We are going to WDW in october with our son who will be 23 months old then. I am curious if there are any restaraunt suggestions from prents of children around the same age? We are already planning on Chef Mickey's - he LOVED Chef Goofy's at DL, but any other sugestions would be greatly appreciated!

Wow it's been a few years since mine were that age, but I might have a few ideas.

any charactor dinning in the whole world

MK
fast food
Cosmic rays; burgers and an audioanimatronics show. lots of small kids love dancing in front of Sid.

Full service
Tony's town square cafe; great Bfasts and a nice atmosphere.

Epcot
The Living Seas; our one year old, and three year old loved watching the fishes while we ate.

other then that while all the restruants have kids menus sometimes picky kids are hard to keep still. here is an idea we have used. prior to your dinner resv. feed the kids the type of food they like from one of the fast food places. then at the dinning location order dessert for the kids, have the waiter bring their dessert with your dinner.

MGM
Sci Fi dine in; food and a movie under the stars... sort of;)
Pizza Planet; think Dinsey's version of Chuckie Cheese.

I am not sure about AK, as our kids were older when it opened.

hope this helps

We went last year and my daughters were 4 and 1 1/2 and we did the Ice Cream Social at the garden grill! It was great and you can't beat the price for the character interaction!

We took our almost two and our 8 yr old to the Rose and Crown at Epcot twice last December. It doesn't have any bells and whistles for little kids, but there is a fruit and cheeze plate as well as PBJ and grapes lunch just like Mom's. It was very comfortable. We sat one of the times outside and watched a duck on the water- which occupied my tot for a while. My two year old son also loved the belly dancer at the Morocco restruant- but they gave us crayons with a white cloth tablecloth - I hope they have good detergent :rolleyes:

At MK I would say Crystal Palace which has Pooh and friends would be great for a child that age. At Epcot, Biergarten is great for kids because there is a live German band and they have the kids come down and do the chicken dance and other fun stuff. It was great. My son had just turned 6 when we did this one but there were a lot of younger ones having a blast as well. At AK we loved Donald's Breakfastosaurus character breakfast. Have fun:)

My pick would be the character dinner at the Liberty Tree. Beef, ham, and turkey, with traditional American side dishes, and interaction with Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip, and Dale. Comfort food.


Oh, and the animatronic extraterrestrial lounge singer at Cosmic Ray's was named Sonny Eclipse, at least the last time I checked. Who's "Sid"?


Another thought: 50s Primetime, in MGM. Not my cup of tea (I'm entirely too picky for this restaurant's brand of schtick), but the little one might get a kick out of watching Mom and Dad being treated as kids, and force-fed their vegetables.:D

Originally posted by hbquikcomjamesl
Oh, and the animatronic extraterrestrial lounge singer at Cosmic Ray's was named Sonny Eclipse, at least the last time I checked. Who's "Sid"?


Ok so I had a senior moment and typed sid instead of sonny:p

We took our two year, three month old son to WDW in May and indulged in several character meals. Robbie loved 'em all - here are the best on the Robbie-meter. All these are buffets, so kids under 3 eat free (adults paid around $23 each after tax & tip)

1900 Park Fare (Grand Floridian) - Mary Poppins greets you at the entrance, Pooh and Eeyore circulate around the room, but the star of the show (for little ones) is Alice in Wonderland. Alice must have a degree in child psychology - she got down to his level and started a conversation. We were amazed - he'd only been speaking in sentences for a few weeks, but was soon chattering about seeing Buzz Lightyear, the water slide at the hotel pool, and the colored Cheerios at the breakfast bar (his first exposure to Froot Loops).

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Crystal Palace (Magic Kingdom) - Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore circulate around tables and invite children to participate in an hourly parade around the restaurant. Robbie loved it.

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Liberty Square Tavern – Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Chip & Dale (although G,C & D moved to Goofy’s Country Dancing Jamboree and have been replaced with Donald, Daisy and Meeko). PLUTO!! PLUTO!! PLUTO!! We didn’t realize Robbie knew who Pluto was – but that’s all he could talk about during dinner!


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Princess Breakfast at Akershus (Epcot / Norway) - Robbie was marginally interested in meeting Mary Poppins, Belle, Snow White, Aurora, and Jasmine - more of a kick for us, as he exited with big lipstick badges from Belle and Jasmine.
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Robbie had seen several Disney videos prior to the trip, so he had a frame of reference to the characters he was meeting


Edited due to violation of MousePad guidelines for posting inline images. ~ MammaSilva, Moderator

We just went to WDW the middle of June. We just did one character dining and it was the Crystal Palace. It was wonderful!!!!!!! My little girl turned three while we were there and my nephew was two and a half. They are always talking about eating with Pooh and Tigger and friends. All of the adults in our party enjoyed the food. This is a buffet. We had supper and it was more than worth it!!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Thanks RLS Legacy for the pics - he's such a cutie! We will be there for a week, so I imagine we will definitely do two or three character meals. I'm really intrigued by the Liberty Tree Tavern - it sounds yummy! We will probably do the Crystal palace as well - he does like Pooh & Friends, especially Tigger! My hubby is not big on making definite plans (i.e.: Priority Seatings), so is it possible to just walk in, or make same day PS's?

I am interested in the Spirit of Aloha dinner show at the PR - has anyone taken small children to that? Also, one of the evenings will be Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party at MK. Although my son won't be old enough to partake in some of the activities, it still might be fun to go.

Thanks again for your suggestions - keep them coming! :)

PS - Any suggestions on the best way to get a pic of my son with Buzz Lightyear? He is his hero!

Originally posted by heidiwhr
PS - Any suggestions on the best way to get a pic of my son with Buzz Lightyear? He is his hero! When you get into the Magic Kingdom, head into City Hall (Main Street, on your left as you enter) and ask. They should be able to tell you where (and hopefully when) Buzz is going to be that day.

I think you can also see Buzz Lightyear at the Toy Story greeting place in MGM that looks like AL's Toy Barn right past the Star Tours ride. I know we saw Woody and Jesse there. I can't remember seeing Buzz though, but we didn't stay cause the line was really long. Also you can see animitronic Buzz at the BuzzLightyear Space Ranger Spin ride in MK. If your child is only 2 he might not notice that he's not "real". You could get a picture there although he won't be able to be standing right next to him.
As far as P.S.'s, you can always make them and change or cancel them at anytime, except for CRT and Princess Storybook, which require credit cards and require 48 hour cancellation notice. I have already made several and changed some of them for our Oct. trip. I figure it is better to have them just in case.

We'll be there in October. We're doing the MNSSHP on the 14th and the Luau on the 15th. Our son will have just turned 5, so we'll see how it goes with him.

I'm not sure what the new Luau is like. We went during our honeymoon 15+ years ago, but they changed the show in February, so I only know the few things I've read online.

I know that our son LOVED the Crystal Palace. We had lunch there in February. The food was great, too!

In October, you may be able to do a same-day PS for the regular restaurants. If you can't, though, it's a LONG wait. We made our PS a month or so in advance for the day after we arrived, and it proved to be a great day to get the vacation underway. For the shows like the Luau, you may need to make the reservation now. We actually made ours back in December. (The earlier you make the reservation, the better your table is. They assign seating by order of reservation date.)

Buzz Lightyear can usually be sighted in two locations:
1) In Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom behind the rocks on your right as you enter from the hub.
2) Near Pizza Planet at the Disney-MGM Studios.

Hope you have a great trip!

Glad you were able to see the pics. If you decide to post pics of your guy when you get back, note MousePlanet only allows ONE picture per thread, and has file and pixel size restrictions: MousePlanet picture rules (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10101).

You can see Buzz around the corner from the Space Ranger Spin, on the walkway between Tomorrowland and the central hub. His hours will be posted in the daily guides at the park entrance; he generally takes a break every 20 minutes or so. Buzz is the only character we met who signs the autograph book with rubber stamp!

No one ever says much about it but... my husband and I really enjoyed the O'hana CB at the Polynessian. The delicious food was served unlimited (except the yummy bread) family style so there were no buffet lines to wait in.
The best part was the character interaction. It is so magical to see your babie's face light up when they see Mickey. At one point they gave all the children maraccas (shakey shakeys), played "I just can't wait to be King" and had a parade through the dinning area. We were in hysterics when Goofy danced around the entire restaurant with our two year old daughter. Not to mention it made for a great home video! Such activity might be silly to an older child but it was great for our little one. That morning holds (by far) my most memorable moments at WDW.

I want to go back soooo bad!!!!:D

I want to thank everyone for the sugestions! We ended up deciding to make a reservation for the Aloha dinner show as it's something we have never done before but always wanted to. We also got tickets for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party , which should be a lot of fun! I'm fairly certain that we will do a couple of character dining meals (Chef Mickey's and the Crystal Palace are at the top of my list), but we decided not to get any PS's for those. We would like to just relax and "go with the flow" on this trip. We will be there for a week (got the 7 nights for the price of 4 deal), so there will be plenty of time if a particular restaurant is booked one day.

Thanks again for all the input!

Sounds like a good decision. If you're going to be at the MNSSHP on the 14th or the Spirit of Aloha show on the 15, maybe we'll see you there!

Sorry - we are doing the Spirit of Aloha show on the 9th and MNSSHP on the 10th. We are flying back home on the 14th (that already sounds depressing!) :crying:

Perhaps we'll see you in the parks between the 10th and the 14th, then. If not, have a great trip!

I just came back from a week at WDW with 21-month old and 5 year old. I have to say that my toddler could not have cared less about any restaurant. Although she seemed happy enough, the change to her routine was so great that she pretty much gave up eating. The only food she appeared to enjoy was toast at 1900 Park Fare. She didn't care about seeing characters either. She recognized Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and said their names, but didn't want them near her. She wasn't afraid of them, it was as if they annoyed her. If one of them came near or waved, she shook her head no.
Oh, and I will also mention that the low hard wooden type of highchair is used almost exclusively at WDW. Not that you would choose a restaurant based on the highchair, but Chefs de France and the ABC Commissary have a more comfortable molded plastic type.

I am finally catching up after our trip to DL a couple weeks ago. As always, my son LOVED all the characters - he's not afraid of them at all, but his favorite was Buzz Lightyear of course! The character meals seemed to work the best for him, so we will probably concentrate on those while at WDW in October. We also have tickets for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and I just got him his Buzz Lightyear costume - very cute! I'm not sure if hubby and I will dress up yet, but my son should have fun, and that's what it most important!

Thanks again for all the insught - I know DL must better than WDW, so any suggestions are most helpful!

If you plan to visit any part of Fort Wilderness at all, the buffet there is really good! Not at all like what you get from the buffet chain restaurants. And the price is great, actually I think our 2 year old ate for free there.

Have a great trip! :)

We will be at WDW in less than a month. Should I worry about trying to get PS's for places like Chef Mickeys, Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree Tavern, etc? The plan is to have breakfast at our hotel every morning, and then just play it by ear except for the PS we already have for the Spirit of Aloha show at the Polonysian. I hear so much about people making PS's. Are they really a must?

If you really want to eat at those places, you probably want to make PSes for them now. You can always cancel or modify them later, but it's better lock them in, as they are some of the more popular character meals. If it's not a must-do, play it by ear and try to make each PS the night before. Once you get to day-of, it gets a lot harder to get in. As I said earlier in this thread, it's October, so you're less likely to get crowded out, but these are popular meals so you can't be sure.