Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world.. other families try like crazy to get a reservation at Cinderella’s castle before they finally get one. What did we do with our lives? We landed a spot at an odd time for lunch, 2:55 – but grabbed it. While the food was absolutely delicious, the entire experience took a lot of patience.
For those of you that don’t know, the entrance to Cinderella’s Royal Table is located in the famous castle, the first thing you see when you get to the Magic Kingdom. The entrance is almost directly across from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. So with two very popular places, the area is almost just as crowded as Penn Station in NYC at rush hour.
Disney does not make waiting for your table very easy. When you go to check in with the hostess, you will be told that you have to wait until your reservation time to approach the desk – they will not take your name any sooner. Each guest has a reservation at 5 minute intervals. There is only one bench. So on a rainy day like ours, you will be confronted with crowds packed together uncertainly having no idea where to go.
We wanted to be the ones to walk in the sun.. but we were stuck. Just waiting for our exact time to be shouted out into the crowd.
Finally, 2:55pm rolled around. We were given a small receipt to hold and brought into a beautiful waiting room where Cinderella was waiting for us. By that time, our children were so hungry they had no interest whatsoever in meeting her. But we couldn’t sit at our table.. yet. We were forced to wait and watch Cinderella meet her fans while a cast member hit a gong every few seconds to announce the next person to be lucky enough to get a table.
Not to worry. Although this picture didn’t work out I think Cinderella may very well be the easiest princess to find at Disney. More on that later.
The gong finally rings, possibly by this time it’s the middle of the night. Trust me. You will have to wait. We were finally seated for our 2:55pm reservation at 4.
Our server was wonderful. We received wands and swords in exchange for our long wait. We had a delicious meal – check out the menu here. And there were other princesses to meet! There is some sort of wishing song that is sung but we couldn’t hear anything. The acoustics were horrible.
The restaurant is expensive($$$) (2 dining points for those on the plan). The experience takes lots of patience. But, the working day was done. We were on vacation. Both our girls definitely had fun, which is all that matters.