Review: ‘Ohana Best Friends Breakfast featuring Lilo & Stitch at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort

Hi everyone!

Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort is the setting for the Best Friends Breakfast featuring Lilo & Stitch at ‘Ohana. We booked the breakfast for yesterday since we’d never been. This is our review of the experience, and we will be discussing it on Mousesteps Weekly #216. I’ve been to ‘Ohana many times in the past for dinner, it used to be a favorite of mine – and it was nice to try something new to us. Jeff and I have both been visiting Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort for 40+ years, it’s surprising the breakfast has escaped us this far. You do want to book this before your trip.

‘Ohana is the official name of the restaurant, call it “Ohana’s” on social media and you’ll likely be corrected. But our server even added the “s” at the end, so it’s easy to see where there can be confusion. ‘Ohana only offers characters at breakfast, dinner is not a character meal.

The sign outside the breakast says “Best Friend Character Breakfast”, but online it adds the “s” at the end of “Friend”.

Follow Mousesteps on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram!

The ‘Ohana check-in is on the same floor (2nd) as the breakfast, but on the other side of the seating area where guests wait to be paged.

The line was pretty long to check in, but it went quickly enough. We were 15 minutes early and even though the seating area was full and we thought we’d be waiting a while, we were called at our reservation time (a minute early, actually). Our reservation was for 10:45 a.m.

We were brought past the tikis and decorations that line the entryway.

The most unique item we were served during the meal was the ‘Ohana Breakfast Bread, which includes pineapple and coconut. It is simple, sweet and delicious.

The restaurant was pretty busy when we arrived, though it didn’t take long to empty as it got closer to closing time.

We had a great table, with a window that included views of the volcano and more.

Besides the ‘Ohana Breakfast Bread, there was “seasonal fruit” brought to the table. The only fruits here I eat are watermelon and pineapple, and there were three watermelon chunks and one pineapple chunk. I think the rest of the fruit is cantaloupe and honeydew, and I don’t eat either. So the fruit went untouched except for those four pieces.

A guest favorite drink is P.O.G. – a combination of juices: passion fruit, orange and guava. If you’ve had the Jungle Juice at Tusker House or Boma, or the Moonshine at Trail’s End, then you’ve had it. The drink is now a little too sweet for me, so I had one glass but otherwise stuck with unsweetened iced tea and Jeff had coffee as a second drink.

Breakfast here is served in a skillet, family-style. It is adequate and plentiful – meaning, the food mostly seems like what you could get at a counter service restaurant like Captain Cook’s, but you can have as much as you want. Included are Mickey waffles (someone recently mentioned Stitch waffles on our Instagram, but there weren’t any served), Hua Paka (scrambled eggs), Pua’a (pork – sausage and smoked bacon) and Uala Kahiki (fried potatoes). There were also biscuits, which I guess falls under “assorted breakfast breads”. Disney says the potatoes are “island-style” and the sausages “Hawaiian pork sausages”. I didn’t personally taste anything different than…well, Captain Cook’s or anywhere else on property with similar food.

If you are just looking for breakfast foods and don’t care about characters, I don’t see a reason to go to ‘Ohana. We recommend Boma at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge for a fantastic buffet breakfast with carved meats, cooked-to-order omelets and even asparagus every time we’ve gone (plus all the familiar breakfast favorites and more). But the ‘Ohana breakfast draw is characters, so that is what I’ll talk about now.

Lilo was the first character that stopped at our table. The name of the breakfast includes both Lilo and Stitch, so that means those characters should be guaranteed. Once you get to the “and Friends” part of the breakfast name, that means those characters aren’t guaranteed. Mickey and Pluto were at our breakfast, they may be there most of the time but don’t expect them in particular.

Jeff meets Lilo. None of the characters were rushed through the dining room when we were there.

Mickey stopped by in his Hawaiian attire.

Here is our video that includes characters, food and atmosphere.

Pluto was up next.

The last time I met Pluto was at Inventions at Disneyland Paris (our favorite character meal) in September.

Stitch was the last character to arrive, and he had a Photopass photographer with him. Only Stitch had a photographer with him, because it is his breakfast….though Lilo’s name is in the title too, so I’m not sure why Photopass was just with Stitch. And it’d have been nice to have one with Mickey.

Once we were finished with what we were eating on our skillet, the server brought a smaller skillet with more food. We didn’t get through much of this. Mostly I just wanted a second Mickey waffle, I didn’t eat a lot of anything else except some eggs and a couple of pieces of bacon.

One of the highlights of the breakfast, especially for kids, is a parade that happens about every half hour. All the characters join in, and maracas are passed out to use.

Mickey leads with Lilo behind him.

Pluto was the most animated.

We enjoyed the breakfast, but for the current adult price of $32.00 plus tax & gratuity (we also received a 10% annual pass discount), I’ve felt like I’ve done it and probably don’t need to do it again soon. Our server was excellent, the character interaction was great, the food was decent. It is the only breakfast with Lilo & Stitch. ‘Ohana is a nice family environment, and kids seemed to love the parade. This is a very popular character breakfast. If anything, I’d like to see a little more variety to the food.

Our next character meal will probably be back at Inventions in Paris this March. I haven’t even reviewed the meals we’ve had there in the past, but I plan to on this coming trip.