This was my first visit to the New Fantasyland portion of the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. For lunch we tried the Be Our Guest restaurant with Deb Wills. Here are some pictures from this experience. For lunch Be Our Guest is a “Fast Casual” location. The menu pricing and choices are close to your regular counter service locations. You order via self serve kiosks, then the food is brought to your table for you.
Approaching the Be Our Guest restaurant. To the left is the check in area for dinner, the rest of the time a cast member is there to answer questions and provide you a preview of the menu if you ask.
Approaching the castle.
The front doors.
Off to the left there is a side door and this is on the wall.
Inside the entrance lobby.
To the left are the restrooms.
A quick peak inside the men’s room..
To the right the hall of armor which leads to the room where you place your orders.
The screens in the middle display music in the morning and during dinner, during lunch time they highlight menu items.
In front of you is the Ballroom. I stopped by early in the morning and they had the lobby open so you could look into the room.
One of the beverage stations off to the side.
Turning around you can see the main doors that are closed and off to the right is where I entered from.
Looking out you can see Cinderella Castle in the distance. Also note no line! This was taken before 9am.
We returned for lunch around 11am.. the line filled the entire bridge. We waited about twenty minutes from entering the line till we were in the dining room. They had a relatively short lunch window of 10:30am till 2:30pm.
If you listen carefully you can hear the suits of armor snoring and making other sounds, here is a brief video clip as we passed by with the line.
A look at one of the menus that were on the center displays.
You make your way to the library where you order. Here is a picture of one of the kiosks.
The system is fairly intuitive and easy to use. Once you have ordered and paid you then head out to the dining room to find your seat.
You have three choices. The first room you encounter is the large Ballroom.
Off to the left is the West Wing, which is a smaller and darker room.
It features the enchanted rose.
The third room, which is to the right from the Ballroom is the Rose Gallery. The center piece here is a large music box. This is the room we ate in.
Ringing the room are several paintings featuring moments from the film.
The detail work around the room is great.
Be sure to look down too.
The view from my seat.
A quick video clip of the music box, unfortunately the camera picked up the background noise more than than the music.
Stopped by the soda fountain to pick up my beverage. Notice how even its details match.
Your meals are brought out to you by Cast Members on these carts. Now a look at our lunches…
Potato Leek Soup $4.49
French Onion Soup $4.99
Carved Turkey Sandwich – served on a warm baguette with Dijon mayonnaise and Pomme Frites $10.99
Croque Monsieur – Grilled sandwich of carved ham, Gruyere cheese, and bechamel with Pommes Frites. $10.99
Quinoa Salad – with green beans, potatoes, olives, roasted bell peppers and tomatoes $9.99
Grilled Steak Sandwich – with garlic butter spread and pommes frites $11.99 (Note as of mid-May I read this item had been removed from the menu).
I ordered mine plain.
The desserts we ordered. Chocolate Cream Puff, Passion Fruit Cream Puff, and Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcake $2.99 each.
The overall experience surpassed my expectations. I was not sure if waiting in the long line would be worth it for counter service fare. But the incredible detail of the restaurant, efficient experience – from the ordering process through food delivery – and decent food would put this on my list of places to visit again. Would I wait an hour in the Florida sun to dine there? No, but the 20-30 minute range I could probably handle again. We choose the Rose Gallery to eat in because it seemed to give us the best place to chat. The main ballroom seemed very busy and much louder as we walked through and the darkness of the West Wing was not going to work since we wanted to take pictures of the food. The Rose Gallery was a nice compromise and had plenty of seating when we arrived. It seemed most people were trying for the main Ballroom. We had a very leisurely lunch and at no time felt rushed to leave. I thought maybe to keep the line moving they would try to keep guests from lingering but that did not happen. Also depending on where you sit be prepared for foot traffic and photographs…a large number of guests were roaming around (just like me) looking at the three rooms and taking pictures so there was a fairly steady stream of flashes going off near the entrance areas and some minor traffic jams.
The Food: My meal was decent by quick service standards. I had the steak sandwich and thought I would try that again on a return visit. Unfortunately I am seeing reports now that the sandwich has been replaced and nothing else on the menu really worked for my plain preferences so not sure when my next meal there will be. The rest of our group who all had more open/normal eating habits found the food to be ok. They commented many of the items tasted salty to them but the consensus was they enjoyed them. I was surprised not to find at least one “comfort” item, especially on the kids side. I know they are trying to make the dining experience different but having something more traditional for those of us who enjoy a limited palate would be nice. A basic chicken dish or burger would be a welcome addition especially now that the steak sandwich is gone.
Hope you enjoyed this look at the Be Our Guest Restaurant. For additional photos and details from this trip you can check out the full Walt Disney World Updates I posted on my site from all seven days, http://disneygeek.com Also be sure to follow me on twitter @disneygeekcom for pictures from the parks.
The replacement for the steak sandwich is a carved roast beef sandwich with horseradish sour cream on a baguette. I ordered my sandwich plain and while the roast beef was tasty, I much preferred the former steak sandwich.
The sandwich cost $11.99.
Great pictures! I was there on May 15th and the steak sandwich was still there that’s what I ate! The chocolate cupcake was very rich, but so delicious!