I have been to disney so many times, but never with a baby. What are the best restaurants to take a 9 month old into. I really want to do Chef Mickeys some morning, but I don't know what time would be best. Does anyone have any ideas or recomendations????

I would think that you would be better off at counter service type places with a child so young. That way if he/she starts fussing, you can get up easily and move around. Character dining may be a bit much; if you want interaction, you're better off going to a meet and greet in the park.

I have been to disney so many times, but never with a baby. What are the best restaurants to take a 9 month old into. I really want to do Chef Mickeys some morning, but I don't know what time would be best. Does anyone have any ideas or recomendations????

The majority of the restaurants at WDW are pretty family-friendly and it isn't too hard to figure out which ones aren't. Obviously, top-of-the-line places like Victoria & Alberts are out and you probably should avoid places like Le Cellier or other very intimate places.

Any of the character-dining locations should be absolutely fine, though. My son was already pretty responsive to the characters by that age and we have found that the characters have been very good at being cautious until they are able to gauge how a baby is going to react to them. In fact, contrary to the suggestion in the post above, I think that the character meals are a vastly preferable way to initially introduce small children to the characters than the meet & greets in the park. The pace tends to be slower and it is a calmer, less-threatening environment.

-Jeff

I would think that you would be better off at counter service type places with a child so young. That way if he/she starts fussing, you can get up easily and move around. Character dining may be a bit much; if you want interaction, you're better off going to a meet and greet in the park.

I would completely disagree with this statement. I have been to all levels of restaurants at WDW with my children. As young as 5 weeks, then again at 6 months and so forth. All of them are friendly for children. Some of them, I will agree are a bit harder to handle such as Bistro de Paris. However most of them make it fun for the kids by doing little things to help entertain them. Such as Alfredo's, the waitress took a liking to my daughter who had very little pigtails sticking up. The waitress would play with them everytime she walked by (which was alot) and it helped to entertain her.

Also, come of the characters tend to take MORE time with the smaller children to make the feel comfortable. I have great memories of this, like my son wrestling on the floor with the characters at the characters request. Or like Mickey (at Chef Mickey's) asking for a picture of him with my 5 week old daughter.

Feel free to take the 9 month old to all of them. I tend to find the counter service places less than desirable because they tend to be too distracting and too noisy.

If you would like to do someplace more upscale, I would suggest The Coral Reef in the Living Seas. Young babies could look at the fish swimming around for hours! (ok, a long time anyway.) My son was facinated there when he was 23 months old and threw a fit when it was time to leave!