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I’ve never made it a secret that Disney’s Polynesian Resort is my favorite Disney hotel. I love everything about this hotel. Like how you can take a monorail to the Walt Disney World Resort. Or the incredible theming. Or just its overall laid-back atmosphere that makes me feel very relaxed and happy.
At any rate, because of this, this is the Disney hotel I have stayed at the most. I first stayed here as a little girl and I got hooked. When I visited as a kid, I did the character breakfast buffet.
But it’s been, well, a few years, let’s just say, since then. But in my last trip to Orlando, Florida, I went back to Ohana.
The Ohana restaurant is a restaurant on the second floor of the main building of the Polynesian Resort, the Great Ceremonial House. Now, normally, if you visit this restaurant, you get to meet Disney characters. But like a lot of things this past year or so, the experience is a bit different right now. You can eat a breakfast buffet. But there will be no characters.
So I decided to review my last visit to Ohana. I also will tell you whether or not I think you should visit this restaurant without characters. You may remember that I did this recently with Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club.
Ohana Restaurant: Arrival
Now, sadly, during my last trip, I wasn’t staying at the Polynesian Resort. I did, however, stay at the Boardwalk, which I also really love. But I decided to make the breakfast more of a brunch. I took a bus from the Boardwalk to the Magic Kingdom and took advantage of the new Disney hotel early entry. We got in a lot of good rides and then we took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom.
We had a reservation, so we checked in fifteen minutes early through the My Disney Experience app. A great thing about waiting for your Ohana Reservation is that there is a comfortable place to wait right outside the restaurant. It’s near the Tambu Lounge, their Hawaiian-themed full-service bar.
Eventually, we got the notification that our table was ready. We were able to meet the hostess and be seated.
Ohana Atmosphere
I loved our table. We had wonderful views. We could see the tops of iconic parts of Magic Kingdom. This includes Cinderella’s Castle, the Railroad Station, Space Mountain, and Tron. We also had wonderful views of the resort. Depending on where you were seated, you could also see Polynesian’s wonderful pool and the Grand Floridian. All of these wonderful views really added to the atmosphere.
I liked the fun music played, too. It was mostly Polynesian-themed. Though I have to say, I am not entirely sure why they played “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book or “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King. But I like both songs, so I enjoyed it!
Overall, the restaurant had a very relaxing mood, which I really liked. I love the excitement of the Magic Kingdom, but sometimes it is nice to also have that relaxing feeling since this is, you know, a vacation. It was a great place to go after a morning at Magic Kingdom.
Ohana Food Review
The waitress brought out orange juice for us.
I am allergic to oranges, so I was able to get what I really wanted instead (a Coca-Cola). Drinks are included in the cost of the breakfast buffet, which I like.
Next comes seasonal fruit.
The seasonal fruit was really delicious. All of the fruit was really fresh. It was a contrast to how sometimes with continental breakfasts at hotels, they serve fruit, but you can tell it’s not fresh and it’s only okay. But all of the fruit was really fresh. My favorites were the pineapple and melons. Especially the melons, they were super juicy, sweet, and great.
Fresh fruit is not the only first course of your breakfast. The server also brings out freshly made Pineapple-Coconut Bread.
Now I love bread and let me tell you, this bread did not disappoint. It was so delicious! My mom commented she wished she could get the recipe for it. Now, the pineapple was the dominant flavor and did overtake the coconut flavor. But I didn’t care because I loved it!
Breakfast Skillets
Next is the main part of your breakfast. They bring out a couple of great breakfast skillets.
As you can see, there is so much delicious food here. There are eggs, sausage, biscuits, Hawaiian-style Ham topped with Pineapple Compote, and Fried Island-style Potatoes.
I was excited about the biscuits because biscuits are my favorite food, like, ever. Unfortunately, the biscuits were a bit hard. So I didn’t eat too many of them.
Luckily, the rest of the food on the skillet was great. The sausage and eggs were good.
But the two best parts were the ham and the potatoes. The potatoes were delicious, flavorful, and fairly soft. The ham was yummy and very flavorful as well. I love how with the ham and the coconut bread, they were able to bring some Hawaiian flavors into an otherwise fairly normal breakfast. That way, you get the fun theming of the Polynesian Resort while also getting to enjoy your favorite breakfast dishes.
Speaking of favorite breakfast foods, they also served another one of my favorites, waffles.
They had the breakfast food I always want to have whenever I go to Walt Disney World: Mickey waffles! Unfortunately, the Mickey waffles were a bit hard.
They also had Stitch-themed waffles. These were much softer than the Mickey waffles so I liked them more. They were also really cute.
Because it is a breakfast buffet, we could ask for seconds. We wanted more ham and potatoes because those were our favorites.
Conclusion
So earlier in this blog entry, I told you that I would tell you whether or not it was worth it to do this breakfast without the characters. And I will say that if seeing the characters is your absolute favorite part of a character buffet and you’d be disappointed going to one without characters, then yeah, you should skip it. But otherwise, I think you should go.
In fact, I think going now without the characters has its advantages. The cost is far lower without the characters. Right now, it is only $25 for adults and $14 for children. This is far lower than other character breakfasts. You can pay around $60 per adult for these.
But with the lower price, you still get unlimited, delicious breakfast foods and drinks. You don’t really much more than you would at another sit-down restaurant for breakfast. And you get the wonderful theming and atmosphere of Ohana.
So I wholeheartedly recommend eating here. And if the price still makes you question is, then check out these ways to save money on the rest of your trip: