Disney: Places to Eat

"Reservations all depends on your style and stamina.

Are you the type who wants to be on THE GO your whole trip? If yes, then counter service is the way to go. Beware that even counter service can mean a 20-30 minute wait.

If you think you will want or need a break, ie sitting in AC in comfort while someone else gets you a nice meal, make reservations. Nearly all the services at Disney are NO DEPOSIT priority seatings, not standard reservations. They will try to accomodate walk-ins. A few of the seatings require a deposit and have a 24-48 hour cancellation period (notify them 24-48 hours in advance to cancel.

There MANY fun places to eat there. MOst of the will be difficult to get at the last minute unless you are traveling at the low season. If you need a break and have young children, then it is always good to call and get seatings, even if you double book youself. You can make them same day sometimes you will get good times at the last minute. "

Disney: Places to Eat

"Maybe it was just luck, but we were able to walk in and be seated (once as a fairly large party) at non-counter dining options. In fact, the large party dinner (8) we had was at Wilderness Lodge, and I was surprised that we were seated in about 25 minutes without reservations.

That said, I think the places in the park can get so crowded, and in one case we opted out of sit-down dining and got a hotdog to avoid the long wait. Some of the buffets are a little easier to get seating, though I know these also are hot spots for character dining (which is totally worth it in my opinion).

We also found that Epcot was a bit less crowded around eating times, and that if you schedule meals around non-traditional meal times you'll have more luck with shorter waits."

Disney: Places to Eat

"My husband and I are huge Disney fans and have been several times and never made reservations in advance, except for the fancier restaurants. We've stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and eaten at their sit down restaurant called Whispering Canyon Cafe and had no problem getting a table. However, not sure if you know, but that's an "interactive" type restaurant - meaning they get people to get up and do silly songs, dances, etc. We had a great time with it, but some people aren't into that -the kids seem to love it though. Other than that and the fancy restaurant "Artist Pointe", there aren't any other sitdown type restaurants in the Wilderness Lodge. You can easily take a short boat ride (which is entertainment in and of itself) over to the contemporary resort and go to some of their less fancy restaurants."

Disney: Places to Eat

"We went to Disney in March with our 3 year old and actually only had one dinner reservation and one lunch reservation that happened to be a character lunch at MGM. For dinner, we went to the Hoopdy Do Revenue and our daughter absolutely loved it! Please note that it's a pricey meal but expect a fun and interactive experience where noise is plentiful. MGM offers a lunch and dinner character breakfast that was really nice and the food was good. Otherwise, we did mainly character breakfasts (at the Polynesian and Contemporary Resorts) and a buffet breakfast at the Animal Kingdom lodge."

Disney: Places to Eat

"We went to Disney several months ago and I would recommend making dinner reservations for every night you are there. We couldn't get any a day or two in advance. Even the not fancy restaurants in the parks (not character) were totally booked. We had breakfasts and lunches at counter service places but you're so tired from walking all day, it's nice to be able to sit down and rest at the end. A good website is allears.net which has all the restaurants and their menus listed. You can loosely schedule your trip based on where and when you can make dinner reservations.

I can recommend several:
in Magic Kingdom: Liberty Tree Tavern, Tony's Town Square & Crystal Palace; any place in Epcot; at MGM: 50's Prime Time is a blast, Sci-Fi Dine-In is also cool and Hollywood & Vine; Animal Kingdom has a Rainforest Café which my kids love. I've never been to the Wilderness Lodge but other resorts have always had good food. Again, allears.net has tons of info and even recent reviews."

Disney: Places to Eat

"I suggest making reservations at the character dinners at Chef Mickeys, the Garden Grill, and any other character dinners you can get reservations at. There's no charge to make them and no charge if you dont show. You'll need one good sit down meal a day, lunch or dinner. The other meals go grocery shopping and bring your own. There is some other food at disney but its just ok and kind of expensive. Animal
Kingdom lunch places are pretty good though, and Epcot has a decent food court."

Disney: Places to Eat

"You absolutely need to make dinner reservations for Disney Dining. When are you going? Do you have the disney dining plan?

We made our reservations for our Sept. 2007 trip in April. Then we called and made all of our meal reservations in June and we were shut out of almost everywhere we wanted to eat ..... except for eating dinner at 4:30pm or 9:30 pm. Not really an option with a 5 and 2 year old. We have the disney dining plan so we made all of our reservations in advance. If you don't you can call the day of or day before and the dining line will tell you what's available, but it may not fit the park you are in, or the time you want to eat. Otherwise, you may have to wait over an hour to get a table.

Many of the counter-service locations are pretty good. And you can eat "on the run" every day. But, you're going to want to sit down sometime.
It's not that they are really nice restaurants for "sit down" meals, but they are seated and you are waited on. There's only a handful of "nice" dress up restaurants at Disney.

Wilderness lodge has some great restaurants on site......Artists Point is a "nice" restaurant, we went 2 years ago and brought our then, 3 ½ year old. He sat and colored and that was fine."

Disney: Places to Eat

"The food is definitely a lot better, and it's calmer and quieter, at the sit down places. They aren't cheap, nor are they totally outrageous. I really like the character meals...they don't really cost more than the regular sit down meals and it gives the kids an opportunity to get easy access to the characters they like. The Pooh breakfast at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom is great and we had a wonderful time with the characters (Minnie & Friends) at the Liberty Tree Tavern dinner. The meal was a Family-style Thanksgiving-type meal.

The meals I've had at the sit down places (and really at all of Disney) were decent, but not great. You do get a good selection with most of the sit-down places. There are some very extensive buffets.

Even if it's not a character meal, you really do want to make reservations if you want a sit down dinner. Depending on the time of year and time of day, things do fill up. And Disney has a knack for reducing staff at off-times, so they fill up too. There are some last minute cancelations, so you can sometimes get in at the last minute. Generally there will be something, somewhere that has openings, but if you want a specific place and time, you need to book in advance. When we went for just a couple days, I would say skip the sit-downs unless it is a character meal. For a week, it would probably make sense to plan at least a couple sit-downs. Also, Disney's town nearby, Celebration, has some really nice restaurant options if you want to head off world. We were able to get in to those with same-day reservations (and sometimes walk-in) during a quieter season."

Disney: Places to Eat

"I would say make reservations because you are not bound to keep them and this way you'll have a fall-back. They actually permit you to make multiple reservations at the same time and then decide at the last minute -- so making one for each dinner seems like a pretty modest back-up system. We did this for both breakfast and dinner for our upcoming trip (next week as a matter of fact) knowing that we might end up skipping out at the last minute in favor of fast food depending on moodiness or tiredness..."

Disney: Places to Eat

"FWIW, we don't always get our ideal dinner hour which is like 6:00 or
6:30pm, but since we get there late, we typically eat lunch "on the run" late and then have a later dinner, like at 7:00 or 7:30pm. Reservations are not hard to get if you do it right as soon as you get to the park. Also, fwiw... we always dine at the back of Epcot where the "countries" are.

Side note, in case this interests you..... this Xmas we'll be dining at Cinderella's castle for lunch ("Cinderella's Table"). Reservations have to be made typically 6 months in advance with a credit card. I made reservations last week for this. Last time we were there (December) we showed up at the castle and asked if there were any cancellations.
Because folks plan in advance (and pay in advance) this doesn't happen, apparently.
Cinderella visits the tables at the breakfast and lunch hours and is only available in the lobby for photos for the dinner hour. Lunch runs $48 per adult and is free for kids up to age 3."

Disney: Places to Eat

"Reservations are necessary (particularly in high seasons) or a good idea in any season, with little risk. Most people made reservations even realizing that they would cancel/modify dining plans if needed. Others added that you could easily double-book reservations at different locations and that most places had a very lenient cancellation policy. I've included some of the replies that recommend particular restaurants or offer other helpful tips (including character meals). Also note www.allears.net is an unofficial Disney-type website which posts menus to the various Disney restaurants--very helpful resource so you can get an idea of cuisine, kid's menus and price ranges!"