Review - Florida - Orlando - Magic Kingdom - Cinderella's Royal Table

Cinderella's Royal Table is one of the hardest reservation to obtain at Walt Disney World. Back in the day, before the dining reservation website existed, we used to have to call the Disney Reservation phone line and wait hours to hopefully get a reseration. Now the reservations are mostly done through the online portal (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/). If you call the customer service hotline now, you will get about the same results as just searching yourself. Right now, reservations open up 60 days out. I describe the reservation process down at the bottom of this post.

Since my family had already eaten here previously, we decided to split up. I took my daughter while the boys pursued roller coaster options instead. Toddlers under 3 eat here for free (you will see their option later). The dining price is the same no matter what time of day you choose to eat here (currently $39 for ages 3-9 and $60 for ages 10 and up). Alcohol/cocktail options are available for extra charges. The breakfast is a typical Disney breakfast but picky eaters might be better off at this time.

My Review:
You will check in to the restaurant at the table on the outside right inside Cinderella's Castle. You will need to park your stroller outside. They will escort you inside to the waiting room.

Your family will wait here until your family is called to go upstairs to the dining room. Overall, we waited almost an hour despite our reservation time.
While your family waits, you will line up to meet Cinderella. They do have a photopass person who can also take pics with your phone. This will feel a bit rushed, resist the urge. Take your time, get your picture done to your needs. We had Cinderella sign our frame as my daughter is super-shy. Cinderella does not stay here long and will come and go.

Here are some pictures of the first floor. Feel free to take pictures with the props.

When the hostess calls your family name out, you will be given a ticket and told to go upstairs. There is an elevator available or you can take the spiral staircase up (here is a family waiting to take the elevator).

The spiral stairs are narrow and steep. You will pass a landing which contains the bathrooms. Then you will hand the person at the top your ticket.

We lucked out and got a window seat. Since we were eating dinner, we were able to watch the sunset (and the fireworks prep team work).

Now, the important part. There are several princesses who will visit each table, taking pictures, and signing autographs. Disney (nor the staff) will not comment on who will visit. We saw Snow White, Aurora, Ariel (in a gown), and Jasmin (in a gown). During our visit, they did not come to our table until we had eaten our meal (about an hour after we were seated). I mention this because you need to prepare for a very long dining experience.

Can you meet these princesses outside this restaurant? YES! Snow White, Aurora and Jasmine all meet in Epcot. Snow White and Aurora wear the same outfit. Ariel only meets in her dress at Aukerhaus or Cinderella's Royal Table. She meets in Magic Kingdom in her mermaid outfit.

Adult Menu.

Here are the items that I selected: Grilled Jumbo Shrimp, Grilled Beef Entree, and Cheesecake Dessert. The food is very good but small portions.

This is the Children's Menu. You can order off this for $39 and for children under 10.

For toddlers under 3 years old, there is a free meal option which consists of one chicken tender and small bowl of mashed potatoes.

Here are some pictures of the dining room.

Each person at your table will receive a wishing star trinket and a wand or sword (your choice).

There is a very confusing, unstructured parade that is performed during the meal where the visiting princess will take your child to the back of the room and have them hold their star trinket up. Was a bit frightening and confusing for my toddler. They didn't ask my permission ahead of time or during. If this could distress your child, mention it to your wait-person ahead of time.

My Overall Review:
If your children enjoy meeting princesses and have a lot of patience, and your budget allows, this is an amazing experience. The decor is gorgeous. The good, although small portions, is delicious. It is a very slow dining experience and just for the two of us took about three hours in total. We left just in time to watch fireworks outside (behind the castle). Splitting our party up worked great because my boys had no interest in meeting the princesses and found some other things to do/food to eat. Having a smaller party actually made it easier to book a reservation too.

How to book dining reservations:
Head to the Disney Go portal (https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/). Click on "Things to Do" menu link at the top. Select "All Dining" option. (If you select "Make Reservations", it will not allow you to pick the restaurant you want, it will only search what is available for a particular day/time and number of guests).

A listing of all the currently available restaurants in Walt Disney World will show up. To reduce the number shown, click the Character Dining option.

Look for Cinderella's Royal Table option. Click it.

It will load the restaurant information page. You can find the menu, prices, and then finally the check availability button.

When you click the "Check Availability" button, it will open a window to enter the number of guests, date, and time. It will search for open slots. This restaurant has a very small capacity, so it is quite a challenge to find open tables. Even if you search for a party of 1, it might be a challenge especially around busy dates (like holidays).

No open slots during your search?
Keep coming back every single day, throughout the day. People cancel their reservations all the time and you might get lucky and find an opening.
What to do if you cannot find an open reservation before your trip?
Disney allows same-day cancellations. So keep checking the Disney App to see if someone has cancelled their reservations.

Review - Florida - Orlando - Hollywood Studios - DVC Member Moonlight Magic Event (July 2022)

The past few weeks I've been in a back-to-school cloud so this post is very overdue! But hopefully you will enjoy the photos and details of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) member event we attended back in July.

Throughout the year, Disney offers Disney Vacation Club (DVC) (their version of a timeshare program) members the opportunity to visit one of their four parks or a selected waterpark after it closes for the day to the general public (usually around 9pm). The events are free and this year they offered members and their guests free snacks, a popcorn bucket, and special character meet-and-greets (we'll talk about all those in a bit).

First, the DVC members has to register for the event. In order to register, the member must have a valid Disney-owned Resort reservation for that day. All guests staying with the member are eligible to join. Children under 3 do not need to be listed. Keep in mind, if you cancel your resort registration, your event registration will be cancelled as well (this is to keep down the amount of fraudulent registrations). Registration is done through a link found in an email the company sends out. When you click the link, you are placed into a virtual queue and you will wait (sometimes hours) until it's your turn to register for the event or until you get a nasty-gram that the event has reached capacity and sold out. Boo!
The best part is you don't need a park ticket or a park reservation to attend. If you do have a ticket already (like AP'ers) you will need to get a wrist band to stay after the park closes.

So for this review, our family attended the Hollywood Studios Moonlight Magic event on July 14th.


Here's the brochure they handed to us at the gate. We had to wait in a special event line, show them our registration confirmation and member ID. They then give each person in your party a wrist band (which you will show cast members throughout the night).

 

Each member of our party received a special trio of certificates. The first certificate was good for either a popcorn bucket or a snack. The last two were good for snacks. The back of the certificate sheet listed the locations where you could redeem popcorn bucket or snacks. It was vital to note that some locations closed early! And a lot of locations did not list out what snacks were available. You had to wait in line to find out which was a little frustrating.

Important tip - snack lines got longer towards the end of the evening and, yes, things sold out.

Here's a photo of the free member popcorn bucket. It came with a plastic lid that attaches to the handle. It also came with a separate box of popcorn if you preferred not to dump it in the bucket.

Important tip - don't stock up on popcorn boxes to save for later. The popcorn was very stale by the next day. Yuck!

 

Here are two snacks we got in Star Wars land - Hyperiod Popcorn for flavored popcorn (the line was very long and slow) and a special chocolate dessert at the Docking Bay 7 (which the kids did not like).
The best part, IMO, are the free ice cream bars (Chocolate-covered Mickey-shaped bar or a strawberry-flavored popsicle). You don't need to use snack certificates for those, but they closed down early. Boo hoo!

The event also had two DJ-led dance parties which the younger kids loved. One was held in the main stage area (in the center of Hollywood) and the other was inside the Disney Junior theatre. Rare characters Scrooge McDuck and Launchpad were wandering around the Disney Junior theatre taking photos with families. Goofy and his son Max were dancing on the main stage for a short time.

Just outside the Indiana Jones area, there was a socially-distanced meet-and-greet with rare characters Monterey Jack and Fat Cat from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. They switched out with the Rescue Rangers (who wore Indiana-Jones type gear). The lines were pretty long for either and they went on long breaks so the opportunity to meet was limited. If you see rare characters, always stand in the long line! They might not come back out as we found out with the Chip and Dale characters. Boo hoo!


Some other characters - Chewie and R2D2 in Star Wars land (a lot of people had brought glow-in-the-dark props or lit up their lightsabers for cool photos), Woody and Jessie at Toy Story land (outside the 3D ride), Kylo Ren and storm troopers wandering around Star Wars land interacting with guests, and Darth Vader on the stage just next to the Star Tours ride (he wasn't there very long either).

 

One of the nice things about Moonlight Magic or any after-hours party is the chance to wait in shorter lines for rides, especially more popular rides. We did find ourselves waiting forever in a broke-down Mickey and Minnie Railway (we ent the older kids off to get on other rides).

In summary, if you are a DVC member and are able to join, try to attend! I wish I could attend all the parties, but since I live so far away and have other obligations, we cannot. Hopefully they continue to offer these through the upcoming year. It's fun. Plus, how else can you stuff your mouth on free Mickey-shaped ice cream bars?