Is Plaza Inn The Best Character Breakfast in Disney

Here is our honest review of the Plaza Inn. Is it worth the time and money it takes to enjoy Disney’s famous Character Breakfast?

Plaza Inn

Some say that enjoying the character breakfast at Plaza Inn is a quintessential Disneyland experience. In fact, Kenny the Pirate himself once called it the Character Palooza of Disneyland. (If you want to know more about Character Palooza, head over HERE.)

My (Kate’s) family decided to try it because it was our first ever time in Disneyland. So, for the occasion, we wanted to experience some character meal magic in the place where Walt himself walked. After all, what could be more delightful than starting the morning off with breakfast surrounded by characters in a restaurant located right there on Main Street?

Plaza Inn is set in a lavish Victorian setting and is one of the original landmarks of Disneyland Park. Drenched in dazzling décor, it’s no surprise that the Plaza Inn, which opened in 1955, was actually one of Walt Disney’s favorite places to dine!

Designer Lillian Disney, Walt’s wife, handpicked many of the restaurant’s authentic 19th-century interior furnishings. Diners might even notice Victorian stained-glass ceiling, marble foyer and ornate gingerbread woodwork, which were all salvaged from an old home in Los Angeles’ historic St. James Park neighborhood.

In the morning, you can experience The “Minnie & Friends – Breakfast in the Park” and Plaza Inn. It is an all-you-care-to-enjoy breakfast buffet: made-to-order omelets and Mickey waffles, French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, breakfast potatoes, fresh-baked pastries and breads, fruit, and hot and cold cereals.

During breakfast only, Disney Characters make their way through the restaurant, interacting with Guests. Lunch and dinner meal periods at Plaza Inn do not offer character interactions.

It all sounds like great fun to dine with characters in a restaurant that Walt himself dined in. But is it worth the time and money? Maybe, depending on your expectations.

Reservations

According to Disney, reservations are strongly recommended for breakfast at Plaza Inn. I am going to tell you that this is one restaurant where you really should heed that recommendation.

Reservations fill up quickly! And, it seemed to me people were holding onto them. If you want one, you need to be on and ready to grab it as soon as your booking window opens.

If you are a Walt Disney World regular, know that in Disneyland reservations open up at 60 days out, and you can only book a day at a time, even if you are staying on Disney property. This is good if you want to book a restaurant for the first day or two of your trip because other people have not had access starting as many as 10 days before you. However, you still need to be quick for the most popular reservations.

Pricing

Like most Disney dining experiences, Plaza Inn is pretty pricey. This is to be expected in Disneyland. And, surprisingly, it is one of the lowest-priced character meals you can book.

Plaza Inn Breakfast is $50 per adult and $30 per child.

Breakfast is a fixed price. It is set at $50 per adult and $30 per child. So a typical family of 4 would spend more than $160 to dine here before tax, assuming both children were ages 3-9.

Check-In

We had a relatively early reservation right at 9:00. We checked in right at the edge of our grade period, and the host sent us to wait in line for a photo with Minnie Mouse in her Christmas outfit.

However, the line for Minnie photos was long, and Minnie went for a break, and our table was ready before she came back. Since we were pretty hungry, we decided to return for photos after the meal. This was a mistake as the after-meal photo line was much longer (live and learn).

The hostess at the front desk took our payment upfront and stamped each of our hands as a symbol that we belonged in the restaurant. She gave us all keepsake Plaza Inn buttons as well. Then another Cast Member led us to our table.

Interestingly, there is no additional service at your table once you have paid other than occasional bussing. You serve yourself everywhere except for the Omelet Station and the hot line, where plates are handed to you. All beverages are self-serve. You even need to fetch your own flatware and condiments.

This isn’t a negative part of the experience in my opinion. Paying before the meal means you can leave as soon as you are ready without waiting for a check or for the server to run your payment method. Thus, it might have actually been the quickest character meal my family has been to, aside from Garden Grill at Walt Disney World.

The Buffet Food

The restaurant’s appearance and decor might remind you of Crystal Palace if you are familiar with Walt Disney World. However, that is where the similarities stop.

I will say, for the price, the buffet itself was somewhat disappointing. There is a limited variety of options, and there is no standout food item unique to the experience like there is at almost every other Disney character meal.

For the most part, aside from the Omelet station and Mickey waffles, the available food is the sort of food I would expect to find at a generic free hotel breakfast. It was mostly lackluster. Every review I have read of the place in previous years sings its praises. However, so far in 2025, the food here is just okay.

Of course, one doesn’t necessarily do a character meal expecting a top-notch dining experience. But, you will be best served if you go in knowing that the food quality and variety at this meal is a little below the bar even in terms of character dining.

There was a station with little individually packaged Kellogg’s cereals like Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, and Fruit Loops. You could choose little cartons of milk like you’d find in a school cafeteria to put on it if you wished.

There was a station with yogurt, fruit compote, and granola topping. This is also where most of the pastries were. It wasn’t hard to resist eating copious amounts of pastries because they were pretty dry.

One station had a Cast Member scooping bacon, eggs, and sausage links onto plates. The eggs appeared to be basic powdered eggs. The bacon was pretty flimsy. In fact, it is similar to the counter service food you can order for a fraction of the price over at Red Rose Taverne.

There was also a station with French Toast and Minnie Waffles. A cast member advised I add some of the blueberry compote at the yogurt station to these, so I did. I have to admit, the waffles were probably the best part of the meal thanks to that little tip. The French Toast was fair, but not great.

You could also grab breakfast potatoes, squishy fruit, and biscuits and gravy. None of it was especially good.

I also tried making a chicken biscuit, but both the chicken and the biscuit were a little too dry. And, the biscuit lacked flavor.

The highlight of the meal was the omelet station. We walked to it when there was a lull with no one in line. But shortly after, the line started forming and seemed lengthy.

The Cast Member making omelets was exceedingly friendly. And, he was fun to talk to.

I had an omelet with mushrooms, tomato, spinach, and cheese. The kids had bacon and cheese omelets. My husband had bacon and mushrooms.

The problem with this sort of omelet station is that if you get much filling in your omelet, it might still be a bit cool in the middle. The cheese at the center might still be unmelted. The outside cooks faster than the inside for sure. This was the case for some of our omelets. Still, they were good in terms of flavor, just not necessarily in terms of temperature.

To solve this, you might ask for the proteins and vegetables to be mixed into the eggs and have your omelet frittata style. Then have just cheese at the center so it has a better chance of melting.

Overall, the food wasn’t altogether terrible, and it was certainly edible, but it also wasn’t good either. I expected a little more for the price. I have been to nearly every character meal offered on both coasts (and most in Disney World multiple times), and so far, Plaza Inn ranks at the very bottom in terms of food quality.

Characters

The character interactions are where you do get some value. Certainly, Disneyland characters enjoy spending time with guests.

There is no set daily character line-up at Plaza Inn. A different assortment of characters from the pool of potential visitors might show up each day. There are typically some Winnie the Pooh Characters and some Classic characters like Minnie, Daisy, Pluto, or Chip & Dale. Then you might get a sprinkling of characters from classic films too! The CM at the Omelet station mentioned he’d seen Captain Hook, The Fairy Godmother, and Perla to name a few.

This might be a good thing if you love surprises. It makes for the potential for a different experience every time you visit (if you like the food enough the revisit, of course).

However, this might also be a negative thing. If you have children or party members who have their heart set on a character, and they have seen photos or videos of Plaza Inn, they might have expectations that specific characters will visit. So, they might be disappointed if that specific character never shows up. It is best to go in understanding that the character assortment will be a surprise.

For our meal, we saw a total of 8 characters. Daisy Duck, Tigger, Pooh, Pluto, Chip, Dale, and Suzy (one of the mice from Cinderella) all visited our table. And, later, we did indeed get a complimentary digital photo with Minnie Mouse in her Christmas outfit.

I will say all of the character interactions were pretty good. They all happily signed autographs and posed for photos. They communicated in their way with our children and made us giggle and smile.

Some of the characters came around more than once. This was especially true if one of the children was visiting the buffet when they came by. They did a good job of making sure the kids got to see them. Daisy in particular spent a lot of time with us on both of her visits, dancing with the kids and posing for photos.

One thing I did notice at Plaza Inn is that unlike character meals, like the ones in Walt Disney World and at Napa Rose, the character attendants were not on hand to take photos of the whole family together. So for the most part, our Plaza photos are of just the children or of one of the parents with the children.

Overall

Overall, I am glad my children had the experience of dining at a true Disneyland original restaurant. We had fun, and we didn’t leave hungry.

However, I doubt we will choose to dine here again unless the food quality improves and I hear of that improvement from someone whose palate I trust. It costs too much for what it is, especially compared to other character meals that have better food. After all, there are simply too many good things to eat in Disneyland to fill up on mediocre food.

In our opinion, both Goofy’s Kitchen and Napa Rose were superior character dining experiences. Of course, it is probably unfair to lump Napa Rose in with other character meals as it is in a different league in terms of food offerings.

All in all, if you can only book one character meal in Disneyland, and you don’t mind going outside of the theme parks, you might be better served checking out Story Tellers or Goofy’s Kitchen.

But, if you want a character meal inside of a Disneyland theme park, breakfast at Plaza Inn is really the only option. You will likely have fun as long as you are certain to manage your expectations for the food. And, you might just find that the setting itself is charming enough to be worth your while.

Have you been to Plaza Inn? What did you think of your experience? Let us know. And, be sure to pass this review along to your friends who are visiting Disneyland so that they know whether to book a reservation.