Author: WDWNT

In case anyone forgot, the Tusker House has re-opened in Disney’s Animal Kingdom park. For breakfast, a full character buffet with characters such as Goofy is now offered. For lunch and dinner at the re-designed restaurant, a full buffet without characters is available. Before it’s extensive closure, the Tusker House was a counter service dining location.

By the time the Disney MGM Studios becomes the Disney Hollywood Studios, it’s name will be the least of what is different. Already announced is that both the Playhouse Disney Live on Stage and Journey into Narnia attraction will go through extensive changes early in 2008. “Playhouse Disney Live on Stage!” will be closed from January 2-27 to add some new show scenes starring characters from more recent Disney channel programming. Journey into Narnia will close from January to May of 2008 to accomodate Toy Story Mania construction and changes to update the tour for the next upcoming Narnia film. These changes come in addition to a new parade (Block Party Bash debuting in March), a new show in the ABC theater, a new High School Musical show, and the all new Toy Story Mania attraction; all of which are currently or will be running by the end of the summer of 2008. While some say January 7th will only bring a new name to WDW’s 3rd theme park, so much more is on the horizon.

Collin Korb is back with his latest dining review from the Walt Disney World Resort!!! This time, Collin takes a time machine back to the 50’s to visit the Prime Time Cafe at the Disney MGM Studios and his most recent dining experience there. Enjoy!!!We braved the weather today; it was wet and rainy all day.  We had slept in a bit and then braved inch-deep water in our flip-flops with our cheap ponchos.  We wandered the park all day and waited until early evening to eat. We decided to catch Rock N’ Roller Coaster and  The Tower of Terror before dinner! We arrived at the restaurant at 6:00 p.m. We had reservations so we thought we were set-well we were-sort of.  We put our name in and confirmed our reservation.  The place was packed because late-comers were trying to find a dry spot to eat. Naturally the place was at capacity and taking no walk-ins,  so we were lucky.  We waited for about twenty minutes and did not hear our name so we decided to sit at the bar and have a drink.  We had a 14 year old with us so we took it easy.  The bartender, Eric, was the only one to notice the 14 year old’s “First Trip to Disney” t-shirt, he said congratulations and handed her a first timer button too! She was thrilled, especially when her Shirley-Temple was on the house! I enjoyed a local brew and my girlfriend also had a Shirley-Temple.  It had been about forty minutes now so I checked; they had called our name, my FIRST name. Oops.  Well, they apologized and we were seated within about ten minutes. 

When we were seated our server “Uncle Dave” was very prompt.  We were on the dining plan and so we ordered onion rings, fried herb cheese, and I had a Caesar salad.  All of these came out within ten minutes.  Uncle Dave then took our orders.  My girlfriend and I enjoyed pot-roast while the 14 year old ordered grilled chicken.  Uncle Dave was very pleasant; he reminded us that we needed to make sure to eat our vegetables!  Dinner arrived in a timely fashion and we thoroughly enjoyed the entrees.  Once we ate our vegetables we decided to order dessert.  The girls ordered sundaes and I had the apple cobbler.  Delicious!  All of the portions of each section of the meal were outstanding and they tasted great.

 Perhaps the best part of the meal was the ambiance.  The restaurant, in classic Disney style, was decorated just like scenes from my grandparent’s house or those in period movies from the 50’s.  Old televisions, clocks, seating, rugs, drink mixers, dining tables, music and television clips were everywhere!  The only thing missing were people running around in Buddy Holly style glasses.  We found the experience to be very positive in spite of the delay.  This was easily remedied when the meal and all of its servings were excellent.  We will surely visit the 50’s Prime Time Cafe again.