Just to warn you, I’m about to start gushing because this was easily the best night of our trip.

I’d actually never heard of Mickey’s Backyard before, until one day while trying to decide on our ADRs for Feb, I was scrolling through the dining page of the WDW website, and suddenly it caught my eye. Sarah is a huge country music fan, and the thought of buffet food and dancing with Mickey and the gang had me hooked on the idea of it. Needless to say, it wasn’t a hard sell.

We got the bus from Magic Kingdom to Fort Wilderness and walked round to the Fort Wilderness Pavilion, taking in all the beauty of the campground. We had Category 1 seating, so after we checked in we were taken straight to our reserved spot on the communal bench tables, where we could leave our stuff and head up to meet Mickey and Minnie, and Chip, Dale and Goofy without any queues as it was before Category 2 were let into the pavilion.

We could go straight up to the buffet, where there was a spread of classic bbq food – burgers, hot dogs, ribs, pulled pork, chicken etc, as well as salads, corn bread, macaroni cheese, buns, and we filled our plates with as much as we good, and then grabbed drinks and got back to our table before the crowd of other guests descended, and it wasn’t long before the show kicked off.

The show was lead by Cyclone Sally and Tumbleweed Will who introduced the band and the characters and kicked off the singing and dancing. The evening was filled the music, and once we’d filled our stomachs with the INCREDIBLE food – at least two plates worth – we headed up to dance with the characters. It may have been a little hard to get to some of the characters with all those pesky kids in the way, but we still had the most fun!

At times, the music and dancing was paused and the floor cleared for a trick roper who performed incredible lasso tricks and displays, and also intervals to give the characters (and us!) a break from dancing in the heat – its a great job the pavilion is open air, because it gets quite warm on the dancefloor! In some of these breaks, Mickey and Minnie met by the entrance to the pavilion, and Chip, Dale and Goofy had a spot in the corner to meet, but the queues were always pretty long which is why we were lucky to get in early!

Dessert came in the form of chest freezers filled with premium Mickey bars, and there was also an open bar serving wine and beer for 21+ guests. The whole show lasted about 1.5-2 hours – probably the right length for some of the little kids as it meant everything was wrapped up by 8pm – and the music varied from country classics to Disney favourites, and Chip doing a full dance routine to Let It Go was possibly the highlight of the night for me. There were also group dances – the Cotton Eyed Joe, the macarena etc – and dances performed by the characters. I probably keep saying it, but it was all just so much fun!

The show used two of our Table Service credits, but it was 100% worth it, especially when the bill showed that it should have cost the two of us $144 in total if we’d paid out of pocket. I’d recommend it over any other dinner show and would easily do it again and again!

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