Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Mickey and friends” with some assortment chosen among Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald,
Daisy, Chip, and Dale.
11. THE BUM'S RUSH
Most character meals are leisurely affairs, and you can usually stay as
long as you want. An exception is Cinderella's Royal Table in the Magic Kingdom. Be-
cause Cindy's is in such high demand, the restaurant does everything short of pre-chewing
your food to move you through, as this European mother of a 5-year-old can attest:
We dined a lot, did three character meals and a few signature restaurants, and
every meal was awesome except for lunch with Cinderella in the castle. While I'd
often read it wouldn't be a rushed affair, it was exactly that. We had barely sat
down when the appetizers were thrown on our table, the princesses each spent just
a few seconds with our daughter—almost no interaction—and the side dishes were
cold. We were out of there within 40 minutes and felt very stressed. Considering
the price for the meal, I cannot recommend it
.
12. BOYS
Toanswer acommon reader question, most character meals featuring Disney
princesses include some element to appeal to the young roughnecks. A Texas mom
shares her experience:
We ate at Cinderella's Royal Table for lunch, and my sons were made to feel very
welcome. They loved the swords they received and have enjoyed “fighting off the
dragons” with them
.
(Presumably, “fighting off the dragons” didn't occur during the meal. Princesses
are
sticklers for decorum, after all.)
Boosting Sales of Mementos and Souvenirs
UsuallywhenDisneyseesahorsecarryingmoneybags,itridesthebeastuntilitdrops.
Disney's current scheme of bundling photos in the price of character meals at Cinder-
ella's Royal Table extends to Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at Epcot. Adding photos
of your group taken by a Disney photographer is Disney's justification for raising the
price of the character meals by about 60%. Disney insists that you're getting the pho-
tos at a bargain price. This is fine if you're in the market, but if buying photos wasn't
in your plans, well, they've gotcha—for a little while longer, anyway. Happily, just as
this topic was going to press, we learned that the photo packages are being dropped
as of January 4, 2015.
