We love to eat when we travel with our kids! Whether we are in Italy, Scotland or Orlando, enjoying good food with our kids is an important part of our family vacations. As one the best destinations for a family vacation in the US, we knew that we’d find some excellent kid-friendly restaurants in Orlando.
This post was sponsored by Arrivedo.
Kid-Friendly Restaurants in Orlando
1. Chevys Fresh Mex
We read an article about the Best Eateries around Lake Bueno Vista which recommended Chevys Fresh Mex, a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel. We LOVE Mexican food and were eager to give it a try.
We had plans to go to Magic Kingdom the next day and wanted the kids in bed early, so we arrived at this kid-friendly Orlando restaurant quite early, around 4:30pm.
Chevys Fresh Mex was really nice inside and we got a large booth in a section all to ourselves. Our server gave us an enormous amount of complimentary tortillas and salsa to munch on while we waited for our food.
Our food was prepared quickly and was served fresh and piping hot – I love quick service when eating out with kids.
Having recently spent a month in Mexico, we know what good Mexican food tastes like, and this was it. This was a really good kid-friendly restaurant in Orlando – what a great way to start the Orlando leg of our family trip to the American South!
2. T-Rex Cafe
Next, we read an Exploring Central Florida article which recommended the many kid-friendly restaurants in the Orlando Disney Springs entertainment complex.
We had a goal of finding a fun restaurant for little boys for our son to offset the fact his sister is getting a special breakfast with Cinderella at Magic Kingdom.
We found an excellent Orlando restaurant for boys within Disney Springs called the T-Rex Cafe. We knew our son would love this dinosaur themed restaurant.
The T-Rex Cafe was exactly what we were looking for; a big, over-the-top kid-friendly Orlando restaurant with lots of animatronic dinosaurs, loud sound effects and good food.
Our son is still pretty little (almost three), so he was a little afraid of the dinosaurs at first, but he quickly got used to it and had a really fun time.
3. Sprinkles
On our way out, we stopped for a special treat at Sprinkles, a gourmet cupcake shop not far from T-Rex. We got three cupcakes to split between the four of us: chocolate marshmallow, s’mores and salted caramel. It was impossible to decide which was best, they were all so good!
Sprinkles is a great place to take kids for a fun treat in Orlando.
4. Sofrito Latin Cafe
You know how after three straight days of eating three meals a day at restaurants with kids, you don’t really feel like eating out at all?
We were totally uninspired to find yet another kid-friendly Orlando restaurant, when I remembered a Cuban place mentioned in the Best Eateries around Lake Bueno Vista article called the Sofrito Latin Café.
We figured this was a great opportunity to get some excellent Cuban food in Orlando which wasn’t deep fried or too filling, and we were right.
Sofrito Latin Café is a nice, low key Cuban fusion café. You place your order at the counter and they deliver the food to your table. After a full day in 90 degree weather at Disney World, we appreciated the large jug of self-serve water; between the four of us, we must have drank half the jug!
Our food was excellent and brought back great culinary memories from our earlier trips to Cuba and Venezuela. Our kids loved their first taste of Cuban food at this kid-friendly Orlando restaurant!
Non-Disney Things to do in Orlando
Visiting the Orlando theme parks with your kids is an integral part of any family vacation to Florida. If you need a little break from the craziness of the Orlando theme parks, we found a little hidden treasure not-far from Orlando.
Visit Celebration, Florida with Kids
We had a day off in-between theme parks so we wanted to do something a little different. We read an Exploring Central Florida article which recommended Celebration, Florida as a fun non-Disney thing to do with kids near Orlando.
Celebration, FL was a short day-trip from Orlando, so we decided to stop by for a visit.
Celebration is a very charming little town near Orlando with large trees overhanging the streets.
We love kid-friendly walks, so we couldn’t resist walking along the canal which runs along the middle of Water Street. The kids had fun looking at ducks and picking up exotic-looking caterpillars.
Afterwards, we took the kids for a slow stroll down Market Street looking at all the fun shops, restaurants and tasty treats for sale.
The main reason we chose to visit Celebration their good selection of kid-friendly walks. Many of these fun family walks are around the beautiful near the charming town center of Celebration.
On our way to the walk around Celebration lake, we found a splash park, which turned out to be our kids favorite thing to do in Celebration.
On our way to the Celebration splash park we noticed an alligator looking up at us from the lake. Our daughter loves wildlife, so she was very excited and wanted to stay a while.
Meanwhile, our little guy charged ahead to the splash fountain. As all two year old’s do, he ignored our request to not get his clothes wet and ended up getting drenched! He was having so much fun, we just let him play to his heart’s content.
Shortly his sister joined him in the splash park and they were having so much fun, we nixed our planned walk around the Celebration lake and just let them stay and play until it was nap time.
You know how trips are always so much better when you get advice from a local? This is how it felt as we used the recommendations from the Arrivedo articles. The kid-friendly restaurants in Orlando we visited were perfect for us and our kids, while our day-trip to Celebration, FL was so much fun.
Arrivedo transforms recommendations from locals, writers and guests into Neighborhood Guides for hotels around the world, helping hotel guests experience unique local recommendations.
Southern USA Road Trip with Kids
- Orlando, Florida (Essential Disney gear)
- Things to do in Savannah with Kids
- Two Days in Charleston with Kids
- Two Days in Wilmington, NC with Kids
- 6 Kid Friendly Hikes in Shenandoah National Park
- 6 Kid-Friendly Blue Ridge Parkway Hikes
- 7 Kid-friendly Hikes near Asheville, NC
- Things to do in Gatlinburg with Kids
- Nashville with Kids
See our Southern USA road trip with kids itinerary.
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