I think that your editorial comments are WAY off base. I have 3 immediate thoughts…

1. Disney World has evolved to be a playground for adults also, so adults should have the rare adults-only place that they can go to be away from children if they are on an adult-only vacation.

2. Is there really any need for very small children to be in a 5-star restaurant?

3. Even if I have children with me, I may want to leave them with a relative or with childcare to have one meal away from them.

Your comments showed very little imagination and more of agenda against Disney. It’s not good journalism.

I’m also lucky that we made it past the stroller stage. All three walk everywhere we go now, including through all of the Disney parks and then some. While it’s nice to not have to worry about strollers anymore, I miss being able to confine them. They’re very fast these days!

Whereas, your experience with your triplets I feel is quite a legitimate gripe! After all, people are not forced to get out of their wheelchairs to get into any of the attractions. I suppose the fear is, “If we let you, we’ll have to let everyone?” I don’t know, but it does seem counter-productive on their part.

It’s a colossal pain in the butt to do the transferring, but maybe you could have from one to three slings with you? That way you could take the wee ones out of the stroller and “wear” them into such places. I love babywearing, but I was never too thrilled about transferring my daughter from sling to stroller and back…much less times THREE! Heck, I can’t even imagine how you manage to get out of the house, much less go on vacation! Brava to you.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I actually don’t think there is anywhere on Walt Disney World property that I haven’t been. I’m there at least twice a week. I even know one of the chefs who works at Victoria & Albert’s. He’s my husband’s boss’s son-in-law and he makes all the food at the annual Christmas party that my husband’s boss throws at his house. I should add that his food is amazing!

In terms of Disney banning children, my gripe is not that there are some places that aren’t appropriate to bring children on Disney property but rather that banning children from anything Disney-related runs completely counter to everything the brand stands for. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to this because my career is in marketing and branding (I even write the branding blog for b5media), but to me banning children from anything on Disney property is completely the opposite of what Walt Disney originally planned for the Disney theme parks. I’m certainly not saying that Victoria & Albert’s is the best dining choice for families with children, but banning children seems extreme for a vacation place that’s mission is to provide a place for parents and children to enjoy together.

A Disney spokesperson stated that only a couple of guests with children ate at Victoria & Albert’s each month, so it seems like a heavy-handed, negative publicity generating choice given the few children who stepped through the doors of the elite restaurant to begin with.

Honestly: Our meal, for the two of us, cost around $400 with gratuity–and we do not even drink. The seatings last about 3 hours, with lengthy pauses between each of the 7 formal courses (and the 2 or 3 “mini” courses like the amuse bouche, coffee, and final sweets). It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop, even with the gentle harp music. The food is very upscale, and caters to a far more sophisticated palate than children have. Seriously–take a look at the menu, and imagine the response of the typical kid. Our daughter likes a lot of foods, but there is nothing that we ate that night that she would have enjoyed–not even the desserts.

I think that Disney World has done all their patrons, especially the children, a favor with this rule, and I even wish they’d extend it farther, not with more “bannings,” but with maybe some warnings about some of the other restaurants’ suitability for young children. The California Grill atop the Contemporary Resort was splendid for us, but looking around the dining room at the many children who were there, including our daughter, they were antsy and miserable after the first hour, and that meal is designed to go on a long time, too, being built around the fireworks shows. It’s not about not knowing how to behave–our daughter is very well-mannered at restaurants–it’s a question of what is appropriate to require of a young child.

Our daughter was much happier staying in our rooms at the Grand Floridian with her grandmommy, eating chicken-noodle soup and sandwiches from room service in her bathrobe and slippers, than she would have been with us that night, believe me.

I suspect that most, if not all, of the people who are getting up in arms over this move by Disney Resorts have never set foot inside Victoria & Albert’s. Give it a try–it’s a memorable experience that you’ll remember for a long time, and you’ll quickly see why it’s “not for kids.”

Have you, by any chance, seen the commercial for Burger King where they tell people that BK is no longer selling the whopper? And,of course, people “freak out” at this news. This is eerily reminiscent of that commercial…the bad thing is this is for real and the commercial was all in fun.
I imagine Disney will have some very disappointed customers.