Some of the most memorable moments at Walt Disney World have little to do with the parks. Instead, it’s those wonderful instances when you’re sitting with family and/or friends, enjoying a meal. The beauty of the Disney campus is that many of the restaurants offer much more than food. They tend toward the “dinner and a show” vibe, even when there technically isn’t a show. The atmosphere and ambience at these locations is so wonderful that you’ll remember the meal for years to come. Here are my choices for the seven most unforgettable meals at Walt Disney World.
Whispering Canyon
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge is rustic. That’s the theme of the property, and it permeates throughout the grounds. Perhaps no place onsite exemplifies this concept more than the restaurant just past the lobby, Whispering Canyon.
This eatery is all about the grub. It’s basically the Pace Picante Sauce commercial come to life. The moment you enter Whispering Canyon, you know that you’re in for a rollickin’ good time. Happy faces and loud noises are everywhere, two great signs that people love their food and the restaurant’s raucous atmosphere.
The most famous item on the menu is all you care to eat, and cast members serve the grub in giant skillets. It’s the All-You-Care-To-Enjoy Skillet, and it’s a steal for less than $35. You get corn on the cob, giant mounds of mashed potatoes, BBQ pork, and pork ribs. It’s exactly the sort of delicious flavor that you’d expect at an outdoor gathering, but you don’t have to deal with the annoying flies and hungry ants.
By the way, if you do eat here, remember to ask for some ketchup…
Coral Reef
I have a friend at Walt Disney World. Maybe some of you know him. Or her. We’re not close enough that this creature has discussed gender identities with me. All I know is that when I visit Coral Reef at The Living Seas with Nemo and Friends, my friend comes over to visit me every tiime.
This creature is a ray, and it’s sat beside me for three consecutive meals. Sure, it will wander off from time to time, possibly to eat or possibly to avoid the shark that inhabits those same waters. Whatever the reason, it dutifully returns and hangs out with me as I dine. And when I think about memorable moments eating at Walt Disney World, this friendly fish springs to mind. The next time you enjoy a meal at Coral Reef, please tell it that I said hello…and that I hope to visit it again very soon.
Coral Reef is a meal that takes place beside a giant aquarium. I love everything about it.
Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen
Image: DisneyHow much do I love Jungle Cruise? Well, I’ve written more than 5,000 words about it. Even if you’re not as passionate about the subject as I am, you should still enjoy a meal at Skipper Canteen, one of the newest restaurants at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. That’s because Disney has done something especially clever. They’ve extended the theme of wayward adventurers beyond the waters.
During a meal at Skipper Canteen, a cast member will jump into character as an incompetent explorer who wants to share tales of prior journeys into the great unknown. Unsurprisingly, most of these tales involve bad puns, by which I mean that Disney has added to the standard script of the attraction. Now, all the corny jokes that people love-hate about Jungle Cruise come in food form.
No, the concept doesn’t work for everyone, but that’s okay. You can politely ask your server to dial down the groan-inducing jokes if you prefer. If you want to have a wonderful time laughing at the worst jokes imaginable, however, it is a wonderful hour of entertainment. Someone feeds you while they regale you with tales of failure that they confuse with triumph. Skipper Canteen is glorious.
1900 Park Fare
Image: DisneyDisney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa has such a sterling reputation for fine dining that you may not know about a couple of its hidden gems. The Grand Floridian Café is a wonderful establishment with a rich menu and a particularly wonderful group of cast members. It’s also the easiest advance dinner reservation to get at the hotel. That’s because an adjoining establishment grabs all of the headlines.
1900 Park Fare is a character meal that Disney offers for breakfast and for dinner. What’s unique about this place is that the characters are different. At breakfast, you’ll encounter Mary Poppins and characters from Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh. That’s a delightful experience in its own right, but the most memorable offering here is at dinner.
Supper aka the Happily Ever After dining experience is when the Fairy Godmother, Cinderella, and Prince Charming host the evening’s festivities. These forces for good are counterbalanced by the presence of Lady Tremaine and her daughters, the proverbial evil stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella. It’s this menacing trio that levels up the Happily Ever After event.
Suffice to say that while Cinderella and Prince Charming are enjoying their storybook life together, the other three are rather bitter. They’re also vain, gaudy, and catty. Their odd behavior is one of the true joys of Disney, presuming that you’re prepared for it.
The way to maximize your evening at 1900 Park Fare is to enjoy cordial conversation with Cinderella and Prince Charming. Then, when the evil stepsisters arrive, join in the fun by trashing Cinderella as much as possible. The cast members who portray these women feed off the energy of the table. If you play along with them, they will go so far over the top that you will laugh so hard that you can’t breathe. It’s a gloriously great time that’s become a staple of every Walt Disney World visit that we make.
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater
Image: DisneyAre you a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, both the classic version and the new one on Netflix? Do you love to watch bad movies so that you can laugh with your friends and talk smack about the terrible special effects? Do you enjoy classic 1950s cartoons about what animators once envisioned outer space to look like? And do you want to see every obscure clip of Walt Disney that you can?
If you’re anything like me, you answered yes to every one of these questions. Even if you said no to a few of them, I swear that you will still love Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. It’s the only place at Walt Disney World where you enter the hollow shell of a car and sit in front of a giant movie screen.
The premise here is to recreate the environment of a 1950s drive-in movie theater, and Disney excelled at the theming so much that it’s become something of a cult phenomenon. The restaurant was the Wikipedia entry of the day in 2015 (out of literally millions of Wikipedia options). Also, a pair of competitors have cloned the premise in opening knockoffs the original. Amazingly, one of them is at Universal Resort Orlando. That fact speaks volumes about how memorable Sci-Fi Dine-In is. Even the locals want to rip off the idea.
Akershus
Image: DisneyYou know that scene in Office Space where the restaurant manager talks about pieces of flair? He berates an employee for wearing the minimum amount of flair, arguing that more is always better. That’s something that springs to mind when I think about Akershus.
Sure, some Disney restaurants offer a few characters. Some of them are even princesses. Most of these places have the minimum amount of princesses, though. Not Akershus. That place holds the title of Disney Princess Central.
The moment you walk in the door, a Disney Princess is ready to take a picture with you. When you sit down, a different Disney Princess arrives at your table. Then, she starts posing for pictures with your family. A few minutes after that, the place has a freakin’ Disney Princess Parade! They even anoint the girls in the crowd as Disney Princesses for the day, letting them partake in the festivities.
Cinderella’s Royal Table gets all of the hype since it’s at the hub of Magic Kingdom. For my money, Akershus offers the unforgettable meal, though. Disney Princesses are everywhere, and they even parade down the walkways, bringing joyously happy girls along with them.
Plus, the place serves Gjetost cheese, which has no purpose in this discussion, but I just can’t mention Akershus without mentioning its glorious brown cheese.
The Garden Grill Restaurant
I’m kind of obsessed with The Land Pavilion at Epcot. I particularly adore Living with the Land, an engrossing attraction that celebrates Disney’s battle to innovate in the realm of food production. Sure, I sometimes use this 20-minute ride as a nap during a long Disney day, but I also pay careful attention to the foods on display during the ride.
The Garden Grill uses many of those foods during its meals. It also throws in a character meet and greet with Chip and Dale, the hosts of the titular Harvest Feast. While I have no idea which is which, I have several pictures of my encounters with the beloved chipmunk rescue rangers. And what impresses me when I see them is that the cast members in those costumes are working with a degree of difficulty.
For reasons I don’t entirely understand, The Garden Grill is a spinning restaurant. The floor rotates so slowly that you’ll barely notice while you’re sitting down eating. Over the course of an hour-long meal, however, you’ll see several parts of the adjoining Living with the Land attraction multiple times. In other words, the floor moves fast enough that you’ll rotate in a full circle two or three times. The poor costumed cast members must navigate through tight quarters (the walkways here are notoriously small) as the very ground moves beneath them. It can’t be easy.
I won’t lie and say that The Garden Grill offers my favorite meal at Disney. It probably wouldn’t even make my top 25. It is, however, unforgettable due to its three unique qualities: the complex character meet and greet, the rotating floor, and the views of Living with the Land. That’s reason enough to earn a spot on the list.
