One of Luke’s favourite character meals on property is at Tusker House at Animal Kingdom, and it has become one of our go-to’s on every trip. I made this reservation for 12 people, but only 5 of us actually ended up making it there for it – a few people were flying home that day, a group had went to Universal Studios for the day and a few were enjoying the hotel pool for the day. The cast members didn’t seem to mind too much when we checked in that our numbers were lower than expected. Enjoying this  meal would be Luke, my Dad, Ashley, Mike and I.

I checked in for our 10:45 reservation pretty much on time, and we only had to wait a few minutes before being called. We were led to a table in the room to the right of the buffet. Our waitress came over right away to take our drink orders (coffee, water and POG juice – or jungle juice as I believe they call it there), and we headed up to the buffet. I only took pictures of my own plates.

Plate #1: some bacon, a biscuit with gravy, banana bread pudding with a vanilla sauce.

The bacon was standard Disney bacon, the biscuit and gravy was ok, but the star of this plate was the bread pudding. I wish it didn’t have raisins in it, but that just gives me something to pick out haha.

Plate #2 (starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise): ham, a roll with butter, curry chicken and basmati rice, roasted carrots, breakfast potatoes, a single corn dog nugget and mashed potatoes with gravy.

I enjoyed everything on this plate.  I didn’t really take any notes from this meal, sorry – I was pretty exhausted after the wedding the day before!

10:45am is the sweet spot for a reservation at Tusker House, since it allows you to hit both the breakfast buffet and the lunch buffet as they switch it over – this makes me very happy as I don’t really care for breakfast foods.

Of course, Tusker House is a character meal with four Safari-clad characters making their way around the restaurant while you eat. The first one to approach our table was the one and only Mr. Donald Duck. I wish Ashley and Mike would come with us to Disney every time just so I can watch Mike with the characters – I absolutely loved how happy it made him!

Next up was Daisy Duck, followed by the main mouse himself, and finally Goofy.

       This is the first character at this meal that my Dad agreed to have his picture taken with – he’s just not super into the character meet and greets.

By this point, we had all finished eating, but there’s always room for desserts when at Disney! We headed up for some sweets – and apparently I changed my mind once I got up there haha.

From 12 o’clock going clockwise: some kind of strawberry cake thing, a slice of pork, some green beans, a single cube of cheese (who gets just one cube?!), a few grapes, some kind of chocolate tart-like thing and a double chocolate muffin? brownie? Again, my notes on this day were terrible.

I remember liking the muffin/brownie thing the best of the desserts – but have nothing on the other items.

Donald and Mickey both stopped by again, and I made Dad take pictures with me.

When the bill came out, my Dad offered to pay for the entire table, which was so nice of him! I had already pulled out my Annual Pass and my Tables in Wonderland card, and our waitress told us she would apply the discount even though it wouldn’t be paid on my card (I thought the name on the TIW card had to match the card used to pay for the meal – hence why we’d been all paying cash at meals, but she assured us it would be fine). The total for all 5 of us came to $175.44 after the discount (and including the 18% auto gratuity that comes with using TIW). The waitress charged us for breakfast pricing of $34/person – typically when Luke and I go at that time we’ve always been charged the lunch pricing of $45. During our meal we had chatted with our waitress about our wedding the day before, so I’m not sure if this was just a bit of pixie dust or if they are supposed to charge you based on when you sat down compared to when you finished eating.

Tables in Wonderland Original Cost: $150                                            Break Even Point Before this Meal: $0                                                 Savings this Meal: $34                                                                                           Total Saved: Full cost of card +$297.34

Predicted food budget: $2631.67                                                                            Estimated Cost of this meal: $95.85 (Luke and I, based on $45/each – the lunch price)                                                                                                                   Actual Cost: $0 – thanks Dad!                                                                                   Over/Under: Under by $95.85                                                                  Remaining: $531.67

Next meal: Nomad Lounge