Be Our Guest Restaurant
My friends, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you to read about our experiences. We invite you to relax, pull up a chair, as we discuss how the dining room proudly presented —our dinner!
Be Our Guest! Be Our Guest! The newest table service restaurant at Disney World put their service to the test last night as they officially opened to guests. The check in for this restaurant is to the left before crossing the bridge to the castle. We were provided a buzzer and allowed to wait along the bridge, admiring the Beast’s castle lit up on the hillside. Once we were ushered in we were shown to the West Wing where we dined. There are three distinct dining areas: the ballroom (the largest with falling snow out the window), the West Wing (where you can find the rose under glass) and the Rose Gallery (where Belle and the Beast are depicted dancing).
The West Wing is by far the most intriguing because it is very dark and foreboding and you can hear thunder at times. The pictures are slashed and many of the wall coverings have the mark of the beast’s claws. The rose is under a glass dome and a petal falls about every fifteen minutes. The tables are decorated very simply with a candle, and each napkin was folded into a rose and placed on a plate. They certainly didn’t tie our napkin ‘round our neck which presented a problem for my husband. Yes, the Soup du jour and hot hors d’oeuvres ended up dribbled on his shirt!
The main ballroom has a beautiful chandelier and you can see snow falling out the large windows at the front of the room. This room seats the most people, and you can also see the Beast well as he parades through on his way to the Study every so often. The Rose Gallery is not being used in the evening right now for dinner, but you can dine in there for lunch. It is a brighter room, more cheery, and has pictures of Belle and Beast along with their dancing music box centerpiece.
While the dishes didn’t sing or dance, the surrounding atmosphere was enjoyable. There is so much attention to detail and always something to look at. Approximately every thirty minutes the Beast would be announced and he would parade through the center of each dining room and end up in the Study where he would greet guests, if they wished, as they exited the restaurant. Many families and couples enjoyed getting their picture with the Beast on their way out.
As we unfolded the menu, we did not find beef ragout, cheese soufflé, pie & pudding “en flambé”, however the food was served with flair, and the choices were varied and we really enjoyed everything we ordered. The French Onion Soup was one of our favorites and the seafood came highly recommended. One of the more interesting things about this restaurant is that you can “lift your glass and win your own free pass” to be their guest and have a glass of wine or a beer in the Magic Kingdom. For many Disney fans it is a well-known fact that Walt did not allow alcohol in the Magic Kingdom and it has never been served there until this restaurant opened.
One thing we do suggest is to “try the grey stuff. It’s delicious.” You do need to ask for this as it is not on the menu or automatically served.
Be Our Guest is also open for lunch as a Quick-service restaurant. While the atmosphere is much the same, the menu choices are different, except for the soups and some of the desserts. For lunch you enter and pass by the knights and are given a sneak peek at the menu. Once you enter the study (Beast is NOT available at lunch for pictures) you order your food on a computer screen and are given a rose to place on your table. You get to choose any one of the three dining rooms to sit in! Your food is whisked out to your table very shortly by servers who push around covered carts. How do they find you? Another piece of magic that Disney is reluctant to share, but I will tell you that your rose is a key in finding you.
Now that this restaurant is open, it will allow many more guests the opportunity to dine in the Magic Kingdom using their dining credits from their dining plan. Yes, this restaurant has filled up very fast for dinner and is booked out right now for many months. However, eating lunch here will still give you an excellent experience!
So may we suggest: Try the bread! Try the soup! When the croutons loop de loop, it’s a treat for any diner, don’t believe me? Ask the china. Singing pork! Dancing veal! What an entertaining meal! How could anyone be gloomy and depressed? They’ll make you shout “encore!” and send them out for more so be their guest, be their guest, be their guest!
