A new post in our Disney Food for Families Column by Erin Foster:

In the early days of my family’s Disney travel, we routinely went to at least one character meal every day, sometimes two. On my twins’ sixth birthday, we even ate at three character meals in one day. My waistline is still trying to recover!

Bonding at the Food & Wine Festival

But now that my girls are older, the character meals hold somewhat less appeal for them. My daughter Charlie, now 14, even went through a phase where she was (Yikes!) “too cool” for characters. My challenge has become, “How do you keep the magic of Disney Dining alive without relying on the classic character meal?” In other words: How do you make Disney Dining fun for teens?

Idea #1: Make the vacation about the food.
I have been to Walt Disney World twice with just Charlie during the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We spent a couple of days working our way around the World Showcase booths, trying to sample at least one or two things from each represented country. This sparked some interesting discussions about food taste, texture, and preparation styles. We had bonding moments over our mutual favorite: the beef with chimichurri sauce from Argentina stand. More please. And we shared [Read more…]