For those who have been since this became a prix fixe meal, how long did the whole process take you? We have a 5:30 reservation and I’ve been conservatively budgeting 2 hours for the meal. Just wanting to hear actual experiences. Thanks y’all!
When I arrived there was a wait of about half an hour to be seated. Never had that at any other restaurant at WDW.
I was solo so might have been fairly quick actually eating. Probably an hour actually having dinner. Food arrived very quickly.
I had a 5:30 reservation in February and we were seated right away (West Wing). We were out by 7:00. I really enjoyed my meal.
Quite different seating experiences between your two meals. Good to know the food comes out quickly.
I know this is a bunch of food. But it’s our last night and my niece’s first trip with us and I’d like to make sure we see HEA after dinner so I reserved the After Fireworks dessert party. Aside from the view, any chance we’ll be able to enjoy any desserts? 1:30-2 hours after such a big dinner? If not, I’m ok with eating just a little food after the fireworks, enjoying the reserved view and sipping coffee while the crowds dissipate and soaking in the last evening at the parks.
We did BOG dinner on our last night before we watched the fireworks. We were seated around 6pm and done our meal around 7:20. The meals were all amazing, everyone loved them including my DD5 who ate all her steak. We were all very extremely full after haha I couldn’t imagine eating more desserts. We went right to the hub and got a fence spot for HEA and just relaxed there till the show started.
We did the before fireworks party after a dinner at CP. We ate a few desserts, but in hindsight should not have eaten such a big dinner the same night. Although the major value was in the seating so I don’t feel like it was a waste. They also let us take some out into the garden. Since you are doing the after party that will give more time between meals though.
Question - I have a BOG ADR at 5:50 on a MNSSHP night, but I’m not attending the party. If there is a wait to be seated (say 30 minutes like Matt), and I’m waiting into “party time”, will they still seat me? I’m assuming yes, since I have the ADR. If so, I could theoretically be leaving the park quite late into the party, maybe even late enough to see the Villain stage show at 7:45. 
Yes
Nice try.
As I understand it, you will be escorted from the park by a cast member after your meal.
Oh boo. This was a delicious loophole!
When we went in 2017 and the park was open until 7pm to non-party guests, we had a 6:50 reservation at LTT. We were probably seated around 7 and didn’t leave until 8. They knew we weren’t going to the party (our waiter had asked) but there was no escorting and the castle show was going on when we left. We only watched it for a minute, but we could’ve easily watched the whole thing. We had no problems leisurely making our way out (we were going to MNSSHP later in the week so it was a nice preview). Obviously things can change, especially since they changed the park hours last year, but based on our experience there’s definitely a possibility you could see it.
TLDR – In all it took my family a little more two hours about a week ago. It was miserable. If you want the whole story…
I was just at BOG about a week ago. The CL for MK was 3. My ADR at Be Our Guest can only be described as horrible. I’ll never go back for dinner and probably not for any other meal for a long time. We arrived at 7:50pm for our 8pm reservation. We were told it would be a 15 minute delay to be seated. When I asked if we could sit in the West Wing I was told that it would be an hour wait. We settled for first available. We were admitted into the castle at about 8:20pm – a bit later than expected. From there we sat in a virtually empty Castle Gallery Room. Our hostess, Nadia, who was very nice didn’t greet us for almost 10 minutes. No water, no menus – nothing. This time was spent with us just sitting and waiting. Eventually, we got drinks and bread – there were issues there, but very minor. Then the appetizers arrived. The food at BOG is wonderful, no issues at all. What was an issue is from the time our appetizers arrived until our entrees arrived was more than 40 minutes. I know we were just sitting there when all the fireworks were going off outside and were completely done. Again, we were left to sit with no communication. Nadia did come by twice and refill drinks, but that was really it. I would have appreciated some interaction, even just an update to say, “We know you’re waiting and it’ll be out soon” or suggest that we use this extremely long wait for my wife and daughter to explore the other dining rooms. (Which by the way were all about half empty, so that made the waiting even more frustrating.)
Once the meal was complete it was time to meet The Beast. I am not exaggerating when I say we were the only people in the Beast study to meet him. The photographer, character chaperone and Beast were just chatting and passing the time. When we walked up we waved and were told, “Sorry, but we have to go now. We’ll be back soon.” I actually understand this as I’ve used to be a Warner Bros. theme park performer and “friends” with Tweedy Bird, Marvin the Martian and Harry Potter for parades. Granted it would have only taken a moment to get us out of the study before going, but when characters need to depart I get it. When The Beast does come back we are still the only people in the room. The chaperone began to bark orders at us like there was a line of 50 people, especially to my wife who was just trying to stand out of the way. Again, I understand, when there’s queue and you’ve got crowd control issues you have to be precise and make it flow. However, you can do it in a pleasant tone and be understanding to confused guests just trying to navigate this area. Was my wife standing six inches more to the right worth barking at her? My daughter didn’t know that The Beast didn’t sign autographs. You don’t have to yell at a child – “Beast DOESN’T sign!” to get your message across. And with all of this drama, our interaction time was probably about 90 seconds. We were quickly ushered away, even though there wasn’t a queue waiting to meet The Beast. (I will say that one other family had walked in while we were having our photos. One… not 10, not five… one).
All in all, when we were finally done it was almost 10pm and the park was about to close.
We were seated fairly quickly ourselves, but we didn’t make a special request for the West Wing. (We were hoping for it, but it didn’t work out that way.) At any rate, we had a reservation on April 17 for 7:00 pm. We did pictures with Beast after dinner, for which we were in line for about 20 minutes. I have a picture that I happened to take as we were exiting the restaurant with an 8:56 pm time stamp.