per night for the standard Disney Dining Plan, you save more money by eating dinner at the $40+ Akershus character meal than you save if you order a $9.50 burger and $8 dessert at Beaches & Cream. In the former scenario, you only have to eat a counter service meal and snack with a combined cost of $12 to break even on the Disney Dining Plan, which is very easy to do, but in the latter scenario, you’d have to eat a $30 or more counter service meal and snack just to break even on the Disney Dining Plan. This would be impossible to do. Some people aren’t concerned about saving money or maximizing their value on the Disney Dining Plan, they just use it for convenience. This list will serve those people little value. For the rest of you trying to stretch your vacation dollars as far as possible, this ranking of best-value Disney character meals on the Disney Dining Plan should prove helpful.
With that background set, let’s discuss the restaurants that made the list. Most of them are not incredibly great values in comparison to table service restaurants as a whole (with the exception of Akershus, which ranks #3 on our Table Service “Best-Value” Disney Dining Plan rankings), as most of the character meals listed here are around $36/person. This puts them just below the #10 restaurant on the aforementioned “Best-Value” list, so eating at these character meals isn’t a bad use of credits, by any means, but it’s not the absolute-best use, either.
If character dining is something that interests your party, and you’re on the Disney Dining Plan, these are definitely the restaurants you should consider if you want to maximize your value on the Disney Dining Plan.
5. Chip ‘N’ Dale’s Harvest Feast Dinner at The Garden Grill Restaurant (menu) – Garden Grill’s dinner is actually one of our favorite character meals, and for a meal with Mickey Mouse inside a theme park, it’s surprising that it’s not more popular. Garden Grill features Farmer Mickey Mouse, Chip, Dale, and Pluto. Garden Grill is a rotating restaurant in The Land pavilion in Epcot’s Future World that offers a view into the Livin’ with the Land attraction. For Disney geeks like me, this alone is a huge draw. At dinner, Garden Grill is an all-you-care-to-eat, family-style dinner, serving grilled steak, roast turkey, sustainable fish of the day, sides, and desserts. Some of the foods served are grown in The Land pavilion, which is doubly cool. The last time we dined here, the food was absolutely excellent. Family style meant a bit of a more limited menu, but I’ll gladly trade in a limited menu for delicious choices. It’s hard to call a popular character meal “underrated,” but compared to the other Mickey Mouse character meal, Garden Grill is exactly that.
4. Chef Mickey’s Dinner (menu) – Chef Mickey’s is often-considered the second-most difficult reservation dining reservation to get, right after Cinderella’s Royal Table in Cinderella Castle. This is primarily because it features “Mickey” right in the name of the restaurant, and it’s the only character meal where you can meet Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Its location (outside the parks but at a monorail resort) also increases demand. Food quality, however, does not play much of a part, as the food here is generally considered pretty good, but not great. Dinner is served buffet-style and offerings include (but are not limited to) roasted chicken, carved beef, and side items with a dessert bar that includes a sundae bar.
3. Crystal Palace Dinner (menu) – Crystal Palace is a fun restaurant, and will primarily appeal to kids interested in Winnie the Pooh. We’ve dined here a few times for both breakfast and dinner, and we prefer breakfast. This is not to say that the food at dinner is bad. Actually, it’s not by any means–it’s even better than breakfast, with options like sirloin, rotisserie chicken, and Atlantic salmon, plus plenty of sides and more desserts than you can shake a stick at. The buffet is seriously impressive, especially for a restaurant that could serve less-appetizing options and still easily fill the house given its location in the Magic Kingdom. We prefer dining here in the morning, mostly so we can enter the Magic Kingdom before the park opens for some special empty-Main Street and no-one-around Cinderella Castle photos. If you do this, you won’t get as good of a “value” on the Disney Dining Plan as you would by eating dinner here, but don’t those special photos and memories have value, too?
2. Cinderella’s Happily Ever After Dinner at 1900 Park Fare (menu) – Cinderella’s Happily Ever After Dinner in the 1900 Park Fare restaurant at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa is hosted by Disney princess Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, and Anastasia and Drisella. With a large and varied buffet that offers an array of salads, soups, pastas, prime rib, salmon, chicken marsala, and Italian sausage, plus a number of desserts, you’d think 1900 Park Fare would be a great choice. However, reviews of this restaurant are very hit-or-miss. Some people think it’s the greatest character meal ever, some people hate it. If you’re with kids, I’d imagine a big part of your decision will concern whether you have girls or boys. If you have girls who love Cinderella, it’s probably worth giving a try to see for yourself.
1. Akershus Royal Banquet Hall (menu) – Akershus is good for maximizing your value on the Disney Dining Plan if you’re looking solely at price, but one reason it’s more expensive than other character meals (the biggest reason) is because it includes a photo package. We’ve never eaten here, but we’ve heard mixed things about the food. It is located in Epcot’s Norway, so it has a bit of a more adventurous, but it’s still family-friendly, so it’s relatively tame compared to most World Showcase restaurants. Popular items include Mustard Glazed Salmon, Sauteed Chicken Breast, Kjottkaker (meatballs made of pork and beef), Vegetable Stuffed Pasta, Braised Lamb and Cabbage, and other Scandinavian specialties. The children’s menu includes standard items, such as pizza, pasta, hot dogs and grilled chicken.
So there you have it–the top character meals on the Disney Dining Plan if you’re looking to maximize your value. Although this list provides the absolute best value character meals at Walt Disney World, this is not necessarily the list of the “best” character meals on property. If you’re more concerned with booking the best meals, we recommend using this list as a starting point, but also reading some reviews of different restaurants.
Hopefully this list helps you get more bang for your buck on the Disney Dining Plan. Check out our Value-Maximizing tips for Counter Service restaurants, Table Service Restaurants, and Most Cost-Effective Disney Snacks to get even more value out of the Disney Dining Plan! If you have any tips to maximize your value at other Table Service restaurants, please share them in the comments!
12 Responses to “Best Disney Dining Plan Character Meals”
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Akershus isn’t a buffet. You do get to go up to a buffet for salads and some appetizer type dishes but it is a meal you order from a menu.
Akershus has a Buffet Breakfast.
It was a buffet when we went in the spring of 2011
Great post! Enjoyed the pix and the run down.
We love the Dining Plan, and love Character Meals … so this was a fun list to read. Only one I haven’t tried yet (of the ones mentioned) is Garden Grill – it’s on The List for next trip!
Garden Grill is definitely a must-do, especially if you like The Land pavilion!
Garden Grill was a good choice for Characters but I am not a big fan of the family style dining. Not bad food just prefer choosing my meal. To me it is exactly like Liberty Tree which did away with the characters. Wife and I still enjoy the Characters even at our age.
I have only eaten at Akershus for breakfast which was served family style, and was typical Disney. The time we got to spend with each Princess was awesome Highly recommend this meal if meeting the princess is a must, there is also value in using this “down” park time to eat and greet.
The only disappointing character meal we’ve ever had is at 1900 Park Fare for Breakfast. Each talking one took too long and we waited forever for Alice and Mary Poppins. Alice ended up skipping us which really bugged me. Shame because the food was good.
I’m surprised that 1900 Park Fare didn’t make the top 5 list! Their breakfast used to be wonderful with rice krispie treats & ice cream and all! And the characters were always good there–Mary Poppins, Alice, Mad Hatter (our favorite), Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet!!
Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House is our favorite. Honestly it is hard to screw up a breakfast buffet so the food is actually decent. We liked being able to get an early reservation and walking through an empty Animal Kingdom. The outfits that the characters are pretty cute and the “jamba juice” they serve with your meal if FANTASTIC.
Trying Tusker House with Grandkids in June looking forward to it.
We ate at the Garden Grill( dinner 2011) and enjoyed it , too. We also are a fan of Sunshine Seasons. We also liked Chef Mickeys(breakfast 2011) and Crystal Palace(dinner 2011) and Tusker House(breakfast 2011), Akershus( dinner 2007). We had good food at all of them and the characters were great! I always like the buffets for the children, and figure you can surely find them something they will eat. At 2 yrs and under they are free at the buffets! But my daughter (who had a 2 yr old at the time) had a different view & said it was nice at the Garden Grill to sit down and be served for a change instead of having to get up, like you do at the buffets, and fix her and her child a plate. We were sitting in a booth and she also enjoyed the privacy her child got with characters for pictures at the Garden Grill.