Looking back over my blog I realized I have not written up
one of my favorite places to eat and the Magic Kingdom: The Crystal Palace. This restaurant features a character meal with
Winnie the Pooh (this is the only character meal where Winnie the Pooh and
friends is found), Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet. They meet and greet you as you
enjoy your meal. This buffet restaurant is bright, light filled and spacious in
a Victorian setting.
I have taken my family to the Crystal Palace many
times. Sometimes we are seated and the
characters all make their rounds and the timing is perfect. Once we ate there and at the end of our meal
we had only seen one character. We
decided to not get upset but instead hung around a bit, I ordered a coffee with Splenda and fat free milk and we just waited for them to come by. I was wearing my “Grumpy Cat” t-shirt at that
time and Tigger got a huge kick out of Grumpy Cat. He thought it was the funniest cat he had
ever seen. Regardless, the characters
interact with you on a relaxed, casual basis.
If you have ever waited 30+ minutes to meet a character and get your
photo taken and an autograph, then the Crystal Palace is quite a good
deal.
You generally need reservations to eat at the Crystal
Palace. If not, be prepared to
wait. You will be issued a beeper when
you check in and you have to wait in the front porch area. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of a parade
or show in front of the castle while you wait.
Try to find a seat and just relax.
There is a restroom around the side of the restaurant to the left.
By the way, in my opinion the absolute WORST place to eat in
all of Disney is around the corner as well: Casey’s Corner. In my opinion it’s just high fat content hot
dogs, corn dogs, nachos, etc. Sometimes
I walk through this restaurant when trying to leave the park if there is a
parade or fireworks going on. The smell is overwhelming, and there is usually a spilled tray of food littering the
floor. The sight of people stuffing
their faces with French fries and gigantic hot dogs is too much for my stomach
to handle. I generally try to hold my
breath when walking through this area. I
use this area as a learning opportunity for my children- “See those people
pigging out on French fries and hot dogs? Look at how much they weigh. Do you think
that is a good choice to put in your body?”
Since the seating is outside, the next time you walk through see if you
notice a correlation.
My personal preference is to spend a little more and eat
something that is both tasty and good for you.
At Wellspring we call this, “Loveable foods that love you back.” Let’s see what lovable foods that love you
back can be found at the Crystal Palace.
Here is the menu below:
Gourmet cuisine offered in Victorian elegance that offers a
variety of selections to tempt every taste including: multigrain nut bread and
white rolls, PB & J, Mixed field greens with choice of dressing (ranch,
zinfandel, & madarin orange sesame vinaigrette), Tropical slaw,
Mediterranean pasta salad, Moroccan couscous salad, Romaine blue cheese salad,
Peel & eat shrimp, Prime Rib, Shrimp, black bean & mango salad,
Edamame, Papaya frisee salad, Roasted garlic mashed potatoes, Broccoli, Medley
of veggies, Braised kale with bacon & onion, Slow roasted pork, Cheese pizza,
Vegetable pasta, Wild mushroom & chicken pasta, Cinnamon & lemon
basmati rice, Thai curry mussels, Fruit & vegetable tofu curry, Atlantic
salmon, Rotisserie chicken, Herb roasted turkey, and New England clam chowder.
Dessert selection includes: Red Velvet cheesecake, Double chocolate brownie,
Peanut butter cake, Tres leches, Apple cobbler, Banana bread pudding, Carrot
cake, Assorted cookies, and Coconut flan. Guests ages 10 and up. Winnie the
Pooh and friends invite you to indulge yourself in our bountiful buffet. The
room comes alive with the sights and smells of the day's offerings being
prepared in our live on stage kitchen. $36 to $59.99 per person
Right off the bat we see multiple salads available. You have to try the Moroccan couscous salad-
it’s really good! My general strategy at
Disney Buffets is to do this:
1.
Start with a plate of the highest density /
lowest calorie ratio foods. A good
example of this is a fruit plate. Soups
can also be good, but really it’s a crap shoot with soup when the calorie and
fat content is not posted. I believe you
are generally okay with vegetable soup, but with the New England clam chowder I
would advise against it. It is likely high
calorie for a soup, but until Disney starts posting calorie counts you really
don’t know. This is why fruit is good to
start with. I am pretty sure nothing is
added to whole or cut up fruit offered.
2.
For a second round at the buffet, kick it up a
notch to some of the yummier foods you want to try. After my fruit plate I may try a small
portion of each salad offered (except for the high fat content Caesar salad). The problem is that you really don’t know what
the calorie and fat content is for the salads offered, but you can certainly
give an educated guess. Another strategy
I employ is to make a bed of lettuce that I put the other salads on for a
topping. Generally the salads at Disney
are so tasty you don’t need to add any dressing at all.
3.
Finally, I will eat a very small portion of
meat. If you are a vegetarian, you are
on the right track. I have yet to give
up meat so I will generally get something like a small portion of the rotisserie
chicken. I will get a small piece of the
white meat without the skin. You can do
the same with the pork and cut away any obvious fat. Also the peal and eat shrimp is an excellent
meat option that is low on fat. The
salmon is a high fat content fish, so as far as fish options go it’s not ideal,
but it’s certainly better than the prime rib.
4.
While it is tempting, you need to just skip the
dessert.
5.
A final tip for eating here is to be careful
about the vegetables such as the broccoli and potatoes. They are obviously cooked in an excess of
butter or oil. It’s not the same as
eating steamed broccoli at home for example.
Usually I just skip the vegetables at the Crystal Palace and focus on
fruit and certain salads.
As a final word and legal disclaimer: I would also just like
to state that anything written up in the blog is simply my opinion about food
preferences at Disney. It’s really all
just a best guess at the time it was written.
Nothing written up here should be taken as a fact. Menus change, and maybe in the future Disney
will start publishing calorie and fat content.
Until that time comes all I can do is give an educated guess about the
best places and foods to eat. While I am
not paid by Disney, my intent here is to encourage eating at the Disney restaurants,
although at times that might involve steering readers to one restaurant over
another such as I have in this post. I
am not advocating brining in your own food over eating in the parks, although
Disney allows that at the time this write up.
