For our final night at Disneyland Paris we decided to book dinner at Inventions, which is in the Disneyland Hotel. There were two major pulls when it came to choosing Inventions:
1. It’s a huge all-you-can-eat buffet
2. It’s character dining!
You don’t have to be staying in the Disneyland Hotel to enjoy a meal at Inventions, which is great if your budget doesn’t stretch to an overnight stay!
We went to the 8pm sitting, which worked out really well as (selfishly!) there weren’t many kids around and we got much more interaction with the characters than we would have otherwise! It also meant that we got to enjoy a full day in the parks, then go for dinner, meaning that no park time was taken up getting food.
We stayed there for a good few hours and we didn’t feel rushed to leave or anything like that. Perhaps was because we were the last sitting so they didn’t need to give our table to anyone else. Either way, we will definitely try and book this sitting for our next trip.
The Characters
The characters at Inventions change daily, and there’s no way of knowing who will be at your character meal until you get there.
Just before we went into Inventions, we were having a cocktail at Cafe Fantasia talking about who our dream line-up of characters would be. We settled on Mickey, Minnie (who we’d been looking for for 3 days!), Goofy and someone from Winnie the Pooh.
WELL, luck was definitely on our side. We ended up with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Eeyore, Tigger and Gepetto from Pinnochio.
We had the best time with the characters. Mickey came and sat at our table and went through all my Polaroid photos and shopping bags. He was delighted to find so many Mickey plushes in my bag!
FUN TIP: The characters LOVED my polaroid camera and kept coming back to our table to see if their photo had developed yet! If you have a Polaroid camera, it’s definitely worth bringing it along.
It’s worth noting that Princesses do not come to Inventions (apart from the occasional Sunday brunch) , so if you/someone in your party is princess mad – perhaps the Princess Lunch at Auberge de Cendrillon would be better suited!
The Food
Amazing amazing amazing. I’m usually a bit sceptical about buffets and food cooked en mass but I was so pleasantly surprised by Inventions. They have absolutely everything you can think of and it really does cater for everybody.
I had been a bit worried as I’d heard it serves a lot of seafood (neither of us eat it). Granted, they do have a huge variety of seafood but they also have pasta, pizza, steaks, potatoes, veggies, chicken and just about everything in between.
We took as many photos of our food as we could remember, but we were having so much fun with the characters that we both forgot to get pictures of our starters.
FUN TIP – Don’t be shy about going “all out” – if you’re an adult and you want to eat from a Mickey plate – DO IT.
We got a lovely bottle of wine as well. We thought that while we were splashing out on the meal, we might as well push the boat out that bit further. It’s a holiday after all!
Related Post: Food and Dining at Disneyland Paris
Price
I’m not going to lie, Inventions is pricey. We didn’t have a meal plan on this visit so it cost us €69 each (not including drinks!) If you’re on a Premium meal plan – Inventions is included in your plan. If you have a Standard or Plus meal plan you will have to pay a top-up to eat there. We have a Plus plan for our next visit so we’ll only have to pay €32 each, which means more money for merch!
After our meal, we both said that the cost is 100% worth it for the character interactions alone – before you even get to the food!
We’re booking it again for the last night of our next trip without a doubt – it’s becoming a tradition!
Any Improvements Needed?
Yes – but only two!
The first is probably never going to happen, but we can dream! I would love it if they had a PhotoPass photographer at Inventions. Partly because I love the quality of the PhotoPass photos but also it would mean you don’t have to worry about faffing around with your phone while you’re trying to eat!
Related Post: PhotoPass + at Disneyland Paris – is it worth it?
Secondly, there was some sort of rule in place that you couldn’t get a photo with more than one character at a time. Mickey and Minnie were both at our table at the same time, and we asked one of the waiters if he could take a photo of myself and Amy with our favourite mice. He told us that he couldn’t take a photo with more than one character in it, which I thought was weird.
But a lovely man at the table next to us took my phone and took one for us anyway – Mickey’s idea!
In any event, we completely broke the rules again and got this group shot with Tigger, Mickey and Gepetto!
All in all, it was the #1 highlight of the holiday for both of us and we would recommend Inventions to anyone a thousand times over!
As always, if you have any questions or you want to share your Inventions experience – please get in touch in the comments below! I would love to hear from you!