Don’t Stress About Choosing Restaurants For Your Disney World Vacation

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Your 180 days are approaching fast and it’s time to think about where you are going to eat! If this is your first trip, this can be a daunting task. After all, who plans their meals six months in advance? Don’t worry and don’t panic! We are here to help when Choosing Restaurants For Disney World!#waltexpress #disneyworld #disneyplanning Choosing Restaurants For Disney World

Choosing Restaurants For Disney World

There are over 400 dining locations throughout Disney World, including all of the parks, Disney World Resorts and the Disney Springs area. There are sit-down locations, quick service locations and you can even find Food Trucks in Disney Springs. Several resorts offer dinner shows and different character dining, not to mention all of the dining options in the parks. With so many options, how do we choose? No worries, we have you covered!#waltexpress #disneyworld #disneyplanning Choosing Restaurants For Disney World

How To Begin Choosing Restaurants For Disney World

The best thing to do is think about what your family is looking to do on this trip. Are you interested in meeting characters? Do you want to try buffets or are you interested in maximizing your time in the parks and avoid taking too long to eat? A character dining experience can take up to two hours, so keep that in mind when deciding. One other to consider is if you are planning on doing one of the Disney Dining Plans. This can be a huge money saver!

Quick Service Options

If you are looking to spend more time out and about you probably want to take a look at the different quick service locations inside the parks. There are so many options to choose from. You have the options of getting regular “park food” such as hamburgers and hot dogs or pizza but there are some great options out there. For example, if you are visiting Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, you can stop by Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo and try some out of this world eats from Batuu. Also mobile ordering is available here!

Maybe you are interested in some delicious barbecue from Flame Tree Barbecue in Animal Kingdom (another mobile ordering spot). It helps to be familiar with these kinds of locations before hand so you have an idea on where to go to get the kinds of food your family is interested in. It can be time consuming to find somewhere while everyone is hungry and then only to realize the menu isn’t the best fit for your family.

Sit Down Meals and Dinner Shows

If your family is interested in themes, characters or dinner shows, you have a lot to choose from! The options for meet and greets at character dining are endless and you are bound to find a menu everyone will enjoy with characters you’re interested in also. Sit down table service meals and dinners shows have character interaction and/or entertainment.

I have a picky eater in my group and he’s not always willing to try new foods. Since it is a vacation, I try to accommodate all of us. I always spend time looking at menus before choosing where we are going to eat. For instance, I know my family loves breakfast foods and brunch menus, so during our first trip we enjoyed several character buffets. We tried Cape May at Disney’s Beach Club Resort and we also tried O’Hana character breakfast at Disney’s Polynesian Resort. Both were amazing! We met Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy at Cape May and Lilo and Stitch at O’Hana. The food was amazing and the characters were great. It was one of the best choices I could have made for our family.

Cape May at the Beach Club is a seafood buffet with no characters for dinner. That option would not have been good for my family because we don’t really eat seafood. Be sure to research those menus.

Resort Dining

Speaking of O’hana, don’t forget about those resort options! Disney World resorts have many dining options. There are dinner shows, themed dining and/or quick service. We stayed at the Polynesian Resort and took advantage of the quick service options in our resort. We went down to Captain Cook’s for a few meals. The options were good but I didn’t feel like there were enough options for my family. I know that we love O’Hana and Kona Cafe. However these aren’t quick service locations, so I take that into consideration when we are choosing where we want to stay.

Think About Where You Will Be For The Day

When you are trying to decide where to dine, another thing to think about is where are you going to be. Where do you want to go for the day and what would you like to try? If you know you are visiting a park, you can filter through the parks on the Disney World restaurant page on their website. You can look at all the options one park at a time. So if you know you are going to spend the day in Magic Kingdom and you want to eat somewhere in Magic Kingdom, you can select the filter to just dining options in Magic Kingdom.

It is also a good idea to know where your dining choices are and how to get to them before the day of your reservation. A few years ago we had reservations to the Hoop De Doo Music Review which is over at the Campsites at the Fort Wilderness Resort. We did not realize how to get there in advance. We ended up on several bus rides and we were lucky we didn’t miss our reservations! But since we had left early enough we were fine. It made for an interesting trip to dinner and it was an amazing dinner show, but now I know to do a little bit of research before trying places that are outside of parks in places I may not be familiar with.

On our second trip I knew I just had to eat at Be Our Guest in Magic Kingdom. It was beautiful and I was so curious and just wanted to experience it. However, when I looked at the dinner menu I immediately knew it wasn’t for our family. So even though I would love to meet The Beast during dinner, it wasn’t a good choice for my family. So instead, we did the quick service breakfast option. I still get to eat inside The Beast’s Castle and last time we ate right in front of the enchanted rose!

When Choosing Restaurants For Disney World, Reach Out!

Whether or not you are using a travel agent it’s a great idea to get familiar with the different dining options offered at Disney World. And if you aren’t sure, ask! Friends, or family who have previously been will almost always have at least one favorite dining location they love to share!! 

We have a Facebook Group and would love to have you join us! If you love Disney talk, head on over to DISNEY EXPRESS LANE!


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Crystal Brytowski

Meet Crystal from Connecticut who is married to her Mickey and has three wonderful kids. She works as a substitute teacher but her true passion is her “Disney work”. She always wanted to visit Disney World as a child, but never got the chance. Once she and her husband had a family of their own, they visited once and it became her passion! Disney World is her family’s favorite vacation spot and she can’t wait to take in everything it has to offer! She is sure to try something new on each visit!

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