Help with restaurants

[Pilotbaby]

Hello,
We are planning a trip to Disney with our 3 1/2 year old Daughter in a few months and you folks always give great advice on Disney so asking again:) We are staying at the Contemporary and have a reservation at Chef Mickey. We haven't really enjoyed the other restaurants there but will usually grab at least one dinner from the cafe area. Are there any good restaurants at the hotels closest to us that we should check out? We have a few dinners scheduled at the park and Epcot but looking for some good options really close to our hotel. TIA

[123LuckyMom]

If you like sushi, you can get good sushi at the Polynesian. We ate an impromptu meal at the bar of the Kona cafe one night (it was late!), and we ordered drinks and small dishes from the lounge on another night. I remember both being good.

[Cam&Clay]

You can take the boat from the Contemporary to the Wilderness Lodge. Whispering Canyon Cafe is lots of fun!

[rkold]

Are you talking with your DD or without your DD?

California Grill is one of the best restaurants on property. It's expensive and the meal is frequently 1.5-2 hours which can be hard on a little one. If you are feeling splurgey, you can put her in babysitting at Lilo's Playhouse in the Poly assuming she is potty trained. Babysitting on top of the meal is expensive, but it makes for a lovely time by all. (My DD loves all the Kids Clubs and has been to Lilo's many times, inclding our most recent trip in Oct.) If your child is there for 2 hours it does include meals, there are two ordering times and your choice of options.

If you really want to splurge there is Victoria and Albert's. They do not allow children. I'm a vegetarian and I thought the dinner was fabulous. The dessert was disappointing, but all the desserts for people who have no issues with gelatin looked a lot better imho.

I've heard good things about Narcooses but I don't eat seafood and again, this is an expensive meal like CG.

I've also eaten in:

The Wave at the Contemp (dark, very dark, food was worse in Oct for lunch, their breakfasts are OK and dinners are like lunch. The breakfasts have a "healthy" twist vs. Kona+GFC)
Artist Point at the WL (very pretty, but $30 for 6 or 7 gnocchi )
Ohana at the Poly (I've only done breakfast, which we loved. The dinner is mostly meat on sticks, I refuse to pay $40 for veggie sticks.)
Kona at the Poly (Nice for a relaxing breakfast on a non-park day or a late park day. Lots of pancakes and french toast, their lunches and dinners are OK, not the best but not the worst by any means.)
Grand Floridian Cafe (basic breakfasts, lunch and dinners, mostly used by people who need to use a MP credit or people staying there who are hungry and tired/had a hard time with other ressie)
1900 Park Fare (loud loud loud and enclosed character meals. Lovely characters, but so incredibly loud! BR is Mary Poppins, Alice, Mad Hatter, Winnie, Tigger and maybe White Rabbit? Dinner is Cindy, her prince, and step family.)
Citricos (expensive, the dinners were lovely in February but disappointing in October, if you like chocolate they have one of the best desserts... *chocolate crown yum*)

[123LuckyMom]

You can take the boat from the Contemporary to the Wilderness Lodge. Whispering Canyon Cafe is lots of fun!

Can you describe what makes it fun? Maybe we'll book there for our arrival day dinner (with the kids.) We definitely want to check out the Wilderness Lodge as a possible future hotel for us to stay in, and we're looking for a good arrival night dinner. We're at the Contemporary this trip.

Also, OP, the food at Animal Kingdom Lodge is generally regarded to be very good. I've only eaten at Boma, which is a buffet. We enjoyed our meal, but not so much that I'd say you should definitely go there. If the weather's nice, though, you can see the animals from the Animal Kingdom Lodge. When we went it ended up being in the 30's, and no animals were in sight. I think Sanaa(?) has views of the savannah from tables, and the food is Indian/African. Jiko is supposed to be good, too. Of course, AKL is not super close to the Contemporary, but we're considering those restaurants, too, for our arrival night.

[rkold]

Can you describe what makes it fun? Maybe we'll book there for our arrival day dinner (with the kids.) We definitely want to check out the Wilderness Lodge as a possible future hotel for us to stay in, and we're looking for a good arrival night dinner. We're at the Contemporary this trip.

Also, OP, the food at Animal Kingdom Lodge is generally regarded to be very good. I've only eaten at Boma, which is a buffet. We enjoyed our meal, but not so much that I'd say you should definitely go there. If the weather's nice, though, you can see the animals from the Animal Kingdom Lodge. When we went it ended up being in the 30's, and no animals were in sight. I think Sanaa(?) has views of the savannah from tables, and the food is Indian/African. Jiko is supposed to be good, too. Of course, AKL is not super close to the Contemporary, but we're considering those restaurants, too, for our arrival night.

Personally, I think Sanaa and Jiko are much better than Boma. I think part of it in Sanaa vs. Boma is it's just harder to make lots of good buffet food vs. fewer things at a table service restaurant. Window tables at Sanaa do have Savanna views though at night, you won't see much. (There is night viewing of the animals, but it's held elsewhere, you can do it though.)

Jiko has very good food but is much more formal than Boma or Sanaa since it's a "signature."

I personally, wouldn't stay in the WL for a while since I think their pool in under construction and they are doing a lot of work creating more DVC units.

Unless you have a car or MK is open late, getting to AKL can be a pain. I admit, we used a cab once trying to get back to the GF from there. You don't want to have to use Disney Springs as a transfer point. It's a ways out of the ways from the MK resorts and has terrible congestion because of all the construction currently taking place there.

The boats between the Contemp and Wilderness Lodge run about every 30-40 minutes, so if you are relying on them, make sure you have some idea of the schedule. We were late to our reservation at Artist Point because of this.

I've never eaten at Whispering Canyon, it seemed sort of expensive for fairly conventional food served family style. It is very popular though.

[Cam&Clay]

Can you describe what makes it fun? Maybe we'll book there for our arrival day dinner (with the kids.) We definitely want to check out the Wilderness Lodge as a possible future hotel for us to stay in, and we're looking for a good arrival night dinner. We're at the Contemporary this trip.

Also, OP, the food at Animal Kingdom Lodge is generally regarded to be very good. I've only eaten at Boma, which is a buffet. We enjoyed our meal, but not so much that I'd say you should definitely go there. If the weather's nice, though, you can see the animals from the Animal Kingdom Lodge. When we went it ended up being in the 30's, and no animals were in sight. I think Sanaa(?) has views of the savannah from tables, and the food is Indian/African. Jiko is supposed to be good, too. Of course, AKL is not super close to the Contemporary, but we're considering those restaurants, too, for our arrival night.

Wilderness Lodge is our absolute favorite hotel. It's the only place we stay. Whispering Canyon Cafe is different in that the servers are loud and funny! They play all kinds of jokes on you and there's music and singing and general goofiness all throughout dinner. We love it, but we did watch one couple cringe every time their server yelled something.

[123LuckyMom]

Wilderness Lodge is our absolute favorite hotel. It's the only place we stay. Whispering Canyon Cafe is different in that the servers are loud and funny! They play all kinds of jokes on you and there's music and singing and general goofiness all throughout dinner. We love it, but we did watch one couple cringe every time their server yelled something.

Hmmm. Could be great. Could be awful! ;) I like the singing idea, but I don't love being teased and generally don't enjoy being made part of any show.

We're on a 3-4 year cycle with Disney, so we're going this spring but won't be back again until 2019, most likely. At that time our kids will be 10-11 and 7-8 years old depending on whether we go in the winter/spring or the following fall. We figure being in a monorail hotel won't be as important then since it's unlikely we'll be returning to the hotel during the day or dealing with strollers. That would be the trip to consider the Wilderness Lodge or even a moderate or value. I've never stayed in a non-monorail hotel at Disney except for one year at the Swan or Dolphin about 30 years ago! I've been going about every three years since I was 4 or 5. I took a hiatus during my 30s and am glad to be back on schedule!!!

OP, let us know what you decide and how it works out. I'm always interested in hearing about what other people liked and disliked.

[erosenst]

Hmmm. Could be great. Could be awful! ;) I like the singing idea, but I don't love being teased and generally don't enjoy being made part of any show. You're not alone - they now have a card at the table that you can turn one way for 'yes, I"m game' and another for 'leave me alone'. They have a 'parade' with wooden ponies that your kids may like. I agree that it's fun to see the resort. The food is....fine. Having said that, we still go every trip.

[Indianamom2]

We just got back from Disney on Sunday. We ate at the Whispering Canyon Cafe and while the atmosphere is fun and loud (and DH and I are reserved people in general) the food was disappointing at best. We did the all-you-can-eat family style "skillet" meal that is most popular, and despite liking it the last time we went there (many years ago), this time it just wasn't good. I would be willing to try something else off the menu though.

The O'Hana restaurant at the Polynesian has a sort of laid-back atmosphere, but still has some fun activities for kids (coconut races). The food there was much better than Whispering Canyon, in my opinion.

We enjoyed Be Our Guest, but it's hard to get a reservation for dinner (never been for lunch or breakfast).

Le Cellier at Epcot is one of our favorites, but it's pretty fancy.