Kona Cafe is a Disney Dining Plan Restaurant located at The Polynesian Resort. They serve Tonga Toast (a must) which is a Banana-stuffed Sourdough French Toast rolled in Cinnamon Sugar and served with a Strawberry Compote. You don’t want to miss this breakfast must have!
Tidbit: Even though this restaurant is located at a resort, anyone can eat here. If you are driving, just let the gate keeper know you have a dining reservation and he will let you park. If you are taking Disney transportation, you will need to take a bus from your resort to a park or Downtown Disney and then transfer to the bus for the resort where the meal is located.
Dining Plan:
This is a table service restaurant. You will use 1 table service credit when you dine here. Reservations recommended.
Meals offered:
Breakfast (7:30 – 11:15 am) – Tonga Toast (a must) is a Banana-stuffed Sourdough French Toast rolled in Cinnamon Sugar and served with a Strawberry Compote. You don’t want to miss this breakfast must have!
Lunch (12-2:45 pm) – Polynesian Plate Lunch, Island Chicken Sandwich, Grilled Ahi Tuna Sandwich and more.
Dinner (5-10 pm) – Grilled Lamb Chops, Coconut-Almond Chicken, Teriyaki-style New York Strip steak and more.
Characters:
none
Special Events:
Please leave a comment if you know of any parades, events, or festivities that happen in this restaurant.
My recommended reservation times:
It doesn’t really matter what time you choose to dine here as it is not difficult to get a reservation.
Reservations:
This restaurant starts accepting reservations 180 days in advance. To book your reservation, visit Disney Dining online or call 1-407-WDW-DINE or contact your Disney Travel Agent (I recommend Destinations in Florida).
My experiences:
We had a breakfast reservation here to try the popular Tonga Toast. Which is delicious and a must have. We had fast service and the breakfast was fairly inexpensive. I hear the steak at dinner is great here too!
Your opinion:
If you have dined at this restaurant, please leave your opinion in the comments section!
Check out Ohana’s which is also located in the Polynesian Resort.
Learn more about Walt Disney World Dining and get suggestions for where to eat, how to use the Disney Dining Plan and more.
We will be staying at Polynesian May 18, 13 for 7 nights. Can anyone say whether or not we should make ADR for any or all meal at Kona? Or is there anyone that can give rough idea how long we can expect to wait without ADR?
We just got back from Disney on Friday, Sept 23, 2011. We ate here for the first time last week and we enjoyed it. The food was good, and we had a great time. The only thing I can say that was not up to my standards was the waiter took too long to check on us. He was very good and nice when he did. I don’t really think it was “his” fault. Maybe poor management for not enough staff on hand and stretching the staff that was there. I would definitely go back.
We ate dinner there and I had the Pan Asian Noodles and it was VERY good. My husband had the Ginger Crusted Ribeye and I tasted it and it was very good. Kids had the grilled chicken with pasta and marinara sauce. They liked it. That’s mostly what matters. :)
Ate here for dinner in Aug. 2011. Was sooo looking forward to the tuna based on the yummy description and some good reviews. Unfortunately, it was not anywhere near as good as I had expected. Should have gotten the shrimp – tasted my husband and liked it better. Next trip…
This is one of our family’s favorite restaurant for breakfast. We have been coming here for 20 years just to eat the Tonga Toast! The service is always very good and the wait staff is helpful with park questions. They have also been a very good source of information about other restaurants recommendations. They serve the best coffee, much better then any other breakfast locations. We like this restaurant because it isn’t super crowded. Our family likes to talk and discuss the day ahead and we don’t have to scream at each other. They have even given us the recipe for Tonga Toast so we can make it at home! We have never eaten any other meals here, just breakfast.
Really liked our dinner here in 09. Service was good and dinner was excellent. Atmosphere is a bit coffee-shopish but it won’t stop us from going back. Desserts were outstanding. Their chocolate banana creme brulee makes my top 5 Disney desserts. Follow dinner by Wishes and EWP from the Poly beach. Perfect ending to an evening away from the Parks.
We have eaten there twice during recent trips. The food is wonderful, especially the seafood. I can’t remeber our exact meals as it was about two years ago but I know we were all happy. The desserts were lovely and if your inclined to have an alcoholic drink they have an full menu of grown up beverages. The service was great. I even saw at one point our server helping another table that I guess had questions regarding food allergies. The server happily got the chef from the kitchen and they were able to prepare something special for that family. It’s a great undiscovered Disney restaurant.
We ate there the summer of 2010 when we stayed at the Polynessian Resort. Since we stayed for 10 days, we ate there about three times. Since my brother insisted we have the DELUXE MEAL PLAN (don’t do it EVER), we had a dessert with every meal. I ended up eating my daughter’s kid dessert and giving her the “out of this world” dessert that the Kona has. The food was good and the desserts were works of art. Also when we were there, The Kona had three feet tall carved choolate statues of Stitch and Lilo. I took the kids pictures with them, but the chocolate was so dark that you really couldn’t see the statues in the pictures. We felt like we were staying in Hawaii at the Polynessian Resort!!! Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have eaten dinner at Kona Cafe 6 times and it has always been a good experience. They used to have Prime Rib on the menu, but got rid of it a few years back, so we started getting the NY Strip steak. In the menu it comes Teriyaki style, but I am allergic to pineapple so I get it without and so does my family. We have tried the Ribeye without the ginger encrusted and it was tough, but the steak is prepared great. We get it with the yummy Yukon Gold potatoes and broccolini. The chef’s at Kona have always been great and meets every need if you have any food allergies. My family love the pineapple bread, and look forward to that starting out our meal.
Desserts are my favorite part if the meal! I always order the Kilauea Torte, sometimes they serve it warm with ice cream and sometimes it isn’t warmed. It is best when it comes warm in my opinion. My son always orders the famous Kona Kone which is a waffle cone with vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup and cotton candy. It also comes with a few candies to add on it too, complete sugar rush.
The kids meals are not my daughters favorite at Kona, she has tried the burger, meaty macaroni, grilled chicken, and Mickey Raviolis and they were all just ok, with a few meals she wouldn’t take a second bite of and she usually will eat anything. She does like their chicken noodle soup which she finishes every time. The dessert for kids is either the fruit cup or ice cream sundae, the norm for many WDW restaurants.
We have always had a short wait to get in and an easy time getting reservations when we want them, it’s a true hidden gem of the Polynesian.
We ate here on our trip in 2007. We had spent the day at Epcot so rode the Monorail to get here. We had ADR, but had to wait till at least 30 minutes after our reservation time to be seated. The food was good, nothing memorable, except for the appetizer of Sticky Wings. We were on the dining plan and our son was a child. He ordered a salad (appetizer), hamburger and fries, and a dessert. (remember this is back when the dining plan included an appetizer) The server, who spoke very broken English and was very hard to understand, tried to tell us that the fries were considered a extra side, they didn’t come with the meal. I did not understand her, and this had not been the case at any other restuarant. When she brought us the bill, she had charged us (above our dining plan) for the fries. We had been there so long, we didn’t feel like fighting it and just paid for the dang fries. When we got home, I mentioned this to our travel agent from Small World Travel, and she told me the same thing had happened to them. We won’t go back to Kona Cafe.