Initially I'd booked the LN for 1.30pm on Friday, then when our flight was delayed, I telephoned the booking line and they kindly rearranged it for 3.00pm as were going to be arriving around lunchtime, when I checked into our hotel, the CM told me I should change it to another day because the characters would be leaving at 3.00 and there might not be such a good food selection. I was reluctant to put it off again Liam had already had 1 meal cancelled at Billy Bob's the evening before and having your Birthday meal at a Holiday Inn is not much fun at any age but especially not 10, so I asked if we could have it earlier instead and he changed it back to 1.30, this gave us time to drop the luggage off and leg it to the park.
When we arrived it was busy, but we were seated quickly and on the lower floor, which is so much easier for getting to and from the food.
Food- I enjoyed my starter, green salad, boiled eggs etc., was slightly miffed when I went to get more butter and came back to find my plate gone, but hey-ho 2 courses to go ! The rest of the family went straight to main courses, Liam had Fajitas, said they weren't nice, the filling was mushy and everything was cut really small, Liam described it as minced, that was a slight exaggeration, he went off and came back with pasta bolognese, Rob & Jamie had pasta too, and after a long wait Jamie was rewarded with a slice of pizza.
Lots of empty serving dishes this was at about 1.45pm and very slow restocking.
I was totally uninspired by the look of the main courses, ended up with cheesy potatoes and what was left in the vegetables tray, a bit more green salad and some brown bread.
Usual choice of desserts but again they were so slow restocking, I'm really easy going when it comes to sweet things and just grabbed a selection, Rob wanted 1 dessert in particular (he's very fussy) and Liam had had the last one, it must've been about 20 mins before they replaced the empty dish. Jamie was disappointed that they didn't have his usual, which I think are known as "floating islands" and he settled for a yoghurt.
Characters - OK so my boys weren't too bothered about the lack of characters, if I had younger children I would have been, actually who am
I trying to kid, I was disappointed at the lack of characters. Eeyore and Mickey were there when Liam had his Birthday cake and before that we were visited by Goofy, and that was it although I had seen Jessie in there, when we first arrived. I couldn't believe the difference in the amount of characters from our visits in 2007 and 2006.
Birthday cake - No music/song played, our CM was singing and clapping along with 1 or 2 others, but it doesn't create the same atmosphere as having the Birthday song played and in our experience at Cafe Mickey and in LN in the past with the rest of the diners joining in.
The cake looked spectacular, it was on a cake stand that looked like an enormous chocolate cake, with the actual chocolate birthday cake on top. After Liam blew out the candles, our CM said I'll take it away and bring you 4 slices - ( 4 slices of chocolate cake for £15.00 or 23 euros if you'd ordered it there
) I said thankyou very much but we'd rather take it with us back to the hotel, we've done that before, but not this time - because the chocolate cake contains fresh milk, she said she wasn't allowed to let us take it, so I said OK, just cut it into 8 pieces bring them all out and I'll sort it from there. Then she said I will see if I can find you another cake instead and came back with 1 one of the 15th Anniversary ones, all boxed up - this one is a sponge with chocolate cream layer and IMHO superior, it was very nice enjoyed back at the hotel later that evening with a hot cup of chocolate.
The LN has been a firm favourite in the past, top of both my boys' restaurant list. It is pricey, baring in mind of course that I'm paying for 3 adults and 1 child, I paid £74.00 in advance to add it to my booking, £15.00 for the cake and adult drinks were not included so that was another 20 euros including a tip. Mickey was great when Liam had the cake, counting the candles, rubbing his tummy in a Pooh manner, giving us all big hugs and that was the only real high of the meal. At over £100.00, I came away feeling a little disappointed and when I mentioned it later, the others agreed. There was nothing that warranted the money spent, if character interaction had been up to our previous experiences, I wouldn't have been so bothered about the food, if the food had been better maybe I could have grudgingly given up the characters.
To put things into perspective, we've had 3 excellent dates in LN before, maybe we were just unlucky this time.