1900 Park Fare Dinner Review on Reopening Day 2024: 75 Photos Including Food & Characters

Hi everyone!

1900 Park Fare at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort reopened yesterday, called ‘Wish Makers Enchanted Dining’ on the Walt Disney World website. The beloved restaurant has been closed for over four years after closing in March 2020 due to the pandemic. And in that time, the restaurant received a refreshed interior, characters and food.

We visited 1900 Park Fare for dinner service and have this review to share, with 75 photos and video as well.

1900 Park Fare still has somewhat of a carousel theme, although not like before. A carousel horse is above the 1900 Park Fare sign.

The doors open to 1900 Park Fare (located next to the Grand Floridian Café).

The waiting area was empty except for Cast Members when we arrived, and was full when we left.

There are schematic drawings that look like carousel animals that used to be in the dining room.

And Victorian style portraits are also in the small lobby and in the dining room.

Upon entering the dining room, you’ll notice portraits of Disney characters above (I will show them closer at the end of the article) and Big Bertha is still here (above), a turn-of-the-century organ from France.

Big Bertha has been a mainstay of 1900 Park Fare since Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort opened in 1988.

We received a Wishmakers Enchanted Dining card, which has autographs on one side and an area to print your wish on the other.

The characters for this dinner (as well as breakfast) are Cinderella, Princess Tiana in her Tiana’s Bayou Adventure costume, Aladdin, and Mirabel. Disney says the characters are all known for making a wish – although there are soooo many other Disney characters that also could be here. It is an unusual grouping of characters, although we especially enjoyed seeing Princess Tiana in her new costume.

Unlike before, the characters are the same at both breakfast and lunch. Unfortunately, that makes it a much less repeatable experience. Before the pandemic, we enjoyed the Mary Poppins themed breakfast occasionally. The dinner has changed characters through the years. I remember back in the early 2000s attending a villains themed dinner.

A soft drink is included with the meal. I was disappointed that there is not fresh brewed iced tea here (Nestea is served), so I ordered a Sprite and a tap water. Even McDonald’s has freshly brewed iced tea, so I don’t understand why an expensive restaurant would not. There are cocktails, beers and wines that can also be ordered, as well as non-alcoholic specialty beverages.

The price for the dinner buffet currently is:

$66 per adult, plus tax and gratuity

$41 per child, plus tax and gratuity

There are no discounts and we were told that will be the case for a year. However, 1900 Park Fare is available on the Disney Dining Plan and that will probably be how many guests visit it. We do recommend our travel partner Mouse Fan Travel for booking Disney vacations.

Our friend Greg from Funatics Fantasylandnews.com ordered the Chipotle Bloody Mary.

The Chipotle Bloody Mary has quite a large kick to it. It was topped with an olive, chorizo, celery and shrimp.

There is a celebration moment with the voice of Jiminy Cricket that happens every so often. The characters get everyone involved.

Before any characters arrived to our table, we took a look at the food and made our first plate. We were told they don’t call this a children’s area, but there are two shorter buffets with kid’s type items (which I tend to eat). Here, there is pasta with olive oil, turkey meatballs, marinara sauce and buttered corn.

One major positive about the buffet on opening day (and hopefully every day) is that the food was replenished quickly and the buffet almost always looked clean.

Around the corner is peel and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce. This was one of Jeff’s favorite items on the buffet, and the only item he had two helpings of.

My first plate consisted mostly of salad. There are mixed greens (a spring mix) and separate romaine lettuce.

The lettuce quality was good, but the topping choices are pretty slim. Included are olives, cucumbers, shredded carrots, croutons and garbanzo beans.

There were tomatoes and pickled onions (I like almost any onion but not pickled).

It would have been nice to have green peppers, broccoli and regular onions (red or white).

The dressings are Caesar, ranch, Italian and citrus. I took the citrus dressing and found it lacked as much flavor as say, a balsamic (which is my usual go-to). But the salad was fine if unremarkable.

There are some other salads here – Mediterranean kale salad, broccoli slaw, fresh fruit salad, loaded potato salad and couscous.

I tried the loaded potato salad, which was fine and the couscous was okay too.

There are French rolls, assorted crackers, cheeses, grapes and focaccia bread. The cheeses are nothing special – we go to France a lot and are used to good cheese and a wider variety of it. Being in Disney’s Grand Floridian, it would be nice to see better cheese and a wider fruit choice.

My first plate included plenty of cucumbers and also a French roll.

While we were enjoying our first course, Cinderella appeared. We were told that Mirabel would be first, but Cinderella arrived from the other way, and so we had a nice surprise meeting pretty quickly once we sat back down.

At this point, all of the characters were in our small room.

First, here is our video with all four characters, followed by Cinderella photos.

Cinderella was a lovely start to our character dining experience.

We have met Cinderella previously at 1900 Park Fare.

She very nicely held the autograph card for a photo.

Mirabel was next. We have met her recently at the Magic Kingdom and we’ve met her previously at Disneyland. Mirabel is always very popular with guests.

Aladdin meets guests in his royal costume. I don’t recall meeting him in this costume anytime recently.

He posed for us.

Next, Princess Tiana is in her gorgeous adventure outfit for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which will open this summer at Walt Disney World (and at Disneyland later this year).

Here is our video of Princess Tiana, followed by photos.

Tiana’s adventure outfit includes a hat and boots.

Tiana’s lapel includes butterflies and flowers.

When I asked about her outfit, she made mention of the boots.

We met all four characters, and then headed back to the buffet for mains.

The buffet overall consists of comfort foods, from soup to mashed potatoes to macaroni and cheese (along with some specialties).

First, there is chicken soup. I don’t know if the soup changes daily.

Next is Tiana’s Gumbo with spicy andouille sausage. This is another of Jeff’s favorites.

The curry-roasted chicken looked delicious. I don’t eat a lot of meat on the bone and so I didn’t end up with it, but I cook curries pretty often (part of my family is from India). Jeff really enjoyed it. Next time I’d take some of the sauce for the Jasmine rice.

Jeff said that the curry chicken was in his top 3.

There is an Impossible Merguez sausage with zucchini noodles.

Jeff says the roasted garlic sausage with tomatoes, herbs and braised cabbage was good if unremarkable

Jeff tried the macaroni and cheese. He said it was a little less warm than he’d prefer, and again – good but unremarkable.

There are green beans.

Jeff tried the baked salmon with lemon-saffron butter, which was different in how he usually has it.

There actually wasn’t a ton on the buffet for me, but there was some. I enjoyed the glazed carrots (comfort food).

I also love mashed potatoes and these were pretty good. If anything, they were thinner than I make them at home – but still fine.

Jeff says the carrots, corn and potatoes were a weak link for him.

Here is a look at the way the items are served.

I didn’t try the chicken tenders or pizza off the buffet.

There was a carving station with prime rib and porchetta.

I asked for a small slice of prime rib. It was pretty fatty, so I can say the meat tasted delicious but I had very little of it.

We eat carrots and corn at home a lot, and I make mashed potatoes every so often. So…for the price, this isn’t too different of a dinner than I might have at home.

Jeff’s plate was a little more varied.

There is also gummy candy. I didn’t partake.

The strawberry soup is back! This was a highlight, and I had some for dessert. It was the highlight for Jeff too in desserts.

The desserts overall were a highlight of the meal, with a nice assortment of bites.

That said, I was pretty full from the salad and my other plate of food, so I only tried 3 items.

There is a toasted coconut cake with passion fruit custard and hibiscus crème. This was a thumbs-up from Jeff (I didn’t try it).

The Grand Floridian Financier is an almond cake with sea salt caramel and toasted meringue.

The fudge brownie with triple-chocolate mousse was very nice – not too chewy. The top was creamy and the cake moist.

The lemon-blueberry cheesecake had a very strong blueberry flavor for us (over the lemon).

The warm chocolate cake looked amazing, but I just didn’t have room for it.

It comes with a vanilla crème anglaise.

This is my plate of desserts, and I tried some of the lemon-blueberry cheesecake upon a recommendation as well.

A lot of the buffet is pretty basic, but Jeff found some standout items. There should be something for almost everyone on it. However, I also can’t say the buffet is worth the cost if paying in cash. As with any character buffet, you are paying as much for the characters (and in this case, the location) as you are the food. With gratuity and tax, we paid around $80 each.

Here is a look at much of the artwork (themed to wishing) above guests. We were in a separate small room and didn’t see the artwork from our seats.

A young Arthur is in one piece of artwork, as is Asha with Star and Valentino in another. Asha should really be part of the meal.

Princess Aurora and Prince Philip are on the left, and Cinderella to the right.

Princess Tiana wears a gown in the artwork on the left, and Alice is on the right.

Rapunzel looks upon the lanterns to the left, and Ariel to the light on the right.

Aladdin wishes on the lamp.

Belle also is in a portrait.

We enjoyed our experience with friends. But…I think everyone at our table thought the meal was fine, but not remarkable (as I said above earlier to some of the dishes). It was nice to be back in 1900 Park Fare and I am sure the restaurant will sell out to guests who want a decent meal with characters. If I wished for anything (and that is the point of the restaurant), it would be to add Anastasia and Drizella again, who always bring a lot of fun to character dining. But, it feels like most character dining is now limited to just four characters, so that will probably have to stay a wish.