Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In fact, some are better, sometimes much better. When we evaluate character
meals, we look for these things:
1. THE CHARACTERS
The meals offer a diverse assortment of characters. Select a meal that
features your kids' favorites. Check out our
Character-Meal Hit Parade chart
to see which
characters are assigned to each meal. Most restaurants stick with the same characters.
Even so, check the lineup when you call to make Advance Reservations.
2. ATTENTION FROM THE CHARACTERS
At all character meals, characters circulate among
guests, hugging children, posing for pictures, and signing autographs. How much time a
character spends with you and your children depends primarily on the ratio of characters
to guests. The more characters and fewer guests, the better. Because many character meals
never fill to capacity, the character-to-guest ratios found in our Character-Meal Hit Parade
chart ave been adjusted to reflect an average attendance. Even so, there's quite a range.
The best ratio is at Cinderella's Royal Table, where there's approximately one character to
every 26 guests.
Theworstratioistheoretically attheSwanResort'sGardenGrove,wheretherecould
be as few as 1 character for every 198 guests. We say “theoretically,” however, because in
practice there are far fewer guests at the Garden Grove than at character meals in Disney-
owned resorts, and often more characters. During one recent meal, friends of ours were
literally the only guests in the restaurant for breakfast and had to ask the characters to
leave them alone to eat.
3. THE SETTING
Some character meals are in exotic settings. For others, moving the event
to an elementary-school cafeteria would be an improvement. Our chart rates each meal's
setting with the familiar scale of zero (worst) to five (best) stars. Two restaurants, Cinder-
ella's Royal Table in the Magic Kingdom and The Garden Grill Restaurant in the Land
Pavilion at Epcot, deserve special mention. Cinderella's Royal Table is on the first and
second floors of Cinderella Castle in Fantasyland, offering guests a look inside the castle.
The Garden Grill is a revolving restaurant overlooking several scenes from the Living
with The Land boat ride. Also at Epcot, the popular Princesses Character Breakfast is held
in the castlelike Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. Though Chef Mickey's at the Contempor-
ary Resort is rather sterile in appearance, it affords a great view of the monorail running
through the hotel. Themes and settings of the remaining character-meal venues, while ap-
parent to adults, will be lost on most children.
4. THE FOOD
Although some food served at character meals is quite good, most is average
(palatable but nothing to get excited about). In variety, consistency, and quality, restaur-
ants generally do a better job with breakfast than with lunch or dinner (if served). Some
