Tiny Twourists - Breakfasts

Hi All! I'm a new Twourist contributor to the blog. I will be writing regularly on advice for families, especially those with young children. I will label the posts as "Tiny Twourists" to help you locate them. I want your feedback and your suggestions! So if you have a question about Disney with children or want to share your own experience please do.

I have a 3.5 year old who has been to Walt Disney World three times and Disneyland once. She has another trip to WDW planned with just the grandparents and we have a family trip to Disneyland planned as well (thanks to a conference at the Anaheim Convention Center).

Since breakfast starts the day, I'd like to start the blog off talking about breakfasts.

I love to start the trip off with breakfast at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom on the first day of our trip. You can book the breakfast up to an hour before the park opens. Only those with ADR are admitted to the park and you get to walk down a virtually deserted Main Street. This is definitely a great way to start the magic, especially on your child's first trip. Give yourself extra time to take some shots of your group with the castle on your way. The Crystal Palace has Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, and Piglet. The characters do a parade with children through the restaurant about every 20-30 minutes before switching sides of the restaurant (two characters will typically be on each side). The meal is a buffet and the French toast is truly exceptional. If you ask at the omelette station they will make you pancakes with chocolate chips and I think blueberries. I have great memories from having breakfast eons ago at Ft Wilderness Hoop-De-Do and having Chip serve me my chocolate chip pancakes. Crystal Palace is also one of the less expensive buffets, so we have paid cash for it even while on the meal plan if we want to have extra sit-down meals.  (Note Crystal Palace will be closed for rehab from Jan 1- Feb 13)

Last year we had breakfast at the Playhouse Disney Play 'N Dine at Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios. We also booked this one before the park opened. They suggested having one of us leave at park opening time to run and get FastPasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (awesome ride BTW and its FastPasses typically go early in the day). However, we found the food to be mediocre. We also found the characters outdated. My 3.5 yr old had no idea who Jo-Jo and Goliath were. And Little Einsteins has had severely decreased air time recently, so younger children may not be familiar with the characters. Even though my daughter loves watching Little Einsteins, the oversized heads were a bit intimidating to her in person (although I will give Leo credit for trying). It would be great to see this upgraded to include Handy Manny, Special Agent Oso, or any of the other new Playhouse Disney characters.

I have also found that you can make breakfast reservations to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours. Plan to attend Extra Magic Hours in the morning and then have breakfast around 10a. In addition to the park restaurants with buffets, you can consider booking reservations at a nearby resort breakfast. We have done this with breakfast at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club (near Epcot, not too far from Hollywood Studios) and with breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary. The Polynesian and Grand Floridian are also adjacent to parks and have character breakfasts.

We have not done 1900 Park Fare at Grand Floridian in many years, but it used to be a favorite of ours. It now has Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, and the Mad Hatter. We have also not yet had the opportunity to do the breakfast at Ohana with Lilo & Stitch, Pluto, & Mickey or Akershus in Norway with Ariel. My daughter was slated to go to some of these in September with my parents, but emergency surgery cancelled that trip. They are now rebooked for January when my sister runs in the half marathon and have some of these reservations.

On our last trip, we were staying in a studio at the Boardwalk Vacation Club Villas so we had a kitchenette. We were at WDW 4 mornings. We had two breakfasts booked (Crystal Palace on our first morning & Cape May Cafe on our last). For the other mornings, we bought a box of Eggo waffles, syrup, and juice from the Boardwalk store. These purchases totaled $10, but we found it was a better value than using snack or quick service credits for breakfast (and there is not really a good quick service breakfast option at the Boardwalk). On our previous trip, we stayed at Old Key West and found a decent quick service breakfast. We are not huge breakfast eaters and were actually able to share breakfasts to maximize our credits.

So, what are your favorite breakfasts? What strategies have you used to maximize park time and crowd balance?