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magic kingdom restaurant

Best Restaurant for Adults in the Magic Kingdom

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While most visitors to Walt Disney World are families of some sort, there are quite a few adults that travel without kids to the parks. It is true that everyone loves a good character meal, but if you are without kids, it usually isn’t the first option for most adults, they are more likely to choose a place that has decent food and is a relaxing experience.

Disney has done a nice job of adding a few more dining options in the Magic Kingdom that don’t feature characters as the main attraction. Both Be Our Guest and Skipper Canteen have opened recently, as well as the dining options added to The Diamond Horseshoe. These restaurants are great for adults and kids alike, and I would love to see more of these as the Magic Kingdom and other parks expand their dining options. But which of the Magic Kingdom restaurants is the best for adults in the Magic Kingdom?

I couldn’t narrow this down to just one, so here are my top three Magic Kingdom restaurants for adults

be our guest

  1. Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen – If you are a big fan of the Jungle Cruise, this option may jump up the list for you. Skipper Canteen is open for lunch and dinner, both have similar menus and both lunch and dinner are considered a table service credit on the Disney Dining plans. Skipper Canteen features some unique food for Walt Disney World including Rice Noodle Bowl with Duck, Curried Vegetable Crew Stew and an adult macaroni and cheese (Skip’s Mac & Cheese) that  includes spicy ground beef, pasta and béchamel sauce. Yum! Along with your delectable meals, you also get awesome Jungle Cruise decor and an ample supply of cheesy jokes. Skipper Canteen has only been open a few months, so expect the menu to change as some entrees are weeded out and others are added, but expect Skipper Canteen to always be a great place to eat.
  2. Liberty Tree Tavern – Lunch is a la cart from the menu, and dinner is served family style and includes Pot Roast, Roasted Turkey and Ham with vegetables and mashed potatoes. From the decor to the food, everything about Liberty Tree Tavern screams “comfort”, it is just a nice, fun, relaxing place to eat. Both lunch and dinner are considered a table service credit on the Disney Dining Plans. While some old timers might remember that characters were once a staple of Liberty Tree Tavern, that has not been the case for a few years, so colonial goofy won’t be hanging over you while you try to finish off that third serving of ham.
  3. Be Our Guest – OK, this may seem like a strange choice, but bear with me. Even adults can dream of dining with Belle in the Beast’s castle, and now you can. Breakfast and lunch are considered a quick-service restaurant and dinner is considered a table service restaurant on the Disney Dining Plans. Reservations are REQUIRED for all meals. For adults, dinner is the best option, as it doesn’t seem as rushed and the food is better, though if you can’t get in for dinner, lunch is awesome. Be Our Guest features roasted lamb, braised pork coq au vin style, grilled strip steak and an awesome ratatouille, though I wish it was double the size. And don’t miss the grey stuff for dessert, it is delicious. Be Our Guest features three rooms, a huge ballroom that is a replica from Be Our Guest, complete with falling snow outside the window, a second room that is the castle gallery that is nice and bright, and then the West Wing, home to the Beast, is very dark and foreboding, complete with lightening, paintings that change from the beast to the prince and back and the enchanted rose. I always try to sit in the West Wing, but it is tiny and hard to get. You can even stop by and see the Beast near the entrance if you desire.

What is your favorite restaurants for adults in the Magic Kingdom?

character meals

Too Many Character Meals

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I plan a lot of Disney vacations. While you think you may go to Disney a lot, and do a lot of planning, I plan over 500 Walt Disney World vacations a year. I see every possible scenario you can imagine, everything from people on a tight budget to unlimited budgets, adults traveling by themselves to large groups of 50+ family members, you can’t imagine a scenario I haven’t seen. I am usually pretty flexible on requests, but there is one thing that clients insist on that I do not agree: character meals. While I am not against character meals, I do them with my family all the time even though my kids are teenagers now, I do have a problem with too many character meals.

Why I am not a fan of Walt Disney World character meals

  • Character Meals take a lot of time. The standard character rotation at most character meals is 60 – 90 minutes, meaning that if you want to see all of the characters, you have to wait at your table for 60 – 90 minutes. Most of the time that means wasted time just sitting around in order to Eeyore and Piglet.
  • Buffets. Just about every character meal at Walt Disney World is a buffet. For the most part, the food offerings at buffets are sub-par, you typically get much better food at non-character meal restaurants. If I can avoid a buffet, whether at Walt Disney World or at home, I do.

I have quite a few clients that insist on booking one or two character meals each day of their trip. I can’t imagine anything that will ruin your Disney vacation faster. Almost universally, every client that insists on doing that, does not do it on their next Disney vacation. They realize that after one or two character meals, their kids just don’t like it. Both adults and kids burn out pretty quickly on character meals. Meal time is a great time to take a break from all the over stimulation of the theme parks, but by adding characters to every meal, you never get that mental break.

My suggestions on Walt Disney World character meals

  • Make 1 or 2 character meals during your stay. If you don’t have little kids, you can skip them all together, but I do still think they are worth doing. Even though your teenage daughter will throw a fit at the mention of dining with princesses, deep down they still love it, and will have a blast, though you may never know it the expression on their face.
  • Spread your reservations out. Do one character meal early in your trip, maybe the first day as a start to your vacation. If you are doing a second, try to schedule it at the end of your trip, as a farewell to Disney meal.
  • Make your reservations for a late breakfast or early lunch time, that will give you a few hours in the parks to get things done, and you won’t feel rushed to eat and get back to the parks. That will also cover both breakfast and lunch for you in one stop.
  • Everyone loves Cinderella’s Royal Table, but consider doing Royal Akershush Banquet Hall Storybook Dining instead. It is half the price (when on the Disney Dining Plan), you still get to see all the princesses and I think the food is quite a bit better. You can meet Cinderella at dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Hollywood and Vine is doing some awesome seasonal themed dinners, and offers Star Wars themed meals during some months.
  • Don’t follow the sheep. While everyone loves Chef Mickey’s and Cinderella’s Royal Table, there are other character meals that offer better food and are more interesting.
  • Please note, Be Our Guest in the Magic Kingdom IS NOT a character meal. While Beast is there at dinner time, he only hangs out in a little alcove, and does not go table to table. If you didn’t know he was there you probably wouldn’t even notice him.
  • Make reservations at restaurants you wouldn’t normally do at home. Walt Disney World, and especially Epcot, offer some very watered down version of restaurant that you may not visit when at home. Not many people have a Moroccan restaurant near their home, but Epcot has 2 (3 including Tangierine Cafe, the quick-service restaurant). Just about every restaurant at Walt Disney World is kid friendly, it is Disney after all, the place is crawling with kids. I have taken kids as young as 5 to California Grill, Flying Fish and other nice restaurants. They expect kids on a daily basis, and know how to deal with them. Expose your kids to nice places or different cuisines at Disney, it is the perfect place to do so, and makes it much easier do to so at home as they have already had an easy experience at Disney.

Do you do character meals on your Disney vacation?

deluxe dining plan

Is the Disney World Deluxe Dining Plan Worth It?

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At Walt Disney World, there are three dining plans that are available for purchase for guests staying in a Walt Disney World resort. Last month, we took a close look at the Quick-Service Dining plan, the least expensive option: Is the Disney World Quick-Service Dining Plan Worth It? Today, we are going to look at the Disney Deluxe Dining plan, the most expensive options available of the three dining plans. Now, there are more expensive plans, the Premium and Platinum Plans, but those are much more than dining plans, so we don’t include them when talking about dining plans.

The Disney Deluxe Dining Plan includes three (3) meals and two (2) snacks per person, per night of your stay, plus a resort refillable mug for each person. The three meals can either be quick-service or table service meals, that is completely up to you. Any signature restaurant will cost 2 meals per person. Technically you could do three table service meals each day if you like, but that is a lot of time sitting in the restaurants each day.

Currently, the cost for the Disney Deluxe dining plan is $115.08 for adults and $35.49 for children (3 – 9 years old) per night of your stay. You must purchase a plan for your entire stay, and everyone in your party must purchase the same dining plan, or no plan at all.

Let’s look at an average day for one adult and one child. That would cost $150.57, and include three meals for each person plus 2 snacks. We will leave the refillable mug out of the equation, as that only amounts to a dollar or two per night, depending on how long you stay.

We will look at two different options, since this plan is so flexible. In example one, our family is going to get a quick-service breakfast at their resort and then lunch and dinner at a table service in the parks, plus a few afternoon snacks. Let’s say they are staying at the Contemporary and then are in Epcot and pick these meals:

  • Breakfast at Contempo Cafe – Contemporary – Adult breakfast of Mickey Waffles ($9.49) and Orange Juice ($3.99). Child breakfast of Mickey Waffles ($5.99). With tax you get a breakfast total of about $19.47.
  • Lunch at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall – Epcot – Lunch buffet is $45 for adults and $27 for children. With tax and tip you get a total of about $90.00.
  • Afternoon Snack – Two Mickey Ice Cream Bars ($4.25 each). With tax, a total price of about $9.00.
  • Second Afternoon Snack – A bottle of diet coke ($4.00) and popcorn ($4.00), a total price of about $8.50.
  • Dinner at Tutto Italia – Epcot – Adult dinner of Bistecca del Macellaio ($34.00) plus Mocha Tiramisu for dessert ($12.00) and a fountain drink ($3.00). Child dinner of Spaghetti ($10.00) and a Gelato Sundae for dessert ($5.00). With tax and tip you get a total price of about $79.61.

So, for the three meals and two snacks, I get a rough total price of about $206.58

Our second option will include three table service meals each day, plus the snacks of course.

  • Breakfast at Chef Mickey’s – Contemporary – Breakfast buffer for adults is $38 for adults and $20 for children. With tax and tip you get a total of about $71.00
  • Lunch at Chip ‘N’ Dale Harvest Feast at Garden Grill – Epcot – Lunch buffet is about $40 for adults and $22 for children. Prices at Garden Grill vary throughout the year. With tax and tip you get a total of about $76.00
  • Afternoon Snack – Two Mickey Ice Cream Bars ($4.25 each). With tax, a total price of about $9.00.
  • Second Afternoon Snack – A bottle of diet coke ($4.00) and popcorn ($4.00), a total price of about $8.50.
  • Dinner at Chefs de France – Epcot – Adult dinner of Filet de boeuf grillé ($35.99), Crème Brulee for dessert ($8.99) and a soft drink ($2.99). Child dinner of Ground beef steak on a brioche bun ($9.50) and a dessert of sorbet ($4.00). With tax and tip you get a total price of about $75.50.

So, for the three meals and two snacks, I get a rough total price of about $240.00.

You can see from both of the options, there is quite a savings by purchasing the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan. Of course, if you opted for 3 quick-service meals each day, the math would never work.

Disney Deluxe Dining Plan PROS

  • With the examples shown above, you do save money
  • Since you have so many meal credits, you can easily eat at signature restaurants and not “eat up” all of your credits for your entire trip in a few meals. Many people on this plan do a character breakfast or lunch and then a signature restaurant for dinner, using up their three meals for the day.
  • The biggest benefit I try to explain to my clients is that with all the dining plans, everything is prepaid and budgeted, so you just show up and eat, no need to worry about the cost of meals, how much money to bring or trying to order the cheapest thing on the menu just to save money. Just enjoy, that is the idea of going to Disney World, isn’t it?

Disney Deluxe Dining Plan CONS

  • The cost! The deluxe plan is expensive. For a family of four, assuming the kids are between 3 – 9, you are looking at an additional $2,108 for a 7 night trip, just for food!
  • The Disney Deluxe Dining Plan gives you A LOT of food. In order to make the math work for you, you have to do at least two table service meals each day, plus your quick-service meal and 2 more snacks. It feels like you eating more than you are riding rides.

So, is the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan worth it? Normally, my suggestion to my clients is NO, it isn’t worth it. In most cases, it is just too much food, you are better off going with the Disney Dining plan and just paying out of pocket for any other meals you decide to eat. I have only ever had one client come back and tell me he should have done the Disney Deluxe Plan instead, but after doing the math, he would have only saved a few dollars.

However, if you only have adults going, and you want to do nicer, signature restaurants, then YES, it is totally worth it. Take a look at the menus and do the math first, but in most situations, if you plan on doing a table service for breakfast or lunch, and then a signature restaurant for dinner, the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan will save you money.