The princess adventures

Hi, hello and how are you all? One of the questions I see often on twitter is “What is your favourite Walt Disney World restaurant?” and in all honesty it is quite difficult to pick just one as there are so many amazing, different restaurants across the whole resort. I have spoken to both Caroline & Sarah and my parents who I visited WDW most recently with and we have come up with these 5 restaurants under different categories. In each of these blog posts I will be focusing on one category, this week it is Best Character Dining Experience.

Best Character Dining Experience: Chef Mickey’s Buffet.

Chef Mickey is an all you care to enjoy, character dining buffet. If you are on the disney dining plan it will cost you one credit each or if you are paying it is priced at $35.99 for children and $59.99 for adults, standard pricing for a character dining experience.

Chef Mickey is located in the Contemporary resort hotel, you can access it via Uber, driving or taking a bus to the Magic Kingdom and walking or hop on the monorail. The walk from the Magic Kingdom is about 10 to 15 minutes so keep this in mind if you have little mousekeeters with you.

Sarah, Caroline & I visited Chef Mickey’s on our first night in Walt Disney World, we were tired, very hungry but extremely excited to be in the disney bubble that we had been dreaming about for over a year.We booked our reservation for 8:00pm but this is NOT the time that you will be seated at a table. Unfortunately we waited for around 30 minutes to be seated but boy was it worth the wait. We were seated by a window so we had an excellent view for the Fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, our server was great; very attentive, we did not have to ask for refills of our drinks etc.

The food selection at Chef Mickey’s is nothing short of excellent, it really does have a dish for everyone.  Sirloin of beef cut in front of you, roast turkey, lobster mac’n’cheese, mini corn dogs, pasta dishes, pizza for the little ones (big ones too), a well stocked salad bar with all the trimmings… I have now made myself extremely hungry! For pudding you are so spoilt for choice you may well choose to do what I unashamedly did … Yes, I had one of everything. I don’t regret my decision one bit, you may have had to roll me out of the restaurant but the desserts and sweet treats on offer are delicious and not to be missed. I mean there are no calories on vacation right?!

Caroline had never been to a disney park before OR met any disney character so she was a little unsure on what to expect from the experience but she had the time of her life. Our experience at Chef Mickey’s often comes up in conversation and always leads onto a “we need to go back” conversation. Yes, if you are looking for a first time experience before you set foot in a Walt Disney World park, I cannot recommend Chef Mickey enough. We met Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto & Goofy, we had pictures and cuddles with them all; each experience was a truly magical one. During the dinner the characters took part in a dance, we were very lucky to have Donald at our table during this dance, he picked up a napkin, got funky with it and danced with Caroline. Remembering this still fills her heart with joy and it filled all our eyes with happy tears. Character dining is not just for children, it is for everyone and we felt included even though there were no little ones at our table.

All in all we have picked Chef Mickey’s as our favourite Character dining restaurant due to the excellent food selection & quality and also the quality of the character experience. The location is perfect for park hopping, right next door to the Magic Kingdom, a monorail ride to Epcot or of course there are the resort buses to any other disney park in the resort or if you take a short walk over to the Magic Kingdom you can catch a bus back to your resort. I videoed our experience at Chef Mickey’s which you can see here.

If you have dined in Chef Mickey’s or have any recommendations for character dining please leave a comment below as I would love to hear your experiences and opinions!