It had been more than 11 years since I had had breakfast with the Disney princesses at Akershus, so I was happy when our group chose to include this character meal in our dining schedule. When I was last here in 2013 you first visited with Belle (who I guess was considered the hostess of this Norway breakfast for some reason??) before being seated at a table. Then four other Disney princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, and Arielle) visited us at our table. This time we had only four princesses, but they all came to our table. More on that character interaction later.
Let’s start with the food, which is all served family-style at our table. Here’s a photo of the Allergy-friendly Breakfast menu that Jake was presented due to his tree nut allergy…
The Breakfast Pastries and Accompaniments was the only thing not listed as safe for those with a Tree Nut Allergy, however I don’t recall there being anything on it that contained nuts.
Here is a photo of our Pastry and Charcuterie platter…
Starting from the top of the plate were two cold meats (salami and honey ham hidden behind it), some lavash crackers, and a plain croissant. Next were 3 cheeses, cheddar and I think Jarlsberg (a Norwegian Swiss-type cheese) cheese cubes and slices of a brown cheese, called Brunost. This cheese had a delicious sweet and salty flavor. We were told by our server that this cheese is considered a Norwegian delicacy and he recommended combining it along with the lingonberry jam (shown in the front of the platter) to top our Norwegian waffles for a sweet and savory waffle sandwich. This was a brilliant idea, as we all loved this combination of flavors. Even our picky eater, 3 year old Lucy, liked it. It was definitely the food highlight of this meal for all of us!
Now let’s get back to the rest of the contents of this platter. Additional pastries included were a chocolate chip danish (which to me tasted similar to the Cheshire cattail that’s served at Magic Kingdom’s Cheshire Cafe, minus the pink and purple icing), a pretty basic cinnamon roll, and hiding behind it was I think an apple strudel-like pastry. My favorite of the pastries was the chocolate chip danish, however the plain croissant was great with the salmon cream cheese spread (shown in the front left of the platter). Don gave a shout out for the honey ham on this platter, saying it was very tasty.
By the way, for our group of 7 we received two of each of the food platters and also two bowls of Fresh Fruit.
Also, since this is an All-You-Care-to-Enjoy meal, we could get seconds of anything, which we definitely did. Anyway, this was a typical combination of fruits (strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, blueberries, and a lot of honey dew melon) but it’s always nice to have some fresh fruit with breakfast.
And that just leaves the main platter of hot food…
First of all you may notice that heart-shaped Norwegian waffles are served here rather than the usual Mickey waffles. While I do love Mickey waffles, these were very good and a nice change of pace. Though they were served with a pitcher of syrup, our server’s suggestion of instead eating them with the brown cheese and lingonberry jam made an even better combination. Also on this platter was Cheesy Hash Brown Potato Casserole, which was as delicious as it looked. This was another favorite of our group that we had to get seconds of. The breakfast meats (bacon and sausage) were both very good. The only dud on this platter was the scrambled eggs. The consensus of our group (other than me) was that they were too runny and wet. I though thought they were fine.
One other thing to mention is that I was able to get two non-alcoholic beverages, both coffee and juice (included in the price of your meal), as is often the case at prix-fixed and buffet meals at Disney World restaurants.
Now let’s bring on the princesses, of which there were sadly only four. In the reviews I had read there were usually five princesses present here but I guess one was MIA that day.
First to our table was Belle (is she still considered the hostess at Akershus??). She signed Lucy’s book and had a short interaction with her before taking a photo together…
I was a bit worried because Lucy seemed a little apprehensive around Belle so I was afraid that she was not going to like interacting with the face characters as much as she had enjoyed being with Mickey and the gang at Chef Mickey’s earlier in our trip.
But her nervousness seemed to ease up when Aurora came to our table wearing her signature pink gown…
Lucy was in awe of Aurora and her beautiful pink dress, as pink is her favorite color.
Lucy even wanted to give her a hug.
The awe and desire to hug continued with Arielle…
But the best interaction was with Rapunzel…
She was the only princess to take the time to get down to Lucy’s level and give her a true hug. Rapunzel was super friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy her job. I’m kicking myself now for not thinking to complete the Cast Compliment form on the MDE app for her. She definitely deserved it!
So overall I would say Lucy’s first “face” character meal was a success. We have two “face” character meals planned for our upcoming trip so it will be interesting to see how they compare to Akershus. Also it will be fun to see Lucy’s little brother’s (age 2) reaction to the characters.
One more thing of note, the restaurant opens at 8:30 (before the official opening time of the park at 9:00) so with an 8:40 reservation we were among the first seating of guests. Sadly we didn’t get to sit in the main dining hall area, which looks the most castle-like. Instead we were seated in a small area/room off to the side of the dining room where the buffet was located. The buffet line was not used during our breakfast, as all of our food was brought to the table. It might though still be used at lunch and dinner though. Anyway, we were seated by about 8:50 and were done with our meal at about 9:40. I peeked inside the main dining hall and saw that it was empty…
The servers were busy setting up the tables for the next seating of guests, which maybe began at 9:00??
Taste of Disney 