Rainforest Cafe in Orlando, Florida - Restaurant Review

The Rainforest Café in Orlando, Florida's Downtown Disney is a dining experience like none other. As my co-workers and I waited for a table to open up, we couldn't help but stare at the outside of The Rainforest Café. A towering mountain of dark brown rocks, stones, and wood complete with a cascading waterfall and bright green and red plants create the perfect setting to compliment The Rainforest Café sign.

The entrance is not to the dining area, but to a shopping area with a very unique selection of clothes and a huge selection of rainforest themed souvenirs from rubber snakes to hanging monkeys. Once you make it through the rainforest village of retail and enter the dining area, you have officially left civilization and entered the rainforest. The tropical setting is astonishing. You automatically feel the weather change. The humidity spikes and you can feel the tropical rainforest mists.

Looking around the dining room, it is layered with lush vegetation, tropical live fish, and fully animated wildlife. I was quite shocked to have a family of gorillas moving around and making monkey sounds from within a jungle right across from my table.

After about fifteen minutes of soaking in the surroundings, I actually found my way to the menu in front of me. The Rainforest Café's menu did not sway from the rainforest atmosphere at all. Unique salads, exotic entrees, and decadent desserts cover the several page menu. I selected the coconut shrimp, which was twenty bucks for six coconut shrimp with mixed veggies and brown rice. Personally, if you would have added four of five more shrimp, then it would have been worth the price if you are judging by quantity. But if you are judging by quality, the flavors were definitely worth the price!

The wait staff seemed to be on their toes and there for you're ever question and need. Very friendly and bubbly as well... but then again it could have just been the Disney atmosphere that does that to everyone.

Just as we finished our entrée, the entire room went dark and like in a rainforest, it began to thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning rumbled through the fake sky above us. It lasted about ten minutes then stopped. This was something that I extremely enjoyed more than the food or the surroundings. It was breathtaking how perfect the dark, starry sky looked and the thunder shook me enough where you think it's really going to rain on you. This special Rainforest Café thunderstorm seemed to have taken place every hour.

Now, it was onto dessert. It was our co-worker's daughter's birthday so we ordered The Rainforest Café's popular sparking volcano dessert. Three large slices of chocolate fudge cake set up in a pyramid over vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream and loads of hot chocolate fudge with a colorful lit sparkler to complete it. This dessert was enough to feed the six of us. Every time someone orders a volcano dessert, about four servers come out yelling, "VOLCANO!!" Of course this is an attention grabber and causes many people to splurge and get this massive and absolutely delicious dessert. I highly recommend visiting The Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney. It is the most exotic, ultimate, family dining adventure!