Favorite Places to Eat Outside the Parks

     Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure have some great places to eat. There are restaurants we look forward to inside the parks every year. There are also places we look forward to visiting outside the parks every year, Pizza Press, Wetzels Pretzels and Captain Kidds are the three places we frequent when we are not in the parks. We have also gone to Rain forest Cafe a couple of times and their food is very good.

     Pizza Press is located on Harbor Boulevard right across from the Main Gate next to The Carousel Inn and Suites. We always stay at The Carousel and have gone to Pizza Press when it opened four years ago. We were there the first couple of weeks that it opened and absolutely love their food. You get to build your own pizza with traditional and exotic toppings. We fill up on one pizza because we can put as many toppings on our pizza. The crust is thin and tasty. It does not take away form the topping flavor which makes it even more delicious. Some days we even leave the park to eat at Pizza Press. The "reporters" who build our pizzas at Pizza Press are amazing too, the atmosphere is a lot of fun and well, it is someplace we look forward to and think of all year long.

     Wetzels Pretzels is the first place we experienced outside the parks. It is still in the resort area though, in Downtown Disney District. We always go there our first night in California. It is well, tradition.We get a Wetzel dog and sit right outside the restaurant to eat it. It is counter service so there's no seating inside and really none outside. That is one drawback. They do have benches to sit on but it would be nice if they had tables. We can hear Indiana Jones attraction as we sit and eat our meal though which gets us excited for the parks. We look forward to our Wetzel dog all year long too.

     We tried Captain Kidds a few years ago and were disappointed but decided to give them another chance year before last. We were pleasantly surprised. They have a great buffet at reasonable prices.  We try to eat there once or twice during our visit. It is not someplace we think about all year long but it is a place we go when we are not heading to the parks early or we leave early.

     We've been to Rain forest Cafe twice, the food is great but it is a bit on the expensive side. The first time it was loud and we did not enjoy it at all. This past summer we did enjoy it but won't make it a regular stop just because it is expensive. They have great food though.

     There are not a lot of places we eat outside the parks on a regular basis because we are in the parks most of the time.  But, Pizza Press and Wetzels Pretzels are places we eat at several times because we love their food a lot.