Dining at Disney

One of my favorite things to talk about? Eating at Disney World!!!

I am a HUGE fan of all things themed....especially restaurants....so I have had so much fun looking through all that Disney has to offer and narrowing it down has been a big task. But alas our selections are made. Let me tell you how I did it!!

First off, it should be noted that I have been to Orlando on a business trip and we ate nearly every meal at Downtown Disney, so I am very familiar with that area. I also had the chance to visit Universal's Islands of Adventure on that trip, and we plan to do a day there this time as well.

So on with it!

First off, you need to make your daily itenerary, keeping in mind that you might change the order of these days based on the schedule for the parks when it gets posted, but at least youll have a plan for what to do each day in whichever park your at. This will help with selection of places to eat!

For us we are having 1 sit down meal a day because we are on going to be on the Disney Dining Plan. We are going to alternate wether that meal is lunch or dinner each day. Mainly because we dont know if we will stay all the way to closing each day.

Once you know what park you are going to visit that will help your selection because if you want to eat in the park, you just need to look up which restauarants are in the particular park. Then you can google pics of the ones that look good to you and look on allears.net for menus, pricing, reviews, etc.

I should note that during my research it has come up that the parks you will most likely spend the least time at are Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, so you may want those to be lunches, or quick service meals with dinner at DOwntown Disney on those days.

Now let me tell you about our selections and why!!

Day 1- Magic Kingdom (Travel day- so will be like a half day in the park)
Eating at: Be Our Guest for Dinner
This is Disney's newest place to eat. It is in Beast's castle and is a replica of the movie!!! My daughter is a HUUUUUGE Princess fan so this is a must for us. The menu look amazing and quite fancy, so I think the girls will get a kick out of it. It seemed very appropriate to start off our trip at 'Be Our Guest' because, well, we are, in fact, going to be Disney's guests!! So that is why we chose this place! We wanted it to be a dinner because we do not know our flight info yet and lunch could have been cutting it too close.

Day 2- Magic Kingdom (Princess day- we will be visiting the boutique for Princess makeovers)
Eating at: Cinderella's Royal Table for Lunch
Since we are doing the BBB that day we HAD TO pick Cinderellas castle. The girls will be done up in true princess fashion, so it is only appropriate that we eat in the castle. This will be so fun becuase all of the princesses stop by and visit the kids. You also get a keepsake frame and photo. This meal will cost us 2 of our dinner credits each to do, because it is particularly expensive, but we will be at Universal one day so it worked out.

Day 3- Epcot
Eating at: Biergarten for Dinner
We are so excited to visit all the countries in this park and plan to have a quick service lunch somewhere that just looks and smells good, but we def wanted to go to the Biergarten. This was a HARD choice, as there are soooo many world-class amazing cuisines to try in Epcot. But my hubby is of German decent and loves BEER! Haha, so we picked this place. It is an all you care to eat buffet and features live Oooompa music from time to time throughout the day! I know the girls will love dancing around to that. You also eat at huge picnic type tables, and often with strangers, because the tables hold like 10 people. So a great chance to meet other Disney goers. The food looks amazing and it just seemed fun. So that is why we chose the Biergarten!!

Day 4- Hollywood Studios
Eating at: 50s Prime Time Cafe for Lunch
I heard about this place a long time ago and KNEW I HAD TO GO!!! It is sooooooo beautifully themed. You eat in your own mini 50s kitchen, complete with black & white tv, showing old shows. The waitresses refer to themselves as your cousins, or aunts and fuss at your to eat your veggies. Go look at pics of the place for SURE!!! The food looks amazing, and features home cooking like fried chicken, pot roast, and meatloaf and I hear the portions are GIANT! I simply can NOT wait to eat here!!!!

Day 5- Animal Kingdom
Eating at: T Rex in Downtown Disney for Dinner
All the places I ate at in Downtown Disney were amazing! I knew we would visit lots on this trip, and I knew I wanted to go to TREX!! It reminds me of a Rainforest Cafe (which we often frequent here in Texas) only it is Dinosaur themed! The place is soooo cool and has a build a bear (build a dino) area! We figured we would spend the least amount of time in AK, so we plan on a quick meal for lunch there and the DD for dinner.

Day 6- Universal Islands of Adventure
Eating at: 3 Broomsticks from the Harry Potter Movies for Lunch
We will most likely not have any Disney meals this day. They have some amazing places to eat at Universal also, including my top dinner choice for the day, Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville!

Day 7- Magic Kingdom
Eating at: Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney for Dinner
This will be our last night in Disney unless our itenerary changes a bit...so we plan on eating in DD for Dinner. We have many Rainforest Cafes in Texas, and we are no stranger to them (I love themed places, remember) so I would not typically pick to eat a meal at a place we can already go. But everyone in my family LOVES this place. Its so huge and themed and fun, so we are going to eat here. We know we love the food and atmosphere so why not?

There ya have it! Hopefully we get all our choices. I am schedule to do my reservations in February, and will be up on my computer about 3 am, ready to reserve. I will let you know how it goes!!

Happy Planning,
Terri