Cheapest Places for Kids to Eat in Downtown Disney and Garden Walk?

[pokee99]

My kids are picky eaters, so I don't like spending a lot when eating out with them. Kids meals (pizza, nuggets, grilled cheese, hot dogs, spaghetti - with some healthy side options) are their preference. Just wondering what restaurants in Downtown Disney and Garden Walk offer such meals? I think the Rainforest Cafe has kids meals - and Cheesecake Factory? Any others?

What about the Disney hotels? I hear they are very, very expensive because they are mostly buffets (we're not really big eaters, so buffets are totally wasted on us). I'd be willing to pay the big $$$ for a character meal, but not for a 'regular' meal...

Also, any good places for quick counter/snack service lunches in the park? I've read on previous posts that the Pizza Port is good - but is that a buffet? I've seen the selections of restaurants on-line, but I don't see any prices. I'd love to do some research in advance on prices for food in the park. For example, is it $5 for a bottled water? Is it $10 for a bowl of fruit? I hear it's ridiculous, but I can't find actual prices anywhere. If you could post a link for me, that would be great! Also, a place where I can find coupons would be great, too!

Advice on 'timing' meals would be appreciated, too. We will NOT wait longer than 1/2 hour to eat a sit-down dinner (and not at all to eat breakfast or lunch).

I'd love to hear your 'adult' favorites, too! THANKS!

 

[pinktink83]

Best option for you will be to download a disneyland app if you have a smartphone! Ours has all the restaurants menus and prices, and its so helpful!!!

Disneyland.com will have a list of all their restaurants...go through them and see which ones offer the types of food you guys like. It should say if there is seating, or if its just counter service. When I planned our trip, I copied and pasted each restaurant's info in a word document, and organized them by Land. So when it came time to eat I could just skim through the papers and read our choices wherever we were. They also have Downtown Disney restaurants listed.

As to meal timing, we would do one of two things: big sit-down breakfast, snack around lunchtime, big dinner. Or quicky, cheap breakfast on the go, big sit-down lunch and big snack around dinner. You'll be too busy and having too much fun to want to sit down and eat three full meals. Bring snacks with you if you want to save money and time. Eat breakfast bars at the hotel before you go the park. Bring your own water bottles and fill them up for free. Not buying drinks can save you a lot!

If you don't want to wait, then avoid the restaurants and do counter-service only. You'll definitely wait longer than 30 minutes at most of them, especially if you go at rush hour.

Your guesses on prices are pretty fair. Probably more like $3 for water and $4 for veggies. Still a lot, but not highway robbery like the movie theaters do.

I've never seen coupons for in-park dining.

 

[pinktink83]

For smartphone apps...check out Mouse Wait (free) it has menu prices. Also Ride Hopper ($1) and Parktastiq (spelling?!)(free).

I just checked Mouse Wait and it says for Pizza Port, pasta is $8-9, pizza is $6-7 per slice, $31 for whole pizza, Salads are $7-9, bread and side salads are $4 each. Kids menu is $6.50...pizza or spaghetti. Toddler meal is $4...chix and rice & applesauce w/ milk. Drinks are $3 for soda. $3 bottled water. Juice $1.60.

Those prices will be pretty normal for everything but sit-down restaurants...meals there will be more.

 

[cccdisney]

Check out allears.net

Go to the Disneyland Resort dining section and click on Menus. They will have a list of restaurants both in the parks and in Downtown Disney and the three resort hotels. A great website to check out menus and pricing!

 

[disneyfan4ever54]

Here's the link to the menus at allears.net.

http://allears.net/dlr/din/menu/menus.htm#dl

 

[Canyon girl]

My picky kids love La Brea in DtD. Good prices, and the menu can be found in the AllEars link in PP post. Also, another good picky kid choice is White Water Snacks in the GCH. It is counter service.

 

[SplashMo]

There is a Jamba Juice in DTD not sure if the kids like that... Mine do...

I recomend Pizza Port in DL and Taste Pilots Grill in DCA.

California Pizza Kitchen can accomadate kids very easily...

 

[bluegrizzlies1]

we like the jazz kitchen express

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

At Gardenwalk we have been to the Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen. There are kid menus there that I don't remember as being too unreasonable. They also have good menu items for sharing such as sliders at Cheesecake Factory or a whole pizza at CPK.

In downtown Disney, we like the Jazz Kitchen Express too. Good quick service food at reasonable prices for DtD. We sometimes like to eat at the regular Jazz Kitchen sit-down restaurant for lunch. Kid meals there are not "cheap" though, but there is always something my boys will eat on the menu and a little ice cream sundae for dessert is included. My kids also like ESPNZone a lot; that is sit-down, not quick-service.

If you don't want to wait for meals, I highly recommend you make priority seatings ahead of time if you want to do any kind of sit-down. That includes most of the non-express options in DtD, character meals at the hotels or in the parks, other Disney hotel restaurants, Cafe Orleans and Carnation Cafe in Disneyland, and Wine Country Trattoria in DCA.

You don't mention the ages of your kids and how much food they eat in a sitting. I often tell my boys that they are going to drink water everywhere, and then we get them full size meals to split. Pizza Port is a good counter service restaurant, but my boys, now 9 and 11, started to find the kid meal portion a little small a couple of years ago. Maybe this is because we tend to eat breakfast in our hotel, snack through the day, then have one real meal in the park for late lunch or early dinner. Pizza Port has nice big portions that are good for sharing, so that's what we tend to do rather than get the boys individual kid meals. Other counter service... the fried chicken plate at the Plaza Inn is a good meal for sharing, and the fast food style breakfasts at Tomorrowland Terrace aren't bad. Look at portion sizes as other people walk away with their meals and figure out how many meals would work for your kids (or whole family even) to share. We often feel our dollar stretches longer going this route rather than always getting the boys kid meals.

Our family tends to eat at off times. We usually have good luck eating at Pizza Port before 6 PM for dinner. If we're going to eat lunch, we tend to do it around 11:30 AM. Sometimes we do a late lunch or early dinner somewhere at 3:30 or 4 PM. This is not the way we eat at home, but we find it works well for us at Disney since we don't have a lot of patience waiting for food either.

 

[Dizneydaz]

We have AP and go quite often (in fact going tonight if the rain doesn't show or leaves before FW time). As such I don't like to spend too much money eating in the parks. If we don't eat on our way there on home, here are our favorite locations, in no particular order:

Pizza Port-DL. My DD11 and I share the Chicken Fusilli (about $9) and sometimes I'll get a side salad for $4 and get the Asian dressing they use on the Asian Chicken salad-so good.

Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor-DL. DD and I will share a sundae when we want ice cream. Two scoops, with toppings, etc. runs about $5.50. 2 single scoop cones would be about $7, $8 with waffle cones. Sometimes I will get the toppings, etc. on the side if DD doesn't want them.

The Plaza Inn-DL Main Street. They have some of the best fried chicken here-especially when it's hot!

Plaza Inn Specialty Chicken - Three pieces of chicken, fried to a golden brown, seasoned with distinctive herbs and spices. Served with mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuit and mixture of vegetables. $13.49.

It says 3 pieces but it is a half chicken. You can get all white or dark meat if you want. I substitute extra mashed potatoes with gravy for the green beans since the beans are always awful. This is more than enough for DD and I to share.

White Water Snacks-GC Hotel-just steps from DCA. A good coutner service choice with some different items than in the parks. Their nachos are really good (The chips taste home made) and enough for 2 to share. $10. The also have a very good Chili Hot Dog as well.

At Burr Bank Ice Cream we share sundaes as well as at Gibson Girl. Plus Burrbank is usually less crowded. Though with all the construction going on at DCA I imagine that may be closing soon.

Jazz Kitchen Express-DTD. My DD and I will share the Gumbo Ya Ya which is very good. Plus the kid's meals are pretty good as well. The menu on allears doesn't show the kid's meals but the offer chicken nuggets (I call them chicken balls) which are actually pretty tasty and corn dog nuggets. The menu on allears still lists it as Creole Cafe but the name has changed.

House of Blues-DTD. Buy a certificate at restaurant.com and you can save about 1/2 of your bill. (depending on how much you spend and the cert you buy.)


Oh, and we rarely get drinks at meals, only if DD gets a kid's meal that comes with. We drink water and I will bring in my own Diet Coke in cans.

 

[Funball]

Allears.net list of kids menus from Downtown Disney:

catal childrens menu
house of blues childrens menu
La brea bakery childrens menu
la brea bakery express childrens menu
Naples childresn menu
Jazz kitchen childrens menu
Tortilla jo's childrens menu
Uva bar and cafe childrens menu


..now the only one i didn't list was Rainforest, they did not seem to show a childrens menu on Allears.net! but im sure they do if you go to there website and that goes for ESPN Zone also, and some othe various places at DTD!

 

[Funball]

if you go to allears.net it might also help you--here is the link for the menus at Disenyland and the full list of menus of all the places at DLR,DTD and DCA Allears.net DTD and DL menus,Hotels of DLR menus and DCA menus please do note that each menu is a clickable link!




And here is some places i picked out that are family friendly at the garden walk!

bubba gump menu

CPK menu

johnny rockets menu

Cheesecake factory menu

Great steak and potato company menu--cheesesteaks and fries-drop down menu when mouse hovers over "menu" at website

 

[TheColtonsMom]

White Water Snacks-GC Hotel-just steps from DCA. A good coutner service choice with some different items than in the parks. Their nachos are really good (The chips taste home made) and enough for 2 to share. $10. The also have a very good Chili Hot Dog as well

LOVE those Nachos and my DH and I did split an order for lunch. My son got a kids picnic of an uncrustable, grapes and apple juice

 

[Funball]

i second thumbs up on those nachos aslo. they are large enough to share and so super good!!

 

[pokee99]

Here's the link to the menus at allears.net.

http://allears.net/dlr/din/menu/menus.htm#dl

This is PERFECT - thanks!

Thanks again for all your replies - big help! Having a food plan will surely make things run VERY smoothly and help save money!

 

[pixiewings71]

Every place we have eaten when we are at DLR has had a kids' menu, the places in the parks and outside are all very family/kid friendly. We've never had any problems finding things our girls will eat.
Pizza Port is like a buffet, they have a section for salad, pizza, pasta, bread, it's not all you can eat but you can walk up and make your selections as if it was a buffet.

I will say that there are 2 places to avoid at all costs. The Ihop on Harbor across from DL and the Captain Kidd's on Harbor at the cross walk to the parks. The Ihop is extremely overpriced and Captain Kidd's is just disgusting. The 2 Denny's, the Mimi's and the Millie's on Harbor are all good, Denny's is your standard Denny's, good service, good prices, decent food, the Mimi's is delish!!!! One of our favorites and Millie's is good too. All have kid friendly menus and decent pricing as well.

 

[tink2dw]

Coupons!!!!!

http://www.anaheimoc.org/Articles/Archive/Webpage10153.asp

10% off coupons for, McDonalds, We fill up at breakfast at Mcd's. it saves money for Park meals and goodies!!



and Disney's Character Warehouse!!

Disney's Character Warehouse Outlet StoreDisney's Character Warehouse Outlet Store
Place page

243 Orangefair Mall
Fullerton, CA 92832
(714) 870-9363

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

You know, we do have menus here on the DISboards as well, just click on the DL Dining link at the top of this page or go directly to:

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneyland/dining/menus.cfm

We've been trying to keep them more up-to-date then previously before.

 

[jory29]

Every place we have eaten when we are at DLR has had a kids' menu, the places in the parks and outside are all very family/kid friendly. We've never had any problems finding things our girls will eat.
Pizza Port is like a buffet, they have a section for salad, pizza, pasta, bread, it's not all you can eat but you can walk up and make your selections as if it was a buffet.

I will say that there are 2 places to avoid at all costs. The Ihop on Harbor across from DL and the Captain Kidd's on Harbor at the cross walk to the parks. The Ihop is extremely overpriced and Captain Kidd's is just disgusting. The 2 Denny's, the Mimi's and the Millie's on Harbor are all good, Denny's is your standard Denny's, good service, good prices, decent food, the Mimi's is delish!!!! One of our favorites and Millie's is good too. All have kid friendly menus and decent pricing as well.

We purchase 2 largest size sodas and ask for 2 extra cups, and no ice, then split that among 4 of us.

We also split 3 meals, usually 2 adult and 1 kids, between 4 of us.

Yes!!! AVOID IHOP and Captain Kidd's, I totally agree!!

We always buy a few sugar cookies or oatmeal, etc. at MCD's when we buy breakfast, and take those into the park with us for an early morning snack. I found I eat less when I walk around a lot, but the kids and my spouse eat more, and need to be re-fueled more often than if we were at home.

Sometimes we would ask for free water with our meals, then we would sometimes throw in some crystal light. Sometimes we brought in a couple of juice boxes from Von's, into the park.

Sign up at Dennys online a couple of weeks before you leave and they email you a coupon for 20% off of a meal. Also, sign up at Mimi's Cafe and their coupons are REALLY good ones. DON'T forget to try the raspberry lemonade at Mimi's.