Cinderella’s Royal Table review

Cinderella’ Royal Table is by far my biggest Disney disappointment……

CRT located on the first floor of Cinderella’s Castle, it is also yet another hard to bag Disney dining reservation. We booked this over the phone, as you are unable to book dinner reservations via My Disney Experience, we also had to book it at out 180+ 10 mark in order to get it.

I was really excited about this reservation, the fact I actually managed to book it and that I have wanted to dine here since I started visiting Walt Disney World 10 years ago had built the excitement up in my head and heart.

When we arrived at the podium to check in for our 6.50pm reservations, we were told they were running behind and we were to come back after 6.50pm. We had a look around Sir Mickey’s and came back 10 minutes later. When we were finally checked in and entered the restaurant we were taken straight in to a hall where we met Cinderella, the interaction was brief, although we were the only ones waiting to see her, this was extremely rushed with little conversation.

We sat in the hall and watched other families come in and meet Cindy, whilst we waited to be taken to our table, we watched and listened to guests be ‘announced’ and invited in to the restaurant to the chime of a few bells. That was possibly my favourite part of the evening, it was cute and fun. After we were ‘announced’, we were taken up a set of stairs, with stain glass windows, to the restaurant and to our table

Now I have seen photos and videos of a hustling and bustling restaurant filled with Princesses, I saw nothing like this, infact we didn’t see a Princess until we had finished our main meals. The exact reason I wanted to come here was to eat dinner and meet all the Princesses. I did not understand why it took so long for them to come out, we were easily sat down for 30/35 minutes before the first Princess came out, I was getting angry and impatient.

Our server gave us each a gift from The Fairy God Mother, a wishing star and a gift from Cinderella, I got a sparkly wand and Sam got a sword. Each guest, child or adults receive one of these. Which I thought was a nice touch.

We ordered our food, it is a prepaid, pre fixe meal for dinner. So when you book you pay in full with the gratuity included, so there is no payment on the day. It is $65 per adult for dinner and $45 per child, or 2 dining credits if you are on the dining plan. The total for us was $167 with the gratuity.

The menu.

I had the castle salad and Sam had the soup. The salad was average, the highlight was the parmesan crisps, really flavourful. Sam said the soup was ‘just soup’. I did feel like the starters were ready made and waiting to go because within 1 minute of us placing our order the starters were with us.

For mains, I had the chicken, it was actually ok, the chicken breast was huge and the mushroom sauce was quite good. The meal itself was big, far to big for me to eat. Sam had the beef, he had asked for it medium/rare. It came out far to well done for him, he was not impressed with that or portion size. He managed to eat his and finish mine off.

For dessert we both had ‘the clock strikes twelve’. This was nice, probably our favourite of the three courses we ate.

Snow White was the first Princess to be announced in to the dining hall, by announced I mean a quick version of each Princesses story is told over a speaker system and they come out and everyone will cheer. Snow White came straight to us, she was a delight. I love how the ladies play the part of their characters and know just what to say and how to read every situation, I feel it must be quite awkward for them when it is two adults sat waiting to meet them. After Snow White was announced, every few minutes a new Princess came in to the dining hall. Aurora, Ariel and Rapunzel joined us. I wore pink that day in hope that Aurora would be there and she was, I wanted to tell her Flora made my dress, just like hers. Ariel was by far the best Princess I met there, she came running up behind me and made me jump, we chatted about Minnie head bands and I thought she was a lot of fun.

Rapunzel was the last princess to visit our table. After she left our server came right over and told us that that was it and it we could leave whenever we were ready. We felt rushed and completely pushed out. We finished our drinks and I took a few photos and left extremely upset and disappointed in the experience.

A point to note, we had 6.50pm reservations and Happily Ever After was at 8pm that night, as we left during the fireworks we were unable to leave the actual castle, because opposite at Prince Charming’s Regal Carousel was all barriered off due to the firework casing falling on the ground. After the fireworks ended it took around 10 minutes for the area to be checked so we could leave. Another thing that annoyed me when I just wanted to leave.

Overall, the Princess interaction was the best part, without this, the restaurant would be an over priced canteeen. The interior of the castle was a little underwhelming, after dining in Royal Banquet Hall in Shanghai Disneyland I was expecting similar/the same to this and it was not. The food was nothing special and not worth the price, we felt rushed and after waiting so long for the meet and greets it was not what I wanted after spending $160 on the meal. I almost felt like asking for a refund. It seemed like they wanted to get people in and get people out.

There is also no photo pass photographer with the Princesses at this location other than with Cinderella, so all photos must be taken by a member of your party.