Crystal Palace Restaurant
This is a review of the Crystal Palace Restaurant located in the Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida.
By the third day Crystal Palace became my favorite spot to eat. It is located in the Magic Kingdom and not too far from the front entrance. The reasons I give this place high marks is the following:
We were seated right away – no wait. We did have reservations but here they seem to know what a reservation is (unlike most other resort restaurants).
The tables were spaced so no one brushed the back of my seat even though my back faced the aisle. This was probably required as Disney characters work the tables and there is some silly parade of characters and gullible children following.
Our server, matronly women, the age of my grandmother, gave us wonderful service. She must have hosted untold number of guests but she had the delivery of a favored aunt and gave excellent service.
The ambiance was more in tune to adult appreciation, in our opinion, a plantation look.
Lastly but very importantly, the food was a hit. This is a buffet, all you can eat restaurant and boy did I lay it on. I actually had a bellyache when I left and had to walk it off. Here is a list of some of the items we tasted and rankings:
– Broccoli soup’s very good.
– Muscles had an interesting spiced sauce. Start of with two if you are not sure and go back for more later. I love different dishes.
– Mahi Mahi flavor was a bit weird but palatable.
– Salmon was very good.
– Garlic mashed potatoes were a big hit, very tasty almost rich flavor. This dish must be a park recipe as we have found the exact same dish at Chef Mickey. At Chef Mickey, they tasted a tad bit better.
– Pork was tender but slightly off flavor.
– Pasta dish with ham, bacon, mushrooms and Asiago cheese sauce (from memory, could be in error) had a terrific flavor but one could imagine it was a coronary event in the making, quite rich.
– The cheese selection was a shock. What restaurant offers slices of good or wonderful cheese? Well this place does, quite unusual especially for a theme park located in red neck territory.
– Key lime pie was another shocking experience. It was tart to the point of my declaring the chef brave. If I could talk directly to the chef, I would say thank you.
– The tiramisu was shockingly good.
– Strawberry cheesecake looked quite odd. Red cheesecake? Well it tasted just as advertised. Flavor was good.
The down side:
Restrooms were inadequate. More stalls are needed for mens and womens room. There is a sitting room just outside but that is no excuse.
The Disney characters ears are quite hard. If one hugs you and they do a lot of hugging and a character turns their head, pow, you get to know personally how hard the ears are.
Notes:
I was told by Tinkerbelle Tours (I hope this was a razz by her.) that the Disney characters tend to give special attention to fathers that looked curmudgeonly which might explain why I got a lot of attention.
When the Disney character parade started the children in the room are encouraged to dance behind in a large circle. I looked over at our children’s table of 6 children ranging in age from 6 to 17 and none of the children got sucked in. The hens at our table are telling the children by vocal and hand gestures to get involved. I am sitting at the hen table, I am the token male and I made the mistake of saying well the children are smart. They didn’t get sucked into the corporate contrived event. Boy, dirty looks speared me by the hens. It occurred to me that we put expectations on our children as to what being a child is expected to be. I think one should allow a child be themselves and only encourage when we are convinced that the outcome would be beneficial to the CHILD.
Revised April 7, 2018 (found that the ‘ punctuation was changed).
