The Best Character Meal at Disney World

We make a dining reservation at The Crystal Palace every time we visit Walt Disney World. Yes, every single time! We love it THAT much. It is our absolute favorite character meal at Disney World!

The Food

The Crystal Palace is a buffet meal in Magic Kingdom, available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The restaurant itself is absolutely stunning—all that glass and greenery makes it feel so whimsical! We’ve eaten here for both breakfast (though pre-covid) and lunch and the food has always been stellar. Breakfast includes all your standard fare like Mickey waffles, eggs, bacon, and fruit. I’m so hopeful they’ll also bring back the Pooh’s puffed french-toast to the kids’ buffet—that stuff is amazing! Our most recent meal here was lunch, which had everything from prime rib and mashed potatoes to Walt’s favorite chili with all the fixings. There’s also a great little dessert buffet and self-serve ice cream!

The Characters

The characters here are generally Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore, and they are fabulous, especially if your kid is anything like mine and loves to meet “soft characters.” They give the best hugs! They are very good here at making sure every character gets to every table, and it’s easy to see the path they take so you know when the characters are on their way to you. I’ve never felt like I was going to miss a character if I ran back up to the buffet to grab another piece of that delicious puffed french toast (which might legitimately by my favorite thing to eat in all of Disney World).

Overall

Like I said, this is our favorite and always gets 5/5 stars from us. We’ve consistently had exceptional servers and delicious food at The Crystal Palace. And even though the place is huge and usually busy, I’ve never felt rushed.  

If you’re debating which meal to choose here, I’d really recommend breakfast. Character meals are expensive, but breakfast will always be a bit less so than lunch or dinner. So if you’re looking for an option that might better fit your budget, go for breakfast!

I usually try to get a late-morning reservation. That way we can hit some of our favorite rides first thing in the morning and by 10:30 we’re ready for a break! It’s so nice to sit and sip coffee in the air conditioning, with that view of Cinderella’s Castle. One of my favorite things! We love breakfast food, so this works well for us. But if you want to sample the lunch/dinner menu too, that late-morning reservation is key! Sometimes you can catch some lunch food when they are switching the buffet over (and you still pay the breakfast price)!

And don’t forget to pin this post for later!

Have you ever eaten at The Crystal Palace? What’s your favorite character meal at Disney World? Let me know in the comments! And then check out some of my other Disney dining tips and reviews here!