Walt Disney World is home to a variety of restaurants at its theme parks, resorts, and Disney Springs. Guests can dine at restaurants that range from quick and casual meals to formal and themed experiences. You can even meet some classic Disney characters while you eat!
Unfortunately, some of those restaurants may fall into a “one-and-done” category. They’re great to experience once, but maybe just once. As always, opinions will vary and you may think our list is a bunch of nonsense. Let us know in the comments.
Be Our Guest – Magic Kingdom
Be Our Guest is the restaurant equivalent of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train attraction at the Magic Kingdom. There’s a lot of hype, it’s hard to get in, and the experience is relatively underwhelming. We’ll elaborate.
Be Our Guest used to be a great dining location when it had quick-service options for breakfast and lunch. When that ended and the restaurant adopted a prix fixe menu exclusively, the value proposition dropped significantly. Adult guests are $72 and children are $43 for either lunch or dinner. Unfortunately, we don’t think the food quality even comes close to those prices.
The saving grace of Be Our Guest is the fun theming. The West Wing is particularly neat as long as you don’t mind dim lighting. However, that’s not enough to justify the price and how hard it is to get a reservation.
Space 220 – EPCOT
Space 220 can be one of the most difficult dining reservations to book at EPCOT. The restaurant’s views into space have generated a ton of buzz, but is Space 220 worth your time and money with so many great restaurants at EPCOT?
Space 220 uses a prix fixe menu system, with adults costing $55 at lunch and $79 at dinner. The unique cocktails, which are certainly interesting concoctions, are not included. We’ve had some very good food at Space 220, and some items that were just OK. The drinks were on the sweeter side, but that’s pretty normal at Walt Disney World.
We recommend checking out the Space 220 Lounge as an easier, more affordable option for guests wanting to visit space. It’s less of a commitment if you end up not being a fan. The Space 220 Lounge is a la carte and doesn’t carry a guaranteed price tag. Our recommendation is to get a drink or two and maybe dessert while soaking in the ambiance.
Overall, the Space 220 theming (arriving in space, looking out the windows) is great and reminds us of vintage EPCOT. We do enjoy bringing friends to Space 220 who are new to Disney because it is a pretty unique experience. While we wish the food quality was a bit more consistent for the prices that are charged, we’re warming up to Space 220. Maybe we’ll even take it off this list in the future?
Cinderella’s Royal Table – Magic Kingdom
Eating inside Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom is an unforgettable experience. There’s nothing quite like stepping inside one of the icons of Walt Disney World and Disney as a whole. So, why is the restaurant on this list?
Honestly, we enjoyed breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table quite a bit. Breakfast ($74 for adults, $45 for children) was expensive, but we justified it because it’s the castle. That said, it’s wild to see how much those prices have increased over the years. Not too long ago this was a $40ish breakfast for adults. Disney knows a lot of guests want to eat in the castle, so they charge for that demand.
While we might do breakfast again, would we do lunch or dinner? Probably not. The prix fixe menu paired with items of uneven quality make it difficult to recommend Cinderella’s Royal Table despite its unbeatable location. You’re in the Castle! But, $88 for adults, $52 for children, and food that could be significantly improved are factors that even the surroundings can’t forgive.
Eat in Cinderella Castle once to check it off your list. Make it breakfast if you want to save a bit. Then, we’d recommend eating at the very underrated Skipper Canteen for lunch or dinner despite the fact it doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as Cinderella Castle.
Chef Mickey’s – Disney’s Contemporary Resort
It’s difficult to evaluate character dining at Walt Disney World. The overall enjoyment and value will vary greatly depending on how you feel about meeting characters. We can, however, evaluate food quality and the overall atmosphere.
Chef Mickey’s is not the place to go for a quiet, peaceful meal. It’s the opposite and it’s important to be ready for that. That fact alone could be a dealbreaker for some, but for most it’s the unpredictable food. Sometimes it’s perfectly good. Other times it’s bland and a bit dried out. And it can even be worse than that. We think the food quality at Chef Mickey’s might be the most unpredictable in all of Walt Disney World.
We’re all for the type of craziness that’s found at Chef Mickey’s (bring on the characters!), but for us it’s a one-and-done reservation.
Crystal Palace – Magic Kingdom
Crystal Palace has the potential to be awesome. It really does. The setting is unique and the characters (Winnie the Pooh and friends) are fun. Unfortunately, the buffet falls flat, and the premium paid to see characters doesn’t always pan out. If you miss one of the characters making their rounds, you may have to wait a long time before they return. Bad timing by us meant a 45-minute wait to see the star, Winnie the Pooh, before we could continue our day.
To be fair, the wait to see characters and the potential to miss them entirely is possible at most character dining locations. Maybe it’s the size of Crystal Palace that makes it seem like a more glaring problem.
The food at Crystal Palace is fairly basic. Breakfast (when offered) is the usual Disney breakfast items. As much as we love Mickey Waffles, you can find a better variety at other Disney buffets. Check out the breakfast buffet at Boma inside Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge if you want a great dining experience. Lunch and dinner are a similar story, though this is more representative of the overall weak table-service lineup at the Magic Kingdom.
Rainforest Café – Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Honestly, we just can’t recommend Rainforest Café over the other dining options in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There’s some real winners just inside the gates. Even Satu’li Canteen, the quick service location in Pandora, has food that we’d rate far above Rainforest Cafe.
However, we admit Rainforest Café can be an experience, and some guests (especially kids) will love the theming and animatronics. It’s probably a “safe” option for guests who don’t want to branch out too far.
That said, Rainforest Café at Disney’s Animal Kingdom doesn’t offer anything unique that can’t be found at any other Rainforest Café around the country. There’s also the very similar T-REX down in Disney Springs. We’d recommend spending time at Yak and Yeti or even at some of the great quick-service locations (second shoutout to Satu’li Canteen) at Disney’s Animal Kingdom instead.
