Whispering Canyon Cafe is a table-service restaurant inside of Walt Disney World’s Wilderness Lodge. Known for their all-you-can-eat skillets, the restaurant has a boisterous atmosphere that has made it a fan-favorite over the years. Whispering Canyon Cafe takes part in the Disney Dining Plan as 1-credit and offers a 10% discount to annual passholders as well as Disney Visa cardholders. In this post, we’ll review the restaurant’s atmosphere, cuisine and value.

Most places that have been around long enough at Disney World have their defenders. A place filled with so much nostalgia is going to make fans of even the silliest things. Chester & Hester’s in Animal Kingdom had defenders! People get upset at menu tweaks. I’m not above this, gathering a (some might say borderline psychotic) love of specific light fixtures or trees. Fandom doesn’t often make sense; we love the things we love for so many different reasons.

Whispering Canyon Cafe is a Walt Disney World restaurant with stark defenders. That completely makes sense as the experience is very memorable. The restaurant thrives due to their wait staff. Several restaurant chains out in the real world have made a name for themselves based on waiters being purposefully mean or snarky. Whispering Canyon Cafe takes that idea, makes a few tweaks on it and then offers wild games to go along with it.

I should state that service in the restaurant isn’t actually mean. During our meal, we had an older guy wait on us who had been working at Disney World for over 40 years! He was wonderful and I would have loved to just talk to him for an hour or two. But that doesn’t represent the typical off-the-wall experience. Most of the performance is built around, what I’d call, friendly teasing of the diners.

In some ways, this feels like a cowboy version of the Jungle Cruise. The extremely dry humor adds to the visual gags. Asking for ketchup, as a guest, leads to over-the-top hijinks. If you’re drinking the soda in front of you quickly, expect a much larger glass (or jar) on the way. You’ll never be wanting for straws if you ask for one! Adding that to stick pony races and calling everyone’s attention to individual tables makes for a meal full of laughter, even if that laughter can be uncomfortable.

This is one of those rare instances where you can judge a book by the cover. If the above paragraph sounds like a waking nightmare to you then do not go to Whispering Canyon Cafe. Not everybody likes that kind of humor or wants any attention to be drawn to them. While there is a chance to ‘opt out’ of this experience, you’ll still be in a wild room. I would suggest just not going all together.

On the other hand, if this sounds like a blast then you’ll enjoy this experience. This is probably not an ideal spot for a date night but is a great family restaurant or would be fun for a group of friends. Kids should especially enjoy the jokes and watching their dad’s get mercilessly teased.

As for the setting, Whispering Canyon Cafe is inside of the lobby at Wilderness Lodge. I usually knock the WDW hotel lobby restaurants down a peg but Wilderness Lodge has an incredible lobby, so no complaints here! The woodwork and lodge feel fit in well enough with Whispering Canyon’s country vibe, even if the restaurant is more southern than it is Pacific Northwest.

Most of the seating is inside of one fairly large room. The back of the restaurant is slightly separated and has about 7 or 8 tables of its own. It’s definitely quieter back there but has more decor to make up for it. Disney inspired paintings are mixed in with nature inspired art and there’s a large fireplace near the back. All of this makes Whispering Canyon feel cozy.

Moving to the food, here’s a look at the menu. I spent so long on the atmosphere because neither of us loved the food. Honestly, the actual eating is very similar to the atmosphere in that if the descriptions look good to you then you’ll probably enjoy the food. Both of us are fairly picky about barbecue and we were hoping that Whispering Canyon could transcend that pickiness. Unfortunately, it did not.

That’s not to say it was bad. Some items were very good even! Just as a whole we found what we ordered to be slightly disappointing. Knowing that the restaurant is known for their skillets, both of us decided to try a few of those offerings.

Before the skillets, we kicked things off with a basket of cornbread served with a healthy (or maybe unhealthy) portion of butter! This was delicious, with the bread being moist and sweet, especially paired with the rich and smooth butter.

Coleslaw was also served with the meal. I found this to be pretty generic and might be the usual Walt Disney World coleslaw offered at a number of different place. It’s not bad just not memorable.

Here’s the Traditional Skillet consisting of Oak-smoked Beef Brisket, Pork Ribs, Slow-smoked Pulled Pork, Citrus-Herb Chicken, Western-style Sausage, Smashed Potatoes, Baked Beans, Buttered Corn on the Cob and Sautéed Green Beans. Highlights of the skillet were the Pulled Pork, Sausage and Mashed Potatoes. The Pulled Pork had good flavor and stayed away from being dry and the same was true for the Western-style Sausage. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the Chicken, Ribs and Brisket. I found all of those lacking in flavor and on the drier side. At $43, I thought the option was pretty good but there’s plenty of better barbecue places at Disney World.

The other skillet we tried was The Land and Sea. This was a much bigger disappointment to both of us. This skillet includes House-smoked Salmon, Citrus-Herb Chicken, Spicy Plant-based Sausage, Charred Portobello, Barbecued Cauliflower, Roasted Potatoes, Roasted Carrots and Sautéed Green Beans. We both thought this was the worst Salmon we’d had at Disney World and the Chicken continued to disappoint. The highlight was the Charred Portobello but that wasn’t saying a whole lot. Perhaps the fault was ours here, going to this style of restaurant and ordering something that wasn’t barbecue heavy. This skillet was also $43.

As I mentioned, all of the skillets are all-you-can-eat so if you finish something that you want more of then just ask for it. You might get teased but it will eventually be given to you!

I’d be curious to know what the non-skillet options are like here. Melissa and I both decided that we’d probably enjoy the breakfast skillets a little more than the dinner options. We were very underwhelmed with what we had on that particular night.

To be honest, the whole Whispering Canyon Cafe experience wasn’t for me. And that’s okay! It’s not hard to see why people fall for the restaurant and I might even do that if I was with the right group. But I didn’t feel as if the food matched the price (even if it was unlimited) and the restaurant coasted by on the work by its Cast Members. That wait staff did a tremendous job but the whole experience can feel excessive, especially if the louder atmosphere isn’t your thing.

Overall Rating – 7.5/10

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