California Grill

I was really skeptical as Disney can be a hit or miss. It's expensive too. Some gripe, and then onto the amazing experience overall:In the two weeks since we booked they raised prices (it's a pre-fix menu) per person, including for kids. Would have been nice to tell us that. We would still be fine to pay an extra $40, ($10 per person) but it's just courtesy they should extend to say something if someone wasn't. Overall a great experience. Our server, Dale, was tremendous. Extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and most important in this type of experience handles kids amazing. He is worth requesting for sure. Food was terrific. I had the pork two ways (belly and tenderloin) which was out of this world. Dessert offerings were amazing. I didn't want chocolate but my wife said it was an amazing dessert. I did the caramel one and just wowed!They also let you come back up for fireworks with your receipt. It has the best view of the Magic Kingdom Fireworks if you aren't in the park itself. You're high up and they have a safe large rooftop area to watch. Highly recommend.

Ambiance: fantastic venue on the top floor of the contemporary hotel. We had a late reservation so we were able to view the fireworks.Service: from the time we checked in to the time we finished our dinner we had excellent service. The check-in process was easy and straightforward with us being notified via text when our table was ready after the initial check-in text confirmation. We had excellent table service from Yaseen and others who aided him with bringing our dishes to the table.Food: the food was exemplary. This is the first time we have eaten at California Grill with the prefixed menu, which has been in place since the 50th anniversary of Disney World about three years ago. The choices were excellent and difficult to decide between. Two members of our party had Sushi, which was outstanding. The other two had the goat cheese Stuffed pasta. The different flavors, combining the goat cheese and then the roasted mushroom ragout and then the broth which had a faint taste of fennel was really great. Used the sourdough bread to sop up the broth. The sourdough bread is served at the beginning of the meal with butter and and olive/tomato/olive oil tampanade. And they will quickly bring extra bread if needed. Very nice. Three members of our party had the fish of the day which was a halibut that was beautifully plated, perfectly cooked, not overcooked at all. The sides as described on the menu were all delicious. And I had the scallops which were also outstanding. Again the accompaniments to the scallops really brought the dish to be over-the-top delicious and unusual.For desserts, among us, we had the lemon mousse and poppyseed cake, chocolate hazelnut torte, and apple spice cake with caramel. Yessine our server told us that the Apple spice cake with caramel was his favorite and that one was definitely the best in my opinion. But the other two desserts were also exceptional, depending on what your taste are for that meal.We had a wonderful experience. It was worth every penny. Wine and drink selection is extensive or you can order wine flights with a meal.

I will just start by telling you the parts you want to know...The food was incredible. Some of the best I have ever had. The service was better than most 4 star restaurants. The prices were obscene. Truly obnoxious. Was it worth it?Yup. This is a Disney Resort Restaurant. IYKYK Oftentimes "real world" logic doesn't apply at these places in terms of price, quality, and reviews. The restaurant overlooks the Magic Kingdom and the lake. It has an observation deck for the purpose of viewing the fireworks and the boats and other cool happenings on the lake. The view is spectacular and noteworthy. Some friends suggested we go to this place with them. I would like to return sometime after I save up enough money. The restaurant is nice and quieter than most resort restaurants. The view is great! Ron, our server was absolutely amazing. One of the best. For a flat rate of $89 you can have a three course meal which is a steal. There is for a $70 fee an add-on. You may try three wines paired exclusively to your meal options. Drinks are extra of course and they add up quickly. We drank and dined with reckless abandon. We enjoyed the wonderful service, the world class food experience, and we felt like kids watching the fireworks. I won't say what the four of us spent but it was under a thousand dollars. Barely.

I've been going to Disney World for many years, and this is the first time that I finally eat at the California Grill on the rooftop of the Contemporary Resort. I must say we had an amazing experience. We made an 8 PM reservation, which allows us to take the elevator up to the roof approximately 7:45 PM, and make our way to their outdoor terrace in time to see the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom ... Wow!!! After the fireworks, we were paged that our table was ready, then sat by a very friendly staff member and promptly met by our server Reggie, who was friendly, very helpful and very knowledgeable. It's a set three-course menu for $90 per person, with many delicious options. The filet mignon was delicious, as were the pan-seared pork medallions. My wife had a delicious martini, and I had one of the best old-fashioned cocktails that I've ever had. The food, the ambience, the service, the rooftop view ... it was all spectacular and magical! Highly recommend this experience!

This was definitely the best meal I had during my latest trip to Disney World and that's saying a lot given all of the great food I had there.Just like Toledo, the location of this amazing restaurant and its insane views facing the Magic Kingdom and the totally open space makes the ambiance even more amazing. The prix fixe menu options were all delicious. The highlights of the meal were the awesome eel rolls, tender steaks and the desserts were absolutely fabulous. Even the chicken noodle soup was top notch.There are no real drawbacks here. The service was extremely professional (you can tell they treat this place as a real signature Disney dining experience) and everything about the pacing of the meal was well structured. I really enjoyed watching the sunset during dinner and totally just taking in the real awesomeness of being at one of the best Disney restaurants out there. It's located at the Contemporary so it's a fairly easy ride here via Monorail. There's plenty of other ways to get here either by boat or by bus or by car obviously depending on where you are staying. All in, this should be a top consideration for "must-eats" at Disney.

This will be the first part of many of the multiple bad experiences I've had on my honeymoon with Disneyworld dining. First, the view is great. No issues there. If you dine there during the day, you can come back to the observation deck. I booked our reservation for 7:30PM so we could catch the fireworks mid-meal. I checked in exactly 20 minutes prior on the app, and we got seated after 7:30PM. Once we were checked in upstairs, the couple that checked in behind us got a massive booth and we got sat in a cramped two person table. Our server was curt and did his job, for the most part. In addition to the three course prix fixe meal ($89/person), we also got the wine pairing (additional $72/person). We finally placed our order and got our first wine pairing when everyone got up to watch the fireworks at 8PM. My husband ordered the raviolo (app), fish seasonal (halibut with risotto - entree), and apple spiced cake (dessert). I ordered the surf n turf, scallop, and chocolate torte. Our server told us that we could go out to the observation deck to watch the fireworks, then come back to eat. When we came back, our appetizers came out immediately. The raviolo was a tad pungent. If you like truffles and strong goat cheese, you'll like this, though. My surf n turf roll was just okay. My mistake for getting sushi outside of California. Decent enough tasting supermarket-like sushi. Now, the multitude of issues. I was sitting by the windows facing the open kitchen. Right after we got our appetizer, I saw a server walking over to us with our entrees, look confused at the appetizers on our table, and turn back around to confer with the other employees/chefs. They just put our entrees somewhere, presumably on a warming tray. Lo and behold, when we got our entrees, the plates were warm and the food was extremely lukewarm. Disappointing that they just put our food on a warming tray because they didn't time it correctly. Wine pairings were decent across the three courses. Now, the scallops were actually decent and I enjoyed the braised daikon with the black garlic brussel sprouts. My husband's halibut was flavored on the top, but extremely dry in the middle, as it was a thicker piece. The risotto was decently good too. Our server asked me if I was done with my entree immediately after my husband got up to go to the bathroom. To my dismay, he immediately cleared the whole table (including the bread that I was still picking on), and brought over the desserts with no explanation all before my husband came back. He put the chocolate torte in my husband's spot, and the 'apple cake' in front of me and left to grab the wine pairing. When my husband came back from the restroom, the server came back to to give our wine pairings. At that point, my husband realized that the 'apple cake' was in fact white chocolate mousse. We told our server that he brought the wrong dessert and he seemed very flustered. I told him that we hadn't touched it yet so he could take it since he seemed very frustrated. He 'let us' keep it even though I told him we hadn't touched it. Not only did he not admit his mistake, but he took the listed dessert off the receipt, which to me shows that it was in fact the apple cake like we ordered, but he just brought the incorrect item. Seemed like he wanted to avoid having to acknowledge his mistake. No apologies, no acknowledgement. The icing on the cake was when he gave free champagne and a plate of chocolate truffles to the couple right next to us. Not to mention, we didn't get any acknowledgement or mention of our honeymoon whatsoever from our server. And did I mention the seats are so close that you can hear the whole conversation next to you? For the price we spent, it was extremely underwhelming. Poor service, okay food for the price. One and done.

My husband and I are Annual Passholders that are making our way dining around at Disney World. So when I decided that I would celebrate my birthday at Disney this year, we chose to have dinner at California Grill as it's on our list of places to go. You cannot beat the view and next time we'd try to get a later reservation and stay for the fireworks. The menu is a 3 course menu with options for appetizer, entree, and dessert. We didn't realize this when the reservation was made so we also ordered a celebration cake (which we were too full to dig into, but it made for some good pictures). We started out with sushi rolls - surf and turf and tempura mane - which were excellent. Then we decided to try the scallops and the filet. The scallops were good, but the filet was pretty much inedible. The desserts, which was a caramel mousse and apple spices cake and a chocolate-hazelnut tort, were also very good. My husband would definitely be giving this place 3 vs 4 stars because of the filet. But I feel like this was fairly compensated as they did not charge us for the celebration cake. I would go back, but definitely hesitant on ordering the filet or any steak from the menu.

Absolutely incredible, completely magical experience! Delicious food, fabulous service, unforgettable view. The California Grill is located on the top of Disney's Contemporary Resort. Reservations are a must and are totally worth the hassle. The menu is a pre-fixed situation where you choose a starter, entree, and dessert. Every morsel of food was fresh-tasting and the presentation was stunning. The kitchen staff doesn't stop moving and just watching the process of the food being plated is a show in itself. If you can manage a reservation near the time for fireworks, DO IT! There is a private walkway where customers can stand and watch the fireworks from Magic Kingdom while the music from the show is piped in on speakers. This is an expensive venture, but if you can make it work, please do!

The place is fantastic! Great view and a spectacular location! But is pretty much about it, bad food and expensive as well. Not even the Disney service can help the disappointment with the size of the portions and overpriced food! You have tons of better options around, don't need to go there. Not even for the fireworks

After frequenting Disney's California Grill for the past 20 years, usually four or more times a year, we were sadly disappointed lately. Not only disappointed, but embarrassed. We took friends about three weeks ago and we all looked at each other at the end of the meal and had the same basic thought. $400+ for something that a McDonald's cheeseburger and fries would have equated to. Essentially, we were all still hungry at the end of the meal and disappointed in how it was presented. I swear the pork tenderloin was less than 4 oz. My wife had the fillet mignon and even it was smaller than ever. Literally, more than half the plate was empty! Years ago, it was known as being a great sushi place. Today, the sushi bar is closed. You can MAYBE find one real sushi option as part of the fixed price menu - which I'm not a fan of fixed price menus by the way. We used to go because the service is fantastic, which it still is. However, the menu has degraded significantly. What surprised the heck out of everyone in my party was how small the portions have become over the past year and a half. What we used to get was an appetizing meal with portions that were large enough to make you feel satisfied, if not on the verge of feeling full. Our last visit was HALF the portions we've received in years past. Such that the plate almost looked empty. Even the sushi portion (of the truly only sushi appetizer on the menu) was almost the diameter of a nickel (really, smaller than a 25 cent piece), and half the roll at five pieces out of what would usually be a 10 to 12 slice roll. Remember, we've been going here for more than 20 years (starting in 2001). We know the California Grill and love it. BUT! I hate to say it, it's not really worth it anymore. Sure the service is great, the view is astounding, and it's Disney. But we're not going again any time soon. And we used to so look forward to going - and now, that anticipation and joy in getting a reservation is spoiled by someone's cost cutting measures. Stupid. We're trying Steakhouse 71 again later this week. Hopefully, they haven't cut back on what they serve. The best steaks we have ever had are at the Steakhouse 71 restaurant.