The Pros and Cons of Disney’s Crystal Palace Restaurant

The Crystal Palace is a full-service restaurant at Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando, Florida. Like many of the restaurants at Disney World, it has several appealing qualities and perhaps a few that are not. Today’s post covers the pros and cons of Disney’s Crystal Palace.

Pros

Style

The Crystal Palace is a beautiful building inside and out. Designed to blend with the Victorian architecture of Main Street, the exterior shines with a bright white façade, tall windows and a welcoming front porch. Once inside, the restaurant features high ceilings and numerous skylights that flood the space with tons of light. Even on a cloudy day, it feels brighter in the Crystal Palace than the vast majority of restaurants at Disney World. Now that I think about it, it may even be the brightest restaurant on property.

The white tables and wrought iron chairs are fairly standard, but feel slightly fancier due to the overall style of the building. Plants and columns complete the space.

Location

The prime location of the Crystal Palace is also one of its strengths. You’ll find it right around the corner from the end of Main Street, near the entrances to Adventure Land and Liberty Square. Although it feels tucked away into a peaceful spot of the park, it is still easy to find and quick to reach without a lot of travel time.

Location is a significant benefit at Disney World since you’re often juggling meal time with FastPass+ commitments, long attraction lines and tired feet. If you’ve ever raced around Epcot’s World Showcase to keep a dinner reservation, you know what a huge benefit location can be!

Characters

Of course I couldn’t mention the Crystal Palace without referencing the fun hosts you get to meet while dining there! Winnie, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore delight guests all day long at the palace. In fact, it’s the only place to meet Piglet and Eeyore on a typical park day. (Winnie and Tigger usually hang out near the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction in Fantasy Land.)

All four of the characters greet you at your tables individually and linger long enough for hugs, autographs or playful exchanges. Due to the restaurant’s open layout, you can usually track their route to your table too. This makes it easier to time your trips to the buffet bar so you won’t miss their visits.

Variety of food options

The Crystal Palace is a buffet style restaurant, which makes it a good choice for travel parties with a variety of food preferences. You won’t find a lot of exotic sides with unusual ingredients here, but you shouldn’t have a problem finding options everyone will like either.

For breakfast, the restaurant offers standard fare like eggs, bacon, muffins and fruits. There are also made-to-order omelette stations and an abundance of Mickey-shaped waffles. If you’re okay with eating breakfast a little later (10:30ish) you may be able to snag a few lunch items too, since the buffet converts to lunch offerings around that time.

Lunch and dinner are basically the same with rotating entrees of fish, beef, chicken and shrimp along with a variety of sides, soups and breads. Desserts typically include brownies and a variety of cookies. All meals include a separate, kid-sized buffet area stocked with kids’ favorites too.

Ease of reservation

Another advantage of the Crystal Palace is the ease with which guests can make reservations. You can usually secure a spot here with much less lead time than you can at Cinderella’s Royal Table or Be Our Guest. That’s partly due to the restaurant’s large size and partly due to the fact that it serves buffet meals throughout the day.

I would still recommend making reservations if you can, you just shouldn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn on the 180-day mark to do so.

Cons

So now that we’ve covered all of the “pros” of the Crystal Palace, let’s move on to some of its less positive attributes.

Wait time

For whatever reason, guests tend to wait longer for tables at Crystal Palace than for tables elsewhere (with the notable exception of ‘Ohana for dinner!). Maybe it’s because it’s hard to predict how many trips guests will make to the buffet? Or maybe it’s because of the timing of the character meetings? I’m not entirely sure. Just be prepared to wait at least 20 minutes for a table, even if you have a reservation. On busy park days or at peak dinner hour, this wait time could easily double.

Sometimes the Disney cast members will give you a pager while you wait, so at least you can linger around the gardens or snap a few photos of the castle before your meal.

Price

Once again I’m reluctant to list price as a “con” because it would be true of so many things at Disney World. It really depends on your perspective. Breakfast at the Crystal Palace runs about $35 for adults and $20 for kids (defined by Disney as those under the age of ten). Lunch and dinner average around $45-55 for adults and $25 for kids. Prices fluctuate seasonally.

If you’re on a Disney Dining plan, the Crystal Palace is a great use of a meal credit. This is even more true now, since Disney converted dinner at Be Our Guest into a two-credit meal.

If you’re not on a meal plan, then the Crystal Palace is in the high-average range for out-of-pocket costs compared to other Disney options. It is a buffet though, so you have a slightly better chance of getting your money’s worth than a traditional table service location. I tend to get nervous when I feel like I need to eat my money’s worth… particularly when Mickey waffles are involved. If you don’t share this quirky personality flaw, then feel free to stock up! You can always walk it off later!

Quality

I mention this one hesitantly, only because I’ve had friends and acquaintances share their negative experiences here. I read some reviews on other blogs too, just to make sure this was a fair assessment. The food is good, at least in my many experiences here, but not really fantastic or overly memorable. I never remember to take photographs of the food, if that’s any indication.

It’s a buffet, so naturally there are times when certain menu items are unavailable or restocked less frequently. That seems to be the major complaint I hear if someone wants to share their thoughts with me. Honestly, it tends to be the most frequent complaint about all Disney restaurants if you talk to enough people. Cooking for the masses is difficult. Some days may be better than others.

So with that terribly profound comment, I’ll wrap it up. Hopefully you learned a little something about the Crystal Palace that will let you know if it’s worthy of a spot on your next Disney World travel itinerary.

Overall, the Crystal Palace is a beautiful, yet expensive restaurant that provides a chance to meet Winnie and friends in a convenient location in Disney World’s first theme park.

Agree? Think I’m crazy? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Until then, add a little magic to your world!