Cinderella's Royal Table : Dining with Royalty

"No doubt you saw the whole pretty picture in detail. 

The young prince bowing to the assembly. Suddenly, he stops. 

He looks up. For lo... there she stands. The girl of his dreams. 

Who she is or whence she came, he knows not, nor does he care, for his heart tells him that here, here is the maid predestined to be his bride."

-The Grand Duke (Cinderella 1950)

Cinderella's Royal Table is located as it should be right inside of Cinderella's Castle. When you enter that castle your royal family will be greeted as such and you will receive your royal invitation to dine with the princesses (a little ticket with your parties information on it). You shuffle into line to meet Cinderella before heading upstairs to the dining room. Fun fact while your in line look around, up and down you should be able to find some of Cinderella's friends have joined her in the royal life, that's Gus Gus and Jaq you can spot.

After meeting her highness 

Cinderella you take the spiral stair case up to the dining room. CRT is a signature dining experience so it is pricey, very pricey if you are paying out of pocket you are looking at up to 75$ per person (price does depend on age and time) or if your on the DDP 2 sit down credits. So this location is usually followed by "Is it worth is?". I would argue yes. More for the atmosphere than anything else.

 CRT is a character dining experience during which you get to meet 5 princesses including Cinderella. If you were to wait in line to meet each of the princesses separately you could easily spend an entire day just due to wait time of 20-60mins per character. A part from that you are getting the chance to dine in a castle! 

Your meal also comes with your choice of a wand and wishing star or a sword, they do tend to show gender bias on this but don't feel weird asking for which ever you want it was noticable during the make a wish ceremony that some boys felt left out as they waved their swords around like wands because they had no wand. If your an adult don't let them forget you, you are also entitled to your souvenir the stars go great in a scrapbook! 

We chose to do CRT for breakfast the main perk of a breakfast dining reservation particularly at this location is that if your reservation is early enough you can get in at take pictures in front of the castle with little to no crowd! For us this didn't work out as planned however because it was during the ABC Christmas special filming.

So as vegans there really isn't an on the menu option at breakfast other than mickey waffles (totally fine by me though). Our waiter was very courteous he brought us soy milk for our coffee and for our meal we got mickey waffles, potatoes , salad, oatmeal (which was a bit to bland not a fan) and fresh fruit. The good was OK but I was more there to meet the princesses than anything else. 

For lunch and dinner there is an on the menu option of seasonal gnocchi with roasted vegetables eggplant, mushrooms, and squash tossed with gnocchi, arugula, brown butter sauce, and finished with shaved drunken goat cheese and leeks.  Also available with Rice instead of Gnocchi.  As a Vegan Offering without cheese and butter sauce. The lunch and dinner option does sound better but I may again do breakfast so we can do morning photos but if your a foodie I'd say lunch and dinner sound like a better bet.

The princesses are rightfully announced by a trumpet sound, it can be loud in the dining room so you may miss it but you wont miss the princesses themselves, as they enter one by one and begin their tour of the dining room. It can feel like you are being skipped because it is hard to tell what the order they are doing it but be patient your turn will come. Each princess stops at each table for photos and a quick interaction which is really lovely and it feels more natural than the regular meet and greets in my opinion. I will say I wish I had stayed calm and not worried so much about holding them up so I could have gotten better photos I really didn't love any of the photos I got here sadly, but that was totally my own fault.

I would definitely recommend that people make time to do Cinderella's Royal Table if you plan to meet the princesses during your trip it's a much more fun and authentic way to do it compared to waiting in line for a 30sec meet and greet repeatedly throughout your trip. It will save you a ton of time and is one of the most fun ways to meet the characters and get lost in the magic.

Be Our Guest!

Put our service to the test 
Tie your napkin 'round your neck cherie, 
And we'll provide the rest 

-Be Our Guest

I decided to review Be Our Guest first not because it was the best but because this is the parks most popular restaurant, to get a dinner seat you usually have to book the full 180 days in advance, sure some people will wait and still manage to get in but it's a real gamble. I woke up at 6am, 180 days in advance and made all my ADRs my best friend woke up at 8 the same day or day after and could not get in for dinner, she either did lunch or and early dinner I don't remember but for me dinner has to be after 5pm . 

Our ADR (Advanced Dining Reservation) was for 7:35pm one thing we did that isn't in direct relation to dining but I cannot recommend enough is we planned to do enchanted tales with Belle just before our dinner and I highly recommend doing the same if your a Beauty and The Beast fan regardless of if you have children or not. Before my trip most sites were very vague on Enchanted Tales With Belle so the whole thing was a really big surprise to me so I wont go into detail I don't want to ruin it but I will say this is a great way to meet Belle and adults don't feel awkward jump into the magic.

Even the exterior to this restaurant is breath taking. Its a really an impressive optical illusion, it looks like you are at the gates at the bottom of a mountain with the castle at the top of the mountain in the distance and when you enter through the doors in the bottom of this mount it genuinely feels as though you've entered the castle you were just admiring.

When you enter the foyer you have been transported through space and time into a real life fairy tale you can see a head of you the grand ballroom you grew up envisioning right out of the film. I really cannot adequately describe how perfect the decor is. To add to the splendor we went at Christmas so there was a beautiful tree topped with Angelica from an Enchanted Christmas. The back wall of the ballroom is walled with floor to ceiling windows that allow you to look out into the enchanted forest I don't know what the weather is usually like in the forest but while we were there is was snowing. We were guided to our seats in the ballroom.
There are three dinning rooms you can choose from when making an ADR at Be Our Guest, The West Wing, The Ballroom and The Castle Gallery. When looking online I had a hard time choosing between The West Wing and The Ballroom and thought The Gallery was really lacking and I would not want to sit there. We ended up choosing the ballroom and I am glad we did it is glorious. That said after exploring the whole place the other two rooms are also lovely. Next time I am able to go I will choose the West Wing it's quieter and apart from the tables closest to the enchanted rose much more private, also you still get to walk through and see the ballroom without being right in the hustle and bustle. The Gallery in my opinion does have more of a lunch feel to it, however it is much, much nicer in person than the pictures online suggest. The photos online make it appear very plain and while it is less embellished than the other two rooms it does have its own charm to it and the painting on the walls tell you more about the relationship between Belle and the Beast. All of the rooms are good choices so if you don't get your first choice don't be upset it will still be just as enchanting I assure you.
Be Our Guest is worth visiting if only for the decor, that said the food is lackluster. We started with bread and vegan butter with onion soup I am told that sometimes they will have vegan cheese but they did not when we went still this was the best part of the meal, which is kind of sad. For the main we both had the only vegan option which was ratatouille, we both hated it. To make matters worse, and this is our fault really, we were confused about what the Disney dining plan covered so we had to pay for our soups which we wouldn't have ordered had we known. Although I am glad we got the soup because that was basically my meal. From others I have heard mixed reviews on the ratatouille so I am not sure if we just aren't ratatouille people or if it really was that bad, but in my personal opinion despite looking beautiful it was not appetizing at all. I have heard you can get pasta with pasta sauce ( just regular tomato but in Australia& New Zealand tomato sauce means ketchup and I don't want anyone being confused and thinking they will get ketchup noodles). In future visits I'd request the pasta or stick to the soup. Dessert the only option is sorbert unfortunately.

 It's strange here in Canada it's easier to find vegan desserts than vegan meals but in the States it seems easier to find meals than desserts. When I visited the famous Erin Mckenna's in Disney Springs a local woman was talking about what a big deal she makes to come to the springs to visit the bakery because its so hard to find baked goods and here my fiance switched his desserts before anything else because they're easy to get and as he always said "better than the regular versions" and "vegans make up for their lack of meat by nailing baked goods!" . So the lack of desserts was sad especially not being able to have the grey stuff which would be so so so easy to veganize! In fact I am (eventually) going to do any entry on how to make the grey stuff at home and vegan, your welcome.
After dinner you receive a slip so you can meet the Beast on your way out, despite there not being a line when we left this part did feel a bit more rushed than other meet and greets we had throughout the trip.
Be Our Guest is probably one of the best Disney restaurants for experience and ambiance but in all honesty when it comes to the actual food this was the worst dining we experienced during our trip.
So I do recommend going, but order something cheap so you don't end up feeling cheated, soup or pasta if your vegan is my recommendation, if your brave and like when vegetables really taste like vegetables then maybe try to ratatouille.
I hope I haven't come off as too harsh I do still 100% recommend making time for this experience just use caution in your orders.

'Til you shout "Enough, I'm done!"

Then we'll sing you off to sleep as you digest 

Tonight you'll prop your feet up, 

But for now, let's eat up    

DisneyBounding

Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo 
It'll do magic believe it or not 
Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo

    Disneybound! Disneybounding is a growing fashion trend that allows you too subtly channel your favorite Disney characters and even parks adding a little magic to day to day life. Unlike cosplay which is full costume Disneybounds are subtle hints , they are outfits you could wear out and about that disney fans may pick up on but an unsuspecting on looker will not likely pick up on. Some fans like to blur the lines between cosplay and bounding I personally prefer to keep it separate, so for me no props,no wigs nothing that would begin to cross it over into cosplay territory.   Leo Camacho did a great vlog on the difference between the two as well which I will link below. 

   I bound pretty regularly the 2 I do most often are Anna and Ursula, I am not #teamvillains I just really like my outfit for her which is a cute purple crop top blouse with a high waist black mini skirt and because I am Canadian and its chilly here black thigh highs. As cute as the outfit is I am still #teamheroes sorry not sorry. Anyways for my trip I Disneybound-ed pretty much every day! Some were much less subtle than others and I'll go through and explain them. 

   

 The first Disneybound I did was Minnie Mouse. Here is a picture of my best friend and I both as Minnie, I had wanted to find a skirt with white polka dots but I waited to long to order online and couldn't find one in stores. That said the beauty of bounding is that its supposed to be subtle and not exact so it was totally fine. So for Minnie you would want either a red , or pink skirt with a black top, bonus points if you do yellow shoes, which we did not.

 The next bound was Princess Jasmine. Jasmines colours would be teal or mint with gold. For this one I did a teal dress with a gold necklace and gold head band. Its hard to see in this picture but I also twisted my hair around the headband on the sides creating a hair style similar to hers without the pony tail part.

 You can also do outfits themed after parks or attractions, not just specific characters. For Hollywood Studio's I did Star Wars/ Star Tours. For this outfit I did a high waist pleather mini with a Star Wars tee. So while not channeling a specific character I did go with the theme of the film and the park. Had I done the same outfit at home I would add black thigh high sock or real cute faux thigh high tights from hottopic where the top of the 'sock' is Darth Vader. However because I was in Florida it was way too hot for socks or tights.

 You can't really see it but what I love about this top is that it was Han and Leia in an embrace, you can sort of tell on my left boob (lol) and I love that it plays up the romance, because I am a hopeless romantic. On the other side it has Luke on a tauntuan because why not.




As mentioned one of my favourite and most frequent bounds is Anna from Frozen, I have two versions of this one. I have the one pictured below and one with a darker almost maroon coloured sweater depending on weather. Also not pictured but often used/recommended would be adding a gold belt and the Frozen faux thigh high tights also from hottopic which I am not entirely sure if they still carry.

 So basically when planning a Disneybound you want to find the characters main colours and use those , and channel their look in a subtle and modern way. Clearly I could wear this Anna Outfit any where and no one would find it weird or costume-esque but next to a picture of Anna its clear what I am doing. During this trip I also did Cinderella. For Cinderella I chose a light blue dress with a black choker necklace and silver hair bow. For Cinderella you will want light blues,whites,silvers. The most popular character among bounders  right now according to cast members is Ariel. For Ariel you would want green bottoms with a purple top, bonus points for fish themed earrings or her shell shaped necklace. For land Ariel you would want a dark blue skirt with a black top similar to my Anna outfit above, if your somewhere slightly cooler add a light blue sweater to really complete the look.
 
   Some as I mentioned are a bit less day to day like my Rapunzel. For this look I used a simple lilac dress with a double flower crown and pastel floral necklace. You can find many examples of Rapunzel online the main colors you will want are pastel pinks and purples.

 

  The last princess I did was my favourite, Belle! Belle was not only my favourite but she is actually one of the easiest to bound. For Belle I did my hair half up, half down similar to her hair in the ballroom scene. For most characters I did not try to copy the hair but because bounding Belle is basically as easy as finding a yellow dress I did want my hair somewhat similar to pull the look further into a bound and no just being a yellow dress. My bounders will also add red accents when doing Belle to pay tribute to the enchanted rose, I did have rose earring but honestly just did not think to wear them. I actually changed from my Rapunzel bound into my Belle bound the same day and while I was in the washroom pinning my hair the most precious thing happened a little girl behind me said to her mom "Momma is that girl Belle?". I nearly died, not only did she remind me so much of Chip the way she said Momma but I was at Disney World being mistaken for a princess!  I told the little girl that I just wanted to be like Belle and thanked her and we had a lovely little chat as I finished up. So because of that special moment I will end on Belle.

This is the link to the video I mentioned by Leo Chamacho on the difference between Disneybound and Cosplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flc3eo38VGw

Day 2: A Very Merry Unbirthday!

Now blow the candle out, my dear
And make your wish come true
A very merry unbirthday to you

 Day two was my best friends birthday, unlike my best friend I am a super planner. I started planning my vacation well before the 180 day mark while my friend would pick up some tips from me but barely plan at all other than booking a few ADR's (advanced dining reservations). So on this day I had too follow her lead and try not to stress over optimizing time. For her birthday we spent the day in her favourite park the Magic Kingdom. It also happened to be a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party night which we both bought tickets for to make that her birthday party.

  On November 12th I woke up and after quick food court breakfast of vegan Mickey waffles, which are available upon request (and amazing btw) my bff was at the resort and ready to go. We both had more or less, matching Minnie themed outfits consisting of black tops, red skirts and our sparkly Minnie ears. On the bus to the Magic Kingdom the driver announced my friends birthday, told the bus to stare at her and then lead everyone in a Happy Birthday sing-a-long, Best.Bus ride.Ever. Shell was honoured yet traumatized and I was thoroughly entertained.

 

   I did have one minor plan for Shell's birthday, she hates surprises so it was very difficult to drag her along. I dragged her to the Bippity Boppity Boutique and got a quick terrified "You better not have booked us kid make overs, I wont!" After quickly assuring her I wouldnt spend 60+ dollars on a little girl make over I know she'd hate. What I did have planned was some magical pixie dust. I called over one of the fairy godmothers and explained that it was my best friends birthday and I just wanted some pixie dust. The fairy godmother happily abliged telling use both to close our eyes and make a wish in our hearts, then she waved her magic wand over us as pixie dust magically rained down over us.

   In the end Shell did love my surprise despite herself and we continued on to our fastpass too meet her favourite princess Rapunzel and one of mine Cinderella. Meeting face characters can be awkward, but honestly its usually only as awkward as you make it. If you let yourself believe in the character, believe in the magic then it wont be awkward at all. Meeting Rapunzel was adorable I embaressed Shell by talking her up to her hero , but inside I'm sure she loved it. Cinderella was a little awkward because we both blanked on what to say, I spent the whole time in line thinking of things to say to Rapunzel to make the experience special for my friend that I had nothing to say to Cinderella, poor Cinderella.

  After meeting the princesses rode the Tomorrowland People Mover with about a 5minute wait and then Stich's Great Escape also had about the same 5 minutes wait. After that we grabbed a quick lunch at Cosmic Rays Starlight Cafe I wasnt hungery so I didn't order anything myself I just ate some of Shell's fries but had I wanted too they do have a veggie burger, just double check its the vegan burger and bun they switch them up frequently.

After lunch we headed back towards the castle and were treated to a surprise to us Christmas concert from Ariana Grande (vegan!) and then over to The Haunted Mansion which we also had a fastpass for. We practically walked on and it was an amazing ride, if you havent been, go! The attention Disney pays to details is beyond perfectionism. Unfortunately the ride did stall and we were stuck for a couple minutes listening to their ghoulish show tune on repeat. Within 3 minutes or so the ride continued on with all its fun and soon we returned to the land of the living.

  After The Haunted Mansion we headed to the ride I was most excited for which was Pirates Of The Caribbean! Which for no apparent reason is my all time favourite movie which I've seen over 60 times (seriously I lost count after 60). The ride has been updated to include Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbosa but maintains its classic feel. After the ride we watched Jack's mini pirate tutorial show. By this time it was almost 4pm so we split up for dinner Shell going off with her family and me returning to my partner who had spent the day on The Boardwalk so we could go to our ADR at Trails End. I will do an entire entry on Trails End, so for now I'll just say WOW and move on.

  After dinner my partner Jamie, went back too The Boardwalk to watch sports at the ESPN bar and I returned to the Magic Kingdom to meet Shell for Mickeys Very Christmas Party. Despite being part of day 2 the Christmas party really does merrit its own entire and this one is getting long so I will leave it off here and hopefully you'll come back for more!