Character meals

[Babblin'Boo]

Which restaurants offer character meals? How far ahead do I need to call to make a reservation?

 

[MKPcm]

Only the Hard Rock Hotel and the Portofino offer character dinners. Call 407-503-DINE for reservations. The parks don't have character meals.

 

[joloco]

Are the charachter meals any good? Is HR and Port the same charachters? Is it sit down or buffet? Trying to decide if we should do this too..... Can you wait until you get there to decide? Thanks.

 

[whalewatcher]

I'm interested in hearing about this too. Didn't realize they had character meals at the resorts.

 

[Humpbacks1962]

Givin' it a bump and adding:

What characters do you normally see?
What is the average cost of the meal?
Is it only breakfast?

Wanda

 

[Babblin'Boo]

Dang, for all the raving about Universal on this board, nobody has even done character breakfasts?

 

[scduckman]

Giving this a bump to see if anyone's done a character meal.

 

[mktiggerman]

on Fridays, Portofino Bay offers a dinner at Trattoria del Porto with Scooby Doo and Woody Woodpecker

on Saturdays, Hard Rock Hotel offers a dinner at the Sunset Grill with Scooby Doo and Woody Woodpecker.

for more Universal Character information visit:

http://argo668.tripod.com/palm/uo-charlocations.html

 

[joloco]

Do you know if the Dinner at Hard Rock is something you have to reserve months in advance, or could you decide that day? Is it expensive? Is food good? We were thinking of doing dinner at City Walk with kids (8, 7, 5) at Nascar or NBA City....Do you think we would see enough charachters at the parks or would this be a highlight? Also I thought there was a lunch at Confisco w/ Charachters? Are they still doing this and would anyone recommend it or not? Thanks.

 

[scduckman]

unfortunately the character lunch at Confisco Grille is no longer. We went there last year and saw Woody, Dudley and the Grinch. You should definitely reserve in advance. I wouldn't wait to the last minute for the character dinner.

 

[Humpbacks1962]

I was told recently after calling the number previously posted, that there are no character breakfasts, only dinners.

I was informed that there is no need to make reservations, you just come in and sit down to eat. The characters are "whoever is around", and include Scooby Doo, Superman, Woody and others.

Wanda

 

[mango]

Since I will be there over the busy Easter break, I called in advance and made my reservations for next Saturday night at the Hard Rock Hotel character meal. They indicated that Scooby Doo would be there, but did not say anything about anyone else.

 

[No11's Mom]

We just returned from 4 nights at HRH. The character meal there is at the Sunset Grill on Saturday nights and the characters are Scooby Doo and Woody Woodpecker. We didn't do the character meal because we wanted to do the Mardi Gras parade on Saturday night. But we did eat at the Sunset Grill on Friday night, when they had a magician that went table to table performing. We really enjoyed the magician, but except for the 6 yr old in our party who just got a kids pizza, the rest of us were disappointed in our meals. Three of us ordered hamburgers, cooked medium. When they arrived, the meat was burned to a crisp on the outside and dripping blood on the inside. My sister's was so rare that the bun was soaked red. The manager gave us complimentary deserts, some of us got chocolate cake and some got strawberry shortcake. They were all so dry and bland that none of us finished them. The total bill for the 6 of us was $143 and that was with the free deserts.

I would recommend skipping the character meal at HRH. The characters were out in full force in the parks the entire time we were there. We saw Woody and Scooby, along with Shaggy and the Mystery Machine repeatedly. And it is not difficult to get to them for autographs and pictures.

If you do want to eat at Sunset Grill, I don't think you need to be too concerned with getting advance reservations. The hotel was completely sold out both Friday and Saturday night, but the Sunset never looked like it was busy. I would say on the Friday we were there, there may have been people at a quarter of the tables. That was at 8:15pm.