dining – WDWTools Blog

Skipper Canteen opens in Adventureland

December 16, 2015 marks the official grand opening of Skipper Canteen in Adventureland! This is a new Jungle Cruise-themed restaurant that offers table service. Photos and information will be added throughout the coming days.

Cast photo on Skipper Canteen’s opening day

Skipper Canteen is only taking walk-up seating. There is a small waiting veranda with big chairs, fans, and “chests” to sit on and await your turn. The check-in booth is in the center of the veranda. There is also a decorative sphinx.

Skipper Canteen is run by Alberta Falls, granddaughter of one Dr. Albert Falls, who ran the Canteen in the past. These portraits adorn the indoor waiting area, along with the Skipper Canteen’s “biggest fan”.

Skipper’s Mess Hall

Immediately following the indoor waiting area is the Skipper’s Mess Hall. This room contains the bulk of the restaurant’s seating. Jungle artifacts line the walls.

An interactive panoramic of the Mess Hall in Skipper Canteen on opening day, December 16, 2015.

S.E.A. (Society of Explorers and Adventurers) Room

Hidden behind a secret bookcase off the mess, the S.E.A. Room is adorned with the relics and insignia of a secret society of skippers known as the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Little is known about this exclusive cadre of skippers, but their dining room is very tastefully composed around the hearth. A scene of a skipper intimidating a dangerous snake sits above the mantle.

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An interactive panoramic of the S.E.A. Room in Skipper Canteen on opening day, December 16, 2015.

Falls Family Dining Room

Also called the jungle room, this dining room contains many of the Falls family’s most precious heirlooms and specimens. It is said that Alberta opened this room to the public as a means to cope with her grandfather’s death.

Familiar forms in the chandeliers…

Jedi Mickey’s Star Wars Dine at Hollywood & Vine 2015

Star Wars Weekends are just around the corner, but Mickey and friends have already brought the rebellion to Hollywood & Vine!

When you check in, you’ll be given a buzzer and asked to wait on the front porch of Hollywood & Vine, which has ample bench space. Complimentary water is provided on hot days. When the buzzer goes off, you’ll line up and the first place you’ll be ushered is the Jedi Mickey photo-op. Use your wait time to freshen up, fix your hair, and cool off, so that you’re ready to have your photo taken with The Big Cheese.

After the photo opportunity with Jedi Mickey, an autograph card bearing the signatures of all characters on meet and a themed PhotoPass card will be furnished.

Next, you’ll be escorted to your table and free to embark on the buffet.

The buffet has various breads, salads, meats, and an abundant dessert station. Pretzel rolls and fish and chips are among the more unique offerings. Staples included at a small kid’s buffet are mini corn dogs, chicken nuggets, and macaroni and cheese. Many dishes have a themed label, like “R2-D2’s Cantaloupe Salad” or “Chewbacca’s Chicken Tenders”.

The dessert station has a chocolate fountain in which pretzels and strawberries are dipped, key lime tarts with printed chocolate inserts featuring both Darth Maul Donald and Jedi Mickey, Yoda and Darth Vader cupcakes, Chewbacca and Stormtrooper cookies, soft serve, and more. The desserts here are awesome!

This dinner buffet provides meets with six characters:

Jedi Mickey
Princess Leia Minnie
Darth Vader Goofy
Stormtrooper Donald
Ewok Chip
Ewok Dale

In conventional character dining style, the characters roam the dining room and are available for photo ops throughout your meal. Each character will make sure to stop by at least once. The sole exception to this is Jedi Mickey, who does *not* roam the dining room in conventional style. He can only be met at the photo station as you enter the restaurant for your reservation.

Ewok Dale

Ewok Chip

Stormtrooper Donald

Darth Vader Goofy

Princess Leia Minnie

Jedi Mickey

The cost is $57.99 per adult and $34.99 per child. Soft drinks are included. Tables in Wonderland is NOT accepted for this event.

Think you want to go? Reservations are required and very difficult to obtain. Our dining search tool may be able to help you find a reservation. If you can’t find what you need immediately, click the “Watch” button to set up a watch with our ADR Sniper tool and be notified as soon as an opening occurs. Hollywood & Vine’s standard dinner offering will be available again on June 15, 2015, the day after this year’s final Star Wars Weekend.

Look forward to more coverage of Star Wars Weekends 2015 in the near future.

Lunchtime ADRs at Be Our Guest: February 26, 2015

Thanks to the WDWTools ADR Sniper, we were able to be among the first to enjoy lunch at Be Our Guest as the new lunchtime ADR system rolled out. Lunch at Be Our Guest is the first quick service meal that offers ADRs.

There was a large crowd (above) attempting to enter the standby queue as lunch began to be served at 10:30 am, but for the first time, they were being turned away as staff informed that standby was full and only guests with reservations were being admitted. Prior to the lunch ADR system rollout, all of these people would’ve entered a line that usually took up the entire bridge and expanded outward along the wall, often reaching half-way to Gaston’s on the other side of 7DMT. Those who were turned away were asked to check again later in the day to see if more standby availability had opened.

My reservation was at 10:35. I walked up around this time and after waiting a short while for a cast member with an iPad (the reservation check-in desk was not being used), I was checked in, handed a menu, and brought to a register just past the front entrance. This register is where guests with ADRs place their orders; if the guest has ordered in advance through Disney’s website, as I did, all he must do here is pay. The Beast’s study continues to host the registers for lunchtime standby guests.

While standby guests continue to receive a “magic rose” buzzer to mark their place, guests with reservations do not; I was simply handed a receipt and told to leave it out so the CM delivering food could confirm the order. I went and found a cozy spot in the Ballroom and enjoyed the view of the gentle snowfall out the window while I waited for my meal to be delivered.

After a few minutes, a cast member brought this delicious meal to me: a fried turkey sandwich and a cupcake topped with the ever-elusive “Grey Stuff”.

It was pretty good.

Although it can get pretty busy at lunch time, as you can see in the image of the ballroom below, the new system redirects standby guests to other areas of the park and makes it possible to enjoy the beautiful landscapes visible from the Be Our Guest bridge. Before the lunchtime ADR system, this bridge would be packed with standby guests waiting hours for their chance to get in and check out BOG for themselves. It’s even packed at dinner time, as dinner guests with reservations usually wait here too.

Lunch at Be Our Guest is a truly magical experience. The crowds are low, affording more opportunity to peruse the Beast’s castle, the pressure is off, and it’s very enjoyable. Strongly recommended for your next trip, and thanks to the new lunchtime ADRs and the WDWTools ADR Sniper, you can enjoy it without having to wait in a long line OR spending months refreshing Disney’s site looking for a reservation.

Starbucks at Hollywood Studios â€“ Now This is How You Coffee

Starbucks has been making inroads at Walt Disney World for the past year: First at Magic Kingdom and then at EPCOT. Well, downtown Hollywood Studios just got a new addition, and (Iâ€™ll understand ifyouâ€™re not surprised): Itâ€™s a Starbucks!

But, wait, stay â€“ where are you going? This Starbucks is a different sort of animal. Both the Magic Kingdom and the EPCOT locations are regular Starbucks-dÃ©cor: Your typical Seattle coffee house with brown and green color schemes. Outside of the hustle and bustle of always being busy, there is nothing to separate them from the Starbucks you can find on the street corner in your own downtown, or the one on your block, or the one opening next month in your guest bedroom.

The Starbucks at Hollywood Studios is decorated to represent a Trolley Station in old Los Angeles:

Isnâ€™t that lovely? Above the serving area is a balcony of machinery that looks to be either actual decommissioned and refurbished machinery from the time, or ingenious replicas. Strategic lighting at the balcony level makes it appear as if itâ€™s a working station, with desk lamps and indicator lights flickering occasionally. All of the doors in and out of the serving area are large double doors, where one might have expected a few well-placed rails to deliver a derelict trolley car in for repairs.

If you decide to grab yourself a warm cup on a chilly night, or a frosty Frappuccino to keep you cool on a hot day, make sure to pick the right-hand side cash registers as you walk through the front door. The reason here is that the waiting area for your drinks includes a wall-mounted switch board for the Los Angeles area:

You only get the switch board. In order to get my wife included with the switch board, you need to be as cute as I am.

Once again, either the attention to detail here is flawless, or someone has wiped the cobwebs off of an actual switchboard used at a trolley station from the time. Unfortunately, Disney Magic doesnâ€™t seem to have extended toward the operation of the switch board, as pushing the buttons and flipping the switches doesnâ€™t light anything up, or make the trains run in any particular direction. Who knows, however, as I may have inadvertently caused the infamous trolley crash of 1923, while I sipped quietly on my Chai and flipped a bunch of switches at random.