Auberge de Cendrillon-Character Dining Disneyland Paris

The entrance to the restaurant.

When in Disney, we love to try to take in all the experiences possible, and that includes character dining! When we visited Disneyland Paris in June 2022, we decided to have lunch with the princesses at the coveted Auberge de Cendrillon.

Image taken from www.disneylandparis.com

This is an extremely popular dining option in the park, so reservations are highly recommended. You can make them two months in advance through the Disneyland Paris app. Just like in the states, I logged in exactly 60 days in advance and was really stressed about getting the reservation.

Image taken from www.disneylandparis.com

Auberge de Cendrillon is a table service meal that consists of three courses. It is $95 for adults and $50 for children and you choose from pre-selected French inspired menu items. They do offer vegetarian options and a selection if you have dietary restrictions.

Your meal is set in a beautiful medieval banquet hall complete with stone archways, stained glass windows, and colorful tapestries that tell the story of Cinderella. Basically, your surroundings are fit for royalty!

We checked in for our reservation about 15 minutes before our scheduled time and they were running behind. To be honest we should have expected this because it is such a popular dining option, and they do the best they can to accommodate walk in customers. We ended up waiting the 15 minutes, plus an additional 20 minutes before we got to our table.

Since we had time to kill, I took the opportunity to take in the surroundings and enjoy the beautiful tapestries and paintings.

As you look over the menu, you are given a “Royal Cocktail” (tasted like fruit juice to us) and a warm Amuse Bouche Cheese Madeline.

Royal Cocktail and Amuse-Bouche: Cheese Madeleine*

You will then let your waitress or waiter know what your preferences are for a starter, a main, and a dessert. While you dine, the princesses wander around the dining room greeting the tables (more on this later).

Before

I choose the Pumpkin Soup and Pumpkin Puree Flavored with Ceps and Squash Seeds. It first came out with a gel cutout of the puree and seeds and was covered with the soup.

After

For his main, Matt got the Beef Casserole in a Red Wine Sauce, Glazed Carrots and Truffle Cream Sauce. It was delish and the sauce was rich and hearty.

For my main, I chose the Warm Scallops and Cauliflower in a Creamy Lemon and Thyme Sauce. It was really tasty and flavorful.

For my desert, I chose the special Celebration Cake. It consisted of White Chocolate Mousse, Strawberry and Almond Shortbread. Mainly, it was really pretty!!

Matt chose the Warm Chocolate Lava Cake with Morello Cherries, Soya and Cherry Emulsion. To be honest, his tasted better!

While the food was good (not amazing), the real draw for most people is the Character experience. It is a great way to skip the lines for meet and greets and you can get some great photos and fill up your autograph books.

We have been to several character dining experiences, and each establishment does it a little differently. This particular style was my least favorite. It could be the post covid reopening, it could be because it is in another country, or it could simply just be how they do things, but in my personal opinion it felt a little disorganized.

For a $95 per person meal, I expected to get to see every princess and have every photo op, etc. I expected a well-oiled machine and some kind of discipline to how things worked. I was surprised and a little disappointed to find that this was not the case. Each character had a “handler” that walked with them through the restaurant. There were princesses always in the dining room throughout our hour to hour and a half dining experience.

I would have expected them to rotate to each table in some kind of order to ensure that each table was visited, but it all seemed very erratic and random. I felt like I had to almost flag them down as they were going past me (not sure if it is because Matt and I were adults, and we were not traveling with a child).

After watching for a little while, I noticed it was this way for all tables and I could see that the children were just as anxious as I was and were just as worried about not being able to say hello to the passing royalty.

Once they did come over to our table, they were delightful. They spoke perfect English, were engaging, posed for photos, and stayed for a few minutes to chat.

Their “handlers” did not offer to take photos for us, so unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of Matt and I together (which for the price I felt like was a big miss).

By the end of our meal, we got to see 4 princesses, had three courses, and were ready to get back out to the park and do some more exploring.

Image taken from www.disneylandparis.com

We had to stop by the courtyard and take some photos by the carriage first!!

While we felt like the food and princess meet and greet experience was just mediocre, if you value experiences, this is one that was relatively easy to book, only took up about an hour and a half of our time and got us some great photos.

Image taken from www.disneylandparis.com