Ok- who doesn't want to eat in Cinderella's Castle? The very icon of WDW itself? People that don't want to pay as much for dinner as it costs to get in the park, that's who. BUT, That being said, as far as character meals goes, this is the Gold Standard for EVERY princess in your family! When you walk into the castle you get your picture with Cinderella. Which is kinda weird, since I always thought the castle belonged to Sleeping Beauty. Somebody better call prince charming and let him know he has a squatter at the castle :0)
Reservations are a must! (Up to 180 days in advance) by calling 407-WDW-DINE
Anyway, Breakfast, lunch or dinner you are going to pay $36 for kids and $60 for adults! Yikes. The food is super fancy, there is a kids menu.
No Mickey here- the visitors are all Disney Princesses! Which is awesome if you have a disney princess crazed little girl.
The cool thing is you get a free picture booklet of your priness pics as well as a nice picture of the castle.
So, this is definately a memory maker, but with a hefty price tag!

This restaurant is a little fancy for the kiddos, but it is kid friendly with it's own kids buffet called "Pooh's corner"
The entire restaurant (picture a Victorian Winnie the Pooh theme) is decked out like the hundred arce woods and the characters that visit are all Pooh characters too. It's nice, but really pricey. Breakfast and lunch is $15 for kids and $35 for adults. Dinner balloons up to $35 for kids and $60 for adults. Ouch.
Reservations are a must. Call 407-WDW-DINE or make reservations online. Where it's not a big deal to make an EPCOT reservation for that day, Magic Kingdom is a different animal when it comes to dining in kid friendly must have locations! If you try to make reservations that day, you'll either be out of luck of end up eating at a weird time, maybe even being forced to pay dinner prices!
We have only been at breakfast time and I'll be honest, we were so excited about what we would be riding after breakfast, that the experience itself was lost a little on the neat ambience of the Crystal Palace, you know? When you walk through that magical main street, its hard to refocus and sit and enjoy a very lovely meal!

This series of posts will be called "where the characters are"
Please check out my other posts of Disney's Restaurants, because EVERYONE wants to eat with the characters at Disney World and some places (like the Garen Grill) may be over looked.
The Garden Grille is located in the Lands Pavillion at EPCOT. I recommend that you make reservations in advance by calling 407-WDW-DINE or as soon as you arrive at Guest Relations. (It's so much easier to do it in advance over the phone, but hey, sometimes we forget! Send the Hubby with the kids to ride Space Ship Earth (the giant iconic golf ball) while you make the reservations. Chances are you'll catch up with them in line and you'll be just fine :)
Anyway, back to the Garden Grill. It's a little pricey- $15-$35 per person. BUT. You get a truly unique dining experience WITH THE CHARACTERS! As the restaurant ROTATES AROUND AS YOU DINE! SO COOL! You'll get a birds eye view of the Lands Pavillion and the Energy Pavillion (complete with dinosaurs) as you feast on a family style dinner of roast chicken, steak, potatoes, homestyle veggies. Mmmmm. The great thing is that if you finish a bowl, they bring you more! It's like being at Mom's house, but with Chip, Dale, Donald, Daisy, and the gang keeping you in stitches the whole time. When we ate there (lunch time) it wasn't crowded, so the charaters really spent a lot of time at our table. So consider the "off times" to make a reservation and maybe have a light lunch at noon and make your reservations for 3 or 4 o'clock.

Boy oh boy, this was a neat thing to see! As soon as you see the village you are instantly transported into the books and movie! The archetecture is top notch. They spared no expense on this one! We ate at three broomsticks (crowded, but good food) drank butterbeer (like a root beer float with a hint of butterscotch taste) and rode the ride in the Hogwarts castle, which by FAR is the coolest ride I have ever riden. I hate rollar coasters, so we skipped the two in this area, but the hogwarts ride was a nice mix between Spider Man's CG/live action fun and an actual thrill ride like Jurassic Park. There is really nothing like it. We waited the first time for 60 minutes (We were there New Years Day) but it was worth every minute walking through the castle. There is a fun thing to see in every room and you kept walking the whole time, so it didn't seem like a drag at all! The second time we waited in the "single rider" line. There were three of us and two of us actually rode together while the third participated in the "child swap". Wait time? 5 MINUTES! I definately recommend the single rider, even if you aren't swapping kids because it doesn't matter if you are together anyway. Once you get on the seat, you sit back and can't see the other people in your party anyway! It was a blast. The only downer is that you have to get a locker (free up to 75 minutes) before you can get on the line. That was a disorganized mess!
In the streets, there are shops everywhere. We only went in one shop because it was so crowded! Definately want to do this again after some of the hype wears off, so that we can really soak in the town. The Wand Shop was so crowded we decided to skip it, we weren't planning on spending $43 on a plastic wand anyway....
Overall, it was a great experience- Harry Potter lover or not!

During the day, Old Town is just fine for the younger crowd- a few rides, a big farris wheel in the center of town, a old general store with old fashioned pepsi in the bottle, little shops. But at night (especially on the weekends during the car shows) it feels a little seedy. A little rowdy....drinking, loud music, crowded streets. The public bathrooms were also dirty! The plus is that to walk around it's free and it does have that old west feel during the day, but skip the hype at night!