I’m not sure we made the best restaurant choices…

[deakam]

Tusker House, Chef Mickey's and Hollywood and Vine are all character meals with the same characters. Maybe on your Magic Kingdom day you should take the boat over to the Wilderness lodge and do the Snow White, Evil Queen dinner at Artist point or even Whispering Canyon Cafe. Whispering Canyon can be a real hoot with the right waitress. Run away from Coral Reef. The fish tanks are cool but they are always late and my kids did not like the food plus there is no guarantee you get to sit by the aquarium. When are you going? Space 220 should be opening soon. Star Wars has a qs place I think it is called Ronto Roasters.

 

[NMF]

Definitely Tusker House. Tusker and Boma are always neck and neck for my favorite Disney sit down. I would strongly urge against all the other choices except Be Our Guest (Akershus is good for princess, but honestly not for the food...). Thing with Be Our Guest is it's only a normal restaurant for dinner, and for all the other meals you have to go through the host stand, then order your food via kiosks... it's like some weird hybrid of a counter service and sit down that makes you wait forever. If you are super desperate to experience the inside of the castle, I hear lunch is the best choice.

These are the other restaurants I would always recommend:
Boma (breakfast or dinner)
Skipper Canteen (lunch or dinner)
Kona (breakfast)
GFC (brunch... also my favorite restaurant in all of Disney World)
Garden Grill
The Wave

 

[buzznina]

As you can see opinions very. That is why I never ask for opinions on restaurants, resort mattress comfort or transportation I personally would not use a TS for breakfast unless you want to get into a park earlier, I find it to be the worse value for a TS credit.

 

[Dawn Peterson]

I would like to try Coral Reef and Garden Grill but I can speak to my girls loving Sci Fi Dine and Be Our Guest Breakfast (if you get a pre park opening you can grab a quick ride on mine train or Peter Pan). My girls are picky and didn’t like Tusker House. They liked Chef Mickey but it took so long we left before meeting all the characters. They liked Ohana at the Polynesian as well. I think you will do well with your choices

 

[tstein12]

Coral Reef is awful. Go to any World Showcase restaurant instead. And try to replace Hollywood and Vine with Sci-Fi Dine In. Your boys will love the atmosphere and eating in a car. Your other choices are fine.

I agree that Coral Reef is horrible - it is a hard pass for our family. Instead, I would recommend Teppan Edo (World Showcase) - I think your boys would like it. My 9 year old daughter loves it! For HS, Hollywood & Vine is another pass for our family - food is mediocre at best. This said, I would suggest Sci-Fi Dine-In or 50's Prime Time Cafe. As for MK area restaurants, I would suggest Whispering Canyon Cafe (Wilderness Lodge) or Ohana (Polynesian) over Chef Mickey's. Of course, the subject of dining at Disney is a very subjective and really depends on your preferences.

 

[BarlowFamily]

Hi everyone!!! I was reading through my Disney unofficial guide and looking at the restaurant reviews, and many of the ones that we selected and reserved get bad reviews. Can you guys look over the list of the restaurants we chose and perhaps suggest alternatives or tell us which ones are good choices? We are on the Disney dining plan (one qs and one ts per night) and I have two boys, ages 8 and 5. We would like to have most of our meals in the parks and not travel to resorts just to eat. My kids are into Star Wars and Disney movies like Toy story, lion King, and superheroes. They also love animals.

Dinners: Coral reef, Tusker House, Hollywood and Vine, and Chef Mickey’s.
Lunches: Be our Guest (as), Biergarten, Akershus (I’m Swedish so I think this would be more for me)...

Please let me know if there are any other restaurants on the dining plan that you think would be “can’t miss” for our family. Thanks in advance!

Coral Reef: I would walk over to Cape May Cafe for a seafood buffet instead

Tusker House: Excellent, especially if you book the ROL dining package, it's still just one credit

Hollywood & Vine: We just ate here last week (Fantasmic Dining Package). The Fantasmic seating is great! but the entire meal expierence was horrible. Checked in 10 minutes prior to reservation And waited 30 minutes to be seated (20 minutes past ADR time). Fine, except there were no less than 5 servers waiting outside, just standing by the podium and more than a dozen empty tables inside. The check-in area was overflowing with waiting families. It was a very weird experience. Our server cleared one plate the entire meal and never refilled beverages. The character interaction was fantastic! Each character spent ample time interacting with our family and even came by for second visits (so many empty tables!). The food was meh. We all really liked a few things on the buffet (my favorite were the beets) but also found a few things inedible. For Fantasmic seating (still just one credit) and characters, this was great. But food, not so much

Hollywood Studios is not my favorite food park. We really liked Docking Bay 7, good use of a QS credit. We paid OOP on the trip before this for Sci-Fi and were bored with the "movie" loop that we sat through three times. I would go just for milkshakes and fries instead of a meal.

Chef Mickey's: No experience here.

Be Our Guest would also be a great breakfast option. Either before the park opens (hello 7DMT!) or a late breakfast after a ride or two. We did breakfast here and then lunch at Tony's this trip.

Tony's: I have it on good authority that Tony's menu will be revamped in the next few months, we're looking forward to going back! We used one credit for the parade package, which comes with an app! Great use of a credit. I loved my fish of the day (salmon...might have been my best meal all week) but DH thought his Italian trio was underwhelming. We were surprised at how many folks also booked this, the parade viewing area was more crowded than we expected.

We love everything but dessert at Biergarten. If your family likes German food, it's delicious.

We also love Akershus! This meal took a little longer than the other character meals. Just over an hour for all the princesses to visit. For comparison, we had seen all 4 characters twice at HW&V by the time 60 minutes passed. I think Akershus is beautiful, our server was excellent and it's a nice combo of all you can eat/plated entree.

To echo some of the excellent recommendations above, we also enjoy Skipper Canteen. Snow White's meal at Wilderness lodge is another great use of a credit. You'll get an app here with the pre fixe menu which is a nice bonus on the regular dining plan.

Will you be in Disney Springs at all? You didn't mention QS places but I just have to...Polite Pig has fantastic drinks and a great menu EXCEPT for the paltry kids choices. We use our adult credits here and save kids credits for D Luxe burger. The half chicken meal at Polite Pig is more than enough to share especially if pay pay the $4 upcharge to swap the coleslaw (meh) for a full side (sooo many, soooo good). D Luxe Burger is a filling kids meal. Burger or chicken sandwich with double fries for a side and floats (snack credits). We did mobile order so they would hassle us about using more child credits than we had on the plan. Also a great adult QS meal with the boozy shakes...ahhh...

Have a great trip! I'd love to hear how it went and what you enjoyed eating!

 

[Specter]

I swear, people dump on Coral Reef like it's in Nickelback.

Food is so subjective, OP, I would say that the best thing to do is to skim menus and make your decision based on what sounds good. You know what you and your family will like better than any of us here.

For my part, I have no strong feeling about Coral Reef one way or another. DW and I went several trips ago and we are going back again next month, not because we just loved it (but obviously we didn't hate it, either). This time it is an extended family trip and our niece and nephew want to try it. After this, my immediate family probably won't go again for several more visits assuming the same level of experience as last time. There was nothing wrong, the food just wasn't memorable either, but even if you are not right by the glass the view is still nice.

We are also trying Tusker House for dinner for the first time, and Hollywood and Vine as dinner and breakfast, respectively. I generally am not a fan of buffets in general and at Disney especially but this will be DDs first visit, 10 months when we travel, and seeing her with the characters will be a lot of fun. Plus, at least for H&V, it's pretty hard to screw up a breakfast buffet and we've heard good things about Tusker.

I am sure if you dug deep enough you could find a bad review of every restaurant on property, with the possible exception of Victoria and Albert's. I've personally had good and bad experiences at the same restaurant on property. When booking our ADRs DW and I open a browser and have a tab for every single table service restaurant that we think we might even possibly be interested in. We usually pour a glass of wine or a cocktail and spend an hour or two sifting through them as time permits on weekends and evenings until we've got the finalists, and then we whittle down to the appropriate number of meals for our trip. We enjoy the planning and we don't look at reviews because, for good or bad, our experience and our perception will not be like anyone else's. We occasionally have a let down but that can happen anywhere at any price point in the world. Enjoy your trip, to include your meals.

 

[sullyfam]

Like so many others have pointed out, food is very subjective at WDW. A restaurant that someone loves, someone also strongly dislikes. If you haven't experienced any of the places you have chosen, I wouldn't change a thing. I would go for yourself and see what you think.

The only thing I would point out to you is that Tusker House, Hollywood & Vine and Chef Mickey's are all character meals that have the same characters (Mickey and friends). You might want to consider an alternative character meal where your boys will be able to meet other characters. I would consider some other options instead particularly in place of Hollywood & Vine or Chef Mickey's; I would keep Tusker at AK. (Crystal Palace at MK, Storybook Dining at Wilderness Lodge, 1900 Park Fare at Grand Floridian, Trattoria at Boardwalk, and Ohana at Poly are some alternative options)

People tend to dump on Coral Reef but that's one of my kid's favorites. They love the huge fish tank and have fun finding different fish/sharks and turtles while we wait for our meal. It's a great distraction for them. Biergarten is another fun one although my kids are not very adventurous eaters so that was a one and done for us. Akershus is going to have all princesses, not sure if that matters for your 2 boys. Be Our Guest is a must try at least once just to see inside if nothing else. Those are my comments on your choices, have a great trip!

 

[goofyintoronto]

Coral Reef is awful. Go to any World Showcase restaurant instead. And try to replace Hollywood and Vine with Sci-Fi Dine In. Your boys will love the atmosphere and eating in a car. Your other choices are fine.

I totally agree with this! I'd ditch Hollywood & Vine and book at SciFi. At your boys age, my son LOVED to eat there. There's something about boys sitting in cars while watching clips (and my son pretending to be the driver)...its so fun. And truthfully, I absolutely love SciFi as well. The atmosphere is so unique. You really do feel like youre at a drive in theater.

 

[maryj11]

Sci Fi is a tradition for our family! In Epcot we love Teppan Edo, Animal Kingdom Tuskers House is good. I have heard so many bad reviews about Chef Mickey we have never tried it. Ohana and Park Fare have been two of our favorites in that area. BOG lunch is one of our favorites also. We never have done BOG dinner because the menu doesn’t appeal to us.

 

[BrianL]

I swear, people dump on Coral Reef like it's in Nickelback.

Ha!

 

[nkereina]

I agree with PPs - dining reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. They are very subjective and you can easily find a good or bad dining review about EVERY restaurant on property here, on Trip Advisor, in the blogs, etc. For first timers, I would always suggest reviewing the menus and photos, and deciding which ones pique your interest the most. If you don't like it, you don't have to go back.