Donald's Breakfastasaurus

[IluvDonald!]

Unless something has changed from our last visit in 2004, if you tell a cast member that you didn't have enough time for pics/autographs, etc with the character, they will usually accomodate you and make it right. That happened to us at donald's breakfast in 2004 and they certainly gave us another opportunity for pics & autographs.

I posted in another thread, that I make my ADP's based on what our dd(11) would like in terms of atmosphere, fun, variety, etc. Sometimes we might get a bad meal, but the overall experiences have been wonderful. To me, I'd rather see my daughter's face light up in a beautiful smile than worry that the buffet was only mediocre, so I guess that's what I'm paying for when I make the ADR's.

 

[misspickle]

lolol i booked there for my son might cancel thats a few bad reviews i've read

 

[aubriee]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience there. We've always had good food, excellent service, and plenty of time with the characters. In fact this past January after we took pictures with Goofy (my GD alone, then both of us) she started to sit back down and he grabbed her hand, pulled her back up, and danced around with her a little doing the twist.

 

[Boardwalk Tigger]

We were there this past December ( Christmas week) and it wasn' t crowded,
they had very good food and there was no rush by the characters. Our waiter did some magic tricks for us . Had a great time. We were there around 10am or so.

 

[sunny_]

I see very mixed reviews. We have adr's for here in September. We've never tried this character breakfast before. I hope we can come back from our trip with a good review!! *fingers crossed*

 

[nluvwithmickey]

This breakfast was our first ever at WDW & holds a special place in our memories. We would def do it again

Same here. We are looking forward to giving it another try this fall. Since we have a late seating we may hopefully not feel too rushed.

 

[imageid]

I have to agree. We were there in June. The food was a basic breakfast buffet. We enjoyed our meal, but the character interaction was very rushed, we had a 10:30 ADR. Other character meals were definatley better. We will not go back.

 

[Goobergal99]

We did this one twice and although we loved the theming, the characters did seem rushed.

DD just had to see Donald though because the year previsouly we were in line to see him, told one more family (which was us) and some rude ppl jumped in front of us and pushed DD out of the way so she never got a picture with him. I swear my DH would have knocked that kids dad out if I hadn't pulled him away. she was just crushed

 

[loulipsky]

We are returning to Donald's Breakfastosaurus AGAIN for my (DM) birthday on Aug 211 Eaten there every trip since ot opened and my (now) teenagers love it and insist on going there. We have always had great experience with CMs and characters. Donald is my absolute favorite and this is one of the few places to see him!

 

[PortieOwner]

I thought it was decent but we won't go there the next trip. My wife didn't like the 1950s ambiance of the place. I thought the food was very good, and the characters were a bit rushed there.

Portie

 

[minnieluvzmickey]

We are going to try it in Oct. at 8:00. My main reason for booking this place is to get right on Everest at 9:00 so rushing will be fine for us.

 

[dianemb]

We've been here twice and loved it both times. Have another ADR for December. We thought the interaction was GREAT and really liked the food and thought it had the right amount of choices. I really don't let posts change my ADR's, just take them as suggestions. Everyone is different and plenty of people like it too!!!!

 

[MomofCKJ]

I called this week and got an 8am breakfast there purely to get us to Everest early. We have several other character meals earlier in our week so I am not worried about character interaction. We really want to get on Everest early. And I am sure breakfast will beat the in room bagels, breakfast bars we are planning on for most of the week!

Sorry to hear your experience was not as good as you had hoped for.

Allyson

 

[kmthompson77]

We took our trip to WDW in May and I thought it was great. We got some great pictures of the kids with the characters and we all thought the food was really good with lots of variety. I have small children and when they will sit up and eat their meal then it is a good day, and after that experience my friends, it was a great day!!!!!

 

[BuzzBelleMom]

We are going to try it in Oct. at 8:00. My main reason for booking this place is to get right on Everest at 9:00 so rushing will be fine for us.

We are going in November and I did the same exact thing! DH wants to go on Everest as soon as we wipe off two pairs of sticky hands! He is probably hoping interaction with Donald & friends keeps DD & DS from freaking out about the ride.

 

[ks12066]

We are here for this same reason. They will not let you past the rope there where the restaurant is until after the park opens. My husband made a mad dash along with everyone else and got us fastpasses. The fastpases were for after 11:00 and the line wait was 45 minutes. THis was in July.

 

[3DisneyKids]

I have posted this elsewhere, but we ate here in May in it was awful. The food and service both were just terrible. First, we waited over 20 minutes for our ADR--and there were empty tables everywhere. Once seated, we had to wait another ten or so minutes...finally, I went up to someone and asked if we could just go up to the buffet (which we did). Once our server arrived, he was very friendly and apologetic, which was appreciated.

Each character came to our table, of course, but they spent very little time there--again, the place was pretty empty, so I'm not sure why we didn't get more interaction.

This is on our "never again" list--unless, of course, their breakfast switches to the quality of Crystal Palace.

For those who have had a good experience, I am glad for you--hopefully those who have ADRs will also have a good time.

Deb's site (allearsnet) has tons of reviews...and this restaurant is consistently blasted.

 

[matlock42373]

We have been there for an early ADR and enjoyed it. The food was hot and fresh and buffet was being cleaned constantly. Character interactment was short but if you are expecting to have more than a minute or two with them you aren't realizing the scope of what they need to accomplish for each sitting. Especially if there are other folks who are not practicing proper character etiquette.

 

[purpliequeen]

Hmmm... I've been reading the disboards for a while and this always is an iffy breakfast buffet. Some people come back posting that they love it, others post that it was a waste. I think it really depends on when you go, your party, what you're expecting, I mean it's all relative.

I know now that a lot of people are doing what was previously mentioned- fast passes for EE, which is smart. If you're going for a reason like this, then Donald's can't be beat. However, all the good food reviews seem to happen when the restaurant opens and everything is fresh. When people reviewed a later breakfast time- around 10am, I've read that the food is old and mildly warm.

If the restaurant is less crowded, the characters have been known to be great. But lately reviews have stated that the character handlers are slipping.

As you can see, this restaurant is very hard to judge whether it's good or not. We had no problems with it but we went in expecting the worst so we could be pleasantly surprised. We won't go back- I'm older now and not that impressed with character meals in general. Don't let one bad review make you all of a sudden switch restaurants, take everything on the disboards as a grain of salt.

 

[Brianne]

We ate there this morning for the same reason many on here have stated--we wanted the advantage for EE.

The food's fine---your typical breakfast buffet. Although I do have to say that I don't really like the placement of the cold items since it's right in the middle of one of the dining rooms as opposed to where the hot food is located. However, that's a personal preference.

The area is chaotic. CMs are running around, yelling out names, herding people through to have their photos taken before the meal. The restaurant is very noisy, especially when they start blasting that moldy oldy "Celebration" song.

The character interaction is disorganized. Goofy managed to miss a couple tables--ours & the one next to it, if not a couple more. Luckily either someone said something or the handler realized what happened because he did come back & the handler apologized for the mistake.

The one thing that really ticked us off though was the picture package. The CM that came around with it had a very thick accent---I don't fault him for that one bit; however, it was very hard to hear in there as well. I felt bad for having to ask him to repeat the price a few times.

I couldn't believe they were trying to charge $31.95 for this package though! If I understood correctly, all that was in it was a 5x7 (or did he say 5x8? I couldn't hear him!) & some wallets, and a signed picture of the characters. My DH asked if we could just buy the one large one---we were willing to pay $16-17 for it because it did turn out well, but we didn't want to pay almost $32 for what we didn't need. Nope! All or nothing. So we took nothing. Breakfast was about $100 after tax, tip & using our DDE card---at that amount, it should've been like CRT with the pictures included.

All in all, was it worth it? Yes, only because EE was a . I don't know if I'd give it a third attempt though. (our first visit wasn't great either, but I believe in second chances!)