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.

Narcoossee's

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

-Walt Disney

I decided to use a quote on dreams because dinner at Narcoossee's really is like a dream. I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people on reddit and disboards for all of my trip planning but particularly in searching for the most romantic dinner I could find and that search lead me to Narccoossee's. 

If you google romantic Disney World dinner most lists rank Victoria & Albert's as first, what I can't help but wonder is who eats there? Seriously that place is can be more than $100 per person! 

If you are that rich that place looks amazing, personally I don't think it's possible for a meal to be worth that much money but I guess I'll never know. 

Tied with Narccoossee's for second most recommended is The California Grill in Disney's Contemporary Resort this restaurant does seem stunning and worth a visit but I could only do one and chose Narccoossee's for reasons I'll go through in this entry.

Narccoossee's is a signature dining restaurant located in Disney's Grand Floridian Resort. Narccoossee's is located on the water and can be seen from where the buses drop you off for the Magic Kingdom, so if you've been and not heard of them you've definitely seen it. As lovely as it appears in the day bright in the Florida sun with a view of palm trees, peaceful water and the distant bustling joy of the Magic Kingdom, night is Narccoossee's really shines!

The interior decor is a classy yet simplistic with a sea side theme , but the real beauty of this dining experience is the location. As I said before while I am sure this is still lovely in the day with their light and airy water side location the evening is when you can really appreciate this restaurant. 

My tofu dish was amazing!

 After listening to the lobby band and pianist for sometime in The Grand Floridian lobby which I also highly recommend doing before hand, we strolled a long the beach and back around for our 9pm at Narccoossee's. We arrived a bit early for our ADR and seated a little early as well. Narccoossee's has an entire vegetarian  menu and the majority of it can be vaganized ! When we were seated there was a bit of a mix up with the menu's because vegan comes up as an allergy from special diets to the restaurant first we were given the special allergy menu which is also available however nothing on that is vegan. Our waitress asked what our allergy was so I didn't even have to point out what happened as soon as I said we are vegan she said she had another menu she'd bring.

 I was so happy to see an entire vegetarian menu even if some wasn't vegan, what progress! 

My partner Jamie got a light oil based pasta dish and I got an Asian inspired tofu dish.

At 9:15 just after we had ordered the Electrical Water Pageant sailed by our window. The Electrical Water Pageant is one of Disney's lesser known shows, similar to the electrical parade in the magic kingdom, or if your from southern Ontario like me, like a floating version of The Festival Of Lights. 

Fairy tale-esque creatures and nails made up of sparkling lights float through the night sky tethered to nearly invisable boats glide around the Seven Seas Lagoon, a moment in which this body of water really lives up to it's name. 

As the water pageant ended our food was served. It's hard to call but I am going to say something controversial here, the food was better than trails end's off menu specials. For those of you who know Trails End as a mere buffet and not for the hidden treasure it 

really is all I can say is, subscribe cause it's a coming!

Jamie's pasta dish

 Narccoossee's food and atmosphere the whole experience was hands down the best dining experience of our trip. As we ate we heard that special music and knew it was time to take our champagne out to the veranda, Wishes was about to begin. Narccoossee's as a breath taking view of Wishes the full sky is open, the castle's towers are peaking out above the entrance area which is as close to empty as possible just across the lagoon. To add to the magical view Narccoossee's pumps in the sound track for the full experience. Let me tell you, absolutely nothing is more magical then standing in your loved one's arms out on that white veranda, with champagne in hand and watching the Wishes spectacular while it reflects off the dark lagoon.  Perfection.

I thought about including a picture of the view but none co

uld do it justice, this is something that can't be captured only experienced.

We did this one on our last night and I cannot picture a perfect story book ended to what was the best week of my life.