Is Dinner at ‘Ohana Worth It?
The “Magical or Tragical” series offers up my group’s opinion on some of the offerings at Disney World. Pros and Cons, Dustless Pixie-style.
‘Ohana is arguably one of the most popular restaurants and sought after Advance Dining Reservations at Disney World.
Folks talk A LOT about ‘Ohana and the difficulty of getting an ADR there. We have been successful at snagging one for a party of 3 as soon as the 180 day reservation window opens. However, trying to adjust a reservation just a few days after making it demonstrates how quickly it books up.
Just because something is popular though, doesn’t mean that it deserves the hype. Is dinner at ‘Ohana REALLY worth it? Let’s break it down a little and see if it’s something that might appeal to your travelling group.
NOTE: We are going to be talking about dinner here and NOT the character breakfast. There are no characters at dinner.
The restaurant is located inside the beautiful Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort.
I could almost stop with that little fact. Disney’s Polynesian Village is such a warm and inviting resort. Entering the main building, you are greeted with the sound of trickling water, lush foliage and the lovely fruity tropical resort “smell” Disney pumps in. The Poly definitely transports you to another place and the ambiance alone is worth the trip. If you want to “get out” of Disney for a while, this is one of the best places to take a break from that.
It’s an All You Care to Eat meal served “family style”
‘Ohana offers dinner as well as a character breakfast. Both are all you care to eat and are served family, not buffet style. This just means that guests are served a certain selection of food and do not order from a menu. Accommodations can be made for folks with food allergies and dietary restrictions.
Adult pricing is currently around $60/person and children are around $35/person. Keep in mind that Disney begins charging adult prices for all kids ages 10 and up.
Here is how the dinner service works.
The meal starts with a Pineapple Coconut bread service that comes to the table with you. I mean this literally. The Cast Member that escorts you to your table will pick up the warm bread as you make your way to the table. While the bread is okay, everything that follows it is so much better. Be careful not to fill up on the bread. An avalanche of food is coming your way and ALL of it is better than the bread.
A salad lightly dressed in a delicious sweet and sour peanut dressing is served up shortly after you are seated. The “sides” of pork dumplings, honey coriander chicken wings, noodles and stir fry veggies appear next. If dumplings or pot stickers are your thing, you will not be disappointed. The wings are super sticky and a little too sweet for me, but my teenage son enjoyed them.
All of these are precursors to the onslaught of meat. If you have ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse, you will be familiar with the concept of endless meat skewers. Cast Members come around to your table with skewers of grilled chicken, beef or shrimp and slide the goodness on to your plate. We must become hypnotized by the skewer situation because none of us have ever stopped to take pictures of the meat.
I don’t know exactly what goes into the sweet and sour and peanut sauces that glaze the meat and I don’t really care. They are tasty and extra little containers of those magical sauces are also placed at the table for dipping. Dipping sauces are always a winner with my group.
Yes. There is also dessert.
‘Ohana is famous for its bread pudding with warn caramel sauce, bananas and ice cream. This fame is warranted but you may find that you can only manage a bite or two at this point.
The main takeaway: go in hungry and don’t load up on each course. The food just keeps coming, people.
The drinks are AMAZING.
While my sister doesn’t care for it, my son and I are borderline obsessed with what we call “Disney World Juice”. This deliciousness is some combo of passion fruit, orange and guava juice that goes by different names depending on where they serve it at Disney World. For ‘Ohana, it’s called P.O.G., I believe. It is served up as a specialty non alcoholic drink but it also makes an appearance in the cocktails that are served at ‘Ohana via the adjacent Tambu Lounge. If you are on the Disney Dining Plan, a cocktail or specialty beverage comes with your meal and I suggest that you try one of those out. I don’t drink mixed drinks very often and have found a lot of the ones at Disney World to be both expensive and underwhelming. These cocktails, however, are worth it.
Guests get a little show with their dinner.
During the dinner service there is a Cast Member who wanders around the restaurant playing the ukulele, singing, and engaging the kids in some activities around the tables. This is not a pressure oriented audience participation thing. We were a bit worried the first time, as that is NOT our bag and we even struggle a little with character meals in some cases. Fear not. ‘Ohana’s “wandering minstral” just creates a little atmosphere and gives the younger kids something to occupy them during dinner service.
Update 4/2019: Not sure why, but on a spring 2019 trip, none of this happened. At all. No wandering minstral. No kid’s activities. Nada. Our reservation was for around the same time as previous reservations and was also during a peak season. We also spent more time in the restaurant so it wasn’t just a case of having come in right after a round of “entertainment” and then leaving right before the next started.
No one will go hungry.
As I said, the food just keeps coming. Eat a light breakfast and lunch that day. The amount of food is tremendous. A large portion of the meal is basically a delicious carb bomb of noodles and pot stickers and bread service. You will want to try everything but be careful. To give every level of this meal it’s due, you cannot over extend yourself too early. Trust me.
A good place to celebrate with family and friends.
Since this restaurant is all about family, it is a great place to celebrate birthdays, graduations, reunions or whatever needs to be commemorated.
I celebrated my birthday at ‘Ohana last year. Even though I am more Queen than Princess at this point in my life, the Cast Members were very sweet about it. No big fuss was made but a cute little cupcake with a candle and a candy sprinkled rice krispie treat were delivered to our table.
Take in the fireworks.
‘Ohana offers a terrific view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks if you are seated near the windows. The dining room is large, so not EVERY seat in the house gets a good view, but we have been seated a row or two in from the windows and Cinderella’s castle was clearly visible from our seats. If you book a reservation for an hour to an hour and ½ BEFORE the official fireworks time you could catch the fireworks with your dessert. I recommend showing up around a ½ hour or so before your slated ADR arrival time. Let the Cast Member at check in know that you are willing to wait for a window seat and you may just get lucky.
Perfect dinner before a late night at Magic Kingdom.
One of the things that we like to do, is schedule a dinner at one of the resorts on the monorail line or at Wilderness Lodge on nights that either Magic Kingdom is open later or we have access to evening Extra Magic Hours. We can have a nice meal and then head over via monorail or boat to Magic Kingdom for a night of fun. ‘Ohana is a great restaurant for that. Enjoy dinner and then have a nice relaxing boat ride from the Polynesian over to the park.
Great way to resort snoop at the Polynesian.
Our love of resort snooping has been well documented. What better excuse to check out the Polynesian than a dinner reservation? Bask in the beautiful surroundings without having to pay Deluxe resort prices to stay there!
Watch the torch lighting ceremony
If you time your reservation right and arrive at the resort a little before 6pm Tuesday-Saturday, you can catch the torch lighting ceremony. Beginning around 6pm in the lobby, guests are led outside to the green space behind the Polynesian to watch a Cast Member light the torches that line the area. It’s a short little show with a fire dancing bit and well worth getting there early if you are already heading over for a reservation.
Be prepared to wait even with a reservation.
This is true for most dining locations at Disney World, but especially at ‘Ohana. Chances are pretty good that you will be seated after your ADR time but not too terribly off the mark. It is just something to consider when planning to eat there. Make sure to allow for some extra time for this dinner reservation especially if you are planning on doing some park activities after dinner. In that case, making an ADR for an earlier dinner might be your best bet.
The meal is a pretty good value if using the Disney Dining Plan
At the $60/$35 price point, ‘Ohana is a pretty good way to spend that 1 Table Service dining credit. This is especially true because NO ONE WILL GO HUNGRY, assuming that the food offerings appeal to your group.
I have read quite a few reviews that mentioned cold food, slow service and long waits. While I’m sure that happens just about everywhere at some time or another, that hasn’t been our experience. We don’t do too many repeats on the food front at Disney World. There are so many dining choices and we are determined to try most of them. With that in mind, we attempt to avoid going to restaurants that we have already eaten at. That being said, the three of us are not able to ignore the siren song of ‘Ohana’s noodles, dumplings and as my teenage son says, “ALL of the meat.” Great food combined with great atmosphere gets us every time. It is definitely a restaurant on our repeat list.
If there are big eaters to satisfy, the food looks appealing and you are looking for more bang for your buck, ‘Ohana fits the bill. Obviously we think ‘Ohana is magical and if the food selections appeal to your group it will most likely be magical for you as well.
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