Disney World guests blasted the theme park for jacking up the prices at its most expensive restaurant — where the tab can run as high as $625 per person for a four-hour, 10-course meal.
Located at the Orlando, Fla.-based amusement park’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, the pricey Victoria & Albert’s restaurant re-opened this summer, jacking up its prices by as much as $200 per head depending on the tasting menu.
“I’m sure it’s a great experience and super fancy, but no thanks. I’m out. No chance I’m spending $300 a person to eat some food,” one user wrote on Reddit, referring to the cheapest seven-course tasting menu option.
“Crazy over priced,” another user griped. “Michelin star restaurants in NYC don’t even cost that much (except the very best, like Eleven Madison Park, which is ‘only’ $335).”
The most lavish dinner includes a $425 customizable food menu and exclusive in-kitchen dining experience at the Chef’s Table, which only seats six guests. Tack on $200 for wine pairings and you get a $625 bill.
Disney had raised the cost of the Chef’s Table experience from its pre-pandemic price of $350 since reopening on July 28, Disney Food Blog reported.
Meanwhile, the cheapest tasting menu now costs a whopping $295 — up from $185 since reopening. This standard seven-course meal includes an amuse-bouche of imperial caviar with Alaskan King crab, a caviar tasing, New Zealand langoustine with a Vietnamese-inspired passion fruit dipping sauce and Texas wild boar with elote and salsa verde, according to Disney blog All Ears.
Guests will have to shell out an extra $150 for wine pairings or $110 for mocktail pairings, however. Another three courses ups the menu to $375 per person.
“The price jump is to keep the messy middle class out,” griped one user. “Me being the poor bad cattle class lol.”
Another added: “What could you possibly get for $110 in mocktails?”
Post-pandemic, Disney has been raising prices across the board, hiking the price of admission, parking tickets, merchandise and food. Customers griped in a recent study that the Mouse House has “lost its magic” as new data showed that tickets to Disney World and Disneyland theme parks have climbed more than 3,871% in the past 50 years — dwarfing increases in visitors’ wages, as well as the cost of rent and gas.
Despite the stratospheric prices at Victoria & Albert’s, diners who tasted the food largely praised the experience.
“Very excited to see it re-opening. I’ve done it twice, both times at the chef’s table, and would do it again in a heartbeat,” a diner wrote on Reddit.
“My husband and I saved up for two years and went. It was INCREDIBLE. I will likely never get another chance but the experience is well worth it,” added another.
Dinner have also documented the fine-dining experience on TikTok, showing each course meticulously prepared and served.
One TikTok user posted a video of the ornate, palatial, carpeted dining room where a harpist played and waiters distributed plates of elaborately-prepared courses.
“I’m pretty sure I had a religious experience,” the user wrote. “Would absolutely do again.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
