1900 Park Fare Dining Review

Restaurant - 1900 Park Fare

Location - Grand Floridian - You must either take the monorail from Magic Kingdom or the boat from Magic Kingdom. The monorail stops at three other stops before reaching the hotel - so give yourself some time to get there!

Characters - Cinderella, Prince Charming, Fairy Godmother, Lady Tremaine (sometimes the step sisters are there)

Food - Dinner buffet - Food was fabulous! My husband and I both thought it was great. Lots of choices and the kids even have their own area for kid foods.

Pros - The Grand Floridian is gorgeous so look around while you are waiting! They have kid seating areas near the old fashioned looking elevator. 

Cons - Traveling to the hotel, it seemed like it took longer than some of the other places we visited.

Tips - Make an evening reservation that ends near the parade time and then hop on the monorail and the very next stop is the Magic Kingdom! 

Favorite Memory - Meeting Lady Tremaine was so fun! She was hilarious and made me laugh! I kept watching her interact with other people there and would chuckle watching them with her too! She truly stole the show! The Fairy Godmother told my little one some little rhyme and had a moment with her which was very sweet too! I think that at some of the dinners the characters feel rushed to move on to the next table, but some of them took time to make a memory with my children, which makes me super happy!

Would we do it again? - Yes! We might go at another time of day to meet other characters, but we loved meeting these characters and the food was delicious - so even dad gives it a thumbs up!

Any other questions? Just ask!

She was so excited to meet Prince Charming!

Waiting for our reservation

Kid seating area at the hotel

Meeting Cinderella

The Fairy Godmother having a moment with my little one!

Of course she wouldn't smile, and kept trying to cross people's arms! Loved meeting her! My daughter told her that she wasn't very nice and tore Cinderella's dress and Lady Tremaine corrected her and said "actually my daughters tore her dress!"

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Crystal Palace Character Dining

We did 7 character dinners, yes 7! We hadn't done any dinners before and had the Deluxe dining plan and probably won't do this many again, so why not! We can say that we have done the more popular ones and there were ones that we loved and some, not so much!

Restaurant - Crystal Palace

Location - Magic Kingdom, located on the left side behind Main Street just before you get to Adventureland

Food - We ate the breakfast buffet (fresh fruit, eggs, waffles, cereal, toast, pastries and more!)

Characters - Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger

Pros - If you think about how long you would stand in line to meet all 4 characters individually, you might be saving time, plus you get to eat while you wait!

Cons - Lasts an hour, that's a long time for a breakfast with two little ones. We waited 20 minutes, after we were done eating, for Tigger to finally get to our table and they we were out of there!

Tips - Make a reservation before the park opens that day and you get into the park early! No people in front of the castle with you and you feel like you have more time to spend in the park that day. Also, bring your autograph book!

Favorite Memory - I loved seeing my 3 yr old with the characters. You can see the love in her face and how excited she was to meet them! There is nothing better than a momma seeing her baby so happy at Mommy's Happy Place - Disney World!

Would we do it again? - Yes! We liked the food and the location, but next time we will make an earlier reservation!

Any other questions? Just ask!

She saw Piglet coming up next... 

Didn't care for Pooh Bear!

My girl loved meeting the characters!

Piglet tried to get her to warm up, but she wasn't having it!

She thought Tigger was well worth the wait!

Finally warming up to a character! She touched his nose and gave him a high five!

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Get great pictures and no melt downs at character dinners!

I found that when looking at other peoples pictures from character dinners at Disney there were a few things that I wanted -
1. No food or a dirty table in the pics
2. Not a bunch of people eating in my background!
3. No crying scared children!
4. Great pictures!
Here's what I did to make sure that my pics looked like this -

1900 Park Fare

Tusker House - After a few visits she let him touch her, which was progress for her!

- not this!

I don't want to torture her!

  

Food is distracting!

1. Decide where your kids will sit to get the best pictures, that meant that sometimes I sat in the corner to be across from them for the best shot.Think about your background and foreground!
2. Move the dishes or have the child get up from the table to get a better shot!
3. Zoom in to get rid of the others in the shot or the table if need be!
4. Get down on their level - if Pluto gets on his knees to visit and give hugs, shoot from there too!
5. If you have a child scared of the characters let them sit facing where the characters come from. Your server knows which direction they come. This way they see them and know it's about to be their turn. We also sat our reluctant one on the inside so she was further away.
6. Don't force them -  if we wanted the hesitant one in the pic we got up with her and held her. She was much more relaxed that way. So as long as she was in some of the pics somewhat happy, I was happy! I wanted to avoid her having a meltdown as shown above! She cried when Pooh came to our table, but by Tigger's visit she was ready to give him a high five! At least she touched him! This was at our first character dinner, after our 7th character dinner she was a pro!
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To PhotoPass? Or not to Photopass?

Photopass!

 Disney Photopass... is it worth the money? How can you save some $$ - preorder! I went online and pre-ordered my Photo pass package deal before my trip to save over $50! What mine included was the Photo pass CD and the book. These are pages from my previous trip book. I love that you can use any of the pics they take in your book! I find that the Photopass people have the best photo spots picked out and they don't mind if thy take a pic with your camera too! One night I was quizzing a Photopass guy about his Nikon camera and the nighttime settings that he was using. He gave me pointers, tips and some tricks with my Nikon. I got some great shots with his advice! I recommend Photopass, how about you??

Top two are Photopass

All three photos are Photopass!

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