Tusker House

One of the best things about Disney Parks in America in particular is the food. In the Florida parks there's two kinds of restaurants counter service which is as it says on the tin you go to counter, order what you want and find your seat, no biggy. Then there's table service, most of these need an advance reservation to guarantee a seat at the time you think you will want to eat when in the parks. Some of the table service restaurants have character dining as well. Tusker House in Animal Kingdom is one of these places. The last time I was in Florida with my trip buddy we tried Tusker house for breakfast. We had booked a 10:05 breakfast and arrived with loads of time. We checked in and stopped for a picture with Donald, there are photographers at the restaurant taking the picture for you, a CM later comes to your table to offer you the photo for a fee, we passed and I took this sneaky snap instead:

 Breakfast in Tusker House is done Buffet style, this is just a small sample of the layout:

Once we were given our table we headed off to pile up our plates with as much food as would fit on one plate (or in the case of my trip buddy two plates!)
Doughnuts for breakfast:

Not only doughnuts but MICKEY WAFFLES as well: 

Pastries and fruit galore kept my trip buddy happy.

The food was okay but then with doughnuts for breakfast they would to win my approval anyway. It is a sit down restaurant so we did have table service as well but that was mostly for drinks. We had a rather friendly CM called Neil who was determined to win our affection or well my trip buddies affection anyway. She wasn't interested. She wanted to eat and not interact with anyone. So first he asked her if this was the best breakfast she ever had, she said NO! He left but wasn't prepared to give up trying to win her over, he had spotted her putting some pastries in her bag for later in the day so he came back and said since you have half the buffet in your bag am I the best waiter ever... she said NO! He didn't stop he asked was it his hairdo that she didn't like (he was bald) She just scowled at him so he said he would go brush it so it parted in the middle. In a final attempt to win my trip buddy over Neil came back to us with a tray of paper cups, he said that it was the nicest hot chocolate ever and we really needed to try some and went to put a cup on the table but knocked the whole tray over much to my trip buddies shock but realising it was a joke and the cups were empty she just gave poor Neil the biggest dirty look ever and he scooted off finally accepting that he wasn't going to win her affection that morning. For me I was impressed at his determination. The service was good when we wanted drinks we were served quickly and he was friendly and entertaining.

I liked the way the restaurant was themed as well with various hints that you might be eating in Africa near a safari park around the restaurant:

 Character wise we had Goofy, Daisy and the head Mouse all in Safari costumes:

Every so often there was a short parade where the children could follow the characters around the restaurant playing various noisy instruments, great fun:

I was particularly impressed with how they made sure that we had seen every character. We had a late breakfast so they were clearing the area we were eating in while we were eating and we had only seen Daisy and Goofy before it was time to leave but they brought us over to a side hallway and got the head Mouse to come out and take some pictures with us. Overall I enjoyed it. Food wise it wasn't the greatest, doughnuts and mickey waffles aside but it was a good way for us to start our Disney trip that year.