More Character Restaurants Opening at Disney World in Summer 2021
Walt Disney World has just announced the reopening of a few fan-favorite character restaurants at Animal Kingdom, Contemporary Resort, and Beach Club just in time for Summer 2021. In this post, we’ll offer dates and details, plus what else we can expect from WDW dining for the next few months.
We love to eat at Walt Disney World, and the reduced restaurant lineup and scaled back menus have been among our biggest post-reopening disappointments. Physical distancing is the big “culprit” there, both in terms of seating for guests in the dining rooms and for Cast Members in kitchens and behind the scenes.
Walt Disney World’s dining woes have been exacerbated in the last few months. Advance Dining Reservations have become increasingly difficult to score as park attendance and hotel occupancy rates have increased. Adding insult to injury, venturing off-site for a meal isn’t a viable alternative for many guests, as Uber and rental car shortages can make the prices on both a non-starter. It’s thus great news any time Walt Disney World announces the return of additional restaurants. Here’s the trio that’ll soon be back…
Beginning May 16, Chef Mickey’s will offer an all-you-care-to-enjoy family-style dinner that will include “no touch” appearances like snapping a selfie or waving hello as Mickey Mouse and some of his favorite pals make surprising appearances in each of the dining rooms. Similar to other character dining locations, guests will take home a souvenir with character signatures and colorful artwork.
The Chef Mickey’s dinner menu will offer items for the whole family, including starters of Chef Mickey’s Caesar, citrus-poached shrimp salad, and assorted breads; main courses of gnocchi, roasted garlic potato gratin, plant-based faro wheat fried rice, prime rib, roasted turkey, and salmon; and an assortment of sweets to top off the meal. Kids can enjoy mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, turkey corn dog nuggets, and more.
Next up, Cape May Café at Disney’s Beach Club Resort reopens on May 18, 2021! This is a couple of weeks before the hotel side of Beach Club reopens (see 2021 Walt Disney World Hotel Reopening Dates), but with guests of Yacht Club and Beach Club Villas, plus those nearby at the Skyliner Resorts, we’d expect this to be a popular, hard-to-get ADR from the outset.
Guests returning to Cape May Café will find old favorites and new changes, along with its signature service and quality when the restaurant reopens for breakfast and dinner. Unfortunately, the Minnie’s Beach Bash Character Breakfast and the Seafood-and-More Dinner Buffet will not return to Cape May Café at reopening. (If you recall, Chef Mickey’s also debuted without characters its first couple months back–our expectation is that characters will return on a similar timeline at Cape May Café.)
The all-you-care-to enjoy family-style breakfast menu will feature popular staples like pastries (including the layered crispy, cream-filled “Lobster Tail”), omelets, and Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse waffles. Highlights from dinner will include house-made Parker House rolls and corn bread, a seafood boil with a variety of fresh seafood, The Turf Platter with steak and chicken, and lobster mac & cheese.
Advance Dining Reservations for both Cape May Café and dinner at Chef Mickey’s will open on May 7, 2021. We would highly recommend marking your calendars and booking ADRs for either or both immediately if you want to dine at these restaurants between now and July 2021.
Finally, Tusker House Restaurant will reopen at Animal Kingdom sometime this summer. No official date or menu specifics have been revealed, but Walt Disney World indicates they will share more about the menu and reservation information soon.
During the modified character experience, guests will enjoy delicious family-style entrees inspired by the flavors of Africa and can snap photos of Donald Duck and friends, dressed in their safari best as they promenade through the restaurant.
In terms of commentary, let’s start with the backdrop against which this announcement is coming. Earlier this week, Walt Disney World announced the College Program is returning in June 2021 and also released new discounts for Summer & Fall 2021. If you already read either or both of those articles, you already know where we’re going with this, but many fans likely skipped both, deeming the College Program or resort discounts irrelevant to them.
However, the implications and subtext of both pieces of news are incredibly relevant to all Walt Disney World guests, as well as this story. Walt Disney World still hasn’t reopened all of its resorts, restaurants, and other offerings. At this point, that’s primarily due to difficulties filling the necessary positions. This trend is hardly unique to Florida or Disney—you’ve probably seen similar stories on your local news about the hospitality industry having a tough time finding workers.
The issue is pronounced in Orlando since a lot of people are transplants, many of whom might’ve left the region when unemployment skyrocketed last spring and job openings dried up. Moreover, the student programs are still on hiatus, so those sources of “renewable” labor are absent. All of that presents significant issues for Walt Disney World, especially given the sheer volume of employees necessary to scale up operations, and Disney’s slower pace at hiring than local competitors.
That’s why the return of the College Program on an accelerated timeline is so significant. While Walt Disney World would find it nearly impossible to hire thousands of new employees from the local labor pool, the College Program sidesteps that predicament, enabling Disney to much more easily attract and hire tons of fresh young faces as part of a nationwide initiative.
The indirect consequence of the College Program’s prompt return will be enabling more restaurants, resorts, etc. to reopen at Walt Disney World, likely starting in July 2021. Going a step further, I’d fully expect almost all of Walt Disney World’s current staffing woes to work themselves out one way or another by mid-September 2021.
That’s great news for tourists planning trips in late summer or for the start of the World’s Most Magical Celebration on October 1, 2021. What about those with Walt Disney World vacations scheduled in the next couple of months?
In my view, this is decidedly less-than-stellar news. While we’ve been applauding every incremental step towards normalcy at Walt Disney World, it’s tough to be excited about the near-term prospects on the dining front. The reality is that Walt Disney World could reopen a dozen more restaurants today and it still wouldn’t satisfy all of the current demand. Advance Dining Reservation and Walk-up Waitlist availability have both gotten difficult, and that’s only likely to worsen this summer.
Reading between the lines of this announcement, it would seem that these are the only noteworthy Disney-owned restaurants scheduled to reopen in the next couple of months. That means nothing else at Yacht & Beach Club when the latter reopens, and likely no other in-park locations. (I was really hoping for a return of Yachtsman Steakhouse or even Casey’s Corner!)
The fact that Walt Disney World announced Tusker House will return at some point this summer, with no other details, suggests to me that there isn’t much else on the horizon. I’d love to be wrong about this, but if several more restaurant reopenings are tentatively planned, why not announce them in a similar substance-free manner?
Ultimately, this is progress and we’ll take any positive developments on the Walt Disney World phased reopening front. However, I am personally much more optimistic about this week’s earlier College Program news than I am this announcement. While this is direct dining news, that indirect update has far broader ramifications and much more significant upside for Walt Disney World operations, including the potential for many more restaurants to return.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of this news of restaurants reopening at Animal Kingdom, Beach Club, and Contemporary Resort? Excited for these options? Disappointed that more isn’t returning for early Summer 2021? Hoping for more ‘restored normalcy’ announcements in the near future? Planning on going to Walt Disney World this summer, or holding off until the start of the 50th Anniversary celebration? Does this have you optimistic or pessimistic for more dining to reopen at Walt Disney World? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I was so excited about cape may but No Seafood buffet! That’s the best part. Will it ever comeback?
I got so excited when I read that Cape May was returning! My mouth was watering for the seafood. Then I saw the date – May 18th. That made me sad. We check out of the Beach Club on May 17th.
This is just the beginning. The comeback is coming.
I would love to see Afternoon Tea resume at the Garden View Lounge inside lobby of GF. It is one of our favorites and we make reservations every trip.
Optimistic about opening two major* restaurants in the next two weeks, pessimistic over the vagueness of the Tusker House announcement, but net optimistic given Tom’s comments re: Hoop-De-Doo callbacks. I now think WDW just doesn’t know which Cast Members are going to respond to their callbacks next, rather than an intentional slow movement toward opening restaurants.
* Cape May Cafe earns high marks with me for the seafood all-you-care-to-eat and the character breakfast AND the accurate theming of something you might find around Cape May, NJ.
Oh my me too!!! Fingers crossed!
And they announced The Wave is closing for a lengthy refurbishment over the summer…
The biggest issue isn’t restaurants being closed, it’s open restaurants lacking enough capacity. It seems to be that Disney restaurants are spacing tables far more than the required 6′ apart.
That’s the big question — Will Disney start increasing the seating in the open restaurants?!?!
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more restaurants opening by July. With the re-opening of both Beach Club and Boardwalk coming this summer, they need more restaurant opening than Cape May. With Wilderness Lodge + Polynesian opening by later summer, and with The Wave closing, they need more than Chef Mickey.
The fact that they announced Chef Mickey and Cape May with only 2 weeks notice makes me hope we will gradually see additional restaurants added to the list. Cape May is opening 2 weeks before Beach Club resort.
Maybe we will see something similar at Boardwalk, with ESPN Club and/or Flying Fish announcing a mid June re-opening.
But again, the biggest issue — they need to seat more people in the restaurants that are open.
@Tom thanks for the reply re: Uni dining! Can you recommend any resources for resort and park dining reviews there?
I was at Yacht club last week and it was near impossible to get into the Ale and Compass, which was only open for breakfast and dinner. We could barely get any reservations, and that was only with the Yacht Club open. I have no idea where people are going to eat when Beach Club opens too.
Eventually we will be able to go to Victoria and Alberts to have the dinner that was cancelled last year.
We have noticed it becoming increasingly more difficult to get ADR’s since the reopening.
Boo why not minnie’s bash? That seems very unfortunate. There’s no character breakfasts around Epcot. All 4 options, why not open one normally.
Strikes me as odd, too. Could be a matter of staffing, or the plan is to ramp up to a character offering. That’s what happened with breakfast at Chef Mickey’s.
First off Tom, I’m always so impressed with how you’re able to react so quickly to breaking news with such thoughtful analysis. Thank you!
Second, based on **gestures vaguely at everything** my next Orlando trip is likely Universal only. Is the dining “scene” at Uni anything close to WDW in terms of competitive ADRs, quality, and general fanaticism? There seems to be little to no coverage about Uni dining, at least compared to WDW, so I’m curious how much prep I’ll have to do. Thanks as always!
Honestly, we don’t do nearly as much dining at Universal resorts, so I don’t have as much credible insight there. I have not heard of issues at the resorts, and we have not experienced problems in the parks or CityWalk–save for Toothsome, which is popular as ever.
Counter service restaurants can have long lines during peak dining hours, though.
Fingers crossed for O’hana to return when the Poly opens and 1900 Park.
@ Marisa & Jaan – I’d expect ‘Ohana’s return to be prioritized. It’s an incredibly popular restaurant, and with the entirety of the Poly open, it makes sense to bring it back. It also wouldn’t require significant modifications since it was already family style.
Who knows though, just my guess.
Do you think Ohana will be back when Polynesian reopens? I look forward to that when I go.
Vince, Tom’s crystal ball has been cloudy so that’s why he is unable to answer
Take it easy guy
How would he possibly know the answer to this? He doesn’t work for WDW. He runs a Disney blog…
We’re going in mid October this year. I’m wondering what the customer service will be like with half the park being served by brand new employees and college kids, all of whom not only have to manage their new job functions but also the ever constant changes of pandemic requirements for guests. We all will have to give each other some grace this year!
I am happy Tusker house is Returning.
Hopefully Character dining will b back to normal for my trip in September.
Fingers crossed for Dining plan RETURN
For once answer this as you always ignore it
Is the dining plan returning for 2022
Here are our expectations with regard to the Dining Plan as of last month: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/when-dining-plan-return-disney-world/
The commentary in the second half of this post is now much more relevant than much of what’s covered there.
I was really, really hoping for a Hoop Dee Doo return this summer.
Supposedly, those Cast Members have been recalled. Not sure if it’s for different roles or that, but here’s hoping!