Disneyland Step 3: Dining in Disneyland – make your reservations!!!
Oh, eating in Disneyland! I have friends who LOVE the food in the parks and literally dream about it when they are not there. I have other friends who think it’s a disaster… I think it’s all about leaning into the experience and letting go (que the Frozen song…) of any food consumption rules that you normally adhere to. Disneyland is glutenous… let’s just be honest. If you can just wrap your brain around that fact and get ready to indulge, you’ll have a great time.
Sources of Information:
During our research stage, we found a couple blog posts that highlighted some of the fan favorites:
The Happiest Blog on Earth – Food
We would scan through the images of these various treats, dreaming about the yumminess that was to come.
We also listened to episodes 6, 8, and 14 of the Ropedrop & Parkhop podcast.
This made everyone super excited about all the (let’s be honest, crap) we were going to be eating while there. So that’s the first thing: lean in, get excited, throw out the diet, and get ready to eat!
You’ll know that you’ve sufficiently accomplished step 1 if you suddenly have a strong desire to discover all the amazing things you’ll be eating in the parks and feel a sense of panic that you might miss something really important: Dole Whips, Churros, Lobster Nachos, Ghirardelli anything. Around every corner is a new treat that someone you know will swear is THE BEST THING YOU COULD POSSIBLY EAT at Disneyland and cannot be missed!
Start making a list of all the things that you want to be sure to eat during your trip. Jot down the restaurants that you may want to have dinner or lunch at. Figure out which Character Experience meal sounds best for your family. Then, add these into your General Itinerary Chart – Blank (Step 2) wherever makes sense.
Here are some of our favorites:
Churro Carts
Monte Cristo Sandwich from Café Orleans
Dole Whips at the Tiki Juice Bar
Pommes Frites from Café Orleans
Beignets at Mint Julep Bar
Skewers from Bengal BBQ
Corn Dogs from The Corn Dog Castle
Burgers from Carnation Cafe
Raspberry Rose Mickey Macaron from Jolly Holiday
QuesaBirria tacos from Cocina Cucamonga
Make your Reservations:
Next thing to do in preparation for eating at Disneyland is to make your lunch and dinner reservations. This can be done 60 days out and should be if you’re planning on any of the real hot spots: Blue Bayou, for one! Best plan is to wake up at 6:00 am PST on the 60 day out mark and make a reservation on your Disneyland App. Of course, if you hire an professional Travel Planner they will do this annoying work for you! Contact me if you’re interested in learning more!
If you want to eat at a restaurant that takes reservations, you have to make them. This is true for dinner and lunch. There are plenty of other options at non-reservation restaurants (called Quick Service restaurants) and you can fill-in with those. Many have mobile ordering, which makes getting your meals quick and easy.
When our kids were smaller and we went back to the hotels for mid-afternoon naps, we had dinner reservations for all dinners and even some lunches. Our days were more planned out and followed a schedule. Also, having that dinner reservation forced us to leave the pool or wake from the nap to get back into the parks. Now that our kids are bigger, we plan fewer reservations so we can flow through the parks as we like and don’t have to be somewhere at a specific time. But we do now add on things like the World of Color Dessert Party to snag some better seating for those nighttime events.
But when we do make reservations, we like to do 11:30 for lunch and 5:30 for dinner. You could even shift back 30 minutes to 11 & 5. I know what you’re thinking… but you must remember that things are going to run a bit differently for you on this trip than one of your normal vacations. For one, you will be leaving your hotel most mornings around 6:30 am. Your whole day is sort of shifted earlier. You’ll be exhausted by 8pm and totally ready for bed. So eating a bit earlier will probably work with the natural flow of your day. It also doesn’t hurt to eat a little off the busy rush times.
Disneyland also offers dining packages grouped with shows and parades – these give you access to reserved seating for these events. I highly recommend the World of Color Dessert Package. Here’s a link to what’s currently offered for Dining Events.
There are also various Character Dining experiences that you can add to your itinerary. Our favorite is the Minnie and Friends breakfast at the Plaza Inn, but I’m sad to say that my boys have aged out of these. In 2022 we went when they were 9, 6, & 4 and they definitely had a “mom, this is so lame!” attitude as I was hugging Minnie and Winnie the Pooh… Here’s a link to what’s currently offered for Character Dining.
Final note on restaurants in Disneyland: there is no booze in the Disneyland Park (except Galaxy’s Edge and at Blue Bayou). I think a lot of people know this, but I didn’t before our first trip, and it was a bit of a surprise. However, there is alcohol in California Adventure and Downtown Disney, so if a glass of wine (or a stiff drink) is something you anticipate needing after 12 hours in the parks with your kids (and walking about 10 miles…) then keep that in mind. We tend to lean more towards California Adventure for dinner for this exact reason.
Breakfast and Snacks:
Now that you’ve got your lunch and dinner plans figured out, it’s time to fill in with breakfast and snacks. Whether you’re staying onsite at a Disney Resort Hotel or offsite, you’re going to have a little walk into the parks each morning. If you’re taking advantage of Early Entry, you’ll probably be leaving your hotel room somewhere around 6:30 am. Planning to stop into Starbucks for a 10-minute wait in their line too? Then you’ll be leaving at 6:15… Planning to enjoy your hotel’s continental breakfast? Another thing you’ll have to add to your morning routine. We didn’t want to take up any of that Magical Early Entry time with breakfast, so we brought ours, in our suitcases!
Here’s what I did:
A couple weeks before the trip I made a double batch of Zucchini Bread in disposable loaf tins and threw it in the freezer (or if you’re feeling lazy just grab some banana loafs from Costco!)
Then the day before we left, I bought blueberries, bananas, granola bars, cereal (to be eaten dry), etc. at the store and packed it all in a grocery store cooler bag with the frozen zucchini bread (aka ice pack) in one of our suitcases (the extra suitcase space was nice to have at the end of the trip – we’d eaten most of the food but had a few souvenirs to fill the luggage up with instead!)
I also packed a small cutting board, knife (make sure you’re checking this bag!), and some ziplocs for storage
I transferred all this to the small fridge in our room when we arrived
Each evening I would prep a little breakfast for each of the boys using these containers
Then in the morning, we’d wake them up at 6:15, change them ½ asleep into their clothes for the day, plop them into our double stroller, and throw their breakfast onto their laps
And off we’d go! It would be a good 30-60 minutes before we were to a ride, so they’d just sit, wake up slowly and nibble on their breakfasts
When they were done, I’d just throw the bento box away and start with a fresh one the next day – no cleaning!
This was super easy and it made me feel good that they were starting their day with a slightly healthy breakfast. Now we call that zucchini bread ‘Disneyland Bread’ and every time we eat it we think of our trip. As they’ve gotten older, we just evolved into bags of breakfast “snacks”, muffins, etc and everyone just eats as we’re walking in or when hungry throughout the morning. But full disclosure… my middle guy would eat very little of these packed foods because according to him, a churro is breakfast food… right!?!
If your offsite hotel offers a continental breakfast you could still go the bento box route – just use their food to fill your containers! You’ll save that valuable morning time by eating on your way into the parks instead of sitting in your hotel’s lobby.
You definitely can bring your own food into the parks, so I also packed a little emergency bag of snacks that I kept in the stroller and always made sure I had some fruit snacks and dum-dum lollipops on me for waiting in ride lines (where blood sugar levels always seem to drop…). But we love the Disney snack foods, so pulling from our brought stash of snacks really didn’t happen much.
That’s dining in Disney! And don’t forget – you’ll be walking 10 miles per day, so who cares what you eat!!!
