Review: Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace is a Winnie the Pooh and friends character buffet located just past Main Street U.S.A in the Magic Kingdom.  Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, this buffet features Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore.

Ambiance

The restaurant is inspired by Victorian greenhouses of the late 1800s and brims with light, topiaries and tropical palms.  I was very surprised by how beautiful it was!

The characters of The Crystal Palace were my favorite.  They were the most interactive and acted just as you expected their characters to be.  Tigger was bouncy and energetic.  Winnie the Pooh was sweet.  He gave lots of hugs and kisses.  Piglet was shy and seemed nervous to meet everyone.  Eeyore was very depressed and moped around.  Although I have heard that Rabbit sometimes makes appearances as well, we did not see him.  Be sure to give yourself plenty of time for this meal.  These characters take breaks very often so it does take them a while to make it to each and every table.

Menu

This is a table service restaurant.  Selections at the buffet included sirloin, rotisserie chicken, Atlantic salmon, peel-and-eat shrimp, turkey, mashed potatoes, chicken nuggets, and pizza.

Food and Drink

The food at The Crystal Palace was my least favorite table service restaurant.  It was typical buffet food.  Nothing really stood out.  I expected a lot better food considering how beautiful the restaurant was and how wonderful the character interaction was.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad food.  It just wasn’t as good as the other table service restaurants we ate at.  It was rather disappointing.

Service

Despite being very busy, we were seated right away.  Our server was very friendly and helpful.  He not only addressed the adults in my family, he also took the time to talk to my children to find out what type of food they liked.  He never once rushed us through our meal the way some servers in other restaurants do.  In my opinion, he was one of our best servers from our trip.

Overall

Of course, my tow year old loved this meal.  She is a huge Winnie the Pooh fan.  Surprisingly, my eleven year old stepdaughter loved this meal as well.  She is very anti-princesses and thinks she is too old and cool for them.  I thought she would think a Winnie the Pooh character meal would be too babyish, so I was very surprised when she picked this restaurant.  She absolutely loved it though and was smiling the entire time!  Personally, I was a little torn.  As much as I loved the beauty of the restaurant and the character interaction,I thought the food was a little disappointing.  It just wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.  If my girls ask to eat here again, we might try breakfast at the Crystal Palace instead.

Alexia is a fan of all things Disney, especially the food!  When she is not helping plan magical vacations you can find her on Facebook or Twitter.