REVIEW – EPCOT Princess Dining at Akershus Banquet Hall

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall is the Disney EPCOT Princess character dining offered in the Norway Pavilion. This family-style dining experience features a variety of menu options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all serving Norweigan classics.

You can meet many Disney Princesses at this character dining meal, during our visit we met five classic Disney Princesses. The EPCOT Disney Princess dining offers a great opportunity to meet these Princesses without waiting in long lines.

We enjoyed the dinner experience at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall for the Disney Princess character dining. During our visit, we met five different Disney Princesses: Ariel, Tiana, Cinderella, Jasmine, and Belle. Keep reading for my full review of the Disney Princess EPCOT character dining experience including if the cost is worth it and how it compares to Cinderella's Royal Table Princess character dining.

EPCOT Princess Dining

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall is themed like a medieval castle where guests will dine with the storybook princesses which can include Ariel, Princess Tiana, Cinderella, Princess Jasmine, Mulan, Princess Aurora, Snow White, and Belle. This meal is served family-style which means your table will be brought large plates of food for everyone to share with a sampling of all the menu items. You can also ask for seconds if you wish!

Reservations for Akershus Banquet Hall can be fairly easy to come by, likely due to the large selection of dining options offered in EPCOT to select from. This makes it a good option for a spontaneous dining experience which was the case when we visited. I had no issues grabbing a last-minute reservation the morning of. But as always with dining at Walt Disney World, if you want to ensure your spot then you should book your dining reservations far ina advance.

The price for EPCOT Disney Princess character dining varies from breakfast to dinner:

• Breakfast: $55 per adult, $35 per child
• Lunch & Dinner: $67 per adult, $43 per child

Menu options for breakfast will include pastries, scrambled eggs, potato casserole, and Norweigan waffles. During our visit, we enjoyed dinner- more on this below! All meals come with a platter of 2 Norweigan style desserts to share.

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EPCOT Princess Dining Review-Akershus Banquet Hall

We enjoyed Akershus Princess dining during dinner time. Despite my teenager being a picky eater, we found that Norweigan-style foods were a good match for the typical appetites of kids which makes sense since this is a character dining experience. If you have a picky eater and are worried, I wouldn't be. They will do just fine!

I didn't partake in any alcoholic beverages but it was interesting to see the wide range of Norweigan options that are offered.

Our starter included a Field Greens Salad with Lingonberry Vinaigrette and Lefse with Cardamom-Cinnamon Butter. Our family must just love carbs or this Lefse was amazing- perhaps both. Great starter item for families.

Since I'm a vegetarian, we opted for the plant-based dinner platter which included green beans, red cabbage, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and plant-based bratwurst. If you are vegan, there are options without dairy. The food was great and like I said before, perfect for picky eaters. You just can't go wrong with mac and cheese and mashed potatoes! I enjoyed the plant-based Bratwurst. It wasn't just a dressed-up Impossible food item (something I'm rather tired of at Disney lately) and had much more of a unique taste.

And of course, dessert to share. I liked the little touch of the Norweigan flag as well.

Overall, we were pretty impressed with the food and would eat here again just for that! I felt we got our money's worth in terms of value with the amount of food that was given.

Akershus Banquet Hall Princesses

The Akershus Princess dining character experience was fantastic. This has often been my experience at most character dining meals at Walt Disney World. The great thing about character dining is that you do not need to worry about trying to find the characters, they will rotate throughout the room and visit each table so you do not need to worry.

We met Ariel from The Little Mermaid first- all the Disney Princesses will be in their most notable ball gowns or other attire.

Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog.

Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

Cinderella, a classic princess that is a must for any Disney Princess character meal.

Princess Jasmine from Aladdin.

A great way to make conversation with face characters (any character without a costume that includes a mask/headpiece) is to ask them questions about characters from their movie or anything related to it. My son is at that age where he is starting to find meeting characters awkward so he liked having questions at the ready like: What is Flounder up to today? Where is Abu right now? Usually focusing on their animal companions keeps it pretty simple.

The only Princesses we did not meet during our dining experience were Princess Aurora, Mulan, and Snow White. So keep in mind not all Princesses are guaranteed and the standard seems to be at least five. But it's good to prepare any children's expectations just in case their favorite Princess isn't in attendance.

Akershus Royal Banquet Hall vs. Cinderella's Royal Table

The two main Walt Disney World Princess character dining meals include Akershus Banquet Hall in EPCOT and Cinderella's Royal Table in Magic Kingdom. Hands down, the most popular of the two is Cinderella's Royal Table. Part of this reasoning is likely due to the experience of being to dine inside Cinderella's Castle (an experience that can't be beat!) but also there is a smaller selection of GOOD table service dining in Magic Kingdom. While we were able to get reservations for Akershus Princess dining in EPCOT, this is largely due to the immense amount of great dining options in EPCOT.

So which is the supreme Princess dining experience? It is really hard to compete with the location of Cinderella's Royal Table in Magic Kingdom. Your Princess fan will be blown away by the chance to dine inside the castle. However, Cinderella's Royal Table is far more expensive than Akershus Banquet Hall. There is a higher level of food quality at Cinderella's Royal Table which is reflected in that cost with dinner priced at $87 per adult and $49 per child. But you cannot beat that atmosphere so if money is not a concern and your priority is Disney Princesses, my vote is cast with Cinderella's Royal Table for that wow factor of the atmosphere which was a bit lacking at Akershus Banquet Hall.

Overall, we had a great experience at the Akershus Princess character dining. It was a spontaneous choice for our group and turned out to be a pretty enjoyable visit that we may repeat. Character dining can sometimes be hit or miss when it comes to the food and we were impressed with the quality and quantity of options at Akershus.