Is dining with Tigger and Pooh worth it?
Part of the fun of planning a Disney trip – at least for me – is the strategery. It’s like playing Tetris or putting together a puzzle. Planning the best combination of events to maximize the fun and joy and experience of a Disney vacation.
Part of the process is choosing which park on which day. Do we need Lightning Lanes? Should we get the dining plan? The answer to that one is almost always no.
But one of my rules is this: Character dining should be done outside the theme parks. Disney planning is all about allocating your time and money to maximize the experience you get for your dollars. In a way, paying for in park character dining is like paying Disney twice for the same hour in the park. You’ve already paid to be in the park and now you’re paying exorbitant prices for another in park experience.
My rule is that character dining should be done on non-park days.
But the good thing about rules? They’re made to be broken. If the character dining experience – like Cinderella’s Royal Table in the castle – can’t be replicated outside the park, then you may have to break the rule.
If you’re dying to meet more of the Hundred Acre Wood Gang – not just Tigger and Pooh in Fantasyland – there’s only one way to do it.
But I also think – when it comes to Crystal Palace – there’s another very specific reason to break the rule.
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What is Crystal Palace?
If you’ve read this far and don’t know what Crystal Palace is, I salute you. You and I are sympatico in ways the Corsican Brothers would find astounding.
Crystal Palace is a light and airy – full of glass and windows – sit down, all-you-care-to-eat buffet restaurant in the Magic Kingdom – right next to the entrance to Adventureland. The theme is a Victorian-era Greenhouse and it’s quite beautiful. Guests are greeted by Winnie The Pooh and other members of the 100 Acre Wood gang. We’re talking Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit or Eeyore. You get four characters coming to your table for photos and autographs – if possible – while you dine.
The upside is you get a little more special experience than the regular meet and greet, and you get a good meal and nice break in the air conditioning.
What’s on the menu at Crystal Palace?
The menu is decidedly not Victorian-era fare. It’s typical Disney buffet stuff. Pancakes, fruits, and Mickey Waffles for breakfast. Bacon. Sausage. Biscuits and gravy. Pretty standard really.
Lunch and dinner is a variety of seasonal vegetables and pasta. There’s a shrimp creole because nothing says Victorian-era Winnie the Pooh more than Shrimp Creole. It’s good though, you should get it. There’s a carving stations, a variety of salads, and country fried chicken with black pepper gravy, I’m guessing that one’s a favorite of Owl. It’s all quite good for buffet style dining.
Is there anything else I should know? Expect to pay quite a bit more for alcoholic beverages, because nothing is more Disney than getting sloppy on Franciscan Chardonnay and snapping a photo with a sad donkey.
When is the perfect time for Crystal Palace?
10:45 a.m.
Crystal Palace ends its breakfast pricing at 10:45 a.m. and switches to lunch at 11 a.m. What’s that mean for you? It means you’re saving about $10 per person in your party – which adds up if there’s enough of you. But it also means you are essentially getting brunch with Pooh. You’ll get to sample both breakfast and lunch fare on the buffet.
But it goes beyond the saving of money and gaming the system.
Crystal Palace is especially popular with families with small to medium sized children. So, here’s the scenario: You and the kids rope drop Fantasyland, knocking out several rides and spotting roaming characters during the early morning park hours. You knew a big meal was coming in the middle of the day, so you went light for breakfast.
By 10:45 a.m., the Florida heat is really starting to rise. The full park has been open for nearly two hours and ride times are starting to swell. You go into Crystal Palace where everyone can cool off, have a nice meal, meet some characters, and rejuvenate themselves for the next stage of your adventure.
You’ve finished your meal, had a nice time, and step back out into the park around noon – when many of the other guests are looking for their own lunch time respite. You can step directly into Adventureland – hopefully as wait times drop a little and attack the rest of your day. That, my friends, is effective Disney-ing.
Should I really eat all I can at Crystal Palace?
Are you in some kind of contest? Are you a YouTuber desperate for content? Have you been double dog dared?
Unless the answer to one of the three is “yes,” you should not try to consume all you can eat at any Disney buffet or family style restaurant.
Look, these meals are expensive, and I understand the urge to “get your money’s worth,” but you’re gambling with you vacation if you do.
What you should eat at Disney is the exact amount you need to power you through to the next meal, no more or no less. It is wise to stop well before you are full.
Why? Because a full belly and a lot of walking in the Florida heat and humidity is a bad combination.
I know some people are built differently – I once had a softball pitcher down two massive chili dogs minutes before taking the mound in a Little League Regional tournament when the heat index was pushing 112 degrees. She was fine. I would have died there on the spot and been buried in the third base coaches box.
Don’t play the hero, especially if you’re not used to exercising in the sweltering Florida weather.
Is Crystal Palace worth it?
This is where a lot of people struggle. Breakfast is $54 per adult plus tax and gratuity. Why are you paying a gratuity at a buffet? You just are. It’s $35 for children 3 to 9. Have you ever paid $54 for a 10-year-old to have breakfast, only to watch them pick at a bowl of Fruit Loops, eat a chunk of watermelon and a piece of bacon, then tell you they’re full? It can be… frustrating.
Add $10 per person – roughly – for lunch or dinner. That means if you’re a family of four with a 10 and a 12 year old, lunch is north of $260 before tax and tip. I don’t care how many times you go to the carving station. I don’t care if you’re slamming shrimp creole by the gallon. It’s not going to be worth it based on the food alone.
However, you’re not just paying for the food. You’re paying for the atmosphere, the air conditioning, and the experience. You’re paying for four character to come visit your table and help add a little magic to your vacation.
Is it worth it?
Let me answer that question this way, and I’ve written about this before so I apologize if you’ve already read it.
My grandmother – who I called Nanny – was a child of the Great Depression.
Born in the 1920s in rural Southern Indiana, she came from a large family who didn’t have a lot. What my Nanny had, however, was a mind and an imagination and she fueled it by reading. She loved books set in other places.
She travelled the world in the pages of Anne of Green Gables or in books written by Jane Austen. And, from the time she was little, she loved Winnie the Pooh. She loved that world so much, her family started calling her Winnie the Pooh and it stuck. By the time I was a boy in the late 70s and early 80s, old enough to be taken on my first trip to Disney, she was still called Aunt Pooh by all her nieces and nephews.
My love of reading and writing and, of course, Disney can be traced back through my mom who shares at least some of those passions to my Grandmother.
In the 2010, Nanny was in her 80s. Papaw was gone and she wasn’t getting around as well. I’d already begun taking my own family to Disney and on what would be her last trip, she spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, and we had lunch at Crystal Palace with each of the characters from the Hundred Acre Wood.
We told our server about Nanny’s nickname and why, and after he’d made his rounds Pooh came back to our table with a little cupcake for Nanny. She laughed while this giant teddy bear loved on her, with a little hug – Nanny had a great laugh – and the extra attention made her day.
We’d talk about it off and on every time we’d go visit her, right up to the last one.
So when you ask me if a horribly expensive buffet meal, complete with character greetings, is worth it… I have a bit of a hard time answering.
Honestly, maybe not to you or your family.
After all, you didn’t know my Nanny or have an Aunt Pooh.
But to me? When I walk through the doors, memories come rushing back. That experience is a bargain at twice the price.
