The Sketch Pad Café — Restaurant in Anaheim

If I could give them 1,000 stars I would! We were on my sons wish trip. He is a 4.5 year old son, soon to be an official cancer survivor. He was born with a rare eye cancer called Retinoblastoma. He was granted a wish from Kids Wish Network. He loves Mickey mouse and naturally picked meeting Mickey Mouse! This dining experience was the only thing we added as an extra. It was not included in the wish trip. Given our financial situation due to having a child with cancer we figured it may be quite some time before we get to visit Disney again. The trip overall was so magical but in my eyes having a character dining experience would just be the icing on the cake for my family! Boy was I ever right! First off EVERY SINGLE and I mean EVERY SINGLE staff member was Amazing! You can tell they are trained to greet someone with in eyesight or something. I mean even the gentleman who was keeping the buffet tidy and full started a conversation with me and it started with a warm greeting!

We did tell the hostess we were there on a wish trip and they spoiled us and my son for sure but I did observe every child in there was also treated with so much love! If you are going to Disney you must check this place out! The dance party was super cute and both my boys loved dancing with the characters. The Omelette Chef who did not know we were there on my sons wish trip was OUTSTANDING! I was already stuffed but my husband had a Omelette from him and I just had to get one so he made me a mini one. The food was really good and fresh. They had many choices! The place was clean! It was about half full when were were in there and all the characters made their rounds at least twice! The Minnie Mouse and the Daisy and the Donald that day you three went above and beyond to make our experience one to remember!!! We gave Daisy a trading pin and wanted to give Minnie one too but she was busy with another family when we were leaving (my boys favor girls :) ) I added that part in case the manager is able to see this and read this to Minnie and Daisy. We loved Minnie too and she spent a lot of time with us, she stole our hearts!!! We were moved by the whole experience and I am sure glad we budgeted for it!

I read a ton of these reviews and the first thing you must remember when reading reviews is: People when having a bad experience no matter how small or petty it is in the big scheme of things, they are much more likely to do a review and voice their opinion, than when everything goes there way. It's just human nature. If you read through the bad reviews you'll notice for the most part there is a trend, either the person was expecting the moon and the stars for the price point and gave a review because they deemed it to be more expensive than it was worth in their eyes. That's kinda unfair because any place in our around Disney is expected to be pricier. I personally loved the food but was there for my kids to experience the character dining. So short of packing your own sack lunches you should expect ALL restaurants in or around Disney to be a bit higher. Also I noticed a few people had said service was great the food was good/great but one thing or another blew it for them and they scored the entire experience 1 star, that's completely unfair! Just a tip if you have a kiddo that is dying to meet one of the Characters make it be known to the hostess, manager or your server. They will make it happen so long as they can based on how busy they are. They aren't aloud to just brush of kids they have to give them a great experience so if one family takes a lot of their time and that character doesn't make it to your table its completely unfair to downgrade the entire experience because of that, simply let a staff member know before you leave that your family would love to meet the character you came to meet!

To the staff at Disney's PCH Grill, you truly are doing an amazing job and our experience was MAGICAL because of you! We are not sure when the next time we will make it to Disney but if and when we do WE ARE...

After my wonder daughter took me to Disney’s PCH Grill buffet at Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel for Mother’s Day 2016 I just had to write a review to warn others. I’d like to first state that the online description of the PCH Grill isn’t on point at all and this places buffet menu is clearly leaning in a children’s menu direction. If you don’t have kids, this is not where you want to spend your money, and I’d go so far as to say that if you DO have kids, this is still not the place you want to spend your hard earned cash. This restaurant boasts about a Macaroni Bar leading you to think you would scoop up your own freshly made, nice and steaming hot macaroni into a bowl and then you’d get to put your own toppings on it of bacon, tomato etc etc…but nope, it’s one mini teeny tiny expresso-like cup filled with your basic out of the box macaroni, which has sat under a heating lamp for quite some time and is dry on top and not even hot. (So much for the heating lamps because not a single one of them kept ANY of the food warm) There were little mini hot dogs and hamburgers that were also out for a long time before we got there and where cold, hard and far from fresh. The green beans were completely cold as was the little potatoes that were whole and then flattened with sour cream on top. Even the garlic bread and rolls were stale and hard. The only thing that was partially warm was the meat station, though the meat hardly had any taste (thank God for the BBQ sauce) and because it wasn’t really hot like it should have been, as soon as you got it back to your table it was already cool. We were looking forward to the S’more station thinking there would be a little mini fire pot to warm up our marshmallows so that we could place them on our nice piece of milk chocolate bar that was sitting on our graham cracker, but nope. It was tiny cold marshmallows that you placed on top of a graham cracker and then poured Hershey’s chocolate syrup over the top. Chocolate syrup isn’t milk chocolate people. Believe me, that’s not a S’more, doesn’t taste like a S’more and doesn’t give you the fun of making a S’more from the “S’more Bar”…The other options were all fruit related so if you don’t like lots of fruit, you’re left with the S’more. Service was slower than it should have been considering they’re only bring you your drink. We ordered our drink, then went to the buffet line and by the time we got back our drink still wasn’t there and didn’t arrive till we had eaten half of the food on our plate. The seating was only ¼ full so it’s not as if there were a lot of other guests that needed to be served and when complaining about all the cold food, was told some time later that they just brought out some warm potatoes…as if we’d be happy to eat just potatoes for a meal, let alone speaking of the amount of money paid to just be able to eat one warm side dish. I saw the manager come out from the kitchen by just a few steps, looked around and went right back to the kitchen. What happened to coming out to your customers, welcoming them and asking them how their food is? I would have loved to have him touch each cold item on my plate that should have been piping hot for his guests…but I guess he wasn’t into doing his job either. The fact that “chefs” are standing behind this cold food, that you could see clearly with your own two eyes, that the food was old and cold and were totally ok with it by the fact that they left it there, tells you that the management and restaurant employees could care less what they serve, the taste of their food or how they serve it. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON DISNEY’S PCH GRILL BUFFET. You will end up on the losers end while they get your money anyway. Thumbs down…all the way down. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best, they’re...

Donald Duck’s Seaside Breakfast at Disneyland Resort’s Festival Pier Hotel’s PCH Grill guarantees you to see, meet, get autographs & take photos with Donald! He’s such a hard character to catch in the Disney parks! :-( BUT this character buffet breakfast is the way to go!

As soon as you arrive, you get a professional photo shoot with Surfer Donald! (Yes, they can use your camera/smartphone, too) Loved the surfing & holiday themed decor when we went during my birthday trip. So much activity all over the restaurant- other characters available that day were Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse & Stitch! Super fun! Our time slot on a mid-weekday worked well for us as there weren’t too many other diners. So we got A LOT of special attention and interaction with the characters roaming around and seeing them interact with one another. It was especially heartwarming to see Donald & Daisy talking to one another & strolling around together as a couple. You don’t see that every day! 🥰 Love! Love! Love!

Buffet consisted of omelet station (which we completely missed because who can eat when there’s Donald around! Lol), granola/fruit parfait station, hot breakfast items (scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict, bacon, pork sausage, hash, etc), oatmeal/Mickey pancake & Mickey waffles/French toast station, soft serve & dessert station with toppings!

Sadly, my only disappointment was that even though I both advance booked our dining reservations online with note of my birthday celebration, and told the receptionist at checkin, AND I wore my Disneyland’s birthday pin, I didn’t get a birthday candle lit cupcake and serenade. Naturally, I thought it was just for the kids, but when I asked on our way out, one of the servers said they do it for adults, too, and to tell them again it was my birthday, but we maxed out our 2-hour parking validation time. Oh well. Learn from my mistake to be more aggressive and let your actual table server know you’re there to celebrate a...