Favorite MK dining options (both QS and TS)

[Pookie9922]

We aren't going until March 2022 but I want to plan something! So I decided to plan food, one park at a time. (We'll have one day in HS, EP, AK and 2 in MK)

This is our second trip to WDW. We'll have 2 days at MK.
We are ride focused, not horribly concerned with TS - cuts into our ride time. But since we'll have lots of MK time, a TS in MK would be fine.
Family is me, DH, 3 kids (9,12,13 - oldest is picky-ish, could live on nuggets but will eat other food under protest). Also going with brother-in-law family (5yo who I think is fairly picky) and mother-in-law. (All their first trip) Not sure how many meals we will do with them. I'm guessing they'll want to do a Cinderella breakfast. We will not be joining for character meals - not worth the $$ to us.

Last trip we ate at Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch. Loved it and ate so much we didn't need dinner. Second day we had Pub tots & Brats at Friar's Nook, dessert at BOG and dinner at Pecos Bill. The BOG dessert was excellent. Sad we can't repeat that this time. The rest of the food the second day was just okay.

I'd love to repeat LTT but last time we ate lunch there to avoid paying AYCTE prices for the kids - They aren't big eaters. They ended up sharing 2 kids meals. They are 3 years older this time but still don't eat a ton. Now it will be AYCTE prices for 4 adults since there are no other lunch options. It was excellent but not sure it's $200+ excellent.

The food all sounded good in theory but we were pretty disappointed with food the second day. I'd like to avoid repeating that this time.

So what are your favorite QS or reasonably priced TS restaurants in MK?

Thanks!

 

[Prince John Robin Hood]

Favourite TS are Liberty Tree and Be our guest. Favourite QS is Pinocchio Village Haus and Cosmic Rays but I don't love any of the MK QS options. Pinocchio's is a hit with the kids though.

 

[philharmagic fan]

Tony's has decent entrees; flatbread pizza (possibly only at lunch, check menu), spaghetti, chicken parm. For unadventurous eaters, gelato is a great dessert if they don't want cannolis or tiramasu. Jungle Skipper is similarly priced but I'm a picky eater who prefers bland foods and it was a bit too spicy for me. For more options, you might consider hopping on the resort monorail and going to one of the hotel QS venues; much quieter, more options, and less "assembly line" feel than the park QS. We prefer Gasparilla at Grand Floridian but the others are OK too. GF and Poly have nice outside seating if the weather's OK.

 

[Pookie9922]

Tony's has decent entrees; flatbread pizza (possibly only at lunch, check menu), spaghetti, chicken parm. For unadventurous eaters, gelato is a great dessert if they don't want cannolis or tiramasu. Jungle Skipper is similarly priced but I'm a picky eater who prefers bland foods and it was a bit too spicy for me. For more options, you might consider hopping on the resort monorail and going to one of the hotel QS venues; much quieter, more options, and less "assembly line" feel than the park QS. We prefer Gasparilla at Grand Floridian but the others are OK too. GF and Poly have nice outside seating if the weather's OK.

That's a good suggestion about the resort QS restaurants. I'll look into them. I'd like to eat at Ohana, so maybe this is the opportunity to do that. I was afraid trying to eat at one of the resorts might take away too much park time. Is it pretty quick to get to the MK resorts via monorail? We rode it once but I can't recall how long it took.

 

[RanDIZ]

There are far better options along the monorail loop and at WL that’s well worth leaving MK for to eat. I honestly can’t recommend anything in MK. IMO it’s the worst park for food options.

 

[SillySallySews]

Tony's has decent entrees; flatbread pizza (possibly only at lunch, check menu), spaghetti, chicken parm. For unadventurous eaters, gelato is a great dessert if they don't want cannolis or tiramasu. Jungle Skipper is similarly priced but I'm a picky eater who prefers bland foods and it was a bit too spicy for me. For more options, you might consider hopping on the resort monorail and going to one of the hotel QS venues; much quieter, more options, and less "assembly line" feel than the park QS. We prefer Gasparilla at Grand Floridian but the others are OK too. GF and Poly have nice outside seating if the weather's OK.

What happens if you leave at say 12pm and you try to get back in after 2pm and now a lot of people have hopped to MK? Maybe this is a silly question, but my brain is having a hard time understanding capacity with the whole park reservation system. My preference would be to have lunch at Captain Cook’s on our MK day, but I’m afraid we will leave to do that and then we won’t be able to get back in.

 

[PlutoTheDog89]

I've gotta be totally honest... MK doesn't do it for me food-wise...which is surprising since it's the most popular park. Tony's is a no-go for me; BOG is too expensive or the portion, type, and quality of food; haven't tried Skipper's Canteen, so can't really comment on it...We tried Columbia Harbour House and didn't like it. Felt it was very overhyped.

On days we do MK, we usually have a QS breakfast before heading to the park, snack while at the park, then do dinner somewhere outside. If we wanna stay in the MK area, we'll hop on the monorail to Contemporary and get dinner at The Wave (TS) or Contempo Cafe (QS). We also like Geyser Point at Wilderness Lodge, 'Ohana (TS) and Capt Cooks (QS) at Poly, and of course our Narcoossee's (2xTS) at GF. Don't get me wrong, Cali Grill is up there, but we're more Narcoossee's people.

But... if you wanna stay at the park, then Pecos Bill's is not a bad option. Also grabbing a waffle sandwich at Sleepy Hollow is solid for breakfast. You can have a hot dog at Casey's, or even grab some egg rolls at the cart. Outside of that, idk...

Do keep in mind it's all subjective. I'm from NY and an Italian food snob, so I don't find the food at Tony's good. I'd say it's in line with an Olive Garden, but not quite as good as a Carraba's.

 

[NYCgrrl]

What happens if you leave at say 12pm and you try to get back in after 2pm and now a lot of people have hopped to MK? Maybe this is a silly question, but my brain is having a hard time understanding capacity with the whole park reservation system. My preference would be to have lunch at Captain Cook’s on our MK day, but I’m afraid we will leave to do that and then we won’t be able to get back in.

You only have to worry about capacity at MK during holidays and special events. If that’s not happening during your stay it’s not something you need to be concerned about. The hotel front office will give you a newsletter that tells of capacity the night before if you are staying on property.

 

[kylenne]

What happens if you leave at say 12pm and you try to get back in after 2pm and now a lot of people have hopped to MK? Maybe this is a silly question, but my brain is having a hard time understanding capacity with the whole park reservation system. My preference would be to have lunch at Captain Cook’s on our MK day, but I’m afraid we will leave to do that and then we won’t be able to get back in.

Not once has anyone been denied hopping or re-entry for capacity since the park reservation system has been in place. Don't worry about this.

As time goes, it really doesn't take long to leave MK and get to a monorail resort. It depends on where you are in the park when you leave, obviously. But from the front of the park, CR is about a 10 minute walk, GF about 15 minute walk, probably closer to 20 if wrangling kids. When going to Poly, if a monorail or a boat is there it's comparable, if not slightly less time.

 

[disny_luvr]

As far as QS in the MK, my family really likes Columbia Harbor House. It isn't open right now, but hopefully it will be by your trip. If it isn't open, Pecos Bill isn't a bad alternative. We also really like Casey's. Again, isn't open, but I heard rumors it may be opening soon. While I don't think the QS in the MK is something to write home about, we've always been satisfied with our meals.

If you want to leave the park, my family absolutely loves Capt. Cook's at the Poly. I dream about the pork nachos there. I'm not one to leave a park to eat because I think it wastes time, but since we travel in the summer we do usually find ourselves leaving the parks in the afternoon for breaks. We usually stay at either the BC/YC or Poly, so stopping to eat at one of the QS locations at these resorts isn't really out of the way for us.

 

[LeeLee'sMom]

MK options are not the best. Casey's and Pecos Bills are okay. We almost always leave to go to Grand Floridian Cafe or even one of the QS restaurants at Poly or Contemporary. It gets us out of the heat, a good meal, ride on either the monorail or boat and some shopping lol.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

We aren't going until March 2022 but I want to plan something! So I decided to plan food, one park at a time. (We'll have one day in HS, EP, AK and 2 in MK)

This is our second trip to WDW. We'll have 2 days at MK.
We are ride focused, not horribly concerned with TS - cuts into our ride time. But since we'll have lots of MK time, a TS in MK would be fine.
Family is me, DH, 3 kids (9,12,13 - oldest is picky-ish, could live on nuggets but will eat other food under protest). Also going with brother-in-law family (5yo who I think is fairly picky) and mother-in-law. (All their first trip) Not sure how many meals we will do with them. I'm guessing they'll want to do a Cinderella breakfast. We will not be joining for character meals - not worth the $$ to us.

Last trip we ate at Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch. Loved it and ate so much we didn't need dinner. Second day we had Pub tots & Brats at Friar's Nook, dessert at BOG and dinner at Pecos Bill. The BOG dessert was excellent. Sad we can't repeat that this time. The rest of the food the second day was just okay.

I'd love to repeat LTT but last time we ate lunch there to avoid paying AYCTE prices for the kids - They aren't big eaters. They ended up sharing 2 kids meals. They are 3 years older this time but still don't eat a ton. Now it will be AYCTE prices for 4 adults since there are no other lunch options. It was excellent but not sure it's $200+ excellent.

The food all sounded good in theory but we were pretty disappointed with food the second day. I'd like to avoid repeating that this time.

So what are your favorite QS or reasonably priced TS restaurants in MK?

Thanks!

So MK doesn't have that many good to great TS or QS restaurants, much better snack options at MK than any thing else. For TS, LTT is good and BOG is also fairly decent (can be hit or miss depending on meal time), but both are fairly solid choices and have great theming. I don't dine at BOG for the food, it's the atmosphere we love. We also like The Plaza, kind of expensive for the food but the location is nice and seeing the castle out the window is great. We will do Plaza for dessert only sometimes too. Doesn't take much time. Crystal Palace, I heard the food offerings have improved since re-opening but I think it's an atmosphere dining location only, nothing special and again, not budget friendly.

My girls are 14 and 12 now and are still not huge eaters. The AYCTE restaurants just don't give us much bang for our buck and we find at MK, snacking and QS works best for us.

We love the cheeseburger egg roll cart that is located near adventureland/jungle cruise. It's not always open but it's so so good, expensive but good. We also like Friar's Nook, those buffalo tots, so so good. We like Peco's bills, chicken nachos are my favorite, one of my girls loves the SW chicken salad there too. We enjoy Pinocchio Village Haus, it's not stellar but decent and good for a quick bite. I like the balsamic margarita flatbread. It's hit or miss, sometimes it's really good and other times it's cardboard. It's really not the best park for food but it works for us.

 

[Kelly014]

MK is not known for its food but there are some good ones. We really like Columbia Harbor House and Sleepy Hollow. We are trying Skipper Canteen this time too which I am really excited about, but we are all pretty adventurous eaters. Friar’s Nook isn’t bad and we like BoG dinner but aren’t doing it this time.

If you hop on the monorail Capt. Cooks at the Poly is a great quick service, and the monorail ride and eating inside might provide a nice mid day break.

Also, to add to the planning fun, check out DFB on YouTube and watch her videos on the best snacks. We plan to spend some of our time in MK strategically hitting snack spots that has stuff we’re interested in trying (different dole whips, churros, spring rolls, Cheshire Cat tail, etc.)

 

[Eastern]

Skipper Canteen, Pecos Bill (sorry those who are not fans) CHH (currently closed). I like Sleepy Hollow but there is always such a long line.

 

[Pookie9922]

Also, to add to the planning fun, check out DFB on YouTube and watch her videos on the best snacks. We plan to spend some of our time in MK strategically hitting snack spots that has stuff we’re interested in trying (different dole whips, churros, spring rolls, Cheshire Cat tail, etc.)

We are also big on snacks. I like this strategy! Last trip I worked all my targeted snacks into my itinerary. The only one on my list I didn't get to try was the keylime float. Glad they kept it so I can try it this time! I could also just eat a nutella waffle for every meal and be content!

 

[Kestryl]

Skipper Canteen is really good, but check out the menu ahead of time. Some might consider it “adventurous.” It’s also great if you like ridiculous puns Jungle Cruise-style.

For QS, I personally like Cosmic Ray’s, but that’s more for Sony Eclipse than the food.

 

[vcb]

As far as QS in the MK, my family really likes Columbia Harbor House. It isn't open right now, but hopefully it will be by your trip. If it isn't open, Pecos Bill isn't a bad alternative. We also really like Casey's. Again, isn't open, but I heard rumors it may be opening soon. While I don't think the QS in the MK is something to write home about, we've always been satisfied with our meals.

It's relocated at Tomorrowland Terrace.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

The hotel front office will give you a newsletter that tells of capacity the night before if you are staying on property.

When did they start that?

 

[NYCgrrl]

When did they start that?

Its probably on the 24/7 Disney TV station where they give the weather forecast, times of different shows, park opening hours and such, shown at all hotels. Maybe the newsletter is only given out at the CLs.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

Its probably on the 24/7 Disney TV station where they give the weather forecast, times of different shows, park opening hours and such, shown at all hotels. Maybe the newsletter is only given out at the CLs.

I read CL has not opened yet.
What shows are open? I read only Festival of the Lion King.