Restaurants at Epcot

Anyone ever try La Hacienda de San Angel or Garden Grill for dinner?

What are your favorites at Epcot for dinner?

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I like Garden Grill, the food is great! It's served family style, all you can eat. The restaurant slowly rotates around as you are eating. I like the characters there too.

Never been to San Angel Inn, but from the looks of it on the boat ride in Mexico, it's a vastly different type of meal than a character one.

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I agree with the above. I love Mexican food and to be honest, I thought the food was bad. I actually prefer the outside counter service more. Aside from the two you named, I do like the big restaurant in China and Canada.

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La Hacienda De San Angel is not San Angel Inn. They're both Mexican restaurants though.

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I like the Biergarten. It is a buffet but I thought the food was good and the atmosphere was fun.

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La Hacienda is the newer one that looks over the lagoon. San Angel Inn is the one inside by the boats. I haven't been to La hacienda. As for San Angel, I've had mixed esperiences with the food. Once it was GREAT and the other 2 times it was so-so, but I love the atmosphere, being by the volcano under the sky, the mariachi singers. I would definitely eat there again anyway.

Garden Grill has been getting consistent good reviews lately.

They're very different in terms of food and experience though.

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I hated San Angel Inn (inside) but LOVED Hacienda de San Angel. The food was excellent, great atmosphere, great drinks, it was perfect!

This is now one of my favorites!!

Other favorites are:
Biergarten
Le Cellier

Message edited 3/13/2012 11:57:12 AM.

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Does La Hacienda have a kids menu? I didn't see it online so wondering if my DD's will be bored and hungry there, lol.

We currently have reservations at Chef Mickeys that I was thinking of canceling for La Hacienda. Good idea or no?


ETA:The other restaurants we have dinner reservations at are Crystal Palace, Akershus, Via Napoli and Ohana.

Message edited 3/13/2012 1:10:18 PM.

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I would not cancel chef Mickey's for La Hacienda. We have always had good meals at San Angel Inn but we stick with the fillet mignon or a shrimp dish I think they have some good and some very mediocre meals - they do change the menu though and sometimes not for the best. But they do have great margaritas. The new place. I think like every restaurant in WDW gets mixed reviews. The problem with both I think is that people expect a certain type of "mexican" food - so you are either pleased or disappointed.

Unfortunately, many of the EPCOT restaurants are not disney owned so their quality does change from time to time. I also think like with many restaurants you have good meals and misses other times. For the most part there is a restaurant for everyone out there you just have to pick ones that fit your tastes the best.

What restaurants we enjoy and which ones we have a great meal at too are not always the same. Coral Reef is very popular and always packed but their food is more like red lobster to us. But we do enjoy the aquarium and my DD enjoyed eating while watching the fish. We have also tried Le Cellier which many love but we had 2 bad meals there.

I would suggest - if you like authentic mexican and want an atmospheric experience you could check out San Angel Inn. Biergarten was fun for the girls because it had a band and all the children were up dancing and having a great time. DD loved the belly dancer at Marrakesh, if you like habachi you would like the place in Japan. We had a nice dinner at Les Chefs de France last trip as well.

I think it is important to sit and look at the menus and see what appeals to you. I think everyones tastes differ and I often went in with not high expectations and we were often pleasantly surprised.

Here is La Hacienda's menu - and you can also look at every CS, TS and cart menu at WDW from this site:
http://allears.net/menu/menu_haci.htm

Message edited 3/13/2012 7:23:46 PM.

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We did Garden Grill and my kids loved the characters, I didnt like the food nor did any of the adults in our party honestly.

We loved Chef Mickeys. We did Breakfest and I thought it was great food.

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We've had good luck at Garden Grill and the character interaction is fabulous, plus if you're sitting on the outer ring, it's quieter and more private.

It's not my favorite character meal food-wise but I'd eat there again.


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Our time for ADRs is still a while away but I'm kind of stumped on Epcot as well. My two DS will be 15 months and 3. Part of me wants to suck it up and take them to the Garden Grill for another character experience (also it seems to have a great location right near the couple of Epcot attractions I think young toddlers might like) but the other part (the fat and hungry part of me) is dying to try Biergarten. We will hopefully book two other character dinings so I feel like I should just get this one German buffet for myself, lol.

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Biergarten is a lot of fun for the kids!!! They'll have a ball there.

ETA: Characters are SO ridiculously available on the cruise (We met all of the fab 5 and 4 princesses within 20 minutes on the last night, and we bumped into Chip and Dale, Donald, Lilo, Max, and Goofy randomly walking through the cruise ships...not to mention all of the characters on Castaway Cay) so your DS will not be deprived of characters in any way, shape or form.

Message edited 3/15/2012 11:26:31 AM.

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Thanks ladies. I'm convinced. Schnitzel it is!

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just got back from there last week -- the atmosphere is really pretty the food is horrible. (at la hacienda)

dh and i were both sick from it

biergarten is awesome! my son loved the food and danced like crazy!

Message edited 3/15/2012 3:05:27 PM.

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Morocco and germany are my 2 favs there!