(Disney Dining} Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner

Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner is a buffet-style, character meal located at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian Resort.  You are charged a flat fee per person, either adult or child.  Keep in mind that children over the age of 9 are considered adults for Disney dining.  In addition, an 18% gratuity is automatically charged to parties of six or more.  For this meal. there are five characters who stop by your table as you're dining.  The characters will chat with you, sign autographs and pose for photos, even if there are no children at your table.  Disney reserves the right to change characters as necessary but you can expect to meet and greet Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizella.

We ate here during our first trip when the girls were three years old, so we were somewhat familiar with the meal.  There was a fairly large selection of food items and I would go so far as to say that there was too much variety.  Disney describes their offerings as "representative of several kingdoms from around the globe."  I'm not a huge fan of lunch/dinner buffets unless it is a specific type of food.  For example, I would be okay with a dinner buffet of BBQ.  Maybe this is why I prefer breakfast buffet meals at Disney.  Anyway, the food was decent.  Rich gave it a higher rating than I did.  The desserts, for me, made up for how I felt about dinner.  There was a good selection and you better believe I sampled my little heart out.  Mini cannolis, key lime tarts, cheesecakes, bread pudding.  All tasty!

    

I asked the girls for their opinions and here's what they had to say:

Allie - "I didn't like the desserts.  I LOVED the desserts.  And the characters were so nice."

Anna - "I liked the food."

Emily - "Not many kid food choices."

(Due to Master Chef, they've been extremely critical of food.)

The girls are somewhat in between when it comes to food in these types of situations.  They may eat a few items from the kiddie area and items from the "adult" buffet.  The selection for kids consisted of mac and cheese, pizza and chicken fingers.  They all wanted to try the mac and cheese and then picked other items like salad, potatoes, rolls, etc.

Characters!

The first to stop by was Cinderella, who very sweet and a proper princess.





And then Lady Tremaine ran over, grabbed Emily and proceeded to dance with her.





Allie was next.





Anna had zero interest in participating in that activity.

Next up was Prince Charming.



The girls were skeptical.



Lady Tremaine again.



And then the stepsisters.  Anastasia was perfect.  She stayed true to character, telling Emily that she was using a stolen sash on her dress and asking Allie about the "stain" on her dress.  The "stain" was an applique of Cinderella.  The girls thought she was hysterical.







I promise the next dining review will have food photos!