We’re back from Disneyland Paris having managed to surprise H. She had no idea she was going either! For H’s birthday we visited Auberge de Cendrillon – a Disney Princess dining experience.
Auberge de Cendrillon is behind the Disney castle, and is a restaurant where you can meet Disney Princesses. It’s quite pricey, but as a birthday treat it was worth it. Plus we didn’t have to queue to meet the characters.
We booked H in on her birthday, but had one problem – all her Disney Princess dresses were too small for her. Oh, and she had gone off Frozen. Luckily I had a beautiful Elsa dress sent from Disney which was ideal! H saw it and immediately forgot that she had gone off Frozen, and felt like a princess when she wore it. It is an impressive dress too which captures the spirit of Elsa’s dress.
There are two problems with the dress – not major ones, but ones to be aware of. The brooch on the front plays ‘Let It Go’ when you press it, though is difficult to remove. You can do it by unscrewing it, which is a bit of a faff but it means the brooch stays on. Then there’s the glitter which features all over the dress. Glitter is the bane of my life when it comes to crafting – you can’t remove the stuff, it gets everywhere. But then when at Disneyland it’s just magic dust, right?
The dress packed down small which was good, so we were able to hide it in our suitcases. Once we had done our big reveal, we told H what we had planned – including Auberge de Cendrillon. “But I don’t have a princess dress to wear!” she said – and we proved her wrong.
On her birthday morning it was hot – in the mid-30s. Maybe not the best day to wear a gorgeous princess dress – but H did. We kept her hydrated, but brought a change of clothes for afterwards which worked.
The main test was how princessy she would feel at Auberge de Cendrillon. There’s the menu. It’s pretty special for younger kids, and fine for adults too. You can use hotel meal vouchers to lower the cost as well which helped. Add to that we had ordered her a birthday cake, and we knew we were going to be well fed. The menu changes a lot, so it may be worth checking online beforehand.
We also didn’t know which princesses she would meet! First up was Belle who was friendly and chatty, but H was a bit shy, a bit overwhelmed and hadn’t warmed up. Our meal started with some Amuse-bouche, delicious cheese puffs. Our drink was a juice, the Princes Cocktail.
By the time Cinderella made it to our table H was far more chatty – and felt quite special. I felt pretty full by now, despite not eating that much… and it was going to get worse!
Auberge de Cendrillon is a lovely restaurant, with space for the characters to visit. Every hour or so they also do a little dance on the main floor space. This was just around the corner from our table, but wasn’t a problem.
Aurora and Prince Philip were the last Disney Princess/Prince to visit us, and H was chatty by now! Suzy and Perla, the two mice from Cinderella popped by too. H loved it!
We had a salad before our main course, and finally the dessert. H’s food was served on a Mickey Mouse plate which she thought was pretty cool.
We had ordered a birthday cake for our meal which is suitable for up to 8 people. There was just the three of us… let’s just say we were completely stuffed! Having the desserts in addition to the cake was a bit too much for us – so be prepared to come out of Auberge de Cendrillon extremely full.
I loved H’s dessert, a white chocolate shoe with chocolate cream piped into it, but she had to leave it. We couldn’t take it with us as it would have melted!
Being as stuffed as we were, there was only one way to finish the meal, with a nice peppermint tea. It helped – I didn’t need to eat anything else that day! In all, we spent two hours at Auberge de Cendrillon, and after meal vouchers it cost us around £130. Bear in mind, the Disney birthday cake cost about £30 of that.
H loved the experience too – and it was good to get away from the heat outside when it was at its highest. The food was delicious, the vegetarian option was good, and there was enough to keep H busy. I’d recommend Auberge de Cendrillon to anyone considering it when visiting Disneyland Paris.
The Elsa dress from Disney Stores is this one and it currently retails for £34.99. It made H feel like a princess, and indeed the amount of detail that it has makes it something worth purchasing. It is ideal for a special occasion.
How do you keep a BIG secret from a six year old? Like, a really big secret? Like, you will be going to Disneyland Paris on her birthday and she doesn’t have a clue? Especially when she says things like “well, hopefully I’ll like Disney next year” when we said we might be able to do it then.
