The Crystal Palace-Magic Kingdom Character Dining
When you go to Disney World as often as we do, you get curious about all the different dining options that are available. Matt and I are not buffet people, but we are Character people. Back in November 2022, we could not get reservations at our favorite restaurant at Magic Kingdom, so we decided to try somewhere we had never been before, The Crystal Palace.
The Crystal Palace sits off to the left side of Main Street past Casey’s Corner and on the way into Adventureland.
The Victorian Greenhouse inspired restaurant is lovely from every angle and was decorated for the holidays when we went, which gave it even more charm. We booked our reservation 60 days in advance through the My Disney Experience App and checked in for our reservation through the app (avoiding the 20 people deep queue of guests either checking in or trying to get a reservation) and went to stand on the wrap around front porch and wait for our name to be called.
View from the porch.
This particular day there was a glitch with the app, so no one that checked in was actually registered, so we waited about half an hour for our table. You are supposed to check in 15 minutes before your reservation, so this was actually about 45 minutes of precious park time. Once the staff realized what was going on, they worked quickly to get the guests all seated as it had affected about half of the people waiting around on the porch.
See the tiny little crystals?
The lovely display right when you get inside.
Once inside we walked through the restaurant, past the buffet to our table. Our waiter came by quickly to introduce himself and to take our drink order and to explain the buffet. Depending on the time of day, the buffet changes from breakfast to lunch/dinner and ranges in price depending on the time of day.
Breakfast is from 8:00 am until 10:45 am. $29 for children $45 for adults.
Lunch is from 11:00 am until 2:55pm. $38 for children $59 for adults.
Dinner is from 3:00 pm until 9:00pm. $38 for children $59 for adults.
The beautiful topiary when you first walk in the restaurant.
Once we got the information from our waiter I had to get up and explore! I wanted to take in every beautiful angle of the building and see every leaf and flower available. Matt went straight to the food!
Above the meat/carving station.
The food is American style, and it is all buffet. We attended the lunch service and tried a little bit of everything. Matt loved the country fried chicken with gravy!
The kids section.
I absolutely got some things from the kids’ section and thought the little mini quesadillas were some of the best things I ate from the buffet!!
The best part-the desserts!!
The butterscotch pudding was incredible!!
I am not going to lie, I got three of these butterscotch puddings! They are maybe one of the tastiest treats I have had at a park (they definitely gave the Dole Whip some competition)!! The cute pink Piglet inspired dessert was cute but not super delicious.
While we ate, Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, and Piglet all went around to each of the tables to take photos and sign autographs.
We were already about 45 minutes behind schedule due to the app check in mix up, and we had a fast pass reservation we wanted to make, so we did not wait around for Eeyore and Piglet to come to our table. They did not seem to have any type of pattern of what tables they were visiting, and it seemed to take a really long time (we have done many different character dining experiences, and this is the first time that all characters did not make all the rounds to the tables in the 60 minutes we were at our table). We were given a postcard type pre autographed card to take home when we paid, which is great if you don’t have an autograph book or like to collect little souvenirs.
We were pretty disappointed that we did not get to see all the characters, especially since we felt that the food was mediocre at best, and the pricing was extravagant for a buffet. Because it was mid-day and we still had tons of rides to ride, walking to do, and things to see, we ate a ton, but didn’t want to go overboard, which made the buffet idea seem like kind of a waste. We also felt like in order to get the full effect of the character experience it would have taken at least 90 minutes for all of them to come around which is valuable park time you will need to consider if booking this restaurant.
Have you ever eaten at The Crystal Palace? What was your experience like? Are there other Disney buffets you have tried that are better? Leave the details in the comments!!
