Review: Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort

Recently we kicked off the celebration of Teenage Son's (aka "Agent P") 13th Birthday at Chef Mickey's at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort and had a wonderful time. It was Mom's idea to give character meals a try way back in 2006 when we lived in Southern California. Our first character meal was at Disneyland's Plaza Inn, and we've been hooked on them ever since. We've done several at both Disneyland & Walt Disney World and our time at Chef Mickey's did not disappoint.

Mom and her "Sleeping" Boys

In contrast to some folks we tend to take several smaller trips spread out through the year versus a longer annual or biennial visit to Walt Disney World. Our trips can be fairly impromptu and are sometimes little more than long weekends.We ended up kicking off "Agent P's" 13th birthday celebration with a long weekend trip to Walt Disney World that would include 3 nights on property, dinner at Chef Mickey's, attending the last Magic Kingdom After Hours Party of 2018 and a day at the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival.  We were very surprised to snag an 8:00 PM dinner reservation for Chef Mickey's at about 60 days out. 

Dining(well..sleeping)under Monorails!

Our Chef Mickey's reservation was for our arrival day- a Wednesday. We left Charlotte Tuesday night and drove straight through to Orlando arriving early Wednesday morning (about an 8 hour trip). Many times we have been fortunate enough to receive early check in at our Disney Hotels but we were not so lucky on this trip. So we spent the morning and afternoon doing some shopping, opening a Disney Store and visiting the Character Warehouse Stores at the local Outlet Malls. After a day out and about in greater Orlando we were able to check in at our room at the Caribbean Beach Resort right between 3-4 PM. We had a pretty full morning & afternoon so we got some rest at the room and then got ready for dinner. 

We decided to drive from Caribbean Beach to the Contemporary, and were probably in the car by about 7:15 and on our way. Ideally we try to give ourselves 30 minutes to drive between destinations on property at Walt Disney World, so we figured we'd get to the Contemporary by 7:45. Toddler Son had pretty much slept the entire drive down from North Carolina, so he seemed pretty rested most of the day but as soon as we were in the car and on our way to dinner he fell asleep. He is not much of a napper...if we are lucky he will take a 2 hour nap, but the time is not consistent no matter how hard we've tried. He just seems to be too afraid to miss out on something (even if we are not at Disney World...or "Walt Dee" as he calls it.). So there would have been a very good chance that he would be up for an 8:00 dinner...but not this time.  We got to the Hotel, made our way up to the fantastic Grand Canyon Concourse, and checked in at Chef Mickey's. And Toddler Son stayed asleep in Dad's arms the entire time.

They checked us in very quickly, and we had a very short wait. We let them know it was Teenage Son's Birthday and they made him a very nice birthday button...sometimes the cast members can be really great at doing "Disney Script" with a sharpie on the button and this was one of those times. They remarked how Toddler Son was knocked out and assumed he was down for the evening. We told them he was most likely napping...he would wake up in 2 hours...they were sceptical. The photo pass photographer was great and suggested we pretend to sleep like Toddler Son in some of the pictures and we ended up really liking a photo of Mom with her "sleeping" boys.  We were seated at a very nice table against the East Windows overlooking Bay Lake...you could make out the Orlando Eye in the distance. 

Minnie insisted on taking pictures with the whole party...

including a sleeping Toddler

The characters were delightful and very efficient. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, & Pluto would visit us. This is definitely the appeal of Chef Mickey's as you get to see all of the Fab Five at one time, here they are wearing Cooking Outfits. Teenage Son is a VERY young 13, he genuinely loves meeting the Characters, getting their autographs, and filling out his collection of Autograph Photo Albums...he has a collection dating back to his first trips to Disneyland and our trips to Disney World.  He had so much fun meeting the characters, taking pictures, getting autographs and joking with them. There were several standout interactions with the characters. Goofy noticed that Teenage Son was wearing a Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade T-Shirt, he then repeatedly pointed to the shirt and pantomimed that he used to drive the parade float! Minnie made sure to greet everyone at the table and insisted on posing for pictures with all four of us even checking up on sleeping Toddler Son...who in fact slept through the ENTIRE meal. Minnie gave Teenage Son a kiss for his birthday too!

A kiss from Minnie on his 13th Birthday

Hugs from Pluto

We found the food to be delicious, Dad enjoyed the shrimp cocktail especially and the carving station, while Mom really enjoyed the soup. Teenage Son could not get enough of a mushroom gravy on one of the meat dishes. Teenage Son was brought a cupcake and a wonderful souvenir birthday card signed by all 5 characters. Our personal view on Character Meals is that the price includes a "live entertainment" component and don't generally expect the food to solely justify the price. We had read reviews that said the food was not very good, or that the meal itself was overpriced. Chef Mickey's is definitely on the expensive side if not the most expensive of the character meals...but as a special occasion we felt very satisfied with our experience. There was a variety of food and plenty of it, there were 5 characters (many character meals at WDW have only 3 or 4) and you have the remarkable ambiance of Monorails traveling by you through the spectacular atrium of the Contemporary Resort. We definitely would return to Chef Mickey's.

Poor Toddler Son was noticed to be asleep through the whole experience by the cast and like we said earlier even Minnie herself. Dad tried in vain to wake him up but to no avail. We finished our meal and proceeded to browse the shops of the Grand Canyon Concourse.  Right at 2 hours Toddler Son woke up, he knew we were here to celebrate big brother's birthday with Mickey & Friends and in his way asked about that. At first we were pretty heartbroken that he had missed the whole thing and...and by minutes. He awoke from his nap within 10 minutes of leaving the restaurant.

On a fluke Dad took Toddler to the check in desk, by this time they were to close within an half hour. He explained how Toddler Son had slept through the whole thing and would it be possible for him to go in and real quickly meet the characters? The cast member said she would check with the manager. The manager came out and said "Oh I heard about you, they were talking about the kid who slept through the whole meal, of course we can have him meet Mickey & Friends". So the manager took us to a transitional area between the different dining rooms and proceeded to bring each character by to meet Toddler Son. It was such a sweet gesture and we were thrilled he did not get to miss out on the experience entirely. We were very grateful to the staff of Chef Mickey's not only for the great service and memorable birthday meal for Big Brother but for this kindness to our little guy who otherwise would have really missed out.