Princess Breakfast

[lisaflores]

We just got back from our trip and I wanted some feedback on our character breakfast experience. I made priority seating arrangements at Plaza Inn. We arrived on time but were told we could only be seated outside (where people without reservations were being seated). Only one character came up to our table in over an hour (Mary Poppins). Belle and the Beast were standing in an alcove and we had to wait in line to have a picture taken (probably 15-20 minutes). That was it! I had to complain to the manager, who arranged to have Cinderella and Snow White come over to our table. Since there were so few characters, when they finally came out, they were mobbed by other guests, and we also had to wait in line to see each of them. All in all, breakfast cost us $70-80, I hardly ate anything while I was working to try and get some characters to visit my daughter, and we saw 4 characters and wasted two hours. Am i being unreasonable? Whome would I write to to make a complaint?

I can wait in line for free to have my daughter see a character. Why did I pay a fortune for a breakfast to have to wait in line to see a few characters? Of course I screwed up with my daughter...I told her we would "have breakfast" with the princesses., so she is still telling me "I did not get to eat with the princesses mama." I know now I should have phrased it differently.

Incidently, we went to Ariel's grotto one night for dinner without priority seating. Waited less time for our table than at Plaza Inn and they had tons of characters who spent lots of time with my daughter! I would definitiely recommend Ariel's Grotto. But alas, no princesses for my little princess lover!

 

[firstcruiser]

I'm so sorry you had a bad time. We did the breakfast the first week in December and had a great time after some problems. The manager of the restaurant (I can't remember her name although I had intended to remember it because I was going to write a letter also about her) was very rude. It was raining and people didn't want to leave so she said she couldn't sit us all together even though we had a PS reservation. We said we would wait and finally a table opened up. The rest of the staff was very nice and we could tell they were embarassed by her behavior. We also love Ariel's Grotto. I hope they give you a free breakfast so you can try it again.

 

[LucyKate]

We must have been very lucky - we also had reservations for the first week of December (Friday 3rd - which day were you there?) and had a wonderful experience.

We were seated straight away, had Cinderella, Aladdin and Jasmine, Belle, Aurora and Mula come to our table, Mary Poppins and Bert grete us on the way in, and Belle and Beast inside.

I'm very sorry to hear of the problems others had as this was a wonderful experience for our daughters.

We booked for the 8:30 sitting and made sure we got there early and were among the first there, so maybe that's a tip for others?

 

[punkin]

We were there last Wednesday, and I have to agree. It was pretty bad. Cinderella and the prince were flirting with each other and ignoring the guests. The food was mediocre. We spent almost two hours and only saw Cinderrella nad prince and Jasmine and Alladin. Ariel's grotto was much better and the Lilo and Stitch breakfast was really wonderful.

 

[Amy&Dan]

We were there Friday the 10th (9:15 ps) of December and ran into this kind of thing too. I have mentioned on my trip report and some earlier posts to book the latest seating. We got stuck outside and not one character came over. We stood in the Belle and Beast line for around 20 minutes and then I took my daughter inside to meet the Fairy Godmother. I waited patiently while she finished with a table and then when she turned to go to another part of the restaurant asked if we could get a quick autograph. As we were leaving however around 10:30 the place was almost empty and I noticed the princesses were coming back out to mingle some more. The biggest problem is that this is a buffet. This is not a big place and the lines for the food were so long you couldn't get through the place so neither could the princesses. It would be better if they just brought you the food like they do at the Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast in WDW because then most people would be sitting down and it would be easier for the characters to mingle from table to table. My advice is book first or last seating and go mid week if at all possible. We still had fun but it was crazy!

 

[got2travel]

I had just had breakfast there yesterday and was VERY disappointed. We had the latest seating possible, at 10:20am. I always do the latest seating and turn it into a brunch.

Everything started out well. We were seated right away. And after I had paid, I realized I forgot to ask for my annual pass discount. No problem, the CM just gave me cash back. And a few minutes later found me and gave me another dollar and some change because he miscounted. I was really impressed with that.

Now to the meal. As were were shown to our table, it was still being cleaned off. The CM just pointed it out and said "That's your table. You can just go get food and it will be clean when you get back.".....WHAT. The place was not overly crowded but they couldn't take us to a clean table??? What about the stuff I wanted to offload before getting food?

Ok, so we make the best of it. My son gets some cereal and bacon to start off with and heads to the table. I'm trying to get an omlete. There are 2 people in front of me. The cook (sorry can't call him a chef) does not take anyone else's order until he finishes making a complete omlete, even though eh has 3 burners to work with. It took forever.

By the time I get to the table, my son is so upset. Both Cinderella and Snow White have come by the table, but I wasn't there for pictures. He said they told him they would be back, but I wasn't so sure. You would think that they would see me there, and come back soon. But they went through the entire restaurant before coming back. To their credit, they did come back, but by that time we were just sitting there waiting for them.

We did see Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Fairy Godmother. But when Mary Poppins and Bert came around, they did part of the room, then headed outside. I thought maybe they were called over for a special birthday wish or something, then they would be back. But they never did. Then we saw Beast come in, but he stayed in the center of the restaurant. I figured he couldn't move through so well, so we went to see him, no big deal.

However Aladdin and Jasmine, although they circulated through the other half of the building and even the patio, they just stopped in the center, instead of coming to our side. After they were mobbed for about 15 minutes, I guessed that they weren't going table by table. But by the time I realized this, they had just walked through the kitchen door. When I asked if they were coming back out I was told that they were finished. I express my disappointment at the fact that no one explained that they were not coming to the tables and all I got was I'm sorry. When I also stated that Mary and Bert did not greet all of the tables, the CM did offer to go get them. They came to our table, did a Supercalifrag.....(you know what I mean) routine and posed for pictures.

All in all, we did see quite a few characters. But to have to go chase them down is not the point of a character breakfast. The food was pretty bad too. The choices were limited and they stopped serving many items before we were even finished. We've always done Goofy's Kitchen before and have always had a great time. I will not be going back to the Princess breakfast.