Chef Mickey's-Prefer breakfast or dinner?

[Tink#64]

We've never experienced Chef Mickey's and I'm wondering which would be better, breakfast or dinner? I tried to schedule adr's our first trip when DS's were just 4 & 6 & we couldn't get in at all! Now DS's are 11 & 13 and aren't really interested in the characters as much, but I still think we'd all enjoy Chef Mickey's and a little character interraction! IYHO, for the food and atmosphere, do you prefer breakfast or dinner there?

[WishingStar2006]

Personally, we prefer breakfast. I'm sure others will be along with a different opinion but we prefer a buffet breakfast to a buffet dinner. We also pay OOP for buffets and save our TS credits, if on the dining plan, for regular restaurants.

You'll enjoy either, I'm sure.

[jensantuit]

We have done Chef Mickey's for both breakfast and dinner. I would suggest doing breakfast, the selection was good and the food was delicious. With dinner,I wasn't impressed. I wasn't crazy about what they offered for dinner and found the food to be just ok. The next time we book Chef Mickey's, it will be for breakfast.

[KylesMom]

Interestingly enough, DH and I prefer Chef Mickey's for breakfast, while DS (almost 11) prefers dinner there. We've compromised for our upcoming trip and are doing one of both, several days apart.

Our biggest complaint with dinner is the carving station - it takes an inordinate amount of time to be served the prime rib and such, and they only give you small portions.

That being said, it's nice to eat at Chef Mickey's in the evening and then walk or monorail right over to MK.

[wdwfansince75]

We've also done both, and enjoyed both. Think the better value is dinner. Not our favorite for food....we like the food at 1900 Park Faire better, but there is just something magic for our family to all gather, once again, for a fun meal, breakfast or dinner, in the Concourse. The last several visits, they sat us overlooking MK, which makes it even more special. Great way to start a trip (2008 trip) or to do our last dinner together, before heading over to MK for EMH on our last evening (2006 trip).

[Santuitman]

Another vote for breakfast. We did dinner the last trip and the food, while good, seemed a little spare on variety. Maybe this was due to construction at the time but I really remember the breakfast. The breakfast also seemed more festive while the dinner was kind of subdued.
If you do the breakfast early don't forget to plan on how to get there. For us MK had an early opening so we were able to pick up the monrail from the MK stop.

[mouseketeer mom]

Breakfast. Its a high energy, delicious way to start your day. Love it there for breakfast!

[ncrohrs]

Breakfast!

[jonahbear2006]

I think that the diff. is that with dinner there is a possibility that you will be disappointed. With breakfast, not only can you really not mess breakfast up that easily BUT they do a good job with it AND offer a few things you havent had before AND the Fullest cold breakfast bar you will ever encounter. The characters don't come out here for a bit so if you really wanted to, you could eat and get out of here before the characters make their appearance. We found out last time that if you skip the family portrait here, which we wouldnt have spent money on anyways, that they will seat you first. That, for us, was a bonus. We got to eat before any characters surfaced and made our dining experience a lot easier.

[kathiep]

I would do breakfast here again.

We wouldn't go back for dinner.

[Nut4DW]

We ate breakfast at Chef Mickey's on our December trip and loved it. Our seating wasn't until 11, so it was really more like brunch. We thought the food was really good for a buffet and the character interaction was great - even with us "old" folks.

[crazeedizneefinatic]

We have done both. Dinner only once but breakfast a dozen times. I vote for breakfast. We always book for a 10:30am or somewhere around that time. We are not early risers, LOL!

[spoiledraf]

OK so it seems breakfast is the better choice. Coming from the BC, whats my plan, time, transportation?

[Cheloconnell]

Breakfast only - the food is great!! Dinner was just gross

[mom2morgan]

depends on your reasons:

Breakfast - better food. As someone above said, breakfast is hard to screw up. Dinner was "okay" only the day we went.
Dinner - better value if you're on the dining plan - I'd rather burn a credit on prime rib than on pancakes. And for US the fact that we aren't wasting precious morning park hours makes us avoid all breakfasts.

We've done one of each, and I can at least say that service and characters were stellar at both. In fact, they were VERY accomodating even when we were the nightmare family from heck....we reserved for 5. Then grumpy teenage son had a fit and almost made us miss our bus, so we left him behind (he said he was going back to bed and would meet us later at Magic Kingdom) - when we got there we said we only needed a table for 4. Then GUESS who shows up?? Yet they managed to find another small table to add to ours, AND sent all the characters around to our table for a second time just to visit the big hulking brute :-)

[StillSimbaGirl]

I vote for dinner - Chef Mickey's is too crazy for me in the morning.

If you are staying at the Beach Club - Cape May's character breakfast is way better than Chef Mickey's!!!! Really good food at Cape May's at Breakfast. Much less zany atmosphere and you don't have to commute - and there is no good way of getting to the Contemporary first thing in the morning - I always end up in a Taxi when I am staying there!

[GrmGrninGost]

Breakfast!

[jonahbear2006]

we had a 730 reservation when we went and we had a bus to the mk after waiting for 10 min. we had no trouble getting to that area early in the morning. But I admit, stay and eat at cape may cafe. We were bummed we didn't. They had a great show of food and such going on in there, at our fingertips!!!

[Tink#64]

Wow! So many great responses! And you have all touched on so many of my thoughts! It sounds like many prefer the breakfast, which I definitely agree, is harder to mess up! But as Santuitman mentioned, we'd need to make arrangements for the early transpo! I made adr's for breakfast when booking our trip & the CM mentioned dinner & we got to talking & he said I could also make adr's for dinner on same day, so not knowing which would really work better for us, I did. I will cancel whichever we aren't going to use as soon as we make our decision so someone else can be sure to get in, I know first hand the disappointment of not!

I have reasons for choosing both! We aren't big breakfast eaters, so we always pack our breakfast, munching some in the room & maybe a granola bar about an hour into the parks! Hard to get up & get there early, but, don't want to waste our morning hours, very precious to us, those early AM hours in the parks when so many others are sleeping or dining, we can visit so many of the major attractions in the early AM!

I think dinner would be easier on us, thinking after our break back at the resort, we'd go to CM's for dinner & then into MK for the evening parade, fireworks, etc. But not so sure of the food offeings & would we enjoy it as much as breakfast? I'm so nuerotic! Now I'm thinking that I should have made adr's for the latest possible & called it lunch! But that's easier to do inside the parks than out, not using alot of your time in getting there!

I'm definitely torn on this one! Thanks to you all for the great responses, I know I can always count on my fellow Intercotee's for help & their experiences!

[Mickey91]

Definitely breakfast. Dinner was a disappointment.