Happy Almost Holiday Season! It’s early November so in Disney reality it’s practically Christmastime, but being into food like we are, we can’t overlook Thanksgiving, arguably the most major of food holidays. The Jotter Family has an annual tradition of eating a pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving meal at Magic Kingdom. Two locations in the park serve up a traditional Thanksgiving type feast: Liberty Tree Tavern and The Diamond Horseshoe. In fact, these restaurants are located right beside each other, share the same kitchen, and (and starting post-pandemic) actually have the same menu. This year we opted for The Diamond Horseshoe since Mrs. Jotter likes to wax nostalgic about its twin restaurant in Disneyland (the Golden Horseshoe), and the whole family loves the player piano.

For those new to the Diamond Horseshoe, it’s a Frontierland table service restaurant themed to an Old West music hall, serving up an all-you-care-to-enjoy family-style, holiday inspired feast.

Pricing: Adults $44, Children (3-9 yrs) $24, plus tax and tip.

Three Course Menu includes:

Diamond Horseshoe Salad

Mixed Greens, Apples, Cranberries, and Cheese tossed with our House-made Dressing

Saloon Feast

Roasted Turkey, Pot Roast, and Oven-roasted Pork with Mashed Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetables, Herbed Stuffing, and House-made Macaroni & Cheese

Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake

Vanilla Toffee Cake, Chocolate Sauce, and Vanilla Ice Cream

Peel-and-Eat Shrimp (a $25 add-on option) Served with a Zesty Rémoulade

They also offer a plant-based meal option with salad, plant-based “meatloaf” with sides, and Johnny Appleseed’s Warm Apple Cake for dessert.

The first course brought out is a basket of garlic-buttered dinner rolls and the house salad. This is hands-down one of the tastiest salads in all of Disney World. It is so delicious. We don’t know what they put in that vinaigrette (okay, we do know because Disney published the famous Honey Shallot dressing in a cookbook and it can be found online, but we’ll never actually make this at home), but it’s our favorite Disney salad that we look forward to every year. The flavors just balance perfectly with the tender lettuce, radish, apple bits, and craisins. The only tough thing about it is that we don’t want to fill up too much because two more courses are coming…

The main course of sliced turkey breast, sliced pork roast, pot roast, gravy, and sides is a family favorite. We all enjoyed the meat selections. The beef was tender and moist with its own brown gravy. The pork and turkey were both carved thin and went well with the gravy and cranberry sauce. The Jotter boys are currently in their teens, and we’re pretty sure they shocked our server with how quickly they made the meat platter selections disappear several times over. Thank goodness for platter refills with all-you-care-to-eat meals! We also asked for a portion of the plant-based meatloaf. The server mentioned it was actually not Impossible meatloaf as stated on the menu, but a house-made recipe. It was okay, but not as good as some of the Impossible meatloaf meals we’ve had elsewhere in Disney World. All of the sides were your typical American holiday comfort foods: creamy mashed potatoes, buttery garlic green beans, moist stuffing, and mac and cheese. The mac and cheese wasn’t the rich, melty cheese-topped Southern type, but it was good. We will note that the turkey selection has changed. It is now just thin-sliced breast, rather than the white and dark meat selection from previous years. Also, the stuffing recipe seems to have changed. The flavor was different and it had a huge amount of garlic. This might be disappointing to those who absolutely LOVED the old stuffing like Mrs. Jotter did. Overall though, still a satisfying main course.

Dessert!! The Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake is a Disney fan favorite for good reason. We knew we had to save room for it. Rich, warm toffee cake with caramel sauce, toffee bits, and vanilla ice cream melting into it, what’s not to love? It’s so rich we couldn’t even finish it all. Just another great dish that we look forward to every year for our pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving!

We do recommend this (and the meal over at Liberty Tree) if you’re looking for a decent representation of an American holiday meal, if you just like home-style comfort food, or even if  you just want large portions. For Disney meal prices, it’s a great value assuming you are looking to eat more than a light meal.

Have you tried it? Let us know your thoughts. And check the site for more Disney food reviews!