The Lows (or what happened to Cafe Mickey)

[Iain Chapman]

Hi All,

So we've returned from DLP Christmas Season after an absent of 3 years. At this point most people have a highs and lows list, but I've only a low that I want to share.

Cafe Mickey....what happened to it?

The Menu:
This used to be themed, all of the dishes were named after a character. Now it's almost just a "standard" menu with dishes listed with no thought

The kids menu was separate with activities , and a pair of pop-out glasses. Crayons were provided. Now the kids menu is just part of the laminated card

There were numerous options on the menu. This time we looked at the menu and really weren't impressed

Characters
During the course of your meal you'd likely see at least 4 characters, and then probably they'd have done the rounds twice. This time we saw 2 characters, on 1 rotation

Food Quality/Service
I'd previous found the food quality to be of good standard. It was somewhere you could go for an expensive evening, and know that you'd see the a fair number of characters who spend time with you, receive fairly good service and food.

You'd be served with a dish of mini baguettes and butter as you waited for you meal. This had to be asked for, and I could see numerous tables who never received this

Conclusion
Cafe Mickey was somewhere we would end each trip to DLP after each visit. However after this visit it's nothing somewhere I'm likely to be return to, unless I had a reason to get up-close to Mickey.

It feels that an accountant has revised the budget, without having experienced or understood the restaurant. In doing so the life and sole of the restaurant has been lost. Even elements of the experience have been lost - no longer do the cast members drop everything to join in to dance to "Think" (Aretha Franklin) that seem to play every half hour ( at least it never occurred on this visit ). You also used to face stupidly large, pointless plates on the tables.

Now it seems it's a mediocre experience where you pay a premium to see minimum characters.


Everything else was fine.

Sure I was disappointed with the way DLP continues to operate Casey Jr and the Storybook boats. These are good attractions for families with small children and I just feel that these are underused - especially as Casey is the nearest that younger guests will get to experience a coaster and is a good "training" ground to build up to BTM.

So generally a positive visit (honest) - I even saw a cast member in a queue tell a guest to put out his cigarette - much to his protest that it was an electronic one. It was just Cafe Mickey that I found to be the big let down.

Iain

 

[inelegancex]

I couldn't agree more! I meant to write about this in my report. I found the menu to be awful, if I didn't like carbonara pasta I wouldn't have had anything off the menu (and I am definitely not a picky eater).

The menu last year was fab, again this year was awful. I agree with the characters as well, it definitely wasn't that great and I was very disappointed. It seemed to be the same 3 characters no matter what day it was!

 

[Isila]

We had two very different experiences with cafe Mickey, but after menu changes and trying Inventions I began to think it's a waste of time and money. An hearing it's going down diesn't make me want to come back.

 

[ILOVEDLP]

I used to love cafe Mickey.
The last time we went the menu was pretty boring tbh.
The dancing was kind of what made your meal reading this I'm thinking maybe we won't go in march then I'm thing 1st night dinner .
I know it's not great but would it be a trip to dlp with out it ?

 

[addverbaan]

taken from my TR from my october trip

Around 7pm we headed into the Village and did a bit of shopping before getting to Cafe Mickey about 10 mins before our 8pm reservation. Again massive queues here and whilst we were waiting we decided to break our golden rule about not being seating in the conservatory, as it was super busy. We have only really had good experiences in CM and figured the people that had sat there and had a bad time were just unlucky. We could not have been more wrong!!

Inside the main restauarant just on the other side of the glass to us, there was such a great party atmosphere. Goofy and Mickey were both dancing with a group of kids, pluto and minnie were doing the rounds on the other side of the room. DS got all excited and was swivveling around in his seat trying to see when the characters were heading into the conservatory. Well the answer was they did not (

We say for an hour and 10 mins and he was not visited by one single character in all that time. We had seen MIckey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Tiger, Chip and Dale go through the restaurant but not one single one of them came to the children in the back ( our DS was not the only sad one (

We complained several times to our waiter who just shrugged. Eventually we asked to see the manager. He came pretty quickly with the lady who coordinates the characters and we explained our dissapointment. He was very sympathetic to us and invited us back to breakfast (for free) the next morning, did not charge us for our drinks and discounted our food bill by 20%. Great service in dealing with a complaint but my DS still left a very dissapointed bunny

We tried to make the point that it was not right that all the characters once entering from backstage followed the same route round the restaurant. Surely it would make more sense for them to go different ways? We saw that the table close to where the characters enter the seating area were visited by all of them within an hour whilst the kids sitting where we were sitting were not visited by a single one! Everytime they got any where near to us, the were called back by the CM because I guess there time was up? Only for the next character to again start at the begining of the room, rather then where the last one left off.

Also worth mentioning, that our order was taken within 5 mins of us sitting down and our main courser arrived about 3 mins after ordering them!!!! DH and DS both had pizza which were both just barely warm. I had the fish and chips which again was not pipping hot and had a bit of a "funny" taste to it.

No way was our food cooked to order. About an hour after getting into bed that night, I woke up sick as anything and spent 2 hours on the bathroom floor. Cant be sure it was the fish of course but given how quick is was served, that it was not really warm enough and had a bit of a funny taste, I'm guessing it was.

Such a shame the whole experience as my DS loves it here and we were planning on taking our nephew in Feb for his 3rd birthday with cake etc, but I think I will give it a miss now. They really need to organise things better here, as looking through the glass at a room full of people and children dancing, singing and having a great time whilst your own child forlonely sits and waits it very un disney

 

[aj2703]

We have eaten twice at Cafe Mickey and have no complaints. Ok the menu is not that varied but even the set menu which we had was fine for us. We ordered a birthday cake for my son and the server was great, she gave me notice when they brought it out and Captain hook and goofy i think it was brought it out. They hushed the whole restaurant down and encouraged everyone to sing happy birthday which they duly did. My son face was a picture of embarrassment but it did make the whole evening magical..

 

[DLPaddict]

Just got home so bare with my rambles.

We ate there this afternoon before we got the train home and saw Goofy, Chip, Dale Pluto, Mickey and Smee..... Waiter was abrupt and rude, food wasn't that great and the condition the characters are in are awful! Goofy also was short and fat today. It was not Goofy that's for sure. It was actually scary.

I shall not be eating there again.

 

[Holstar]

Completely see where you're coming from on the Café Mickey front.

This was from our report a little while ago...

On Saturday we took the girls to Café Mickey as a big surprise for our last night at Disneyland, thinking that it would be something special for them to remember. But, it was possibly the worst experience I've ever had in a Disney restaurant!

Firstly, they sat our group of 6 at a five seater table, it took us 20 minutes and three people to get an extra chair for one of our group, who by this point was about as stroppy as a ten year old can get! We had gotten there early, but waited way past our reservation time - but, in all fairness, this I'd expected given it was a Saturday.

The bread wasn’t brought to our table, yet it was to everyone else around us and with a 40 minute wait before they took our drink or food order (making it almost 10pm before we got our drinks, and an hour of sitting about!) – the girls were starving.

When the food did arrive, it was either over cooked (fantasia mushrooms burnt to a crisp) or stone cold (Pluto’s steak). The dishes weren’t cleared between courses, and on a small table with six people on it, it meant the girls didn’t have room to colour in their activity books.

We were seated upstairs and felt completely out of the fun and excitement. It was actually incredibly quiet upstairs, but as they were busy down stairs we only got to meet Pluto and Eyeore. Tigger and Mickey popped up for a few minutes but barely made it around two or three tables before the birthday song started and they had to go, never to reappear.

Due to how slow the service was, it was almost midnight before we got back to our hotel, meaning we’d been in Café Mickey from 8:45pm!

All in all, it was a horrid experience. The girls hardly ate their food as it was mostly cold, but we felt like we couldn’t complain as it’d taken us about an hour and a half to just get our main, we didn’t want to risk being sat waiting for another hour. The girls were almost in tears when we had to leave when she saw all of their favorite characters down stairs that hadn’t come up to see them like we’d promised.

I don’t like to complain, but I felt so let down! Especially given it had cost us an absolute fortune!

We're off in 13 days for my birthday - my OH has booked Café Mickey for our birthday meal, but I've asked him to switch it to Inventions.

xxx

 

[Ms Poppins]

We've not been to Cafe Mickey for a few years now, mostly due to our last experience where we were crammed onto a table for 4 (there were 5 of us) and quite shoddy service.

It's such a shame. We had some fantastic times there previously and they were real highlights of our holidays. We've given it a miss in recent years but will probably give it another go at some point.