Stepping into New Fantasyland in Disney’s Magic Kingdom, you might notice a second castle and wonder to yourself, “Hmmm, I wonder who THAT castle belongs to?” Well, wonder no longer! This is the Beast’s (or Prince Adam’s) castle from the beloved tale, Beauty and the Beast!

Be Our Guest Restaurant, located “inside” the Beast’s castle, has created quite a stir long before Fantasyland was ever open. There are a couple reasons for this. First, because of the drop-dead gorgeous ballroom in which you dine (that looks identical to that in the famous film) and also because this restaurant serves alcohol! This is the first time in Magic Kingdom history that alcohol is available inside this park!

This newly coveted dining spot has a counter service option for lunch and then is full-blown table service dining for dinner. At the time of our visit, Be Our Guest had been booked solid for its official open in December and had been for months. I was excited to see it but had succumbed to the belief that it was impossible to get in.

If you recall from a previous post, Mark somehow snagged last minute reservations for us during our “day of a million surprises!”

After checking in, Mark received a buzzer and was asked to wait on the bridge leading up to the Beast’s castle. While we waited, I took a few (not good) photos of our surroundings.

Once our names were called, our host was very kind and showed us all the interesting rooms on our way to the dining room. I REALLY wished I had brought my camera but I didn’t know this was going to happen, so I was stuck documenting this experience with my iPhone.

We ordered a couple drinks since we could for the first time EVER in Magic Kingdom! There was surprisingly a decent wine list. The menu looked excellent – a slightly French influence but definitely for the American palette.

All entrees come with salad which was very good.

Mark’s steak was perfectly cooked and what it lacked in presentation it made up for in flavor. This is an excellent choice for a red meat lover.

I chose the Cornish Hen which I love mostly because I like that it’s my own tiny chicken! This was also wonderfully prepared and fell off the bone!

We couldn’t pass up dessert! Of the mobile display case of goodies we chose two little works of art called “cupcakes.” Specifically, the Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcake and the Triple Chocolate Cupcake. These were so lovely it was hard to un-wrap them to eat them! For someone who loves cupcakes, either of these would be a wonderful choice as they are on the small side which was fine with us since we barely had room left after dinner! They were both a little too sweet for me but perhaps I should have ordered the Lemon Meringue Cupcake instead – next time!

We were free to peruse the place after dinner so we stopped in the other dining rooms. Seriously this place is just breathtaking. SO perfectly themed!

We only had two complaints. Our server wasn’t the best and was not very attentive. This was harder to see because the table next to us had an excellent server who explained everything on the menu and made suggestions; ours was just there to take the order and leave. Granted, this was basically a dress rehearsal, but still, I expected more.

Also, the seating in the main dining room (what would be the ballroom in the original Beauty and the Beast movie) is very tight and you’re sitting very close to your neighbor. The seating is also arranged in such a way that lucky guests on one side of the table have a view of the huge, glorious bank of windows with “snow” falling outside and the unlucky guests on the other side have a view of a wall (to be fair, it is a pretty wall) or other diners. If you’ve seen they’ve made adjustments to this since, please let us know.

Overall our surprise New Fantasyland introduction was an extraordinary one! We are so excited to go back in June!