The Magic Kingdom Festival of Fantasy Parade Dining Package includes a table service lunch at Tony’s Town Square and VIP parade viewing for the daily Festival of Fantasy Parade. In this post, we’ll walk you through this package, including how to book it, a brief look at Tony’s, a look at the VIP parade viewing, and an explanation of how you might decide whether or not it’s worth it. Read on to learn all about the Magic Kingdom parade dining package!
Festival of Fantasy Dining Package Basics
The Festival of Fantasy Dining Package is pretty straightforward. It includes two parts. First, there is a lunch at Tony’s Town Square, a Lady and the Tramp themed Italian table service restaurant in Magic Kingdom. At that lunch, you’ll be given your ticket to the VIP viewing for the Festival of Fantasy Parade. We’ll cover these in more detail below.
How much does the Festival of Fantasy Dining Package cost?
The Festival of Fantasy Dining Package costs $54+tax and gratuity for an adult and $19+tax and gratuity for a child (9 and under).
Is the Festival of Fantasy Dining Package on the Disney Dining Plan?
Yes. You can also use a table service credit if you’re on a Disney Dining Plan that includes those credits.
Booking the Festival of Fantasy Dining Package
You can reserve the dining package on the Disney World website the same way you’d reserve any other Advance Dining Reservation. There’s only one Festival of Fantasy parade per day, so when you book you’ll just be picking your lunch time.
I’d recommend an early lunch to allow yourself as much flexibility as possible between the lunch and the parade.
As of this review, Tony’s Town Square is the only restaurant included in the Magic Kingdom parade dining package. Payment is not due in advance—you’ll just pay at the end of your lunch.
Lunch at Tony’s Town Square
We are just about the last Disney travel blog you want to read for food reviews, so we’ll keep our thoughts pretty broad. Tony’s Town Square has a…mixed…reputation. Some people love it for straightforward sit down Italian food, others criticize it for being somewhere near or below the quality of any chain Italian restaurant.
Some housekeeping before we get to the food. Tony’s Town Square is located next to the Town Square Theater right as you enter Magic Kingdom. The restaurant has its own door, but you can also enter through the big theater doors.
We checked in at the podium a few minutes after our reservation and were promptly seated. The host told us our server would have our parade viewing tickets, and indeed she brought them to us shortly after we were seated.
The Magic Kingdom parade dining package includes an appetizer, entree, dessert, and non-alcoholic beverage for each guest.
Guests on a Disney Dining Plan can use their table service credits for the dining package. My understanding is that these guests can order alcohol even though that’s not a part of the dining package (it is a part of the standard table service credit, though). I haven’t confirmed this at the restaurant, though.
While we don’t have anything negative to say about our food, we weren’t blown away. The food at, say, Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen, is unique, varied, and unlike what many people are regularly eating at home. Tony’s is…standard sit down mass-produced Italian food. I can’t tell you whether that’s your favorite food or not, but I suspect you have some idea.
In the United States, Italian food does typically mean large portions, and Tony’s mostly delivered on that. While the cheese balls may have been a relatively small item, everything else was pretty sizeable. (Click through the gallery to see some of our food.)
We did have a pretty slow go of it at Tony’s. It was busy (our reservation was at 12:50PM), and having appetizers, entrees, and desserts just takes time.
Seated at 12:59PM, we were back on Main Street at 2:06PM, having taken steps to speed our meal along (selecting desserts while we ate our entree, asking for the check thereafter).
To most people, an hour isn’t a long time for a meal. But you always should reconsider the value of your time in Disney World. Part of the reason we usually eat quick service in the parks is simply because we don’t find table service to be a good use of time. If you’re at Magic Kingdom for a very long day, though, a hour-plus break in the middle of it can be welcome.
Festival of Fantasy Parade VIP Viewing
The VIP viewing for the parade is in the flagpole area at the end of Main Street. It’s recommended that you arrive at least 15 minutes before the parade begins, but I knew there was no way I’d be doing that since this is the end of the parade to begin with.
We arrived seven minutes before the parade. We showed a Cast Member our tickets and were let into the viewing area.
In the below gallery of photos from the area, you can see the people who arrived earliest probably had the best view, straight down Main Street. If they arrived, say, 30 minutes before the start of the parade, they were in those spots for about 52 minutes before the parade got down to us. (We moved around a bit, so the gallery has a few angles.)
Around 22 minutes after it started, the parade got to us at the end of Main Street. A few people were still showing up for VIP viewing as the parade came down Main Street, and that’s really what I wish we had done (but we were happy to arrive a few minutes early to show you what it’s like).
In those pics, you might notice there is a decent amount of similar seating across the street from us. But I’ll quickly note two things that were great about the VIP viewing.
First, all the kids had great views, most of them sitting on the curb. There’s enough space in the viewing area that adults were good about making sure the front row was occupied by kids.
Second, you’re not looking into the sun. I don’t recall the last time I watched Festival of Fantasy specifically from in front of Town Square Theater, but I know that’s into the sun while we had the sun at our back, and I know generally the parades are less fun looking into the sun.
Is the Magic Kingdom Parade Dining Package Worth It?
All good “worth it” sections start with price. For $54+tax/gratuity (adults) and $19+tax/gratuity (children) you’re getting one appetizer, one entree, one dessert, one non-alcoholic beverage, and VIP parade viewing.
If you look at the menu for Tony’s Town Square, it’s pretty easy to come up with a meal that will justify the cost of the dining package. If you’re on a Disney dining plan, we value a table service credit at $45, so $54 is pretty good value for one of those credits.
You might look at the menu and decide the value isn’t there, particularly if, for example, your family of four doesn’t need four appetizers.
I don’t put a high dollar value on the parade viewing. It’s generally not a huge challenge to find an okay view of the parade, though it’s true the VIP viewing takes the stress out of finding that view or arriving early for a great view.
But any stress savings are outweighed by the time loss, in my mind. From the flagpole, you’re going to be the very last people to get back into the heart of the park. Someone who watches from Frontierland, for example, might be tapping in for their Splash Mountain FastPass+ by the time the parade even starts to pass the flagpole.
It’s hard to time your arrival to the flagpole perfectly, so you’re going to be there a few minutes before the parade even if you’re trying hard to minimize your time loss.
That said, you can always just keep the VIP viewing as a backup option. If you’re going to have a table service lunch, would like some Italian-flavored food, and you think you’ll get near $54 of value at Tony’s, then go ahead and book the package.
If you wind up in a situation where using the VIP parade viewing is the best option, that you’ll be happy you have it. If you find a better spot or decide you want to catch the parade near its start, then that’s fine too.
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