Meeting Winnie-the-Pooh and friends at The Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom

The other day I had two children marching around The Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom, following Piglet and Tigger around the restaurant.

It was only 8.45am but they’d already collected a number of autographs in their autograph books and we had made a good start on breakfast. The Crystal Palace is one of two character meal restaurants in Magic Kingdom, and it is the home of friends from the Hundred-Acre Wood.

While guests enjoy a buffet-style meal, characters walk around the restaurants, visiting each table, signing autograph books and posing for pictures with young and old. For us, it made for a great way to start the day, and we all found food we liked on the buffet.

When visiting in April, we enjoyed the light and airy feel of the restaurant which was built as a glass structure similar in style to the historical Crystal Palace in London. In the middle of the Walt Disney World restaurant, there was a large banner saying it’s a ‘Celebrashun’ of Friendship Day’ in the style familiar from the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

From the extensive buffet, we tried an omelette made with ingredients of our choice, and we had lots of fresh melon, pineapple and strawberries. We also all had the Mickey waffles we came to love during our Walt Disney World holiday and the children ate lots of colourful fruit loop cereals.

The buffet featured a section designed for kids, and it was even easy to keep a picky two-year-old happy. In fact, Big Boy suddenly decided he wanted a banana, and we were thrilled to find that there too.

The only downside of a buffet-style character meal is that diners have to try to ensure not to miss a visit from a character and this time Daddy T was at the buffet when Eeyore came over to see us. It was still a delightful way to start the day, and we had Daddy T doing runs to the buffet while the rest of us stayed at the table to ensure we were there when it was our turn to meet one of the cuddly friends.

The children–and Daddy T and I–found the characters adorable, and they were excited about getting lots of hugs and four new autographs.

The day before we had updated our party on our reservation as Daddy T had wanted to get a head start by taking Space Mountain in the morning instead of sitting down for breakfast, but he changed his mind last minute and the host at the Crystal Palace check-in kindly accommodated us.

Daddy T walked out feeling happy with his decision as part of the Disney magic was seeing the children’s faces when they met favourite Disney characters. We didn’t see the four friends from the Hundred-Acre Wood anywhere else in the park either, but another way to meet one could have been visiting the character spot next to the Winnie the Pooh ride in Fantasyland.

For us, however, the character meal was a much better option. We met Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore and it was an amazing way to start a Disney day.

It took just under an hour for us to finish breakfast, and since the opening time was 8am when we visited, we watched the 7.55am welcome show and then headed straight to Princess Hall to meet Rapunzel and Tiana without any wait time before making our way to Crystal Palace for 8.10am.

An intense but magical start to the day!

The meal for our family of two adults, one child and one infant came to under $100 with tax and tip. Big Boy was two and therefore dined for free as an infant. I would recommend requesting a window table. We had an early reservation, which meant we could access the park via the Reservations and Tours turnstile before opening. We arrived at 7.43am, but on the day of our reservation the park opened at 8am and all guests were let in to Main Street at 7.44am. If the park opening hour had remained 9am, I think it would have been a great benefit to be able to enter the park early, take some pictures without the crowds and be done with breakfast in time to hit the rides at rope drop.

Tags: Character dining, Disney, Meet the characters, Orlando, The Crystal Palace, Walt Disney World, Winnie the Pooh